Read an E-Book Week 3-9 March 2013

I recently learnt that this week is “Read an E-Book Week”. Forgive me for being a few days behind the times (it started on Sunday!), I’ve had a busy couple of days editing some new short stories, and had an amazing afternoon’s writing – just under 3000 words in about 2 hours. I’m really excited about this story, but I need to put it aside for a while before I go back to polish it, I think I read it 3 times over once it was done, tweaking it here and there, but to see the mistakes properly it needs a good few days distance.

But I digress.

So – Read an E-book Week… do you own an e-reader? Do you read e-books? Personally I’m still not 100% convinced on the e-book front. They have batteries that run out, they can stop working for no apparent reason (speaking from anecdotal evidence), and if you drop them in the bath they’re completely buggered – whereas a book can still be saved with a little tlc and a heater. (Now I know there are ways to protect your e-reader if you want to read in the bath, like putting the  e-reader in a ziploc bag, so perhaps the latter is more an excuse, but still, you get my point!)

I know there are some good points, and my favourite would have to be the sheer number of books that will fit on one handheld device –  to have access to so many books at the push of a button would just be incredible, but for me, that one positive does not outweigh the negatives.

So what got me reading e-books (yes, despite my previous ranting, I do read e-books), well it was the stories. There are some great stories out there, that are only available in e-book form. You want some examples? Here’s three:

(And now let me shamelessly plug my writing buddies!)

LaVerne Clark is a New Zealand author who has two romance novella’s available only in e-book form: Affinity, and The Guardian of the Jewel. They are available from LaVerne’s author page, at The Wild Rose Press.

Kelly Matsuura is an Australian living in Japan, who has published her own e-book “Stirring Winds”, an anthology of Asian Literature on the theme of significant life moments, and contains one of my favourite stories of lost love – The Smell of Peaches. Stirring Winds is available at Amazon and Smashwords.

So if you’ve been hesitant to try out this new (or not so new for some) e-book thing, this is the week to give it ago – you don’t need a device, you can read them on your computer, or on your smart-phone (I have a kindle app on my android). Try out an e-book and support some great emerging authors. And if you’re a little short on cash, there are plenty of free e-books out there too.

And if you are already a fan of the e-book – what’s your favourite?