Ebook Buying Addicts' Support Thread

[nabsltd]

Originally Posted by issybird

Once they cut way back on the rewards points I stopped buying from Kindle. It became impossible for me to earn points fast enough to convert into a purchase before they expired.

Every time I see the double points e-mail, I feel insulted, as the default should be closer to that.

Regular purchases should be 5 points per dollar, with double giving you 10. I'd probably spend 2-3x as much if that were the case, even though I'm only getting a few more percent discount.

And, yeah, the many layers of expiration (points expire, and credits expired before they removed that step, and points require building up to 300 to use) didn't make me buy more to get a reward. It made me stop buying because I couldn't ever get a reward.

[Quoth]

Was there ever points / rewards explicitly on UK Marketplace Kindle?

[pdurrant]

Originally Posted by Quoth

Was there ever points / rewards explicitly on UK Marketplace Kindle?

Not that I'm aware of. The best deal was the £1 credit for ebook purchases when choosing slower shipping. But that stopped some time ago.

[ownedbycats]

I'm down to less than $15 of Kobo credit. I last purchased a $60 + $10 card in May.

Since then, I redeemed an additional $10 gift card from one of my survey sites, and an unexpected $20 giftcard from myself on my birthday (looking through my records, sent it a few days before my stroke).

[ownedbycats]

Oh, and I'm suffering a lot of indecision on exactly which book I should spend my last credit on...

[issybird]

Since I assume I won't be buying any books in what remains of today, I'm going to do an end-of-the-year wrap up.

I bought 17 books for a total of $40 (I don't count promotional credit as part of the total.) This was not nearly as good as last year, but in the overall context of my book buying was better than fine; it was my second best year, beating out 2017 by one book fewer and $2 less. My TBR was down 35 books. Given that my reading on the year breaks down roughly into thirds of bought books, public domain and library books, and audiobooks, this also seems fine to me.

My major regret is that I didn't read more of my purchases. I started off the year gangbusters, having read six of seven purchases through July, but after that the buying pace picked up and I read only one more purchase. I shall endeavor to do better next year in that as well as being a scootch more discriminatory in what I buy. But all in all, a good year on the addiction front.

[DrNefario]

Quite a bad year for me, with 120 purchases for around £260. Not even counting the two Humble Bundles for another 20 books at £27.

I only read 77, and spent 5 of the 12 months on Kindle Unlimited reading borrowed books, so I was very bad at reading my new purchases.

And I've splurged on a few things in the last couple of days so that they count against 2025 instead of 2026, which, let's be honest, is cheating. (This very visit to the forum was to log my latest last-minute purchase.)

But then again, £300 for a year is a bit of a bargain for what I get from the hobby.

[Tarana]

Not my worst, but a pretty bad year for me. Spent $932 on both ebooks and audiobooks for a total of 275 acquisitions. Part of it was the Kindle DRM thing in February. Spent more on some books that I typically would have waited for on deep discount. Audible member's sale allowed me to complete a lot of series, so I don't regret those purchases. I do need to cut back severely as I have a 10 year supply of books/audiobooks that are yet unread/unlistened and I am only going to live so long. So here is to a new year of knocking down my TBR!

[ownedbycats]

Of books I bought this year (excluding some nonfictions), I have nine left to read. Six of those are from a trip to used bookstore for Christmas.

Compared last year, purchased more books overall but spent far less, because large portion of them were bought in bundles.

[DNSB]

My December purchases were 82 books plus 8 library loans. This leaves me down by ~100 books from my 2024 purchases. At this point, my TBR pile is up to 3 books. One oddity is that 2025 had the most omnibus purchases ever.

As a late Christmas present, my ferret mug arrived about 30 minutes ago.

[DrNefario]

Originally Posted by DrNefario

Quite a bad year for me, with 120 purchases for around £260. Not even counting the two Humble Bundles for another 20 books at £27.

Dammit, three bundles. I forgot the Dragonlance one.

[pdurrant]

I ended the year with my TBR up by 55. Various bundles and deals got me, and general laxness about purchases.

I shall try to make 2026 more like 2024.