Monday, October 6, 2014

Musing Mondays - October 6



Musing Mondays is a weekly meme from MizB at Should Be Reading. It asks you to muse about one of the following each week…


• Describe one of your reading habits.
• Tell us what book(s) you recently bought for yourself or someone else, and why you chose that/those book(s).
• What book are you currently desperate to get your hands on? Tell us about it!
• Tell us what you’re reading right now — what you think of it, so far; why you chose it; what you are (or, aren’t) enjoying it.
• Do you have a bookish rant? Something about books or reading (or the industry) that gets your ire up? Share it with us!
• Instead of the above questions, maybe you just want to ramble on about something else pertaining to books — let’s hear it, then!

My Musing:

As a reader, I enjoy the fact that there are so many bargain books these days. As an author, however, it bugs me that we have gotten to the point where FREE books and books for under $5 are the norm. It's even changed my way of thinking as a reader. I might be willing to pay 99 cents for a book by an unknown author now, when I wouldn't have thought twice about purchasing a paperback by an unknown author for $7 years ago. 

Have your book purchasing habits changed since eBooks and FREE books have become available?

7 comments:

JC Jones said...

Mine have changed some but more with the number of review copies that are out there. I still buy my favorites.

Unknown said...

Very true. I know that some people buy books all the time and I'm sure that with ebooks and cheaper prices the amount they're willing to spend has shifted (XD but for those book hoarder types I doubt it's altered their book piles o.O)
That said, I've never owned many (if any) physical copies of books, even with my favourites I only just recently acquired ONE novel. I have like, less than 10 books that I own personally haha! So I tend to rely on my local library and ebooks a lot anyway....
–B

Anonymous said...

Just because a book is free doesn't mean that I'm going to automatically download it or request it. I don't want to have a book just to have it--I need to be interested in the topic or the plot, or have a history with the author. And if I'm really interested in a book, I'll buy it no matter what the cost is.

Unknown said...

As an author, I also agree with this. It seems like books get cheaper and cheaper.

http://carabosseslibrary.blogspot.com/2014/10/musing-mondays.html

Cleopatra Loves Books said...

When you consider the hours worth of entertainment you get from a book compared to say a film books have become incredibly cheap, but if I really want to read one then I will pay more rather than have 5 books I might not enjoy so much. Like you I'm more likely to try something new if it is cheaper though. Having said that the library has always been free.
http://cleopatralovesbooks.wordpress.com

Unknown said...

I still buy books all the time, but I have to be interested in the plot!!! To be fair I don't download the free books as much because there seems to be so many I never have time to go through them all!! It's the same as review copies though I will only review if im interested in the plot!

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Cheryl said...

Thanks for the comments, everyone.

I am definitely a book horder, Fangirling. :) But at some point I decided I had to get rid of some I would never read again to make room for those I really wanted to keep.

Valentina, it just seems to me that writing takes a lot of time before a finished product is ready, and then you have to price it so low to get people to buy it if you're unknown. It's disheartening.