Do you still buy physical books?

[Sirtel]

Originally Posted by RodRiquez

I still buy paper books.
In fact I dont buy ANY ebooks, at all, I only use ones I can get for free (by any means) which means I use Gutenberg a lot.

In the past 20 years I been burned so many times by digital content being taken away, that I don't purchase any digital content now unless I can download it & keep the files with no DRM.

Its already happened to me on Kobo where I got a book from the store & its since been removed from the store & auto-deleted from my device. I didnt even get around to reading it.

That's why it's a good idea to remove the DRM immediately after buying. I've bought thousands of ebooks in the past 15 years and have not lost a single one. They all reside in my calibre library, of which I have multiple backups.

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by RodRiquez

Its already happened to me on Kobo where I got a book from the store & its since been removed from the store & auto-deleted from my device. I didnt even get around to reading it.

Do you happen to remember that title/author of that book? I currently have about 30 books in my collection which were purchased from Kobo and are no longer for sale. They still show in Books and I can download a new copy from Kobo. Much the same with ~10 books purchased from Baen. You can't purchase the book but if you purchased it while Baen was selling it, you can still download it.

[RodRiquez]

Originally Posted by DNSB

Do you happen to remember that title/author of that book? I currently have about 30 books in my collection which were purchased from Kobo and are no longer for sale. They still show in Books and I can download a new copy from Kobo. Much the same with ~10 books purchased from Baen. You can't purchase the book but if you purchased it while Baen was selling it, you can still download it.

Yes. It still shows on my Clara & there's a download button, but it wont download.
On the Kobo web store it also shows in my account but links to a 404 page.
"Algernon Blackwood: John Silence, Physician Extraordinary"

[ownedbycats]

Originally Posted by RodRiquez

Yes. It still shows on my Clara & there's a download button, but it wont download.
On the Kobo web store it also shows in my account but links to a 404 page.
"Algernon Blackwood: John Silence, Physician Extraordinary"

Go to the website (browser), then My Account > Books.



Does this wrok?

[Graham44]

I don't buy physical books anymore, I have this slight problem that once I buy a book I can not part with it (even if I dont really like it ) and as I have just over 470ish books sitting on my shelves at the moment I dare not buy anymore lol

Obviously I still read the books I have, in fact I'm giving my Kindle a rest right now as I'm reading a physical Richard Laymon duology(?), Darkness tell us and One rainy night

[HLS]

I think i got it out of my system, my physical book buying addiction. i still have not read the ones i purchased last black friday lol

[HLS]

Originally Posted by DJUNGELSKOG

I’m wondering if it’s just me or is the font size in many paper books also a problem for other people.

I don’t have presbyopia yet, but I just can’t read books if the font size is too small. I’m normally using size 28 or 30 in Koreader (it’s not even THAT large) and using a smaller font makes my eyes hurt. I’ve tried to adjust with no luck.

If it was just me then no one would buy books with smaller font sizes (for example mass-market paperbacks) but I can’t be the only one with this problem, right?

yes the font plays a role in weather il buy it or not

[crimson]

I don't like physical books due to 1) space limitations; 2) I don't want to see them yellowing; 3) I don't know how to get rid of my books when I'm done with them. I doubt anyone in this country wants books in languages that they can't read, so the only way to get rid of them is to throw them out, which I don't want.

And yet, I cannot buy e-books from other regions due to region lock (which is so unnecessary IMO), and a lot of the titles aren't available in EPUB. Looking at you, Japan!
So, I am stuck with buying physical books.

[chrisread67]

Originally Posted by HLS

Do you still buy physical books? Until yesterday, since 2010 I bought only 1 physical book and that is only because my favorite author responded to my email and sent me a signed bookplate so I got the physical book for the book plate. It was Red Window by Alma Katsu.

Yesterday I had an urge to go to Barnes and Noble and buy books. I purchased H.P. Lovecrafts Complete Fiction(B&N Collectible Edition), Hurricane Wars( B&N Exclusive Edition), A Court of Thorns and Roses, and Starling House( B&N Exclusive Edition). I am kinda excited to read an actual real book. I never realized how bad my eyesight is trying to read the small print. Good thing I have a strong pair of reading glasses on hand. Not sure why I bought these, I guess I kinda need a change of pace with my reading.

yes, physical buying and reading gives separate kind of satisfaction, recently bought 'home' and 'climate' by whitney hanson.

[Lsantiago7859]

Yes, I stopped buying physical books in 2008 when I got my first Sony PRS-600.

[Snorre]

Yes I do. Actually I only buy physical books.

I buy new books and also a lot of second hand books, I'm quite found of physical books.
I like the feel to hold a real book and go through it page after page, I also like to write notes in the margins sometimes. Looking back at the bookcases gives a good feel for the worn and aged books I have read that is different from looking at the faceless digital devices holding my digital library, which also is quite good but not the same.

I think that without physical books, something would be missing in the home, how do you pure digital readers feel about that? Do you miss the physicals sometimes?

I must admit though that some books end up only being bought to satisfy my greedy collecting/archive/hoarding needs.

Last book I bought new was two weeks ago.


Digital books often have DRM, I'm not funding that unless I really have to, which have not occurred yet.
Sometimes I buy the physical but end up reading it digitally for different reasons.
Sometimes I read it digitally and buy the physical afterwards if it was good.


Physical books do have a value digital don't have: resell value on the second hand and collectors market.
And you can borrow them out or give them away if you wish.

[Sirtel]

I don't miss physical books, but I still have quite a lot of them, the vast majority of them bought 15 and more years ago. I no longer buy or read paper books unless I absolutely have to.

If I want to admire my library, I no longer gaze at my physical bookshelves; I don't look at my "faceless" Kobos either. I look at my ebook library in Calibre, which holds all the ebooks I've ever bought or downloaded - much, much more than I ever bought paper books. I can look at them as a list or as a shelf with covers, whichever I prefer at the moment. And I vastly prefer all the various sorting and searching options in Calibre to the very limited sorting options of paper books.

As to the DRM, that gets stripped immediately after purchase, so no ebook of mine is infested with it.

[shanghaichica]

No. I got my first eink device in 2010 and I have only bought 3 physical books since that time. The last one I bought was in 2019.

[issybird]

Originally Posted by shanghaichica

No. I got my first eink device in 2010 and I have only bought 3 physical books since that time. The last one I bought was in 2019.

The last one I bought was in 2016. Now, if my only alternative is a paper book, I borrow it from the library. And if I can't borrow it, I do without. It's not as if I'll ever be able to read everything I'd like to anyway.

[SeaBookGuy]

In some cases, there is no electronic version of a book. So, I'll buy a print copy if the price seems okay; also, sometimes a used copy in decent shape is cheaper than the ebook. One of the last paper books I bought (in Spanish) was at the airport in Paraguay to use up leftover banknotes!