talkmagic.co.uk

I've gotten back into magic after40 years. Now I have been purchasing magic eBooks from Lybrary.com. I have teh Tarbel series on CD, Bobo's Modern Magic, Expert Card Technique and a few more. I also have been purchasing DVDs and Video tapes. Just bought David Roth's Ultimate Coin Magic Vol 2 for the Coin Box section and the Card College 1 CD.

My question is this ... Should I also invest in the printed copies of these books? It is nice having full search capability in the ebooks, but it is a little hard to carry my PC to bed to read (wife won't let me I've been printing out just the sections I am currently interested in and studying. I just wonder if the ebooks have all the contents of the books.

I am interested in what others think of this.
Thanks in advance,
Chalmers

personally i like printed books as i can actually read it any where and can read it with out power if needed
but thats all personal and if your hard drive gets messed up at least you have the book
pcwizme

ebooks are virtually instant once you've found what you want online, and assuming that you have a broadband connection. Dial up connections may be a problem but I suspect that few will still be relying on dial up these days.

Once downloaded, you can print in sections and as long as you make a back up to disc or CD then it should still last a life time without taking up hardly any much shelf space.

Most ebooks come in the Adobe format with the reader software coming free, either by download or can always be found on the free disc on the front of computer magazines. If you have an organiser such as a Palm or iPaq then you can also download the Adobe reader for this, and then carry your ebooks around in your organiser. I have about 200 ebooks on a range of subjects and usually have about three on my organiser and chop and change as I feel like it. I have all of these backed up to a single CD in case of a computer crash.

ebooks are a very worthwhile consideration.

Buy hard copies of all your ebooks.
But only if you have limitless money to spend on magic.

If you're an ordinary mortal like the rest of us, buy different books.
It's the knowledge within that's important - the format is just a vehicle.

you have answered your own question by saying should i invest in hard copy's.
Good magic books do not loose their value.The opposite in fact, so at some time, you could actualy sell them for proffit.
you cant do this with an " e-book"
Not legaly anyway, since technicaly speaking, that would be piracy.

but it is a little hard to carry my PC to bed to read

As mentioned a pocket pc is a great portable device, I bought Royal Road for this purpose but found that it wouldn't fit on the screen properly on my Ipaq. Annoying.
But luckily I have a laptop as well so that's another solution, a bit easier to take to bed.

Maybe E-books would be good for small books on sleights, but for any expensive material like the card college, definitley get it in print. You want to actually have material worth something. This way it can be traded, brought anywhere, and passed down to your family. Not lost when you buy a new computer.

Just to clarify a point and to avoid putting people off buying ebooks, you don't lose ebooks when upgrading your computer.

With nearly all computers coming with a CD or DVD writer these days all that you have to do is make a back up copy!

Oh well ya, my bad

It just seems like having paper money, and acutual gold.
The paper money really has no value.

In that case, you couldn't send me a few of your one hundred dollar bills?