How much have you spent on ebooks vs. ereaders?

[GeoffR]

In ebook spending: include subscripions, library memberships, etc.

In ereader spending: include ereader covers and accessories, ereading apps, etc. but don't include phones, laptops etc. unless you bought them mainly for reading ebooks.

Which option is closest, in your estimation, to what you have spent on ereaders vs. ebooks to date?

Edit: Sorry my phrasing of the options was a bit clumsy. "about 2x more on ebooks than on ereaders" would have been better than saying "about 2x as much on ebooks as on ereaders".

The basic idea of the poll is to see what proportion of spending goes on content (ebooks) compared to the things needed to read that content (ereaders).

[Cinisajoy]

I have spent $128 on ereaders.
Over that on ebooks. Now you have me curious.

Back. Just from Amazon, since 2011 I have picked up 10,154 digital items. Mostly books.
I have spent approximately $253.43.
That is an average of 2.4 cents per item.
Note most of those were in 2013 and I am not going through 5035 digital items to get a total for that year.

[fjtorres]

I'm well into the 4-figure range on the ebook side just on Baen Webscriptions.
Tallying up my ereader costs is skewed by my early start but I'm still closer to 10x than 5x.

[tubemonkey]

eReaders -- no idea

eBooks -- $0.00

As a rule, I don't buy apps, ebooks, music, or videos with my money. I get this content for free using promotional credits/money. The only digital content I spend my money on are audiobooks. And then, I never send more than $3 per audiobook.

[Dazrin]

My answer in January would have been closer to 1:1 but my first Kindle died and I have a shiny new Voyage that needs to be amortized now, so 2:1 hardware:books (2.9 now, 1.7 before).

$475 spent on hardware and accessories, $165 spent on ebooks.

Straying off topic so spoiler tagged...

Spoiler:

If I look at it ebooks+hardware vs projected paper book spending then ebooks, even with hardware, are way lower than paper books. (This helps me to justify getting the ereader I want rather than a cheaper one. )

Pre-ereader I used to average about $200+ per year on books. Post-ereader I have spent ~$35/year on ebooks. Even including the hardware it is only $120/year. So, ebooks have saved me about 40% each year. (120/200 = 0.6) And that doesn't take into account the fact that my Voyage is only 3 months old, so I can reasonably expect it to last another 4+ years with no out of pocket expenses associated with it.

Looked at another way, the 5.3 years I have had my Kindle would have been worth $1060 in paper books and I have only spent $640 of that, so I have saved $420.

January's results would have been:
Paper: $1000
E-stuff: $400
So, $600 or 60% saved.

[MGlitch]

I honestly don't know, with ereaders I tend to upgrade pretty often (the ereader companies love me), but I tend to sell off the previous device to pay toward the new one. So yes I have spent a fair deal on ereaders, but that total gets taken down a fair few notches since in essence I've traded in the old device toward the new one.

With ebooks, I tend to bargain hunt and/or buy with gift cards that are given to me.

[pwalker8]

That's actually not easy to answer. I have a couple of iPads that I use to read ebooks, but I also use them for a lot of other things, so how to assign the price? Also, do you mean over the years? I've been reading ebooks since around 1998 or so. That means that I've bought quite a few devices that I use to read eBooks, starting with the old palm pilot.

[Canuck_in_Japan]

Originally Posted by Cinisajoy

I have spent $128 on ereaders.
Over that on ebooks. Now you have me curious.

Back. Just from Amazon, since 2011 I have picked up 10,154 digital items. Mostly books.
I have spent approximately $253.43.
That is an average of 2.4 cents per item.
Note most of those were in 2013 and I am not going through 5035 digital items to get a total for that year.

Dear Lord! I hope they end up being worth more than you paid for them.

[Cinisajoy]

Originally Posted by Canuck_in_Japan

Dear Lord! I hope they end up being worth more than you paid for them.

I have found that about 50% of the freebies were not worth what I paid for them.
Most expensive ebook was Atlas Shrugged. $14.06.
Best money spent was $2.99 for Maggie Ingles Cuban Comfort Foods. Her Quatros Leches cake is to die for.

Oh and I found 2 orders that had no price and no recipient.
I know one of those books Amazon pulled due to trademark violations.

[cromag]

All but one of my ereaders were bought used or refurbished. The other one was bought at a substantial discount.

I rarely spend more than $5 for an ebook, usually less, and a lot were free.

[AnemicOak]

I couldn't even begin to add up devices (Palm's, Pocket PC's, Tablets, eInk) over the many years. Books would be hard too. I've lost access to books bought years ago (and purchase histories) from Peanut Press and countless other small stores and don't have purchase records for a lot of the really old (pre-eInk era) stuff.

[drjd]

I have been spending about twice the value of ereader on the ebooks every year since last four years I bought my first device. But I was still satisfied, as I had been spending much more on pbooks every year before then. It is only this year that I have controlled my book buying habits. Of course, I collected and read a lot many freebies, but I am afraid to say that 90% of freebies were worthless or not up to the mark.

[Sweetpea]

Originally Posted by AnemicOak

I couldn't even begin to add up devices (Palm's, Pocket PC's, Tablets, eInk) over the many years. Books would be hard too. I've lost access to books bought years ago (and purchase histories) from Peanut Press and countless other small stores and don't have purchase records for a lot of the really old (pre-eInk era) stuff.

Mostly this. I've no idea what those Frankling Ebookmans were, or those PDA's I've bought for reading ebooks.

I probably did spend more money on ebook readers than ebooks themselves, but most ebook readers (or devices that were mainly used for reading ebooks) were not only bought because they were ebooks readers, but also because I have a minor touch of gadget lust...

[Apache]

Originally Posted by Cinisajoy

Oh and I found 2 orders that had no price and no recipient.
I know one of those books Amazon pulled due to trademark violations.

Did Amazon refund the money you paid for the book?
Apache

[John F]

I voted for 2x as much on ereaders. My main cost for ebooks are libraries, for which I pay 2 X $50 annually. I'm too lazy to figure out how much my local library costs annually.