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jana_denardoI love the social experience for one. I'm not sure I've ever been in a bookstore where someone hasn't asked me for my opinion on a book or offered me theirs. I enjoyed striking up conversations with people passionate about reading.
I like browsing books in person. I like the visceral feel of it, the hefty of the book the ability to flip through pages and read the dustcover and it is just not the same online. I've only ever bought a few books online, often manga I can't find elsewhere or a gift to ship to someone easily. I buy more movies there and one reason is I know the movie I want. Browsing books online sort of sucks for me. I get bored more quickly, I can't read the pages and when they do offer up sample pages, it just isn't the same somehow.
I DO buy books online from my book clubs like Mystery Guild and Sci-Fi book club and Onespirit but I've belonged to the first two of them for over 25 years. I refuse to opt out of the getting the paper catalog because it's easier for me to browse through. It takes so much more time to browse online. Half the time the search engine tells you it's not there because it's cataloged differently on the site than you imagine it would be.
I will probably buy less books now, especially if Barnes & Nobles goes the way of Borders which seems likely. Some have suggested independent bookstores might regain a foothold. I hope so but doubt it because Amazon will always be able to undercut them on price.
Worse, I think publishers believe that people will buy less books because they've already stated without the in-person bookstores they're cutting production back.
As for ebooks, I think they're great in many respects. I have several blind friends and their readers can read ebooks (or at least I think so, now that I've said that) Looking at the sheer size of some of those fantasy books I love, my arthritic hands cringe at holding them up. That said I have NOT found an e-reader I can use without getting headaches almost instantly. I've looked at kindle and nook and they both bother me. Reading something that long on the computer is out of the question. I have the devil's own time editing my own work (in fact I print it and go from there but have to look at the screen when I get edits back from my first readers and the publisher.
I feel bad sometimes since in the genre I'm publishing in, many of the releases are ebooks only. People might even be wondering why my goodreads contains very little reviews of my genre and this is why. I do have troubles reading ebooks. That said I would like to try to read more. I just need to figure out a way to do so (other than you know stop being so cheap and buy the print versions but heck any more most of my books come from the library) I think one way to do this is to actually wish-list the books that interest me when I see them in the newsletters for the publishers I work with. At least then when I have the money I know what I want to buy (I am notorious for forgetting book and movie titles, thank god my netflix queue remembers because I don't)
I like browsing books in person. I like the visceral feel of it, the hefty of the book the ability to flip through pages and read the dustcover and it is just not the same online. I've only ever bought a few books online, often manga I can't find elsewhere or a gift to ship to someone easily. I buy more movies there and one reason is I know the movie I want. Browsing books online sort of sucks for me. I get bored more quickly, I can't read the pages and when they do offer up sample pages, it just isn't the same somehow.
I DO buy books online from my book clubs like Mystery Guild and Sci-Fi book club and Onespirit but I've belonged to the first two of them for over 25 years. I refuse to opt out of the getting the paper catalog because it's easier for me to browse through. It takes so much more time to browse online. Half the time the search engine tells you it's not there because it's cataloged differently on the site than you imagine it would be.
I will probably buy less books now, especially if Barnes & Nobles goes the way of Borders which seems likely. Some have suggested independent bookstores might regain a foothold. I hope so but doubt it because Amazon will always be able to undercut them on price.
Worse, I think publishers believe that people will buy less books because they've already stated without the in-person bookstores they're cutting production back.
As for ebooks, I think they're great in many respects. I have several blind friends and their readers can read ebooks (or at least I think so, now that I've said that) Looking at the sheer size of some of those fantasy books I love, my arthritic hands cringe at holding them up. That said I have NOT found an e-reader I can use without getting headaches almost instantly. I've looked at kindle and nook and they both bother me. Reading something that long on the computer is out of the question. I have the devil's own time editing my own work (in fact I print it and go from there but have to look at the screen when I get edits back from my first readers and the publisher.
I feel bad sometimes since in the genre I'm publishing in, many of the releases are ebooks only. People might even be wondering why my goodreads contains very little reviews of my genre and this is why. I do have troubles reading ebooks. That said I would like to try to read more. I just need to figure out a way to do so (other than you know stop being so cheap and buy the print versions but heck any more most of my books come from the library) I think one way to do this is to actually wish-list the books that interest me when I see them in the newsletters for the publishers I work with. At least then when I have the money I know what I want to buy (I am notorious for forgetting book and movie titles, thank god my netflix queue remembers because I don't)
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