I almost never buy hardcovers. Too expensive. I like to buy trade paperbacks, used, although I’ll buy a mass market if I see something I’ve been wanting for awhile.
I occasionally get stuff off the “buy two, get one free” table at Borders. But not often.
I’ve recently rediscovered the library, though. The Ann Arbor Public Library is really lovely. They have a good DVD collection, too. Much cheaper than Netflix! I’m on winter break right now and having nothing else to do, I’ve gone through about fifteen DVDs.
Lately trade paperbacks, from used bookstores. At various other phases I’ve hit up the library more, and budget issues may force me to do so again. Happily, it won’t be an issue for a while because I’ve got a huge stack of stuff waiting to be read.
Some authors I’ll buy hardcovers because I’m too impatient to either wait for the library or for them to make it to paperback. These I usually pre-buy online because I end up paying a good deal less (sometimes as much as half the cover price off) and they often ship the week before and I end up receiving them anywhere from a few days to a week before they hit the shelves in the stores.
I prefer the library myself, I can get loads of books there I either can’t find or that I will discover I really didn’t want to read after all (I have a small pile of books like that at home, which annoys me that I spent money on them). If I find myself taking something out of the library a lot I will search first at the second hand store, then at the new store/online. If I want to read it that much, I may as well have my own copy.
I prefer paperbacks mainly because I’m not that hard on them (snapping the spine deliberately sends shivers down my spine but if it happens in the course of reading it’s not usually a huge deal) and they take up loads less space. So where I can fit a single row of hardcovers easily on my shelves I can fit a double row of paperbacks and more of them in a single row.
If I bought every book I read, I’d have tons more than I do now and most I wouldn’t read again. Which is why I love the library.
I’m all about the library, and interlibrary loan is my favorite thing on earth right now. I also sometimes get a few paperbacks from Half-Price Books and then trade them on paperbackswap.com but not often. I really am a huge champion of libraries. I’d be crazy now if I didn’t have them.
I used to want to own every book in the world. Now I give books away if I’m not going to reread them. When I realized that I would be afraid to move because of all the books, I realized I had gone beyond my own comfort level.
When I bought books, all the thousands I bought, I mostly bought used paperbacks. I can read a paperback without anyone knowing it’s been read, I’m that easy on books.
Now I do ILL through the library for the majority of my reading.
Oh gosh, me too. If you discover a series (especially a fantasy series) after the second and third books have been published, you might end up paying collector prices for a hardback of the first book… So you either wait for the rest of the series to come out in paperback, or pay $40 or $50 for a HC that would have cost $20 a couple years ago.
I cringe when I look at my series books that are in different formats (Hobb and Abercrombie), and the mixed UK/US editions (Martin and Erikson).
I like to buy. And I never, unless the deal is too good to pass up, buy hardcovers. Way too hard to read splayed out on the couch. I buy hardcovers if they’re something I really want, and are literally like a dollar.
Paperbacks whenever possible. They are cheaper, they take up less room on my bookshelves, they fit into my backpack more easily and they’re easier to read in bed and don’t hurt as much when you roll over on them in your sleep. I mostly buy them used, through Amazon.com. I love that “Buy with One Click” button!
My preference before I went digital was buying trade paperbacks; easier to carry and somewhat less bulky than mass market paperbacks, and cheaper than hardcovers. These days I do most of my reading on my Amazon Kindle, and am faced with the unfortunate dilemma of whether or not I should buy in digital form those books in my to-be-read pile that I didn’t get around to reading pre-Kindle.
Yeah, that’s why, when buying a purse, the first thing I ask myself is “can I fit a book in it?” What the hell is the point of a purse you can’t fit a book in? So all of my (three) purses are large enough for a trade paperback.
I generally buy paperbacks or just read books from the library, but if there’s something new that I want, I’ll buy it in hardcover. So all my Harry Potter and Artemis Fowl is hardcover, but my only Pratchett hardcover books are Thud (bought used and signed), Making Money, Nation, and Where’s My Cow? All the other Pratchett I wanted was at the library, or in paperback when I bought it. All my Neil Gaiman is paperback, except one of the picture books and The Graveyard Book; all my John Hodgman is hardcover.
I love to get books from the library, but I hate having to put new releases on hold and wait and wait and wait. I’m impatient like that. And some things just aren’t there: I ended up having to buy Color of Magic because there weren’t any copies in our library system. I ended up giving it to a friend because Rincewind is my least favorite focus character.
I buy all sorts of places: if I’m at school, I buy books at the campus bookstore, the Walden Books at the mall, and the Barnes and Noble over by the Home Depot and such. At home I try to buy from local booksellers, especially Orca Books, but I also like the Border’s that my ex-boyfriend’s dad works at.
I buy books online if they’re hard to find, textbooks I need to buy cheap, or if I have a gift card.
I like to buy, and I prefer hardbacks or trade paperbacks. I mostly buy them used. I give what business I can to my local used bookstore but I end up buying a lot of them from half.com. There are a few authors I’ll buy new from Amazon.
I sell loads of trade paperbacks. I love paperbacks or trades. I think one should judge a book by its cover because there are loads of beautiful book covers around in various editions.
I used to buy coats using the same principle; if they didn’t have a pocket large enough to hold a paperback I didn’t buy them.
I buy mostly paperbacks both for economic and ease of reading purposes. Although I do have a lot of hardcovers and trade paperbacks; many of them I got free at book shows, but some because that was the only edition available, or because I was able to get them autographed.
Paperbacks, solely because hardcovers are ridiculously difficult and uncomfortable for me to read without my contacts in. Which happens to be my state when I am relaxing before I go to bed. Which happens to be my favorite time to read.
So yeah, paperbacks unless it’s something I can’tcan’tcan’tcan’twait for.
I generally like to own my books, although my budget often forces me to the library. I keep an extensive amazon wishlist and then spend hours carefully crafting my shopping cart on christmas and birthdays. For fiction I prefer mass market size paperbacks. I really hate the fact that it is so hard to go to borders and find a mass market size copy of fiction books. 90% of the time they only have the trade paperback, which costs a lot more, offers no extra protection, and is harder to travel with. I’ll get hardcover or trade if it’s a reference work or some kind of art or illustrated book.
If there were any decent libraries nearby, I’d use them, but the 2 towns within reach have libraries that are about the size of a Starbuck’s and filled mostly with romance novels and kids’ stuff.
New books I prefer to buy in paperback if available because they’re cheaper. I buy a lot of new books at Amazon because the ones I want are sort of specialized and hard to find used.
For just reader stuff or even used textbooks, I buy whatever format they’re in at the Goodwill or whatever thrift store I happen to be visiting. Thrift stores are paradise for book lovers.
