Did you buy a lot of ebooks in 2011?

[elemenoP]

This year I read 38 books (not a very high total in these parts, I know!). Of those:

25 were library ebooks
1 was a kindle ebook (free)
2 were nook ebooks (free and $2.99)
2 were sony ebooks ($9.99 and $2.99)

The remaining 8 were pbooks. Of those, 7 of them were sitting on my bookshelf already (purchased by me or my husband in years prior, or found on the street). I purchased one hardcover this year (Steve Jobs bio - $17.99). I also purchased a paperback about Alzheimer's that I am still reading right now.

There are a few more discount ebooks ($0.99 to $2.99) that I purchased this year but haven't read yet.

eP

[Quake1028]

Shockingly to me, I have only purchased 16 this year, excluding freebies. I expect to reach over 20 with some hoped for Kindle GC's for Christmas.

[theducks]

Baen saw most of my E-book business (and free downloads). (Calibre tracks all my books and says there are 116 Baen titles in my paper library, many free e-books overlap)

Amazon got my tiny, dead tree purchases.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by Fbone

All of us spending less isn't what Amazon, B&N, Kobo, Sony, Publishers, retailers and tax collectors want to hear.

"All" of us aren't spending less. I've spent well over £1000 ($1600) on eBooks this year, largely because I've been replacing my large collection of paper books with eBooks. I've been selling the paper books, and buying eBooks with the proceeds.

[elemenoP]

Thank you, Harry, for keeping the ebook industry going!!!

eP

[banjobama]

Originally Posted by GA Russell

In three weeks it will be two years since I got my jetBook Lite, and I haven't spent a penny on an eBook yet.

I've downloaded so much from the MR library it would take me years to read it all.

I continue to purchase the occasional print book.

I think you win for least spent!

Originally Posted by rhadin

If "bought" is limited to cash spent, I have spent about...

I meant "buy" to mean money spent, yes. And free books would just be downloaded. I dowloaded tons of books but only bought a few.

[DiapDealer]

I purchased approximately the same number of books that I do every year. I have no idea how much money I spent (nor do I want to figure it out), but I know it was less than what I would have spent had they all been physical book purchases. So I'm a lucky winner.

[emoorman]

I just checked my Kindle account and I have bought 52 books in 2011. I didn't add up the cost-I guess I was afraid of the answer.

I also read several from the MR free library and a few from Baen Books.

Guess what? Reading on a Kindle is better than reading on a phone or PDA (except in the dark).

[JoeD]

I've bought a few eBooks, but I have a much larger list of books I want to buy but I'm waiting for the price to drop below £5 (or for the book price to drop below the new paperback price) and it's not really a surprise that the majority of those are prices set by the publisher.

I have lots of patience though and plenty of books still to read, so I'm not worried. Either I'll grab them where there's a sale on, or find some new authors when I eventually run out of books to read :P

[ATDrake]

I… would not say that having an e-reader has saved me money, for this year thus far I have spent:

$345.74 USD @ Fictionwise
$148 USD @ Baen
$104.45 CAD + $1.09 USD @ Kobo
$72.50 USD @ Amazon
$50.76 USD @ Phoenix Pick
$25.55 USD @ (direct from author)
$20.96 USD @ Smashwords
$7.92 USD @ Ellora's Cave
$7.25 USD @ Sony
$2.99 USD @ B&N
$1.11 USD @ Carina Press

Mind you, I'm not going to pretend that I wouldn't have spent that money on books anyway. But yeah, savings*, no.

* And the "oh, but I saved money buying the e-book edition vs the hardcover!" doesn't apply, since I rarely buy fiction hardcovers and most of what I do paper-buy is not available in e-format anyway. And I paid roughly used-bookstore-on-sale equivalent prices for many of my sometimes-still-available-in-the-library mostly-out-of-print backlist purchases, so no extra monetary savings there, either.

[Ntsimp]

I've only had my reader since September. So far I haven't bought any ebooks. I did buy an 8GB SD card so I could fit more free stuff on it: MR library, Baen Free Library, Project Gutenberg, Wikibooks, etc. I think I'll just save my money for pbooks.

[Quexos]

It seems we have a few spendthrifts in this forum

[cynthia399]

I don't know how many books I have bought and read this year but I give myself a $100 gift card each month for B&N and usually I have nothing left at the end of the month.

[Fbone]

Originally Posted by cynthia399

I don't know how many books I have bought and read this year but I give myself a $100 gift card each month for B&N and usually I have nothing left at the end of the month.

I hope you grabbed the free $10 gift card when offered.

[JoeD]

Originally Posted by ATDrake

* And the "oh, but I saved money buying the e-book edition vs the hardcover!" doesn't apply, since I rarely buy fiction hardcovers and most of what I do paper-buy is not available in e-format anyway. And I paid roughly used-bookstore-on-sale equivalent prices for many of my sometimes-still-available-in-the-library mostly-out-of-print backlist purchases, so no extra monetary savings there, either.

When I bought my first eInk device 3-4 years ago, for over £200 the ebook prices were actually lower in the majority of cases than the paperback, so I saved quite a bit then (and bought quite a lot). More than enough to cover the outlay on the device, and that's not counting savings through downloading library books, baen free library and other freebies over the years.

Now prices are on-par if not higher, I can't bring myself to pay more for an ebook than a paper book. Fortunately, the buying sprees in the years of owning my original eInk device has paid off as I've a nice stock of books on my to read list.

Mostly this year, I've been grabbing all the freebies offered by various authors, not read any, but it's more books to tide me over until publishers get their acts together (wait, no, I don't mean in a price fixing way... they've already done that ) and sort prices out.

Not sure what I'll do in a year or two if they haven't though :P