Shadow of Victory missing from the monthly bundle

cthia wrote:Am I the only one that rather await the hardback? I like the romance of turning pages.

You're not the only one, but positing an ebook reading device you're comfortable with (which for fiction, an e-ink Kindle works for me) I'd rather have a digital copy. About the only thing I don't like about e-ARCs is that they don't automatically get 'upgraded' to the final version, which is why I pretty much only buy them for mainline Honorverse books.

drothgery wrote:

cthia wrote:Am I the only one that rather await the hardback? I like the romance of turning pages.

You're not the only one, but positing an ebook reading device you're comfortable with (which for fiction, an e-ink Kindle works for me) I'd rather have a digital copy. About the only thing I don't like about e-ARCs is that they don't automatically get 'upgraded' to the final version, which is why I pretty much only buy them for mainline Honorverse books.

I'm going to assume that you mean you'd rather initially read the digital copy as opposed to having the digital copy instead. Digital copies can be wiped out by a virus, hardware failure, etc. Pages are immune to any viruses.

Not to mention that eARCs don't look so impressive on my nice bookshelf.

cthia wrote:

drothgery wrote:You're not the only one, but positing an ebook reading device you're comfortable with (which for fiction, an e-ink Kindle works for me) I'd rather have a digital copy. About the only thing I don't like about e-ARCs is that they don't automatically get 'upgraded' to the final version, which is why I pretty much only buy them for mainline Honorverse books.

I'm going to assume that you mean you'd rather initially read the digital copy as opposed to having the digital copy instead. Digital copies can be wiped out by a virus, hardware failure, etc. Pages are immune to any viruses.

Not to mention that eARCs don't look so impressive on my nice bookshelf.

Or, if you're like my daughter when she was going through eight years of college at two different campuses (campusi?), both many hours away from home, you get an e-reader because lugging hundreds (not kidding, and may be underestimating) of books back and forth on a bus during school breaks isn't practical. Not to mention, the size of dorm rooms precludes the shelving needed to put such a large number of books away.

This is a woman who can, and regularly DOES, read a book per day, no matter how many pages. At seven or eight years of age, she read The Phantom Tollbooth for the first time during a 45 minute drive. She read it the second time on the drive back home.

That said, she would rather have dead tree versions, like myself, but practicality trumps that. However, now that she's out of school and living (and working) with me down here in South Carolina, she may start having her mother ship her physical books here.

Maxxq's daughter sounds a lot like me. I can get through an honorverse book in a day if I am seriouse about it. Carting around dozens of books to and fro lost its charm years ago. I went on vacation more then oncem with a stack of paper backs as a child to prevent boredom. Having an ebook reader is a wonderful wonderful thing, now my entire library is with me at all times with all my Music.

So I will be buying this as the Earc of course.

That being said I also go buy the dead trees version whenever I can if its hard back. Soft backs I am meh on. I love just having them there on a bookshelf looking pretty. With the safehold series where the dead tree is usually available first, I pick that up and then go out and get the ebook copy.

Some people like pretty pictures, others like this so called modern art crap, me gimme a bookshelf lined up with all my favorites. I may not actualy touch them but they will be there.li am meh about paperback, They don't look nearly as nice and they are so small.

cthia wrote:

drothgery wrote:You're not the only one, but positing an ebook reading device you're comfortable with (which for fiction, an e-ink Kindle works for me) I'd rather have a digital copy. About the only thing I don't like about e-ARCs is that they don't automatically get 'upgraded' to the final version, which is why I pretty much only buy them for mainline Honorverse books.

I'm going to assume that you mean you'd rather initially read the digital copy as opposed to having the digital copy instead. Digital copies can be wiped out by a virus, hardware failure, etc. Pages are immune to any viruses.

Not to mention that eARCs don't look so impressive on my nice bookshelf.

Note: eARC stands for electronic Advance Reader Copies. ARCs are 'early access' books. You can get paper ARCs to put on your shelves. Just hit print(or check ebay).

http://www.baen.com/a-call-to-arms.html
http://www.baen.com/a-call-to-arms-earc.html

As you can see, you can't actually buy the eARC anymore once the proper ebook release(along with the dead-tree versions) are out.

I entirely agree about the 'upgrade to final version' comment. It happens with video games, so why not books?

munroburton wrote:...

I entirely agree about the 'upgrade to final version' comment. It happens with video games, so why not books?

Provided that other video-games-stuff such as microtransactions are not introduced, agreed!

cthia wrote:I'm going to assume that you mean you'd rather initially read the digital copy as opposed to having the digital copy instead. Digital copies can be wiped out by a virus, hardware failure, etc. Pages are immune to any viruses.

Not to mention that eARCs don't look so impressive on my nice bookshelf.

I'd go the other way. I wish all of my books were electronic on my Kindle. They don't take up space and I have all of them instantly accessible all the time. Viruses/hardware failure/etc. aren't a concern--anything which manages to wipe out all my Kindles plus Amazon's servers is probably a massive destructive event which destroys everything else I own too.

The key factor for me is that having my whole library accessible all the time from anywhere makes me feel rich.

Maxx, your daughter sounds like all of my sisters and a couple of my nieces. They don't read books either. They inhale them. My reading rate is muuuuch slower. It'll probably take me a week to get through an Honorverse book. Seriously. It isn't that my reading rate or comprehension is so abysmally slow. It is this overabundance of compassion that I've been "blessed" with by my maker. I used to think it a curse. But now I think not, now that I'm older and have learned to embrace it and can see the joys (and sadness) of it.

'Why does it take you so long?' I hear everyone asking - except those of you who have already read my explanation. Simply, too much compassion. I'll read a particularly emotional passage and literally get stuck on it for hours, sometimes days before I can pick back up where I left off. At that point, I oftentimes reread the passage that made me stumble on my own tears in the first place, causing me to stumble again. Then again and again.

The Mueller School Dome collapse threatened to have me committed. There were so many tears, I just had to back away from it. The fiasco with Honor being "exiled" and her wallowing in her sorrow on Grayson, made me wallow in mine. Honor aboard Tepes? OMG!!! How do you people just roll right over those passages without drenching your book? I feel the pain of my characters. I become them. A death brings me to tears. Sometimes happy tears, in the case of Ransom.

And it doesn't have to be the sad parts that cause me delay, but the emotionally uplifting passages as well. When Truman brought the cavalry over the hyper wall to save Honor, I celebrated for quite a while with tears of joy. Trust me, when there are tears of any type invading your tear ducts, reading is out of the question. Too much distortion.

Since I have this "thing," I usually relegate myself to reading in private, sparing myself and the poor public the sadness of seeing a grown man crying. Which leaves me to "plan" the initial reading. For all of you astute readers who may be wondering, the answer is yes, television, movies, has the same effect on me.

Technical books is where I catch up. I can inhale a science book in an hour. Physics, math, history, computers, etc. Which takes most people forever if at all.

Also at Maxx, I envy your daughter, my niece and all other students attending school nowadays, who can take advantage of ebooks. I was a bookworm in school as well, loved school. Never actually skipped a day in my life (Why?, all the girls were at school!) I always brought all of my books home. All of them! Every day. I hated leaving a single book in my locker. If inspiration hits to read one and it is in your locker, especially over the weekend or holiday, torture! My books tended to be like encyclopedias, especially in college. Ebooks would have been perfect. So there is a place for ebooks for certain!

My book collection is impressive. Probably everyone in my family has an extreme book collection. We don't like paperback unless it is a tester book. The inspiration to read any particular book could strike at any time, especially while on vacation. So I have gigabytes of ebooks as well. But most of my reading isn't "leisure" material. It is technical material - where I inhale as well. My family and friends tease me that technical reading is my leisure reading. shrugs "The Mathematical Universe" "Lightness of Being" "The Elegant Universe" just to name a few, is my kind of reading. Even then I prefer the hardback. Equations simply look better on a page. The formatting of some ereaders simply cannot handle technical books properly. In my experience.

I don't know how ereaders actually make it. A regular tablet does the same thing, always has color. No formatting limitations, and is actually a convenience - being an actual computer as well. And then some ereaders have STUPID proprietary formats. I'm a geek so I can always circumvent that, but why bother when I can just opt for a regular tablet, oftentimes cheaper!

Gigabytes of ebooks on a digital device is appealing, convenient, archival and downright necessary if you're an avid reader. It is only that "maiden voyage" into a new work of fiction that I simply must enjoy the old-fashioned way along with my paper cuts and the rustling and wetting of pages.

So, I'm not killing trees. I'm still watering them - in a way.

cthia wrote:I'm going to assume that you mean you'd rather initially read the digital copy as opposed to having the digital copy instead. Digital copies can be wiped out by a virus, hardware failure, etc. Pages are immune to any viruses.

Not to mention that eARCs don't look so impressive on my nice bookshelf.

They may be immune to viruses, but they aren't to bugs, worms, water leaks, and assorted other pests and occurrences.

Not to mention, as the next post on this thread noted, that they take up lots of room (which many folks may not have) and are much, much harder to transport.

I can put thousands of ebooks on a 16 or 32-gb micro SD card for my nook. Or, even, for my phone - UB Reader for Android is a very good app.

I would definitely buy a paperback over a hard cover any day, unless it's a reference manual of some sort that's likely to encounter rough or hard use. Even counting the cost of custom made shelving, I come out ahead of the cost of hard covers, and can shelve at least twice the number of books in the same space.

munroburton wrote:
As you can see, you can't actually buy the eARC anymore once the proper ebook release(along with the dead-tree versions) are out.

I entirely agree about the 'upgrade to final version' comment. It happens with video games, so why not books?

That's true, but one nice thing about Baen's ebooks is that they never go "Out of Print" to an original purchaser. If you bought an ebook, and something happened to your copy, you can always sign in and download it again - even if it's no longer available for "first time" purchasers.

That said, I have to agree a bit about "upgrades", but, logically, if the eARC *was* upgraded to the final, ebook version, then it would no longer be a ARC, would it? It *would* be nice though if purchasing the eARC version allowed you to obtain the final ebook version for free or a very reduced price, however.