A Misconception

I'm not going to clarify anything about balloon fetishes in this post, but I am going to lay a myth to rest. And it goes like this:

"I would love to buy the Kindle version of (insert name of book here), but I don't have a Kindle."

I don't have a Kindle either, but I not only write books for the Kindle but I read them. On my computer, on my phone, and on my non-Kindle tablet. Kindle reading applications are available for iOS and Android, and for Mac and Windows. There's no official reader for Linux, but you can still read as long as you are connected with the Cloud Reader. If you can post to Facebook, you can read a Kindle book.

That said, there are a couple of advantages to print, enough that I bothered to put the short story Eric's Secret into print although it's only 34 pages. First, as I once heard someone say, the only hand-held device that doesn't lose its charge is a book.

And then there is the question of ownership. You may think you own the Kindle books you buy, but your access to them is controlled by Amazon. You can lend Kindle books for a short time, but you can't give them away or resell them.

Now for me, the author, this would seem to be a good thing. But the way I look at it, if you lend, give, or sell my book to your friends, I have another potential reader, who might recommend my books to others who will actually purchase their own copy.

And I personally think that if you buy a book, it should be yours to do with what you please as long as you don't violate my copyright in doing so.

That said, I do buy Kindle books, because they are convenient, often more affordable, and sometimes the only option.

But I'm trying to give you whatever options you choose.

Getting Organized

Although I've already written a lot of words for the new book (which I need to get a working title for soon so I stop referring to it as "the new book"), I'm a long way from actually writing anything I would call a completed book. There is so much research to do, so many people to contact, so much thinking about the format of the book, and how I'm going to correlate everything that I find out so that it all works together without denigrating into dry statistics or trite (and wholly inaccurate) classifications.

And so the organization is not just of the kind where I make sure my files are all in the right places and that my GMail folders are set up just so. It's the mental organization of the concepts.

I've decided on a format for the book. And yet I'm fairly sure that by the time I've written the first draft, I will have discovered that the format I thought was just right is, in fact, totally inappropriate for the job.

But that's the way of writing, when it's working as it should. Not just words on paper, but a voyage of discovery. And when we all get there, I think that I will be as surprised as you to see what the final product looks like.