What is your personal e-reading philosophy? Buy(from where?)or Borrow?

[spindlegirl]

Originally Posted by Dr. Drib

I'll make this short:

I buy ebooks wherever I want to buy ebooks - if it is something I want to read, of course..

I could care less where it comes from.

You said it more succinctly than I did haha.

[spindlegirl]

Originally Posted by Flaneurette

It seems there is much screeching online about how kindle books are a lease and not true ownership but I’ve known this forever? It is the price to pay for convenience of digital goods I guess and won’t likely change anytime soon. I don’t agree that piracy is justified because people didn’t understand the terms of service for all these platforms.

I used to be one of those screechers. I don't agree with downloading a car, but I used to be greatly offended with the terms of service. I've now decided to pick my battles, and just roll with it when I use my Kindle.

Edit: It's a cheeky reference to the Preamble I used to see against pirating movies. "You wouldn't steal a car..."

[Gormagon]

Originally Posted by hildea

If your book has an important character who is a rocket scientist, you might want a real rocket scientist to take a look, to help identify things which are embarrassingly wrong or actively harmful.

That doesn't follow the definition of a sensitivity reader I linked. What you seems to mean is checking the facts. Feelings (like feeling offended) aren't facts, they are just subjective feelings.

Originally Posted by hildea

(And if you don't think this kind of consultancy is useful, take a brief look at some Men writing women-list, as very obvious examples of things that can go laughably wrong when authors don't know where their knowledge ends and their ignorance begins )

I only see that there are people out there that design websites that really show nothing in a modern browser with JavaScript and cookies disabled, see attached screenshot. They really should have consult someone who know something about webdesign.

[Sirtel]

Originally Posted by hildea

(And if you don't think this kind of consultancy is useful, take a brief look at some Men writing women-list, as very obvious examples of things that can go laughably wrong when authors don't know where their knowledge ends and their ignorance begins )

Bwahaha. While lots of those examples were pretty yucky, I almost fell off the sofa laughing at some of the comments.

[salamanderjuice]

Originally Posted by DNSB

Pragmatism says buying books and supporting authors is simple self-interest. After all, if we all pirated books, who would be writing our next read?

People wrote and created stories for thousands of years before copyright, if it vanished overnight they'd continue to write and create stories. Already there are thousands and thousands of free novels and stories all over the web.

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by salamanderjuice

People wrote and created stories for thousands of years before copyright, if it vanished overnight they'd continue to write and create stories. Already there are thousands and thousands of free novels and stories all over the web.

Most of those creating those stories were supported by the wealthy. Nowadays, most of them seem to be supported by a day job, spouse, etc.

As for copyright, that has little to do with being willing to pay the author for what they produce. Very few of the authors I've met are writing just for the money with many ranking the egoboo higher but money does help convince them to continue writing.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by hildea

I'm pretty sure that you can find plenty new books with offensive content, stereotypes, and bias, if that's what you want to read

Sensitivity readers aren't all that different from any other consultant an author might hire. If your book has an important character who is a rocket scientist, you might want a real rocket scientist to take a look, to help identify things which are embarrassingly wrong or actively harmful. Same if an important character is blind, trans, a Norwegian with Pakistani grandparents, or anything else which might have a strong impact in how they the experience life, and is different from the author's experience.

(And if you don't think this kind of consultancy is useful, take a brief look at some Men writing women-list, as very obvious examples of things that can go laughably wrong when authors don't know where their knowledge ends and their ignorance begins )

Men Are Calling Out The Things Female Authors Get So Wrong When Writing Male Characters In Their Books, And Some Of These Are Surprising

https://www.buzzfeed.com/pernellquil...ting-men-badly

[Sirtel]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

Men Are Calling Out The Things Female Authors Get So Wrong When Writing Male Characters In Their Books, And Some Of These Are Surprising

https://www.buzzfeed.com/pernellquil...ting-men-badly

From the comments:
"A lot of these examples are bad, poorly written stereotypes, for sure. But I think it's worth pointing out that the majority of offenders on this list are pulled from romance novels, often even self-published ones.
Meanwhile, if you look at examples of male authors writing women poorly, you will find many who have won literary awards for their work. I doubt that anything related to 50 shades of grey or dating Xi Jinping will ever be taken that seriously."

That was the first thought I had reading this. Romance novels are often meant to be wish-fulfillment fantasy and deliberately written that way. Whereas most examples in Men Writing Women were from mainstream fiction.

[Celia11]

Originally Posted by Flaneurette

Wondering if we can have a discussion about where we are all headed with our ebook usage going forward…I’ve been a kindle user since 2009 and have amassed a fair amount of books in my account- I’ve been dabbling in moving to kobo but can’t seem to pull the trigger. Many of my qualms boil down to my personal distaste for the founder and main shareholder of amzn but I realize my boycott would mean nothing in the grand scheme of things. Up until recently when the old eink kindles were cut off I had been backing up my purchases on calibre but I’ve realized I’ve been spending more of my time managing my library than actually reading(also managing my library holds). Since my annoyance with the big publishers after the whole collusion/agency model thing I’ve been really leaning into my Libby use but I’m soon losing access to my main library and after hearing about how libraries are paying unfair prices for digital books I feel I should just buy them. I can afford it I just thought I was taking some moral high road here that i realize is more complicated. I’m not much of a rereader at all but I do like to save highlights and notes on my books and revisit them- this doesn’t really work with side loaded or library books that well. I’ve also invested a fair amount in kindle hardware ie the new Colorsoft Scribe and I would like to continue using it. If I had to do it over I would certainly have chosen kobo years ago but I didn’t discover them until I was already pretty deep in amazon ecosystem. I also kind of worry about losing access to my amzn account for some random reason but I don’t really know how common this is.

It seems there is much screeching online about how kindle books are a lease and not true ownership but I’ve known this forever? It is the price to pay for convenience of digital goods I guess and won’t likely change anytime soon. I don’t agree that piracy is justified because people didn’t understand the terms of service for all these platforms.

All this long and rambling blathering is I guess a search for justification to just go ahead and buy the dang ebooks and quit dithering around with the whole baggage of it all.

Ps. I know these things have been discussed here but its scattered over numerous threads and the search isn’t that great so sorry in advance if I am repeating tired topics

I can definitely relate to this. I love the convenience of ebooks, especially being able to carry so many books on one device. The ownership issue does bother me a little, though. For me, I think it’s still worth it for the convenience, but I can understand why some people prefer physical books.

[hildea]

Looks like several of those women should have used male sensitivity readers!

One interesting difference that struck me between the two articles was that the first one pointed to specific texts, while the second was all "women do this..." in general. I don't doubt that all those examples of bad writing exist, but statements like "He's always the rescuer, and never vulnerable." and "It feels like the male lead in just about every romance novel is always some 6'2" muscular dude with a deep voice and abs. Oh, and he's rich." are from people who haven't read very widely in the genre they criticize.

There's also a lot of generalisations about what men are like, for instance:

I can usually tell right away if a woman wrote a male character when his inner monologue and thoughts are too analytical. I feel like many women (not all, of course) think about a particular situation from many different angles; meanwhile, men will be 'quick' and concise about it.

I sincerely doubt that's true for all men?

Originally Posted by Gormagon

That doesn't follow the definition of a sensitivity reader I linked. What you seems to mean is checking the facts. Feelings (like feeling offended) aren't facts, they are just subjective feelings.

I didn't read that definition, I was going by what I've read from sensitivity readers and authors.

And feelings can most definitively be facts. Like "many readers who belong to group X will find your depiction of group X ignorant or bigoted".
Or "your description of this character's feelings is very atypical for this kind of person in this situation, because..."
An author who gets this kind of feedback may, of course, decide that they'll keep their text as is, if that's what their artistic vision requires, but at least they won't be surprised by potential criticism.

Here are some direct links for you from the first article, Gormagon, which hopefully bypass the website weirdness:
Hilarious misunderstanding about women peeing: https://static.boredpanda.com/blog/w...lug11__700.jpg
Hilarious belief about women carrying credit cards in their vaginas! (Ouch!) https://static.boredpanda.com/blog/w...7096d__700.jpg
Ugh. This one defies description. https://static.boredpanda.com/blog/w...13e66__700.jpg

[Sirtel]

This constant obsession with women's breasts by some male authors... in mainstream fiction, not erotica. It seems some male authors are unable to describe a female human (no matter her age) without mentioning her breasts.

(And yes, it's not always out of place, a couple of examples in Men Writing Women actually didn't really belong there, because they expressed a character's viewpoint, not the author's - like a 17-year-old male character first noticing a woman's breasts, not her face. I'm pretty sure that's true for a large part of adolescent male population. But often enough it WAS the author's viewpoint, unfortunately.)

[ekbell]

Originally Posted by salamanderjuice

People wrote and created stories for thousands of years before copyright, if it vanished overnight they'd continue to write and create stories. Already there are thousands and thousands of free novels and stories all over the web.

What might well disappear would be (well-)researched non-fiction written for the general market. The sort of book that takes enough time that the author needs an advance from a publisher (or a patron) to finish the research let alone the writing.

[ArizonaGuy]

I buy most of my ebooks. Mostly from Kindle, but also from Kobo and, occasionally, from Google. I also download stuff from Project Gutenberg and StandardEbooks. I end up buying a lot of Kindle eBooks that are on sale and a lot of self-published authors whose books are available through Kindle.

I want to make sure that these independent authors get paid fully to encourage them and that is why I mostly buy. I do occasionally take advantage of the free Kindle Unlimited, but that is not available all that many times.

[cfrizz]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

Men Are Calling Out The Things Female Authors Get So Wrong When Writing Male Characters In Their Books, And Some Of These Are Surprising

https://www.buzzfeed.com/pernellquil...ting-men-badly

It's fantasy meant to appeal to the romance in some women I suppose. As a romance reader, sometimes I find it romantic and sometimes I find it hysterical.

To be fair some female writers stereo type women as well, which is just as funny.

Did any of these reviewers take a look at some gay writers' books who write romance and critique them as well?

[Sirtel]

Originally Posted by cfrizz

Did any of these reviewers take a look at some gay writers' books who write romance and critique them as well?

Most writers who write gay romance are women.