Monday, March 21, 2011

I'm fighting back!!


When I left the house suddenly yesterday afternoon, I told hubby I was going to buy another eReader. He looked at me like I had lost my mind. He just gave me a Kindle for my birthday in October.

What had happened wuz...Borders Books is in bankruptcy, and the stores that are closing are selling everything down to the walls for a big discount. I had just read in the Kindlecorner yahoo group that I could get a Kobo Ereader for $59.99.

Don't get me wrong, I luuurve my Kindle. But it only reads book formatted specifically for Kindle, and not the books I can get from the public library. What does that have to do with fighting back, you may ask.

Over the last month or so, the big New York publishers have entered into what they are calling "Agency Pricing" for eBooks. From my perspective, it means they don't get it, and are pricing best sellers at almost the same price as the print copy.

I started reading the Stieg Larsson books after I got my Kindle. I purchased the first in the series for $5.00, the second one I got for $7.57. Then I started watching the price on the third and final book in the series. It was $9.99, and I was expecting it to drop. Two weeks ago under the new pricing deal, it went to $11.99.

I can get it for free from the Wake County Library, but not on my Kindle. So I spent $59.99 to save $2.00. Of course that's not the only book I can get from the library. I got on the waiting list to get "The Girl who Kicked the Hornet's Nest" last night. I'm number 95. I hope I'm not out of town when my number comes up, since they give you 3 days to respond. I also signed up for 3 other books, so I can practice the download thing from the library.

The Kobo is a little clunkier than the Kindle. It got stuck a few times while I was getting it set up. I was able to copy my own book, Motherless Child - stories from a life since I created an epub version on Smashwords.com. And the Kobo comes with 100 classics already (Including Tom Sawyer with the N-word.) I won't run out of reading material for a long time. Maybe the big publishers will come to their senses eventually.

7 comments:

Susan said...

Correct me if I'm wrong, but Kindle supports the .mobi format on it's reader. You can always download Calibre (http://calibre-ebook.com) and use this to convert your books to .mobi and then upload them to your Kindle reader. The Calibre software supports many different formats, you just have to go through the setup and configure it to what you prefer the output to be ... it's quite simple, I use it to confert .mobi and .lit files to .epub to read on my ipod touch. Either way, you should give it a try... its free!!!

saraphen said...

Susan...I found out after I got the Kobo, that I needed Calibre to load epub books into the Kobo. I got Calibre free then saw that it can convert books to mobi...GEEZ. I wish I had known before I bought the Kobo.

Now my public library requires Adobe Digital Editions (also free) to download books. I'm still on waitlist for 4 books to find out how that works. If I can do away with the Kobo, somebody will get a nice gift.

saraphen said...

I guess I can't be violating copyright laws. And the DRM would keep me from trying.

mk said...

kisura saraphen, the big publishers want to transfer the profit made from paper books to ebooks. As more writers make ebook versions and ebook sales rise it will replace many book sales. If they do as you suggest, they would have to accept equal sales with lower revenue, which they will not do, or if they do it, writers, especially the big ones will get paid less, which will cause big ripples in the publishing houses writer blocks

saraphen said...

@mk...I believe it's the reverse. The profit from eBooks has to be greater than print books. No paper, no printer, no warehousing, no shipping and handling. They still have the distribution cost, and they have a stake in keeping the big-box booksellers alive.

I'm counting on it slapping them in the face one day.

PrisCilla's said...

Hi Saraphen.

I didn't know one can download books from the library. Thanks for the information reference.

I recently put KOBO on my laptop, and the free books that it came with. I want a eReader, but thought I'd try it this way first to see how frequent I'll read online versus hardcopy.

PJ

saraphen said...

@PJ...I think my eyes get tired faster reading from a backlit screen. I can read my Kindle or Kobo much longer.

Check your public library, or any library where you have a card. Even Mayberry is keeping up with the times.
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