← Back to context

Comment by HardwareLust

7 hours ago

Good timing, the Kindle version is $1.99 right now.

I think the dynamic pricing algo is on to us - I see $13.99 at Amazon and clicked on a Google Play Books link for $1.99 that then became $13.99 magically, same for Apple Books.

Please don't 'buy' digital items from Amazon, because you won't actually own them. Pay extra, support your local bookshop and get a physical copy which you will actually own.

  • I really appreciate that sentiment, but on the other hand 98% of the books I buy I won’t read a second time (because reading a new book will almost always trump rereading an old one), so I’m actually fine with not owning most of them, especially at $1.99 prices. The few that I deeply care about I buy a physical copy of.

  • This disregards the benefit of a single device that is easy to carry. Love where this is come from so maybe do both if you can.

    • It's a trade-off. I love the convenience of ebooks, but not owning my books is just categorically unacceptable to me. I want my daughter and anyone else coming after me to have free access to them, not to have to jump through Amazon's hoops (if such hoops even exist) for access.

      I have a Kobo that I use to read the non-DRM ebooks I'm able to acquire. One such source is downloads from the Kobo store, when publishers make the non-DRM file available.

    • I use a kindle but I have never bought a book on the kindle store ever (been using it for 10 years). Totally doable and not hard to avoid... especially since the smaller stores not only have better sales but the author typically gets more money too.

  • I basically always start with digital, if the book is good I always buy a physical copy for my shelf.

    • I do something similar - but I'm quite picky with books I buy due to limited physical space.

  • Amazon allows EPUB downloads for publishers that have chosen to go DRM-free.

    • They used to allow downloads of all books, which you could then rip the DRM from, but they got rid of that last year. Huge disappointment, and is why I don't buy books on Kindle anymore.