That's The Thing About Free

I really enjoy my Kindle. I am an avid book reader. I cannot remember what exactly started my love of reading, but it is a wonderful thing to have, and share with others. I am blessed to see that at least two of my children share that love of books/reading, and though one is probably a bit young yet to tell, the next youngest, there is hope he will have it as well. Even if he doesn't care to read right now (he's 9 years old).

Back to my Kindle. It's a Keyboard Kindle, that the family got together on and gave me for my birthday almost two years ago. It isn't one of the Kindle Fire models, that has all the color, bells and whistles. In fact, it doesn't have color at all. Which is fine for me. I am able to read a book on it. I don't need the words in colors, or some colorful book display to choose what one I want to read next, or need the internet browsing capability. Mine has wi-fi available to download books. Which is something I do almost daily.

Amazon.com seems to have a great selection in books available in ebook format. Of course, they bias it all, by making the only format being the .MOBI (Kindle format), though there are many programs for free out there that will convert to other electronic readers formats. What I like, too, at Amazon, is that they have free books on a daily basis. These are books that authors have agreed to place for free, mostly for a limited time. Some are only a day, some are weeks or months I have seen. The vast majority of them are new authors, so it is sort of nice to try possible new styles of writing, or a re-vamp of an old story plot. I know I have found a few that I have enjoyed, though their exact titles escape me right now. I save them all (the good ones after I read them) on my home computer using my Calibre program (mentioned in previous posts).

As with all new and free items, there is always that possibility of getting a product that is just a flop. With so many free books daily (or longer) I tend to download between 2 and 10 books a day. My selection process is based on genre, basic plot description, and length as a rule. Sometimes, I even base it off the cover art - if it looks interesting enough. Length is important to me (don't drop your mind in the gutter). I really detest getting a story that seems to really perk my interest, and it is only some shorty story. Nothing that lasts me over an hour or two. I like a good story that keeps me interested for a couple days, or longer. I am a big fan of series.

So, lately, I have been coming across some books that are just crap. The writing is just....blah. The spelling and grammatical errors (yes, even worse than my blog) just make one struggle through passages. Others seem to be books that they are more concerned about the word count, so there are passages/parts of story that are repeated over and over - within paragraphs of each other at times. No, not like a printing error, literally as part of the story - as if the writer thought we would forget the characteristics, or setting, of something they just described maybe 2 pages before. When you are reading an approximate 300-500+ page book, and this is happening through more than the first 50-100 pages, you KNOW it's going to be throughout, UGH!

Back to topic. Lately, I have gone through maybe 10 books (in the last 3 days) that I have just plain deleted off the Kindle. They will be deleted from my temporary library on the computer as well. Thank goodness I get so many each day.

But, Hey! That's the thing about free things, eh?

PeacE