Where do you buy printed books online?
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Greetings ladies and gentlemen.
I want to buy a particular printed book online because it is not in my country and I don't want to support Amazon. Do you know a reliable store where I could buy?
Thank you.
I've used AbeBooks and Alibris. You can search for books at www.bookfinder.com and occasionnaly there'll be even other booksellers.
Good book-hunting!
I am a member!
I've had pretty good luck with Better World Books:
http://www.betterworldbooks.com/
The radio said ABEBooks is owned by Amazon. ISTR go to a local bookshop direct and pay nice anonymous cash is the FSF/RMS recommendation. Here in the UK a good local store will order from anywhere in the world.
If it must be online this store is highly recommended by WYK online culture writers:
http://www.saltairebookshop.com/
For new books look up who the publisher is and buy direct from their website.
Leny / Andrew
I have local bookstores but they have problems when ordering foreign language books. Following your recommendations, I'll serch harder for a local bookstore that could obtain those books for me. In case they couldn't, I will rely on the online shops you recommend.
Thank you everyone.
In Germany you can buy printed books and support the FSF at the same time by using http://www.bookzilla.de/ but I'm not sure if they provide international shipping.
Also, if you want to read it instead of owning a copy, your local (university) library might be able to help you.
hello again ladies and gentlemen.
I've found a local bookstore that can actually order the books I want.
Thank you lembas, Mzee, leny2010, libredrs and Eemeli for the recommendations.
Until nex time.
Religion, in any form, is poison. So is the armageddon between the free angels and the closed devils. You want a book. You can ask someone to buy it for you and dump it in the mail. Make a larger pack and ask the friend to send it as «printed matters». It goes late, it goes at half price.
Also, beware of your local bookstore. They might just do the order on Amazon for you and this way you support two crap businesses. Or maybe they have one guy in a developed country. The guy uses the free delivery and receives some money for bothering to the postal office. The customs might get a few forms to justify their jobs. And the local store looks respectable. A win-win-win-...-win sittuation.
Cheers!
Even if the local store buys from Amazon, Amazon knows nothing about him. He paid cash at a local store. If every customer of Amazon would do that, Amazon would not be a threat (that is: not w.r.t. its reselling/shipping activity; I am not talking, e.g., about the DRMs in many works they distribute).
Amazon has no bad influence. It will only try to sell stuff. And if somebody can't refrain from buying a good offer that person is either perfectly human or too childish in reasoning. Either way, that is not a sign Amazon is bad.
Amazon can be bad because it has quite a lot of information about somebody. Like Facebook. Or Google. And it can sell that information.
A doctor buying a medical book, that is nothing special. Someone interested in self-help books, that is also uninteresting. And it can be gathered from other places too.
I thought the idea was to buy from stores that respect a certain common sense. In the way one does vote with own money every day. Buying from a reseller just means to pay for a third party just to hold your religious views. And in this particular case, this borders hypocrisy.
I disagree, Amazon has a very bad influence. Amazon is a large company,
with a lot of investors, and a sizeable group of loyal customers
(people who *only* buy from Amazon -- I should know, I used to belong
to this crowd (I have since absolved my sins :) )). Some examples of
Amazon using their enormous influence to hurt people include:
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/13/opinion/amazons-jungle-logic.html?_r=4&pagewanted=all&
http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2011/12/12-3
http://www.jimchines.com/2012/02/amazon-ebook-price/
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/10/technology/writers-feel-an-amazon-hachette-spat.html
http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/05/23/amazon-escalates-its-battle-against-hachette/
Amazon is bad for a lot more reasons than just "it has a lot of
information about somebody". Take, for example, the fact that they
would rather hire an ambulance to park outside, as opposed to turning
up the air conditioner.
http://www.mcall.com/news/local/mc-allentown-amazon-complaints-20110917,0,7937001,full.story
and the fact that they formerly backed a political organization that
promotes voter suppression laws and the disbanding of Unions.
https://stallman.org/archives/2012-mar-jun.html#2_May_2012_%28ALEC%29
Hell, Stallman has a page full of links on The Evils Of Amazon:
https://stallman.org/amazon.html
The idea that "religion is poison" I would normally concur with, being
a supporter of both Dawkins and the late Chris Hitchens. However where
Free Software and Freedom is concerned, I do not think it is religious
to want to protect your rights, and make sure that you support and buy
from places that do that. This is just having support for a particular
ideology.
I believe that it is common sense to anyone who wants a free country
(one that respects the liberties and rights to all of the occupants),
that we should support only the people that aim for this goal. If we
support and fund entities that do not support a free country, how are
we to attain that goal? We are, effectively, shooting ourselves in the
foot by doing so.
One of the ways people get attention is by disrupting the business of
whoever it is they want the attention of. If enough people stopped
buying from Amazon then they would be forced to raise the aircon in
their factories and improve the working conditions, if enough people
stopped buying from amazon then they would be forced to give better
deals to authours. It would benefit the entire community.
Apologies if any sentences are incongruous or obfuscated, it is
particularly late at night.
- Finn.
I should also mention that just because you *perceive* the data
to be meaningless, Amazon and its investors *certainly* do /not/.
A doctor buying a medical book isn't interesting, sure. But what
if a dentist buys several books on intestinal surgery (Trying to
roll with the analogy but it's hard :D) or oncology. Or a Doctor
picks up a few books on Pyrotechnics for a friend who's into that
stuff as a part time job, but gets flagged and put on a list.
Or even, a regular person buys a book about Free Software, and
then gets flagged by the NSA.
- Finn
I will admit I have purchased some items I could find nowhere else on Amazon. However, I am constantly looking for alternatives. I wouldn't say Amazon is a "would be" threat, it is "a threat" to free software and to privacy world-wide.
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"One day, Bezos marched into Steve Kessel's office and gave an order: "I want you to proceed as if your goal is to put everyone selling physical books out of a job," he said. Kessel's role up until then had been assuaging book publishers so that they'd feel comfortable selling their used books on Amazon."
-- source: http://www.inc.com/krasny/jeff-bezos-recipe-for-disruption.html
Spyware toolbar acquired: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexa_Toolbar
Also, Amazon has been pushing hard to force little businesses, publishers, and manufactures completely out of the market by having people send their products directly to Amazon (and only them), for all new releases, exclusive products, etc.
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2415678,00.asp
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So that being said, I found a few alternatives during my search -
There are a few places you can purchase books for bitcoin directly without using Amazon, and there are also local bookstores (though they are becoming more consolidated as well - e.g. Barnes&Noble). You'll want to make sure they are not giving into Amazon, ask them. You can also search Amazon and try to contact a seller (ensure they are not an Fulfilled-by-Amazon seller, since this simply means you're still buying from Amazon directly.). Explain to them that you are looking for store discounts and would like to purchase and have your product shipped directly to help their small business. I've seen several companies willing to do this, and sometimes you get a better deal as well.
There are also places where you can swap and trade books. This is probably the most ethical solution currently. You can use Reddit for example:
https://pay.reddit.com/r/bookexchange
I am a member!
Reasons not to buy from Amazon:
https://stallman.org/amazon.html
Greetings again.
Don't worry, I've been asking and they don't order their books from amazon. They have told me what their distributors are and amazon was not in their list.
I hope this information will make you sleep more serenely.
I am a member!
There's also a book sharing service called BookMooch. (bookmooch-dot-com)
It was created by John Buckman, who runs the music label Magnatune and I believe is affiliated with the EFF.
They trade books they already own, so no Amazon. If you are looking for something obscure you're probably not going to find it, but if you are just browsing it should have something for you.
Thank you
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