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Converting the library


ants

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So, I’ve got far to many physical books for space. Books piled up along the walls and several deep on the book shelves. So I am finally going to bite the bullet and get ebooks to replace them, just keeping favourites and ones that aren’t available as ebooks. 

Converting the books is likely to be about $4000-6000 (AUD). So the reason for this thread is to find out if there is any way to get the ebooks cheaper? I traditionally use Amazon.co.uk. Anyway to get credit for the physical books I have, often also bought through Amazon.co.uk?

Advice welcome. 

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Amazon.com allowed me to buy Kindle versions of prior hard copy purchases for a minor fee (I think it was $2 per).  I don’t know if that was just a temporary offer after I bought the Kindle or if it is an ongoing program. 
Edit - unfortunately I also had many, many books from Barnes & Noble. 

A different possibility to consider: I bought my brother a Kindle as a gift last year.  I linked it to my Amazon account, downloaded every ebook I ever bought (several hundred), then decoupled from my Amazon account and sent it to him.  It’s worth thinking about who you know with a long Kindle history and a similar taste in books. 

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2 hours ago, Iskaral Pust said:

Amazon.com allowed me to buy Kindle versions of prior hard copy purchases for a minor fee (I think it was $2 per).  I don’t know if that was just a temporary offer after I bought the Kindle or if it is an ongoing program. 
Edit - unfortunately I also had many, many books from Barnes & Noble. 

Thanks. Was there anything special you needed to do to trigger that?

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1 hour ago, IlyaP said:

Kobo tends to have nice deals, and they're not DRM-locked, so you can actually have a physical copy to download and do with as you please. 

They're my first port of call. 

Thanks, but I don’t think Kobo is supported on the kindle. 

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11 hours ago, ants said:

So, I’ve got far to many physical books for space. Books piled up along the walls and several deep on the book shelves. So I am finally going to bite the bullet and get ebooks to replace them, just keeping favourites and ones that aren’t available as ebooks. 

Converting the books is likely to be about $4000-6000 (AUD). So the reason for this thread is to find out if there is any way to get the ebooks cheaper? I traditionally use Amazon.co.uk. Anyway to get credit for the physical books I have, often also bought through Amazon.co.uk?

Advice welcome. 

Never,  I will never convert to eBooks.  I will love and lug my paperbooks with me to the grave.

:)

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Project Gutenberg is great for any classic book that is in the public domain.  They have Kindle versions for many.  They are all free.

 https://www.gutenberg.org/

Not sure about .co.uk but the .com amazon has similarly many of the classics in the public domain available for free download.  (Side note: I find it utterly baffling that currently the $2.99 ebook version of Little Women is a best seller when there is a free version there too.)

As for contemporary books, unless there is an immediate need to clear away all your books at once I'd suggest a slower approach.  You can get a lot of cheap ebook deals on amazon if you are willing to wait.  I am not interested in getting rid of my physical books but I do look to duplicate my collection in ebook form.  So I have a wish list I maintain on amazon that I check every day. I've been rather surprised at the amount of books on my list that I've been able to get for $1.99.  Sometimes they have been daily deals but most of the time its just random unpromoted price drops.

The advantage of having books on your wish list is occasionally I get emails from amazon where they offer me $5 off on certain books on my list.

I at one point used to follow a website that tracked all books and their amazon prices so you could see the lowest ebook price a book had gone for and how often that happened.  You could also use it to search for price drops.  And if you registered they would let you track books and email you about price drops. But I lost the bookmark and haven't been able to find the site again.  But its out there...somewhere.

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10 hours ago, ants said:

Thanks. Was there anything special you needed to do to trigger that?

Not that I recall.  I went to purchase an ebook and it gave a message at check-out that the price would be only $2 because I had previously purchased the book from Amazon. I got the same message for other re-buys.  I have not bought a duplicate in quite a while so I don’t know if that program expired.

You can just ask Amazon.

As @lady narcissa said, you can also get a lot of discounts if you’re willing to purchase opportunistically over time.  Just put all the books on your wishlist.  But that step is only needed if you are not already getting re-buys at a low price. 

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On 1/1/2020 at 1:57 AM, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

Never,  I will never convert to eBooks.  I will love and lug my paperbooks with me to the grave.

:)

I know the feeling. But realistically, if they’re 3 deep on the shelves then they’re not really being used or seen. 

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On 12/31/2019 at 11:29 PM, David Selig said:

I have a kindle and I buy from Kobo all the time. Removing the DRM from the books which have it is very easy, just google "DRM removal plugin" for Calibre, install it and then Calibre is able to convert them into the kindle format with one click.

This sounds easy, but how big a deal is it if you need to do it to around 600-700 books at the same time? 

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You could also try getting an scanner that can do OCR and just scan in all your print books.  It would probably save you some money, but would likely cost you a great deal of time.

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On 1/4/2020 at 3:45 AM, .H. said:

You could also try getting an scanner that can do OCR and just scan in all your print books.  It would probably save you some money, but would likely cost you a great deal of time.

I shudder to think how much time that would take!

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On ‎1‎/‎3‎/‎2020 at 7:50 AM, BigFatCoward said:

I moved house and left 1,000s of pounds worth of books in the communal hallway (and dvd's). Dont regret it for a second. Only ones I've re bought are ones I actually read. Buying to have is just pointless. 

I'm seriously considering doing the same. Not moving, but just having a massive book clear out. I have hundreds of books, that either I've never read and probably never will (bought on a whim in charity shops and used book shops), or that I've read and enjoyed once and won't ever re-read. I plan on keeping only the physical copies that have some emotional resonance for me, or that I regularly re-read, or that are useful for referencing. Everything else will go to Oxfam. If I lived in a mansion with a library I'd keep 'em around for the ambience. But my two-bed flat could honestly use the extra space.

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