problem: too much books...

[JimmyH]

I have nowhere near that amount of books on my ereader. Whether on the ereader, or on hard copy, a book calls to me and I begin to read it. If I enjoy the company, I continue with it. If not I wait for another volume to begin the Siren song.

[DuckieTigger]

I always wondered how you would legally amass thousands of books without even knowing if they are any good. Are those giant libraries of PD books?

[murg]

Originally Posted by DuckieTigger

I always wondered how you would legally amass thousands of books without even knowing if they are any good. Are those giant libraries of PD books?

Yes.

On MobileReads: https://www.mobileread.com/forums/ebo...&sort=dateline

and The Gutenberg Project.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Gutenberg

[speakingtohe]

Originally Posted by DuckieTigger

I always wondered how you would legally amass thousands of books without even knowing if they are any good. Are those giant libraries of PD books?

Pretty easy to do with freebies, special offers and of course PD. A few minutes a day will get you quite a few books. I remember DR. Drib lamenting how many freebies he had acquired and desiring to be rid of them.

And once you have amassed thousands, then you will possibly have forgotten what attracted you to them originally. I mostly just get what I want, but have still had many WTF moments. But often I read the book and it comes back to what the initial attraction was.

I am a bit surprised at the implied aspersion (or am I reading you wrong?) as you have always seemed kind of nice.

Helen

[bgalbrecht]

Originally Posted by DuckieTigger

I always wondered how you would legally amass thousands of books without even knowing if they are any good. Are those giant libraries of PD books?

Every day in the Deals, Freebies, and Resources forum, people post about free non-public domain books that are free because the author or publisher has temporary made them free. ATDrake makes a point of listing at least 3 (although I think once in a while a PD book slips into his/her list). If you were not discriminating enough to ignore the ones that you'll never read before the heat death of the universe (or your own death, whichever comes first), you could have tens of thousands of them by now.

[DuckieTigger]

Originally Posted by speakingtohe

Pretty easy to do with freebies, special offers and of course PD. A few minutes a day will get you quite a few books. I remember DR. Drib lamenting how many freebies he had acquired and desiring to be rid of them.

And once you have amassed thousands, then you will possibly have forgotten what attracted you to them originally. I mostly just get what I want, but have still had many WTF moments. But often I read the book and it comes back to what the initial attraction was.

I see, so there is different levels of "freebie-addicts" out there.

To me it makes very little sense to buy any book that is on sale, just in case. Even at $1 a book that will get expensive fast - possibly a lot more than paying full price for every book you do end up reading. Grabbing every freebie you can get your hand on every day surely leads to a bunch of books you are not even mildly interested in? So freebies should at least catch your interest a little bit. The books in the public domain are going to be in the public domain - so why hord them? Even those you download should be preselected according to your reading interests.

I am a bit surprised at the implied aspersion (or am I reading you wrong?) as you have always seemed kind of nice.

Helen

You were reading me wrong. I might have worded it a bit harsh, but I wanted to avoid steering into the wrong direction. Of course I am aware that it only takes a few minutes to slip down into the dark net and just grab anything you like. And I am not accusing anybody. Here on MR it doesn't take long until a mod shuts down and/or bans people for suggesting, linking to, attaching any pirated material. I been here long enough to see it happen, I am sure you have to.

[DuckieTigger]

Originally Posted by bgalbrecht

Every day in the Deals, Freebies, and Resources forum, people post about free non-public domain books that are free because the author or publisher has temporary made them free. ATDrake makes a point of listing at least 3 (although I think once in a while a PD book slips into his/her list). If you were not discriminating enough to ignore the ones that you'll never read before the heat death of the universe (or your own death, whichever comes first), you could have tens of thousands of them by now.

I have grabbed a few of those when I occasionally look. Don't make it a daily mission though. Maybe I should look more often - wasn't aware that those "free for a few days" are something common that happens all the time, every day, each day.

[Demingy]

Originally Posted by DuckieTigger

I always wondered how you would legally amass thousands of books without even knowing if they are any good. Are those giant libraries of PD books?

It is very easy to do 1) legally and 2) without PD. I have over 4500 books that I've gathered just over two years and most of them were freebies on Amazon of fairly current books (mostly indies). I just focus on SciFi/Fantasy and Mystery and most days end up with anywhere between 5 and 15 books (sometimes more). It doesn't take long because I just check the posts in the freebies/discount forum and the One Hundred Free Books website (ohfb.com) which regularly posts a bunch of the books available for free on Amazon. I've found several "diamonds in the rough" so I can't help but continue to collect the freebies.

[DuskyRose]

Originally Posted by Demingy

It doesn't take long because I just check the posts in the freebies/discount forum and the One Hundred Free Books website (ohfb.com) which regularly posts a bunch of the books available for free on Amazon. I've found several "diamonds in the rough" so I can't help but continue to collect the freebies.

I've been on eReaderIQ for ages, and the sister site freereadfeed.com pretty much daily. They feature free and discounted Amazon books, and I can set alerts to when certain Amazon books drop below a certain price. I've gotten a lot of Wishlisted books that way, when the author decides to make it free for a time. It's harder to see how many free Amazon books since they changed the one site a bit, but the usual number of new, free Amazon books usually ranged anywhere from 300 to almost 2,000 a day. Every day, for a few years now. Some are repeats, but the new ones come up pretty often.

Although the number drops quite a bit if you put the Adult Filter in use.

Even picking up a few of the more interesting ones adds up pretty quickly. Most now are in KindleUnlimited, so I don't pick up as many as I used to, but figure it's a lot easier to delete the ones I don't like later than to find out I wanted to read it but now have to pay because I missed it on offer.

I have the time, I have the space, I'm not depriving anyone else of a copy, so it's a daily visit for me and part of my breakfast ritual. In exchange, I do hit the freebies fairly often, and leave a review. For the most part, I've been pleasantly surprised by the freebies. I've had more disappointments by author published Pros, and some I've followed for a while, when they seem to lose interest in their series, or seem to just phone it in.

And if I do start something that isn't working, I have no problem deleting it. I don't mind it since I do find a true jewel once in a while, and a new author to follow.

And that's not to even mention my Fanfic collection. I seriously burn through those, so collect new stories a couple of days a week. Some are novel length.

[Demingy]

Originally Posted by DuskyRose

Even picking up a few of the more interesting ones adds up pretty quickly. Most now are in KindleUnlimited, so I don't pick up as many as I used to, but figure it's a lot easier to delete the ones I don't like later than to find out I wanted to read it but now have to pay because I missed it on offer.

Exactly. That is how my collection has grown so quickly and that's why I grab as many of the freebies as I do. I've already had a few instances where I got a freebie that I didn't necessarily find compelling that I later found to be great. It is much easier to get rid of a book you don't like than missing out on a great freebie. The bulk of my favorite authors came from discovering them through a freebie.

[speakingtohe]

Originally Posted by DuckieTigger

I see, so there is different levels of "freebie-addicts" out there.

To me it makes very little sense to buy any book that is on sale, just in case. Even at $1 a book that will get expensive fast - possibly a lot more than paying full price for every book you do end up reading. Grabbing every freebie you can get your hand on every day surely leads to a bunch of books you are not even mildly interested in? So freebies should at least catch your interest a little bit. The books in the public domain are going to be in the public domain - so why hord them? Even those you download should be preselected according to your reading interests.

]Different mindsets. Hoarding of ebooks is less intrusive than hoarding of other items. And I am sure that most don't grab every ebook that happens along.

But there are so many and so many ways to find them. it is easy to get a large amount that you would actually like to read and then forget what attracted you to them in the first place.

And I am sure you are aware that there are many people on MR who buy and pay for more books than they can comfortably read and yet keep buying more. Long as it does not keep food from the family table, totally up to them

You were reading me wrong. I might have worded it a bit harsh, but I wanted to avoid steering into the wrong direction. Of course I am aware that it only takes a few minutes to slip down into the dark net and just grab anything you like. And I am not accusing anybody. Here on MR it doesn't take long until a mod shuts down and/or bans people for suggesting, linking to, attaching any pirated material. I been here long enough to see it happen, I am sure you have to.

Good to know that you did not mean to imply that the OP was doing anything wrong or that a judgemental thought never entered your brain based on no evidence.

I don't actually see anything wrong or even strange about having a lot of public domain or purchased or freebies. Better than having your house full of old newspapers IMO

I am not a rereader in general although who knows, that could change. But I regularly download public domain ebooks that I read in paper as a child when I see them. Some weird nostalgia thing. I don't hunt them down, but if they are available, and I stumble across them, I like to have them. A harmless eccentricity IMO but I am sure there are many who would take me to task.


Helen

[crich70]

Originally Posted by DuckieTigger

I always wondered how you would legally amass thousands of books without even knowing if they are any good. Are those giant libraries of PD books?

The Gutenberg books can be downloaded via a torrent as an Iso file which can then be burned to disk.
Edit: Here's the link to the Gutenberg CD/DVD torrents: Click The 2010 DVD is 7.8 GB so you need a bigger DVD than the usual 4.7 GB if you are going to put it all on one DVD disk.

[Lin2412]

Originally Posted by plutarion

I am having a huge problem here:
I really have a lot of interesting books. Roughly 5000. Epub and PDF.
I read PDF on my tablet, Epub on my Kobo mini.

The problem is:
Most of them are unread. I really would like to read them. Get away from the computer. (I sit on the PC very much)

But the I see the huge amount of books and think...
"Well, I start another time"
I simply cannot decide, which to read. There could always be another better book.
Sometimes I manage to start reading, but loose interest. Then the devices are around somewhere and I find myself before the computer, not reading.

Could you help me?

This has been my problem too! And this is also exactly why I was so curious about speed reading to help me finish the books I've always wanted to read. I can only read books whenever I'm travelling or before I go to sleep. There are a lot of gems out there I really don't want to miss.

[Apache]

I enjoy reading to much to ever want to speed read just to get through the books faster.
Apache

[eschwartz]

Originally Posted by Apache

I enjoy reading to much to ever want to speed read just to get through the books faster.
Apache

The purpose of reading is to enjoy the story, not accumulate points on your reading record.