How many e-books do readers purchase? - Page 2

AJ Starr · 05-18-2008, 07:36 PM

Still getting the hang of these blogs..
My reply was for the original message, not the one before mine.

sorry

Alyson

DMcCunney · 05-18-2008, 09:48 PM

I have about 3,500 ebooks. I've purchased none of them.

I have no objection for paying for electronic content. I have strong objections to the lack of a standard format that everyone supports, and to restrictive DRM.

I want to download an ebook once, and read it on whatever device I happen to have at hand. My current ebook device is a Tapwave Zodiac 2, which is a Palm OS device. My preferred format for electronic books is HTML, since I can read that native on desktop and laptop, and easily convert it for the Plucker offline HTML viewer for Palm OS. Most of my ebooks are in Plucker format.

But in order to cover all the bases, I must maintain eReader, MobiPocket Reader, PalmPDF, and PalmFiction (handling Palm DOC, zTxt, plain ASCII, RTF, and Word documents), and recall which text is in which format, read with which viewer. That's just nuts.

I'd love to actually buy ebooks, but until more publishers understand there is a market, settle on a common format, price reasonably, and don't saddle books with overly restrictive DRM, I'm not. There is more freely available in public domain, or under CC or other licenses that explicitly permit copying and sharing that I want to read than I have time for, so I'm not exactly lacking in stuff to read. And for the stuff that's only commercially available, I still buy a fair number of paper books, and consider electronic books an additional format, not a replacement for paper. I have some books in both formats.

At the moment, MobiPocket seems to be the closest thing to a standard format, and I can live with that. Versions of the viewer are available for just about everything save Mac OS/X, the format allows decently crafted ebooks, and the DRM provisions are as reasonable as I expect to see. If everyone got behind it and offered their books in that format, I'd buy in a heartbeat, but I'm not holding my breath waiting.
______
Dennis

LeserattePD · 05-19-2008, 05:08 AM

Having all my books in EBook Librarian, it was a simple matter of opening the program and reading off the number of books. I'm in the 101-200 books bracket. I'd say that probably 80-90% of the books are BAEN, the rest from ebookwise.

This excludes the books I've made for myself from fan-fiction websites.

I've just recently made the decision not to buy any more ebooks in "secure" format as I am planning on switching my ebook reader soon and apparently cannot download the secure books I bought in a different format (except of course from BAEN - we love BAEN!).

"Secure" yeah... secure in the way that the publisher secures his right to sell me the same book in a different format every time a new generation of ebook reader comes on the market. No way am I falling for that again! They can keep their secure books secure... in their store.

LeserattePD

Laine · 05-19-2008, 10:37 AM

I have more than 1100 from FictionWise, around 5 years Webscriptions, plus lesser amounts from EReader, Mobipocket, Harlequin, Regency Reads, Diesel, Books on Board and individual authors.

lawizard50 · 05-19-2008, 11:52 AM

I'm the one at 24/7 who has more than 1,000 ebooks. Those are the ones bought to be read on a Blackberry/Windows/Palm hand held or desk top. I also have quite a few for my Rocket ebook reader, HIE and Franklin ebook readers. I have put most of those away however because I always have my (now)Blackberry with me to read on. I am leaning towards getting a dedicated device that is cheaper, lighter, and reads more formats than my other dedicated readers but the right one hasn't come out yet.

I did get started reading ebooks on my Palm and have bought books primarily from Fictionwise, Baen, Powells and Mobipocket, although I do frequent a few eclectic ebookstores. What can I say, paper is nice but ebooks are lighter and always with you.

badgoodDeb · 05-19-2008, 04:28 PM

I've bought 221 books in ereader format (for Palm) and 19 books since February for my Kindle. With the Palm, I would buy a dozen at a time, to make it worth my while. So I always had a stash that I hadn't read yet. With the Kindle, I've downloaded 15-20 samples, but I won't buy each one until I've read the sample and am ready to read the book. So there is a different purchase thought pattern now.

pilotbob · 05-19-2008, 04:31 PM

Wow, you folks just go on crazy buying sprees. I generally have a "to read" stack (not really a stack any more with ebooks) but never more than a half dozen or so. I want to make sure I read (or at least try to read) everything I buy.

BOb

StephanieP · 05-19-2008, 06:32 PM

I'm guesstimating I'm in the 11-50 (though closer to the 11-15 mark). Heck I may even have less than that, but I rounded up just in case... I just got my reader last week and stocked up, but I've bought some pdfs in the past to read on my laptop. I'm including the dictionaries and such in my numbers.

Most of the ones I've bought are from lulu.com and fictionwise, though I have bought ones in the past from small independent sites too.

Even though I bought a handful of books, I've converted several word docs containing fanfiction and have been reading those the most, recently. Of course fanfiction was my main motivation for purchasing a dedicated reader in the first place. I also found a few of the pdfs I was planning to read don't convert so well, so I'm not sure when I'll get around to reading those...

gadgetguru · 05-19-2008, 07:53 PM

51-100 for me. Less than 50, but the last Fictionwise sale doubled my purchases.

Mostly from Fictionwise but in .lit format. I do not have a dedicated ebook device and use my trusty PDA as my ebook reader.

Darqref · 05-19-2008, 10:48 PM

Well I've got over 500, but probably less than 1000, all from Baen or Fictionwise. Since both those are multiformat, I'm not keeping separate track of mobi vs rocket. I've bought a couple of books encrypted for my Rocket, but stopped doing that a long time ago, and all but one of those have been re-released by Baen.

I've got enough SF to read that I haven't started after all the PG stuff.

astra · 05-20-2008, 06:12 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by pilotbob

Wow, you folks just go on crazy buying sprees. I generally have a "to read" stack (not really a stack any more with ebooks) but never more than a half dozen or so. I want to make sure I read (or at least try to read) everything I buy.

BOb

Ditto.

HarryT · 05-20-2008, 09:58 AM

I'm ashamed to admit that I've got literally thousands of eBooks that I've not read. I've read almost none of the books that I've posted here, and probably under 10% of all the Baen books that I've bought. I've bought every "Webscriptions" release that Baen have ever made simply to show my financial support for the "good guys" of the publishing industry.

I'm trying my best to catch up

.

Taylor514ce · 05-20-2008, 10:07 AM

Less than 10. I don't buy anything until I read what I've got, which includes several printed books. Then I procure about 5 new books, and that has included so far 3 e-books.

Taylor514ce · 05-20-2008, 05:56 PM

I will say I'd buy a heckuva lot more, even DRM'd Sony Formatted books, if they were AVAILABLE, and PRICED RIGHT. I send Sony daily requests for titles, and have opened several "support" tickets for pricing discrepancies (where they are wanting $18 for a book available as an $8 paperback).

To date they have never added a title or author I've requested, or adjusted a price I've reported.

I went into this with my eyes wide open, so I'm not caught off-guard by this. I knew I'd be frustrated, and I was right.

gnawingonfoot · 05-21-2008, 07:11 AM

I've bought 100+ ebooks (none with DRM) for reading on my Palm. Most of them have come from Fictionwise, but a few have also come from Baen and other smaller publishers. I've read about half of them with Mobipocket, but I'm starting to switch over to eReader format because the Fictionwise guys are less evil than Amazon.

View Poll Results: How many e-books have you already purchased?
1-10	29	20.00%
11-50	36	24.83%
51-100	14	9.66%
101-200	20	13.79%
201-300	10	6.90%
301-500	10	6.90%
>500	13	8.97%
Zero	13	8.97%
Voters: 145. You may not vote on this poll

05-18-2008, 07:36 PM	#16
AJ Starr Guru Posts: 815 Karma: 1029784 Join Date: May 2008 Location: Nebraska, USA Device: PEZ, Color Libre, 2@Sony T1, Onyx i62HD	Oops.. Still getting the hang of these blogs.. My reply was for the original message, not the one before mine. sorry Alyson

05-19-2008, 06:32 PM	#23
StephanieP Member Posts: 22 Karma: 96 Join Date: May 2008 Device: Cybook Gen3	I'm guesstimating I'm in the 11-50 (though closer to the 11-15 mark). Heck I may even have less than that, but I rounded up just in case... I just got my reader last week and stocked up, but I've bought some pdfs in the past to read on my laptop. I'm including the dictionaries and such in my numbers. Most of the ones I've bought are from lulu.com and fictionwise, though I have bought ones in the past from small independent sites too. Even though I bought a handful of books, I've converted several word docs containing fanfiction and have been reading those the most, recently. Of course fanfiction was my main motivation for purchasing a dedicated reader in the first place. I also found a few of the pdfs I was planning to read don't convert so well, so I'm not sure when I'll get around to reading those... Last edited by StephanieP; 05-19-2008 at 06:38 PM.

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05-18-2008, 09:48 PM	#17
DMcCunney New York Editor Posts: 6,384 Karma: 16540415 Join Date: Aug 2007 Device: PalmTX, Pocket eDGe, Alcatel Fierce 4, RCA Viking Pro 10, Nexus 7	I have about 3,500 ebooks. I've purchased none of them. I have no objection for paying for electronic content. I have strong objections to the lack of a standard format that everyone supports, and to restrictive DRM. I want to download an ebook once, and read it on whatever device I happen to have at hand. My current ebook device is a Tapwave Zodiac 2, which is a Palm OS device. My preferred format for electronic books is HTML, since I can read that native on desktop and laptop, and easily convert it for the Plucker offline HTML viewer for Palm OS. Most of my ebooks are in Plucker format. But in order to cover all the bases, I must maintain eReader, MobiPocket Reader, PalmPDF, and PalmFiction (handling Palm DOC, zTxt, plain ASCII, RTF, and Word documents), and recall which text is in which format, read with which viewer. That's just nuts. I'd love to actually buy ebooks, but until more publishers understand there is a market, settle on a common format, price reasonably, and don't saddle books with overly restrictive DRM, I'm not. There is more freely available in public domain, or under CC or other licenses that explicitly permit copying and sharing that I want to read than I have time for, so I'm not exactly lacking in stuff to read. And for the stuff that's only commercially available, I still buy a fair number of paper books, and consider electronic books an additional format, not a replacement for paper. I have some books in both formats. At the moment, MobiPocket seems to be the closest thing to a standard format, and I can live with that. Versions of the viewer are available for just about everything save Mac OS/X, the format allows decently crafted ebooks, and the DRM provisions are as reasonable as I expect to see. If everyone got behind it and offered their books in that format, I'd buy in a heartbeat, but I'm not holding my breath waiting. ______ Dennis

05-19-2008, 05:08 AM	#18
LeserattePD Enthusiast Posts: 47 Karma: 136 Join Date: Mar 2008 Location: UK Device: Ebookwise 1150, Kindle 3	Having all my books in EBook Librarian, it was a simple matter of opening the program and reading off the number of books. I'm in the 101-200 books bracket. I'd say that probably 80-90% of the books are BAEN, the rest from ebookwise. This excludes the books I've made for myself from fan-fiction websites. I've just recently made the decision not to buy any more ebooks in "secure" format as I am planning on switching my ebook reader soon and apparently cannot download the secure books I bought in a different format (except of course from BAEN - we love BAEN!). "Secure" yeah... secure in the way that the publisher secures his right to sell me the same book in a different format every time a new generation of ebook reader comes on the market. No way am I falling for that again! They can keep their secure books secure... in their store. LeserattePD

05-19-2008, 10:37 AM	#19
Laine Addict Posts: 341 Karma: 1162396 Join Date: Dec 2007 Location: Cabramatta, Sydney, Australia Device: Aura H2O, Voyage	I have more than 1100 from FictionWise, around 5 years Webscriptions, plus lesser amounts from EReader, Mobipocket, Harlequin, Regency Reads, Diesel, Books on Board and individual authors.

05-19-2008, 11:52 AM	#20
lawizard50 Junior Member Posts: 3 Karma: 10 Join Date: Jul 2007 Device: Blackberry 8700c	I'm the one at 24/7 who has more than 1,000 ebooks. Those are the ones bought to be read on a Blackberry/Windows/Palm hand held or desk top. I also have quite a few for my Rocket ebook reader, HIE and Franklin ebook readers. I have put most of those away however because I always have my (now)Blackberry with me to read on. I am leaning towards getting a dedicated device that is cheaper, lighter, and reads more formats than my other dedicated readers but the right one hasn't come out yet. I did get started reading ebooks on my Palm and have bought books primarily from Fictionwise, Baen, Powells and Mobipocket, although I do frequent a few eclectic ebookstores. What can I say, paper is nice but ebooks are lighter and always with you.

05-19-2008, 04:28 PM	#21
badgoodDeb Grand Sorcerer Posts: 8,539 Karma: 64201357 Join Date: Jan 2008 Location: Harrisburg outskirts Device: Palms, K1-4s, iPads, iPhones, KV, KO1	I've bought 221 books in ereader format (for Palm) and 19 books since February for my Kindle. With the Palm, I would buy a dozen at a time, to make it worth my while. So I always had a stash that I hadn't read yet. With the Kindle, I've downloaded 15-20 samples, but I won't buy each one until I've read the sample and am ready to read the book. So there is a different purchase thought pattern now.

05-19-2008, 04:31 PM	#22
pilotbob Grand Sorcerer Posts: 19,832 Karma: 11844413 Join Date: Jan 2007 Location: Tampa, FL USA Device: Kindle Touch	Wow, you folks just go on crazy buying sprees. I generally have a "to read" stack (not really a stack any more with ebooks) but never more than a half dozen or so. I want to make sure I read (or at least try to read) everything I buy. BOb

05-19-2008, 07:53 PM	#24
gadgetguru Addict Posts: 214 Karma: 6370 Join Date: May 2003 Location: Asia Device: Tungsten T5	51-100 for me. Less than 50, but the last Fictionwise sale doubled my purchases. Mostly from Fictionwise but in .lit format. I do not have a dedicated ebook device and use my trusty PDA as my ebook reader.

05-19-2008, 10:48 PM	#25
Darqref space cadet Posts: 333 Karma: 2999999 Join Date: Aug 2007 Location: Seattle area Device: Rocket PRO, gen3, Pocketbook360	Well I've got over 500, but probably less than 1000, all from Baen or Fictionwise. Since both those are multiformat, I'm not keeping separate track of mobi vs rocket. I've bought a couple of books encrypted for my Rocket, but stopped doing that a long time ago, and all but one of those have been re-released by Baen. I've got enough SF to read that I haven't started after all the PG stuff.

05-20-2008, 09:58 AM	#27
HarryT eBook Enthusiast Posts: 85,544 Karma: 93383043 Join Date: Nov 2006 Location: UK Device: Kindle Oasis 2, iPad Pro 10.5", iPhone 6	I'm ashamed to admit that I've got literally thousands of eBooks that I've not read. I've read almost none of the books that I've posted here, and probably under 10% of all the Baen books that I've bought. I've bought every "Webscriptions" release that Baen have ever made simply to show my financial support for the "good guys" of the publishing industry. I'm trying my best to catch up .

05-20-2008, 10:07 AM	#28
Taylor514ce Actively passive. Posts: 2,042 Karma: 478376 Join Date: Feb 2008 Location: US Device: Sony PRS-505/LC	Less than 10. I don't buy anything until I read what I've got, which includes several printed books. Then I procure about 5 new books, and that has included so far 3 e-books.

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05-20-2008, 05:56 PM	#29
Taylor514ce Actively passive. Posts: 2,042 Karma: 478376 Join Date: Feb 2008 Location: US Device: Sony PRS-505/LC	I will say I'd buy a heckuva lot more, even DRM'd Sony Formatted books, if they were AVAILABLE, and PRICED RIGHT. I send Sony daily requests for titles, and have opened several "support" tickets for pricing discrepancies (where they are wanting $18 for a book available as an $8 paperback). To date they have never added a title or author I've requested, or adjusted a price I've reported. I went into this with my eyes wide open, so I'm not caught off-guard by this. I knew I'd be frustrated, and I was right.

05-21-2008, 07:11 AM	#30
gnawingonfoot worthless joat Posts: 14 Karma: 10 Join Date: May 2008 Location: Bloomington, IN Device: eBookwise-1150, Handspring Visor Neo	I've bought 100+ ebooks (none with DRM) for reading on my Palm. Most of them have come from Fictionwise, but a few have also come from Baen and other smaller publishers. I've read about half of them with Mobipocket, but I'm starting to switch over to eReader format because the Fictionwise guys are less evil than Amazon.