F is for Freely Give

1 of 4 - other lent out

& Fanatics' Shall Line Your Pockets
Here's another long one and I don't know how this one will be received but I'd really love to hear writer's thoughts on this one. I started blogging to express myself and so here I plunge headlong. (To Thine Self Be True  and all that).I wonder why it is that some writers go into a tizz about making their work freely available on the internet or elsewhere for that matter.
I mean as Neil Gaiman points out, it is like having your book at the library, which in all honesty is how I met many of my favourite authors growing up. I was a frequent Saturday visitor at the library and I remember Sydney Shelden, John Grisham and Danielle Steele and Mills and Boon making regular appearances on my library cards(authors & books who kept me company in a difficult period in my life). Even then, I spent more on books than anything else. If I got a book I liked, I would save to buy it for two reasons: I am a notorious bookmaker and repeat reader. I remember in my late teens, I took out a book by Louise Bagshawe called Career girl. I made a point of buying it as soon as I returned it and I must have read that book 15 times. It made a great impression on me then as young adult trying to understand love.

I didn't know I had this many

In this era of the gods of technology where libraries are really places I take my kids to help them develop a love for book, digital media has taken over the library's function in my life. It's become easier to swap books in order to kind of preview instead of having to buy a promising book only to have it turn out to be crappy. One might argue that the writer has lost a sale if I don't happen to like the book I just freely read or listened to.

Douglas Adams

What that person fails to see is that as a reader, if there is no one nearby at the bookshop to give me a complete blow by blow of how they found the book, there is  a minuscule chance that  it would have made it to my shopping basket in the first place. The only review sources I trust beside my own are word of mouth, the NY Times (and others of equal stature) and Jenny Chris William's Bookshow on 702 talk radio. That, you may say is naive but I am an extremely brand loyal consumer (I've been using colgate herbal for 10 years) and I am also aware that just about everybody that wants to sell a book writes best selling author on their covers.

SA writer: My 12yr old swears
by this series.

Now imagine how many people out there fit this readership profile. In my mind therefore it is in the author's best interest to make their work freely available to

allow for for personal analysis or at least for a writer to not have a hernia when someone reads it from some unknown source for free. They are not necessarily stealing from you but will probably line your pockets.  I have met my most frequently read authors and 2 of my top 5 favourite authors through epub "borrowing" (from undisclosed sources _usb's were involved) and I now a mere 3 months later I have four of Neil Gaimans books, 3 of which are out cruising the streets and the fifth (American Gods) which introduced me to him is on my pre-orders list @ Kalahari.net waiting for the arrival of the 10th anniversary limited edition in July.

I lent this set out in December and it came back tattered andone short.
I have to buy in again because its for my girls in about a decade. iirrrggh

I'm fanatical about supporting writers I love and my point is, one epub or ebook that I got through means which perhaps wouldn't stand under scrutiny, has led to an accumulation of this authors work in my book conner. I met Terry Pratchet through Neil Gaiman and now he also resides in my book collection. All the book pictures shown here were taken last night on my dining room table and they are of authors who's work I have more than one of.

I have 58 books on my reading list and I intend to get through all this year but the reading nook pile keeps growing each week (my son asked me a few weeks ago if I intend opening a2nd hand book store), I no longer have shelve space so they are becoming soft furnishings. I'm in a place now where I cannot keep a head count of what I do or do not have from my loved authors so I keep a log specifically for bookshop. This idea came after I bought the same book from Michael Douglas twice.


The moral of this long story: A little generosity = a fat bank account.