Reading Digital Ebooks

socialleper

socialleper

Bringer of doom and top shelf beer
Supporting Member
May 31, 2009
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Canyon Country, CA
#1
What services, apps, and stores do my fellow TBers use for reading digital ebooks?

The long march towards digital everything hasn't just put a ding in physical music, but physical books as well.
For a long time I was "real book" only kinda guy, but unlike CDs, there isn't the convenience of being able to have both a physical and digital copy of a book. In the last couple of years I've starting seeing the advantages of ebooks. It is easier to read on my lunch break because I don't have to hold it, I can have dozens of books on my little tablet, and I don't have to have books stacked up all over the house (which my wife loves.)
I've mostly been using Amazon Kindle books, or digital formats like epub\mobi that I procure via questionable means from the interwebs. I want to go more legit, but I don't like giving Amazon my money for a proprietary format that I don't even really own after paying for it.
 
#2
I've been buying Kindle books and reading them on my phone and iPad for years. I never had an actual Kindle. 90% of the time I'm reading on my pixel 2 xl with white letters and a black background with no eye strain.
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#3
I have no problem paying Amazon for my e-books. Been using my Kindles since 2012, and have read around 400 books since then (about one a week). As far as 'owning' them, I think in my entire lifetime of being an avid reader, there may have been 4-5 books I've ever re-read, so that aspect of 'ownership' doesn't mean much to me.

I switched over to Kindle Unlimited about two years ago, and for $10 a month, I can download and read as many as I can. Sure, you don't get access to the latest bestsellers from big-name authors, but there are thousands and thousands of good reads to choose from. No complaints here.
 
#8
dwm74 said:
As far as 'owning' them, I think in my entire lifetime of being an avid reader, there may have been 4-5 books I've ever re-read, so that aspect of 'ownership' doesn't mean much to me.
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My objection is more about paying the same price as a paperback to only borrow the rights to read the book. If i'm spending that kind of money, I should be owning something. It is kind of a principle thing for me.
Plus, I am trying to find other places to spend my money than Amazon.
 
#9
socialleper said:
My objection is more about paying the same price as a paperback to only borrow the rights to read the book. If i'm spending that kind of money, I should be owning something. It is kind of a principle thing for me.
Plus, I am trying to find other places to spend my money than Amazon.
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What do you mean by borrowing the rights?
 
#10
Gorn said:
What do you mean by borrowing the rights?
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You don't own a copy of the book to use as you see fit. You are essentially renting the right to read it on Amazon's service. If they go under, the book vanishes. If they eliminate it from their roster, the book vanishes. There is nothing perpetual about it as everything digital could vanish with the click of a button. So you are only borrowing the right, because it could be rejected at any time. And it is only a right to read their version because you don't have a final, discrete copy of your own.
 
#11
socialleper said:
You don't own a copy of the book to use as you see fit. You are essentially renting the right to read it on Amazon's service. If they go under, the book vanishes. If they eliminate it from their roster, the book vanishes. There is nothing perpetual about it as everything digital could vanish with the click of a button. So you are only borrowing the right, because it could be rejected at any time. And it is only a right to read their version because you don't have a final, discrete copy of your own.
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I see your point. Despite all that I'd rather "own" all the books I've bought from Kindle than own paper copies. I don't see Amazon going under any time soon and they've never eliminated from their roster any of the books I've bought.
 
#12
Never gave ownership of a book a 2nd thought. I've been an avid reader since middle school, about 40 years. For a brief time I saved books after I read them until it just got to be too much. Once used book stores were popular in the 90's for a few years I thought that was great, buy cheap, get credit when you traded them in to buy more cheap ones.

But I'm on my 2nd Kindle now, Fire HD, LOVE it. Love not having to try and hold open a paperback to the point the binding breaks and pages fall out. Love not having to carry a light to use it. Just would be lost without it.

I use an app called "bookbub" that's been great too. You create an account and enter the types of books you are interested in and they send you about 10 choices per day, some for free, that you can download and read at your leisure. And many of the free ones are "part 1" or "vol 1" in a series so you can have a no risk way to find out if it's a series you'd like to follow.

But as in everything else, to each his own, physical books are the only option for some just like a Kindle is best for me.
 
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#14
As I'd mentioned in an earlier post, I've been an avid reader most of my life. Can't begin to count the number of books I've bought, sold, traded, donated. But since getting the Kindle about 7 yrs ago, I too do not enjoy reading an actual book anymore.

My son, who is a tech junkie, surprisingly still prefers physical books, and will occasionally buy me one for holiday/birthday gifts. I don't have the heart to tell him that with almost all of those books I went and bought the digital version as it's so much preferable to read that way. :unsure:
 
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#16
I have an old Kindle Fire (color capable) which I've had for 6+ years. I use the Amazon Kindle format, but still prefer physical print. I tend to read print books about 80% of the time, as I really like the physical product.

But when a book interests me I'll read 100-200 pages a day, so I go through a lot of books.

I come from a family with 4 kids. At one time in the late 60's we counted books in the house and there were more than 2,000. I only have a hundred or so of those now, many of them bought via the Science Fiction Book Club in the 60's and 70's.
 
#17
I read e-books on my iPad using “Overdrive”. I get books through the local library system here. It’s free. They have books, audio books (haven’t downloaded any of them), they have magazines (tried one but print was too small). I have a Kindle but haven’t used it for a while.
 
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#18
Redaxes said:
I read e-books on my iPad using “Overdrive”. I get books through the local library system here. It’s free. They have books, audio books (haven’t downloaded any of them), they have magazines (tried one but print was too small). I have a Kindle but haven’t used it for a while.
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^^^This, exactly.
 
#19
I have Kindle Paperwhite and like it. It's really practical, especially for travelling.

However, I still prefer paper book...cause I can highlight it or draw circle on sentences that I find important, write notes on it.

I know I can do thse things too with Kindle, but I prefer doing it on paper book. It's just easier for me.
 
#20
I’ve been an avid reader since my mom taught me how to read and write with her family bible when i was five. In junior high i received an award for reading every book in the school library, it was not that big. Throughout my life i’ve read most anything with words in English. My love of things mechanical began when my dad bought an old boat, then a manual for the motors. I read the manuals and helped him rebuild both motors and i’ve been hooked since then. But i’m a paper in binding sort. Wifey has a Kindle she reads and i tried it a couple times and it just didn’t do anything for me. I’ve got a very modest collection of first editions of my favorite books and quite an extensive collection of repair, service, and instruction manuals, along with the usual junk i enjoy from time to time, mostly si-fi and historical fiction.
 
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