Tag Archives: amazon

Reading Books on the iPad

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Back in the day, I was conflicted.

I was thinking of getting a Kindle since everyone and their brother who owned one loved it Yet, the iPad had so much more you could do with it and everyone in my profession and their brother said it would be an invaluable business tool. (I’m a real estate guy)

What should I do?

Well, I broke down and spent the big bucks on the iPad and installed the Kindle app.  It seemed like the best of both worlds.  Unfortunately, it wasn’t

The iPad is nice. It has lots and lots and lots of apps and lots of functionality beyond just reading.  However, it is with the reading that it falls short. The back lighting really doesn’t last that long. Or I haven’t figured out how to make it last longer. As a result, I’m constantly touching the iPad to get the back lighting to brighten back up so I can read.

Yeah. I know. If I read a little faster or just turned pages more the light would stay on. It would also run down the battery life (which I realize is secondary since the battery life is way long on the iPad).

The other part, though, is that the iPad is heavy. Add a case and it’s even heavier.At least, for reading a book.The Kindle is super light and small-ish so it really is a ton easier just to carry it around and whip it out to read. I understand if you get the “pre Kindle Fire” Kindles, the Digital Ink is really very readable.

So, I’ve gone back to ordering real, paper and ink books. The kind that you hold in your hand and can’t take more than one or two at a time on trips or whatever. Thick books (thicker than Kindle, anyway).

I don’t know. It’s just something about a real book.  Maybe I should break down and get one of the original Kindles. hell, I think the cheapest one is only $79.

Maybe for my birthday…or Christmas.

Books – Amazon vs eBay

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I’ve always been a fan of Amazon when it comes to books. I was there when they first started up and all they did was sell books.  I rarely buy anything other than books on Amazon even though, as we all know, they sell everything.  It’s just a habit, of sorts.  I even signed up for Amazon Prime so I would get “free 2-day shipping” which is nice if you buy a lot of books over the year but pretty costly if you only buy a few.

eBay, on the other hand, is a place where I would go to look for other things as well as books.  I’ve only recently become a bargain hunter so my experience on eBay is pretty limited.  In fact, I sold a few things on eBay a few years back and then didn’t come back until recently. Reason?  I wanted to see how easy it might be to become an eBay entrepreneur  and make a couple of bucks plus I had a boatload of books hanging around I knew I wasn’t going to read and wanted to sell.

eBay or Amazon?

I was mildly successful selling some books so I thought I would try buying some. After all, I am an avid reader.  Some of the books I would read or my wife would read don’t have to be brand spanking new.  They aren’t the newest release by this author or that.  So I decided to order a few books on eBay.

Although the books I bought on eBay were in good to excellent condition, the shipping time is what really gives eBay the disadvantage.  Of course, it isn’t eBay itself.  It’s the individual sellers.  Some are great and get the books in the mail right away and even if they are coming from across the country they get to my mailbox pretty quickly.  Others?  Not so much.  I’ve waited over two weeks for a book and even got a note from one seller that apologized for an address misprint that resulted in the book being returned by the Post Office.  He re-sent it with the eBay/PayPal shipping label.

Who Wins?

The bottom line for me is that if I want a book right away, I need to go to Amazon and pay the “new” price.  I’ll get it in 2 days and be happy.  If I can bear to wait a week or two than eBay is probably the way to go since they tend to be significantly cheaper than Amazon.  I guess it’s different from winners and losers.  It’s what I’m willing to tolerate.

eBay – Too Big To Care?

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I have to admit I am not a big eBay entrepreneur. I’m just a guy looking to clear out some of my stuff — mostly books — and maybe make a couple of bucks.  I’ve been moderately successful.  This means I’ve sold a few books.  It also means I haven’t sold a lot of others that I had put up on eBay.  Here’s the rub: has eBay gotten so big that the occasional eBay user like me is now the forgotten step-child?

Big Business

In a recent newsletter, Skip McGrath, a respected eBay guru and trainer, wrote:

Just a few years ago, auctions made up around 70 percent of the listings on the site but in the last quarter they were only 45 percent.

— Are eBay Auctions Going Away?

He goes on to suggest that eBay is not really interested in the individual auctioneer like you and me trying to make a couple of dollars off the stuff in our garage or even the guy that scours the yard sales and flea markets looking for good stuff he can buy cheap and sell for a little more on eBay.  No, it seems eBay is more an more interested in attracting “serious” online sellers that can set up eBay stores or have substantial online commerce ventures.

Should eBay Be Concerned About Users or Stockholders?

To be fair to eBay, they have a responsibility to stockholders.  After all eBay is a publicly traded company with a $28 billion market capitalization.  That’s a big number.

Yet, one wonders how they got that big.  It’s easy to forget the beginning days when eBay was just a handful of folks trading back and forth.  eBay was a true pioneer in the online auction business.  It can be argued that eBay was a true pioneer in the overall online commerce business.  The question is: has eBay moved beyond the small potatoes individual online marker? Has the business model changed that much?

Again, from Skip McGrath:

I did a blog post on this last week where I suggested that eBay might want to just sell off its auction business to a company that would care about it. I don’t know if eBay would ever do this but it is not outside the realm of possibility. Personally I wish they would. One of the comments on my post said “…sellers would love an auction platform that “loved” them back.”  I couldn’t agree more.

—Are eBay Auctions Going Away?

So, what’s a small guy like me to do? Should I continue to try and understand the labyrinthine maze of eBay stores, fees and various search tools?  Or should I just give it up and put my stuff on Craig’s List of Amazon?