The biggest issue I have with publisher websites is the lack of a strong review ecosystem. I've started looking at Amazon or industry blogs for reviews and recommendations, but that gets frustrating and is slow.
Just wonder if the publisher could arrange to get rights to it's books' reviews across seller sites and aggregate the results. The truth is, apart from occasional sales like this, the publisher sites are rarely in price competition with any other sellers.
But as far as Amazon goes, I'll buy the books in paper (or pay more for DRM-free) to avoid the Kindle DRM and being locked into one ecosystem. It almost feels like a luxury to be able to loan out or give away paper books. Kindle books just feel more like renting a book than owning it. Which is, legally, probably a closer metaphor for the transaction.
I'm pretty sure if you buy a book from No Starch and have serious complaints, Bill would probably refund you. They are really one of the most community friendly publishers out there.
I used to worry about that, then I realized that I've book 3 copies of some physical books I like - I read them enough times that I wore 2 copies out. Now I realize that it doesn't actually matter that I can loan paper books as I rarely do.
Cheap paperbacks wear out quick, I wish hardcover was available after books come on paperback because the books I like in paperback I go back to look for hardcover but by then hardcover is out of print. Though often I can find a library edition which is starting to become my default for paper books.
For technical books, I can't replicate the experience of writing notes in the margins (with a pencil of course) of a paper book versus anything ebook readers offer. Yes, I can't grep or query a paper book but the learning process seems more fluid as the book becomes my own reference source.
"The truth is, apart from occasional sales like this, the publisher sites are rarely in price competition with any other sellers."
Is this really true? I usually by ebook/pbook combo and I find that I get a better deal directly on the publisher's website. Amazon is a non starter for me because I don't buy into their ebook format. "ebook" to me means epub and pdf.
The Linux Programming Interface by Kerrisk is probably the best book of its kind. Even better than Stevens' Advanced Programming in the Unix Environment, although obviously linux specific.
O'Reilly had the serious flaw that you could just claim you own a book by adding its IBAN to your account's library and thus being able to "upgrade" it and obtain the ebook version for $5. I wonder why that worked as long as it did.
Rant time! Some time ago, I bought a Tolino, an e-reader by Deutsche Telekom that is sold in Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Belgium, Italy and the Netherlands. Huge mistake! At first, I loved not having to lug around printed books. Then the screen broke, I got the device replaced. Then the updates started. It looks like the device is running Android. Instead of a sweet half hour of light reading in the evening it was a sweaty two hours of searching my two passwords (one for the device and the Thalia bookstore, and one for the Adobe DRM, which I need to enter everytime I want to read in a book I fu*king paid for, and don't get me started on the keyboard and the slow screen refresh rate) before the unskippable update finished. The update broke my account, so I had to physically go to a bookstore to have them restore my account, which is the exact opposite of what I had in mind when purchasing this piece of utter garbage. Then I started realizing that books on Amazon are like 50% cheaper than in the Tolino store, and there is no way to buy books on Amazon and read them on Tolino. Oh, and they don't have a lot of books either, especially if they're not in German! What a horrible experience, I will never again buy anything made by Tolino, Thalia or Deutsche Telekom.
The few books I've dug into from them on python are good and recommended by the 6.00 series of MIT MOOC on python. Also, free book of theirs is offered everyday on their website. I'm not sure how long that is going to keep happening cause I can't imagine them having enough books to keep doing that with forever.
It is weird how Amazon works - 50% off from the publisher is within a dollar or two of the regular Kindle price. No DRM and multiple formats is a huge improvement, but if you have a lot of Kindle books already, being able to manage everything through the Kindle system is also a benefit.
(For fiction or single-read, I would still probably go with Amazon. For a tech book which I'd want to keep reading and potentially view on platforms which don't have Kindle and where defeating the DRM could be a challenge, publisher direct.)
Browsing with Safari 10.1.1 I see a standard website with standard pricing. I would think that if this were something being promoted there would be a very prominent statement. But I don't see anything?
I tried adding a few books to my cart, but they also seem to have regular pricing.
The only thing that says "half-price" is the HN title???
Also, Al Sweigart makes available many of his books for free on his website, including "Automate the Boring Stuff with Python", which also has a lot of good reviews on Amazon.
I just finished Hardware Hacker by Andrew “bunnie” Huang, and I'd highly recommend it. Completely changed my perspective on hardware production, and China's role in relation to it. And for fun he delves a bit into biohacking and how it's related to computers. I think the HN crowd would be into it.
[+] [-] ballenf|8 years ago|reply
Just wonder if the publisher could arrange to get rights to it's books' reviews across seller sites and aggregate the results. The truth is, apart from occasional sales like this, the publisher sites are rarely in price competition with any other sellers.
But as far as Amazon goes, I'll buy the books in paper (or pay more for DRM-free) to avoid the Kindle DRM and being locked into one ecosystem. It almost feels like a luxury to be able to loan out or give away paper books. Kindle books just feel more like renting a book than owning it. Which is, legally, probably a closer metaphor for the transaction.
[+] [-] rdl|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bluGill|8 years ago|reply
Cheap paperbacks wear out quick, I wish hardcover was available after books come on paperback because the books I like in paperback I go back to look for hardcover but by then hardcover is out of print. Though often I can find a library edition which is starting to become my default for paper books.
[+] [-] _e|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Finnucane|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dudul|8 years ago|reply
Is this really true? I usually by ebook/pbook combo and I find that I get a better deal directly on the publisher's website. Amazon is a non starter for me because I don't buy into their ebook format. "ebook" to me means epub and pdf.
[+] [-] pella|8 years ago|reply
https://media.pragprog.com/newsletters/2017-07-10.html
[+] [-] kod|8 years ago|reply
https://www.nostarch.com/tlpi
[+] [-] itamarst|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Tepix|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] kajo|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] rollover|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tzs|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] donquichotte|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dabber|8 years ago|reply
https://www.packtpub.com/
[+] [-] Scipio_Afri|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] rdl|8 years ago|reply
(For fiction or single-read, I would still probably go with Amazon. For a tech book which I'd want to keep reading and potentially view on platforms which don't have Kindle and where defeating the DRM could be a challenge, publisher direct.)
[+] [-] PhantomGremlin|8 years ago|reply
Browsing with Safari 10.1.1 I see a standard website with standard pricing. I would think that if this were something being promoted there would be a very prominent statement. But I don't see anything?
I tried adding a few books to my cart, but they also seem to have regular pricing.
The only thing that says "half-price" is the HN title???
[+] [-] schoen|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] aboyne42|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] william20111|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] muloka|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mattl|8 years ago|reply
https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.en.html
[+] [-] criddell|8 years ago|reply
The No Starch folks have assembled a really interesting catalog of books.
[+] [-] treehau5|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] carlosgg|8 years ago|reply
http://inventwithpython.com/index.html
[+] [-] carlosgg|8 years ago|reply
https://www.nostarch.com/tlcl
https://www.nostarch.com/howlinuxworks2
[+] [-] akoster|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] rdl|8 years ago|reply
https://www.nostarch.com/seriouscrypto
[+] [-] pjf|8 years ago|reply
https://www.nostarch.com/silence.htm
https://www.nostarch.com/tangledweb.htm
[+] [-] winkywooster|8 years ago|reply
https://www.nostarch.com/hardwarehacker
[+] [-] carlosgg|8 years ago|reply
https://www.nostarch.com/artofr.htm
[+] [-] GabrielF00|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mercurysmessage|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dchest|8 years ago|reply
But the bible must be a better format :-)
[+] [-] kqr2|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jkchu|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jug5|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dabber|8 years ago|reply