Bookshare Suspended Me!

Category: the Rant Board

Post 1 by SunshineAndRain (I'm happily married, a mom of two and a fulltime college student.) on Sunday, 16-Aug-2009 2:36:22

Oh that makes me so mad! I guess we downloaded too many books all at once and now it's suspended me for 30 days. What a load of crap! It's technically my husband's fault because he was the one who downloaded all the damn books. Lol. I could just be mad at my husband, but it makes no sense to me that if you pay a $50 subscription fee that they would limit your book downloading! Grrr!!

Post 2 by Daenerys Targaryen (Enjoying Life) on Sunday, 16-Aug-2009 3:04:41

I love reading, but this is why I do not sign up on there.

Post 3 by rat (star trek rules!) on Sunday, 16-Aug-2009 16:10:34

you have to consider they're bandwidth you know, and what is the limit, 100 bucks i believe? if you download that much a month, what the heck are you getting. i believe bookshare can expand that limit too, i think i saw something about that on the site

Post 4 by wildebrew (We promised the world we'd tame it, what were we hoping for?) on Sunday, 16-Aug-2009 16:55:29

Wow, seriously, how many books did you download? I took an intense downloading session and took all the books remotely related to programming I liked andit was about 25, no problem.
I think they should just give you a quota you can't exceed digitally if they feel it's a problem rather than puish you afterwards, but I totally feel they have rights to limit the downloading, it's a darn good resource for free books, lol.
Just give your hubby "a talk", lol,but don't tell him that "we need to talk" because that's mean.
cheers
-B

Post 5 by Big Pawed Bear (letting his paws be his guide.) on Sunday, 16-Aug-2009 17:01:48

a dollar fifty and you want the world? what? that's nothing for lots of downloads.

Post 6 by SunshineAndRain (I'm happily married, a mom of two and a fulltime college student.) on Sunday, 16-Aug-2009 21:49:46

It's 50 dollars a year, not a dollar fifty. I think if you pay that much, you should be able to download as many books as you need. Lol. I really don't know how many he downloaded, but it was a significant amount though.

Post 7 by Big Pawed Bear (letting his paws be his guide.) on Monday, 17-Aug-2009 1:27:19

abotu twenty five quid a year? and you get books worth loads? no. that's too little to pay, hense why they blocked you. a streaming service, such as the rnib book stream service, where you stream rather than download is about 100 dollars a year, fifty quid. i think bookshare is cheap at the price, and they need to protect networks, so good on them for suspending. it's called taking the piss at your end.

Post 8 by Reyami (I've broken five thousand! any more awards going?) on Monday, 17-Aug-2009 12:14:47

I thought if you payed fifty dollars a year, they let you download as many books as you want. What's the limit? I'm going to look at the site now and see, because this is really confusing me.

Post 9 by flcomputergeek (Its my opinion, take it or leave it. ) on Monday, 17-Aug-2009 13:39:12

I think the limit is 100 books per month; if you exceed that, I think you can write to bookshare and explain why you need it extended.

Post 10 by Big Pawed Bear (letting his paws be his guide.) on Monday, 17-Aug-2009 16:58:00

100 books a year? and do you get to keep these books for life? with rnib, you stream them,no physical download as such.

Post 11 by Sword of Sapphire (Whether you agree with my opinion or not, you're still gonna read it!) on Monday, 17-Aug-2009 17:55:44

Poster 9 said 100 books per month, which is actually 1200 books a year.

Post 12 by motifated (I've now got the silver prolific poster award! wahoo!) on Monday, 17-Aug-2009 18:28:35

I know what I'm going to say isn't a particularly popular opinion, but think of how much those books would cost if you could see and had to buy them outright? I guess what I'm thinking is that if we want equal opportunity as people who are blind, the other side of that is that we need to be responsible with our resources, and be responsible for our actions. Not criticizing, just throwing out something else to think about.

Lou

Post 13 by SilverLightning (I've now got the silver prolific poster award! wahoo!) on Monday, 17-Aug-2009 19:28:10

I'm a ibliophile of the highest order, I would rather read then do anything else, and even so I don't think I could read one hundred books in a month, unless they were very very short books. Why do you need to download 101 books every month, why not download as many as you can read, and then download more the next month? that way, you don't have to worry about getting banned.
and as raven said, its twelve hundred books a year for fifty dollars, anyone wanna do the math to figure out how much that is a book?

Post 14 by blbobby (Ooo you're gona like this!) on Monday, 17-Aug-2009 19:32:35

Yes, it's 100 books per month. You've been suspended for the rest of the month, two weeks? You probably won't read 100 books in two weeks.

However, you can write to support@bookshare.org and explain that you didn't know, and need more books, and they may extend the number you can get.

Bob

Post 15 by flcomputergeek (Its my opinion, take it or leave it. ) on Monday, 17-Aug-2009 21:11:15

I download one or two books at a time. when I finish reading those, I get one or two more. I dont think Ive read 100 books the whole 3 years Ive been a member of bookshare! But I absolutely love bookshare.

Post 16 by bozmagic (The rottie's your best friend if you want him/her to be, lol.) on Tuesday, 18-Aug-2009 18:10:22

I'm all for Audible myself. even though they don't have the Jim Dale Harry Potters I'd love to listen to and compare with Stephen Fry sometime, but with Audible, no limits which is why I went for them as oppose to Bookshare. I'd seriously consider Audible as you can get free books off there with credits they automatically give you if you subscribe with them. I think these're valid for abut a week when you receive them.

Jen.

Post 17 by Damia (I'm oppinionated deal with it.) on Tuesday, 18-Aug-2009 18:19:45

Yes, but audible for 1 credit a month is $14.95. I know because I have it. Bookshare is $50.00 a year. Do the math. I'd ssay I read allot from bookshare, but I think the most I've gotten in one month was like 40 and that was prepairing to read two whole series of books. Just seems like 100 books is a pretty decent limit for what's supposed to be one person.

Post 18 by bozmagic (The rottie's your best friend if you want him/her to be, lol.) on Tuesday, 18-Aug-2009 18:29:57

Hmmm! Yeah, you have a point! I could never listen to 100 books in a month even if I wanted to do that much reading, lol. and $14 a month is about £6.50 a month here in the UK. With my pretty substancial savings, I can manage that £60 a year, around $150 a year. I could choose not to, but with Audible, you have a choice of 3 or 4 different formats when downloading books, my preference being MP3 every time, so it's good in that respect, plus you're helping keep Audible up and running even more paying £7.99 and under for your downloads, about $15 if you're either out of credits or those have expired, but it's well worth paying $14.95 per month for free book credits.

Jen.

Post 19 by Damia (I'm oppinionated deal with it.) on Wednesday, 19-Aug-2009 13:25:24

yes but for only 1 credit? some of the books are less than that. it just seems rather pricey is all when 1 credit could get you a $5 book

Post 20 by BryanP22 (Novice theriminist) on Thursday, 20-Aug-2009 14:02:43

I actually don't think the credits expire. When you subscribe to one of their plans it says you can save up a certain number of credits, usually twelve is max. I'm subscribed to their two-credit monthly plan for $22.95 a month. I agree with Hedwig in that I prefer Audible to Bookshare. In fact I haven't even renewed my Bookshare subscription in about three years.

Post 21 by SingerOfSongs (Heresy and apostasy is how progress is made.) on Thursday, 20-Aug-2009 18:06:36

When I went over my amount of books, I just sent a short email explaining why, and they reset my count. IT's really not that big a deal.