Everyone has been talking about e-books. Christmas is over and we've heard it was a record breaking year for Kindle and Nook as well as myriad others in the e-book wars. I have a Kindle and love reading on it, especially when I'm traveling since I can load tons of books on it.
I received several gift cards for my Kindle in the past few months which is super fun because I can browse and get whatever I want. I was doing just that today and realized something.
I don't even like to look at the cheap e-books anymore. . .
I barely glance at the freebies before I delete the email that tells me about them. If a book isn't at least $2.99, I'm not interested. The $5 -9 range is better. I've found when it comes to e-books that you get what you pay for.
Today when I was browsing at Amazon, I was annoyed to see that the bestsellers included free Kindle versions and books that were very inexpensive, even though I told it to look at only print versions. I did that deliberately to sort out Kindle books so I could make my choice on quality THEN see which ones were available on Kindle. So I can't rely on their filter to help me figure out what books are worth buying. So as we enter this brave new world, if you want to call it that, it's going to be more and more difficult to find good books.
That's my main beef about the self-publishing trend. We need good editors! Getting a book to print takes a village. :) And it especially takes top notch editing. I'm not talking about just typos but the substantive edit that makes a story bigger and better. By the time my books hit the shelves they have gone through myriad readings by more people than I even know. But even more importantly, my editor has deemed them good enough to put on the shelf.
Do you have any techniques for finding books in a genre that you like that are well written AND actually edited? What has been your experience with buying e-books? My daughter is at the same place--she has found so many of the free or cheap books are only worth that. Are you finding it hard to find books you actually want to read for your Kindle or Nook?
Labels: Blue Moon Promise, e-reader
This is the new me, friends! I reached my weight goal and just hit maintenance. Now to buy clothes! I'm not exactly sure how to dress this new body. Where is Kristin when I need her? LOL
Anyway, on the subject at hand. I've been trying to decide whether to get an e-reader. Nearly all my friends have one but I've been a hold out which makes no sense because I'm the techie of the bunch. But I do love the feel of a book. Still, when I got my latest royalty statement, fully 10% of the sales came from digital copies. Amazing!
But what to buy? I'd been tempted by the Sony reader. I liked the fact it had a touch screen and it was using the ePub format. The thing that bugs me is that all these readers use different formats. I don't understand why there isn't one standard. But Kindle as the biggest list of available books. Even some of the reference books I would normally get to research a new novel are available on the Kindle. I'm sure Dave would be in favor of getting rid of my "nest" around my recliner. That's my huge stack of research books when I'm in the middle of a project. :-) But the Nook lets you loan books. That's a nice feature.
Mike Hyatt had a comparison on his blog yesterday
here. Very informative! He's a Kindle fan so I actually went to Amazon to order it yesterday and found it out of stock so I reconsidered in order to do some research. What about you? Do you have an e-reader? If so, what do you have? Any recommendations?
On another subject, I'm going to Thomas Nelson this Friday. Can't wait to see Ames and the gang! We'll probably be discussing new projects so if you have a request, now is the time to mention it. . .
Labels: e-reader, Kindle, Nook
Everyone has been talking about e-books. Christmas is over and we've heard it was a record breaking year for Kindle and Nook as well as myriad others in the e-book wars. I have a Kindle and love reading on it, especially when I'm traveling since I can load tons of books on it.
Delicious
This is the new me, friends! I reached my weight goal and just hit maintenance. Now to buy clothes! I'm not exactly sure how to dress this new body. Where is Kristin when I need her? LOL
