B-b-b-buying spree! EBook vs. paper

[xg4bx]

I usually only go on sprees around this time of year with wish lists, my b-day, etc. I just bought 7 ebooks, I have some paperbacks on the way, and my parents/wife are getting me a bunch of PBs for Christmas. The rest of the year my purchasing habits are pretty average.

[Yapyap]

My last buying spree was getting 15 ebooks for my mother for €180 total (in the cheapest out of the three shops that sell ebooks in Estonian). :-/

I'd never spend that kind of money on my own books these days.

I don't think I've gone on a spree like that with ebooks for myself anyway, but that's rather because my ebook-buying is a constant, steady flow (318 books bought for myself this year so far for a total of $785 USD, average cost per book being $2.47). With paper books ... no, I wouldn't go on a spree like that, not even if I got a bunch of books free, because I just don't have the space. I have space for maybe 40 more books in my shelves (and no more space for more shelves) and I have to make some careful decisions about what to fill those spaces with.

[pwalker8]

35? Perhaps not, but I would regularly buy 10+ back in the days before Amazon when I had to go to the bookstore to buy them. My normal way of doing things was to go by the local SF&Mystery bookstore once a month and stock up. 15 books wasn't unusual, especially if I just discovered a new author who had a backlist.

I have been known to buy quite a few when an author makes his or her back list available at one time. I bought all of Glenn Cook's Black Company books at one time when they became available earlier this year. Same with Roberson's Sword Dancer series. I imagine that if any of the other big name SF writers' books become available in one fell swoop I could come close to that.

[elemenoP]

Many years ago I worked at an independent bookstore in Los Angeles. One day Whoopi Goldberg came in. She was shooting a movie in LA, had rented a house, and needed a library for her temporary house. She bought hundreds of books that day, many of them hardcover. Lest you think it was just "for looks," I will tell you: when she was asking for book recommendations, she had already read MANY of the books we recommended to her. She is a very serious reader. That was one of my best days at the bookstore!

I guess you can do that when you have unlimited space AND money!

As for me, if I ever had a "buying spree" it was like 3 books. Today I am hemming and hawing over a $1.99 Amazon ebook because I already bought one this week! It's not so much the money, as the fact that I am aware I am buying books faster than I can read them.

eP

[Catlady]

There were times in the past that I'd come back from a used book sale with a carton or two filled with books--probably at least fifty books. With e-books, I may have bought as many as five in one day, max, if there's a sale or a Kobo multi-use coupon.

[Crusader]

Yes to all the questions.

I'm still a huge fan of paper books, but this year has been the first one where I bought more ebooks than paper. The coupons just make the price difference too large to justify getting the print editions.

The only thing limiting my buying sprees at Kobo is that my CC company limits things to 7 purchases a day as a security measure.

[pdurrant]

I probably would not buy paperbacks even if they were on special offer in the same volume I've bought ebooks on special offer. I think it's the storage considerations more than anything else.

I think my biggest (non-free) one day spending spree was when Fictionwise first got (most of) the Agatha Christie books, and offered them with a 75% rebate, and you could pay with Micropay. I got 70+ of Agatha Christie's books for under $1 each.

[jersysman]

Mine would have had to be one of the Fictionwise sales also. I know I have bout between 30-50 books multiple times when they had the 75% off sale. I do MISS Fictionwise.

[pdurrant]

Originally Posted by elemenoP

It's not so much the money, as the fact that I am aware I am buying books faster than I can read them.

THIS! I've been trying for a year or three to reduce my TBR pile, and it's currently about 40 books bigger than it was at the start of the year....

[Synamon]

I read ~150 books a year; buying them one at a time is not practical so yes, I shop in sprees. I used to buy 20-30 books at a time from the used book pile at the library and I bought that many Ed McBain ebooks when they were on sale.

[PurpleStar]

I'm buying books faster than I can read them as well. With Kobo coupons plus Kindle deals and Baen bundles.(Diesel sales have hit my bank account too. lol) I can do it. With paperbacks, not so much. Unless I went on a shopping spree at the used book store. No way would I come out of there with so many books, though. I'd probably buy 5-10 books there at a time.

[Yapyap]

I just realised another reason (always there, just not one I generally give conscious thought to) for why I've never gone on a more than 5-6 book spree with paper books, not even back when I still had shelf space: the weight.

I don't have a car, and bookshopping means book-carrying (public transport + walking) - and so does getting them from the post-office for books bought online. Basically, when buying paper books, I've always limited myself to what I can still carry around in my arms in the bookshop while browsing, which pretty much means 5-6 books or so at the most.

[Sydney's Mom]

Originally Posted by BelleZora

Although I always had shelves of paper books, I was never tempted to hoard them because I couldn't stand clutter. Something about ebooks has freed my apparent inner hoarder. They are all neatly organized in Calibre. I just sorted them out, keeping only the ones I really want to read in the near future in my main library...739 books. Never would I have allowed myself that many paper books. I don't even want to mention how many books, mostly freebies and public domain, are in secondary Calibre libraries.

Still, as hobbies go, collecting ebooks on sale is not really terribly expensive or detrimental to health. Before buying my first ereader and discovering MR (and Calibre and Alf: responsible for making hoarding feel secure and joyful) I could not have imagined that I would own so many books.

Full disclosure: I buy many more full price ebooks than I ever bought paper books, preferring second hand book stores. I often regret that those wonderful shops lost my business.

The Calbre Virtual Library is a great enabler

[calvin-c]

Originally Posted by Catlady

There were times in the past that I'd come back from a used book sale with a carton or two filled with books--probably at least fifty books. With e-books, I may have bought as many as five in one day, max, if there's a sale or a Kobo multi-use coupon.

Can't find it now but I remember posting this somewhere. I see a tremendous difference between buying used pbooks vs ebooks. That difference is the ability to delay the purchase. eBook sellers essentially never run out of stock of any book. Used pbook sellers OTOH typically have very limited quantities of any particular book (often just the one copy) so if you don't buy all the books you might want when you see them then it might be a long time before you find them available again.

Cost never drives my purchase of quantities of pbooks but it does, sometimes, cause me to buy a quantity of ebooks. (I do take cost into consideration when buying pbooks, e.g. I never buy more than I can afford, but I never buy more because they're on sale, only because they're available.)

[soulfuldog]

My sprees are generally only ever at this time of year when I get some Amazon gift vouchers. I love buying 5 or even 6 books and not going over £10 in the one transaction! And no, I probably wouldn't do the same with paperbacks. Although I did once come home from a jumble sale with 15 books that I'd paid £2 for.....