Buying Books
Do you buy books? I've been through a couple of phases of my life when I did. From the late 70's when I had exhausted school libraries and had F&SF to guide me, I bought paperback Science Fiction. Chain bookstores were thriving and often would have all the volumes of a series - they kept stocking the early volumes as later ones came out. Then that ceased to be true, and there were some times when the price of a paperback just didn't fit my "spend nothing" budget. I moved on to the KC library, which for a while wasn't too bad about having a whole series. You often need to request them via ILL, but it's possible to follow an author - or it was, until a recent series where I found that while they had the first four books, they had one copy in trade paperback, and someone else was interested in them. We had a hold war for a while, then I gave up. There were times I went back to buying before the chain stores dried up and went away. Last I remember trade paperbacks were getting up around $5 - $6. In a desire to make sure I'd read all of Marrion Zimmer Bradley, I started buying her books on-line. Often a hardcover could be had for a few dollars, less than the cost of a new paperback. That stopped last time paychecks stopped, and I have not yet found an author I want enough to go that route with. I always feel a little guilty that the author doesn't get anything from me when I do that. Yeah, me buying gives the book residual value that helps justify the initial purchase which does pay the author, but still. I've had my Kindle for a year now, and have yet to buy a book. One of Marilyn's co-workers is sharing her fantasy collection with me, and between that and library books it hasn't come down to "buy new", and there aren't any used eBooks for sale on Amazon at bargain prices. I look at the prices of eBooks though - today I was reminded that I haven't read the latest Neal Stevenson, "Reamde", and went looking. $1!? What are trade paperbacks going for these days? Amazon shows $12.91, but then lists a low price (alternate vendor) of $5.99, which is what I would expect. I wouldn't object to trying eBooks for real. Amazon books sync to the Kindle, my Blackberry, and my computer, even "remembering" where I read last from device to device. Even with a comfortable income though, I can't bring myself to pay twice the retail price of a hardcopy book just to try it out. What do you think? What do you pay for books?
- posted by Jonathan Hutchins @ 1:58 PM