Got it, hate it

[CWatkinsNash]

Originally Posted by wvcherrybomb

Does doxylamine make you feel sleepy the next day? I take Ambien every night but sometimes run out because of taking two. I fill in the gaps with diphenhydramine but I hate the way I feel groggy from it in the morning.

I've had sleep onset insomnia for over 20 years. It got really bad about 7 years ago. I took Ambien for years - starting out, 1/2 of a 5mg pill worked great, by the end I was taking 20mg each night and still not going to sleep. (I used to leave myself post-it notes of what I watched on TV since I didn't remember anything - fortunately I was never one of those people who take it then eat or drive or whatever. I'm a boring zombie, apparently.) I switched to diphenhydramine, that worked for a while but not well. Now I take 10mg melatonin and 25mg doxylamine and it's working better than anything I've taken in years.

I don't think I feel groggy the next day compared to other things I've taken, but then you have to consider my quandary - if I don't get sleep I'm USELESS the next day, so what's groggy for you might be normal for me.

I have spent less on ebooks than I did on pbooks and I still buy some pbooks.

I was thinking about this after I saw that post. In my case, I am more likely to go ahead and buy something than I was with pbooks, but my threshold for price is lower so I'm not spending more.

[bhartman36]

Originally Posted by CWatkinsNash

I was thinking about this after I saw that post. In my case, I am more likely to go ahead and buy something than I was with pbooks, but my threshold for price is lower so I'm not spending more.

Could it be volume that makes the difference? Do you think more than twice the number of people will buy a book priced at $10 than would buy the same book priced at $20? That might be how the math works out for Amazon and/or the publisher in those cases.

[CWatkinsNash]

Originally Posted by bhartman36

Could it be volume that makes the difference? Do you think more than twice the number of people will buy a book priced at $10 than would buy the same book priced at $20? That might be how the math works out for Amazon and/or the publisher in those cases.

It really could make the difference, but not only in that sense. It could cause a long-term shift that does cause an individual person to spend more. If I use my anecdotal example of myself - if I set my budget at, say, $20, and I go to shopping on whatever website, I'm going to look for as much as I can squeeze out of that $20 while still getting stuff worth reading. Compared to the B&M store up the road with all the shiny paperbacks, I'm more likely with Amazon or B&N or Fictionwise to be able to find a decent variety within my constraints. This means taking chances on things I might have avoided before - new authors, series, etc. Successes there will lead to purchases in the future I might not have made at all otherwise, which could lead to me buying more books, rather than just different books.

It's already happening to me - I discovered Hannah Howell through a recommendation somewhere. I found one of her books at a better price than I would have shopping for paperbacks, so I bought it not really knowing if I would like her at all. I've since bought five more. Unless I give up my usual authors/genres (not likely), I'm going to eventually be consuming more books than I would have otherwise, and there will come a point where I end up spending more as a result. It's not much different than the way publishers would like freebies to work.

I'm ignoring the used paperback market completely in my example, because I've never bought much in that area. Most of the used books I've purchased are non-fiction hardbacks, and those I will probably continue to buy in pbook form unless I eventually upgrade to a bigger display capable of complex layouts.

[bhartman36]

Originally Posted by CWatkinsNash

I'm ignoring the used paperback market completely in my example, because I've never bought much in that area. Most of the used books I've purchased are non-fiction hardbacks, and those I will probably continue to buy in pbook form unless I eventually upgrade to a bigger display capable of complex layouts.

Used paperbacks are a consideration for me, but I think I just like the electronic format better. Before I got my Kindle, I would buy a few used paperbacks from Amazon at a time, and by the time I factored in shipping, I wasn't saving all that much on the deal.

[Pushka]

Originally Posted by DiapDealer

I don't think I believe this statement.
I don't feel strongly enough about it to get all mean and nasty, but I just don't buy it.
Why do you think this?

Hmm, I am not too sure. In the 12 months since I got my kindle, I have obtained, whether bought or freebie, over 500 books. And I am pretty sure I never bought that many dtb's in my life until then.

[Pushka]

Diphenhydramine - that is in Advil PM? We are not allowed Advil PM in Australia without a script, and I think they also use a slightly different derivative of it. But I have found this product to be brilliant when I found it on a recent trip to the USA

[KarenH]

Originally Posted by DiapDealer

I don't think I believe this statement.
I don't feel strongly enough about it to get all mean and nasty, but I just don't buy it.
Why do you think this?

I only have my own experience to go by, but I know I buy WAY more ebooks than I ever did paper books. I don't necessarily think I spend any more money, but the quote was about the number of books purchased not the amount of money spent.

[wvcherrybomb]

Originally Posted by Pushka

Hmm, I am not too sure. In the 12 months since I got my kindle, I have obtained, whether bought or freebie, over 500 books. And I am pretty sure I never bought that many dtb's in my life until then.

It is true that I have aquired an unreasonably huge amount of ebooks since I got my ereader. I wasn't counting most since they were free. My long term spending is yet to be seen. I expected it to be about the same, but that one click ordering is just so easy ....

Originally Posted by Pushka

Diphenhydramine - that is in Advil PM? We are not allowed Advil PM in Australia without a script, and I think they also use a slightly different derivative of it. But I have found this product to be brilliant when I found it on a recent trip to the USA

Yes, it's the same thing in all the "PM" meds here. Usually comes in 25mg in those but I buy it straight in 50 mg generic. It works well, I just can't wake up refreshed like with Ambien. You should have loaded up on it over here.

[lene1949]

Originally Posted by KarenH

I only have my own experience to go by, but I know I buy WAY more ebooks than I ever did paper books. I don't necessarily think I spend any more money, but the quote was about the number of books purchased not the amount of money spent.

Me, too... I have to stop!

[speedlever]

That is also my experience. Perhaps it's the newness of the Kindle. But I've never bought as many books before. In fact, I rarely buy them at all since I normally read once and am done. So the library has been my source of choice. Which made the library availability an important consideration in my choice of EBR... until I found out that the ebook collection didn't come close to the DTB collection.

My daughter is different. She loves to read and reread books. She buys a ton of books.

The K3 serves us both very well.

[DiapDealer]

I guess I just think that "heavy" readers are heavy readers, regardless of the medium, same goes for "medium" and "casual" readers and any other label you can think of. There's casual readers who own ereaders and hardcore readers who don't.

I bought a boatload of books when I was buying pbooks... and now I still buy a boatload of ebooks. I just don't think that owning an ereader = heavy reader (or purchaser)... especially with the prices we're now seeing for ereaders.

No big deal, I just don't think the theory that "owners of ereaders buy more books than readers of pbooks do" holds much water.

[DreamWriter]

I have always read a lot, but most of the pbooks I read were either borrowed from the library or obtained through a free book exchange that we have locally. So, I rarely purchased books, unless I wanted to keep one for future reference.

Although most of the ebooks that are on my Kindle were freebies, I have purchased more ebooks this last month than I had pbooks in a year. Generally, ebook prices are more affordable, there's no concern about my shelves overflowing with books, and I do enjoy the experience of reading on the Kindle.

[KarenH]

Originally Posted by DiapDealer

I guess I just think that "heavy" readers are heavy readers, regardless of the medium, same goes for "medium" and "casual" readers and any other label you can think of. There's casual readers who own ereaders and hardcore readers who don't.

I bought a boatload of books when I was buying pbooks... and now I still buy a boatload of ebooks. I just don't think that owning an ereader = heavy reader (or purchaser)... especially with the prices we're now seeing for ereaders.

No big deal, I just don't think the theory that "owners of ereaders buy more books than readers of pbooks do" holds much water.

For the most part I agree with with what you've said here, I just don't necessarily agree with your conclusion. I think that while there are casual readers who own ereaders, there are probably a lot more heavy readers that own them. Most of the casual readers that I know (other than the gadget geeks ) would be horrified at the though of spending over $100 for an ereader, whereas the heavy readers are more likely to feel like the cost is justified. Add that to the fact that I think that most of the time an individual who owns an ereader will tend to buy more books in ebook form than that same person would buy if they were only buying paper books, and I do think it's a reasonable extrapolation to say that in general, ebook readers buy more books than paper book readers.

Of course, this is all based entirely on my fairly limited observations and I could be totally wrong, but it makes sense to me!

[DiapDealer]

Originally Posted by KarenH

Of course, this is all based entirely on my fairly limited observations and I could be totally wrong, but it makes sense to me!

Same goes for me. I fully accept the risk that I could just be "full of it"

This is the part that I have trouble seeing as anything other than pure conjecture (not that there's anything wrong with that ):

Originally Posted by KarenH

Add that to the fact that I think that most of the time an individual who owns an ereader will tend to buy more books in ebook form than that same person would buy if they were only buying paper books

It could be true, but I'd need more than a few people -- on a mobile reader website -- saying; "me too" in order to be convinced of it.

[thorn]

when i posted my musing on the benefit of free books to amazon, i had the free classics in mind. but the freebies offered by the publishers probably give amazon more information about our reading tastes.

but amazon also knows which books among our amazon downloads we are actually *reading*. so now i'm thinking they might be learning more about my own tastes from what i download but don't read, than they would learn from my downloads alone.

this doesn't particularly bother me either. it does interest me, though.