I downloaded Kindle to my PC.
Though perhaps not such an earthshaking event to some of you, to this northern girl who would love nothing better than a cabin in the bush, heated by wood, and lit by a coal oil lamp… well, you get the picture.
It’s only been around ten years since my husband wrestled
pen and paper out of my hands (metaphorically speaking) and insisted that I try
writing my books and articles with a computer, storing the information on 3.5
floppy disks. And then came the huge step of “getting on the Internet” which my
very patient middle son taught me how to do. I developed a website in 2005,
which I still have and another one a couple of years later.
In 2008, I began blogging – on this site! It was difficult for me to do a lot more on the Internet because we only had a low-speed dial-up connection. Then we broke down and got a satellite dish (ugh!) affixed to the side of our house and I was able to Tweet on Twitter post on Facebook and sometimes even watch a youtube video (on the days when our connection is good).
But I am an author and I LOVE books – real books with pages that you can feel. I have books that are over a hundred years old – and I just love the fact that I know this book is still just exactly how it was written – no revisions. You get a real feel for how people thought back then when you read a historical novel that is truly historical!
And don’t we all stare at computer screens too much in our
workday without also doing this in our leisure time?
So why did I finally stroll over to the “dark side” and
embrace this newest (for me) technological advance? Two reasons really: it’s
cheap and it’s convenient. I can get an EBook for a fraction of the price and
have it downloaded in seconds to my computer. Living 850+ km from the nearest
bookstore, I would normally wait until I made a trip down south to wander
through either McNally Robinson or Aqua books or Hull's Family bookstore . Instead, I can just go on Amazon and download Barbara Ann Derksen’s mystery: Presumed Dead and even write
a review on it! Did I mention that I was able to download Kindle FREE to my computer?
It’s so easy, even a recovering technophobe like me can do
it!
Dorene Meyer
Award-winning Author of EBooks:
The Little Ones, Jasmine, Lewis and Joshua
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3 comments:
O-o-oh! The pressure's mounting now Dorene, with your "going over ..." too!
Nope, I'm not looking forward to investing the time and energy (nor money) into getting into this (now common) technology, with my lack of aptitude for such things.
That said however, downloading Kindle "for free," eh?
I feel the day getting closer,
thanks to you :)
Yep, it was FREE. What is it about that word that is so enticing?
But it was good for me to get a feel for what people are getting when they're buying my EBooks. I thought maybe there would be more attention to layout. Guess I'm a bit of a perfectionist - I like a book to look good - inside and out.
But whatever it takes to get people reading...
I do understand that for many people it may be the best solution - if you have a long commute on a bus to go to work, for example, Kindle would be great.
At this point, my couch is more comfortable than my desk chair - and (confession time) I still have a desktop computer! So probably the majority of the books I read will continue to be made out of good old fashioned paper.
Dorene
Desktop computer? I've got one too, and spend much more time on it than the laptop (which I used for the first time in over two months last night).
Matter o' fact, as inefficient as I am, I still work faster on the big old dynosaur. (Hmm, will it one day come to: "It takes a dynosaur to know how to use one"? :))
I haven't tried doing an Ebook version of my book. Getting the reader download may be the first step.
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