{"id":2519,"date":"2012-05-09T12:50:46","date_gmt":"2012-05-09T16:50:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/booklifenow.com\/?p=2519"},"modified":"2012-05-31T14:08:00","modified_gmt":"2012-05-31T18:08:00","slug":"buying-books-that-are-finished-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/booklifenow.com\/2012\/05\/buying-books-that-are-finished-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Buying Books That Are Finished"},"content":{"rendered":"

Larry D. Sweazy<\/a> is a commercial indexer and novelist. He writes a series of Westerns for Berkley Books featuring Josiah Wolfe, Texas Ranger.\u00a0 The series starts with Rattlesnake Season<\/span> and continues with the fifth installment, The Coyote Tracker<\/span>, forthcoming in August of 2012.\u00a0 Sweazy’s first mystery novel, The Devil’s Bones<\/span>, was published by Five Star in March of 2012.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

\n

Long before I was a writer, I was a reader.\u00a0 A voracious reader.\u00a0\u00a0 I picked my books because of cool, artistic covers that caught my eye, because of genre, because of a writer\u2019s reputation, and countless other reasons that I\u2019m probably not even aware of.\u00a0 The biggest reason I bought a book was, and is, a writer\u2019s reputation.\u00a0 If I\u2019d read one book by a certain writer and loved it, then I wanted more of the same\u2014but different.\u00a0 Whether it\u2019s an eBook, or a real book, that I\u2019m buying, my criteria for the purchase hasn\u2019t changed now that I\u2019m a professional writer.\u00a0 But I\u2019m not so sure that\u2019s true of the world of books, at the moment, in 2012.\u00a0 It seems everything is changing, including books themselves.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve bought countless books off the rack at the drugstore, online, at book stores, independents and chains, and in the end, after I\u2019d read the book, it didn\u2019t matter where I bought it.\u00a0 I have hundreds of books on my bookshelves.\u00a0 I can\u2019t tell you by looking at them where they came from\u2014but I can tell you whether they were good or not, whether they satisfied me, whether the stories took me away, whether I got my money\u2019s worth.<\/p>\n

Now my choices for eBooks are different.\u00a0 The locations are fewer, on one hand, but much easier to get to on the other.\u00a0 And eBooks change.\u00a0 If an author, or company, doesn\u2019t think the book is selling as much as it should, the price changes, or the cover changes, one day it\u2019s free, the next day, it\u2019s not.\u00a0 Does the text change, too?\u00a0\u00a0 Can I, as a reader, really trust the quality of the eBook?\u00a0 Everything changes with the press of a button, on a whim, or after a day or two of dissatisfaction of no sales, or the lack of blockbuster numbers. Really, it\u2019s like a book is never finished now, like it\u2019s OK to put a book out into the world as a beta test.<\/p>\n

I can see the allure of the never-ending book as an author\u2014we don\u2019t think a book is ever finished.\u00a0 But as a reader, as a buyer?\u00a0 No.\u00a0 I\u2019m sorry, I don\u2019t see the allure of buying a book that\u2019s never finished.\u00a0 I want to buy something that\u2019s final. Done. Completed.<\/p>\n

After a book is printed there are no second chances.\u00a0 Yes, there are second editions and beyond, but they\u2019re announced on the cover.\u00a0 The buyer, the reader, wants to know what they are getting.\u00a0 If I buy an eBook by an author, read it, like it, comment on it, write an Amazon review, then two weeks later discover said author has completely changed the eBook to drive more sales\u2026then I\u2019ll remember that, and most likely, never buy another book by that author again. I\u2019ll feel cheated.<\/p>\n

Once an eBook is published it should stay published in its original form.\u00a0 Some books take time to find.\u00a0 The Internet and eBooks allow for that more than ever\u2014if a book doesn\u2019t change.\u00a0 So my advice to writers, traditional or self-published, is to publish your book when it\u2019s finished and not before.\u00a0 I don\u2019t want to read a first draft or a tenth draft.\u00a0 I want to read a book that is the writer\u2019s best effort.\u00a0 I want to buy a book that has been published well.\u00a0 I want to read a book that\u2019s done, that has a good-looking cover, professional editing, and a great story.\u00a0 It doesn\u2019t matter where I buy the book (though there will be those that argue that it does\u2014and they may be right, that\u2019s just not the point of this posting).\u00a0 It does matter whether the book is finished or not.\u00a0 Final, completed, professionally published, no matter where it was published, or who published it.<\/p>\n

I love buying books.\u00a0 A majority of readers are collectors of one sort or another.\u00a0 I have some books that I will take with me wherever I go, because I\u2019ve been moved to tears by them, and changed and entertained by them.\u00a0 I want to keep those books close.\u00a0 To read again, to hold, if just for a moment, to recapture that moment\u2026 of completion.\u00a0 But if I feel like I\u2019ve been had, just marketed to, sold a bill of goods, and bought an eBook that is ever-changing, well, I\u2019ll leave that book behind.\u00a0 Or I\u2019ll hit the delete button.\u00a0 That book will have no place in my collection, or my heart.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Larry D. Sweazy is a commercial indexer and novelist. He writes a series of Westerns for Berkley Books featuring Josiah Wolfe, Texas Ranger.\u00a0 The series starts with Rattlesnake Season and continues with the fifth installment, The Coyote Tracker, forthcoming in August of 2012.\u00a0 Sweazy’s first mystery novel, The Devil’s Bones, was published by Five Star in March of 2012.\u00a0 Long before I was a writer, I was a reader.\u00a0 A voracious reader.\u00a0\u00a0 I picked my books because of cool, artistic covers that caught my eye, because of genre, because of a writer\u2019s reputation, and countless other reasons that I\u2019m probably not even aware of.\u00a0 The biggest reason I bought a book was, and is, a writer\u2019s reputation.\u00a0 If I\u2019d read one book by a certain writer and loved it, then I wanted more of the same\u2014but different.\u00a0 Whether it\u2019s an eBook, or a real book, that I\u2019m buying, my criteria […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":21,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[92,91],"tags":[146,98,75],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/booklifenow.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2519"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/booklifenow.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/booklifenow.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/booklifenow.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/21"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/booklifenow.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2519"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/booklifenow.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2519\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2669,"href":"https:\/\/booklifenow.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2519\/revisions\/2669"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/booklifenow.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2519"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/booklifenow.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2519"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/booklifenow.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2519"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}