Read an Ebook Week. Read one already? Read another!
Okay, so I’m stealing Chester Campbell’s idea and blogging for Read an Ebook Week. This is the week Smashwords.com sells many of its ebooks at a discount, some of them down to free. And it’s a great time to pick up my book Where the Bodies Lie Buried for free. This is the first in the Mackenzie Wilder/Classic Boat mystery series, and the second is due out very soon.
Okay, with the BSP out of the way, why was I writing this? Oh, yes, Read an Ebook Week.
Now, I’m a techie sort of person. Our whole family is. The day they announced the cut-and-paste feature in word processors is right next to the Fourth of July for me. Talk about freedom! I started writing when I was a kid. The labor required to retype an entire page because of an errant typo in the next-to-last line — that more than anything else delayed my progress as the next Great Writer of Our Times. Well, that and the fact that I might not really be that person. Ahem. So, yes, I love technology and how it makes writing easier.
My love of tech is obvious from my predilection for websites and blogging, my social network time, and the fact that I can sit and stare at a screen, fascinated by the simple fact that I can move a file from my computer here at home to the one next to it, to the one at my kid’s college dorm, and to one in Istanbul if I so choose (so long as I know someone in Istanbul, which I don’t think I do, yet). It’s also obvious from the fact that since my husband and I began with computers in 1983, we have only once had a hired tech person in our house, and we never take our computers elsewhere to be fixed. We have plenty of gurus here at home.
And yet. And yet. I’m one of the last people to say books are going away. Or who wants them to. Our house is overrun with books. Our kids’ friends could never understand it. We had books but no cable. And by books, I mean shelves stuffed to overflowing in Every Room. Including the kitchen. All the kids had books of their own on shelves in their rooms, too. One time a telemarketer called:
T: Do you have children?
Me: Oh, yes, as a matter of fact I have 6. (okay, so I never do anything small.)
T: Oh! Well, then you must know how important reading is, right?
Me: Certainly, we…
T: Do you read to your children?
Me: Most of them are past that stage. They read to themselves now.
T: Then you need books! We can offer …
Me: I can’t really buy any more right now. We’re pretty well stocked…
T: (chuckles) How many do you have?
Me: (chuckling right back) Well, just a minute. I’m right next to one of the bookshelves now. These are the books for the little kids — you know, about 16 pages each? Things like Berenstain Bears. Um, let me see… 3 -4 – 5-…….15…. Yup. Okay. On the top shelf I’ve got 500 books or so, maybe 496. There’s 3 shelves in this bookcase, and let’s see, we have at least 20 bookcases…. You see?
T: (gulp) Um. okay. Have a nice day.
And now, many years later, those books are packed away for the next generation, or given away, or destroyed by use. I love books.
So what’s with the ebooks? It’s another package is all. A package that can be convenient, efficient, and for a techie, a delight. A book may loses a little something in the repackaging, but it’s like wearing a raincoat one day and a parka the next. You wear — or use — what is appropriate. While your demeanor might shift some based on what you’re wearing, you are still you. The story is still the story. It’s just wearing a new jacket.
Radio didn’t die out when TV came along. It changed.
The movies didn’t die out when TV came along. They changed.
The movies AND TV didn’t die out when video media and cable came along. They simply changed.
Through all of these, books remained present. And hardcopy books will remain alongside ebooks on into the future. But ebooks will have their place. So download one today, from somewhere. Above all, read and enjoy!
PS: If you are a writer, Smashwords is a great place to consider self-publishing, if that’s something you are going to do. See what it has to offer.
