Is it wrong to download SotG for free but buy it later when it is out in softcover (a year later)? A hardcover book is around 40$ and read in 2 days a soft cover is 9$ yet also read in 2 days.
Posted by Farmgirl (Member # 5567) on :
It wasn't $40 where I bought it...
Posted by AntiCool (Member # 7386) on :
Probably.
Posted by Miro (Member # 1178) on :
At Amazon.com, Shadow of the Giant is $17.13 +shipping. You could also try any libraries near you.
Posted by Farmgirl (Member # 5567) on :
Oh - you're in Canada -- it's higher there?????
I got mine at Barnes & Noble Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
Yes, it's wrong. But I'll tell you what, Sid. Many, many years ago now, a poster -- now long-gone from this site -- sincerely touched me by buying a Card book for me with absolutely no prompting. I've always wanted to pay that forward.
If you send me your snail-mail address, I'll get you a copy of SotG.
[ March 10, 2005, 11:53 AM: Message edited by: TomDavidson ]
Posted by neo-dragon (Member # 7168) on :
I'm surprised that you'd even have the guts to post this on Card's own site! If he doesn't even tolerate fan-fiction being written, I don't imagine he'd appreciate his work being downloaded, even if you do intend to buy the paperback later. In any case, isn't that what public libraries are for?
Posted by AntiCool (Member # 7386) on :
OSC doesn't have the same views on downloading as most of the publishing industry. Check out his articles about downloading MP3s.
Posted by Quimby2999 (Member # 7044) on :
Well, I checked mine out from the library and paid all of nothing! I will get it when the paperback comes out, though. Or you could just sit around at Borders and read an entire book with the other weirdos.
Posted by Sid Meier (Member # 6965) on :
You'll actually buy me a copy!? WOW your really generous, okay umm [deleted for national security] Thank you thank you thank you!!!
As for the nerve of actually posting on this site thats why I asked first. American and Canadian currency is different so 25 American dollars is about 40 Canadian. As for the local library since SotG just came out they wont have it for about 4 years.
And Tom *deep breath* Thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you!!!!!!!!
[ March 11, 2005, 07:24 AM: Message edited by: Sid Meier ]
Posted by Sid Meier (Member # 6965) on :
Farm Girl how did you find out I came from Canada? Did you check my profile?
Posted by neo-dragon (Member # 7168) on :
I like how you post your full address on a public forum. Couldn't you have sent an email? Posted by Quimby2999 (Member # 7044) on :
Don't ruin the mood, Neo. This is touching *sheds a single tear*
Posted by Sid Meier (Member # 6965) on :
It is not like that they'll come to my house and stalk me. And I also wanted to show how thankful I was. And yeah no one would want to travel god knows how many miles from their comfy chair in a nice warm house to Canada in the middle of winter with freezing winds just to travel to some remote Francophone town travel all the way to my street just to stalk my home in 4 feet of snow. Unless your into ice fishing....
Posted by Beren One Hand (Member # 3403) on :
I didn't know Baldar bought you a book Tom.
Posted by neo-dragon (Member # 7168) on :
For all you know Sid, I'm an insane serial killer who just found out he lives two streets over from you... Posted by Sid Meier (Member # 6965) on :
"two streets away from me" doesnt work since there are no two streets away from me you have the highway that goes past my street that branches off into this penninsula and then a dead end. Theres a beach there during the summer, during winter its ice fishing, and theres a hydro dam up me street. I used to flood once a year but it stopped since they raised the streen 5 feet. Oh ya and by the way even if you did live next door I'll sick my 7 fingered cat after you.
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
Tell you what, Sid. Delete that address and send it to me in E-mail. I'm not going to send you a book without your E-mail addy, anyway, and you really don't want to leave your snail mail address flapping out here in the wind.
But, yes, I'd be glad to do it.
(Note: please clarify your address, too, in your E-mail. I THINK I can translate that into a standard postal block, but only if I ignore things like "Near West Island." Is it safe for me to do that? *grin*)
[ March 10, 2005, 11:13 PM: Message edited by: TomDavidson ]
Posted by Orson Scott Card (Member # 209) on :
I'd be interested to know where you would download a free copy of Shadow of the Giant.
When I used to put my manuscripts up for free, I put them up as soon as they were written and took them down the day the hardcover came out. Everybody benefitted, but we weren't competing with the bookstores.
I'm grateful for the generous soul who gave a book to the would-be downloader. That was very kind. And I appreciate the honesty of asking what others thought about downloading.
In truth, i'm not WORRIED about downloading - most people would vastly prefer having the book on paper. Way more convenient than either reading it on the screen or printing it out.
But i'm really pissed off at whoever scanned the book to put it up online. THEY are the ones who are stealing a right they don't have - the right to publish something they didn't create. My publisher takes a great risk in paying for paper and printing and distribution; the uploader is contributing absolutely nothing yet fancies himself a "public benefactor."
Ah well. It's all very complicated, morally. But this is part of the reason I believe copyrights are being extended beyond all reason. While I think right now it's a bit premature <grin>, it's part of the copyright benefit that the author's rights expire and the work then belongs to the public. When the public domain is too long postponed, then it asserts itself with unauthorized uploads early on.
Meanwhile, though, it's worth remembering that there are lots and lots of ways to get books free. Libraries. Circulating book clubs. Heck, my whole career exists because PEOPLE LOAN BOOKS TO FRIENDS AND FAMILY. I remember hearing Jerry Pournelle talk about telling people, when they said they lent their books to others, "Make 'em buy their own!" But ... how do we find new readers, except by word of mouth, which includes handing a book to a friend and demanding, "You have to read this book!"
I'm just not sure where that uploader who makes my book available to total strangers fits in to this. He's not sharing it with friends or family. He hasn't, like a library, paid for each circulating copy. Yet I still would like people who can't afford to buy the expensive hardcover to have access to my books (which is one reason I used to upload the manuscripts myself).
I guess the thing that bothers me most is the sheer rudeness of unauthorized online publication. Like taking flowers from somebody else's garden and offering them as if they were your own gift. (Of course the analogy is faulty, since the flowers you take are no longer in the garden, while online copying doesn't deprive anybody of a copy.)
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
"I'm grateful for the generous soul who gave a book to the would-be downloader."
Whee. But to be fair, I'm only doing it because John Hansen -- John Binder, y'know, who left these parts long ago after some strange conjunction of stars turned him into a curmudgeon -- sent me a copy of Ender's Shadow for no apparent reason. The day it came out, he posted something like "Who wants a copy of Ender's Shadow?" And I said I did. And two days later, I got one. Like I said, it made a lasting impression.
So there's probably some kind of moral in this.
Posted by Orson Scott Card (Member # 209) on :
The moral is: People like John Hansen exist. So life ain't all bad.
Posted by Mark (Member # 6393) on :
Hey, speaking of copyrights, I know one poster here likes country music. I wonder if he would be interested in a site that provides free listening while being 100% legal.
Go to browse artists for a wide selection.
Posted by hansenj (Member # 4034) on :
Now I feel bad that I got people's hopes up that I was John Hansen when I first started posting here. What a great thing to do!
Posted by Sid Meier (Member # 6965) on :
K I edited it out however I have to go to school so I'll email it asap.
You can usually get anything for free from Shareaza, Kazaa etc, I don't like the idea of downloading books either but it takes so long for good books recently published to go into softcover that I'm very sorely tempted. Thats why I was aksing first. I currently own a softcover copy of every Ender and Shadow Book to date except Giant. Thanks for making this clear to me.
Posted by Anna (Member # 2582) on :
Mr. Card, I don't know how much you know about peer to peer, but for exemple, a few hours after the release of the latest Harry Potter, the Order of the Phoenix, it was available in .doc on E-mule, and in several versions, so I assume a lot of people has scanned and then made text recognizing of the book. (and before anybody asks : yes, I downloaded it, but I had already bought it online and the (censored) package arrived two weeks after the release ! )
Posted by Icarus (Member # 3162) on :
Don't feel bad, Jenny (?). Personally, I'm glad you're you. Posted by Orson Scott Card (Member # 209) on :
Look, don't worry about this. I make enough money for any rational person and it's obvious that downloading is not hurting my income OR my publisher's. I am not granting permission for anyone to upload and distribute my work, but I am also not condemning anybody who downloads it. My personal standard would be the one that you are already following: If you download a book, read it, and like it, then you'll eventually buy an edition of the book - at least the paperback. And if you read it (or start to read it) and dislike it, then you don't owe the author anything.
As far as I'm concerned, that keeps you honest and hurts nobody. At least that's the standard I use. People have occasionally given me ripped cds. i listen, and if I like it, I buy a legitimate copy; if i don't, then ... I won't be listening to the ripped copy anyway, will I?
Posted by Anna (Member # 2582) on :
That's my point of view, too.
Posted by Sid Meier (Member # 6965) on :
Thanks for clearing this up Mr. Card from what I hear from SotG I'm going to love it once I get it. I was never to sure about ever reading Memory of Earth since I wasn't sure if it was my kind of science fiction or not but I think there's an old copy in my room somewhere. I found it cleaning up so I'll give it a try.
Posted by JaimeBenlevy (Member # 6222) on :
This thread makes me want to do something nice Anyone want to take advantage? Posted by beatnix19 (Member # 5836) on :
I'm always interested in nice. YOu could tell me how cool I am. That would be nice and something I rarely here. My students all insist that I'm the exact opposite. Posted by JaimeBenlevy (Member # 6222) on :
Beatnix, you are the coolest, most amazing teacher I've never met! (is that good?)
Posted by Brian_Berlin (Member # 6900) on :
OSC Only posting texts for a brief moment then taking them down still let's the genie out of the bottle, imho
I spent about 6 or 7 minutes doing a quick search on google and came up with these.
Not that anything can be done about texts that are out there now... just something to keep in mind.
BB
=== Mods feel free to edit away those links after OSC has seen them (perhapse, forward this to him then edit, maybe).
Posted by Sid Meier (Member # 6965) on :
WOAH! One thing to anomynously upload it peer to peer over shareaza but this is just blatant. I hope those are mostly for storage rather than for distributing them to the masses. But ya I beleieve that if people who download those books truly appreciate Mr. Card then they'll buy the actual copy eventually.
Posted by Sid Meier (Member # 6965) on :
So if I dont post post in two ro so weeks I got anthrax in my mail. Posted by beatnix19 (Member # 5836) on :
quote: Beatnix, you are the coolest, most amazing teacher I've never met!
Why, yes, Yes I am. Posted by Andrew (Member # 7502) on :
And so modest, too.
[ March 11, 2005, 09:45 PM: Message edited by: Andrew ]
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
"Orson Scott Card (1951 - not yet)"
One of those sites had this to say about Scott's impending death. *laugh*
Posted by Sid Meier (Member # 6965) on :
heh
Posted by Orson Scott Card (Member # 209) on :
At least some of those sites are Russian - but one has to understand the cultural framework behind Russian online pirating.
First, there's the long tradition of samizdat publication - typing out copies of entire banned books so that they can circulate without benefit of state permission.
Second, there's the equally long tradition of books being "fairly" published - that is, ten thousand copies are printed of each edition, regardless of demand. When they're gone, they're gone. So to Russians who grew up knowing that the books they wanted would always be impossible to get, it won't seem so unreasonable to "share" them on the nets.
The trouble is that distribution is international, and they do it in English as often as in Russian (primarily because translation is a LOT OF WORK and scanning and English book is not).
Still doesn't make it right, but I don't think of them as evil.
I think those ads they run in the movie theaters equating illegal duplicating of movies with theft are way overblown. It all depends, I think. The people who make and sell copies of first run movies are profiting from someone else's property. i think they should go to jail. (I just got offered Be Cool in a fast food restaurant when I was on the road yesterday. All right, I admit it, McDonald's. I had a Big Mac and fries with hot mustard sauce. so sue me. At least i didn't have their d*** caramel sundae.)
But sharing copies of old movies that should have been out of copyright years ago except that Hollywood has lobbied Congress into extending copyright beyond all reason, while NOT protecting at all the rights of the actual creators of the movies - well, see? I'm as much a practitioner of situational ethics as the next guy.
Posted by Papa Moose (Member # 1992) on :
When I first saw online versions of books (and yes, it was the Ender series, back when I was googling for Enzichel Vinicenze), I was thinking "Wow, someone did a lot of work typing that all in." This was after the advent of document scanning and letter recognition, but before my instinctive awareness of it.
Then I couldn't help but think of scanning the book as opposed to re-typing it to Moses copying Jethro's book in Stone Tables. "'True,' said Jethro ruefully. 'But then, no one reads a book as carefully as the man who's writing it out by hand.'"
Nonetheless, I downloaded the text files, because (a) I have the books already, and OSC had already made known his feelings at some point so I figured it was ok, and (b) it's easier to search for that quotation in a document than to page through the book. That's right, I'm admitting it -- I haven't actually memorized all the Ender books.
Just most of each of them.
--Pop
Posted by Chris Bridges (Member # 1138) on :
With the help of Baen.com, Fictionwise.com, eReader.com, and Project Gutenberg I am slowly replacing a large chunk of my library with e-books. Partly because even though I've bought literally hundreds of them online, I still have dangerously overflowing bookshelves, partly because I love the ability to carry 100 books with me at all times on my Palm, and partly because it frees up the space so I can replace my favorite tattered paperbacks with hardback editions. So far my collections of OSC, Robert B. Parker, Spider Robinson, Jennifer Crusie, Harry Turtledove, Terry Pratchett, Neil Gaiman have all been upgraded in those rare cases where I didn't have the hardback already.
But I want more! And frankly, downloading them for free generally means lesser quality, not-quite-word-for-word scans, no cover image, often no intros or acknowledgements or afterwards, and the author gets squat. So I'll harass the publishers instead to keep 'em coming.
Mr. Card, Shadow of the Hegemon and Shadow Puppets are both (legally) available as e-books. Where's the next one? Is there a good person at Tor to ask?
Edited to add: wow, Fictionwise needs to catch up on their OSC prices. Their copies of the Shadow books are still at hardback prices, where eReader.com dropped down to paperback prices soon after the paperbacks were available.
[ March 12, 2005, 01:25 AM: Message edited by: Chris Bridges ]
Posted by Icarus (Member # 3162) on :
I can't wrap my brain around the idea of paying as much for an e-book as for a physical book, whether hard or paperback. That's just nuts!
(Or am I misunderstanding?)
[ March 12, 2005, 01:35 AM: Message edited by: Icarus ]
Posted by Chris Bridges (Member # 1138) on :
Generally they're a bit cheaper, especially with promotions and rebate offers and membership discounts and newsletter coupons, etc.
And the SF publisher who jumped headfirst into it before anyone else really thought about it is Jim Baen. Not only does the Baen Free Library offer a ton of free books (something that has resulted in higher book sales for those authors, imagine that) but his Webscriptions service lets you order 5 books for $15 and you can read them ahead of print if you like, in biweekly installments that ultimately result in the entire book being available online a few weeks before print publication. Perfect for us obsessive series-reading types.
OK, cards on the table (no pun intended). My real reason for liking e-books? Impulse buying. I can click on a book and be reading it within minutes. Until Amazon.com perfects teleportation, there's no faster way to feed your fix.
Posted by Icarus (Member # 3162) on :
Well, I now live in a cardboard box behind Borders. I paid the manager $100 for a copy of the key. Beat that!
[ March 12, 2005, 01:45 AM: Message edited by: Icarus ]
Posted by Chris Bridges (Member # 1138) on :
Always one step ahead of me...
(mutter mutter)
Posted by Sid Meier (Member # 6965) on :
Posted by rivka (Member # 4859) on :
Oh that was you I saw as I zipped in and out of Borders on Friday!
Thought that guy looked oddly familiar. I knew he seemed a tad icky . . .
Posted by bruthafez (Member # 7546) on :
I'm a big fan of ebooks as well, for certain situations, like traveling, waiting in line, or walking the dog at night. Portability is definitely great. Random access kind of stinks though.
I like my Sony Clie PEG-SJ20 - good screen lighting, and a side scroll wheel that makes one-handed reading very easy. Unfortunately, Sony is getting out of the PDA business. I don't think any other PDA's that I've looked at have that side scroll wheel.
I also like Fictionwise. They have a great selection. I wish more stuff were in the e-book format, however. Like Shadow of the Giant.
Posted by SailorNaboo (Member # 7604) on :
There is another angle to this.
I own all of the Ender Series in hardcover and most in book-on-cd format. I really like to listen to books while playing video games; it makes me feel like I'm not wasting my time that way.
My confession is that I also do have downloaded copies of the Ender books (that I paid for in Hardback and audio formats), but the eBook type versions of the books I have are just as illegal as the MP3 downloads of music that is getting so much media attention. I do NOT have any text file copies of books that I do not own.
Here is how I use them. They are loaded on my Palm Pilot and I usually have about 20 different books at a time loaded on it. If I wake up in the middle of the night and can't get back to sleep, I pick up the Palm Pilot and read one of the books. It is backlit and I can adjust the size of the text so I don't have to find my reading glasses and I don't have to bother my husband by turning on a light. I also use the Palm for travel. I never know what book I'm going to feel like reading while I'm on a flight and hardcover books get heavy (Imagine bringing and Ender Book and the latest Harry Potter book in your carry on!). This way, this tiny device has a books ready that suit most of my moods
Mr. Card, I know you read this a lot, and I promise you that I own at least one copy of each book I have downloaded. In the case of your latest, I paid full price for the audio of Shadow of the Giant (I didn't wait for it to show up for less on audible.com) and I bought the book the day it came out as well. But, I don't believe that being able to adjust the text file to large print and reading without waking my husband up is doing something immoral or something that takes money away from you. Besides, some of the copies of your books are versions that he had signed years ago at BYU and I don't want them to get all banged up.
To the person who is buying a copy for the other board member, what a wonderful thing to do! I've done that kind of thing once in a while. When the person has felt uncomfortable taking such a generous gift, I've just told them that someday when they are in the position to do something like that for someone, pass on the good deed in your own way. I do not believe in karma, but I believe in living like it is real.
[ March 20, 2005, 01:37 AM: Message edited by: SailorNaboo ]
Posted by neo-dragon (Member # 7168) on :
Well, even mp3s and video game ROMs are considered okay if you own a legit copy as well.
Posted by B-HAX (Member # 6640) on :
I only download Brttany Spears songs from p2p....and damnit I have yet to send her to the poor house. Maybe it will be the next mp3 I download....
::shuffles off to download Oops I did it again for the 58th time ::
Posted by B-HAX (Member # 6640) on :
::giggles to himself::
When I saw this on that website
Arthur C. Clarke (1917 - not yet)
I was about to make fun of them for not updating their website, but 30 seconds of research revealed Arthur as still being alive. I SO thought he was dead. 87 years old, what a life.
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
"Well, even mp3s and video game ROMs are considered okay if you own a legit copy as well."
While it may be "okay," I'm afraid it's not technically legal anymore. Thank Congress.
Posted by SailorNaboo (Member # 7604) on :
MP3s are only technically OK if you are the one that made the MP3 from your own copy of the media. Even if you download the exact same version of the MP3 that you own, it's not legal.
Harry Potter is another example of this for me when it comes to books. I have every US version of the book in both Hardcover and paperback, I have every UK version of the book in paperback, and I have the first 4 of the Japanese versions in Hardcover. I also own the UK Audio Versions. I also have downloaded each of the books in a format that works for my Palm. They have never been released in any eBook format. Technically, even though I have paid my share of money to Schoolastic and Bloomsbury (as well as the audiobook people), the versions that I have on my Palm are not legal. Because I do feel the author has gotten plenty of money from me, and though I understand the legal aspects, I don't feel that I'm doing something immoral.
Some books are just so darn big too! I'm a returning college student and I've purchased the math book I'm going to be using for the whole year. I need it in class daily but it's just too much to carry. My solution was to take it to a local copy store and have them cut off the spine of the book and re-bind it into three books -- one for each term. I made sure to place the right answer key in the back for each one. When my teacher first saw it, he thought I had copied the book. Then he noticed the color printing and that the book was still on the same size paper. It ruined any chance of selling it back to the bookstore, but it's much easier on my back now.
Posted by Sid Meier (Member # 6965) on :
what would've happened if you did copy it? Tell you to buy a new one? HA! I got all of my programming books and software for free, thebooks from my cousin who dropped and the software from my college. So I saved about... 1500$ in books and software.
Posted by quidscribis (Member # 5124) on :
Well, I'll admit that we download pirated books. We do it all the time. I can even justify it. Well, not morally, of course, but . . .
It's difficult to get fiction here. The biggest bookstore in the country finally carries books by OSC, but nothing written in the last 5 years or so, and it's an extremely limited selection. As in, oh, maybe 100 titles total for science fiction/fantasy/horror combined. If we could get more fiction, we'd buy it. We're obsessed with books, and we're willing to put our money where our mouth is. Between the two of us, we have probably 3 thousand paperbacks. Then there are the hard covers.
When I lived in Canada, I was known for buying - and reading - at least a dozen paperbacks, sometimes two or more - a month. Fiction is my drug.
Being a third world country doesn't make the prices on books or movies any cheaper. We have to pay the same price that's charged in the US or England, despite the fact that the average Sri Lankan earns 1/35th of what the average American earns. (Okay, we're not average, but that's beside the point.)
Everything here - almost - is pirated. Sure, paperback fiction is probably the exception. I say probably because I don't actually know for a fact that it's a legal edition. DVDs, well, I finally found one store that sells legal copies of movies. They carried a total of about 50 movies. And it took me until a month ago to find the one and only source in the country for legal software, including MicroSoft products. Even the MicroSoft office here doesn't sell legal MicroSoft programs.
What else is there to do here other than read the same books over and over and over and over again? Well, okay, I do it anyway, even more so with my favorites, but still . . .
I need to be fed! I need my fix of fiction! I can't live without it!
Sure, condemn me. Or provide me with a reasonabley diverse source of fiction. (And yes, I know, no one's picking on me. Just had to throw in my 5 Rupees, adjusted for inflation.)
Posted by quidscribis (Member # 5124) on :
quote: Arthur C. Clarke (1917 - not yet)
I was about to make fun of them for not updating their website, but 30 seconds of research revealed Arthur as still being alive. I SO thought he was dead. 87 years old, what a life.
Yeah, he's still alive and kicking. The tsunami didn't get him, either, but it did destroy one of his dive shops.
He's very much alive and kicking, and very stuck on himself. Fahim's interviewed him 4 times for various magazine and/or newspaper articles. He's quite the local legend.
Posted by Sid Meier (Member # 6965) on :
Have you ever met him!? Sri Lanka can't be that much of a big place! C'mon spill the beans!
Posted by ZeroPoint (Member # 7571) on :
I'm a touch behind here in the thread, having moved on to who is not dead yet and Sri Lanka.
On the topic of lending, I am a first hand example of the strength of expanding your reader base through borrowing.
My dad straight up gave me his copy of Ender's Game when I was younger. It was something he did. If he finished reading a book a few times that he thought I would like, he would just give it to me. Coming from a somewhat poor family, where I couldn't get things on my own very often, it was always a treat. I had that copy for about 12 years before giving it to a friend, who then loaned it to his girlfriend, who has yet to give it back.
Now, it would appear from that viewpoint that I have taken quite a bit of money from OSC, but actually, it was that initial gifting that has lead to me owning eight of Mr. Card's books. My friend, who had a bit more disposable income when I gave him my copy, went out and purchased as many books in the series as he could. As far as I know, his girlfriend has been keeping up with the stories of Ender's jeesh as well.
Beyond all of that, I had to get myself a new copy of EG, which my girlfriend has read, and although we don't need two copies in our collection, we hope to have children one day, who I would like to pass the books along to. When that happens, I'll have to have backups for myself.
All in all, sharing is good. I can't count the amount of authors that I have reveled in because of my dad. Makes me want to do something nice for somebody too.
Posted by quidscribis (Member # 5124) on :
No, I havne't met him. Um, yes, the country is geographically small, but it has a population of 20 million. C'mon!
Posted by Icarus (Member # 3162) on :
quid, why don't you send Card $5 or $10 for each book you download? Posted by B-HAX (Member # 6640) on :
quote: Yeah, he's still alive and kicking. The tsunami didn't get him, either, but it did destroy one of his dive shops.
He's very much alive and kicking, and very stuck on himself. Fahim's interviewed him 4 times for various magazine and/or newspaper articles. He's quite the local legend.
I'm getting this Col. Kurtz in the jungle god complex picture in my head... I hope it hasn't progressed like that.
Posted by quidscribis (Member # 5124) on :
Icky - good idea, but nah. I'd rather buy the actual paperback. And I will, as soon as I have the opportunity. I don't like reading ebooks - it's hard on my eyes. I would much much much rather have the paperback. Except for all the room they take up. We're probably going to Dubai in a couple of months, and believe me, I'll be looking then. Posted by Verai (Member # 7507) on :
comment on, " my whole career exists because PEOPLE LOAN BOOKS TO FRIENDS AND FAMILY"
After my brother let me read his Ender's Game I went out and bought all the rest of the Ender books, all the Shadow books, all the Earthbound books and several Alvin books.
Posted by Mr.Happenstance (Member # 7635) on :
THe only books I download are dungeons and dragons books, mainly because theres such a vast, expensive (30 or forty dollars a book) amount of it that I can't keep up even when I do buy them regularly. I did try and download Shadow of the Hegemon and read it online but I just quit halfway through because my eyse hurt from staring at the darn computer screen.
Plus, it just felt too weird to be reading such a good story when i couldn't physically carry it around with me, so I bought it instead.
Posted by SephirothVII (Member # 7645) on :
i just bought and finished the book and i wanted to know if anybody knew if this is the last book in the series because at the end you never find out what happens to bean
Posted by AntiCool (Member # 7386) on :
Why buy books? Because they smell better than my computer screen. Plus, they become obsolete much more slowly, dont get lost when the electricity sneezes, and are easily tradeable in foreign countries.
I'm one of those people that spends considerably more of my income on books than food. I enjoy the way books spread out, get lost and found, and overall, endure (barring fire, flood, or puppy teeth). I measure my life by the books I have read and the memories connected to them. I'm just not ready to trust that memory album to a computer. I want my anchors to be concrete, dustable, and loanable.
I dont think I could handle downloading books because I would then be forced to read them on my computer screen or fumble with many loose sheets of printed unbook. Plus, if I downloaded my books, I wouldnt have an excuse to spend hours browsing through book stores.
The internet provied amazing access to, well, almost anything. I think its good to have the content of books available online, but only insofar as it doesnt damage the publishing world's ability to be profitable and support the authors who write these wonderful works. We need to find a balance between being superconsumers and parasites.
Give me downloadable music any day, but I want my books bound and bought. Call it an donation to Starving Students Feeding Starving Writers.
m.
Posted by Sergeant (Member # 8749) on :
First, Sorry about resurrecting thing thread, but I saw it referenced in another more current thread.
But on to my point, does anyone know i fthere is a good method to buy foreign language versions of OSC's books? Whenever I am brushing up on my Russian I like to read books that I have read a bunch of times because it facilitates learning vocabulary. Of course I have seen places on Russian websites where you can read the text, but as OSC said, having it in print format is much better. I would absolutly love to have a couple of OSC books in Russian to complement my Russian Tolkien collection and Korean Harry Potter. So if anyone knows of a way to get them sort of trying my luck with a Russian retail website (or if you know of a reputable Russian retail website) let me know.
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(And yes, I know, no one's picking on me. Just had to throw in my 5 Rupees, adjusted for inflation.)