Where Do You Buy Books: Survey Results

In mid-February, I asked for your responses in a very low-key, utterly not-scientific survey about Where you like to buy your books, and in what format.

Behold, the results! First, this is hands down my favorite comment in response to “Tell me what store or buying option I forgot:”

Mostly, I buy at the drugstore/grocery store these days. But I’ve bought everywhere I checked above. Yes, I’ve even swiped books from the library, but never on purpose. More in the “oh, dear, so that’s where that book went” sort of way. But the most interesting place I’ve ever acquired a book was at a yardsale where I’d run out of money. I successfully negotiated a swap for the white fringed blouse I was wearing over a tank top, for an out of print Jo Beverley hardcover. Never liked that blouse, anyway.

Will strip for out-of-print hardcovers? That ROCKS. (Why have I never thought of that?!!)

So, without further ado, here are the results, in graphic form. If you’d like to see the complete data, you can view my report—it’s available to the public for viewing and download. You can also view the complete list of book buying options with the response totals. Please keep in mind, this is utterly NOT scientific and rests solely on my own penchant for being nebby. If you’re looking for those camera-shy dudes from PriceWaterhouse Cooper with some briefcases, they’re not here.

Let’s look at some data, shall we? View my report!

 

Where do you folks like to buy your romance?

The most popular single option: Amazon.com, followed by used book store (any).

I was also fascinated by this graph: Which format do you buy?

There were also over 1500 responses in the “What did I forget?” category, including some that said, “I never buy books. I download from torrent sites,” and some that recommended specific bookstores across the country.

The results of book shopping location didn’t surprise me – I expected Amazon to be at the top if not in the top three. But I didn’t expect used bookstores to rank second ahead of Barnes & Noble and Borders. And the format question was fascinating because I wondered how much those results might shift in the coming year. Bear in mind, I didn’t limit that question to an “either/or” requirement – folks could select all the format options that applied to them, so if someone bought digital, print and audio books, they could select all three.

What do you think? Does anything about these results surprise you? Where’s the last place you purchased a book?

 

Comments are Closed

  1. Laura says:

    I absolutely loved that she swapped a blouse for a book!

    I’ll have to remember that one for future reference 🙂

  2. Lynette says:

    You know a girl is from the Burg when the word nebby enters into her blog posts. LOL!

  3. Chicklet says:

    I’m not all that surprised that used bookstores are the second most popular buying site, mostly because the new bookstores tend to strip-and-return the mass-markets so quickly that I often can’t find a title I’m looking for. If I go to a store and I’m forced to choose among just what’s on the shelves already, I might as well go to a used bookstore and get more books for my money. Because of the quick turnover of romances, especially the categories, a consumer probably is better off combining Amazon (ability to get exactly the titles they want) with used bookstores (cheaper).

  4. Am I the only one vaguely horrified at the torrent response?

    My publisher made the choice to go DRM free (which I agree with, by the way, it’s never a good long term plan to make it hard to transfer books from one device to another), and that means piracy is likely.

    I don’t understand why people who claim to love books are completely okay with stealing books. How do they think authors get paid, dollar bills stuffed into our panties at BEA?

    (A torrent isn’t the same thing as buying from a used book store. With a UBS, someone bought a copy and the author got a royalty, and there’s but only so many people who will get their hands on that one copy. The next owner pays a small price, and maybe falls in love with that author. On a torrent, someone bought a copy, but thousands of people can get hold of the identical copy, and those thousands get smug about having something for nothing, so even if they fall in love, they still aren’t going to give the author any income.)

  5. Mireya says:

    Honestly, the results match my expectations.  I think we all knew the majority in terms of format was going to be print (I think that was a given).  Also, given the state of unemployment (1 in 10 Americans is unemployed) definitely brings to mind budget considerations, which in turn explains the buying of used books as being the number 2 choice (and Amazon sells used books so you could go as far as saying that maybe some of those who stated that Amazon was their top choice, actually use Amazon to buy their books second-hand). 

    Also, the current economy and the way ebooks are being handled by some publishers (loaded with DRM, exclusive formats, non-transferable, etc.), is likely pushing more people to seek “free” downloads online.  Of course, we will never get real numbers as it is illegal to do so and even in anonymous polls people prefer to keep their mouths shut.  I am actually surprised that someone actually mentioned that.

  6. JoanneL says:

    From a purely scientific point of view I want to say just how pretty your chart colors are—-

    I am a little surprised that Borders and B&N are so close in sales, especially online sales. I thought B&N would be far ahead of the not-doing-great Borders. It makes me think that B&N is not doing so great either.

    I hope the over one hundred that responded that they stole books from the libraries were being facetious. 

    I’m not surprised by the torrent figures, there are bunches of sites and lots of people that think it doesn’t count if ‘only’ they download a book.

    @Kathleen Dienne, once the DRM is stripped by one person it’s out there on the numerous sites. I’m not a supporter of stealing books, I’m just saying that the DRM is not a deterrent to thieves but it is to those of us who still haven’t mastered the DRM stripping thingy when we want to buy books for different reading devices.

  7. Jim says:

    So very interesting.  I note that e formats are growing.

  8. Theresa says:

    Verry interesting, and yes pretty colors.  What I take away from this is that people buy books all over the freaking place, at least the people in the poll do so.

    And a few people admitted that they steal from torrent sites.  Sigh. This comment got me thinking about stealing from torrent sites versus something like shoplifting.  They haven’t yet found a way to stop people from shoplifting yet.  I suspect that they will never find a way to eliminate piracy and illegal torrent downloads.  The best thing publishers can do is to make it as easy as possible for customers who want to buy an ebook can do so as easily as possible.  I’m pretty sure that we make up the overwhelming majority anyways.

  9. SylviaSybil says:

    Uh oh, I guess I’m the only one getting a “page not found” error.

  10. SB Sarah says:

    I have NO idea why the report disappeared, but I’ll recreate it.

  11. SB Sarah says:

    Something is very wrong with the reporting feature. I’ll see what’s up. Sorry about that.

  12. I’m kind of surprised that used bookstores were that popular…I mean I just thought when you couldn’t find a book at the bookstore, one would just order off an online source…

    As for where I picked up my most recent print book purchase…Chapters Indigo (Cdn. chain bookstore)…my last online ebook purchase…Ellora’s Cave.

    Happy St. Patrick’s Day!!!

  13. Overquoted says:

    I’m with JoanneL on this. DRM does nothing, and I do mean absolutely *nothing* to stop piracy. It only infuriates the people who bought the book legally. (As someone who lost paid-for music because the DRM’s owner no longer held the license for that music, I say this with extreme heat.)

    You have to realize, before DRM, there was scanning. And now that scanners come default in a lot of really cheap printers, anyone can do it if they feel like it. Besides, most DRM gets cracked within a few days or weeks of it being introduced to the market. Some hackers view it as a rubik’s cube. Just a challenge to solve.

    I remember watching a Colbert Report episode where an author said his book wasn’t available in ebook format because he didn’t want it to be pirated. I laughed real hard at that. XD

    Piracy is in attitude, I think. Some people will always be shoplifters. Others will be shoplifters when they think buying whatever they want will be a rip-off (hey, I didn’t say it was entirely logical). The pricing schemes of the publishing industry certainly *feel* like a way to extract as much money from customers as they can. Sell an author’s work in paperback until the author has enough fans to sell it in hardback (jacking the price up $15-$20 per book in some cases).

    Then you have ebooks, which are usually at least the list price of their mass market paperback versions, if not more (Wal-Mart routinely beats ebooks). And since no publisher has seen fit to publish where the money goes when it comes to publishing ebooks (though I know independents, like EC, offer their authors a much higher royalty rate), I’m sticking by my view that it’s all a money-making scam for most of them when they can be bothered. And yet, I still buy. Just not nearly as much as I’d like to.

    Also set in the piracy attitude: the idea that it takes nothing *away* from the owner of the product. It’s why people sneak into movies (it’s already being shown – just because my eyes see it, too, doesn’t devalue what’s being shown; whereas stealing a tube of lipstick means the store writes it off as a loss).

    Personally, I think tv show producers have more beef with piraters than anyone. They sell advertising; when you pirate, they lose by default.

    All said though, the idea that every pirate will have bought the product they digitally stole isn’t entirely true. I’ve conned myself into watching some pretty awful movies just because they were free (dvd loaned from a friend, local film club, Blockbuster coupons, etc). But just because I saw it for free, doesn’t mean I’d ever pay to see it. I actually have a designation for movies like that: watch on tv.

    But if you’re trying to dissuade people from pirating with the argument “authors don’t get royalties” – then how is it also okay to buy used books? Authors don’t get royalties from those either (which is why I buy books from favorite authors new and not used). And from what I’ve heard, at one point used bookstores were targets of the publishing industry. Long time ago, o’course. You can use the argument that buying a used book is okay because *someone* paid for it – but technically, so did the person who first released a book online for piracy. Even if they scanned a library book, that book was still paid for somewhere. The only differences between the two: your used book is actively competing for the same money the new version is; and once you’ve bought it, it’s off the market.

  14. While not surprised how many were bought used was totally surprised and relieved that I wasn’t the only one who still bought the “old fashioned” paper books.
    My rant on this term used to describe the beloved paperback
    http://lisaslovesbooksofcourse.blogspot.com/2010/03/and-old-fashioned-paper-books.html

  15. TaraL says:

    The pricing schemes of the publishing industry certainly *feel* like a way to extract as much money from customers as they can. Sell an author’s work in paperback until the author has enough fans to sell it in hardback (jacking the price up $15-$20 per book in some cases).

    I’m sticking by my view that it’s all a money-making scam for most of them when they can be bothered.

    That’s pretty harsh isn’t it? I think getting the largest amount of money that the consumer is willing to pay for a product is called capitalism. It’s not like that is unique to publishing. Last I heard the auto industry wasn’t reducing the price of their cars from $40,00 down to $500 out of the goodness of their hearts.

    And the word “scam” implies that folks are being fooled into buying something that actually has no value. The publishing industry gives you a book in exchange for money. That’s just called “business.”

    You can use the argument that buying a used book is okay because *someone* paid for it – but technically, so did the person who first released a book online for piracy. Even if they scanned a library book, that book was still paid for somewhere. The only differences between the two: your used book is actively competing for the same money the new version is; and once you’ve bought it, it’s off the market.

    There are many differences between used print books and pirated e-books. I see the main difference as being volume of sales lost. A used paperback can probably be taken back and resold 15-20 times, by one person at a time, before it becomes too tattered and the bookstore refuses it. And there’s always the chance that that resale cycle will be broken somewhere during the lifetime of the book if someone likes it well enough to put it on their keeper shelf. A pirated e-book has the potential to be downloaded, say, 15-20 times per minute for, well… ever. The sheer volume of potentially lost sales isn’t even comparable to a used paper book.

  16. SylviaSybil says:

    I can read it fine now, thanks!

    The more people pirate, the more publishers overreact and put anti-piracy measures on their product.  More anti-piracy measures don’t deter pirates and give honest people more trouble acquiring and using the product, so some of them turn to piracy.  More pirates?  See step 1.

    DRM and other anti-pirating measures mean that people lose the product they’ve paid for.  Either the publisher loses the license, as above, or the publisher never had the right (see Kindle/Orwell scandal), or the consumer changes devices or otherwise can’t transfer it.  I have legendary computer problems—my computers break down or wipe their hard drives about once a year.  For items with limited downloads or installs, say 5 on average, that means I can’t use that item 5 years into the future.  So why bother purchasing it in the first place?

  17. pussreboots says:

    Ebooks seem to have made the most in roads among romance readers. Your results jive with the romance book bloggers I follow. I wonder what the romance publishers have figured out that other publishers haven’t yet.

  18. Tina says:

    My complaint against Barnes and Noble is that none of my local ones carry Harlequins anymore.  They stopped several years ago so for physical copies of the Harlequins I have to go to Borders or Target(no Walmart for 25 miles from me!)

    So for those romances I have to resort to my Kindle…which is just more convenient

  19. I must have done a bad job explaining in my first post, argh. We’re actually in agreement.

    My opinion:

    DRM = teh stupid.

    Punishes legit customers, doesn’t stop pirates. The lack of DRM makes it easy for dumb pirates, and it seems like things with DRM are therefore more often pirated.

    But the “punishing legit customers” thing is why I am glad my publisher has elected to skip the DRM on books sold from the publisher’s site.

    Torrent vs. Used Books

    I’m trying not to say what I said before because it wasn’t clear to anyone but me 🙂

    UBS: I remember buying Mercedes Lackey’s first Five Hundred Kingdoms book (from Luna) at a USB. I had most of her fantasy stuff, but I wasn’t sure how I’d like a Romance. (This was several years ago. I am cured of my stupidity now.) So I paid my hard-earned money for it. Not eight bucks, but three anyway. She didn’t get a royalty, but no one else got that copy of the book but me. And I loved it so much I bought her others in the series, new. Hardback, even. Then I bought the first book in hardback and gave the used one to a friend, converting her to the series.

    Net gain to Lackey: Lots.

    Torrent: If I got the same book from a torrent, I’m just one of potentially thousands of people reading the same copy. And even if I love it, it didn’t cost me anything. Downloading the next one is just that much easier, because you only lose your stealing virginity once. And I wouldn’t pass on the file to anyone, because why? They can get it free, too.

    Net gain to Lackey: Nothing, and arguably a loss.

    Um… sorry for length. Hot button issues for me.

  20. Overquoted says:

    That’s pretty harsh isn’t it? I think getting the largest amount of money that the consumer is willing to pay for a product is called capitalism. It’s not like that is unique to publishing. Last I heard the auto industry wasn’t reducing the price of their cars from $40,00 down to $500 out of the goodness of their hearts.

    And the word “scam” implies that folks are being fooled into buying something that actually has no value. The publishing industry gives you a book in exchange for money. That’s just called “business.”

    I didn’t say reduce it out of the goodness of their heart. But why should I *not* pirate a book I wasn’t going to buy in the first place? (Or buy it used, or get it from a library?) Goodness of my heart? I say reduce it to give it a value that reflects inherent properties of ebooks (the lower costs of producing it – and if the costs aren’t lower, show me). They set the price, I refuse to pay it simply because I can get it free in some fashion.

    And it is a scam when DRM is attached, pure and simple. And since I can neither resell an ebook nor donate it to a library, it has no value the moment I buy it. (Even non-DRM ebooks.) I expect pricing to follow value, which is why I consider the various pricing methods by publishers to be a scam. The words don’t change, only what the publisher believes they can wring out of a customer. The same is true of every other industry to some degree. (Though at least with DVDs, the quality does change if you buy Blu-Ray over regular.)

    eMusic, for example, has the cheapest music downloads on the internet. I’m perfectly happy paying for mp3s that are considerably cheaper than their full-priced counterparts because the price reflects the value.

    I think some piracy, though not the bulk, is simply a branch of failed price negotiation. Once upon a time, we could often negotiate the price for services and goods. The doctor I had as a teenager could tell some funny stories about the things his patients would give him in lieu of cash. Our economy has become top-down capitalist; those at the top dictate what we pay for, our salaries, our benefits. We can refuse, and as the publishing industry demonstrates with destroying unsold books, we do. But it does nothing to change the price most of the time.

    There are many differences between used print books and pirated e-books. I see the main difference as being volume of sales lost. A used paperback can probably be taken back and resold 15-20 times, by one person at a time, before it becomes too tattered and the bookstore refuses it. And there’s always the chance that that resale cycle will be broken somewhere during the lifetime of the book if someone likes it well enough to put it on their keeper shelf. A pirated e-book has the potential to be downloaded, say, 15-20 times per minute for, well… ever. The sheer volume of potentially lost sales isn’t even comparable to a used paper book.

    Again, you’re going on the assumption that they were sales to begin with. Aside from the truth that people will take what they don’t even want when offered everything (buffet, anyone?), no doubt quite a few of those pirates are the same people who buy their books used (I once bought books exclusively used – and since I live in a large metro, I rarely couldn’t find what I wanted) or who use the library. And that said, given the massive amount of books published just in the last five years, there aren’t many available online. (Compare that to music and movies.) Of those that are, they’re mostly high profile (Twilight, Harry Potter, etc) or technical. And who is to say that none of the pirates would’ve shoplifted if an illegal online copy wasn’t available? In a roundabout way, piracy may have reduced shoplifting of a physical good for all you know.

    That said, my comparison of piracy and used books already mentioned that a used book is off the market once it’s bought (implying the pirated copy is not). Generally speaking though, if you’re tight on money, you’ll either wait for another used copy to become available or pester your library. The function is the same, the author doesn’t get paid.

    I brought all of this up because the only comments I normally see from anyone connected to the publishing industry, including a lot of readers, is vilification of piracy. That’s perfectly okay, except that it does nothing to solve the problem, does nothing to figure out why people pirate. Selfishness alone is not enough to convince thousands (or millions) of people to break the law, not when the consequences can be severe. But I’d say perceived value can influence whether or not someone pirates.

    That, and I like playing devil’s advocate.

    I also do not think piracy is the cause of DRM, it’s just an excuse. As long as the publisher retains control in the form of DRM, you do not own what you bought. You cannot loan it to a friend, you cannot even loan it to your spouse or child (though not many households own more than one reader) in many cases, depending on how many “copies” you’re allowed to have. For the most part, it forces everyone to buy their own copy. And since almost all ebooks bought are bought by non-pirates, why strap DRM to them? Because it’s a business model, not a way to stop piracy.

    Kudos to Sony for ditching the DRM. I buy digital more often now than ever.

  21. Overquoted says:

    Torrent vs. Used Books

    UBS:
    Net gain to Lackey: Lots.

    Torrent:
    Net gain to Lackey: Nothing, and arguably a loss.

    By the same logic as buying the rest of Lackey’s books new, you can say the same of pirated books. Not all pirated books contain the entire series. I had a friend loan me one of her ebooks (I am not going to debate the publishing industry on copies, damnit, but she deleted it after sending it to me) because she loved the book and thought that I would, too. I went out that weekend and bought the two follow-ups. A few weeks after that, when I had the money, I bought the first. Brand new. So, in the eyes of the industry, it was an act of piracy. One that sold three books.

    Not all used bookstore buys end in new sales. Not all piracy ends in no sales. But yes, in general, I’d say a lot of pirates (most, even) aren’t going to go buy the next book in the series. Maybe the book didn’t move them, maybe they can find the next in the series online, maybe they go to their local library, maybe they just don’t have the cash (teenagers, eh?).

    But, presumably, you originally bought those books used because of the value you gave them. You were worried about whether or not you’d enjoy those books, so you refused to pay the cover price. You paid something for it, and maybe that money went into the pocket of someone who then used it to buy a new book…but you still refused to pay cover price because of the value perceived. ;P

  22. LaVonne says:

    I know we are off on a piracy tangent but I just wanted to comment about the survey itself.  I tried to answer the questions as accurately as possible but it would have been helpful if we could have weighted our answers for both where you buy and the type of content ….like 80% print and 20% ebooks.  I buy both print and ebooks but because I primarily read on a Kindle the ratio of print to ebooks is not 1 to 1 which is what my answer implies.  Anyway, something to think about for future surveys…….

    Also, in response to the pondering about why romance publishers seem to be more successful with ebooks, for me this comes down to two things.  One, availability.  Ebook sellers have a MUCH larger selection of romance novels than any of the print stores (not including online retailers).  Before I started reading ebooks I had to either drive all over to find the romance novel I was looking for or order large quantities from Amazon to avoid shipping.  Now that I have a large portion of the Amazon library available for instant purchase (I love me my instant gratification) I read ebooks almost exclusively. 

    The second reason that I like romance novels in particular in electronic form is privacy.  While I can appreciate the appeal of the shirtless hottie on the cover of any respectable romance novel, sometimes I don’t want everyone within eyesight to be aware of my lecherous tendencies.  At the gym I will occasionally reduce the font size just in case the person next to me is nosey.  That extremely explicit description of out of this world, completely unbelievable sex is meant for my eyes only!  I love being an avid romance reader but some things I want to keep between me and my Kindle.

  23. Alpha Lyra says:

    I agree that DRM doesn’t inhibit piracy at all. It may even encourage piracy, because it leaves the consumer feeling unsatisfied and ripped off when they try to transfer the book that they PAID FOR to another device and can’t.

    After an episode where a bunch of my legally paid for and DRM’d music became unusable because of the DRM, I decided I would never again buy anything with DRM on it. At the time, all online music sales involved DRM, so for several years I stopped buying music completely. My husband handled the situation differently. He continued to buy music, but stripped off the DRM. Someone less honest might have turned to piracy.

    Now that music can be purchased without DRM, I’m buying again.

    In the past year, I’ve made an exception to my no-DRM diet, and that is computer games on Steam. Steam is a model the publishing industry ought to look at. I love Steam. I buy games electronically on Steam, and they are DRM-protected, but Steam lets me install them on as many devices as I like. No restrictions except one: I can only play the game on one device at a time.

    A couple of days ago, I bought a game called Torchlight. It was a great buying experience. I read game reviews online, picked the game, bought it on Steam, downloaded it, and was playing it 10 minutes later. No waiting for shipping! No need to shift my lazy ass and go to a store!

    The next day, my son wanted to play the game, but I was using my computer for something else. I logged onto my Steam account on his computer. From there, he installed the game and played it. All totally legal, because I was not using my Steam games at the time. (Had I logged into Steam on my own computer, I would have bumped him off.) See why I love Steam? The DRM prevents me from pirating the games, and that’s fine. But it lets me loan the games to a friend or family member. The restriction is that only one person can play at a time.

    Steam, despite the DRM, gives me a sense of ownership of my games. I can log into any computer anywhere and install and play my Steam games. I can loan and share them in limited ways. And I own them forever.

    Right now, the way DRM works on ebooks, it doesn’t give you sense of ownership. It makes you feel as if you are borrowing the book. Why would I want to pay to borrow a book? I can do that at the library for free.

  24. orangehands says:

    One of the things I’m really interested in is the amazon number. I’m curious how many people are still using and buying from Amazon after saying/deciding they would not do so after the whole amazonfail back in April 09. 

    (I’m curious how much the number of amazon buyers changed from March ‘09 to March ‘10 because of that fail. Or even a different amazonfail – which I personally think they have a lot of.)

    Anyway, I liked that you did this survey. I thought there would be more library sales though – I wonder if it’s just because people don’t like to buy used, because they don’t live in an area that has library sales, or because they don’t find things at library sales, or because they work/having something else going on during library sales, or what.

  25. Becca says:

    I’ve pretty much stopped buying from Amazon, at least for books. There are some things, like the GPS unit we got, that are simply cheaper there, but I try to keep those things to a minimum. I’ve also pretty much stopped buying things through the iTunes store, too, if it’s something I can get elsewhere, because I disapprove of Apple’s censorship.

    I do buy a LOT of audiobooks from audible.com, and they’re owned by Amazon, so I guess I’m not as pure as I like to think I am.

  26. I’m glad someone loves Jo Beverley as I do. I’d strip for her any day.

  27. CaroleM says:

    I loved this survey, mostly because I’m a bookseller (online) and it pretty much confirmed my views on the state of book sales on ebay (that company has consistently done everything possible to push away their small sellers, quarter after quarter, continuing as I speak.  For anyone who does buy their books on ebay, give the seller a break -they’re lucky to have bus change after makng the sale).

    As to format-buying a year from now -I’ll still be buying print – I just can’t justify the cost of the kindle and other readers. If the price dropped to $50 each, I couldn’t justify it – our house is a victim of the economy – thank god I’m a bookseller, so I have plenty of fuel for my personal addiction. Also nice to see other peopel buy their books at the grocery store -when I do buy new, it seems easier to justify a $6 book when the grocery bill is $150.

    probably75 – as in I’ll probably buy 75 books at the next library sale, and 50 will be for personal reading. I’m doomed.

  28. Anonymous says:

    Is it just me?  Everytime you put up one of those little pink boxes, I can never read the entire text.  Half of it is illegible.

  29. Anne says:

    DRM, DRschmem, let’s get to the real problem

    Ladies and Gentlemen, please!
    I think I speak for most librarians when I beg you to return those library books!*

    *All is forgiven upon return.  And we totally get it about the “Oh!  That’s where that is” thing.  Librarians are the most likely to have the highest overdue fines **

    **totally unscientific=a survey of ME

  30. just saying says:

    About torrents: not everyone downloading them is a dirty thief.

    I am one of them.  Here’s my reasons:
    1) There’s a lot of books that I own that I also like to have on my computer.
    2) There’s a lot of books that I used to own that are out of print that I like to read over and over again. 

    I prefer to read books I haven’t read in hard copy (which I usually borrow from friends or the library) and my main reason for turning to torrents is either to own additional copies, or to look for something I’ve already read that I have trouble finding.

  31. Liza Lester says:

    Vilification of piracy helps solve the problem by applying peer pressure against the temptation to steal. DRM is clearly counterproductive. I wonder if it might be more useful to watermark purchased e-copies with the buyer’s name and email address- and a ‘thank you for shopping!’ message? Of course you could strip this stuff too, it would just be more of a polite reminder. Like at the national parks where signs urge you not to be a “meadow stomper”, instead of commanding you to “stay on trail”.

    I read across genres, but most of my ebooks are romance. I’m most likely to download when I’m home on my couch at 8pm and want entertainment. Love stories have instant gratification appeal. I can usually wait to get a print copy of something heavily philosophical, or even SF. I also read romances relatively quickly. Based on SBTB and Dear Author, chewing through a book in a day is typical. So the volume of romance consumed is higher because I need a new book sooner.

  32. Vuir says:

    Is it just me?  Everytime you put up one of those little pink boxes, I can never read the entire text.  Half of it is illegible.

    If you highlight even a small part of the text, it makes the entire thing legible.  I have no idea why, but it works for me.

  33. Maggie P. says:

    I concur that it would have been helpful to rate how frequently I use the particular bookseller. I use Amazon rarely, but download frequently from many different sites. Which brings me to my DRM/digital editions rant.
    At the time of the survey I had not turned to piracy, but after having Adobe Digital Editions flip out and losing most of the books that I paid for I am considering it. Hundreds of dollars in books, lost. Yeah, you can contact the seller and sometimes re-download the books, but it is a massive pain in the ass for a number of reasons (I buy ebooks all over) and right now Digital editions is not working at all.  Yeah, I have been talking with adobe about wtf happened (for 2 weeks now) and so far their suggestions have only made the problem worse. The whole mess is frustrating and makes me consider doing something that I would never have considered before.

  34. Cait says:

    Hi,
      I love this thread.  And I did participate.  I belong to 2 Friends of the Library groupas and am active in 1.  I believe in libraries!  And their funding has been slashed in this economy, so they need all the help they can get.  Last year we donated over $14,000 to our local library and it was UBS that gave us the funds to do it.
                Yesterday, I bought some books at the HALF-PRICE BOOKSTORE;  Before that the local library sale.  I didn’t make it to my local Goodwill to look there.  I really wish I could afford to pay full boat. But then I’d buy a book a month maybe.  And for that I’m sorry…But at the 1/2 $ , I still paid $4/book.  That’s $8 at my local Borders.  I cannot justify $8 for a regular PB.  Also,  Ebay, UBS and Library sales are about the only places to find Backlists.  (Our lib has book swaps.  yardsales, thrifts etc are others)
        My sis recieved a Kindle for Christmas and she loves it.  Me?  no thanks,  I like paper.  Years ago, When we were ex-pats,  I belonged to every Book of the month club, Nat Geo, magazine, etc,  ‘cause we had no English books where we lived.  I loived for the mail pouch from the USA.

      Please.  What in the world is a DRM???  torrent???
      Cait
    PS.  I LOOOVE Audio books.  listen and re-listen.  Maybe that would be agood thread to pursue at sometime—who does, how, when,

  35. Alpha Lyra says:

    DRM stands for Digital Rights Management. It is a technology used to restrict the use of a media file (music file, video, computer game, or e-book, typically) to certain purposes only. So the DRM on a Kindle book might prevent it from being read on any device but a Kindle. Or DRM may be used to prevent a file from being copied anywhere under any circumstances. Or it may be set up such that you can copy the file 3 times, and then the file stops working. It can be used in a multitude of ways.

    It is, unfortunately, a very trouble-prone technology, and when it malfunctions, it can make media files (such as e-books) that you legitimately paid for unusable.

  36. Alpha Lyra says:

    Maggie, I feel your pain. The same thing happened to a large portion of my music collection a while back. I have no idea what the law says on this, but I think there would be nothing ethically wrong with your “illegally” downloading the books you lost access to due to the DRM glitch, given that you’ve paid for them.

  37. Trix says:

    I agree with the above comment about the Steam model. The content is yours, you can run it on as many machines as you choose (just not simultaneously), and you can get it wherever you are.

    Obviously Amazon can’t be trusted to do that, with all the pain about their yoinking content OFF PEOPLE’S DEVICES when they have paid for it, but if the company is not in the business of censorship, then I think it’s a good way to go.

    And regarding the equation of e-books with bittorrenting, it’s not quite that simple. One notable instance of a book that was bittorrented was one of the Harry Potters that was downloadable before publication date. No, it wasn’t an ebook, cracked DRM or otherwise – it had been painstakingly scanned in as images, page by page.

    I personally believe the kind of people who bittorrent content they have no intention of paying for in some other way (and I count myself in that, with reference to TV shows I download) are the ones who would not have paid for that content anyway. For example, if you like seeing movies on the big screen, you won’t bother with some bittorrented handheld rip. There is probably a proportion who are effectively stealing by downloading stuff that they would normally go out and buy, but I feel quite certain they’re a minority.

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