I’ve Been Sucked In
Yes, I’ve actually purchased e-Books now. Interestingly, it appears if I purchase them from Amazon via a computer, I don’t get charged sales tax. If I purchase them via the Kindle app, I do get charged sales tax. I wonder why the difference?
I never thought I’d make the switch to e-books. But then B&N came out with the Nook, which I thought was sleek and sexy. And I was sucked in. Several hundred ebooks later I’m won over. That’s not to say I’ll never purchase a paper book again. I love having books on my shelf.
What I’ve found is that e-books give me the opportunity to check out small, indie e-publishers and authors I’ve never heard of before. I’ve found several that I really enjoy. Samhain publishing is one (http://www.samhainpublishing.com/) and while they do have smut they also have wonderful historical romance, urban fantasy and mainstream stuff. I get a hit of new books almost every other week from them!
Having my library in my purse is wonderful. When we travel and I am the passenger I can actually read without getting carsick (which I usually do when reading in the car). On vacation I can take it with me so I don’t have to deal with several hard cover or paperback books needing to be packed (cause I read quickly!). When we go camping I take it with me and read, read, read. Then if I’m done reading and need something else our campground has wi-fi so I can shop for more books! I’ll never be without again. Bwahhhaaaaa.
While I love my Nook they’ve made a few changes I don’t care for – like adding games and an internet browser. I just want to read and be able to buy books wirelessly. For apps, games and all that other stuff I have a desktop and a netbook.
Depending on what else B&N does with their Nook and how Sony enhances their touch e-reader I may upgrade. But I think the e-reader market is about to break wide open and I’m looking forward to see what comes next.
All good points. It’s not so much that I read quickly, but I like to have a variety of books available to me. At any given time, I’m reading 4-10 books. That’s about a backpack’s worth. On the iPad, it’s so much easier to haul a variety of books — a whole library worth, in fact. I can read whatever I feel like at the time.
I’m the opposite of you on the additional items, although I’m not certain the Nook is the ideal format for games and web browsing (or is it color-capable?) I chose the iPad BECAUSE I can do so much more than read with it. Even hubby kind of likes it (at least as far as a tool for me goes). We’ll coordinate our calendars and keep multiple shopping and to do lists on it. I try to take it with me everywhere I go, so we can always update those things and keep track of the various projects we’re working on. A great time to do this is while we’re waiting for our order to come to our table in restaurants.
In fact, I discovered this week that someone can email me a document for review (at my yahoo address), I can extract the document, review it, make comments, and send those comments back to the person all without ever leaving the iPad (should I so choose). Before, I would have had to print out the document so I could haul it around with me. Moving back and forth between the document I’m reviewing and the document I’m making comments in is a minor hassle, but it wasn’t a serious problem. I’ll probably find better methodologies as I do it more.