[Imperial Historian]

I got a sony ebook reader for christmas (which I've mostly been using to digitise my current collection of books so I can carry it around with me, for which it suits its purpose perfectly), but I've had a real struggle locating any ebook stores in the UK which will sell me relatively new books for non-ridiculous prices.

The majority of UK stores seem to be selling the ebooks at more than a cost of a paperback, or ocasionally more than the cost in hardback, as amazon can heavily discount but the ebook stores don't. And I refuse to pay more for an electronic copy than a physical one. So what I'm wondering is if anyone knows any ebook stores which sell books at reasonable prices?

The only store I've found so far that doesn't rip you off terribly is the baen store, which sells most of there catalogue for reasonable prices... but since I don't read that many baen authors its not much use (though I have made use of the baen free library to discover a few new authors, the 1632 universe by eric flint is surpisingly entertaining for one)

[Jusentantaka]

I saw in the other thread you couldn't download from amazon, so I'll ask if you tried barnes and nobel? Not quite as convenient as amazon, but their selection is massive and not overpriced.

[caladanbrood]

Ebooks are not as cheap as you might like, certainly, due to fees the e-publishers still have to pay. There are various places to look for old books in ebook format, such as Project Gutenberg, but they are old books only, since they are out of copyright. The best place to look is somewhere like Waterstones, who have over 1500 genre titles - http://www.waterston...ror/4294964550/ They are normally 5 or 6 quid for a book, so slightly cheaper than the normal price. At the moment they even  have GotM/DhG packaged together for £8.50.




It's not like music though unfortunately, new ebooks still cost a bit

[Tsundoku]

Well, this thread has certainly put paid (excuse the pun) to any plans I had to get an e-reader and start converting my collection any time soon. I think I'll stick to the real thing for a while yet - at least until the prices drop drastically across the board. Why should I pay full price for something that isn't physical, when the real thing is the same price and is much harder to delete accidentally?

[Astra]

Sombra, on 25 January 2010 - 02:23 AM, said:

Why should I pay full price for something that isn't physical, when the real thing is the same price and is much harder to delete accidentally?

Don't.
I mean don't delete and make a backup copy eBooks are quite small 1-3MB.

Some of the advantages are:
1. you don't have to worry about space in your house (I know, I know, you Australians, Americans, Canadians are all having huge houses vs. us, tiny little Europeans.)
2. When you travels, you don't have to bring with you many heavy hardback editions or even paperback editions. Just one ebook reader.

Ebook prices vary. Sometimes they are expensive. Sometimes there are alternative sources.

I, personally, think ebook+ebook reader w/eInk screen is a very convenient and comfortable way to read books. Maybe it is not a necessity, maybe it is luxury? but very sweet one I use ebook readers for 3 years now and I still believe that my first ebook reader Sony Reader PRS-500 and one year later PRS-505 are the best money investment I did in the last 10 years. The best money investment in a sense as in the amount of money I paid for all the pleasure and satisfaction I get back.

[kcf]

Sombra, on 25 January 2010 - 02:23 AM, said:

Why should I pay full price for something that isn't physical, when the real thing is the same price and is much harder to delete accidentally?

Mostly because printing costs are actually a very small portion of the price of a book - particularly for pb. The price of a book still needs to cover - the author (and their agent), the cover art, all the editing and copyediting, the formatting, the marketing and publicity, and such. People and places like Amazon may want the ebook to be cheaper, but if we want to get high quality books (rather than self-published PDFs), then we will have to pay the price.