Reading Rampage

eBook and iPad

Since I bought my iPad in October, I’ve embarked on a reading rampage. My favorite conquest is the 99-cent Kindle download.

I have all the reading apps — Amazon’s Kindle, Apple’s iBooks from iTunes, the Barnes and Noble Nook and even the Sony eReader (formerly Borders) — but the one I prefer and use, probably 95 percent of the time, is the Kindle.

I was mentioning on Ruth Ann Nordin’s Self-Published Author’s Lounge that eReaders inflame us at first; we download as many free, public domain novels as possible. We concentrate first on the classics, such as Jane Austen, Charles Dickens, Jules Verne, Oscar Wilde. Once our virtual libraries are loaded, we relax and tell ourselves we now have the opportunity to re-read the classics.

If you’re like me, you opened a few and read a few pages. But then I wandered into Amazon and looked for the 99-cent Kindle download, or the provocative free eBook. Sure, I know the free books are hooks and at the end of the book I have a hyperlink that takes me to the author’s page to buy more books in the series.

And you know what? That’s exactly what I do.

Today, while clicking merrily away on 99-cent books, I accidentally clicked on one that cost $5.54.

Darn that one-click shopping cart.

I looked for several minutes trying to figure out how to return a digital book, but I couldn’t find it. Then I decided to go ahead and keep it. After all, it is a Susan Mallery book and I’ve chatted with the author before. I feel like I should support her even though I am notoriously cheap at this point in my eBook rampage.

I’m sure there are a lot of people like me who love the 99-cent downloads, so that’s why I’ve priced my books at the same price.

I’ve written quite a few books (non-fiction, you wouldn’t be interested) and with a paperback, the royalty usually is 50-cents or so. So, I’m not worried that I will lose money with my 99-cent Kindle eBook “Distracted.” When my next book is released in two weeks, it also will be 99 cents.

And you know what, I’m going to put up a free book soon. Spread the love, you know?