How Do You Feel About Buying and Using e-Cookbooks?

[FauxPas]

1 hour ago, ElsieD said:

I too prefer hard copies.  I have a bunch on my Kindle, 99% of which I bought on sale for $1.99 and I flip through them when I buy them but I tend to not look at them ever again.  On the other hand, yesterday I was looking something up in my ice cream book put out by Bi-Rite Creamery and before I knew it a good half hour had passed.

 

I find the same with cookbooks. I love reading most books on my e-reader, but with cookbooks, I definitely prefer an actual book. I really like to jump back and forth and that's a pain on an electronic device. And I want colour for the images so that limits me to smartphone, tablet or laptop and none of those are ideal either. 

 

Edited to add: I really still like having some Kindle cookbooks though, because I want the portability! But I wish my Kindle had colour and made it easier to browse around a cookbook's sections. 

Edited May 31, 2019 by FauxPas (log)

[Toliver]

16 hours ago, JoNorvelleWalker said:

 

I have no room for more physical books in my apartment.  I wish that could stop me.  However I am more apt to read a physical book, and far more likely to cook from it.

I have a dear friend who also prefers hardback books as opposed to ebooks. She has lined every room of her condo with book shelves and has stacks of books piled on almost every flat surface. She really could use an ereader but refuses. She also happens to be a member of BookCrossings.com (click). It's a web site that encourages readers to leave books for others to find. Sort of like a Johnny Appleseed to encourage people to read. Members can print out  bookplates/bookmarks and tuck them inside the book explaining to who ever finds the book that the book is free and that they can, in turn, leave the book somewhere for others to find when they're done reading it. There's more involved but it's a little too complicated to go into.

My friend was, at one time, the number 1 "read'em and leave 'em" BookCrossing members in the state of California.  It was after seeing inside her condo that I made the decision to never buy hardback books again, if I could help it.

[CatIsHungry]

I appreciate the convenience and space savings of a digital medium. How cool is it you can take a 500-750pg book with you that is no bigger than 5x7 and weighs no more than your phone?! And have it read to you even?!  ... Having said that - I am totally a paper person - I love and appreciate great paper 📝 ... a well bound book printed on heavy, semi glossy stock with beautiful photo or two for each recipe and a description of how and why to get there notes on the side ... then again, I also believe in handwritten notes, etc etc so i am old-fashioned that way ... 

 

I will see recipes on the internet - I transfer them to paper of course ... 

 

my husband, otoh - totally opposite 🙂 digital all the way for him ... if someone died he’d shoot their SO an email 🤨😟😉

[kayb]

I have upwards of 3,000 books in my Kindle library, probably 500 of them cookbooks. My problem is that once I buy them, then disappear into the depths of the archive, as I see no way, other than by author, to separate Kindle collections into categories. Is there such a creature? If there is, I can see where it'd increase my use of my ebooks exponentially. As it is, I tend to buy them, read them, and then lose them in the depths.

 

I must go back in this thread and see how to copy recipes into copy me that, which I have and use a good bit. 

[MelissaH]

1 minute ago, kayb said:

I have upwards of 3,000 books in my Kindle library, probably 500 of them cookbooks. My problem is that once I buy them, then disappear into the depths of the archive, as I see no way, other than by author, to separate Kindle collections into categories. Is there such a creature? If there is, I can see where it'd increase my use of my ebooks exponentially. As it is, I tend to buy them, read them, and then lose them in the depths.

 

I must go back in this thread and see how to copy recipes into copy me that, which I have and use a good bit. 

My Kindle Paperwhite and the iPad app both allow me to put my Kindle books into collections. You can sort each book into multiple collections. That helps somewhat, and you can do batch sorting from the Amazon website (under Account and Lists, choose My Digital Items, or something like that). Spend a little time thinking about how you want to organize your collections before you start.

[blue_dolphin]

7 minutes ago, kayb said:

I have upwards of 3,000 books in my Kindle library, probably 500 of them cookbooks. My problem is that once I buy them, then disappear into the depths of the archive, as I see no way, other than by author, to separate Kindle collections into categories. Is there such a creature? If there is, I can see where it'd increase my use of my ebooks exponentially. As it is, I tend to buy them, read them, and then lose them in the depths.

 

I must go back in this thread and see how to copy recipes into copy me that, which I have and use a good bit. 

 

There's a bit of discussion from @nickrey about the use of this feature to organize cookbooks in this post. 

[Martin Fisher]

I'm pissed off at Amazon.

I won't be buying anymore Kindle books.

I have a household member account, Kenny — my housemate — has the main account.

They won't let me switch to my own account — and pay for my own account — without losing all my Kindle books!

Hundreds of dollars worth of books!

Total bullshit! 

[JoNorvelleWalker]

Are you sure?

 

[Martin Fisher]

2 minutes ago, JoNorvelleWalker said:

Are you sure?

That's what I was told when I chatted with tech support.

[JoNorvelleWalker]

Just now, DiggingDogFarm said:

That's what I was told when I chatted with tech support.

 

I am so sorry.  That is scary.  Just for fun write Jeff and see what his representative says.  Sometimes they can fix things.

 

[Martin Fisher]

Just now, JoNorvelleWalker said:

 

I am so sorry.  That is scary.  Just for fun write Jeff and see what his representative says.  Sometimes they can fix things.

I'm going to check with tech support again, if the answer is the same I'll send him a letter.

I need a good writer to write it — anybody?

 

[JoNorvelleWalker]

My complaint at the moment is with Dessert University by Roland Mesnier and Lauren Chattman, a cookbook in my Kindle library.  I used Eat Your Books to find a recipe.  Eat Your Books helpfully provided the page number of the recipe.  The book does not have page numbers.  I eventually found the recipe in the index.  The index lists only page numbers, it has no links.  The publisher, Simon & Schuster, should be shot.

 

[JoNorvelleWalker]

On 9/12/2020 at 12:19 AM, DiggingDogFarm said:

I'm going to check with tech support again, if the answer is the same I'll send him a letter.

I need a good writer to write it — anybody?

 

 

Did the account problem ever get resolved?

 

[Martin Fisher]

11 hours ago, JoNorvelleWalker said:

 

Did the account problem ever get resolved?

 

I was sort of brushed off when I asked about it again.

I don't think the person I talked with understood the situation.

I haven't pushed it because my housemate is currently paying the bill for the Prime account (LOL), but I will get on it again.

Edited October 15, 2021 by DiggingDogFarm (log)

[TdeV]

Welcome to DRM (Digital Rights Management).

Curiously, buying an ebook only gives you a licence to read the ebook on one device. Used to be that you couldn't even upgrade your Kindle. 🤣

 

Just like KayB, my inability-to-find-an-ebook was the reason that I moved off of my Nook. Calibre and Calibre Companion were godsends. Calibre is still going strong but Calibre Companion (the ebook sorting app) has gone now.

 

I too have several thousand ebooks.

 

[Martin Fisher]

On 9/11/2020 at 11:27 PM, Martin Fisher said:

I'm pissed off at Amazon.

I won't be buying anymore Kindle books.

I have a household member account, Kenny — my housemate — has the main account.

They won't let me switch to my own account — and pay for my own account — without losing all my Kindle books!

Hundreds of dollars worth of books!

Total bullshit! 

 

On 9/12/2020 at 12:06 AM, JoNorvelleWalker said:

Are you sure?

 

 

This is EVIL!!!

"If you leave the Household, you will not be able to join or set up another Household for 180 days. All shared digital content and shared payment methods will be removed."

[JulianCook]

Having been a software engineer for 30 years, eBook cookbooks are just a natural for me. I have literally thousands of cookbooks on the SD card of my 10 inch Kindle. I also travel a lot and read cookbooks like others read novels. I can be in Europe, Asia or wherever and always have great reading.

[Anna N]

On 10/15/2021 at 3:58 PM, TdeV said:

Welcome to DRM (Digital Rights Management).

Curiously, buying an ebook only gives you a licence to read the ebook on one device. Used to be that you couldn't even upgrade your Kindle. 🤣

Not quite sure what you are saying here but I have my kindle books on 4 devices (iPhone, iPad, Kindle, Kindle Fire) in my house. 

[TdeV]

@Anna N, it *used to be* that the ebook license was for one device, but Amazon opened up their DRM to multiple devices connected to one (your) Amazon account. In the modern world, you couldn't send me an ebook from your device; my system would not be able to read it because of DRM. It's possible that there is now also some kind of "one family" licensing for Amazon, so that your son or daughter could also read an ebook you have purchased; I have heard of such a thing but don't know any details.

 

Apple uses epub ebook format, amazon kindle uses mobi (plus some others). *Without* DRM the ebook could be read on *any* device. Getting rid of the DRM requires a savvy technical computer person.

[Anna N]

41 minutes ago, TdeV said:

it *used to be* that the ebook license was for one device, but Amazon opened up their DRM to multiple devices

Glad you were able to clarify that. I cannot remember a time when I could not read my kindle books on multiple devices but I didn’t get in on the ground floor so I’m sure you’re right. 

[FauxPas]

1 hour ago, TdeV said:

Apple uses epub ebook format, amazon kindle uses mobi (plus some others)

 

Amazon has recently dropped MOBI (for new transfers) and added some ePub support (with more to come). I think AZW is now the preferred format for Kindle, especially Kindle Paperwhite. 

 

https://ebookfriendly.com/mobi-file-kindle-things-to-know/

https://blog.the-ebook-reader.com/2022/05/03/amazon-dropping-mobi-support-on-send-to-kindle-apps/

[JulianCook]

On 6/4/2022 at 12:30 PM, TdeV said:

@Anna N, it *used to be* that the ebook license was for one device, but Amazon opened up their DRM to multiple devices connected to one (your) Amazon account. In the modern world, you couldn't send me an ebook from your device; my system would not be able to read it because of DRM. It's possible that there is now also some kind of "one family" licensing for Amazon, so that your son or daughter could also read an ebook you have purchased; I have heard of such a thing but don't know any details.

 

Apple uses epub ebook format, amazon kindle uses mobi (plus some others). *Without* DRM the ebook could be read on *any* device. Getting rid of the DRM requires a savvy technical computer person.

Speaking for the ePub format, it's nothing more a mini-website that's been zipped up and renamed to "epub" extension. I often dissect them to bring the image file sizes down.

[JulianCook]

On 6/4/2022 at 1:54 PM, FauxPas said:

 

Amazon has recently dropped MOBI (for new transfers) and added some ePub support (with more to come). I think AZW is now the preferred format for Kindle, especially Kindle Paperwhite. 

 

https://ebookfriendly.com/mobi-file-kindle-things-to-know/

https://blog.the-ebook-reader.com/2022/05/03/amazon-dropping-mobi-support-on-send-to-kindle-apps/

Being primarily an open source engineer, I avoid Amazon's specific proprietary formats like they're the plague. ePub is not a proprietary format and I use that. I read them on the Kindle fire using the super awesome Moon+ reader. :-)

[MikeMac]

I am very happy to allow authors their “pound of flesh” If you don’t want to pay for their brilliance or opinions then simply don’t buy the book and they have every right to protect their intellectual property.

 

But this not without complications.  I am a huge fan of Modernist Cuisine I have everything that they’ve published but because of the size of the books and the difficulty in searching for information I find them incredibly difficult to use other than Modernist Cuisine at Home which is available through “inking”  and has a great search capability.   Unfortunately this relationship does not continue with the other books so i have to Wrestle with these huge volumes this becomes all the more troublesome as we get older and unable to deal with these huge heavy volumes plus downsizing will a huge issue.  They take up quite a bit of space.

 

Someday I hope  technology allows For individuals to have full access to what they have purchased while at the same time protecting the authors.

 

As we age this problem becomes more and more acute - trying to handle huge books. I would hate to lose access to all this information just because I can’t store it.

[Anna N]

7 minutes ago, MikeMac said:

I find them incredibly difficult to use

To read, to search, I agree. To use not so much. Their kitchen manuals work very well. YMMV.