Ebook Buying Addicts' Support Thread

[CRussel]

I've found it completely easy to not buy pbooks. I've reached the point where if it isn't in eBook, I'll check the library for a physical book if I really, really want to read it. But I'm not buying any pbooks (other than cookbooks.)

[pdurrant]

I have finally come around to issybird's point of view about freebies. Mostly they're more trouble than they're worth, and I've just been through my calibre library DELETING ALMOST ALL OF THEM!

But some I've now marked as "TBR". Which means that my TBR list in calibre now stands at 1190 (out of 3845), up from around 780.

That's five year's worth. But I suspect some might get abandoned quite quickly, so perhaps only four year's worth of reading....


Of course, I still have to clear out my Amazon account....

[CRussel]

That's a positively scary TBR!!

Unlike others, I suspect, I don't add 2nd, 3rd, etc., books in a series to my TBR until I'm actually likely to read them. So for a new series, only the first book, even if I've bought several in the series (sale? freebie? Baen Bundle?). And if I've read the first, and bought several after that, I usually would only put the 2nd, and maybe the third, in my TBR.

I also have a whole pile of books on my "Not Read" shelf. They may be books I might read some day, or books I acquired but doubt I'll ever read, or later books in a series I am still early in. I don't count them as TBR, yet. And maybe never. But I do count them against my list of books I really shouldn't be buying more of until I actually read the ones I have!

[issybird]

Originally Posted by pdurrant

I have finally come around to issybird's point of view about freebies. Mostly they're more trouble than they're worth, and I've just been through my calibre library DELETING ALMOST ALL OF THEM!

Welcome, Paul! The water's fine. Glad to have you. It's a great feeling and unlike most things, there's really no temptation to backslide.

I remember deleting all those freebies from Amazon; it was a dreadful slog. I was lucky in that it was in my pre-Calibre days, so they never made it that far.

Originally Posted by CRussel

Unlike others, I suspect, I don't add 2nd, 3rd, etc., books in a series to my TBR until I'm actually likely to read them.

I'm not much of a series-reader, but that's my practice, also. The next book in a series gets bumped up once I've read the preceding book.

I don't have a formal TBR, because some things you just don't want to assign a specific number, but I do tag my unread books according to their appeal and I regret to say I'm now at five levels. I try to keep the top rank at close to 200 books and those are the ones on my readers.

[CRussel]

Originally Posted by issybird

I'm not much of a series-reader, but that's my practice, also. The next book in a series gets bumped up once I've read the preceding book.

I don't have a formal TBR, because some things you just don't want to assign a specific number, but I do tag my unread books according to their appeal and I regret to say I'm now at five levels. I try to keep the top rank at close to 200 books and those are the ones on my readers.

Let's see, I have:

• TBR
• Not Read
• Not Interested
• Read
• Re-Read
• Abandoned

I try to keep my TBR books to under 150. But that does mean that my Not Read books include many I will read. Just haven't gotten around to them yet.

[pdurrant]

I must admit that I'm considering changing my Read column to a Status column, so that I can use more options than just read/not read/undefined

[Yolina]

I can't be bothered with detailed stuff, so my books are either read or to read and the only freebies I get are ones that I actually want to read. If a book I'm reading turns out to be crap, it simply gets deleted.

[issybird]

Originally Posted by issybird

I don't have a formal TBR, because some things you just don't want to assign a specific number, but I do tag my unread books according to their appeal and I regret to say I'm now at five levels. I try to keep the top rank at close to 200 books and those are the ones on my readers.

Originally Posted by CRussel

Let's see, I have:

• TBR
• Not Read
• Not Interested
• Read
• Re-Read
• Abandoned

I try to keep my TBR books to under 150. But that does mean that my Not Read books include many I will read. Just haven't gotten around to them yet.

Originally Posted by pdurrant

I must admit that I'm considering changing my Read column to a Status column, so that I can use more options than just read/not read/undefined

OK, I'll play. These are my status categories in Calibre:

• <null> - These are the books whose appeal I've judged highest and they're on my main readers. I try to keep this number to 200.
  
• A - These books are really interchangeable with the first category in terms of appeal, but haven't quite made the cut, perhaps because they don't meet this year's challenge, but there's a level of arbitrariness involved to keep numbers down in the null category. Sometimes I change things up by swapping items out
  
• B - Nothing wrong with these; perhaps they're in a category of less interest to me, or I've got better books in the same category. Mostly I'd like to think I'll get to these.
  
• C - Now we're going off the rails a bit. Nothing hugely appealing here, but I can mostly see what I was thinking.
  
• D - What was I thinking?
  
• Classics
  
• Favorites
  
• Series (unread)
  
• Read
  
• Placeholder for audiobooks for which I don't have a matching ebook.

[Tarana]

Originally Posted by issybird

I remember deleting all those freebies from Amazon; it was a dreadful slog. I was lucky in that it was in my pre-Calibre days, so they never made it that far.

I wasn't brave enough to just delete them. I downloaded and saved in a FREE BOOKS Calibre Library first. Probably a waste of time, but a few authors were actually backlist and sometimes I can't remember which ones those were.

Your listing made me laugh. That's how I feel about my Itunes library.

[Rev. Bob]

I'm relatively obsessive about my TBR strata, but my Goodreads lists only partly reflect that.

On my reader, I've got three levels of urgency, with recently-loaded acting as an informal fourth. There's Real Soon Now, Available, and Later In The Series. I suppose technically there's the already-read favorites that stay on the reader, but that's not really part of the to-read structure.

My iPad has another, smaller stack that I don't get to very often: my e-comics. Can't read those on the Kobo, usually doing something else on the iPad.

On my PC, where I "normalize" new books before putting them on the reader, I've got a similar setup. There's already-read stuff that I'm in no rush to deploy, things that are on hold for some reason (including bundles and books that need autographs spliced in), "later" as the default priority, "first" as where I put stuff I'd really like to put on the reader soon, and finally "newest" that's so fresh it hasn't been sorted into another place.

My TBR list is more like a mountain range than a single peak...

[issybird]

Another month and time to take a meeting.

"Hi, my name is issy and I'm an ebook-buying addict."

Things chugged along comfortably enough in May. I bought four books for a total cash outlay of $19, bringing my year-to-date monthly averages to an exact mean of five books/month and a hair over $15/month. I only purchased books with no-rush shipping credit and Kobo coupons, which I applied to wishlist books. I almost posted a few days ago because I didn't anticipate another purchase in May, but in cleaning out an inbox I discovered an unused and expired Kobo coupon, which I decided to test. It worked.

All of this is eminently acceptable both on the face of it and as a reasonable level of both acquisition and outlay, and compared to the bender years quite astonishing. However, I have to note, as always, that this still means virtually no reduction in my TBR. That's not my specific goal, but it would still be a desirable and expected outcome! I rather anticipate and hope that my buying rate will continue to drift downward, so with luck there will finally be some movement.

As an aside, I didn't buy any pbooks in May, which leaves at only one for the year and does mean that there has been a minimal reduction in my paper TBR. It's something and at least the trajectory is in the right direction, however slight the slope.

[pdurrant]

17 books for £34.43 in May. Not a good month. There were two books, Crossing the Line by Karen Traviss and Hardwired by Walter Jon Williams, that I'm really not sure why I bought them - I certainly should not have done.

And there was a Baen bundle that I bought because the three books in it I really wanted would have cost as much or more than the bundle. But perhaps I should have still only bought the three I really wanted. But with the lack of Kobo coupons nowadays, buying Baen books in the bundle really is the cheapest way to get them. They never go on sale afterwards.

Perhaps I'll do better in June... but the Baen bundle is calling me...

[issybird]

Originally Posted by pdurrant

17 books for £34.43 in May. Not a good month. There were two books <snip> that I'm really not sure why I bought them - I certainly should not have done.

I know. I'm, and I'm sure you're, so much better about that, but that doesn't mean we still can't be tripped up.

The aim is to be mindful, which for me is the point of this thread and the reason I post even when I'm doing well, or well enough. So long as groceries are being put on the table, it's not the expenditure in itself that matters as much as the real to us value of our purchases, and not the rush from buying them.

The thread has helped me enormously; I'm very glad you started it.

[CRussel]

Originally Posted by pdurrant

And there was a Baen bundle that I bought because the three books in it I really wanted would have cost as much or more than the bundle. But perhaps I should have still only bought the three I really wanted. But with the lack of Kobo coupons nowadays, buying Baen books in the bundle really is the cheapest way to get them. They never go on sale afterwards.

Perhaps I'll do better in June... but the Baen bundle is calling me...

Now that bundle isn't calling me at all. One I have, 2 I don't want, 2 I have mild curiosity about, and one that I have a mild interest in and would probably buy if I had a Kobo coupon for it. This month is a dud for me. OTOH, next month's is already bought.

Originally Posted by issybird

The thread has helped me enormously; I'm very glad you started it.

Amen! I ran absolutely out of control before I started reading this thread. I still get a bit carried away sometimes, but it's quickly controlled and not nearly to the level as before.

Thank you all!

[Fbone]

Only one book purchased in May for 60 cents after Kobo code. For the year that makes five books totaling $4.65, well within my budget.

However, things aren't all rainbows and lollipops. My freebie pile is increasing alarmingly. To help mitigate the situation, I did read three of them this year.