The Bank Holiday Murders by Tom Wescott (2014)

[GUT]

G'Day Tom

But I don't seem to be paying used book prices, most books I've looked into I seem to pay about the same, or am I missing something?

[Tom_Wescott]

G'Day Tom

But I don't seem to be paying used book prices, most books I've looked into I seem to pay about the same, or am I missing something?

The price of an average Kindle is about the price of a used hard back book. But not paperback.

Yours truly,

Tom Wescott

[GUT]

That's what worries me most Tom, $20-$30 bucks for the usage rights to something that may or may not be around for months, or years. I've got books [or they probably belong to the Bride] that are well over 100 years old, I really don't want to buy a book that I will not have at some stage.

[Tom_Wescott]

That's what worries me most Tom, $20-$30 bucks for the usage rights to something that may or may not be around for months, or years. I've got books [or they probably belong to the Bride] that are well over 100 years old, I really don't want to buy a book that I will not have at some stage.

Like I sai, it's a trade off. I get books for cheap and free on Kindle and enjoy. Also, I have limited space and want more books than I want to house, so Kindle is great. Right now, we can still get hard copy books when we want. But for how much longer? Movie theaters are changing too. There are and will continue to be fewer theatrical releases. Prices will begin to vary based on the budget of the film. Steven Spielberg was barely able to get Lincoln on the big screen. He said it was 'this close' to being a cable movie. Because it didn't have an X-Man in it. He says Hollywood depends too much on huge budget fair and it will only take two or three mega-flops to bring it all down.
Video stores are now a thing of the past. Just a handful of years ago, BlockBuster was one of America's major companies. They're since folded. It's weird to me why people don't miss that experience. My son is 18 and I told him to remember the trips to the video stores and book stores so he could tell his kids one day about 'how it was'. That's progress.

Yours truly,

Tom Wescott

[GUT]

G'Day Tom

We still have a lot of video stores here but they virtually give away the rentals, relying on sales of new and second hand videos and chips, drinks etc. So maybe we are still running a bit behind I know we've lost a few bookshops, mainly those big multi-nationals, like Border's but others seem to still be doing OK.

Perhaps I will have no choice but to go digital. And I'm not a total dinosaur I use digital books all the time professionally principally because they are updated so often and the search function, but I just love the paper experience.

[Barnaby]

If Amazon ceases to exist in the next decade or so Western civilization has bigger problems than "I lost my Ripper book collection." Beyond that, who knows? Nothing lasts forever. Real books take up space, are lost, are defaced by toddlers, or destroyed in fires and floods. It's probably not worth worrying about.

[GUT]

G'Day Barnaby

What bigger problem does western civilization have if Amazon goes under, just wondering?

I would be devastated to loose all my books, but it wouldn't be the end of the world as we know it.

Seems a lot bigger fish them them has gone under over the years.

[Brenda]

.

I buy for the Kindle, but if a book really reaches me, I buy a hard copy. That way my physical collection is only the coolest of books!

[Tom_Wescott]

I buy for the Kindle, but if a book really reaches me, I buy a hard copy. That way my physical collection is only the coolest of books!

That's the smart thing to do and I now do that myself. For research and writing purposes the Kindle is a Godsend because you can word search multiple books in seconds to find a source you need. Except A-Z, since that's not on Kindle for some reason.

Yours truly,

Tom Wescott

[GUT]

Now A-Z on Electronic form MAY tempt me, it would fall into the same category as my "loose leaf" services.

[Tom_Wescott]

Now A-Z on Electronic form MAY tempt me, it would fall into the same category as my "loose leaf" services.

I have all the Stewart Evans and Begg books on kindle, as well as hard copy. I like being able to peck through them on my phone where ever I'm at. I also have Shelden on kindle (he didn't release a paper back this time), and Clack, and a number of others.

Yours truly,

Tom Wescott

[GUT]

G'day Tom

(he didn't release a paper back this time)

Now that's what really worries me!

[Barnaby]

G'Day Barnaby

What bigger problem does western civilization have if Amazon goes under, just wondering?


Seems a lot bigger fish them them has gone under over the years.

Bigger fish, yes. But dyin' fish. Amazon is exceedingly well run and has shown no indication of slowing down. My point wasn't that they are the biggest; rather my point was if they fail in the short-term something horrific has occurred with the economy. Your Kindle editions most probably are safe.

[Ozzy]

To go back to page 2 and your question Tom.
OK in an ideal world I would buy hardcopy print books all the time. Period. I will always prefer to read a real hardcopy rather than on my kindle.
But I live in a world in which I don't have £25 for the updated Whittington-Egan or whatever the price for an original 1975 print.
I also live in a little village with no bookshops. The only books in shops here are in second hand charity shops.
Lastly I have trouble getting about. So I don't even get to having one of these hardcopy versions in my hands in a bookshop these days. If I still did I might skip eating for a couple of days to purchase the book like I did in my younger days. You just can't do that when you get older. I don't think I need to tell you that.

One great thing for people like me who need glasses to read is that you can change the font size with a kindle. I think kindle's are great for those of us who like older books as well. So old that they are public domain so you can download them for free from places like Project Gutenberg. There are some books that, if there was no kindle version I simply would not be able to read it as it would cost so much to track down a hardcopy.

Not all ebooks come with a proper TOC (table of contents). By proper I mean you look at an ebook's TOC and decide you want to go to let's say chapter 4. A proper TOC will let you jump to chapter 4 straight away. Gutenberg's kindle books don't have proper TOCs. At least in my experience. You'll still be able to read the TOC. It's there. But it's just plain text rather than interactive like it is with a properly formatted TOC.
For any person thinking of self-publishing on kindle let me say I'm sure a proper TOC will at least gain you some credit in the book's presentation department!

One thing that I do find with about 90% of kindle owners I talk to is that they thought they could only use books purchased on Amazon with it. I say to them get some decent ebook software like calibre for organising your ebook collections. Then go to Gutenberg.
Personally I copy dissertations from the casebook site into simple txt files and throw them on my kindle. I have an early kindle with no keyboard or backlight. The eink they use was the selling point. I just couldn't understand the reason for the backlight version. You might as well get a cheap tablet. I'd probably only be able to read from a backlit kindle for two hours. But with the kindle I have I can read from it all day long.

Speaking of public domain (PD). I think in the UK a work is/can become PD once 70 years have passed since the author's death. I'm still hoping to read Leonard Matters book one day. He died in 1951. Fingers crossed for 2021 then!

I have about 15 Ripper books and the last 6 Ripperologist on my kindle.

[Tom_Wescott]

Hi Ozzy, thanks for that informative post. You've got more experience than I have. At this moment, I have zero experience formatting anything for Kindle, because I won't get to that stage until I've finished polishing my manuscript. In fact, I doubt I'll have much of a personal hand in the Kindle formatting for me my book, so I hope it does have Contents-to-chapter links like you mentioned.

I'm with you on Matters!

Yours truly,

Tom Wescott