On ebooks.
I know ebooks have become kind of a controversial topic for the book community ever since they got more and more popular. Some authors (but mainly publishing houses) are completely against them due to their belief that file sharing is taking money away from them, others embrace the ebook challenge and point out that file sharing gives them much needed free publicity.
I'm not an author, so, as a reader, ebooks are a blessing to me.
I'm a bibliophile living in a country where books have become obscenely expensive.
What can I do? the public library here in my city sucks so much I get depressed just thinking about going there. So that's a No.
When I found ebooks online... heaven's clouds opened to let sunshine cover me.
And Yes, I will tell you, I download pirated ebooks. Free ebooks. I can't buy them online because for various real life reasons that are beyond my fixing I just can't.
So, downloading ebooks has become a sort of addiction for me. But there's always a dark side to every happy story, reading too much on your computer screen is bad for eyes, your back, your social life, the lot.
I have 442 ebooks downloaded, of which I have read about half on my computer.
My body is getting too old for that.
So last month, Christmas time, I was trolling every store that sold electronics in Chile (I was vacationing there) looking for an e-reader. I wanted to get a Kobo, but apparently they only sell those in, like, select stores in Canada or something.
What I found, that was affordable, and had what I wanted was this one:
Viewsonic ereader Veb620.
http://www.expertreviews.co.uk/ereaders/278587/viewsonic-veb620
(read this review, it says everything I have to say about this specific model).
I like my ereader. I don't need it to connect online, or offer all the frilly stuff a kindle offers, almost all of my ebooks are PDF files so whatever ereader I got would have the same disadvantages, since PDFs have certain intrinsecal logistic dillemas that ereader software in general have not yet resolved.
I wish the screen would be bigger though, but with the same size of ereader, and I wish I could adjust the contrast, but all in all, I'm happy as a clam.
I can read my ebooks wherever, my eyes and back are grateful, and I don't have to worry about book storage anymore. Since our apartment is filled with books already...
All I can say to authors out there is this:
If I like your book, I will endeavour to buy it, even if I have to sell my left kidney. If I don't like your book enough to put my body in danger, I won't buy it. So there, I'm not "stealing" money from anyone, since for me money is very hard to come by to begin with, I have to be careful and selective on how I spend.
I also like thinking that I'm giving trees a respite.