I love reading. No secret there, that’s what prompted me to start writing and pursue publication. Living in New Zealand, it used to be difficult to find romance novels and like many others down this end of the world, I started off by reading Harlequin Mills & Boon stories since that was it for choice. Then something happened - I wanted more. I wanted different. I scanned shelves searching for different and discovered a love of paranormal way before it became fashionable. Ghosts, genies, shapeshifters and time-travel. There weren’t that many vampires around at the time.
I discovered Romance Writers of New Zealand and a specialist romance store right here in Auckland. I pounded away on my keyboard and wrote, targeting Mills & Boon like many of my fellow writer friends. I received rejections and realized I didn’t fit. I looked further afield and discovered ebooks. I researched the publishers and purchased some of their ebooks. I purchased more, submitted a story or two to epublishers and found a home.
That’s a brief potted history. I was thinking about the way my book buying has changed. I now purchase loads of ebooks since I’m comfortable ordering online and can get my “different” fix this way. I have a PDA to read my ebooks or use my laptop and don’t have a problem reading from the screen. I don’t hanker for the smell of paper. In fact ebooks are awesome when it comes to storage. What hubby doesn’t know won’t hurt him!
Part of being a writer is keeping up with the market. That’s expensive, and I can’t afford to buy every book I need to read. The library I belong to is very romance-friendly. I was ecstatic last year when I found they’d started to order in a lot of erotic romance. Over the years I’ve seen lots of blogs, articles etc about how people shouldn’t use libraries but should buy books and support authors. I don’t subscribe fully to that wisdom. My local library has copies of most of my books, and I’m happy with this. I mean they’ve purchased them initially so I do get one sale. My books aren’t readily available in New Zealand but readers are able to check out my books from the library and I’m building a local readership. For me, that works. These days lots of peope don’t pick up a book at all, so yes, if having my books in a library encourages people to read I’m all for it.
When I was in Hawaii recently I discovered most of the books I wanted to buy were trade paperback, and at $14 a pop my suitcases weren’t crammed quite as full of books as I’d envisaged before leaving home. I couldn’t afford it. Once I get through my to-read pile I’ll check the ebook sites online because a lot of the books I want are out in this format now. Ebooks are certainly cheaper for me down here in NZ. A mass paperback sells for between $15 - $20 and a trade paperback is around $30 - $35. This makes ebooks for around $8 (with the exchange rate) a much better deal.
I’ve also been known to visit the local secondhand bookshop but they don’t have many recent releases available, apart from Harlequin category books.
My biggest, bestest advice. For those of you who live in New Zealand or Australia I’ve discovered Fishpond (links below). Fishpond is our local version of Amazon and very good value since they’ve started discounting books. I shop there quite often these days.
So where do you buy your books? Have your book buying habits changed over the years like mine?
