More thoughts on e-books

I am in love with Hilari Bell's Knight and Rogue series. I have a serious, I'm-way-too-old-for-this crush on Mike and Fisk, and it all started MANY years ago when I read Hal and Alan, by Nancy Springer (Hal and Alan isn't the name of books, but the names of the guys in the books). I love stories about guy friends. Buddy stories. I think that's the term I saw when I was looking up Hilari Bell and came across a review for Knight and Rogue. I wasn't completely certain what that meant, but I was hopeful, so I found them at the library and blissfully devoured them. All of my hopes were fulfilled (well, most of them, but more on that in a second). I told my friend Anne that she had to read them, and when I said they were another Hal and Alan, she didn't wait several months (like she did with David Eddings) or years (like she did with Tolkien) but started reading them as soon as I was done. Both of us were hooked.

This is where the problem comes in. I wanted Mike and Fisk in my home all the time, even when I wasn't reading them. I didn't want to have a midnight craving and have to wait until morning when the library opened, only to find them checked out by somebody else. They had to be mine. Anne felt the same way (this is why we are best friends). The obvious solution was to buy them and bring them home (two copies, so Anne and I could remain best friends). That simple task proved remarkably difficult to do as they were not carried in any of the local bookstores (at least not the entire series and multiple copies). It's true they were on Amazon, but not all of the books had made it to paperback, and I wanted a matching set (if at all possible) and I simply couldn't afford to buy six new hardbacks. So I turned to my husband, who is The Finder of All Things on the internet (though not necessarily around the house). He got two complete sets of Mike and Fisk for Anne and me for Christmas because he is awesome and wonderful and We Love Him.

What does this have to do with e-books? I found Mike and Fisk in electronic format for considerably less than the hardback price, and even less than paperback. The problem is, I don't have an e-reader device, and until that point hadn't really wanted one. I like paper. I like holding it, feeling it, smelling it . . . I like it, and I never thought I would convert until Mike and Fisk were so tantalizingly close to being in my grasp. I briefly entertained asking for one for Christmas, but quickly realized that even six new, hardback books would never add up to the price of one Kindle/Nook/i-pad, so I couldn't really argue economy. In the end I got Mike and Fisk, which is what I really wanted, but it got me thinking about e-books in a new way.

Then came January and February and all the storms back east and mid-west (I was born in Oregon and now live in Utah, so I find the term 'mid-west' interesting since it's all east to me). It was not a time to be going to libraries or bookstores. I know that people were dealing with real, actual issues of not freezing to death, but once they weren't dead, you know what I was thinking? How are they getting new things to read? You couldn't go out in that. Then you start dealing with the freezing-to-death stuff all over again. But if you had an e-reader (and electricity), then you could still go online and get books! (I swear this is what was in my head during all of that Chicago-is-a-parking-lot disaster.) There I was, thinking about e-books again.

That's all as a reader. As a writer, I have even more thoughts that I can't begin to sort out. I'll just mention one, and maybe it still qualifies as a reader issue. One of my favorite series of all time is The Phoenix Legacy by M. K. Wren. I love them, easily as much as I love Mike and Fisk (though for different reasons--sort of). I have never bought or seen a new copy of any of the books, though through the years I have bought at least five complete sets of the series from used bookstores. I just looked on Amazon, and there is no electronic version listed there. I hope I am not stepping out of bounds by saying that I think Ms. Wren would rather have people reading her books than not. If they were published electronically, then they wouldn't 'go out of print,' and they wouldn't be so crazy hard to get your hands on. (The various copies of the series that I have acquired over the years were given to a carefully-selected group of people who would appreciate them for the precious commodity that they are. I know there are other intelligent people out there who would realize how great the series is, but there's a limit on the actual, physical copies of the books, and I haven't seen one in years. So many people are missing out on a truly moving story.)

So, there you have it. As a reader, e-books are more accessible in many ways (once you have the whole e-reader thing taken care of--and i-pods don't count because my eyes are too darn old to read entire books in that small a format). As a writer, I want my books to continue to be available, even if they don't hit the New York Times best-seller list and stay in print forever.

(Okay, one more reader pet peeve. There was a series of books I was looking at for a long time. The library didn't have them, I didn't know anyone who had read them, and I'm not made of money, so it took a while for me to finally decide to actually buy the first book. When I went to the store--no first book. The second book was out, and they were carrying that one, but not the first one. I understand about shelf space and all that, but it was very frustrating. I think I wound up ordering it off of Amazon. If I had had an e-reader, it wouldn't have been an issue.)

Very most lastly, after I finished my last post, talking about community, I realized I had completely neglected another community: the internet one. Blogs and Facebook and Twitter and all of this other stuff that I'm really only still dabbling on the edges of (I don't get Twitter at all). A lot of fans feel very connected to each other and their favorite authors because of online communities and that is something I need to pursue. I suppose in many ways they are not just a gathering of strangers that come together one time, but a group of friends that have not necessarily met.

And that's what the other hand thinks.