Had a lovely vacation in Bermuda last week with hubby. We had gorgeous weather and ate and drank like kings, so now it's back to the gym and the diet for me! We took a cruise ship out of Cape Liberty, NJ, which gave us a day and a half of sailing time on either side of visiting Bermuda...and I finally got a chance to catch up on my reading!
Even better, I loved seeing that so many other people were doing the same, and in a variety of genres (yes I peeked at book covers when I could - wouldn't you?) I saw everything from romance to biography to suspense to horror to young adult to military. And interestingly, readers were about evenly split between those who were reading actual paper books, and those who were reading on an eReader or tablet.
Which brings me to my big mention of the day: it's time to celebrate digital books! Yes, I know many of you still prefer to have a book in hand when you read. Many times, so do I (and so did I, on the ship!...because I forgot to charge my Nook before we left. But anyway...). But it's worth mentioning a couple of things today:
1. More books than ever are released in digital format first, before they go to print. Sometimes they're released in digital format only.
2. It's super convenient to load your digital reading device with 100s of books and carry around something that weighs, oh, less than a pound. Think about how much 100 books would weigh if you tried to bring them all to the beach!
3. Digital books almost always cost less to purchase than paper books (and many of them are also available for lending through your local library, if you're not a book buyer at all)/
4. Some presses contract that books will go to print depending on digital sales...which means if you really, really want to see your favorite authors' books on your shelves, go ahead and buy their digital book when it comes out first, to help boost sales and make it to print. (I say this in shameless self-promotion because Beacon of Love is contracted this way. I have a sales threshold to meet before it will be released in print. So can you help me out?)
5. July is officially being heralded as Digital First Read-a-Thon Month by The Book Binge and some of its fellow blogs. What does this mean? The folks over there are encouraging readers to try and read as many digital-first books (see #4, above) as they can during this month, to raise awareness about all those great books and authors who are digitally published but perhaps not yet print published. And what's even better? Every single day, you have multiple chances to win books and prizes!!! The link is right at the beginning here of #5, but I'll try to repost it on a regular basis so you can remember to stop by.
And...I'm the featured author TOMORROW at Tracy's Place, so please stop by, check out my excerpt, leave a comment, and generally support this great effort, would you?
Thanks and have a great Monday!
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