Ebook Buying Addicts' Support Thread

[astrangerhere]

Originally Posted by pdurrant

I have decided to stop getting my usual SF and Fantasy magazines, i.e. Analog, Asimov's and F&SF. And the Grantville Gazette. It's a combination of events that have made be decide to stop.

I've missed getting an issue each of Analog & Asimov's, and electronic back issues don't seem to be available. My subscription for F&SF is now up for renewal (£29.99 for the year), as is my Grantville Gazette subscription (£27). Money is a bit tighter than usual just now.

And I have a massive backlog of other SF and Fantasy magazines (Interzone, Galaxy, Lightsource, Fantasy Magazine) that are unread.

And the fact that I prefer novel or even series length stories to short stories.

And the fact that I have over 900 books on my TBR.

It's a bit of a wrench from the completist side of me - I have Analog from January 2003, Asimov's from May 2003, F&SF from January 2002, and Grantville Gazettes from 1 to 88. But I don't think I'll actually miss reading them.

I used to get two newspapers and a handful of periodicals like that. I am down to no newspapers and only take the New Yorker and Lapham's Quarterly now.

[CRussel]

Originally Posted by Tarana

I started off with the just-in-time and then books in series started disappearing from Amazon. Then publishers. For some I can wait, but I'm working harder to complete series before they suddenly disappear. This is primarily British mystery writers. For instance, Cynthia Harrod-Eagles. I've been reading both Morland and Bill Slider series. No problem with Morland, but all the early Bill Slider books were taken off Amazon US earlier this year. Backlisted? Why would any publisher take off an active series? It's aggravating.

Most likely, the early ones disappeared from the US Kindle stores because the rights to them reverted to the author in the US. But the author has to re-create the eBook and republish it. Some are quick to do this, others are more focused on new books. And, FWIW, all the Bill Slider books are still available in the AmazonUK store. (And they are fairly inexpensive, in most cases.)

[BelleZora]

I'm finally in control again of buying special deals. My Oasis is now loaded up with books purchased in 2012-2014. When I feel the urge to browse for deals, I browse my ereader or Calibre instead. I appreciate Paul's suggestion to use 'read a random book' on Calibre. Using that tool, I just finished In the Heat of the Night purchased in 2012. I forgot I owned it. Browsing deals is a slippery slope.

[HLS]

Surprisingly I have not purchased much. i actually started to read book I bought a few years back but have not touched yet

[pdurrant]

Originally Posted by BelleZora

I appreciate Paul's suggestion to use 'read a random book' on Calibre.

Thanks! With a large TBR pile it's impossible to keep track of what one has.

I find the random book choice a pleasing way to 'choose'. I haven't had a pick yet that I didn't want to read. If I did get one, it would be a sign that the book should no longer be in my TBR pile!

[astrangerhere]

Originally Posted by pdurrant

Thanks! With a large TBR pile it's impossible to keep track of what one has.

I find the random book choice a pleasing way to 'choose'. I haven't had a pick yet that I didn't want to read. If I did get one, it would be a sign that the book should no longer be in my TBR pile!

I like switching Calibre over to the cover view and going shopping in my collection every now and then. I use it to refresh my available reading on my device.

[DrNefario]

I probably only have about 10% of my collection in Calibre, because I don't use it for Kindle books, so the randomiser's not much good for me. I could do the same with my google spreadsheet, though.

I haven't bought any books in August, but I don't want to jinx it by mentioning it here. Oops.

In fact I have borrowed every book I've read in August. This is mostly a result of me trying to read my Prime Reading books before my membership ends on Friday, but I decided to borrow another book from my local library system so I could make it a whole calendar month of loaners.

[astrangerhere]

Originally Posted by DrNefario

I probably only have about 10% of my collection in Calibre, because I don't use it for Kindle books, so the randomiser's not much good for me. I could do the same with my google spreadsheet, though.

I haven't bought any books in August, but I don't want to jinx it by mentioning it here. Oops.

In fact I have borrowed every book I've read in August. This is mostly a result of me trying to read my Prime Reading books before my membership ends on Friday, but I decided to borrow another book from my local library system so I could make it a whole calendar month of loaners.

You aren't concerned about losing your Kindle collection without pulling it down and running it through Calibre?

[pdurrant]

I love having all my books in calibre. Mind you, because I've been buying books for a long time, only about 25% of my books are from Amazon

(It's very roughly 25% Amazon, 25% Baen, 25% Fictionwise and 25% all the rest.)

[issybird]

Originally Posted by astrangerhere

You aren't concerned about losing your Kindle collection without pulling it down and running it through Calibre?

I don’t download my Kobo purchases and very few of my Kindle purchases (only if I really, really want to read it on a Kobo rather than with the Kindle app). In part, I’ve got lazy and I don’t want to spend the time, and in part because I figure those purchases are safe enough. I doubt either one is going down, much less going down without notice, and I’d like to think if there were to be a format change that made them inaccessible, there would be a heads up. If not, I’d cope.

Originally Posted by pdurrant

I love having all my books in calibre. Mind you, because I've been buying books for a long time, only about 25% of my books are from Amazon

(It's very roughly 25% Amazon, 25% Baen, 25% Fictionwise and 25% all the rest.)

My ebooks are overwhelmingly Kobo and Kindle, but that’s in part because all my Borders purchases and most of my Sony purchases ended up in Kobo. My next biggest subset is B&N, and all of my Fictionwise books made it there. I can’t hazard a guess about the rest, but it’s a tiny yet broad fraction and with rare exceptions so old at this point that I’ve either read the books or forgotten they’re there. And they’re all in Calibre anyway.

As for the randomizer, I keep a subset of about 250 books on my Aura One and pick from those. I admit my eyes glaze over oft-seen titles and I should probably do a refresh - it’s not as if I don’t have equally compelling reads in the cloud. I have smaller and slightly different collections on my other Kobos. My Mini, for example, which is my beach reader, has lighter fare.

[pdurrant]

A milestone! I've added 44 books to my TBR this year, but I've removed 133, over three times as many!

Mind you, 31 of those removed were discarded, rather than being read. The most recent were because I found out some unfortunate facts about an author. At least it's also removed some books from my wish list.

There are so many good books, I see no reason to read books by authors whose actions revolt me.

[mlewis78]

I do not put my Amazon-purchased books on Calibre either. I have a lot of non-Amazon books on there though. It's easy to view the Amazon books on digital purchases on my Amazon account. They also let us know there if there has been an update on each book. I barely remember how to move them to calibre. I think I'd have to plug my kindle to my laptop and put files on my hard drive.

[Rev. Bob]

Originally Posted by pdurrant

Mind you, 31 of those removed were discarded, rather than being read. The most recent were because I found out some unfortunate facts about an author. At least it's also removed some books from my wish list.

There are so many good books, I see no reason to read books by authors whose actions revolt me.

I get that viewpoint, but I generally go the other way. I'll stop buying, but tossing out the books I already have feels like the worst outcome... in that they got my money and I didn't get the entertainment.

It's like I'd be ripping myself off, y'know?

[pdurrant]

After waiting until the last day of the month, I've finally bought three books from Amazon's monthly deals. All three were on my wish list, and I waited a month to be certain I still wanted them. Definitely good buys.

That's 40 books in eight months. My lowest number of buys since I started recording them, I think. Helped by abandoning the bi-monthly SF/Fantasy magazines I used to get. I really do prefer longer fiction.

[Tarana]

I am doing much better controlling my audiobook buying. I am currently at the same number with which I started the year including the freebees. So doing much better there. Really plowed through a lot of those short stories and novellas that I never seemed to get to.

In ebooks, I'm still doing badly. I don't really regret any of the purchases or freebees with most being authors I've read. I'm 65 over the beginning of the year despite reading 48 of them. Sigh. Still working on it. No chance of getting to a 3 digit TBR is out this year. I am making headway in magazines I already have, but slowly.