Ebook Buying Addicts' Support Thread

[sharphamster]

Originally Posted by Fbone

I swear someone from Kobo watches this thread with the sinister intention of initiating total support group relapse.

Kobo is taking Evil Mastermind tips from Lex Luthor, maybe ... It certainly made short work of my resolve.

I held my Kobo spree down to a dozen books for less than $1 each, but a binge is a binge.

It's a few weeks of staying out of the Deals forum for me.

[Rev. Bob]

Originally Posted by pdurrant

I don't think any of us need feel guilty about indulging in a spending spree with a 90% off code. 90% off is twice as good as 80% off, and five times as good as 50% off. They don't come around very often!

Very true. I've taken advantage of the situation to replace several inconveniently-placed Ent corpses, which I now look forward to carting off to market. I also took the opportunity to cull my wish lists - some through purchases, and some through elimination. I even found that I'd bought one book a few months ago yet neglected to download it!

Unfortunately, that means I'm looking at a heap of metadata that needs fixin', both in the books and on Goodreads. I think that backlog's going to do more to scare me onto the straight and narrow than anything else. I still have a passel of Angry Robot books that need patched up, and some of those need deep-tissue CSS cleansing along with a full TOC workup. I had delegated those to "work on a few here and there" territory, along with some stuff from Baen bundles, but this big buy is going to shove all that by the wayside.

It's one thing to buy more books than you can read. It's quite another to buy more than you can even find time to beat into shape and pronounce ready to enter the TBR stack.

[CRussel]

Originally Posted by pdurrant

A 90% unlimited use code is far too good to pass up.

I don't think any of us need feel guilty about indulging in a spending spree with a 90% off code. 90% off is twice as good as 80% off, and five times as good as 50% off. They don't come around very often!

No, but boy was that a brutal spree! Actually, I'm almost glad that many of my wishlist books are not eligible for promo codes. Cause I'd have done even more damage. I picked up 15, including some missing Morse, a few more Amelia Peabody, a Frost I didn't have, and some Alexander Kent Bolitho books I haven't read in 40 years. But others on my list were not promo eligible, so not bought. And I'm going to have a hard time explaining buying the current Baen bundle to SWMBO.

[Katsunami]

Originally Posted by Rev. Bob

Unfortunately, that means I'm looking at a heap of metadata that needs fixin'

Tell me about it.

I think that backlog's going to do more to scare me onto the straight and narrow than anything else. I still have a passel of Angry Robot books that need patched up, and some of those need deep-tissue CSS cleansing along with a full TOC workup. I had delegated those to "work on a few here and there" territory, along with some stuff from Baen bundles, but this big buy is going to shove all that by the wayside.

It's one thing to buy more books than you can read. It's quite another to buy more than you can even find time to beat into shape and pronounce ready to enter the TBR stack.

I think we shouln't have to fix metadata, and certainly not CSS, but it's getting better.

=====

In one final buying spree, I finally did it.

I now have all Forgotten Realms ebooks. (Yes, they're all alfed.)

I'll have to check to be 100% certain, because it turned out that the list I used is missing 3 books. Maybe it's missing more. I'll check my library against wikipedia as well.

[CRussel]

Originally Posted by CRussel

No, but boy was that a brutal spree! Actually, I'm almost glad that many of my wishlist books are not eligible for promo codes. Cause I'd have done even more damage. I picked up 15, including some missing Morse, a few more Amelia Peabody, a Frost I didn't have, and some Alexander Kent Bolitho books I haven't read in 40 years. But others on my list were not promo eligible, so not bought. And I'm going to have a hard time explaining buying the current Baen bundle to SWMBO.

And then I went back for the rest of the available Bolitho books. But at $1.13 each, including tax, I simply couldn't NOT get them. I know I'll enjoy them. But 26 books bought in the space of a few hours? Oh, I am so in trouble.

[gabby98]

Originally Posted by pdurrant

A 90% unlimited use code is far too good to pass up.
.....

I guess I'm one of the 'lucky ones'. I CANNOT get that darn thing to work for me, but probably for the best

[Tarana]

Yes, well, I too was a 90% off coupon user. Bought fewer than 60 books for about a buck a book (US). Would have bought more, but they wouldn't work with coupons.
I did no reading today, but did do a cleanup of my wishlist.

Just like the rest of you, I moved everything into Calibre and have to spend some time cleaning up metadata. Three books will get returned - one has incorrect content and two will not download to the computer (heck, one won't even download to the Kobo app). All in all, a good 2 days.

Katsunami, congrats on your Forgotten Realm collection!! I've never read any of those, but I'm sure it feels great to have such a large collection so close to complete.

[pdurrant]

My spree is now up to 48 books. I remembered the Judge Dee books from the University of Chicago. I read the freebie they put out, and it was just the kind of thing I like. But at over £7 each they were much too pricy. But at £0.70 to £0.90? Irrisistable.

Oh - and one book from the '5 star reads thread'. It was £2.23 and I was tempted to get it with a 50% off code. I couldn't resist with a 90% code available.

It's a good thing I resisted many earlier lesser offers this year.

Although if I'd known this was coming up I would have resisted the spree January. But I don't fell too bad at having paid £0.99 each for them even if I could have got them for around £0.60 each now.

[Crusader]

I was strong. Not a single ebook purchased so far this year, that was until today and that darn 90% Kobo coupon.

[bookaho!ic]

i purchased 13 yesterday with the 90% off code - all off my wishlist and for a grand total of £6.80 so rather chuffed

[pdurrant]

Originally Posted by Crusader

I was strong. Not a single ebook purchased so far this year, that was until today and that darn 90% Kobo coupon.

I think you've done very well. Think of all the money you've saved by not buying those books until there was a REALLY good deal on the table!

Originally Posted by bookaho!ic

i purchased 13 yesterday with the 90% off code - all off my wishlist and for a grand total of £6.80 so rather chuffed

And so you should. We must restrain our spending, but there are times when it is justified, and a 90% off code is one of those times.

A good reminder that we should be wary of lesser discounts.

[Katsunami]

Originally Posted by Tarana

Katsunami, congrats on your Forgotten Realmscollection!! I've never read any of those, but I'm sure it feels great to have such a large collection so close to complete.

Thanks

Forgotten Realms is to Fantasy what Harlequin is to Romance: a bazillion books a year It's not great literature (apart from some gems in a sea of glass, here and there), but it's a guilty indulgence

A breakdown, if someone's interested:

Spoiler:

===
On ebooks:

Still, it's confusing. The list at the FR Wiki I've been using is missing at least 3 books. I know that for sure, because they are on my wishlist, and they were still there after I exhausted the Wiki.

I went looking for those three books and bought them. They're available, but now there's also a re-edited version, that folds the trilogy into one book. (Not an omnibus with three books in it: it's one book now, in 6 parts, with 83 chapters.) So, in buying one book, I can cross out three on the wishlist.

Now I'll go and check my library against the FR Novels Wikipedia page, and I hope that it's complete now. The books that are left, SHOULD all coincide with my list of paper-only books.

===

On paper books:

To complicate thngs further:

There are 24 books that are only in paper, of which:
--- 17 are anthologies, stand-alone.
--- 6 books are novels, mostly part of a series
--- 1 is an anthology AND a novel (short stories by several authors, that create one cohesive story), being the FIRST in a series of 7 books

Of these 24 books, I have 3.

Conclusion: Assuming my ebooks are complete, and this list of paper books is complete as well, I still need to get 21 books. (Which, in the future, will hopefully be available as ebooks as well.)

===

On counting:

I now have 255 ebooks (counting the "trilogy that is now one book" as three), there are 24 paper books, which creates a canon of 279 books.

There's a Torrent floating around (with mostly very old, crappy OCR-ed versions) that claims to hold 295 books.

So... Are the lists I'm using not complete, or is this Torrent including books that are not part of the official canon?

I think I'll just stop reading Fantasy and switch over to Harlequin Romance

[Katsunami]

Originally Posted by pdurrant

A good reminder that we should be wary of lesser discounts.

90% is not a discount. It's a mistake, inviting people to rob your store

[PurpleStar]

Originally Posted by Katsunami

Thanks

Forgotten Realms is to Fantasy what Harlequin is to Romance: a bazillion books a year It's not great literature (apart from some gems in a sea of glass, here and there), but it's a guilty indulgence

A breakdown, if someone's interested:

Spoiler:

===
On ebooks:

Still, it's confusing. The list at the FR Wiki I've been using is missing at least 3 books. I know that for sure, because they are on my wishlist, and they were still there after I exhausted the Wiki.

I went looking for those three books and bought them. They're available, but now there's also a re-edited version, that folds the trilogy into one book. (Not an omnibus with three books in it: it's one book now, in 6 parts, with 83 chapters.) So, in buying one book, I can cross out three on the wishlist.

Now I'll go and check my library against the FR Novels Wikipedia page, and I hope that it's complete now. The books that are left, SHOULD all coincide with my list of paper-only books.

===

On paper books:

To complicate thngs further:

There are 24 books that are only in paper, of which:
--- 17 are anthologies, stand-alone.
--- 6 books are novels, mostly part of a series
--- 1 is an anthology AND a novel (short stories by several authors, that create one cohesive story), being the FIRST in a series of 7 books

Of these 24 books, I have 3.

Conclusion: Assuming my ebooks are complete, and this list of paper books is complete as well, I still need to get 21 books. (Which, in the future, will hopefully be available as ebooks as well.)

===

On counting:

I now have 255 ebooks (counting the "trilogy that is now one book" as three), there are 24 paper books, which creates a canon of 279 books.

There's a Torrent floating around (with mostly very old, crappy OCR-ed versions) that claims to hold 295 books.

So... Are the lists I'm using not complete, or is this Torrent including books that are not part of the official canon?

I think I'll just stop reading Fantasy and switch over to Harlequin Romance

Ha Ha! I have been reading a few Harlequins and found an author I really like. There's actually some nice little mysteries if you read the Harlequin Intringues. I might try some Harlequin Romantic Suspense next! There's a lot of them, but they're cheap and couponable.

[Katsunami]

Originally Posted by Tarana

Katsunami, congrats on your Forgotten Realms collection!! I've never read any of those, but I'm sure it feels great to have such a large collection so close to complete.

It seems I was indeed corrent about the FR Wiki page:

- The FR page lists omnibuses as seperate books, inflating the number of books. The omnibuses are all paper only, except for one.
- The FR Wiki is missing three books (and the omnibus edition, which is the one that is also available as an ebook).

I've checked the database against the Wikipedia page, and found:

- The two pages are in agreement, except for the two points above. Wikipedia lists the omnibuses with the respective books, and does have the three missing volumes listed.
- I was JUST in time to buy those last three missing volumes today, just before the Kobo code stopped working. I bought it as the re-edited one book version.

Final conclusion:

My FR ebook collection is complete. (254 books total)

YAY! One less addiction!

The books I'm missing are all paper books (21 books, as suspected).

Spoiler:

Novels:

Harpers [3] - Red Magic (1991)
The Lost Empires [4] - The Nether Scroll (2000)
Sembia, Gateway to the Realms [1] - The Halls of StormWeather (2000)

Anthologies

Realms of the Dead, miscellaneous (January 2010)
Realms of War, miscellaneous (January 2008)
Realms of the Elves, miscellaneous (February 2006)
Realms of the Dragons II, miscellaneous (May 2005)
Realms of the Dragons I, miscellaneous (August 2004)
Realms of Shadow, miscellaneous (April 2002)
Realms of the Deep, miscellaneous (March 2000)
Realms of Mystery, miscellaneous (June 1998)
Realms of the Arcane, miscellaneous (November 1997)
Realms of the Underdark, miscellaneous (April 1996)
Realms of Magic, miscellaneous (December 1995)
Realms of Infamy, miscellaneous (December 1994)
Realms of Valor, miscellaneous (February 1993)

The Best of the Realms III, Elaine Cunningham (May 2007)
The Best of the Realms II, Ed Greenwood (June 2005)
The Best of the Realms I, Miscellaneous (November 2003)

Others:

Pool of Radiance: The Ruins of Myth Drannor (2001)
Once Around the Realms, Brian Thomson (May 1995)

Now I just need to decide if I want to pursue Dragonlance and Greyhawk... most of those are not issued as ebooks yet, AFAIK. I have most o the Ebberon and Dark Sun novels already.