Ebook Buying Addicts' Support Thread

[pdurrant]

Four books bought in March. Added two freebies. Only read 8, but that's still down two on the month. Not too bad.

[issybird]

Originally Posted by Tarana

March was a complete bash.

Right there with ya, unfortunately. I won’t go into all the gory details, but my major downfall was being able to stack a couple of offers at Amazon. At least it meant wishlist books that don’t go on sale, but the cold reality is that I don’t need more books. I do need to work through this year’s purchases, as a backward justification. I have reading goal issues now as well, but that’s for another thread.

I have exploding credit at both Amazon and Kobo that I need to use this month, but I hope not to spend much in the way of actual cash.

[Tarana]

Originally Posted by DNSB

If you have read all your books does it qualify as hoarding?

I'd count ebooks as hoarding only if a lot of them have not yet been read. Whether read or not, they take up little space (flash drive). If you haven't read them though, you've spent money and not yet benefited from that expenditure. So a lot of unread books would be e-hoarding. That's kindof the lot of most of us on this thread. I know I have over 1000 ebooks/audiobooks that have been paid for but not yet read/listened. Definitely a hoarder.

[ekbell]

I've been doing reasonably well with my ebook purchases, only bought one in March which I've enjoyed reading, but I also bought two image heavy paper books which has blown my book budget for at least half a year.

[DNSB]

For March, my total purchases were 84 books, add in a few freebies and I added 92 books to my library.

[Fbone]

No books purchased in March ... but ... I only read two library books. March was a wash.

[CAFlanny]

I didn't buy any books in March, but I already bought a book in April.

[pdurrant]

April was my downfall. 21 books bought. I couldn't resist an offer on the James Bond books, and some others.

But for once I don't regret a single one of the books. All good buys, books that I want to read, in due course.

And I'm still down 15 on the year. I expect the remaining months of 2022 will be more like Jan-March, rather than April.

[Roos]

Sigh, I had a good run, last month i only bought 3 books, as i had decided i needed to reduce my TBR pile (all pre-ordered stuff - sequels and such) and cheap parts one (around 1$) that was growing exponentially. the 3 i bought? Well the writers of some series do not seem to have a life, as they grind out sequels with a scary frequency So upon reading a sequel part that i had pre-ordered quite a while ago, i discovered that 2 new parts were already done and writen waiting to be bought, and as the series was quite good.....
My usual 'consumption rate' is around 300 books per year, so i should be able to chomp down my TBR pile to a manageable two digits long amount (is now somewhere around the 200)
It also proves to be a considerable freeing of funds, my CC was just 37,- instead of around the 200 mark :P
Now I can buy myself that Niche Zero i was pining for

Full disclosure: I also spend 2 weeks in and out of emergency rooms and hospital, not conductive for many book buying, so that helped a bit :S

[pdurrant]

You read around 300 books a year, and your TBR is currently at 200? That sounds about right to me. Perhaps 150 would be better, but less than a year's reading doesn't seem an unreasonable backlog.

But it's worth keeping an eye on, so that it doesn't get out of control. I have around 5 years reading in my TBR - definitely too much.

[Roos]

It was almost double that 2 years ago, so after pruning it down, i decided never to let it grow that large again. I like to keep it at around 75, that way it stays easy to oversee and handle, the amount i had now was just to unwieldy (on my kindle) because the library is sluggish as molasses on my 2018 version.

[pdurrant]

I manage my TBR in calibre, and only move things onto the kindle as I read them.

[Fbone]

April was so-so for me. Only bought one book on impulse (99c) but only read two (both library loans) not reducing my TBR any.

[DNSB]

April was a pretty decent month for me. 75 books purchased plus 6 library loans so a light month by my standards.

[ownedbycats]

Well I made the mistake of buying an ebook only to find out after reading the entire thing that it was public-domain and available on Gutenberg. Ah well.