Bruce Cordell is now free to read his own novels
Bruce Cordell is my product-investigator. Back when I bought a new car, I piggybacked on his investigation of the Toyota Prius to the extent that I bought mine at the dealership that had treated him right. At some point last year, I saw Bruce threading through the R&D cubicles while reading something on his iPhone. Turned out he was reading a book.
"You read on your iPhone?"
"Yeah. Actually I do all my reading on the iPhone now," said Bruce.
I'd admired Bruce's living room bookshelves, so I said this seemed like a bit of a shame, but he was happy to have less stuff and said that reading on the iPhone was no problem for him. Bruce showed me his various e-reader apps. I was intrigued. "Yeah," said Bruce, "I didn't plan on doing this, but I don't really buy physical books any more. No more analog."
"Wait a second. Are your own books available digitally? Your novels?" I asked.
"Hah! No, no, they're not. But they're working on it. They're going to be soon..."
"Oh my god. You're no longer the target audience for your own books. You wouldn't buy your own books, Bruce!"
He laughed, kindly.
The conversation is on my mind because I just bought a Kindle. I'll explain... Earlier this year we had planned to move to Port Angeles Washington. I packed my entire wall of graphic novels, the other wall of games, and the final wall of books into dozens of boxes and talked friends into helping me carry the lot up a long flight of stairs into what I thought was going to be our new office in downtown Port Angeles. But Lisa and I have decided not to move. Her job changed its requirements, my work-life rekindled out of our living room, and moving to Port Angeles stopped being a great idea.
So we're happy we get to keep living in Seattle for at least a year or two. Meaning I have to move many boxes back toward my study in Seattle. And that helped me reach a decision point about stuff-in-boxes. Within a day of carrying the boxes out to PA, I'd started reading books on the iTouch. Weeks later, after learning that I love reading electronically, I considered the options. The Kindle won out since I need a less-expensive tool for pleasurable long-term reading instead of the toyz available within the iPad.
Oddly enough, the Kindle allows me to repay Bruce for his other investigations. He's not convinced he needs an iPad and his wife Dee is interested in trying a Kindle. I've got to take the Kindle over for Dee to try out. And the next time one of Bruce's books goes digital, I'll be picking it up here.