Ebook Buying Addicts' Support Thread

[pdurrant]

Originally Posted by LDB

Do you count free ebooks in this or is it just if spending money is involved. I get free ones all the time and don't think anything about it. It's just when money is transferring I try to be very cautious.

Most of us feel that free books are more expensive in time than they're worth.

But whether you count them or not, it entirely up to you.

How many of the free books you've obtained have you read in the last year? How long did you spend 'buying' them, downloading them, adding them to calibre, updating metadata, etc? Time you could have spent reading books you've paid for!

[CWatkinsNash]

Originally Posted by issybird

Time to reset, like the sign in the hospital of days without falls. I’ve been there. Once you stop resisting that first purchase, the rest follow so naturally!

You're right. You know there was that voice in my head that said, "You've already blown October, may as well put off restraint till November..." but I resisted. I think I'm back on the right path. Not quite confident that I'm all the way there, but I'm at least thinking in the right direction.

Originally Posted by pdurrant

Issy's right, of course. Just re-read the first post, try to ignore the oh-so-tempting 'bargains', and resolve to do better from now on.

I admit I also fell off the wagon this month because of an offer from Amazon. I ended up buying 10 books by the 11th October! But no more since, and I hope to exit October with no more purchases.

You can do it too!

I bought 22 this month. That's about 4x what I've bought the entire rest of the year. It was ugly. And normally my purchases are almost all non-fiction, as I'd been very good about getting my fiction from the library or KU. Not this time.

Do you count free ebooks in this or is it just if spending money is involved. I get free ones all the time and don't think anything about it. It's just when money is transferring I try to be very cautious.

I don't count free books if I'm certain I would have wanted to purchase them anyway. I broke the "because it's free!" habit years ago (only after amassing hundreds I'll never read), and I've at least managed to maintain that.

[LDB]

Originally Posted by pdurrant

Most of us feel that free books are more expensive in time than they're worth.

But whether you count them or not, it entirely up to you.

How many of the free books you've obtained have you read in the last year? How long did you spend 'buying' them, downloading them, adding them to calibre, updating metadata, etc? Time you could have spent reading books you've paid for!

Hahaha, I don't know half of that. So very very little in time. I get a few emails every day with free and bargain books. I "buy" 2-3-4 free books a week probably. I read 1-2 books a week, not counting books I edit, many of the yearly total being the free ones. So my time investment is very small for each since I don't know or do the other stuff. Maybe I should learn about it and do it. I might like my reading even better.

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by pdurrant

840 added, but a TBR pile of only 3? How is this magic possible?

High reading speed and, probably, spending more time reading than most. I've also spent less time this year on re-reading though I've occasionally slipped like the week recently spent mostly on re-reading the Brother Cadfael series.

The last monthly Kobo Reading Life notice I received showed 137 hours reading and 88 books read.

Hmmm... If I took the time I spend on MobileRead and used it for reading instead...

[issybird]

Originally Posted by LDB

Hahaha, I don't know half of that. So very very little in time. I get a few emails every day with free and bargain books. I "buy" 2-3-4 free books a week probably. I read 1-2 books a week, not counting books I edit, many of the yearly total being the free ones. So my time investment is very small for each since I don't know or do the other stuff. Maybe I should learn about it and do it. I might like my reading even better.

Upthread, you mentioned having 4300 Kindle books, over 95% free. How can you navigate that without spending time curating it? One way or the other, it’s a time sink. If nothing else, you probably would benefit from being choosier up front and only acquiring books you really, truly see yourself reading in the next month or two. As it is, if you’re averaging reading 100 books a year, you’ve already got your next 43 years of reading, and that’s without “buying” any more books at all.

Eclutter is still clutter. You want to be able to see the trees and not just the forest.

[LDB]

Originally Posted by issybird

Upthread, you mentioned having 4300 Kindle books, over 95% free. How can you navigate that without spending time curating it? One way or the other, it’s a time sink. If nothing else, you probably would benefit from being choosier up front and only acquiring books you really, truly see yourself reading in the next month or two. As it is, if you’re averaging reading 100 books a year, you’ve already got your next 43 years of reading, and that’s without “buying” any more books at all.

Eclutter is still clutter. You want to be able to see the trees and not just the forest.

Yeah, it's a lot but there's a decade or so worth in there I've already read so it's not as many years reading as it seems. As far as curating, I pretty much don't. I deliver a few dozen to my Kindle and work my way through them, removing them as I go along. When I get down to just a few I go to manage c/d and go through and deliver a few dozen more. Yeah, I guess I might spend a half hour or so going through and choosing and delivering them but then I'm set for months. And I should pass on more buying but I'm a sucker for military history and novels, especially WWII era, so I get all of those every time.

[pdurrant]

Originally Posted by DNSB

High reading speed and, probably, spending more time reading than most. I've also spent less time this year on re-reading though I've occasionally slipped like the week recently spent mostly on re-reading the Brother Cadfael series.

The last monthly Kobo Reading Life notice I received showed 137 hours reading and 88 books read.

Hmmm... If I took the time I spend on MobileRead and used it for reading instead...

Wow. A speedy reader who spends lots of time reading. I suspect I'm in the top 1% of readers, I think you must be in the top 0.01%!

Do you really need to be in this thread? I would have thought you have the opposite problem - finding enough new stuff to read!

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by pdurrant

Wow. A speedy reader who spends lots of time reading. I suspect I'm in the top 1% of readers, I think you must be in the top 0.01%!

Do you really need to be in this thread? I would have thought you have the opposite problem - finding enough new stuff to read!

I read the books so I don't have the issue of that ever increasing TBR many suffer from. OTOH, that does not really eliminate the issue of buying those books. I can afford the cost of the purchases but I suspect that classifying me as a ebook buying addict might be closer to the truth that I would prefer.

[pdurrant]

Originally Posted by DNSB

I can afford the cost of the purchases but I suspect that classifying me as a ebook buying addict might be closer to the truth that I would prefer.

Fair enough. I certainly wouldn't want to turn away anyone in need of help or understanding.

And it's certainly worth bearing our suggestions in mind when considering purchases. Especially when you have a high level of purchases, and in particular the 'bung it on a wish list until it goes on offer' suggestion.

[Tarana]

October has been a problem so far. A number of my favorite authors have had books discounted. Even though I pay far less by waiting for a special, they do add up.

For free books, I do agree that they take up time curating. All I can say is BE SELECTIVE, particularly when you have a lot of unread bought books. I go so far as to put freebies by authors I have not yet read into a separate FREE library. I read roughly 6 books out of it a year and use that Random button in Calibre to pick.

[astrangerhere]

My local indie bookstore was featured in the New York Times two weeks ago under the headline Your Local Bookstore Wants You To Know That It's Struggling. I don't know how my little college town indie bookstore, Flyleaf Books, made it into the Times, but I hope it helps them stay afloat.

I feel better and better about our decision to buy at least a few books from them every week, as we have been doing since March. Many of them are buying old favorites and replacing copies that are worn out. I have also started brainstorming books to buy for everyone on my Christmas list.

This is not about addiction, as I have otherwise not really bought any ebooks since the pandemic began. But that bookstore has been so important to me and my wife that we will do all we can to keep its doors open.

[Apache]

Originally Posted by astrangerhere

My local indie bookstore was featured in the New York Times two weeks ago under the headline Your Local Bookstore Wants You To Know That It's Struggling. I don't know how my little college town indie bookstore, Flyleaf Books, made it into the Times, but I hope it helps them stay afloat.

I feel better and better about our decision to buy at least a few books from them every week, as we have been doing since March. Many of them are buying old favorites and replacing copies that are worn out. I have also started brainstorming books to buy for everyone on my Christmas list.

This is not about addiction, as I have otherwise not really bought any ebooks since the pandemic began. But that bookstore has been so important to me and my wife that we will do all we can to keep its doors open.

Unfortunately there aren't any independent bookstores where I live. The last one went out of business in the mid '80s after Books A Million opened. I used to love going into bookstores to browse through the shelves. I still miss it although I have not been in an actual bookstore in years. The last time I was in BAM's and B&N's they looked more like toy stores.
Apache

[Tarana]

The only independent bookstore I frequented burned in the riots. Likely won't be back (and in a different city) until 2022. With both the bookstore and the yarn shop gone, there really isn't any reason for me to go to Minneapolis any longer. I can't read paper books any longer, but still went to Uncle Hugo's to occasionally get a book to send in to convert to ereader.

[astrangerhere]

Originally Posted by Apache

Unfortunately there aren't any independent bookstores where I live. The last one went out of business in the mid '80s after Books A Million opened. I used to love going into bookstores to browse through the shelves. I still miss it although I have not been in an actual bookstore in years. The last time I was in BAM's and B&N's they looked more like toy stores.
Apache

Originally Posted by Tarana

The only independent bookstore I frequented burned in the riots. Likely won't be back (and in a different city) until 2022. With both the bookstore and the yarn shop gone, there really isn't any reason for me to go to Minneapolis any longer. I can't read paper books any longer, but still went to Uncle Hugo's to occasionally get a book to send in to convert to ereader.

I am lucky that our store also has an ebooks arm, so I can purchase ebooks through them as well.

[CRussel]

Originally Posted by astrangerhere

I am lucky that our store also has an ebooks arm, so I can purchase ebooks through them as well.

This is something I'd like to see a lot more of, and I don't understand why Kobo or other non-Amazon platform hasn't tapped that market. I won't read a dead tree book any more -- just not comfortable with them (old man's eyes). But I'd be happy to support a local independent bookstore that would sell me an eBook of the DT book I'd been browsing in their store.