E-Reader Madness
I’m old. Well, I’m not T-Rex old but I remember when there were saturday morning cartoons. And four channels on broadcast television. When every house, car and hotel did not have air conditioning. When the internet was a military network that had just been given to universities. I also may, or may not, remember playing Star Trek video games against people under a teacher's account on said internet. Depending on who asks. :)
Computers ranged from filling entire buildings to the rare desktop. I wrote code and programs for Apple II and IIE desktops in high school. Granted, it was pretty simple back then. Video games were in places called arcades. And you had to go there to play it. So during my watch on this mudball we have zipped through cable television, ac, internet and video games all being standard parts of our life. Well, there is another big thing that has changed since I was young. Books.
Back in my day (yes I did that in the old man voice) if you wanted a book you actually had to go to the bookstore to look for one. Or a library if you were frugal. Then there were the half price and discount stores as well as auctions and garage sales. The only way to find out if a new book was coming out in a series was to check with the people who sold them. To get published authors had two options. Either you got a publisher to take you on or you self published. Self publishing back then either meant you paid someone to print your book or you setup your own print shop. Either way cost really limited the amount of self published work that was out there. Distribution limited how many people actually saw it even more.
So publishers truly ruled the day. However, as with all the changes we have had over the last twenty years books have changed as well. Now we have e-readers. A dizzying array of e-readers. Multiple formats of books and devices make it so anyone who wants one can have a library at their fingertips. You can even read these books on your smartphone. So not only can you have a ton of books with you at all times, no one has any idea what you are reading.
If you want a book you can download it from anywhere that has internet access. Or cell phone service. You can browse titles, set up alerts for books you want to get, make list of to be read or future purchases, pre order titles, and just about anything else you might want to do. Building a gigantic book collection doesn’t even take a lot of money. There are more free books than you could ever read and the ones you pay for start at a dollar.
Needless to say, this has changed the self publishing world quite a bit. There are a metric ton of electronic books available. Classics, popular authors and of course self published. So while readers benefit from having e-readers to carry their books and even hide what they are reading from others (I’m looking at you erotica readers) they also have to deal with the daunting task of finding the good books among the bad.
It had been awhile since I downloaded anything that wasn’t suggested to me by a friend or fellow author. I got my dad a kindle and set about showing him how to set up an account and search for books. When we got done searching the free books I realized just how hard it is to figure out what is a good book and what is not. True there are the reviews and the star system. But if the problems on Amazon and Å·±¦ÓéÀÖ have taught us anything it is that those systems are extremely flawed.
So readers, poor innocents simply looking for some good entertainment, are forced to wade chest deep through the glut of electronic books on the net. Among their resources are bloggers and websites trying to sort through one genre or another. Each tries their best to showcase the titles they have read and loved. However, for each good book pulled out of the sea into the readers boat there are hundreds they may never get the chance to enjoy.
The problem is daunting. At present there is no good way to find a book besides sifting through the chaff yourself. That is a horrible thing to have to do when all you are looking for is a good time. Of course, the longer you do it the easier it gets. Eventually, you can find sites and bloggers that like the same kind of books you do. This in turn leads you to books you otherwise would not have found.
Also, many self published authors work diligently to network and promote their own work. Some are able to secure contracts with publishers this way while others chose to decline contracts and continue the work on their own. These success stories are based upon a herculean effort of work, make no mistake, and I tip my hat to them. From email lists to blog tours to signings they generate buzz to get their book out there so you have a chance to know it is there.
In the end readers are forced to up their game. It almost becomes like a scavenger for entertaining reads. What was once a less social hobby now has morphed. To find the good books you have to talk to others, join online groups of like minded people and network. The one thing I have noticed beyond that is people who meet in real life that never would have simply because they love the same kind of books.
So in the end, I guess things are better in a lot of ways. You just have to take the good with the bad and decide what you want to take away from all of it.
Computers ranged from filling entire buildings to the rare desktop. I wrote code and programs for Apple II and IIE desktops in high school. Granted, it was pretty simple back then. Video games were in places called arcades. And you had to go there to play it. So during my watch on this mudball we have zipped through cable television, ac, internet and video games all being standard parts of our life. Well, there is another big thing that has changed since I was young. Books.
Back in my day (yes I did that in the old man voice) if you wanted a book you actually had to go to the bookstore to look for one. Or a library if you were frugal. Then there were the half price and discount stores as well as auctions and garage sales. The only way to find out if a new book was coming out in a series was to check with the people who sold them. To get published authors had two options. Either you got a publisher to take you on or you self published. Self publishing back then either meant you paid someone to print your book or you setup your own print shop. Either way cost really limited the amount of self published work that was out there. Distribution limited how many people actually saw it even more.
So publishers truly ruled the day. However, as with all the changes we have had over the last twenty years books have changed as well. Now we have e-readers. A dizzying array of e-readers. Multiple formats of books and devices make it so anyone who wants one can have a library at their fingertips. You can even read these books on your smartphone. So not only can you have a ton of books with you at all times, no one has any idea what you are reading.
If you want a book you can download it from anywhere that has internet access. Or cell phone service. You can browse titles, set up alerts for books you want to get, make list of to be read or future purchases, pre order titles, and just about anything else you might want to do. Building a gigantic book collection doesn’t even take a lot of money. There are more free books than you could ever read and the ones you pay for start at a dollar.
Needless to say, this has changed the self publishing world quite a bit. There are a metric ton of electronic books available. Classics, popular authors and of course self published. So while readers benefit from having e-readers to carry their books and even hide what they are reading from others (I’m looking at you erotica readers) they also have to deal with the daunting task of finding the good books among the bad.
It had been awhile since I downloaded anything that wasn’t suggested to me by a friend or fellow author. I got my dad a kindle and set about showing him how to set up an account and search for books. When we got done searching the free books I realized just how hard it is to figure out what is a good book and what is not. True there are the reviews and the star system. But if the problems on Amazon and Å·±¦ÓéÀÖ have taught us anything it is that those systems are extremely flawed.
So readers, poor innocents simply looking for some good entertainment, are forced to wade chest deep through the glut of electronic books on the net. Among their resources are bloggers and websites trying to sort through one genre or another. Each tries their best to showcase the titles they have read and loved. However, for each good book pulled out of the sea into the readers boat there are hundreds they may never get the chance to enjoy.
The problem is daunting. At present there is no good way to find a book besides sifting through the chaff yourself. That is a horrible thing to have to do when all you are looking for is a good time. Of course, the longer you do it the easier it gets. Eventually, you can find sites and bloggers that like the same kind of books you do. This in turn leads you to books you otherwise would not have found.
Also, many self published authors work diligently to network and promote their own work. Some are able to secure contracts with publishers this way while others chose to decline contracts and continue the work on their own. These success stories are based upon a herculean effort of work, make no mistake, and I tip my hat to them. From email lists to blog tours to signings they generate buzz to get their book out there so you have a chance to know it is there.
In the end readers are forced to up their game. It almost becomes like a scavenger for entertaining reads. What was once a less social hobby now has morphed. To find the good books you have to talk to others, join online groups of like minded people and network. The one thing I have noticed beyond that is people who meet in real life that never would have simply because they love the same kind of books.
So in the end, I guess things are better in a lot of ways. You just have to take the good with the bad and decide what you want to take away from all of it.
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