SM Johnson ~Thursday Morning Coffee~

(Author note: This was a scheduled post - yes, the Duluth MN/Superior WI or simply "Twin Ports" flood just happened here - we are fine, and so far all our people are fine, as well).



Happy Thursday, darlings! I am so please that I remembered what I wanted to talk about last week immediately after posting an excerpt as an alternative. Isn't that the way of it, though? And since the post was already skirting the edge of afternoon coffee (which I love and must have, by the way - right around 4 PM), I decided not to change the topic mid-Thursday.

Besides, ya'll got to celebrate the first draft completion of DeVante's Choice with me, so in the end, everything worked out.

In the meantime, one of my first readers has let me know which parts she loved and which parts probably need some work. A novel is so darn bulky that it's really hard to see from a reader stand-point what works, and what might not, so my early readers are an absolute godsend. The only other way I can tell how I've done is to let the manuscript age in a drawer for a few month, then pull it out and read it cold. And even then - my own opinion of my own work is not nearly as valuable to me - it certainly doesn't help me develop as a better writer.

So today's (mainly rhetorical) question is:

Where do you get books?

I was a library child all of my life - and oh, how beautiful was the day that I was finally old enough to walk or bike ALL BY MYSELF to the nearest neighborhood branch of the local library. I would stay there for hours, browsing here, sitting down on the floor to read there... just walking into a library and experiencing the distinct scent of old books transports me back, even now.

But these days my library jaunts go in spurts. I'm either always rushing to be somewhere, or loathe to leave my house at all. So for a few weeks I'm really good about reading and and returning, and then for some reason my interest wanes.

Once I bought myself a Kindle Touch, my interest in buying books from Amazon soared. For awhile I was really excited about cheap and free books, and I absolutely love the whispernet delivery system. Everything blurb that caught my attention went right on to my wish list, which is currently several pages long.

Every payday I'd reward myself for sticking with a day job by visiting my wish list and buying one or two more expensive books, and five or six books priced $2.99 or less.

But then a couple of things happened.

One of them was that I found some reviewers who's taste seemed to match mine, which increased the length of my wish list.

At the beginning, I considered $5.99 "expensive." But I would pay that for a known author, a popular author, a book on the best seller list, or even an unknown author with great reviews (that seemed genuine). No problem.

But then suddenly my wish list contained a slew of books with price tags of $7.99, and (gulp) even $9.99.

I bucked up and bought a couple of these that really intrigued me.

And then the other thing happened:

The books actually weren't all that great.

So I started reconsidering these ebooks that were price-matched to paperbacks, and wondering about value.

I can pass a paperback on that I didn't love. I can even donate it to my local library. Or I can bring it to work and it will make the rounds among both staff and patients. Someone might love it and keep it on their home bookshelf forever. Or they might take it home and pass it on to a friend, donate it to Goodwill, or sell it at a rummage sale.

Ultimately, spending $8 to $10 on a paperback is not a bad deal. I receive a product that I can hold in my hands, and give away to someone else when I'm done or if I don't care for it.

But what about the ebooks I buy from Amazon? The file goes from Amazon, to my Kindle, and then, if I archive it, back to Amazon. It doesn't seem like I actually OWN it. Can I reformat it and email it to my friend who reads on a Nook? Well, maybe, if it's a DRM-free file.

But is that considered pirating? Or, in other words, stealing?

But if I'm paying the same amount of money for an ebook as a paperback, why is lending it to a friend STEALING? After all, it's not as if there is the expense of a printer/binder/distributor to recoup.

And can I donate an ebook that I feel confident I won't read again to my local library? It's a thought worth a little research, I guess.

All right, anyway. Let me explain where I'm going with this. I compared my Amazon wish list with my local library's online card catalog. And guess what I found? 

About a dozen titles on my list are available to borrow from my library. Some of them are ebooks. Some had to be requested through inter-library-loan (a simple "request this item" button right there on the page of search results).

In particular, most of them were books in the $8 to $10 dollar range, the ones I had not yet convinced myself to buy. 

In less than a week, 6 of them are in my hands. One I've already read and returned, another I'm almost done with.

I'm a happy camper.

Ultimately, as both an author and a reader, I'm going to say this: Shame on publishers for charging the same amount of money for a "virtual" book as for a book I can hold in my hands, borrow to my friends, or donate to my library. Your greed dishonors readers.

My publisher (of the DeVante trilogy) originally priced my ebooks at about 1/2 the cost of the 6x9 trade paperbacks. When I asked him to lower the ebook prices even more, he did so.

And I can't speak for my publisher, but I can speak for myself: I believe in the power of sharing books.

If you've purchased any of my self-published books (Dungeon series or non-DeVante short stories - which are mostly free anyway), please, share them with your friends. I would be honored.

~SM