Steve Evans's Blog: The written world - Posts Tagged "e-reader"

Hello again – yes, dear reader, I seem to be firing at will. There are reasons for this, not least because I am trying to convince you if you are not already convinced, to read my latest offering, The Living End, and even to go on to read others in my “writer’s stable”. There is a bunch – something for anyone! No horses though – not the right sort of course.

There is another way of looking at this, which is that having finished a book and “got it out there”, that I no longer know what to do with myself, so am resorting in desperation to blogging it up large.

In my more intimate moments, when I am reproaching myself for so many things unsuitable for family entertainment, I admit this to myself.

This time, I have a slight excuse. Next week, March 6 onward, there is a “read an e-book week” promotion. The publisher of my titles, Smashwords, is taking part in this, and as a gesture of gratitude and hope I have put some of my work on special, mostly free.

Now, I have a Kobo, and when I don’t read e-material on it, I make do mainly with my PC, which has a programme called Adobe Digital Editions that gives a book the look of a book.

However, a friend and Shakespeare scholar a while back gave me some heaps for praising e-readers like the Kobo and Kindle. He denounced them as doomed technology.

His reasoning was and is that the single application of these devices -reading – means they will be killed off by multipurpose items like iPads and their clones. I have to admit there is something in this, especially given that you can’t read an art book on a Kobo as it is black and white.

That said, I have a Kobo and do not have – nor do I want – an Apple anything. And I like it. If suddenly I became wealthier than all my tribe through the sale of say a million or two of my works, then I might “cogitate over its veritability” as a song almost goes.*

Then I will be able to report back on the inestimable advantages of the iPad or its equivalent. Try me.

Meanwhile, you can do worse than rise early on March 6, flex your mouse-tickler, put on those Nike trainers to be sure, and get a passle of free e-books. Whatever your pleasure in e-reader, or e-book, you can take advantage.

Here is a link:

https://www.smashwords.com/ebookweek

Enjoy.

Thanks for reading

*”That’s when I’ll come back to you” by Frank Biggs, as recorded by Louis Armstrong. It’s a very amusing song despite some of the implications not quoted here. This is definitely not bad: “When box cars are flying around/and blue turns to brown/then I might abandon the canyons of my mind/and soar into the air. . .over you/darling, you fake.” It also says, “you lost… a gold mine, a silver mine, a cobalt mine, when you lost me.”

Well, Louis could say that, but I can’t.