Friday, January 13, 2012

Books And The Wonderful People Who Read Them

.

Almost everyone has had a desire to write a book, but when faced with the challenging task of sitting for hours at a keyboard, some of the enthusiasm fades away. One ‘expert’ said that writing is an obsession, a frightful madness, something to be avoided at all cost. He left out how much fun it is.

Any writer will tell you that meeting avid readers is a close second to the actual writing process. On Wednesday of this week I was allowed to meet with a book club in my area. Some of the members were friends with whom I attended high school, and others were new friends who simply enjoy reading a good book.

I am told that book signings at brick and mortar bookstores are on the decline, and libraries have to schedule the number of meetings they sponsor due to physical restraints. Book clubs will no doubt continue to meet for many centuries to come, and they offer an opportunity for writers to discuss their work with like-minded people

All writers need to come in from the cold occasionally and warm their hands and their hearts around the campfire. Wednesday was a heady experience I will never forget, and I feel strangely inspired and blessed. I could tell you more, but the characters in my novel are urging me to get back to work. . .

Wednesday, January 4, 2012

Kindle eBooks - A Miracle in Our Time!

When I was growing up, we moved from the city into the countryside, away from all of the amenities and conveniences a city has to offer. But most important, we moved away from bookstores and a public library. The schools I attended had few books, and the ones they had were acquired with an awareness that they had to meet the reading needs of children from the first grade through high school. Even when I reached adulthood, you could not always find the books you wanted at your local bookstore, and ordering the one you wanted could sometimes be impossible.

Online bookstores began to appear as soon as the Internet became available to consumers, but many books were prohibitively expensive. To offset the expense of print books and the shipping cost to deliver them, the concept of electronic books came into being. The drawback was the medium to deliver them and a suitable device on which they could be read. Some books were offered on floppy disk, but few of them were sold. It was not until Amazon tackled the problem of how to offer books in a hassle free manner that the concept began to fly. There were many of us who held our breath when the first Kindles came on the market, until we realized that they were actually the miracle that was promised. Amazons plans are to eventually have every book in existence in their marketplace. For an avid reader like me, this is almost too much to contemplate. Thank you Amazon for making my childhood dreams come true!

My latest eBook is now available on Amazon, and for the next five days it will be FREE. You can download it by clicking on the title of this article.