Habits Of A Book Junkie In A Digital World

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• What a great vlog! I was laughing so many times, and saying, "yes!" in agreement.
  I have a KindlePW too but I barely pick it up cuz I use the app on my iPad mini. Weird huh? I like you, pretty much only read e-books now and always thought I'd never convert, but I read more and I'm quicker at reading too, which I never expected.

  I also regularly read on iBooks now as well as Google Play Books, I look who has the cheaper version. I read non fiction, self-help. I bought a KindlePW initially because I like to read out of copy right 19c classics, which are free on Kindle.

  Your points about Samples was excellent but I don't have as much patience as you, I give it only a few pages before I know if I like it - if I like it I'll read to the end of the sample and then buy it.

  I like to pay for new books too, and will rarely take a free book, it's knowing the time and effort gone into the book, which I think must be respected by the author enough to get paid.
  Good reads is where I look for new books and review all that I read. (Owned by Amazon now, right)
  A book I had to buy hard back was 's' - jj abrams, an amazing production and so 'meta', full of postcards and things inserted between the pages, so wonderful.

  I love the smell of new books, but I also love the romance of opening an old book. The smell of old books, even though the same for every book is a mark of the time and history, a monument in a smell.

  Thanks again for the great web content! And, you've inspired me (among others) to go ahead and become a freelance science communicator and writer.

  I'll be fitting more reading into my work life now, cuz it's required, innit!

  • ooh, I saw that JJ Abrams book as well, I was going to buy it - may still do!
    Interesting to note that you buy and read on multiple stores - I guess that's because of using a tablet as the reader. Fascinating! Thanks.

• Excellent post, as always! I'm often interested in the reading habits of others, and I learned a lot from this post. There are a lot of features on Kindle, such as highlighting, that I don't take advantage of. Like you, I'm also (unpleasantly) surprised whenever there's no Kindle version of a book available. How is that possible?

  • Especially if it's a new book - I mean, come on publishers!!!

• Our reading habits are surprisingly similar, ebooks for fiction and print for non-fiction. When the Kindle ereader first came out, I traveled frequently for work and carrying hefty loads of books to not only enjoy on international flights but to sustain me for several weeks in non-English speaking countries was painful. I paid US $400 for the first Kindle and have purchased several versions since. Like you, I have 1000+ books on Kindle and loaded bookshelves in every room of my home, though I have donated most of the fiction that I can replace on Kindle (if I still want a copy) to a home for low-income elderly or handicapped residents.

  I didn't warm up to audio books until the Kindle Fire immersion reading, where you can buy the audio for a credit or reduced rate to follow along as you read the print. I find that once I've read a book I enjoyed, I can also listen to it in my car on long drives. When Kindle began, Amazon seemed to be making an effort to work on acquiring very popular author backlists, or those deceased, but now they seem to be concentrating on current and future releases exclusively.. Perhaps dealing with heirs or publishers who didn't have digital rights because ereaders weren't anticipated is a bigger headache than Amazon wants to take on. It is sad.

  • In terms of the large backlist authors have, Amazon was able to pick up some estates while the traditional publishers were resisting digital - but now they know they're sitting on assets, those estates aren't selling! I think they will all make it onto digital eventually!

• Joanna, your video is wonderful. There must be something about addicted readers because my habits are similar to yours. I no longer read on my Kindle PaperWhite- I lost my charger and have not bothered to replace it. I do read on the iPad sometimes. But mostly I read on my phone. It's light and surprisingly easy to view for reading in bed.

  I've started giving away my print book collection, a large number of mystery series. It's difficult to let them go, but I need space in my office for writing. I keep telling myself that I'm releasing them to new readers, and the workers at Goodwill are buying whole bags as they unpack our car, so I feel a little better. Like you, I'm keeping some art books like Hiroshige's Floating World, my collection of Italo Calvino, large pop-up books, and some of the odd little pre-WWI fiction books I picked up second hand, especially those with fly leaf illustrations or maps. I'm now at the replacing series on Kindle stage, but am intimidated by the cost of duplicating my print library.

  I find books when Amazon pings me for new releases from favorite authors. I am reading the most recent book in both of your series, Alan Brady's Flavia De Luce books and Craig Johnson's Longmire series. I also pick up books recommended by other authors. I love the recommendations on Google Plus. I am bad at Twitter and only use GoodReads for the daily quotes.

  I did not like Kindle Unlimited, because it seemed to restrict your ability to build a library.

  I have just started reviewing books that move me in some way. I have been using Amazon reviews, because I know that those are important for discoverability. I might start using GoodReads based on your recommendation.

  My biggest gripes as a reader are writers who do not maintain consistency with their own rules or who disrespect groups of people. I don't object to a character with ugly views, as long as it is clearly the character and not the author.

  I hate when books are unavailable in eBook format. And in the rare case when part of a book is missing, I really get frustrated.

  But for the most part, I love reading.

  • Thanks Cathy, and I agree that reading on the phone becomes the new normal once you get used to it - but I love the e-ink aspect of the Paperwhite in bed. And I do get distracted on my phone - twitter is too close! Thanks for trying out my books as well, and for adding some others you enjoy - it's so important to keep the eco-system going through reviews and recommendations.

    I like this comment "I did not like Kindle Unlimited, because it seemed to restrict your ability to build a library."
    Maybe that's also why I didn't like it - it seemed to restrict me, and I hate restrictions!

• On Kindle you can also highlight. Thank you Joanna for your recommendation for The Beam in your email - I had the feeling it would be nice and so far it's very interesting.
  By the way, you say you buy through Twitter too - does that include only recommendations by the people you follow or paid advertising on Twitter? I am curious because some companies'profiles offer paid advertising to their large followers which I have always wondered if it's worthy.

  • I pretty much get recommendations from people I am connected with on Twitter - or when I check people's profiles I find something I like. Not from promoted tweets so far at least!

• Truly fascinating, Joanna. Especially from the point of view of someone sitting here surrounded by books. I could build a nuclear shelter with my hardcovers alone, and some sort of interesting extension with the softbacks.

  Thing is, I fell in love with books (and magazines) as a child and I've never really fallen out of love. Coupled with that, I have a deep and abiding love of history – especially military history – and that has led me to books that are often highly illustrated, particularly with uniform studies and maps. Ah, maps, I love them, and military history really makes full use of them. I even draw my own, some for the magazine I edit, some for the books I write, and some completely imaginary. Atlases are a thing of joy for me – but they don't work on a Kindle!

  And cookery books. I do like a nicely designed cookery book, Heck, I'm salivating even thinking about them. Am I weird?

  But I'm no luddite. I started producing PDFs of my own waaaaaayyyyyyyyy back in the mid 1990s, when they got the same response from my clients as websites: "what's one of those, and why on earth would I ever want one?" I started selling PDF copies of my magazine back in 2006, and when my first book was published by a traditional publisher in 2013 I was shocked, shocked I tell you, to discover that they had a policy of delaying the Kindle/iBook version by six months.

  Duh. Why? Their fear is that releasing Kindle too soon would mean a loss of sales of the hard copies. Really? Interestingly, the way it's turned out is that many of my readers have bought the hard copy AND the digital version.

  And you're right about fiction. With very few exceptions (which tend to be titles with sentimental value, or those where the publisher or printer went to special lengths to use beautiful typography, or to include illustrations), the vast majority of my fiction collection I now realise I would happily give up and replace with Kindle or iBooks. In fact, watching your little video may well have given me the impetus to go ahead and do that as my first big clearout of the year.

  Incidentally, no wonder I think of you as 'bouncy' as a person, because when you were picking up those great big books, you actually *were* bouncing! I take it you sit on one of those Swiss ball things, or is your middle name Zebedee? :-D

  • Hi Henry, yes, I sit on a swiss ball to work :) I was having chronic back pain 2 years ago and after lots of scans and tests, there was nothing wrong. The physio suggested a swiss ball and within 2 weeks the pain was 90% reduced! So now I am sold on them and also do back stretches while working - as well as bouncing. Super fun!
    I can see that history books with maps would be better in print - and also some cookery books - although there are some amazing apps with salivating pics :) Happy digital fiction 2015!

• I don't really read for pleasure these days so I'm an incredibly fussy reader when I do, and I only read indie books on kindle. The vast majority of my reading is for my indie book review blog which means that I finish everything I start, no matter how much it drives me mad! I love books and I always have, I was very much a bookworm as a kid. I focused much more on non-fiction in sixth form and uni, but the kindle allowed me to come back into fiction again.

  Full details here: http://shenhart.wordpress.com/2015/01/12/my-reading-habits/

  • Thanks for sharing in detail on your blog - I think this is a great meme and so interesting from a writer's perspective as well as a readers! Like you, I enjoy supernatural thrillers and I will always pick up a thriller if it has certain keywords in the blurb - ancient manuscripts, dark powers and the like!

• Great post, Joanna! I too am addicted to my Kindle Paperwhite, which I bought as soon as i came out to replace my original Kindle, which I loved but lacked the backlight. I got fed up with the little clip-on torch gadget dropping off, and the upgrade was totally worth it!

  Like you, I read fiction in e-format as first choice, for several reasons: portability (I travel a lot but also like to just have a book in my handbag wherever I go should an unexpected reading opportunity arise!); lightweight (I have rheumatoid arthritis and my hands ache if I hold open a print book for too long, particularly paperbacks where you have to apply pressure to keep them open); and cost (I can afford far more books at e-prices than if I bought everything in print!) My only gripe is that it makes it difficult to support my local independent bookshop, as I can't buy ebooks there - so I try to compensate by buying print books as birthday and Christmas presents for friends and relations! I do also own a lot of print books, not least because friends and relations often buy me books as presents too!

  I'm therefore always adding bookshelves to my house, even though I rehome a lot of books via the "Little Free Library" in my front garden! (More about that here: http://authordebbieyoung.com/2014/10/09/books-are-my-scarecrows-bag/)

  But for non-fiction books, I much prefer print, so that I can have them at hand to dip into easily and to find what I'm looking for quickly. If it's a good reference book, I know I'll want to refer to again and again, rather than just reading it sequentially once only, and even if I highlight an e-book as I go through, I can never find things as easily as in print.

  How do I find books? If indie author friends have written something I think I'll like, I'll try to support them. I don't seek out free downloads, but if a friend is running one, I'll do a download because it helps them get their numbers up. I often catch an alluring snippet of a book on BBC Radio 4, and have made some great discoveries that way. I also look out for recommendations from my local bookseller.

  In addition, I review professionally for several organisations - HNS, Vine Leaves Literary Journal, Awesome Indies, and Today's Child magazine. For the first of these, I have to pick a book from their lists, which is great, because it makes me read outside my comfort zone, and again, I've made some really enjoyable discoveries. For Today's Child, I get to call the shots, picking a different theme for each issue - a great excuse to enjoy children's books, which I have yet to grow out of!

  When it comes to reviewing, I didn't let the sockpuppet fiasco deter me - in fact, it strengthened my resolve to carry on, as I knew I was behaving ethically. I therefore review just about every book I read on Amazon, and I put some on Goodreads if I have time, but I've never enjoyed using the Goodreads site. I also try to put as many as I can on my own website, usually including more detail than on Amazon (e.g. things they wouldn't allow!) As an author myself, I know how good it feels to get a new review, and I like to make other authors' days that way - but also I do it because being a habitual reviewer makes me read in a different way and hones my skill as a writer too. Here's a link to a post that explains more about why I think every writer ought to also be a reviewer - even if they never share their reviews publicly!

  http://authordebbieyoung.com/reviews/

  Thanks for another great post, Joanna!

  • Thanks Debbie, and it's interesting how you also get book recommendations from audio - I increasingly listen to podcasts at the gym and pretty much always download the person's book if they are an interesting guest.
    It's great you review so much on Amazon - I just had so many of mine deleted by Amazon that I just do them on Goodreads now. I only write good reviews as I only finish books I consider good :)

• For some reason I was an ebook snob for a long time and stuck to my paperbacks. Then when some of my friends started self publishing on Kindle I bought their books and became hooked. I still read paperbacks but I read more ebooks - and I find I read more in general because I can sync my reading between devices. I read genres I never would have considered before because spending a pound or two on an ebook doesn't seem like wasted money if I don't enjoy it. Whereas £7 or £8 for a paperback is more of a risky outlay. The lovely surprise has been that I've enjoyed loads of books in genres I never would have considered before. I read more than I ever have and keep an eye on Kindle / ebook deals. Reading like this has expanded my imagination for my own writing too. Great post.

  • I agree that the low prices and ease of sampling means it's very easy to try new things. I still find myself saying "I don't read zombie books" but actually, I have read a number of zombie books since trying some on the Kindle :)

• I bought a Kindle when we moved to Europe in suitcases and I had to leave my book collection in Hawaii--the second time in ten years (the first time was when I left my books in California when we moved to Hawaii). I love the Kindle!

  I buy more books, more often, than I have in years. I find books all kinds of different ways--authors I love (first and foremost), topics that interest me, especially for nonfiction, Also Boughts for books I like, books from people who have blogs I like (especially humor blogs), books friends recommend. Books, books, books!