• NOW LIVE! Into the Woods--new character species, eerie monsters, and haunting villains to populate the woodlands of your D&D games.

eBook Prices - Is it just me…

I don't actually care about the whole "ownership" thing so much. I just want ebooks to be device-agnostic. If I had a e-ink device that could run kindle, Nook, and Libby apps for access, I would be happy.
I would prefer to have the option to buy books anywhere as well.

Troll Lord, for instance, stopped giving KS backers digital copies through drivethrurpg and it bites because I like having a single place for my digital gaming.
 

log in or register to remove this ad

Troll Lord, for instance, stopped giving KS backers digital copies through drivethrurpg and it bites because I like having a single place for my digital gaming.

DTRPG is nice, but these days I go direct to the source if I can, to cut the fees charged by the middleman.
 

DTRPG is nice, but these days I go direct to the source if I can, to cut the fees charged by the middleman.
Most Kickstarter RPGs used to deliver PDF copies via Drivethru and this is moving to individual company accounts so it is hard to keep track of stuff.

I have moved to download everything into personal folders with a NAS backup.
 





I switched from Kobo to Kindle because it saved me money and allowed me to track my reading more effectively.

I'm not at all fussed about licensing rather than owning things like books, music, and movies. Unless I'm teaching them, in which case I use physical copies, books are generally one and done for me. Occasionally I want to re-read a book from decades ago, and I am more than happy to pay for it again rather than store books for decades. In my mind, the time, effort and physical space allotted to keeping stuff like that is worth more to me than the stuff. YVMV.

I have not noticed a big increase in ebook prices since I swapped to mostly ebooks well over a decade ago.
 
Last edited:


Couldn't they just buy the digital book and make as many copies as they want?
First, that would violate the contract the library signed. Even if they did not mind the ethical issue, libraries do not get an electronic copy of a title that they could duplicate. They license a certain number of checkouts from an authorized ebook distributor (like Amazon or OverDrive), who manages sending the ebook to a user's device and tracks the number of checkouts against the library's account.

A physical book does not have an infinite number of uses. Libraries regularly have to weed their collections of beaten up and worn out physical books. A physical book rarely survives 25+ checkouts.
 

Into the Woods

Remove ads

Top