Wednesday 13 July 2011

Kindle vs Books

I love reading and I've loved the ease of being able to read on my iPad using either the iBooks app or the Amazon kindle app. I admit I tend to use the Amazon app mostly but I still have many annoyances with kindle books.

It annoys me that many books are still cheaper to buy as a book, surely a download should be the same price as the actual book or maybe even cheaper. Some books I've wanted to read have greatly differed in price by several £'s. The odd 50p doesn't really bother me but I've recently made sure before I buy that I've checked out the different prices. I sound picky but I don't see why I should be paying more for the same book. This means my book reading has become a mixture of downloads and actual books. I guess it's a good way to vary my reading tool of choice but it would obviously be easier if it was all available through the kindle!

Quite a lot of books are still not available yet for the kindle and also I'd urge caution to make sure you're buying the "actual" book you want. There are a lot of downloads called the same as the book you wanted but by another author or called "Essays of". They really are not making it easy for us to get the books that we want.

There are also a lot of "free" books and a regular check on Amazon and you'll find some cheap offers on some top titles but there is still a big difference in prices with "real" books.

None of the Harry Potter series is available on the kindle, *shakes fist at JK Rowling* and as I've just decided to start re-reading the Harry Potter series that will be done with the actual books and not the kindle.

I shall persevere. But publishers look into your pricing please!




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2 comments:

Peter said...

Thats one thing thats always grated me about eBooks, how can they justify them not being cheaper? No printing, no distributing...
I have just bought my first two books on Kindle and am enjoying the ease of having them with me whereever I go. Whether or not I'll buy all my books in that format in future, I'm not sure.

GoodbyeBlighty said...

eBooks will get cheaper as the market grows and there's more variety in where you can get the books from. By the looks of it the Kindle is racing ahead and if that continues it'll become the standard... Once that happens you'll find books all over the place for far less. Just like you do with MP3s now.

You can get the Potter books if you have a quick torrent search ;) I'm not sure what your ethical stance on that is, though...