How often do you not find an ebook you want?

[pendragginp]

Hmmmm.

Thanks for replying, Elfwreck. =)

[fugazied]

Probably... 25% of the time I would say.
My taste is also pretty mainstream so that's quite high.

[kdf9511]

It happenes to me quite frequently. There is one book that I have been trying to find for a while but it is out of print and there is no ebook version anywhere.

[pwalker8]

I have a long list of books that I want to get in ebook format. One problem is works where the author is dead and the current rights holders don't seem to be terribly interested in ebooks, or are simply not active in getting the books published. The other issue is mid list authors who dropped out of writing.

[rebarnmom]

All too often!!!
But I always make a point to contact the publisher to ask if there are any plans for an ebook edition for the books I'm interested in & in a format that is universally available. (I don't expect them to read my mind.)
Some I get responses from and some I don't, but I'll just keep pestering them!

[Joebill]

Trying to find a reasonably priced computer ebook is a major pain.

[Ken Maltby]

I have taken "The Darknet" to mean torrent or "sharing" sites on the internet, but
I guess you might consider that a part of the USENET had a "dark" side, the binaries
newsgroups. While the USENET is dyeing out, if you have a newsgroup provider with
good retention of binaries newsgroups, you can find where a great many ebooks are
available for download. I have found many SciFi and public domain classics at:
alt.binaries.e-book.palm and alt.binaries.e-books.palm. None of these will have DRM
on them, of course.

Luck;
Ken

[jgaiser]

For my niche interests (cooking and cooking related), nearly all the time.

For the older, non-PD fiction and non-fiction, anywhere between 25-50%.

For classics... Everything I need is here at MR.

Quite often actually, and not only for obscure titles. Then until I recently started actively viewing this web site once more ( I had taken a break from all things related to reading for a while due to eyesight problems) I had never even heard the term “darknet.” Still would not know how to find things there, and would rather not take what is at best a dubious route. I am not saying that I agree with all of the current copyright restrictions, especially the forever in copyright that seems to be current in the U.S for items not already in the public domain, but things are what they are.

Anyway right now to provide some excellent youth reading for the child of a friend I would love to have the following titles on e-book, but just not available as far as I can tell:

Laughing Boy by Oliver La Farge

Rifles for Watie by Harold Keith

Johnny Tremain by Esther Forbes

Actually I would like to read Laughing Boy at least once more myself.

[GyGeek]

I have pretty much restricted myself to audio and electronic books, with most of what I read coming from audio books I have stored on my computer gleaned from libraries, and what is available at librivox and audible. There are some I read on my reader, in circumstances that aren't appropriate for having earbuds in.

There is so much that I can't hope to consume it all. However, I participate in a very informal book discussion group, and it happens at times they pick a book that can't be found in either format. Recently the group did Blood Makes The Grass Grow Green, and although I found it at B&N, I almost gave up and skipped that one because I couldn't get it on my reader easily. I managed eventually, but I probably wouldn't have finished if I'd have had to read it from the computer.

[Lirael]

Sadly, if I compare the number of times I've gone looking for a specific ebook vs. the number of times I've actually found it (legally), I've *not* found what I'm looking for more often then I've found what I wanted.

This is probably due to my taste in books - less mainstream, lots of not-very-old-but-not-brand-new fantasy and scifi. If it's something I *really* want I've taken to dropping a line to the publisher about it. If I don't find it, I don't buy the paper version either - just check it out of my local library when I want to read. It doesn't bother me a whole lot; I'm holding out hope that it'll all be made digital someday. XD

Though, I don't know about anyone else, but the one thing that *really* gets my goat is when certain books in a series are available, but there's no rhyme or reason as to why they were digitized and the others weren't (say, books 2, 3, and 5 of a five book series or something.) If it were, say, only the start of the series or only the end, I'd get it, but why so random?

[begem0t]

For many of my favorite authors, I seldom find a legal e-book. For example, Jonathan Carroll has a SINGLE e-book (which I immediately purchased). An that is one book in a serie of six books.

Sorry, dear “big publishers”, Darknet IS the alternative to your incompetence. It’s up to you – either learn to swim, or drown.

The only pity is it’s the authors paying for your swimming lessons, but I really think they are already finding ways to eliminate the publisher and go directly to the readers.

[Ravensknight]

I'd say about 50% of the time? I had to create my own ebooks of Michael Moorcock's second Corum Trilogy. Buy the paperbacks, razor, scan, edit. Bleh. But now I have them for when I want to reread them in 10 years time

[MrPLD]

Ravensknight,

I've got a book here, non-fiction (computer book actually) that I've been seriously considering slicing and scanning... just a bit of a torment because the author was my lecturer at University... so now I'm not wanting to destroy the book just to eBook it

Paul.

[Quake1028]

I'd say about 10% of the time or less.