Ereader/Kindle suitable for a scrooge?

[Daffodil]

I have been laying hints left, right and centre for my hubby to get me an ereader/kindle for my upcoming birthday and I've been reading all the posts, well - skimming through them, nodding, yup, yup, yup - this is for me. Then I visited the Amazon website because my sister inlaw tells me about all the books she has been reading for FREE. Wow - "amazing, exciting" I say to myself. And do you know what... I've skimmed through the top 40 or so most popular books on Amazon and my frown deepened - there is not a lot that appeals to me. Unlike when I walk into the library and my eyeballs pop out of my head with excitement at all the new stuff. Yes, I judge a book by it's cover (put your stones down) and perhaps if I haven't heard of the author I'm a bit dubious - but is that it? Is Amazon the ONLY place you can get your ebooks? Am I looking in the right area? Was I too hasty in my search?

I don't want to pay $9.99 each time I want a book (meaning a known author with promising content, not something the newsagents has in the bargain bin out the front). I have 16 children to feed (not really). I don't have a budget for book buying when the libary provides free, new, exciting stuff. I am a scrooge - perhaps an ereader is not for me.

Any other scrooges out there? Would be interested in hearing what other tight-wads think about this.

Thx

[Scott]

I think the price of an book is almost always less than the retail price of a physical book. Also, you can borrow ebooks for free from most libraries. Plus you can find public domain books, i.e. most classics, for free from third party sources. So an ereader may save money in the long run.

[Fran]

I agree with Scott, I normally do a comparison between the Kindle price, the amazon paperback price & the price in my local bookshop & in my case the currency conversion & and in all cases the Kindle book is by far the cheapest and as Scott says you can get loads of books for absolutely zilch. But if your interest is in buying the current bestseller obviously you are not going to get that for nothing ... writers have to eat, right? (At least the ones still alive have!)

I do believe though, that considering they are saving massively on the costs of printing, storing, transporting etc I think Amazon could do an awful lot better on their prices ..... I live in hope!

[pine-glen]

I don't know if this is still useful but I get about half my ebooks from the library. Our local library gives users personal instructions/help in guiding you through the process of downloading from the library (copyright protection etc). It seemed a bit tedious at first but I took down alot of notes and I now a quite adept at downloading these books. I have a KOBO reader which uses ePUB publishing which is suitable for Australian books rather than the KINDLE. Another source of free books is I believe to Gutenberg (?) books which you can download free (pre 1955) from Digital Editions in PDF format. Hope this helps.

[Fran]

I don't know if this is still useful but I get about half my ebooks from the library. Our local library gives users personal instructions/help in guiding you through the process of downloading from the library (copyright protection etc). It seemed a bit tedious at first but I took down alot of notes and I now a quite adept at downloading these books. I have a KOBO reader which uses ePUB publishing which is suitable for Australian books rather than the KINDLE. Another source of free books is I believe to Gutenberg (?) books which you can download free (pre 1955) from Digital Editions in PDF format. Hope this helps.

Agree http://www.gutenberg.org is a superb resource .... I've downloaded lots of audio books from them