Why I Love eBooks

My promotion for Read an eBook Week is still going on...click here for details on how to get 50% off of Fractured Facade on Smashwords. And I've also decided that for the last day, Saturday March 10th, I'm going to be giving away The Valentine's Day Curse -- A short story for free on Amazon.

I thought that today would be a good day to blog about why I love eBooks. Sure, it's given me the opportunity to self-publish and get my stories out there, but that's the author side...I want to speak about the reader side.

First off let me say I love my Kindle. And this is not my eReader is better than your eReader statement. It's about my experience. Your wants and likes may differ. I love the un-lit back screen which looks like I'm reading a "real" book. I love how I can increase the print size. I love that it's big enough to read comfortably, yet small enough to fit in my pocketbook. I love that I can hold it easier than I can a hard cover book. What I don't love about it is when I get the notification my battery is about to die. I wish the battery bar showed me that I'm getting to a point where I need to recharge instead of getting that dreaded notice just as I'm getting into a scene. Of course, I could just plug it into a wall, or my computer and keep right on reading, but sometimes that's not possible.

By far the best thing about my Kindle is that it has introduced me to the world of fiction. What??? That's right, I have never been a fan of fiction. In fact, when someone in the past has asked me which authors I like I would have a hard time coming up with names, other than Edgar Allen Poe, O. Henry or some beat writers. That's because most fiction I've read I could barely get through, and there was rarely an author I would seek out to read the next book. I found too many stories "unbelievable" or "too pat." It was like the authors were following a computer program whereby they inserted the character names, settings and plot lines, and the computer would spit out a book. Life is not filled with happy endings. So my preference in the past have been biographies and memoirs, even by "unknowns." Although I could find a couple in the bargain bins in used bookstores and library sales, the problem I found is that most memoirs by unknowns have not been published in the traditional sense. With the advent of self-publishing that has changed.

Right now I have over one hundred books downloaded to my Kindle. I'm sure others probably have thousands, but I'm of the mind set, just because it's free I'm not going to download a book. However, I have been quicker to download a free novel and "give it a shot" than I was to buy one in a bookstore. I'm glad I have because I have discovered some really good indie authors. Right now I am reading "Elephant Girl: A Human Story" by Jane Devin and it's really screwing up my life because I'm having a hard time putting it down. Before that I read JD Marder's "Joe Cafe" and Fred Limberg's "Ferris' Bluff." And although, those two are not the genre I usually read, I enjoyed them both.

What I don't like is when you download a free book then find out it really isn't a full book at all, just a couple of "sample" chapters. That happened to me with Luc Carl's "Tales from the Drunk Diet." I was disappointed to find out that all it contained was two or three chapters from the middle of the book with the statement buy my full book if you like this. Umm, no, I won't. Maybe I would have if there was full disclosure at the time of the "freebie" but there wasn't, and I feel "tricked."

In order to make my life easier I have created collections on my Kindle. At first I just had one called "Books I Read." Then I realized some of the books I read don't belong in that category so I added another one, "Books I Read that Sucked" which includes books I could not get through. I also have one entitled "Classics" and "Cookbooks." With each download I find I have to scroll through pages to find the next book I want to read and frankly some I had downloaded weeks prior so I have forgotten what the book is about. So, next up I'll have to create more collections by genres. Just don't know when I'll get to that, or get to making Twitter lists!

All this reading is cutting into my writing time, but I'm not going to feel guilty...yet!