Who says story time has to stop when you exit kindergarten? Audio books provide all the stimulation of reading without that annoying reading part. And the internet is full of avenues to get them for free without having to resort to piracy. [More]
books
Borders Tells Me Returns And Exchanges Are The Same, I Can Do Neither
By 8.10.10
Quadmama wanted to exchange a pair of books she received as gifts, but the manager stonewalled her because she was 60 days outside of the return window. When Quadmama reiterated that she wanted to exchange the books for replacements, not return them for money, the manager told her that for the bookstore’s policy purposes, a return is the same as an exchange. [More]
Barnes & Noble Wants To Sell Itself, But Who's Gonna Buy It?
By 8.4.10
Barnes & Noble shares are soaring after it announced that it was up for sale and may even go private, or merge with Borders. [More]
Tips For Saving Money On Textbooks
By 8.2.10
The second half of summer is “complain about textbook prices” season, and last week the New York Times put together a special section on the topic and asked experts to weigh in. Too many of the contributors just provide an overview of the situation but no solutions; a publishing industry representative actually defends textbook prices as trivial compared to other educational costs. Fortunately Anya Kamenetz, who writes for Fast Company, suggests Flat World Knowledge. And to be fair, the guy who defended textbooks prices suggests CourseSmart for ebook rentals. The Times also asked students, professors and parents to weigh in with advice. [More]
Colleges Are Now Required To List Textbooks During Class Registration
By 7.31.10
Finding the best textbooks prices just got a whole lot easier now that colleges are required to provide students with a list of required textbooks when they register for classes. The requirement was mandated back in the 2008 as part of the Higher Education Opportunity Act, but only took effect this year. [More]
Do You Have What It Takes To Be A Cheapskate?
By 7.22.10
Jeff Yeager, Wise Bread blogger and author, has just published a new book titled The Cheapskate Next Door, where he interviews over 300 self-described cheapskates to find out what makes them tick. In an interview over at Daily Finance, he says that for most of his subjects, the choice to live frugal lifestyles wasn’t primarily about money. [More]
Get 30% Off Borders.com
By 7.12.10
Thanks to their site being down for maintenance, you can get 30% off at Borders.com until midnight PST tonight, 7/12/10. [More]
Macmillan Publishing Writes Happy Ending For Damaged Thrift Shop Book
By 7.10.10
An anonymous reader picked up a copy of Ben Bova’s Mars Life from the Salvation Army without realizing that it was missing thirty-two pages. Books don’t come with warranties, but our reader wanted to know how the story ended. Would the New Morality conservatives stop people from examining that eerie Martian fossil? Would the U.S. government ever solve the pressing environmental crisis? How would our reader know without the missing pages?! Macmillan publishing had the answer. [More]
Relive Your Fondest Retail Memories With New Graphic Novel
By 6.28.10
Have you worked retail? You might be amused by a new book called Hello Do You Work Here?, a collection of illustrated true stories about crazy-making customers. [More]
Kindles Will Be Available At Your Local Target Next Week
By 6.3.10
After a pilot program selling Kindles at some Targets succeeded back in April, Amazon is ready to spread the Kindle virus to all Targets starting Monday. But it might not be the best time to buy one, since there’s reportedly an updated model on the horizon. [More]
Cigarette Vending Machine Repurposed To Sell Books
By 5.16.10
Believe it or not, there are people who don’t own a Kindle or an iPad and can’t just order up a book when they get the sudden, overwhelming urge to read a book. So what’s a voracious reader to do if they find themselves without reading material and no bookstore in sight? Well, at the University of Hamburg, book lovers can head for a vending machine. [More]
Readers Dig Dirty Books, Boost Publishing Industry
By 5.2.10
If any industry needs a little help to get business to be booming, it’s publishing. And aid is coming from an unlikely source — erotic books could be the savior of the swiftly sinking business of book publishing, MSNBC’s Brian Alexander reports. [More]
Is It Okay To Download A Pirated Copy Of A Book You Already Own?
By 4.6.10
Yesterday we wrote about someone who downloaded a pirated copy of a game after he couldn’t gain access to the copy he’d already paid for. In that case, which most of our commenters supported, it was clear that the consumer was trying to resolve a problem created by the DRM. But what about if you own a printed copy of a book and you simply want to read the ebook version? Should you have to pay for a second copy? Randy Cohen, who writes the The Ethicist column for the New York Times, says downloading a copy you find online is ethical. [More]
Hey Online Shoppers, Please Don't Agree To Withdraw Negative Reviews
By 3.9.10
Jessica Palmer at the blog Bioephemera recently had a bad run-in with a bookseller on Amazon, which she talks about at great length in a post. The mistake she made, she says, was that she didn’t exercise due diligence in researching the seller for complaints, and she didn’t read through all the many reviews on Amazon to see if the negative ones demonstrated a pattern. But her bigger issue is that there’s still no way to shame a bad retailer the way local news stations do with local brick and mortar stores, which is why it’s so important to stick by your complaints once you make them. [More]
Publisher: "If You Can Afford An Ebook Device, You Can Pay More For Ebooks"
By 2.19.10
Imagine trying to buy a book from Big Generic Bookstore and watching the cashier add $5 to the sticker price. “What are you doing?!” you cry out, waving a fist menacingly at him. “You look like you can afford it,” he says back to you with a hint of entitltement. That’s basically what a publishing industry expert said in a piece he wrote last week about ebook pricing. [More]
Free "How To Be Invisible" Download In Exchange For Your Email Address
By 1.28.10
J.J. Luna, a former security consultant turned author, released a guide ten years ago that showed readers how get rid of paper and digital trails. The subject matter is probably a little too paranoid for most of our readers, but it overlaps with issues we talk about all the time here, like identity theft and online security. He’s just released a revised version, so he’s giving away the 2000 edition in PDF format for free. Well, in exchange for your email address. [More]
Borders CEO Quits After A Year On The Job
By 1.26.10
Borders CEO Ron Marshall has decided to move on to better things after only a year. The troubled bookseller is currently in the process of closing 182 of its Waldenbooks stores (more than half of them), and is generally being frowned upon due to its lack of initiative in getting into the e-reader market. (Amazon has the Kindle, B&N has the Nook, and Borders has um…hmmm…) Now they’ll have to find a new CEO to turn things around. [More]
