Ebook Buying Addicts' Support Thread

[radbaddude]

Originally Posted by Apache

I just spent $9.99 on 1635: A Parcel of Rogues by Eric Flint and Andrew Dennis. It is not supposed to be out until January 5, 2016, but it was released early and I could not resist. I have already started reading it.
Apache

Are you also on CLR?

[issybird]

Originally Posted by Apache

I just spent $9.99 on 1635: A Parcel of Rogues by Eric Flint and Andrew Dennis. It is not supposed to be out until January 5, 2016, but it was released early and I could not resist. I have already started reading it.
Apache

By my philosophy, any book bought for immediate consumption passes muster (so long as food is still being put on the table). Others here are more puritanical , but I know I'd be in major funds if I had limited my buying to "on-demand, price be damned."

[Apache]

Originally Posted by radbaddude

Are you also on CLR?

Yes.
Apache

[pdurrant]

Originally Posted by issybird

I know I'd be in major funds if I had limited my buying to "on-demand, price be damned."

I wouldn't! Of course, I'd be in major funds if I had a somewhat smaller TBR pile. (I estimate my TBR pile is around £1000* of unread (so far!) ebooks. I could give an exact figure if I was at my computer with my calibre database on it.)



*cost price. Current retail price would be much more, since many were bought in special offers.

[pdurrant]

Originally Posted by pdurrant

I estimate my TBR pile is around £1000* of unread (so far!) ebooks. I could give an exact figure if I was at my computer with my calibre database on it.

I'm at my computer. Less than I'd thought. 'Just' £910.36, or about three times my current budget

[Tarana]

I'm at my computer. Less than I'd thought. 'Just' £910.36, or about three times my current budget

You are a very fast reader, so while you have a large collection, you would get through that very fast. I have over 500 audiobooks (includes short stories) at Audible, and more than half have never been listened to. This is mostly because of the fabulous deals last year but still. I had quite a bit a restraint for the recent 50% off sale. I bought 3 radio programs and 2 books on my wishlist. I've already listened to 2 of the radio programs.

[pdurrant]

I have made a tactical error. The Amazon 'no-rush' credits this Christmas were so good in the UK (£3 credit for ebooks!) that I may have overdone things.

I now have slightly over £150 in credits, to be spent by 15th February (some by 31st January).

Yes, this means I made over 50 orders from Amazon in the past month, costing £450. Mostly presents and things I would have bought anyway in the next couple of months. Hmm... 1/3 back for ebooks. Not too bad at all.

But it does mean that I'm going to have a massive spending spree, and then spend nothing for the rest of the year. An interesting challenge! Clearly my average book cost is going to go up, since I won't be able to wait very long for bargains. Equally clearly, my 'want to read it now' ratio is going to be quite high - lots of books that I've been waiting for the price to drop when the paperback comes out, or they go on special offer, are now in my sights!

Although I shall probably resist the Dumarest books. I still think they're overpriced if buying them all. But I shall certainly start working on a list....

[Apache]

Originally Posted by pdurrant

I have made a tactical error. The Amazon 'no-rush' credits this Christmas were so good in the UK (£3 credit for ebooks!) that I may have overdone things.

I now have slightly over £150 in credits, to be spent by 15th February (some by 31st January).

Yes, this means I made over 50 orders from Amazon in the past month, costing £450. Mostly presents and things I would have bought anyway in the next couple of months. Hmm... 1/3 back for ebooks. Not too bad at all.

But it does mean that I'm going to have a massive spending spree, and then spend nothing for the rest of the year. An interesting challenge! Clearly my average book cost is going to go up, since I won't be able to wait very long for bargains. Equally clearly, my 'want to read it now' ratio is going to be quite high - lots of books that I've been waiting for the price to drop when the paperback comes out, or they go on special offer, are now in my sights!

Although I shall probably resist the Dumarest books. I still think they're overpriced if buying them all. But I shall certainly start working on a list....

I would think that eBook credits for buying something that you would have bought anyway would not count against your book buying budget for 2016. Much the same way free books do not count when tallying your eBook buying in the eBook Buying Addicts' Support Thread.
Apache

[pdurrant]

Originally Posted by Apache

I would think that eBook credits for buying something that you would have bought anyway would not count against your book buying budget for 2016. Much the same way free books do not count when tallying your eBook buying in the eBook Buying Addicts' Support Thread.
Apache

I'm doing my best not to count savings twice. I count the £3 credit as money off the thing bought, so I can't count it as getting free ebooks as well.

I hear that there's one MobileRead member who counts the credit three times

1. Money off the thing bought
2. Free ebooks
3. Offset against the cost of prime membership

[issybird]

Originally Posted by pdurrant

I'm doing my best not to count savings twice. I count the £3 credit as money off the thing bought, so I can't count it as getting free ebooks as well.

I hear that there's one MobileRead member who counts the credit three times

1. Money off the thing bought
2. Free ebooks
3. Offset against the cost of prime membership

I'm shocked, shocked to hear of such outrageous behavior!

[murg]

Originally Posted by pdurrant

I'm doing my best not to count savings twice. I count the £3 credit as money off the thing bought, so I can't count it as getting free ebooks as well.

I hear that there's one MobileRead member who counts the credit three times

1. Money off the thing bought
2. Free ebooks
3. Offset against the cost of prime membership

Ben Franklin said: "A penny saved is a penny earned".

So go ahead, count it twice.

After all, the first two events are unrelated (it's not like you're getting a credit for purchasing ebooks only). And airline frequent flyer programs work this way, you consider the free flight (or upgrade or...) to have some value.

And, number 3 above is just a way of accounting for the Prime membership. Since I'm out of the US, I don't have the luxury of streaming Amazon video (yes, I have a VPN but the speeds are too slow), so I have to see if my Prime membership cost lives up to the value, especially as I got the membership for 'free' as part of buying the Fire Phone so, oh so, cheaply.

[Rev. Bob]

So I fell off the wagon a bit yesterday...

The ending-real-soon Humble Bundle for Boom Comics had a few things that interested me (RoboCop, Steed and Peel, Irredeemable, a Cthulhu omnibus), so I took the plunge at the full $15 level - then did so two more times as add-on gifts for two friends. So there's $45, but only $15 on myself.

The bigger deal was that I've been building up a sizable amount of Viggle reward points. Their movie/TV store went away "temporarily" earlier this month, they seldom have any gift cards available, and the company's being acquired by another reward-oriented company. I've been wondering if the ebook store would go away soon, and yesterday I decided not to risk it. I cashed in about a month's worth of points for 18 books I had on my watch list. I've been estimating their ebook pricing at roughly 3000 points to the dollar, which would translate to cashing in about $137. That's a bit loose, though; I think their gift cards have a different exchange rate.

I'm not really bothered by dumping that many points, though. I still have over three million banked...

[pdurrant]

As I understand it, your Viggle reward points are essentially free. I wouldn't worry about those.

And a humble bundle is a great deal if you really want the books.

I'm currently looking at buying a few more books at Amazon before the end of the year to 'use up' my 2015 budget. But I'll probably leave any purchases until the 31st.

I wouldn't normally do this, but at the moment I have a lot of Amazon credits that will expire at the end of January. I might as well use as many as I can this year without going over budget.

[issybird]

OK, here's my year-end wrap-up.

I started the year having resolved to average only one ebook purchase per week during the year. I really struggled with this the first few weeks, as I had to break my habit of seeing a book I wanted and then looking out the cheapest way to get it. But after eight weeks, IIRC, I had bought only two books and I was feeling good. Then a 90% off Kobo sale happened and that was the end of that. I have a long-term goal of reading all of Wodehouse and I took the opportunity to buy everything I could that I didn't already own. That essentially destroyed reaching my goal on the year.

Oddly enough, I still count the year as a great success, because, in fact, I conquered my habit of "see, want, buy." If I have a terrific Kobo coupon, I treat myself to a book off my wishlist and I use no-rush shipping credits to indulge on occasion, but I've reset my ebook gluttony to the point where I add books to a wishlist and move on. Moreover, I've gotten much better at internalizing the reality that I have many years' worth of reading and that I'll never be able to read everything I'd like.

This was a lengthy way of saying that I'm not going to bother with an ebook-buying goal for 2016. I think one reason it was so totally out of hand was that there was no physical component. Now that I've ebooks under control, my 2016 focus is going to be on not buying pbooks, which do have that physical element. I've continued to buy pbooks since some books I want to read aren't available as ebooks and there's that aspect where since I can't get a book on demand, I want to have it on hand when the mood strikes. But the reality is that once purchased, my pbooks languish; I just prefer reading ebooks. So, my 2016 resolution is not to buy any pbooks for the first six months of the year (I'm afraid to make it a year-long goal.) I'll reassess in July. I hope Paul won't mind if I use this thread on occasion as a goad.

Thank you, Paul, for a great thread. It's helped me enormously.

[pdurrant]

I've just bought my last books of the year, using my remaining budget (with no-rush credits), and ending the year with 254 books bought for £299.94 (under budget: £300) at an average cost of just over £1.18.

It's a tougher challenge next year. Firstly, I'd reducing my budget to £240, and secondly because I have £145.83 in promotional balance to use before the end of Jan/middle of Feb.

But I might not spend it all on ebooks! I've realised I can also use it to buy movies, so I might spring for some movies to watch through the year as well, which will certainly help my ebook budget. (We just watched Inside Out using some credits, and very good it was too.)