Authors Electric

I've always been a massive Bookworm, gobbling up print at a reckless pace, impatient to start the next book before I finish the last.  I buy books like some women buy clothes - addictively!  There are books all over the house, in piles on the stairs, on my bedside table, in the loo, on the landing, spilling over the bookshelves in the sitting room, occupying every single horizontal space in my office.  The trouble is, I'm not reading any of them. For the first time in my life I'm finding it a struggle to pick up a book, let alone open it. As an author, of course, this is disastrous.  If I can't read other people's, what chance of them reading mine? But there's nothing I can do about it - my brain is just absolutely chock full of WORDS and refusing to admit any more.  I have become 'text averse'.  Fortunately, trawling the internet, it seems to be an affliction that is more common than I'd thought. I came upon this: It's even the subje...

I wonder how much of a part habit plays when we’re reviewing books. I ask (myself) this question because I’ve been trying to work out why I find it more difficult to review ebooks than printed ones. Let’s take reviewing itself for a start. There are the short but nonetheless considered reviews destined for Amazon, then the others for journals or websites where you have a commitment to provide copy at regular intervals. The Amazon ones are fine. They don’t need you to make copious notes; it’s enough to read (and, one hopes, enjoy) the book then write a hundred or so words about the general impression left by it, any particularly striking details, characters, etc. and the overall comfort of the reading experience. Then there’s the longer, more demanding piece for a review site. I have to admit that, sometimes, the compulsion of having to write the review leads to me reading a book in a different way. I’m going through it as a reviewer rather than as a reader, looking at the m...