Jade Tiger is now available on Fictionwise!
I believe this is my first piece of fiction available in that format. My favorite part is all the reviews quoted in the listing — some of which I hadn’t seen before. (I was late in getting on the Google Alerts bandwagon.)
Speaking of ebooks, I’ve been rethinking my book-buying habits lately. I live in a tiny condo, and my book shelves are overflowing. (As are the roughly eight boxes of books I’ve been storing in one of my only two closets.) I cull books from the herd regularly, but the survivors multiply quickly. My book-buying habits have got to change soon, or I’ll be found dead under growing pile of trade paperbacks.
Has anyone made the switch to ebooks for the majority of their library? Is that even possible?
And where the heck is Apple’s slick solution to yet another one of my lifestyle problems?
Dear Jenn, got your Jade Tiger off Fictionwise. I ONLY read fiction novels in eBook format. If it's not in eBook, well too bad … I don't read it. I will only probably buy 10 – 20 normal books in the fiction space a year, and even then, I cull regularly. I have a theology, philosophy and science library and also collect some childrens books, but they are all out of print and very, very old. I think the oldest book I own was published in 1769. So my normal book library is about 3500 books, my eBook library is about 700 books now and the one thing I love about my eBooks is that I can carry around a hundred or so of them at the same time and read what I feel like, and until they stop making bigger hard drives, I don't have a space problem with them. I use a Palm Treo and the Secure eReader format for my eBooks. There are lots of devices out there so plenty of choice too if its something you're considering. I never leave home without mine.
Hi Deanna! Thanks so much for this perspective! Frankly, I'm surprised more people don't manage their collections like you do. I think many of us are so in love with the physical form of the book, that we find it difficult to give up, even when collecting them defies logic.
I'll have to do some research on the eReader format and its ilk; my data is so out-of-date! I do hope a standard format develops, though. I can't bear the thought of having a bunch of different readers.
Thanks for posting!
Oh forgot to ask … when's the next book coming out?
Er… when I have any idea, I promise to let you know! :-D
I'm one of those who have started switching to ebooks. While I still have a few thousand dead tree books, in the past year I've only added 4 new ones to my piles and have been able to cull a bunch out & replace them with digital copies too. Everything else purchased has been ebooks. I read between three and four hundred books a year so my ebook purchases have added up to quite a bit. I've gotten to the point that if it's not available as an ebook I just don't buy it (with one or two exceptions).
I currently have about 500 books on my Sony Reader which I can take anywhere & more importantly take up less space than one paper book. The e-ink screen on the Sony (or Amazon Kindle or Cybook Gen3) are good size and don't cause the eye strain problems many of us get on smaller, backlit, PDA screens.
I can also always have a few books on my phone (Treo 700wx) for short periods of reading (can't do more than about 30 min. on the small backlit screen) while waiting in line and stuff.
The biggest problem ebooks have right now, as publishers start to finally embrace the idea more, is that there are to many formats and stuff right now so for most folks conversion software & stuff is a must, although the learning curve for the software isn't big so it's not to bid a problem.
I've got a copy of your book from Fictionwise and look forward to reading it.
Thanks so much for checking out my book, Brian!!! And thanks also for the info on your e-reading habits. I'm quite envious of your 500 books, especially since I'm still trying to get rid of about 200 extra books from my shelves these days. E-books sound like a dream right about now!