Category Archives: personal

Being lendable matters to me

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So, I’ve been reading the Eternal Guardians series by Elisabeth Naughton.(Doesn’t her name make you think naughty? It’s too perfect for someone writing steamy PNR). The blub from her blog describes Eternal Guardians this way: “As unrest in the Underworld threatens, seven warriors descended from the greatest heroes in all of Ancient Greece may just be mankind’s last hope.”  They’re modern day Argonauts, as in Hercules (Heracles), Jason, Achilles, etc. The whole series reminds me a lot of the Black Dagger Brotherhood, which was really my introduction to the genre as a whole. So no real complaints on my part there.

I grabbed the first, Marked, off of the KDP free list and bought the second two. I reviewed them here, here, and here. but I’m trying to decide if I want to grab the fourth and fifth too. I’m tempted, but it bothers me a little that they are six bucks apiece (pretty much the max I’ll pay for an ebook) and not lendable.

This is my new thing apparently. I have hundreds of books on my Kindle, not many people ask to borrow books though. So I don’t have that many opportunities to lend them out, but I really feel like I should be able to. I’m not having any kind of go at Ms. Naughton. I respect her choice concerning her own books. I even understand the logic. Keep the first two lendable and people might introduce their friends to the series. If they want to continue and can’t borrow the rest they’ll go buy them. It makes sense, but it is affecting my decision to buy the rest of her books or not.

Plus, and yes I know this is ridiculous, I keep a list of lendable books on Goodreads. As the number of books I own has grown I use the list as a way to see all of the covers and decide what I want to read. If a book isn’t lendable it can’t go on the list and I tend to forget I own it. The end result is that I’m reluctant to spend the twelve dollars, even though I’d like to know Orpheus and Gryphon’s stories.

I imagine this is a decision many authors and publishers face when presenting a book to the ereading world. Should ebooks be as easily loanable as physical books? Those that have lending enabled are almost easier.  You don’t have to be physically present to hand it over and you know it will come back to you in the end. In my experience once a physical book leaves my shelf I hardly expect it to come back. It’s a pleasant surprise when it does.

I don’t speak for the industry, can’t even present all of the arguments, but to even my own surprise I’ve recently decided where I stand on the issue. I don’t like un-lendable ebooks. It’s decided. My current conundrum is what to do about that fact. Am I ready to boycott those that I can’t lend out and buycott [god I love that word] those that I can? I don’t know. The lending vs. not lending verdict is in, but I guess I’m still waiting on the sentencing. I’d love to hear others thoughts on the matter, have a little discussion, see where others stand. What are your thoughts?


Ok, so here’s an update on life

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Sorry, I know that I’ve been a little AWOL lately. An international move will do that to you. I’m finally starting to settle here, though. My family and I left the UK on September 1st. (Yea, that’s three days BEFORE my Msc dissertation was due…no stress.) We endured a hellish 20 hours of travel, two connections, three airports, whinny kids, and just plain exhaustions…but we made it onto US soil at last. We’ve bought a car, a house, and I’m currently working on finding all the household accouterments (and hopefully not bankrupting us in the process).

We came back with four suitcases to our name. It’s really expensive to ship things internationally, so unless there is some sentimentality attached to an item it gets bought anew. Some of those sentimental things, including my books, will follow at some point in the near future and I can’t wait. Amazingly, shopping isn’t anywhere near as much fun when it’s out of necessity.

My reading time has been whittled down to almost nothing and I don’t even have a desk to write on at the moment; though I recently saw an amazing cherry one that I would love to buy if it just didn’t cost $2800.00. My literary life has gone into a coma and I’m a little devastated by that. I’m hoping to change the situation soon. I still have reviews due and the sequel to The Weeping Empress is lurking in the back of my mind, waiting to be attended to.

I just wanted to let everyone know I was still alive and kicking, even if I’m not online as often as normal. Miss you all.

–Sadie

Up for discussion: Is there a ‘you get what you pay for’ attitude to free books?

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“You get what you pay for.” My mom used to say this all the time. Usually just before she chose to buy the more expensive brand of whatever she was shopping for. The phrase came back to me recently when thinking about book sales and reviews.

There are hundreds of free ebooks available on any day of the week. I know I peruse them all the time. Authors are regularly encouraged to give their book away in droves as a boost to sales. But I’ve starting wondering what the side effect of this might be. If someone gets a book for free is it actually worthless in their mind? And if considered worthless from the get-go are they more inclined to LEM it?

Personally, I think so. From my own experience I find myself willing to pick up a much wider array of books than I am willing to pay for. I’m willing to chance a lemon on a free book. But I’m also more willing to drop the book, which is always hard for me. I tend to feel haunted if I don’t finish a book.

But I had a new aspect to the question of the possible side effects of the ‘you get what you pay for’ mentality bite me in the ass recently — reviews. I only review books I’ve finished. I might leave a comment, but don’t feel right leaving a rating and review on the piece as a whole if I haven’t actually read it all. It’s an individual decision that not everyone shares and I respect that.

But, here is my hypothesis. Someone gets a book free, considers it of little value since they paid nothing for it, then aren’t willing to put much  time into it. If it doesn’t grab them immediately they don’t wait to see if it gets better.  This increases the likelihood that they will  review the book without finishing it. And you can assume that if they didn’t finish it they didn’t like it, which results in more bad reviews.

I’ll tell you what got me thinking this. Now, before I do, let me add that I’m not calling anyone out or accusing anyone of doing anything wrong. I’m not even talking to or about any individual person. I don’t expect everyone to do things my way and that’s ok. 

My book, The Weeping Empress has been on the market for a while now, has garnered 70ish reviews, and I’m thrilled to say has carried well over 4 stars. It hadn’t ever gotten a really bad review. That is until now. It got three within roughly 24 hours! (It was actually 28, but who’s really counting?) Again, I’m not having a go at the reviewers for leaving the reviews. It is the timing of them that I am considering. I doubt that there has been any collusion or conspiracy, but it is notable that so many appeared practically at once.

The last person read the book and genuinely seemed to just dislike it. Everyone likes different things, so fair enough. The other two, though, not only didn’t finish the book, but read very little of it. One wrote an absolutely scathing one star review based on the first two pages (or 1/127th) of the book. The other gave it two stars and stated that he had read the first chapter, didn’t like the word usage, and if he didn’t like it more by the end of the second chapter he was done. Ouch on both counts.

All three were posted on Smashwords and I can’t help be make the connection that last month was the big Smashwords  sale in which The Weeping Empress was available for free. I accept and take on myself that if people are reacting in such a way to the beginning of my book there may be something I need to address, but I also can’t help but wonder if its free status didn’t make it easier to discard and disparage.

I, of course, know that there are going to be people who dislike the book. I respect and appreciate that. But what do you think of three within a day of each-other, all within a week and a half of a large free giveaway? Am I making a spurious association? I’d love to hear your thoughts on the matter.