Observations on bookish things #4

Hey, hey, hey. How are you doing? I wanted to say that I'm really enjoying putting together these observations on bookish things. They are little bit size thoughts that are easier for me to put together and probably easier for you as a reader to digest. I'm also enjoying the variety of things I get to talk about. Let me know if you're enjoying this too or if you think I should just scrap the whole thing. I would like your feedback. And now, onto today's topics...

Kindle Unlimited. Do you use Kindle Unlimited? I do. And I enjoy it a great deal. I have found authors that I probably wouldn't have tried if not for KU. I like the concept of borrowing a book, reading it, and then returning it. Kinda like a library, except I pay a subscription for the privilege, and they are ebooks. Although, I think libraries now offer ebook lending, too though I've not tried the service. I did check out my local library's electronic lending service, but I did not see much that I wanted to read on it. Sadness. Anyway, back to KU. I like taking a chance with KU. If I don't like it, I can return it. If I do like it, yay! I go on to read other books by the author, or sometimes I even buy the book if I love it enough and know I want to read it again. Of course, I could borrow it again, but sometimes I like "owning" the copy, so it's in my library. There have been enough times where I've loved a book on KU only to find the author has pulled the book for whatever reason. If I buy the book, it stays in my Kindle library even if the book is no longer available on Amazon. I still buy lots of books since there are a lot of authors I love who are not in KU, but those tend to be favorite authors whom I know I will love all of their books.
 
Another thing I see being asked a lot by readers is how do authors get paid with KU. Authors get paid by the page read, so the usual advice is to read to the end of the book, and they will get paid for the whole book. I usually keep reading and flipping the pages at the end until the review page pops up and asks me to review the book or to look at other books by the author. That signifies the end of the book to me. However, do not flip too quickly through the book without reading it. Amazon knows when you are actually reading the book because they can tell based on your usual average time it takes to read a book of a certain length, and if you just quickly flip through a book, they will know, and the author will not get paid. Also, if you read in KU, the author gets paid once. Then if you buy the book, the author gets paid again. A lot of times, when a reader wants to really support an author, they will read the book in KU, then buy the book, so the author gets paid twice. One thing about that, though. I read somewhere that the author only gets paid twice if the time between finishing reading on KU and buying the book has a 30-day or more separation. If the book is bought immediately after it's been read on KU, say like right after or a day later, then the author only gets paid once for the KU read, but not the purchase. I do not know if that's accurate or not, but that's what I've been told when I asked in some author forums. Finally, if you borrow and read on KU, then return the book, but you want to read the book again, so you borrow the book again from KU to read. The author will not get paid again for the second read on KU. The author only ever gets paid once on KU for the first read. How you want to support an author, I leave it to you.
 

So there was some kerfuffle in a book group recently. Someone posted that they had the opinion that authors should not be oversharing about their lives because one author had apparently shared in her author group in detail about some life issues or some such. Anyway, it got me thinking. How much sharing is too much? I like to know a little bit about the authors I follow and whose books love to read. But I think it's a balance. Sharing enough for the fans to feel connected to them, but not so much that it exposes every aspect of their lives (there are so many pitfalls to that). And really, I don't mind if an author doesn't share anything at all. I'm here for the books, and there are many authors I follow who only have a website and newsletter. No social media. For me, as long as I have a way to keep up to date with their new book releases, I'm happy. But getting to know an author is fun too. Some of them that I've known over the years have become good friends. And authors make the most interesting conversation partners. They are so clever and so well read.
 
How about this for weirdness? An author posted that she had to push out a book release till November 2022. She already had a book come out in July 2022, so it's not like there's nothing for a year. One reader who saw the update commented and said that she was already 69 years old and that she would be 70 by the time the book comes out in November. Then she goes on to say that she's worried that as she gets older, she may never get to read all the books by her favorite authors because they are not writing and releasing the books fast enough for her to read while she is still able to and not too old or dead. She goes on to say that when she gets to her age, she starts to worry about seeing a series through before she dies. And if she gets a terminal illness before November, then she will want the book to know how it ends. Ummmm... is this some kind of new, weird guilt trip for authors to write more books faster? I found it very strange. I should ask my parents how they feel about their favorite authors still continuing a series that they are reading and are still releasing new books each year (the authors my parents read only release one book a year!) since they are now 75. 🤷🏻‍♀️🤷🏻‍♀️🤷🏻‍♀️
 

I saw a book being promoted, and I thought "ooooh, that sounds interesting, I want to read it." And then I read the blurb, and it's got one sister pretending to be another sister, and you know this sort of thing never ends well. That kind of put me off the book because, well, lying. That's a bit no-no for me. Now I'm trying to decide if I can overlook that major trope/theme in the book and read it or if I skip it even though the rest of it sounds right up my alley. Fortunately, the book doesn't release for another four months, so I have time to decide. Plus, it's unlikely that I will forget about it because I'm sure it will be promoted heavily in the book groups I frequent. It's omegaverse and that's huge right now.

If you've followed the bloggity for a while, you would have seen that I was beta reading Steve's book for him. It's his debut crime thriller novel, and y'all, it's good. And I'm not even being biased because I'm going to be brutally honest with him if anything sucks because I want the book to be the best that it can be. Anyway, I'm helping him with the book business, which is so much more than just writing a book. Hah, if only it were that easy. So far, we've resurrected his old, old Instagram account, and I'm creating teaser images for him to post there regularly. I'm also (reluctantly) starting to learn TikTok because I know that BookTok is a thing and authors' books can go viral (here's hoping!) on there. I'm also starting to learn how to make videos to post on TikTok because y'all, you're not going to see either Steve or me posting duck face videos of us turning the pages of his book. Nope. That's all well and good when you're 18 and cute, but we are NOT that. More on this journey later. Small update: this was written a few months ago, and the book has since been released. You can find it here.

 
I saw a meme the other day that was very funny. I mean, I read romance for the fantasy, so I don't need it to be realistic. Just realistic to be somewhat believable, but I'm into the fantasy. I know a lot of readers complain that romance is unrealistic. Nope, that's not me. Anyway, the meme was about readers complaining that romance plots were not realistic enough, so authors try to make them more realistic. But then the poster said, "I complain when a book isn't realistic and then go off and read monster alien romance like it's non-fiction." I found that very funny. No, an orc hero is not realistic. Nor is a spider hero or a dragon-shapeshifting hero!!
 
I recently read a book with a curvy heroine who liked the way she looked and liked herself. It was glorious. She had such a great body-positive outlook. I want to read more books where authors write about body-positive heroines. I don't care about what shape or size they are. I just want them to be happy and comfortable with the way they look and feel about themselves. That's a good thing, right?

On the reading front, I'm not sure if I'm in a book slump. It's not like I've read anything that has given me a big book hangover or anything like that, although I recently read a much-anticipated book and it was glorious. Anyhoo, I think much of it is that my brain is pretty fried these days. Work has gone nuts, and my brain just won't stop thinking about work. Like right now. It's 2:25am and I'm sitting in the dark typing this up because I can't sleep. Actually, I went to bed at a reasonable time. Maybe 10:30pm or 11pm? But I just lay there and couldn't fall asleep, and my brain was whirring away. I kept thinking about something I needed to edit in a piece of work I had done for a client. So I got up and did it. Fortunately, I had the app on my iPad, and I was able to get in and edit without having to get out of bed. Then I uploaded the thing. Then I scrolled TikTok for a bit. Then I decided to read a bit. And let me tell you, for the last week or so, trying to read has been challenging because my brain is tired. It's been hard to concentrate. Fun reading anyway. I'm in the middle of about three books that I've just abandoned. And they were good books, too, but I just kinda ran out of steam with them. I'm leaving them on my Currently Reading shelf because I want to finish them at some point. I decided to fall back on a comfort author and a comfort read. This favorite author writes short, sweet, steamy romances. Her books are usually between 50 to 70 pages long. They are easy to read, easy to fall into, and very enjoyable. I feel like I'm in a happy place when I read her books. This one was lovely. It gave me all the feels while I watched the couple struggle to get to their happy ending with each other. And it was just long enough I could read it in a short while, feel satisfied with the ending, and feel good that I read. Hmmm... might make a TikTok video of my Currently Reading pile. Hope it doesn't grow too much before I do the video.
 
Right, that's it with this observation of bookish things. Gotta stop before it gets too long. Hope you're doing well. Got any bookish things you want to tell me about?


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