A few months back, I decided to quell my OCD ways by painstakingly categorising my Kindle library into its respective genres.
And let me tell you, it was SWIMMING with books.
All said and done, it took me the best part of an hour to complete.
… An hour I’d have much preferred spent reading, but hey ho, that’s what I get for being an impulsive book buyer. However, as long-time readers will know, there are two things I detest in life:
- Alien deniers
- Taking any form of responsibility
And in the spirit of #2, I hereby pass the blame for my book-buying sprees to my fellow scribes — namely those slinging their wares for $0.99. Why? Because, upon my little summer clean of the Kindle, I was horrified to realise a solid 70-80% of them were $1-$3 titles.
(Intuition tells me this is true for many of you.)
They seem so harmless on the surface, but over a year?
You’re swamped with more e-books than you’ll ever have the time to read.
So that’s why I’ve been enforcing something of a ban on myself this year, avoiding not just $0.99 e-books…
… but any title under $3.99-$4.99.
I’m sure this will upset some authors and to them, I will say this:
I prioritise consumption over one-off buys.
Case in point:
I will almost always read a $9.99 book before a $0.99 one.
Why?
Because I have more skin in the game with the former and, thus, it ascends my priority list. Is that shallow of me? Perhaps. But it’s also one of the main reasons I price my books as they are. Sure, the extra royalties go down well every morning with my cup of Americano Intenso, but nothing beats having my books actually read and helping readers forget their worldly obligations for a few hours.
So if you were hoping to snag my wares for a buck or two, you’re sadly mistaken.
For everyone else, I can’t promise I’ll solve your TBR woes, but I can ensure you’ll forget about them for a short while:
DJJW