The Books! This Week!
First up, one of my blog readers is an editor in Egypt, and as there aren’t many/any agents in Egypt (but there could be), she’s hoping to work as a virtual intern at a literary agency to learn more about the trade. I know we’re all rooting for Egypt after the revolution, any agents out there who could help her out?
There was a very interesting discussion over at All Indie Publishing triggered by the always-interesting Zoe Winters. The topic: Do 99 Cent E-books Attract the Wrong Kind of Reader? Now, at first blush, your answer might be, as John Ochwat put it on Twitter, “If readers are wrong, I don’t want to be right.” But Zoe’s thoughts are worth a read in full. Does the price affect a reader’s loyalty and the perception of value? (via OtherLisa)
Is all publicity really good publicity? Well, according to a study spotted by The Millions: It all depends. For established writers, bad publicity can hurt sales. For new writers: Bad publicity actually helps.
Very smart editor Cheryl Klein has self-published a guide to writing called SECOND SIGHT, definitely check that out!
The New York Observer took an anthropological look at the “Assisterati,” the collective of extremely smart assistants who are reading many of your queries and performing essential tasks behind the scenes at agencies. And yes, the “Assisterati” Twitter account was started just a week later.
What do you get when you take an author’s first novel, which is the first sale by her agent and the first acquisition by her editor? Well, in this case you get THE TIGER’S WIFE by Tea Obreht, currently the toast of the literary scene.
In writing and publishing advice news, guest blogging at Pimp My Novel, Brad Philips offers nine ways to give a better reading, Finslippy gives advice on attending conferences, and agent Rachelle Gardner had three great publishing mythbusting posts here, here and here.
And in so wrong it’s right news… real life re-creations of romance novel covers. (via Stephen Shankland)
This week in the Forums, March Madness is so on, can social media self-promotion be a bad thing, an authors for Japan benefit auction, the Great Gatsby mansion is going to be razed, and does grammar matter?
Comment! of! the! Week! Again, another great week for comments, but I had to go with Melissa Romo, who had a great metaphor on the way building a social media following works:
…I’m working on a novel (about to query) and I liken the entire project, including social media, to the formation of a planet. It takes time to form a center if gravity that will start attracting sizable enough chunks of dirt to form anything of a meaningful size.
And finally, it’s been an incredibly difficult week for a lot of the world. Which is why we all need a little more Flight of the Conchords in our life. Frodo, don’t wear the ring!
Have a great weekend!
Five bucks is a fair price for a book. I think that's what they should cost.
If Frodo didn't wear the ring, then there wouldn't have been a trilogy!
It's still crazy to me that people think value has anything to do with cost in this industry. When people ask me "What's you're favorite book?" I have never once responded: "Definitely this one, I paid $30 for it!" On the contrary, some of the stories that I treasure most came, originally, from used bookstores for pennies. Even more damning is the fact that most of the classic tales that define our culture are public domain, and therefore free. Does that make them worthless?
Obviously, authors should do what they want and what works for them, but patronizing other authors that choose to sell their books for cheap as "low quality" just seems elitist. Most readers who buy $.99 kindle books don't think "This is going to suck, but I'll buy it any way." They think "I have no idea whether this will be good or bad, but at $.99, I'm willing to take a chance." To me, that doesn't hurt loyalty at all, unless your books really are crap.
^That should be "your" favorite book, of course. How embarrassing.
Thanks for the links, especially the one about attending conferences. I'm going to my first three day writing orgy iat Pennwriters and I'm freaking terrified. Drinking heavily is probably not the answer, but I don't know what is. Hopefully I can figure it out before May!
Thanks for complimenting my metaphor, Nathan. I was a little worried I was likening readers to chunks of dirt, which would not do wonders for my appeal as a writer. Actually, I'm still a little worried, so Readers, please know that was not what I meant. My metaphors tend to have a mind of their own.
I love Flight of the Conchords! All of their songs are parody gold!
Gushiness aside, I don't think the price of the book necessarily defines the quality. Like Zegota said, a lot of the classics are public domain now and free.
I read that story about THE TIGER'S WIFE earlier this week. It got me pretty excited, especially since I'm currently unpublished but signed with an agent just a few days before. Of course, there may be more of a market for her historical fiction than my Tweets about how much better the NCAA tournament is sans Billy Packer. But a guy can dream.
Bad publicity: I'm counting on it to make me a beloved figure.
LOVE Flight of the Conchords! Did you know that Bret was actually in the movie Lord of the RIngs, playing an elf? (Um… oops. My geekness is showing.)
I'm still kicking around the .99 price point as a promotional option. I do think that authors that point out their sales drop too dramatically when they raise their prices to $2.99 ought to see if they have repeat customers, if possible. (I don't think there's a way to track, unfortunately.) A reader who will only buy you at .99 is not the audience you want, IMO. And yes, I think there are enough readers in the world that you can afford to be more choosy.
mmmmmm…Flight of the Conchords. Thank you. I also love the idea of this blog being a vehicle to begin a stronger literary agent presence in Egypt. Perhaps strong literary agents will turn out to be an incredible way to empower writers in the Middle East (not that I know enough about Egyptian literature; I'm unfortunately more in tune with Western Lit). Very cool regardless.
Loving Flight of the Conchords. A great way to start off a beautiful Friday!
I don't like the idea of assigning a value to readers based on what they are willing to pay for a book. We already have enough perception of value problems in this industry to start being choosy about readers. I can see how .99 isn't sustainable for some authors, no matter how many copies they sell. I don't know what the right price is. I just don't want to go down the path where authors put a price value on their readers. There are plenty of books I've purcahsed at full price and never got around to reading! Saying that a .99 price point draws in the "bad elements" leaves me feeling really uncomfortable.
I love Flight of the Conchords, especially the Friends song. I fear all publicity, even the good kind but know it's necessary.
The thing is, I think that the 99cent e-books aren't attracting the wrong kind of reader so much as they are attracting an untapped market. You will always have big readers, the kind of people who read Franzen for fun, but then you'll have other people who won't read anything.
Buying a 99cent book from Amazon is like buying a trashy magazine or a stick of gum at the supermarket checkout. It's mindless and so easier to consume, therefore making it easier for non-readers or light-readers to pick up. No one's mistaking it for great literature, and I still have big hopes for e-books and publishing.
So glad I popped in here today. Needed to come up to speed on my pub news and REALLY needed that Flight of the Conchords fix — thanks for both!!
Thanks for the shout out, Nathan, and for calling me "always-interesting".
re: value. there are different types of value. In a "business", monetary value is a legitimate and important type of value, especially for artists trying to make a living.
Sure, a reader might not care if I can make a living or not, but I really don't want that type of reader to begin with.
Zoe: I think most readers, at some level, want the authors they read to be able to make a living doing it. There may be a misconception that all authors are rich fat cats, absolutely. But the readers who truly care nothing for the authors will probably just pirate the work, honestly, and those people aren't worth worrying about.
I may have spoke too generally; certainly there are readers for whom quality doesn't really matter, and buying book is just a simple $/word proposition. It sounds like you talked to a few of those people. But most people, like the rest of us, are normal folks with bills to pay, and our brain makes decisions based on that. I'll read a free story by pretty much any writer, poor or great. 99 cents? Sure, I'll give it a try. But as the price goes up, I have to try harder and harder to justify it. I'm not going to buy a $20-30 book if I know nothing about the story or author. And believe me, if I do buy that book and end up not liking it, I'm not likely to ever pick up a book by that person again. Whereas with a cheaper title, I might be more apt to see the potential and try the author again.
I'm not saying that 99 cents is necessarily the sweet spot. I think it differs for each author, and it may very well, and probably is, higher than that. But I think it's a little bit counterproductive to *not* want people to buy your book and read your writing, regardless of the type of person.
To put my money where my mouth is, I just bought an anthology featuring your story on my Kindle. The genre is not something I'd normally be interested in — but who knows! Maybe one day I'll become a loyal fan 🙂
Oh boy. There really is too much interesting stuff here for one comment.
Conchords rule, though, I can say that much!
For me, I can't see selling an eBook at 99 cents. I'm too slow a writer, and that price point doesn't reflect the amount of work I put into what I do. I also think the argument that it's better to start high and lower prices (like for a sale) makes a lot of sense. My publisher will do discounts and giveaways of backlist titles to help promote a new book, for example.
I think eBooks should be priced lower than paper books (I'm talking about in the traditional publishing model) and I like the idea that the price gets lower after it's been released for a while.
I find the sense of entitlement exhibited by some Freevangelists/99 centers disturbing. I still shake my head at the guy from WIRED who blithely said recently that he didn't see why a book should cost more than a song on iTunes. Um, maybe because it TOOK ME TWO YEARS TO WRITE?!! And it provides a longer "entertainment experience" for the customer?
(plus his hardcover book lists for like 27 bucks?!)
I think bringing up books that are in the public domain is sort of a diversion from what's being argued here: how do actual living working authors support themselves and build a sustainable career?
So many links. And links within links… Where's my totem?
"For established writers bad publicity can hurt sales. For new writers bad publicity actually helps." You said it right Nathan.While humility helps other writers ,being proud and a little bragging helps achieve what you need to achieve. Besides armoring is a sign of weakness. Oh yeah I read Frager and Fadiman's book.
Lisa: I'm not sure what a Freevangelist is, but you could probably apply that to me, in certain cases 🙂
Authors should certainly do what makes them the most money (unless you're one of those odd creatures who cares more for readership than making a living). I was just trying to argue against the idea that $.99 is somehow too low, even if it makes you more money because you have more readers. You say that the low price point feels like it's not worthy of the effort you put in, and that's completely fair, but to me, it's the overall bottom line that's important. I'd sell a novel for a penny if it would make 6 billion people buy it.
That's all I was trying to say — sometimes the things that makes the most economic sense and the things that makes emotional sense aren't necessarily aligned. But there's obviously no way to "prove" $.99 or $2.99 or $19.99 will make any given book more money in the long run.
anon (who has appeared only to me)-
This isn't the venue for that – also, if you want to attack someone's character I think you should do it non-anonymously. I'm guessing you would present your opinion a bit differently.
As always, great information! Thanks, Nathan!
OK, Nathan, I can do that. Here's another link to Zoe Winter's blog, her opinion on the people suffering through the tragedy in Japan and those who are trying to help them: here.
anon-
Thanks for understanding.
Just for the record, even though I'm an Anon…and I hope you will post this, Nathan…I did not attack Zoe Winters' actual character. I disagreed with and was shocked by another post on her Blog. If you read her post to which I linked, you will see that she was much more scathing toward journalists reporting on Japan…and you do have journalists here. You linked to Zoe Winters' Blog, and I was commenting on the Blog. I assumed discussion here was impartial, and if you link to a Blog where journalists are being harshly criticized, we can comment on that. No?
Question: How are e-book sales tracked?
Sure, distributors occasionally report sales numbers. They're open to interpretation, embellishment, exaggeration, downplaying.
Paper book tracking hasn't been much more reliable.
I think with digital inventory tracking potentials and single-impression printing technologies the time for serial numbering of books, digital and paper, has come. Embed a serial number in an ISBN bar code. Extend embedded serial numbers to digital books.
anon-
Maybe so, but all the same when there's a comment I consider near or around the line of what I consider civil, the tie goes to people who are non-anon. Basically, if I feel like someone is saying something they wouldn't say if they had their name attached I lean toward the delete button.
We had a very spirited debate a while back about the guidelines for anonymous comments.
My resulting guidelines:
"As Spider-Man will tell you, with great power comes great responsibility. Because of the tendency toward abuse of the anon option and the lack of context for an anon post, I'm going to unabashedly hold anonymous commenters to a higher politeness and constructiveness standard than those who post under a name or handle so that the anon function is not used as a cover to espouse an unproductive attitude that might otherwise not be written if the person were associating their own name with the comment. Hopefully this will best facilitate a constructive dialogue, and polite anons will have nothing to worry about."
@zegota – I'm not an economist, but I think I would rather have fewer buyers at a higher price point. I think that the 99 cent thing, in a way, might be creating a downward pressure on prices, to the point where it undermines an author's ability to make a living wage. Not everyone is going to be able to sell at the volume necessary to profit at 99 cents.
(I read an argument somewhere that $1.99 actually made more sense for that low-end price, but I can't remember where or why)
You know, there really is a whole notion of perceived value that's hard to quantify when you're dealing with creative work, and I don't know what the answers are. But while I'm sympathetic to peoples' economic situations (boy, am I, and hey, 9 times out of 10 I wait for the trade paperback), good work should have value in the marketplace.
I know, "should" is weak. But that's what it comes down to for me. Some basic fairness and economic justice.
That Zoe Winters article triggered a whole post of my own on what our work is worth.
There's some thought that cheap books means more readers, but in general I think if the work is good, then it's worth good money. If it isn't good, giving it away for cheap isn't going to make anybody notice it.
The comments have good thoughts on both sides as well.
I agree with zegota. Since I’m in writers’ groups with writers of literary fiction who actually get phone calls from agents telling them their work is amazing, but they can’t take it on because it’s not in a popular genre, I know where some of the best indie stuff is sold, and some of it is the cheapest stuff you can find on Kindle. My mindset has completely changed from where I was a year ago. A year ago, I wanted to buy only books with the stamp of approval from the major publishing houses. In fact, for public domain books, rather than buying them for free on Kindle, I bought the more expensive versions published by the big publishing houses because I assumed the editing would be better. That was before I read articles by publishing insiders saying that most authors published by those houses no longer have access to in-house editors. After TINKERS by Paul Harding, one of my most favorite books ever, could only get published by indie press and went on to win a Pulitzer Prize, I no longer evaluate a book by its price. There’s a lot of inferior work published at $32, $2.99, and 99 cents … and there happens to be fantastic work at all those prices as well. I buy 99 cent books now because I know some very talented indie writers are flocking to publish their books at those prices!
I’m going to weigh in a bit on the controversy Anon stirred up. I clicked on your link, Nathan, to the blog mentioned; and I clicked on Anon’s link. I felt physically ill after that. I’ll watch my tongue because I’m tired and I could rant something awful right now. I’ve been up all night for the past few nights because the most informed news has been coming across newsfeeds at night. My heart is broken over the suffering of the people in Japan. Perhaps I have a mutant type of empathy that allows me to feel for the people far away in another country. And I admire the journalists over in Japan who are getting the word out in order to mobilize the world to try to rescue the survivors. If the world wasn’t keeping a watch over the nuclear power plant in Japan, my guess is that it would be going to complete meltdown at this point in time. It’s already in partial meltdown. The journalists who are getting the story out have exposed themselves to radiation. The workers inside the plant are said to be on a suicide mission right now, and they understand they’ve been asked to sacrifice their own lives for others. All those people have my deepest admiration for what they’re doing. There are writers on Twitter who are trying to help get the word out about what Japan needs. I decided to join them. I’m in the process of reformatting a number of my manuscripts to sell for 99 cents on Kindle, updating my website, arranging book cover artwork, lots of other stuff … but I decided to work much more slowly at that, so that I could set aside enough time to follow the news closely and retweet information coming out of Japan. People in Japan who are still alive have themselves contacted media, begging the world to hear them and help them. One woman actually said, "Please help us! Please, help!" She didn’t say please ignore us, we like our privacy and therefore would prefer to die from nuclear radiation. OK, that’s it. I’ll be retweeting again this weekend, having recovered from reading a blog that felt like a huge slap in the face to everyone trying to do whatever they can to help the people in Japan. Although I realize that is nothing compared to what the people in Japan are going through tonight.
I agree with zegota. Since I’m in writers’ groups with writers of literary fiction who actually get phone calls from agents telling them their work is amazing, but they can’t take it on because it’s not in a popular genre, I know where some of the best indie stuff is sold, and some of it is the cheapest stuff you can find on Kindle. My mindset has completely changed from where I was a year ago. A year ago, I wanted to buy only books with the stamp of approval from the major publishing houses. In fact, for public domain books, rather than buying them for free on Kindle, I bought the more expensive versions published by the big publishing houses because I assumed the editing would be better. That was before I read articles by publishing insiders saying that most authors published by those houses no longer have access to in-house editors. After TINKERS by Paul Harding, one of my most favorite books ever, could only get published by indie press and went on to win a Pulitzer Prize, I no longer evaluate a book by its price. There’s a lot of inferior work published at $32, $2.99, and 99 cents … and there happens to be fantastic work at all those prices as well. I buy 99 cent books now because I know some very talented indie writers are flocking to publish their books at those prices!
I’m going to weigh in a bit on the controversy Anon stirred up. I clicked on your link, Nathan, to the blog mentioned; and I clicked on Anon’s link. I felt physically ill after that. I’ll watch my tongue because I’m tired and I could rant something awful right now. I’ve been up all night for the past few nights because the most informed news has been coming across newsfeeds at night. My heart is broken over the suffering of the people in Japan. Perhaps I have a mutant type of empathy that allows me to feel for the people far away in another country. And I admire the journalists over in Japan who are getting the word out in order to mobilize the world to try to rescue the survivors. If the world wasn’t keeping a watch over the nuclear power plant in Japan, my guess is that it would be going to complete meltdown at this point in time. It’s already in partial meltdown. The journalists who are getting the story out have exposed themselves to radiation. The workers inside the plant are said to be on a suicide mission right now, and they understand they’ve been asked to sacrifice their own lives for others. All those people have my deepest admiration for what they’re doing. There are writers on Twitter who are trying to help get the word out about what Japan needs. I decided to join them. I’m in the process of reformatting a number of my manuscripts to sell for 99 cents on Kindle, updating my website, arranging book cover artwork, lots of other stuff … but I decided to work much more slowly at that, so I could set aside enough time to follow the news closely and retweet information coming out of Japan. People in Japan who are still alive have themselves contacted media, begging the world to hear them and help them. One woman actually said, “Please help us! Please, help!” She didn’t say please ignore us, we like our privacy and therefore would prefer to die from nuclear radiation. OK, that’s it. I’ll be retweeting again this weekend, having recovered from reading a blog that felt like a huge slap in the face to everyone trying to do whatever they can to help the people in Japan. Although I realize that is nothing compared to what the people in Japan are going through tonight.
great job, Nathan. Lot's of work went into this blog.
mbb
I'm more likely to take a risk on a 99 cent or even a $2.99 book than I am on a $12.99 book.
In the back of my head, I'm wondering if I could buy the book cheaper used. I think this is just my recession mindset.
However, if the book that I took a risk on is really good, then I'd opt to spend up to $5 for other books by that author.
There was some good discussion about ebook pricing on the "I Should Be Writing" podcast a couple of weeks ago. It's the one with the Pyr editor.
Did anyone else read the Assistants areticle and get perturbed that the publishing assistants are hired for unpublicized jobs because they took a short $7,000 publishing course?
I paid my way through college (working part-time, getting scholarship and grant money, and taking out student loans), and there was no way I'd spend $7,000 after that to try to get a lowpaying entry job. However, if my parents were paying for it and subsidizing me in NYC as I worked as a low-paid assistant and I didn't already have college loans to pay off, it would be different.
Maybe if publishers publicized entry level jobs and didn't make people pay $7,000 for the right to learn about them, the publishing world would be more diverse and not mostly made up of people raised by upper class parents.
egalitarian-
I definitely agree with you that there are class issues in publishing, but I'd think of that course as more of a short grad school than a pay-your-way into the industry system. The vast majority of assistants make their way into the industry without the Columbia publishing course (as I did), and yeah, the new jobs are often unpublished/unpublicized, but that's because there are many people making their way from unpaid internships that they got by knocking down doors and through a bit of luck.
There are definitely more than a normal share of people in publishing from rich families who support them and who had connections, but there are also plenty of people like me, who didn't know anyone and who survived their low salary by living frugally.
I'd characterize that article as being much more heavy on snark and generalizations than a real picture.
Nathan, thanks for responding, and I love your blog.
I know it's possible for a poor or middle class person to get a publishing job, but I think hiring people who worked as unpaid interns is problematic too. When I was working 20 hours a week in high school and college and full-time every summer so I could afford one of those East Coast private universities mentioned in the article, it would have been very difficult to squeeze in an unpaid internship and still maintain my grades.
I had to put in a lot of study time to eventually get into the best graduate school in California: UC Berkeley. 😉
A virtual internship is an interesting choice for someone whose ancestors invented paper publishing. Never mind e-books. The ancient Egyptians ruined publishing when they replaced good old-fashioned stone tablets with their damn new-fangled papyrus!
Seriously, Mariam Maarouf's Bransforums post is well worth reading and an object lesson in the potentials of the Internet at the cutting edge of history. She could become Egypt's first literary agent!
Assisterati? I'm not surprised. The world is run by assistants.
Rachelle Gardner myth-busting posts include a useful reminder that the much-vaunted New York Times Bestseller List is NOT directly based on sales, despite it's title.
Rachelle Gardner DOES confirm that agents CAN be bribed with both chocolate and wine, and are snarky, scary, mean, and love to reject writers, as we've always suspected. So I'm going to eat the chocolate and drink the wine myself!
I would like to thank every single reader who has spent .99 on one of my e-books. I love and adore them all, and I understand and appreciate that even spending .99 cents in this poor economy can often be hard on people.
I'm not posting my name here because I'm not into promoting my books on someone else's blog. I just don't believe in doing this. However, I will be posting something about this on my own blog next week in thanks to all the wonderful .99 readers who may have been insulted.
Bad publicity. So that's what I need!
I'm surprised that This Week in Books did not mention SUPERMOON!
@anon 5:36, Zoe Winters' discussion is a little more nuanced than some are making it out to be. She basically said that she doesn't want readers who ONLY will pay 99 cents for an eBook, because of the sense of entitlement they exhibit, the lack of loyalty or real interest in her as a writer, and the downward pressure this exerts on prices overall.
I don't think there's one right answer here—it's really about you as an author and your individual set of circumstances. But I think her argument is legitimate, and it's one I'm glad to see being made.
Oh, and GO AZTECS!!! (that's why I really stopped by!)
Well, I've not had a chance to read all of your wonderful links, Nathan (thank you!!), so I'll be back later.
But I need to weigh in because I'm having a serious identity crisis.
Word on the street is there are gangs of readers marking their turf.
One reader gang only buys books for 99 cents. They don't care about the book. They don't care about the author. They just want to buy things for 99 cents. They'll buy ANYTHING if it costs 99 cents.
Then there's this other gang that only buys books priced at $25.99, and they only buy two types of books: those that win the Nobel prize for literature, and anything written by Stephanie Meyers.
I don't know if I'm just being paranoid, but I sense a rumble coming on, and I'm not sure which group I'm in.
I bought Amanda Hocking's book for 99 cents last week. And then I downloaded a Jane Austen book for free. And then I spent 12.99 on two old favorite books two days ago. And alittle while ago, I bought a new book I've been waiting for for a year (!) for 8.99.
So, I think you can see my dilemna!! I'm just running around all willy nilly, buying books for all sorts of prices.
I don't know where I can fit in! Where is there a place for me? A place where books for 99 cents can rest peacefully next to books that cost 25.99. Is that a pipe dream? Could there possibly exist such a utopia in this crazy world of ours?
I sure hope so. Because when I write a book, I plan to sell it for two thousand dollars and 87 cents a copy.
But I'll only sell it to the right readers, of course.
Anyone who drives too slowly on the freeway is the wrong sort of reader and they can't buy my book. That's right. I'll need character references.
Okay, well I think we've resolved all these complicated issues with this post, so I'm off to go buy some more books.
I think that pricing books in electronic form can have benefits and consequences on both sides of the debate. Readers are more likely to take a chance on an unknown author at 99 cents. I personally feel that electronic books should cost a little less than a paperback or hardcover. I seen recently a book that listed on Amazon for 9.99, but the Kindle version was listed at 24.99. It just depends on the market for your particular book and platform.
Ha, Mira! Your comment made me laugh. And made me think of one of my favorite movies, West Side Story. Sharks vs. Jets!
(Shush! Don't tell anyone, but I'm the wrong kind of reader. I just read three .99 e-books last week. And now I'm planning to buy other books by these authors at higher prices. But please don't tell anyone.)
Nathan,
I want to thank you for all your open-minded discussion about the new world of self-publishing eBooks. The more I read about the current state of self-publishing, the more respect I have for it. As a result of your recent blogging about inexpensive self-published books, I started looking into self-publishing some of my own books for 99 cents on Kindle. While researching how to do that on Amazon today, I made a discovery related to the discussion on your blog about the value of 99 cent books. For years, high quality books have won the IPPY Awards, the ForeWord Magazine Book of the Year Awards, and other indie awards, but it was too expensive to buy a lot of those books. I did buy some of them, but I couldn’t afford to buy as many as I would have liked to have bought because a lot of those paperbacks were very expensive, sometimes over $30 each. Today, I found 99 cent books on Kindle that have won the IPPY Award. After a little more research, I also found 99 cent Kindle books published by authors who are known for their best-selling traditionally published books. This has all changed my view of where to find valuable books. I think valuable books can be found in any price category. It’s a wonderful time to shop for books. 🙂
Mira said:
"I don't know if I'm just being paranoid, but I sense a rumble coming on, and I'm not sure which group I'm in."
and:
"So, I think you can see my dilemna!! I'm just running around all willy nilly, buying books for all sorts of prices."
HaHaHaHa! You crack me up, Mira! I have the same dilemma as you. I’m also running around all willy nilly, buying books for 99 cents (gasp!) and even sometimes $30 and more. True confession: I actually buy eBooks for 99 cents, $1.99, AND $2.99. I buy eBooks, paperbacks…and even hardcovers. I’m so confused.