I was browsing the site of a writer, The Raven's Eye, and noticed she has self-published one of her short stories. It was only about $2 to buy a copy, so I thought I'd be part of The Long Tail and buy it.
Of course, this led to a discussion in our household about how many copies the writer would have to sell in order to 'make a living'. In my opinion, if an author self-publishes online, as long as it's not too expensive a process, any sales are a bonus, because they not only bring in a trickle - or hopefully, a flood - of money, but they act as publicity for the writer's other work.
In this case, the story was a great read. I'd categorise it as urban fantasy, which I like, and it had a protagonist who I'd like to know more about. (Yes, I do know I could have written 'whom' in that last sentence, but I'm over that word and don't intend to write it any more.)
I bought it at Smashwords, which I hadn't previously heard about.
The other benefit of buying the story was that it made me get my BeBook Neo eReader out again. Since the initial excitement of buying it, I haven't used it much. Now that I've discovered buying short stories, I think it could get as much use as my iPod. Hmmm... and that doesn't come out of the drawer much, either. Must get on over to the iTunes store and buy some music.
I have mixed feelings about my BeBook. It's a great screen, easy on the eyes, but I don't find it easy to navigate.
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4 comments:
One thing that I like about these ereaders is that they make buying books so cheap. They are much more inexpensive than buying paperback.
Alex, I must say that although I've got one, so far it hasn't changed my reading habits much.
I had a look at your site and I'm going to visit it again to see what you have to say in your reviews.
It is an exciting time in terms of the swift availability of stuff, Parlance.
I am reminded of the differences between trips to Europe that my partner and I took in 2001 and later ones in 2008 and 2010. On the first trip we had a film camera, carried a bag containing the lenses and camera, and we were constantly worrying where the rolls of film were. During the last two trips, the camera was shoved into one of our pockets and the shots were secured by being saved in different formats. On both trips, we had more room in our luggage for the lovely printed books we bought!
Lynn, it's a while since I travelled, and I agree that it must be wonderful to go with lighter luggage. I remember discovering my absolutely all-time favorite author simply because I was off camping around Europe for ten weeks and looked for the biggest book I could find. Of course, I had to lug it around.
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