How many books have you bought this year?

[KayBratt]

I got a free books email a while ago and didn't bite on any of the freebies. I am very selective because I don't have a lot of spare time and want to spend it reading stuff I am sure to love or reading books for research. Before hitting that BUY button, I read every review first and also look to see what else the author has written. However, a few buys are for books by fellow WC authors and I bought (or downloaded) to support them.

That made me wonder how many books I have actually bought since January 1.

I bought
5 Paid Kindle Books.  (modified. I forgot I purchased the anthology)
4 Print books.

10 free books downloaded.

Am I in the norm? I am also stocking up for an upcoming vacation week. But still that seems like a lot.

Are you still buying books? Or are you only downloading freebies? Print or only ebooks? A little of both?

[Krista D. Ball]

I've picked up...

0 print books (the bulk of my print books are bought during con season)
5 ebooks (varying from shorts to novels)
2 non-fiction historicals ebooks

I don't download free books unless there is a particular reason. i.e. I want a copy of Pride and Prejudice for quick reference.

[ErikHyrkas]

12 kindle (1 or 2 were free, but most were paid.)
1 audiobook

I'm still working through the books I've purchased.  I think I bit off too much.

[cegesmith]

Interesting question so I had to go back and look.  I've only been buying digital books for the last several months (I put my paperback/hardcover books on my Christmas list).

Since Jan. 1st:

Free downloads: 4
Paid downloads: 6

Now one of those free downloads was for 4 books- so it is tipped in favor of the free download.  I am trying very hard to be selective on what I'm putting on my TBR list. I can't afford to be too distracted from my writing.  

[KayBratt]

I'm starting to look very greedy here.

 

[HeidiHall]

I tend to horde books in spurts. This year so far:

Ebooks (paid) 7
Ebooks (free) 15
Paperbacks 1 (the latest Stephanie Plum, but only because it was cheaper... and it reminded me why ebooks are so much more convenient)

Don't feel greedy, Kay. A voracious book appetite is a good thing!

[Zelah Meyer]

This isn't the most useful time of year to judge my buying habits, since I have a December birthday as well as Christmas & so I usually wind up with a whole bunch of books in December, none of which I've got around to reading yet - and I have a HUGE to-be-read-pile involving around a dozen print books (fiction and non-fiction) and hundreds of ebooks (because I do download lots of freebies which swell the ranks rather).  January is probably one of my slowest months for book buying because of the backlog from December.

Since the first of January this year, if I haven't forgotten any of them, I've bought:

Print copies: 4
ebooks: 2

Free downloads this year - too many to count, thanks to Select it's probably around 100 as a very rough guess? 155 (I went back and counted, as I file the notifications in a separate folder.)  Mostly non-fiction, mostly cookery books!  I'm trying to raise my standards now or my Kindle will soon fill up at the current rate!

I don't think my buying habits are harmed by me downloading free ebooks.  I've always been a re-reader and, if anything, I've probably bought more books thanks to free ebooks than I would have done otherwise - as it's tempted me out of my comfort zone of old favourites and got me trying new authors.  

(Edited to: correct number of free downloads)

[Ryne Douglas Pearson]

10 paid Kindle books so far.

[Eliza Baum]

Let's see...

Paid Kindle - 4
Free Kindle - 6
Paper Books - ~12 (got a great deal used and already put them away on my shelf, so I forget the exact count)

I tend only to download free books if a) I would pay money for them if they weren't free, and b) if they are only temporarily free (i.e. I see someone say "Hey! Free for 3 days!"). Mostly, I put books I might want to read on my wish list...I've added 23 since the first of the year, hehe. I've also checked out half a dozen books from the library in the last couple of weeks.

[Doomed Muse]

Ebooks: 9 free, 37 paid
Paperbacks: 8
Hardcover: 1

I read about 350 books a year, but I'm guessing I buy more like 400 

[GGKeets]

Probably about a dozen paper books and another dozen or so e-books (split between iBooks and amazon). As far as the e-books go I believe most of them were paid. I may have got 1 or 2 for free but they were authors I either knew or had always been meaning to read.

[KayBratt]

Hubby already knows to forget flowers and candy for the upcoming holiday and buy me a book. That is on my wish list for every event; birthdays, Christmas, Valentines, Mother's Day....just buy me books!

[Sophrosyne]

Seriously??? Wow. I am so in the minority. In jan I bought about 25 books and free downloaded about 1000. At least. Possibly more. I have 6000 books on my Kindle account and about 5000 physical books in my house and office.

[Krista D. Ball]

I only pick up things I think I'll like and will be able to actually read.

[Doomed Muse]

Yeah, I'm with Krista on that. I don't pick up a lot of free books because my time is more valuable to me than money. Also I have a rule that no book enters my house which won't be read within a year.  That includes books on my kindle. I've found that if I just grab a book because it looks halfway interesting and is free, I rarely get around to reading them.  So now I limit myself to getting only books I know I'm going to read within the next month or two and to never downloading a book just because its free unless I'd be willing to pay 5 bucks for it at the least.

Time is way more valuable than money, for me, when it comes to my reading habits. 

[gryeates]

Bought about ten so far and the free books through KDP Select are starting to stack up.

[Victorine]

I've downloaded 37 free books, and bought 2. But some of those free ebooks were for research. (I got a few recipe books to see how they were formatted, for example.)

I don't usually download free books unless I *really* think I will read them. The main reason is, if I download 1,000 books I won't be able to easily find the ones that looked extra good to me. So I only get the ones that look extra good. Then I can start reading and if it's not my cup of tea, I'll move on.

[ETS PRESS]

13 free on Kindle
2 paid on Kindle
2 print books from B&N (I had a gift card from Christmas.)
3 print books from Amazon (books for my son's college classes)

Do you know what I like about free? I feel like I'm buying something, and it cheers me up. 

[Millard]

Zero. But that's just a by-product of being dog-dick broke. Also, I got all the Game of Thrones books for Christmas, so I'm good for reading material for a while.

[Cheryl Douglas]

I've bought 23 ebooks so far, though many are novellas.

[BTackitt]

paid for about 35 or 40 Kindle books
0 print books
couple hundred freebies, but I pick those up for all 11 people on my account.

4 of us read in mass quantities.

[emilyward]

Paid Ebooks: 4
Free: 4

And I've checked 10 print and audio books out of the library lol

[BarbaraKE]

Have only paid for one book this year.

Bought one last year which I enjoyed, then bought the second in the series in January.  Four days later, I noticed it (the second one) had gone free.  So I started keeping watch and - sure enough - the author eventually made all his books free (in turn). 

By this point, I probably have several hundred freebies on my nook.  Don't plan on actually buying (i.e. paying for) another book for a loonnnnggg time.

As a heavy reader, I think this is great. 

Gee, all these authors are giving away books.  If it sounds interesting, download it.  If I read a couple of pages and don't like it, I can delete it.  No harm done. 

But as a person who plans on publishing my own book eventually, I can't help but think Amazon (through its Select program) offering hundreds of free books/day is a bad thing.

[T.K. Richardson]

Sheesh! Maybe this is where I need to confess my book addiction...


11 kindle books (paid)
0 free books
5 print books (paid)

Yeah, I know. I'm an addict.

[Alan Petersen]

4 paid in January. All ebooks (Kindle).

I try not to horde books since I don't want to get overwhelmed with a stack of paid ebooks.

0 freebies and paperbacks.

But I do have an $80 Barnes and Noble gift card to use.