This week’s musing from the desk of Miz B asks… What is the most recent book you purchased, or brought home from the local library? What made you pick it? Have you started reading it, right away, or will you wait for a bit?
The last book I borrowed from the library was Await Your Reply by Dan Chaon. I requested it..it had to come from another branch...and got it right before I went on vacation and have not started it yet. It is a bad sign that you have to renew a book before you started it.
What made me get it?
Well, I am sure I read a positive review of it somewhere in BlogLand. These days that is the major source of ideas for books to order from the library of books to buy.
I think you find some bloggers whose tastes match your own, whose opinions you trust and they become the major source of my TBR pile growth issues.
Which is one reason I try to make more and more use of my library.
Why I love the library system.
It is not a new love.
No, as I have talked about before it goes way back, to before I was even old enough to get my own library card.
My mother would make her weekly trip to our local branch in Newark, NJ, wee caite's hand in her's, to get her weekly bag of treasures and wee caite would run off to find a couple for herself. It really is a marvelous thing!
I get to read the book and then give it back, adding no more to my book storage issues. And if I really, really love it, I can then go buy a copy to hold in my hot little hands, mine, mine forever.
MINE, I TELL YA!
But you know, I have always wondered about libraries and authors.
If you are a writer and make money by selling books, don't you really or some level resent libraries?
Sure, I know they can't say that. In fact, many author work to promote support for libraries. But if a library buys one copy of a book and 100 people read it, did you lose 99 sales? OK, maybe not 99...not everyone could afford to buy the book or would not if they had to pay for it, but certainly you lost some number of book sales, didn't you?
Now the question arises with e-books and how libraries are going about 'loaning them. And we see the same sort of loaning model being used.
interesting .. i never thought about the library vs sales issue
ReplyDeleteI am sensitive to the library issue. I do make the comment a lot that "I'm going to go order it from the library" then I feel bad. I should be BUYING it. But I can't buy everything. I do a huge volume of audio borrowing from my library because they have everything and audios are expensive. All that said, yes, I had an hour to kill Saturday and I stopped into the B&N and bought two books. Just because.
ReplyDeleteBoy, you took this musing to a whole new level! The thing with a book in a library, it can stay in circulation for years. Bookstores are always about the latest and greatest book to come on the scene.
ReplyDeleteI checked out some of Debbie Macombers books this summer. As far as the books I’ve purchased, there were to many to mention. I just purchased 4 last week one day at the Book Warehouse, and over the week-end I downloaded 9 free books onto my Nook and 1 free book onto my Kindle. I love those free books. But, it's better than the library, because I get to keep them. Now, I don't know what the authors think about the free downloads on the e-books, but like I said I like those free books, it helps to pay for my e-readers. ; ) Hey! books get expensive, I know because I buy so many.
ReplyDeleteI think sometimes they use the free ..or very cheap..books as a promotion, thinking if you like it, you will buy others from the author. I have seen it done with the first in a series..to rope you in!
DeleteI love the library so much I joined the Board of Trustees! ;-)
ReplyDeleteDefinitely love the freebie downloads and you are right Caite aabout getting a free one in the series, get hooked and then buying the next couple. I recently read Irreparable Harm(legal thriller in PA) by Melissa Miller and liked it so much, I told TBG to read it. He liked it too so we bought the next one. It's a good way to find new authors.
ReplyDeleteLike I need new authors...lol
DeleteYou do muse in these posts, don't you? That is a good thought about authors hating libraries. I wonder … I've never seen a writer talk about that issue. OF course, impatient people like myself can't stand being on the waiting lists for too long so I end up buying the book anyway.
ReplyDeleteAnd I wonder if you requested Await Your Reply due to my recent review!!!!
May well be...I gave up keeping track.
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