My favorite book is a little known one called “Black Holes and Timewarps: Einstein’s Outrageous Legacy” and I reference it so much that I would really like a copy that’s fully mine and searchable, but I also care about the author receiving compensation for the purchase. Where do you get your PDF copies from?
Guess I never considered that. Is that a common service at a print shop? I’ve owned the physical copy for decades
I somehow missed the part where you said that you already own the book. You should definitely just pirate the pdf, there is nothing wrong with that when you already own it.
The link to its page on the archive https://archive.org/details/blackholes-time-warps-throne-hawking
The direct link to the pdf https://archive.org/download/blackholes-time-warps-throne-hawking/(Commonwealth Fund Book Program) Kip S. Thorne, Stephen Hawking - Black Holes and Time Warps_ Einstein’s Outrageous Legacy-W. W. Norton & Company (1995).pdf
Dont worry, only the cover is low resolution, the rest is nice and crisp. Even the internal references are working.
You could also buy a physical or digital copy or donate to the author directly and then still just pirate the pdf. That would be morally unquestionable imo.