Why e-books?

[Conan46]

Higher prices of ebooks has had a huge impact on my ebook purchases. I rarely buy ebooks unless they are on sale now. I use Overdrive and get them via the library. Luckily I bought most of my must-have ebooks back when prices were much more reasonable. I don't understand the logic behind the publishers when they are losing sales on jacking up prices. But I could spend the rest of my life reading public domain ebooks and getting ebooks via the library, so I'm good

[ZodWallop]

Originally Posted by barryem

Frank Yerby is a good example... But you just can't find those today in ebooks.

I suspect that has more to do with the author being dead, rights and publisher interest.

Those westerns I was talking about are long out of print and rights are owned by the author. They run for about two bucks or so, but there's plenty of e-books that go for more. Arthur C. Clarke and Thomas Tryon for instance both have e-books that run about the same price as a paperback. So I doubt low e-book prices are keeping Frank Yerby off the digital shelves.

[ZodWallop]

Originally Posted by Conan46

Higher prices of ebooks has had a huge impact on my ebook purchases....

Yeah, I've noticed somewhere around three bucks is the magic number for me. If a cover and synopsis sounds promising and the book is $2.99 or less, I'll buy the book without a sample and little more than a cursory glimpse at the reviews.

Also, I use Bing as my search engine and you accumulate points every time you do a search. One of the things you can turn points in for is a $5 credit at Amazon. It's not much, but I used it to (mostly) fund the purchase of my current Big 5 book, Shadowland.

[darryl]

@barryem. Like ZodWallop I doubt that low ebook prices have very much to do with availability. A book that is not available is making no money at all. And once an ebook is produced there are virtually no costs in keeping it available. And it seems that many of the large publishers don't really know their backlist very well. Hardly surprising given the mergers, acquisitions etc. over the years. And, of course, may well not have kept up with a dead authors estate or heirs, and would have to put some work into this. I also wonder whether the larger pubslishers in particular want to revive these works even as ebooks, given the number of books currently competing for sales with many more coming to market all the time.

[barryem]

Originally Posted by ZodWallop

I suspect that has more to do with the author being dead, rights and publisher interest.

Those westerns I was talking about are long out of print and rights are owned by the author. They run for about two bucks or so, but there's plenty of e-books that go for more. Arthur C. Clarke and Thomas Tryon for instance both have e-books that run about the same price as a paperback. So I doubt low e-book prices are keeping Frank Yerby off the digital shelves.

I wasn't blaming low prices for those ebooks not being available, exactly. I was thinking that if prices were very high that would get publishers busy digging up every old book they can find since they'd only have to sell a few to make money, especially with long tail considerations.

I'm sure there are a lot of reasons books aren't available as ebooks but probably lack of interest is one of the important reasons. Make them valuable and there'll be more interest, as was the case with the early CD's when music publishers were publishing anything they could find whether they expected it to sell a lot or not, because they all made money.

My personal situation doesn't allow me to pay a lot for books but I have a lot of books already so that isn't a problem for me. And I also wait for sales to look for new books. I'll rarely pay more than $2 or $3 for a book except in those cases where it's something I especially want and I don't want to wait. Even then I'm not likely to pay $15 for one. I've only done that a couple of times. I'd rather wait and I have plenty to read while I'm waiting.

Still, there are books that aren't available and I'd like to read them.

Barry

[Tarana]

Originally Posted by Luffy

Nevertheless, I've tried to persuade my mother to switch to books on grounds of inference. You see, I myself have stopped watching movies, and TV stuff. I've also stopped buying singles and albums, given that I don't find modern music appealing. I just think that there's an outside chance that she'll take to books naturally.

So I think there's a chance that she'll enjoy reading. What do you suggest now?

There's a very small chance that you can convert a non-reader who is of a certain age to reading as a hobby. It happens, but it seems to me it really only happens to someone who really enjoyed reading as a teenager but dropped it due to life (career, kids, etc.) so ready to pick up again. I did get a couple of ladies to convert by giving them mysteries that were focused on quilting/knitting and now they are off reading all sorts of cozies.

[Tarana]

Originally Posted by Sydney's Mom

I switched to ebooks when I lugged 10 library paperback books in my suitcase for a 2 week vacation. Also, my husband goes to bed earlier than I (earlier than a lot of 5th graders, as my daughter says) and I can read in bed without moving around to get the light right or otherwise disturbing him. The new blue shade is awesome!

I have to say that if my Mom even THOUGHT about going back to paper books, her recent unplanned sojourn to care for a family member for just shy of 6 weeks sold her (original plan was ONE week). She only had an hour or so to pack and head out. I had about 60 books on her Paperwhite to read. The light helped her (poor lighting there) and she read 15 or 16 books. She's made a large list of books to add to her reader just in case she has to go back. So, always make sure you have extras just in case plans go awry.

Now, she does have about 15 paperbacks to grab if she has to go unexpectedly somewhere and doesn't want to take her ereader, but this is what is left unread that I bought at garage sales for her. They just get donated when she's done.

[ZodWallop]

Originally Posted by barryem

...if prices were very high that would get publishers busy digging up every old book they can find since they'd only have to sell a few to make money, especially with long tail considerations.

Your own quote:

Originally Posted by barryem

I'll rarely pay more than $2 or $3 for a book except in those cases where it's something I especially want and I don't want to wait. Even then I'm not likely to pay $15 for one.

And my post #303 show the fallacy of that argument. And we are both the types of readers that will search out and purchase new releases of old works.

I mentioned Arthur C. Clarke and Thomas Tryon as they are both dead authors who have their work available via an e-book only company (Open Road Media) as opposed to one of the traditional publishers. Also, the cost of their e-books is higher than many of the 'resurrected in e-form' books I see.

It seems to be that the works of Frank Yerby and so many other forgotten writers likely aren't available because the rights holders just can't be bothered.

Incidentally, Open Road Media seems to specialize in this sort of thing. Maybe you could contact them and suggest a Frank Yerby revival? Open Road Media

[spindlegirl]

I choose e-books because overall, getting/reading the books has been less expensive for me, and I like carrying around hundreds of books in the palm of my hand.

[pwalker8]

Originally Posted by ZodWallop

Your own quote:



And my post #303 show the fallacy of that argument. And we are both the types of readers that will search out and purchase new releases of old works.

I mentioned Arthur C. Clarke and Thomas Tryon as they are both dead authors who have their work available via an e-book only company (Open Road Media) as opposed to one of the traditional publishers. Also, the cost of their e-books is higher than many of the 'resurrected in e-form' books I see.

It seems to be that the works of Frank Yerby and so many other forgotten writers likely aren't available because the rights holders just can't be bothered.

Incidentally, Open Road Media seems to specialize in this sort of thing. Maybe you could contact them and suggest a Frank Yerby revival? Open Road Media

In the case of orphaned works, i.e. books where the author has died and no one is actively making them available, it's frequently unclear who actually owns the ebook rights. Most of the time, the rights probably reverted back to the author and are thus part of the author's estate. However, in such situations, the heirs could be unaware that they have the copyrights for the books, or that the books even exist. Even if they are aware, it's probably not a money making venture for them.

Most people acknowledge that orphaned works is a flaw in the current copyright system. There have been many proposed solutions, but it's pretty hard to get anything done in that regard. My personal favorite is that after 27 years (the original copyright period in the US), if a work is not publicly available for a set time period, it goes into public domain. I've also seen the idea of a safe harbor where if you make a good faith effort to find the copyright holder, you can publish the work, but must deposit a set fee per book into a trust.

[Apache]

Wrong thread.
Apache

[darryl]

@Apache. Sounds interesting. Is your wife thinking of publishing it?

[Conan46]

Originally Posted by ZodWallop

Yeah, I've noticed somewhere around three bucks is the magic number for me. If a cover and synopsis sounds promising and the book is $2.99 or less, I'll buy the book without a sample and little more than a cursory glimpse at the reviews.

Also, I use Bing as my search engine and you accumulate points every time you do a search. One of the things you can turn points in for is a $5 credit at Amazon. It's not much, but I used it to (mostly) fund the purchase of my current Big 5 book, Shadowland.

For an author I know around $5 is a price I won't balk at, and I will go as high as $9.99 if it is a 'must-have' book, but that's my cut off for even well known authors. For unknown authors I must admit I don't buy many, and their best bet is to offer me a free copy and see if they can hook my interest. I'm wary of reviews as they have seldom paid off in the past. I mostly stick to known authors and find myself re-reading known authors and familiar books most of the time now.

[william z]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

Actually, eBooks do take physical storage space. A flash drive, a hard drive, a CD, a DVD, blu-ray, Reader, phone, tablet, etc are all physical. You have to have someplace to store your eBooks. And that place is physical.

But you can store thousands of ebooks on a memory card or flash drive smaller than your thumb. And since you probably already have a computer with a hard drive, e-reader, phone or tablet anyway, ebooks do not take up any extra space. How many bookshelves and how much space would it take for several thousand paper books?

[barryem]

Someone posted a picture a while back of woman putting her Kindle on her bookshelf which was filled with Kindles.

Of course ebooks take up space. A Kindle with 3000 ebooks on board is almost half the size of a smallish paperback. Memory cards, massive things that they are, are 2 or 3 times thicker than a postage stamp. I keep my books on a portable hard drive which is about 3" by 2" and nearly 1/2" thick. That's a huge amount of space for only 78,000 books. Of course my backup is on a thumb drive the size of a thumbnail.

Barry