Paper books still have an advantage

[DiapDealer]

What's "Bing"?

[ZodWallop]

Originally Posted by issybird

If ebooks had been the top choice, the answer would have been very different. The top choice generally runs at 80% or more. People don't bother to answer seriously; they're just collecting their points. All this shows is maybe a 10% swing in favor of paper.

There is something to that. Sometimes the poll is about which sportsball team I favor and I click any old thing.

But I don't think ebooks would have hit 80% on top. I've seen other polls that are more general interest and the bottom choice will be the clear winner, or the two will be neck and neck.

[ZodWallop]

Originally Posted by DiapDealer

What's "Bing"?

I moved to Bing years ago, except on my phone where owning a Pixel means going all-in Google or spending more time than I want to invest changing everything.

[neil_swann80]

Originally Posted by ZodWallop

I moved to Bing years ago, except on my phone where owning a Pixel means going all-in Google or spending more time than I want to invest changing everything.

I've started making more use of Bing recently, I've found the results are increasingly better than what Google offers. Brave search ok, Qwant also.

[ownedbycats]

I use Bing sometimes when I get frustrated with Google trying to 'help' my search results by omitting words (in a two-word query).

[DiapDealer]

I guess I just don't use a search engine enough to need any one to be "better" than another. All suffice for my limited needs, so I stick with the devil I know.

[Asawi]

Originally Posted by ZodWallop

Today on Bing the daily poll question was: Do you prefer paper books or ebooks? It wasn't even close.

If audiobooks had been in the poll I wouldn't be surprised if it had beat paperbooks. Correction: I would be surprised if it didn't! At least here in Sweden.

[fduniho]

Originally Posted by Hardboiled

Part of the problem with eBooks, is there is no viable legal 2nd hand market in them.

One of the main reasons I have for wanting to sell my used books is to make more space. With ebooks, that isn't an issue. Before ebooks came along, I normally bought used books, and for the most part, the prices were higher than what I have been paying for ebooks. Thanks to being able to check out ebooks from a couple libraries in New York City, it is now also much easier for me to check out what I want to read from a library, and thanks to promotions and public domain books being free as ebooks, I've been able to get lots of books for free that I wouldn't be able to get for free as physical books. So, there are trade-offs. Although we don't get a 2nd hand market for ebooks, it's often easier and more affordable to get ebooks, and keeping ebooks doesn't generate any clutter. Since those are trade-offs I can live with, I won't worry too much that ebooks have no 2nd hand market.

[ZodWallop]

Originally Posted by fduniho

Before ebooks came along, I normally bought used books, and for the most part, the prices were higher than what I have been paying for ebooks.

That's been my experience as well.

[graycyn]

Originally Posted by fduniho

One of the main reasons I have for wanting to sell my used books is to make more space. With ebooks, that isn't an issue. Before ebooks came along, I normally bought used books, and for the most part, the prices were higher than what I have been paying for ebooks. Thanks to being able to check out ebooks from a couple libraries in New York City, it is now also much easier for me to check out what I want to read from a library, and thanks to promotions and public domain books being free as ebooks, I've been able to get lots of books for free that I wouldn't be able to get for free as physical books. So, there are trade-offs. Although we don't get a 2nd hand market for ebooks, it's often easier and more affordable to get ebooks, and keeping ebooks doesn't generate any clutter. Since those are trade-offs I can live with, I won't worry too much that ebooks have no 2nd hand market.

As someone who used to fund my reading habit by selling off what I'd read on Half.com and then eBay and also Amazon Marketplace in order to buy new books, it's overrated. While there is a market for used books, the amount of money you get vs. the time you put in to photographing, writing a description of condition, etc... it's barely worth it.

And if you don't put the work in, sales are worse. I think I sold as well as I did because of good descriptions and photos.

Before eBooks were a thing, I did, with the aid of the library, keep my reading habit afloat, but with ebooks so easily available and so many people having switched to ebook reading, I wouldn't want to try now, so the fact that there is no secondary market for ebooks doesn't worry me one single bit.

As I do buy some OOP vintage books, there's a trend that is great for buyers, but not so much for sellers. I've noticed that 95% of the time or better, if I make an offer for a book on eBay, it is accepted! Secondhand booksellers are having a harder time selling.

[Fat Abe]

Originally Posted by graycyn

As I do buy some OOP vintage books, there's a trend that is great for buyers, but not so much for sellers. I've noticed that 95% of the time or better, if I make an offer for a book on eBay, it is accepted!

I don't even bother making an offer- I let the seller make an offer to me, by putting their listing in my watchlist. Whoops, I just got a ding with an offer for the first six mystery novels in Bill Pronzini's Nameless Detective series. Cost was less than the Kobo epub price for the same group of books!

I've done this for used cameras as well, with the introduction of mirrorless cameras basically killing the market for DSLR.

I wish I had known how valuable pulp detective magazines of the pre-1960 era would become in the 21st century. Between those magazines and comic books, I could have funded my retirement for an entire decade.

[fduniho]

Originally Posted by graycyn

As someone who used to fund my reading habit by selling off what I'd read on Half.com and then eBay and also Amazon Marketplace in order to buy new books, it's overrated. While there is a market for used books, the amount of money you get vs. the time you put in to photographing, writing a description of condition, etc... it's barely worth it.

I used to work in a used bookstore listing books online and shipping them when they sold. It was a boring job made bearable by playing videos while I worked, and it's not worth it for small amounts. Since I accumulated books I had an interest in reading and didn't collect books for their rarity or value, I expect it wouldn't be worth my time to try to sell them online.

[fr_t]

I've come to a conclusion that a mix of paper+ebooks works best for me. Physical books have a number of advantages that I don't see being available in ebooks any time soon or ever:

- Navigation. You don't always want to read linearly, and you don't always know where do you want to land. It's very easy to jump around _randomly_ over a physical book. This works well for things like poetry or religious books, but I also use this for technical literature of high value.
- Limited to a single book. To those with attention issues, you are reading a single book and can't switch to another or browse your library, etc.
- Higher chance to grab your attention. If you have a book that is sitting on your shelf, there is higher chance that it will be noticed and taken, than for one that is buried in your e-library. An important extension to this is that if you want someone to read something, you can get them a physical representation of that book as a present.
- Sometimes there is no good e-book version, only bad scans
- Illustrations, e-ink is still quite bad for full colour big pictures. It's a rare case for things like maps, anatomy, etc.
- Special editions, for aesthetics or collecting purposes, but it's not really about reading.

So my formula is: if I know I want to read a book multiple times, non-linearly, want to give it as a present, or lend it for reading, I'll choose physical book. I.e. the value of the physical book should not decline over time.

[Renate]

Well, every format is a compromise. You have to work on the issues.

I was raised to respect printed books. I was camping once and ran into a librarian. She used to take the discard books camping. She'd rip the chapters off that she had read already and feed the campfire. It still makes me shudder. People who fold back paperbacks all the way do too.

Still, no one can deny that a 1000 page book is a hunk of firewood.

On the ebook navigation theme, I'm happy to say that I've fine-tuned the footnotes problem so that it's much more pleasant and I'm less likely to miss a good one.

[ZodWallop]

Originally Posted by fr_t

- Higher chance to grab your attention. If you have a book that is sitting on your shelf, there is higher chance that it will be noticed and taken, than for one that is buried in your e-library.

That is true. Those colorful and well designed covers do their job.

But I have found that I can enter a tag or even a random word in Calibre's search and similarly come across books buried in my elibrary.

An important extension to this is that if you want someone to read something, you can get them a physical representation of that book as a present.

On the other hand, you could buy the wrong book, buy a book they have already bought or buy something they have no interest in reading.