I’ve read a lot of books. I still read a lot of books. I buy even more than I read, but overall, I read a lot. I’ve already read nearly 30 titles so far this year and I’ll probably read that many before the year it out. I’m currently reading 7 titles at the same time. All depends on where my interest drifts.

That said, I’m also a patient person. I love a deal. A bargain. I hate paying full price and rarely do. If I see a hardcover book come out and I’m crazy excited about the author or the title, I might grab it and devour it as soon as it’s in my hands, but mostly, I don’t.

Why?

I have a lot of book to read. My TBR is something I’m sure many people have. It’s hundreds of books deep. That’s a lie. It’s a few thousand books deep.

That means I can be patient. Very patient. When it comes to buying a new book, I’ll hold off on paying that high premium on the hardback. I’ll wait and watch until the price dips to something more reasonable and then I’ll grab it.

For example, I wanted to read a certain political book by a now infamous lawyer. There were many reasons for me to hold off and buying this book, the main being I didn’t like the person and didn’t want to support his lifestyle. I added the book to my wish list and my camelcamelcamel list to wait for the price to come down. Way down. The hardcover dropped to $9 and I thought…pfft, won’t get my lower. I bought it and started reading it.

But here’s where my concern came in. I prefer ebooks. Specifically I’m a Kindle reader. With this book, and after looking around, several political and (auto)biographies, the hardcover kept dropping in price until it was cheaper than the kindle book.

That’s right, a physical copy of the book I just bought was $9. The kindle book has never changed in price and is still $14.99.

Now, I get that the big 5 (or is it the big 4 now?) want to keep their tight control on the print market therefore want ebooks to be so expensive, no one buys them and, instead, buy the physical book. I’ll never understand that thinking. I know they make far more on the kindle books, but once the paperback comes out, I honestly thought those big publishers would come to their senses and, much like the hardcover, start dropping the price to sell more copies.

Sadly, that isn’t the case. They’re keeping the ebooks artificially high. I have no idea what they’re hoping to gain from this. Denial of the future must be strong with them.j

So, I prefer, now, to wait for a given book if I know I’ll get a good deal. This is very similar to what I used to do when visiting a physical book store. Many larger book stores used to have large tables with heavily discounted hardbacks. I used to be able to buy 3 or 4 books for the price of a new book that had come out, and many on the table weren’t more than a few months old themselves.

It’s almost like going to the grocery store and finding the rack with nearly expired goods that are marked WAY down for them to sell quickly. Only, books don’t go bad.

At any rate, I like to look for a deal and patience pays. I do the same thing with video games I buy. Why pay full price? Unless it’s something I need right at that moment, which is almost never the case, I can wait. I’ll play the game.

I’m off to go make words happen.

Until Next Time!

Stay Awesome!