Ebook Buying Addicts' Support Thread

[seanyyz]

Personally I'm dreading the Booker long list that comes out late July (the short list is even worse in the fall. There are always some great books on there every year and I always feel obligated.

It's a fiction thing. If you aren't familiar with it it is a prize that is quite high profile in literary fiction especially outside the US. I think it was originally created in response to the Pulitzer and National Book Award since it used to exclude American authors. Now it is for any book published during a given year in Great Britain that was originally written in English regardless of nationality of the author. There is also a separate prize for books written in languages other than English called the Man Booker International prize.

Some years are easier than others if the judges pick books that seem like duds but other years are a lot more work (and pleasure)) when they have found a bunch of great books.

So I have the top 10 on my TBR to try and get through before then.

[issybird]

Originally Posted by LadyKate

Ok now I am wondering if it is the numbers of the freebie books that bother you? I suggest just putting those freebies into calibre and making notes on them. They only take a couple of k or meg so are not going to be much of a bother on your computer.

There are three issues with freebies, as I see it.

The first is sheer numbers. The more freebies, the harder it will be to know what you've got and to find something you'd like to read. This is not to pick on the poster upthread, but close to 6000 freebies is absurd. Even if you read a book a day, that's over 15 years' worth of reading, assuming you acquire nothing else in the interim.

The next issue is time. To make those freebies useful, you've got to add metadata, tag them, annotate them. The more freebies, the more granular the sorting has to be. This takes time, and why spend it on books that won't be read? Freebies aren't free if your time has a value.

The third reason is that most freebies are absolute and total junk. Why bother, especially given points one and two?

I'm not saying there isn't a point to a carefully curated collection of freebies according to your druthers and standards, but discernment up front is a necessity. Unfortunately, 6000 freebies is a probably a lost cause; it could never be worth the time to go through them, one by one, researching each to find out why it appealed in the first place. At most it's worth making one quick pass for the absolute cream and then drawing a line under them. And learning your lesson.

[DrNefario]

And if the freebies are regularly or permanently free, there's no real reason why they need to be in your collection now.

[peachiekene]

Originally Posted by Anabella

and what's bad about buying ebooks? Aren't you reading them?

Nothing. Some of us just buy more than we can read in a reasonable amount of time - which is what the thread it for.

[seanyyz]

I finished the 866 page nightmare I was reading and in response bought two books! A biography of RFK by Kenneth Tye and a novel to be discussed by The NY Times Big City Book Club at the end of the month. One step forward and two steps back.

[Tarana]

Paul, deleting the freebees in Amazon takes time. Consider listening to an audio book while doing so. At least you won't feel like you were wasting time!

I plan to do a major freebees cull in June (just over 1000 with plan to cut in half or better). I almost never cook from these cookbooks I've collected, so they should go. The recent loss of another family member also means I only need to save books that interest me as my Mom happily selects from what I like. I have been surprised of late. Quite a few suspense and SciFi freebees are established authors with audio books of those selections. Those ones I've held off deleting from my Amazon account because i might get the $1.99 audiobook. Choices, choices.

[pdurrant]

I'm pleased to say I had a good May. Only 8 books bought. Although I must admit that I somewhat regret the Baen Bundle as bundle, as two of the six books that I thought I was going to enjoy didn't work for me. Perhaps it would have been better to only buy the ones I really, really wanted, even at the same cost.

Let's see if I can buy even fewer in June than in May. I don't fancy anything in the June Baen bundle, so that should help.

On TBR reduction, May was also good. 17 (possibly 18) books finished this month, including six I rated 5/5.

[DrNefario]

I have managed to gain ground in May, too, despite spending most of the month on one book (the 1100-page Ash: A Secret History by Mary Gentle), and some early purchases. A few short books at the end of the month, and my extra-curricular short stories and non-fiction have helped me recover the lost ground. I should finish another anthology today, too.

I'm most pleased about resisting the Hugo packet (I think it would still work out cheaper to buy the individual books I want) and that Nebula Humble Bundle, which both would have devastated my TBR.

[pdurrant]

I feel that the Hugo Packet is 'cheating' - the authors see none of the money. But perhaps the chance of gaining your votes for their work is sufficient reward.

I'm resisting bundles as much as I can. It would have to be something really special to tempt me now. The Nebula bundle didn't get there.

[astrangerhere]

I bought only one book - Murakami's new collection of short stories. It helps that summer is one of my busiest teaching times, so I am less likely to shop. I usually spend May and June just trying to scrounge together my reading time every day.

[DrNefario]

Originally Posted by pdurrant

I feel that the Hugo Packet is 'cheating' - the authors see none of the money. But perhaps the chance of gaining your votes for their work is sufficient reward.

Looking at the Hugo Packet as a "purchase" is kind of problematic, yes, but I would definitely add everything applicable to my TBR, and I tend to account for it by dividing the supporting membership between everything, even if that's not necessarily (or wholly) why I've taken the membership.

Originally Posted by pdurrant

I'm resisting bundles as much as I can. It would have to be something really special to tempt me now. The Nebula bundle didn't get there.

I've noticed that the bundles tend to fill themselves out with short story collections and anthologies, which I don't mind getting* but don't seek out, and the number of items I would really pay for is fairly small. I tend to go through the list and see how many books I would be willing to pay 99p for, and it's usually not very many. B-list books I'm kind of half interested in are no longer enough.


*Since I am reading a short story every day, I can crunch through quite a few collections without really worrying about it. That said, I have cleared quite a lot of my backlog now, and will probably stop this exercise at the end of this year.

[Fbone]

Purchased one book in May ($0.42) but only read two.

[issybird]

I'd like to have done better in May.

I bought four books, one a wishlist book with a 50% Kobo coupon that did work, but the other three were books where the sale price created the want. I'm not exactly sorry, but I've got to nip this tendency in the bud. My outlay was trivial, since the three Amazon books were bought with credit. Year to date, I've spent $14.25 on 12 books; last year at this time I'd spent $76.50 on 25 books, so I'm doing far better, just not as much better as I was doing earlier in the year.

I must hold the thought that if I'm not likely to get to a book this year (as with my Amazon bargains), I have to give it a pass. Last summer was when I went totally off the rails, so I have to redouble my efforts to make sure it doesn't happen again.

[pdurrant]

Although I did better in May (I've read all the books I bought in May), I still have fourteen books I've bought this year that I haven't yet read. So I really do need to stop buying!

[MikeB1972]

Originally Posted by pdurrant

I feel that the Hugo Packet is 'cheating' - the authors see none of the money. But perhaps the chance of gaining your votes for their work is sufficient reward.

I'm resisting bundles as much as I can. It would have to be something really special to tempt me now. The Nebula bundle didn't get there.

The authors/publishers choose to put their work in it or not - so I have no problem with it.

On a related note, I'm really not liking the Charlie Jane Anders book so far.