Free update to newer eBook edition

[route66]

Hello,

I purchased an eBook (textbook) last year, (it was written in 2004) - spent a good £20something on it, only to now find out there is a new 2015 edition out!

The edition i have is very out of date now - is it possible to get some discount towards the newer edition that you know of?

Thanks

[susan_cassidy]

No, there isn't.

[loco]

you can maybe contact the seller/publisher and let them know that you are a student and cannot afford to invest in every new edition. make a good case and i'll wager my coin on you getting the new edition for free

[Mike L]

Actually, you can sometimes get free or nominally-priced updates.

Go to the "Manage Your Content and Devices" section of the Amazon site. Then go to "Your Content", and find the book in question. Look for a button to the right labelled "Update Available". If it is present, click on it, and your old edition will be automatically updated.

Mike

[susan_cassidy]

That is never done for new editions of textbooks, only for editing/formatting updates.

[HarryT]

I generally get anywhere between 1 and half a dozen book updates each week from Amazon, but, as mentioned, these are almost always corrected versions of novels, not textbooks (although I do have one book on digital photography that seems to get regular updates). You're out of luck when it comes to textbooks; if you bought the paper textbook would you expect the publisher to give you the new edition free or at a discount?

[shalym]

Originally Posted by HarryT

I generally get anywhere between 1 and half a dozen book updates each week from Amazon, but, as mentioned, these are almost always corrected versions of novels, not textbooks (although I do have one book on digital photography that seems to get regular updates). You're out of luck when it comes to textbooks; if you bought the paper textbook would you expect the publisher to give you the new edition free or at a discount?

If you buy the paper textbook you can sell it back to the store to get money towards purchasing the new version. You can't do that with the digital version.

Shari

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by shalym

If you buy the paper textbook you can sell it back to the store to get money towards purchasing the new version.

Can you really do that with an out-of-date textbook? Who would want to buy it?

You probably paid significantly less for the ebook than the paper book, so that at least partially mitigates the fact that you can't re-sell it.

[Dexmaster]

Originally Posted by HarryT

Can you really do that with an out-of-date textbook? Who would want to buy it?

Out-of-date textbooks on most subjects are still good textbooks (except something really fast moving like programming) so you probably can sell them even if you have to lower a price a lot.

Originally Posted by HarryT

You probably paid significantly less for the ebook than the paper book, so that at least partially mitigates the fact that you can't re-sell it.

If he spent £20 on it I won't be so sure. Also more often than not paperbacks(softcover) books are as cheep as ebooks. (for example one of my favourite writers Jim Butcher last book in Paperback is 3$ cheaper than Kindle version http://goo.gl/wEI6V3)

I read a lot, and travel while reading so I use ebooks, but even softcover books are more appealing to read and look better on a real bookshelf than more ebooks on a website.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by Dexmaster

I read a lot, and travel while reading so I use ebooks, but even softcover books are more appealing to read and look better on a real bookshelf than more ebooks on a website.

Not if it would mean buying a larger house to store them, which is the position I was in a few years ago, when I had double-stacked bookshelves on every available wall.

[Dexmaster]

That's like saying don't read, your apartment won't take it.

If people read really a lot (like 100+ books a year), if you are renting small apartment or if you often change places, then and only then ebooks might be better, but I would have still bought some hard/softcovers for the best books I read.

[Dexmaster]

Harry, you could have also donated some of the books you disliked or had no need of to some charity program (like betterworldbooks).

[HarryT]

There are some books I buy as paper books. Some because I have to (books for my Egyptology degree which aren't available as ebooks) and others because they're better as paper books (large-format books with high-quality photographs in, for example), but for novels (which used to be what 95% of my paper books were) I see no benefit at all of paper books. Ebooks are better in every way for novels.

[shalym]

Originally Posted by HarryT

Can you really do that with an out-of-date textbook? Who would want to buy it?

You probably paid significantly less for the ebook than the paper book, so that at least partially mitigates the fact that you can't re-sell it.

Yes--College bookstores will usually buy back textbooks at the end of the semester, and the books don't necessarily have to have been purchased for that semester. My daughter found a book that she had purchased her freshman year and was able to sell it back this past January (her freshman year was 5 years ago--she's now working towards her Master's degree at the same university)

Shari

[Dexmaster]

I was just stating that two points you mentioned are often not true.

And my ideas contradicting yours were that:
1) softcover books are often cheaper than ebooks;
2) you can sell even out-of-date textbook on most subjects(if it's not an ebook).

Also it's a good choice, as I see you read a lot, so in your case you buy only something you'd like to have a physical copy of, or that are not sold in ebook format.

As I know a lot of my friends read only less than 10 books a year, so they need at least few decades to fill their house. For them I would have suggested using hard copies. Gadgets like ebook readers are great and small, but they are more needed for travel, heavy readers or big amounts of stored books, and not for simple weekend readers.