[Some people may get two different posts of this blog today. Most won't.]
I have Kindle book gifts on my mind. I sent a Kindle book to a friend but he didn't understand the email and tossed it. If I find out that he didn't open the email from Amazon and accept the book, the invitation to accept the book can be re-sent. If I don't find out, the paid-for book can hang indefinitely, waiting to be downloaded. I used to try checking with a person beforehand: had they ever used an ebook? Now, since computers, tablets like iPad, and smartphones can all accept and show the print in an ebook, I don't bother checking.
When I am reading a book and it makes me think of a person who likes that subject or author or might like the clever language, I might send that person a copy of the book. When I first got a Kindle in 2008, the explanations of it said that a standard price for an ebook would be $9.99. I just looked up what is the typical price of a Kindle book and the results implied a different average for fiction and for non-fiction. Both recency (more recent is more likely to be available in Kindle form) and popularity (highly professional books are more expensive. Advanced e-texts can cost $150.) The search I did resulted in $6.36 for an average Kindle fiction book but that sort of book might not be of interest to everyone.
Besides feeling that I can afford the price, all I need to send someone a Kindle book is an email address. Many people have more than one email address and I may send a book to the address that is not the one used for their Kindle account. I have sent over 1000 ebooks as gifts but I think I have only heard of one time when the address had to be changed. Amazon's customer service is not easy to get to but the service quality is high. I have not heard of a friend being offended or insulted by a book gift but someone could refuse to accept it. I have about 3000 ebooks and there have been a couple that were so poorly written that I deleted them entirely from my own set.
My own set is in two forms, those in my archive, the Amazon Kindle cloud that are paid for, and the smaller set that are downloaded into one of my devices. I recommend a computer for searching Amazon orders and looking over one's own Kindle titles.
I have about 600 books in my main Kindle. Books can be moved off a Kindle and reloaded as desired. One of the features Amazon has that I like is once I buy a title in e-form, they basically won't sell it to me again if I accidentally order it a second time. There have been many cases when I heard of a book that I wanted to try, looked it up on the Amazon site and found a heading on the page informing me I bought that book 5 years ago.
There may be more than one app that allows electronic borrowing from libraries but I tend to use "Libby". The basic problem is the high demand for ebook borrowing from libraries. It is not unusual for Libby to tell me I can join the queue for a book and expect to get it in a few months. I just looked up "Man's Search for Meaning" and I can get it now and have it permanently for $3. So, I like to check the price. Often for Prime members, a book is free, especially if it is a classic.
