I’ve been reading a lot thIs summer. I finished Ayne Rand’s Atlas Shrugged It only took me about 3 years. I stared by reading it on an old PDF. The problem is the book is so long it strained my little computer and tended to bog it down pretty seriously. I got recycled nook, and bought it on line. The Online book cost around $14 at Barnes and Noble. It was available cheaper as a paperback. This struck me as a lot of money for a 60 year old book. The ebook cost practically nothing to print and nothing to distribute. Yet, Barnes and Noble charge more than for a real book. Atlas Shrugged is available in paperback for $7.99 I thought I was getting some insight why Barnes and Noble may be going out of business.
After trudging through 1200 some odd ages of of some pretty dry reading, I decided on something lighter. I had a couple of Lee Childs “Reacher Novels” that my darling Equality had picked up for me. I noted that they had a Sam’s Club price sticker of $6.36. The price reflects printing, manufacturing, profits and royalties. Everyone gets and deserves their share. Amazon wants $9.99 for the same books in electronic format. Seems to me that taking the printing costs out should save some money.
I like the ebook format, and decided to install the the Kindle reader app into my Home desktop and a netbook. The install wasn’t flawless and simple into Linux WINE, but I managed to get it too work. The Kindle for PC is pretty nice, book marks kept, and notes can be made. I am disappointed in the price of the ebooks. I understand that some books can be bought for the 3 , 4 and 5 dollar range. or even for free, but these aren’t the books that I want to read. Why can I buy a real book cheaper than the electronic version. I will continue to buy books at discount brick and mortar joints save money even while paying sales tax, and hold off buying a Kindle. I will continue to buy books I can’t get elsewhere from Amazon, but I won’t buying ebooks that are more expensive than the real thing.
