How many books have you purchased?

[Elsi]

Originally Posted by pwalker8

1) how many e-books have you purchased total (all sources)?

the rest are Connect specific -

2) how many e-books have you purchased via Connect?
3) What kind of books are you buying?
4) How many new books verse e-copies of books you already have?
5) How many backlist (i.e. older) books do you have, and by who?

1...
* From Amazon.com for my Kindle: 49 books. 20 of those were purchased for $0.00 -- 3 mysteries and 17 TOR promotional eBooks.
* From Steve Jordan: his big SJBundle containing 11 novels and one short story
* From Fictionwise: 8 Multiformat novels
* From Baen/Webscriptions: 2 books, one was an omnibus edition of a fantasy trilogy
* From Harper Collins: 1 MobiPocket as an experiment for using mobidedrm

2...
* No books purchased via the Connect software. There were two books which might have come from the Sony store on the second-hand reader that I purchased.

3...
* Science Fiction and Fantasy
* Mystery

4...
* Mostly new books. I did buy a couple of eBook titles that I already owned in paper. I will be doing more of this as time goes on. Some of the time it will be because I have given away the original paper book and I would like to have a copy to keep.

5...
I have purchased:
* Stranger in a Strange Land, Heinlein
* Deeds of Paksenarrion, Moon
* Door Through Space, Bradley
We won't count all the free SF and fantasy that I downloaded from Baen. I had never read any of the Honor Harrington series and now I'm definitely enjoying it. I do plan to purchase more of Heinlein's backlist and probably most of Anne McCaffrey's.

[pdurrant]

1. At least 1000. Over 500 each from Baen and Fictionwise.
2. N/A.
3. Mostly Baen books and other Fantasy/SF from Fictionwise with the occassional detective/mystery novel as well
4. At least 90% new books, not books I have in paper.
5. Lots. Except for Baen I don't buy books when they're first released because the ebook prices are silly from other publishers for new releases. Recently bought back list Authors include:
Anne McCaffrey
Wen Spencer
Douglas Adam
Alexander McCall Smith
Sarah Hoyt
Ursula K LeGuin
C. J. Cherryh
Joe Haldeman
Diane Duane
Piers Anthony
Terry Pratchett
Elizabeth Moon
Lois McMaster Bujold

Paul

(It's interesting to note that I only bought many of these book only /after/ a way to remove DRM appeared for Mobipocket files.)

[QUOTE=pwalker8;64370]

1) how many e-books have you purchased total (all sources)?

the rest are Connect specific -

2) how many e-books have you purchased via Connect?
3) What kind of books are you buying?
4) How many new books verse e-copies of books you already have?
5) How many backlist (i.e. older) books do you have, and by who?

[June]

Since I just got my PRS505 a few months ago, I can still reply (I'm sure in a few months I'll have lost all semblance of control of what e-books I have....)

1) how many e-books have you purchased total (all sources)?
193 purchased total for the Sony reader - but 28 of those are "purchased" with the Sony credit, so I didn't really pay for them. So 165 purchased books in 2.5 months or so... And then I have around 30-40 books for the Palm in my Fictionwise bookshelf, those have been bought over the past couple of years. So the e-book hasn't exactly helped me 'save on books'

2) how many e-books have you purchased via Connect?
I only found 28 remotely worth downloading for the "free money" giveaway

3) What kind of books are you buying?
Scifi, thrillers, mystery, romance

4) How many new books verse e-copies of books you already have?
Some of the ebooks I've bought I already have in paperbooks. Maybe around 15 or so.

5) How many backlist (i.e. older) books do you have, and by who?
I'mnot sure I understand that question... I buy books that I enjoy reading regardless of when they were published when I find them.

[pwalker8]

By backlist, I mean books that were originally published several years ago, rather than current books. Generally speaking, a book makes most of it's sales in the first couple of months of release. This is because the big chains are quick to remove books that aren't moving from the selves. Of course, this makes it difficult for a book build a following via word of mouth. Books do get reprinted, of course, but for the most part, it's the more popular authors who get reprinted.

One of my pet theories is that ebooks will help authors from the stand point that they will sale more of their older stuff since it's actually always available in something other than the used book store. I have read some authors say that they fear that ebook sales will cut into/eliminate the reprint sales. So that is where the question is coming from.

btw, as one might expect, I've bought a lot more since I originally posted that. I'm up to around 100 from Sony and another 30 from Amazon for the kindle (I have both now), plus all the Baen books that have come out since then.

[Ordinaryuser]

1) how many e-books have you purchased total (all sources)?

the rest are Connect specific -

2) how many e-books have you purchased via Connect?
3) What kind of books are you buying?
4) How many new books verse e-copies of books you already have?
5) How many backlist (i.e. older) books do you have, and by who?

For 1) Probably around 40. All Baen and will not buy DRM Books

Connect specific

For 2) None - way too pricey for ebooks! They will learn eventually that the latest generation, overall, does not read as much as the earlier generations. I expect that older pbooks and ebooks will eventually fall in price as they realize the Baen model works and the pbook audience is shrinking.

[mbagsh55]

> 1) how many e-books have you purchased total (all sources)?

About 25-30, mostly these are LIT format books from various sources, but mostly fictionwise or HapperCollins.

the rest are Connect specific -

2) how many e-books have you purchased via Connect?

three, but two were with the free credit. I will not be buying any more because of a fault with my reader screen that renders the top 70-80 'pixels' dead. No problem with books I can format in Calibre, but LRX are unreadable.

3) What kind of books are you buying?

Mostly Mystery, SF and Fantasy

4) How many new books verse e-copies of books you already have?

All new except one Tony Hillerman novel.

5) How many backlist (i.e. older) books do you have, and by who?

Most of my eBooks were purchased back when I used an iPaq so are older books, but still good reads.

[jerryleejr]

I have purchased a total of 4
3 from BOB in epub and secure pdf
1 from Connect

Honestly I like the Sony format compared to epub only because the default font is readable without magnification. Epub I have to read on Medium zoom. Nit picky maybe but I believe that I will purchase mostly from Connect if available or BOB when not. What I like about Connect is the options of Bundles. I tend to read a series in its entirety and bundles gives me the option of getting most of a series at a cheaper price. My library consists of over 100 titles from various sources with the help of Stanza and Calibre I can read a long time without making a purchase.

JJ

[Xenophon]

Quite a while back, pwalker8 wrote:

Originally Posted by pwalker8

While I understand your point on #5, I suspect that the most likely outcome of that stance is that publishers and authors simply won't provide e-books since they don't generate enough sales. You do understand that Jim Baen started websubscriptions for marketing purposes rather than as a profit center? Perhaps this is a discussion that should go in a separate thread.

I am well aware that Jim started webscriptions for marketing purposes. I'm also well aware that it has since grown to be a profit center. The latest word I've seen is that Baen's e-Sales are (paraphrasing a message by Toni Weisskopf, top boss at Baen) "larger than all foreign sales combined (including Canada)." Other message traffic suggests that e-Sales are now in the vicinity of 20% of total sales, and that they're quite definitely profitable -- even after covering their pro-rated share of fixed costs.

So we really do have an existence proof that ebook sales can be profitable in the pricing range of $6/book and $15 for a 6-to-8 book bundle. And the authors get better-than-mmpb-or-trade-pb royalties, too. Apparently royalties per e-Sale aren't quite up to the harcover level, though.

Xenophon

[Peto]

Not a single one.

[Zevs]

Hi!

I have probably bought ~200 books from Connect (yes I guess I'm a book shopaholics) mostly general fiction, but some biographies, some travel books, some science books, some history and politics books, some poetry. In fiction mostly trying to follow up on authors I'm interested in from before, but also following reviews of books in NYT and trying to get the good ones that are available.

Have bought a few from Fictionwise and Books-on-Board also, and also from a Swedish book store.

Zevs

[Plowman]

1) 1

2) 0
3) Single title in Urban Fiction genre
4) 1
5) Not sure if this is asking for how many ebooks I posess or what. Not relevant.

Buying a (non-trivially breakable) DRM e-book makes dashboard jesus cry.

P

[tdavie]

Originally Posted by pwalker8

1) how many e-books have you purchased total (all sources)?

the rest are Connect specific -

2) how many e-books have you purchased via Connect?
3) What kind of books are you buying?
4) How many new books verse e-copies of books you already have?
5) How many backlist (i.e. older) books do you have, and by who?

1) 2 Books, both Stephen King, and from Fictionwise in lit format, which I stripped the drm from.
2) 0 and I doubt I'll purchase any since I will not support drm (nor will I purchase a drm format I can not remove)
3) In general, if I was buying books, it would be sci-fi/fantasy/horror.
4) I'm not sure if you mean recently released books or newly purchased books?
5) I've got an extensive collection of books on Republican Rome in physical format, and a large number of old sci fi books.

Tom

[dgallina]

My input as follows.

1) About 85
2) Zero. I have absolutely no interest in buying books in a proprietary, non-convertible, format. Most of the books I have bought have come from Fictionwise.
3) Literary fiction, some non-fiction, science-fiction.
4) About 90% new versus re-purchased
5) About half are back-list books. Far too many to mention.

Thanks,
Diego

Originally Posted by pwalker8

1) how many e-books have you purchased total (all sources)?

the rest are Connect specific -

2) how many e-books have you purchased via Connect?
3) What kind of books are you buying?
4) How many new books verse e-copies of books you already have?
5) How many backlist (i.e. older) books do you have, and by who?

[pilotbob]

> 1) how many e-books have you purchased total (all sources)?

6.

> 2) how many e-books have you purchased via Connect?

0 (1 free does that count?)

>3) What kind of books are you buying?

The kind with words in them. Not sure I understand this question. You mean genre or what?

>4) How many new books verse e-copies of books you already have?

Only buying new titles.

>5) How many backlist (i.e. older) books do you have, and by who?

Pretty much all I have are backlist... If by backlist you mean what? More than a few months?

BOb

[InspectorGadget]

1) how many e-books have you purchased total (all sources)?

About a half-dozen, all from Connect.

2) how many e-books have you purchased via Connect?

I've purchased a half-dozen, and gotten another half-dozen free through their credit.

I also downloaded about 40 "classics" through their big credit (100 free).

3) What kind of books are you buying?

SF, science (On Intelligence), political (George Lakoff), but decent, contemporary nonfiction is REALLY hard to get through Sony.

4) How many new books verse e-copies of books you already have?

3 copies of things I already had. I FINALLY READ THEM!!

5) How many backlist (i.e. older) books do you have, and by who?

I got 40 classics through Connect because they were free, and also because they were convenient to download and already optimally formatted for my Sony reader. I got T.S. Eliot, Locke, Shakespeare, Malory, Lewis Carroll, Oscar Wilde, Emerson, Thoreau, Poe, Machiavelli, Jules Verne, H.G. Wells. Many of these I have in print, some of which I've never cracked.

- The Inspector