Allow me to gripe about ebook prices

[spinbaby]

It’s happened again—a friend recommends a good book, which turns out to be out of print and the publisher has set the price of the ebook somewhere north of $10.

Thank goodness for public libraries.

[Ohiogal]

1. I read all books now from my library's website

The only time I read a purchased book is if a friend gives it to me as a gift or lends me a copy.

I feel your frustration, especially if you love to read like I do.

And, not just because my son works at our county library (in IT) I would encourage everyone to take advantage of online library services.

[exboyfil]

2. Interlibrary Loan

Hoopla
Overdrive
Kindle Unlimited (often runs free trial - right now running a 6 month special for $5/mo)
Scribd ($8.99/mo. after free month trial)

[NJCher]

3. did you do a web search for a .pdf?

sometimes English teachers put up out of print books as .pdfs for their classes. Then they forget to take the file down after class is over.

However if they did this on Blackboard, then you wouldn't be able to get it.

[spinbaby]

4. No luck

The publisher has been very effective at shutting down internet copies. My choices seem to come down to $12.99 ebook or inter library loan. If they had just priced it reasonably to begin with, they could have sold a book.

[yellowdogintexas]

6. I get most of my e-books from BookBub, Robin Reads

and a couple of other similar sites. Choose the genres you like and a daily email will arrive with books in those genres

I have found some great authors and first volumes of series on these sites
Max price is generally $2.99 but many are available free.
Consequently I have a Kindle full of books - but at least they are not taking up space in my house.

I really like that I can read the sample to determine if I want to buy the book.

[AmyStrange]

5. Amazon won't let me sell my e-books for less than $2.99, and...

-

I still make $2.00 and some odd cents in royalties.

Amazon makes ninety and some odd cents off each one, so you can see how much it actually cost to sell an e-book, and asking for more than $5 per book is a rip off in my opinion.

I also offer my first e-book for free on my website (see my sig line below).

There's also a website called gutenberg.org where you can download many of the old classics as e-books for free:

"Choose among free epub and Kindle eBooks, download them or read them online. You will find the world’s great literature here, with focus on older works for which U.S. copyright has expired. Thousands of volunteers digitized and diligently proofread the eBooks, for you to enjoy."

http://www.gutenberg.org/
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[Oldem]

7. I use

my local library's free Kindle book lending program, though the wait times can be long for hot books. You might also try various sites tat point you to free Kindle books. One I find useful is at;
https://www.ereaderiq.com/
You can set filters for price, anywhere from free to whatever your maximum is. You can search by genre. If you hit the "Get It" button, the site will open a new tab for Amazon, so you can read about the book and decide if you want it.