ON BUYING E-BOOKS

I’ve finally figured out why I find it ‘itchy’ to buy e-books. I do subscribe to Kindle Buffet and BookSends to glean all the good freebie books each day – I remember the old saying: “For free take, for buy waste time.” So if a freebie looks good, seems to be my kind of reading, no first person, present tense, maybe a wee bit racy, maybe with a good mystery, I’ll add it to the collection.  After all, I can delete it if it proves to be a dud.

But if I buy an e-book and it proves to be a dud I am stuck, I’m out the money, even if it is only 99¢. Moreover, when I’m finished with the electronic book I’ve purchased, and I usually read them at least twice, I can’t donate it to the library to generate a few shekels for the Used Book Sale to entertain or enlighten someone else. I don’t feel at all upset that I can’t pass on something I got for free.

I borrow new books from the library, I usually buy gift books for my granddaughters from Daedalus or Chinaberry, and I buy used books for myself from sources like Thrift Books, the first entry on my laptop’s bookmarks list. My husband sometimes thinks I keep Thrift Books in business. He sees those distinctive orange mailers in the mailbox and says “Uhoh, more books!”  Yes, but these I can pass on. My money at work, as it were.

It has taken me a while to come to this conclusion.  In the year or so that I’ve had the Kindle app on my new laptop I’ve certainly ‘wasted’ money on e-books I purchased. Only a few were duds, and in the main I got my $3.99 or so worth of entertainment from reading the book. But I wasn’t able to pass the book on to someone else – that’s a shame in my book.

We’re told never to judge a book by its cover, but this one below intrigued me. The book itself earned four stars on Amazon, with mixed reviews, mostly favorable. I did like the story and I’ve already read it twice. But I absolutely love the cover. It isn’t your typical bodice-ripper, hands up her skirt type of illustration. It isn’t the current cover – and why do they see the need to change covers on electronic books?  The new one is just a head shot of a pretty male face, one that would never appeal to me.  I keep this book in my Kindle library just to be able to see the cover every once in a while. Odd, I know, but that’s me.