#DFRAT Guest Author (+ a Giveaway): P. Kirby

There are certain things you can count on. The sun will rise in the east and set in the west and on any given day, some literary author will promote their latest book by slagging on ebooks.

This of course, begs the question: Why does it have to one or the other? Why is a fondness for print books supposed to accompany a disdain for ebooks? Or vice versa? Me, I’m a fan of both.

Joan Brady, author of something I’ll probably never read, sniff-sniffs that ebooks are the virtual equivalent of porn in a plain wrapper. Real books, you see, are meant to be seen and flashed about like a Rolex. They are conversation starters. (Apparently, in the absence of a physical book, Hardy and friends have nothing to discuss and stare at each other for hours in awkward silence.)

“People look at your [real] books and say ‘I see you have the new Costa winner. What do you think of it?’ You can’t do that with an e-book.

“Well, I suppose you could pick the gadget up, turn it on and file through the home page, but that’s really like poking into your host’s bathroom cupboard. Suppose you found dirty pictures there? Porn is already sold in plain wrappers, just like the e-books you read on the Tube,” she said.

Well, dah-ling, if you’re looking at my bookshelf, you are snooping since my shelves are in my office. (My workspace looks like it’s been attacked by rabid space monkeys; it’s not like I’d invite anyone back there.)

To Brady, books are status symbols:

“The reader has to like the idea of being seen with this book, to be seen buying it, carrying it out of the bookshop and opening it up on the Tube to read. The buyer has to want this book displayed on the coffee table and the shelves at home.”

Uh, really? Granted, we humans are a lot like peacocks. We love to flash our plumage– nice clothes, expensive cars, etc. As a rule, unfortunately, books have never been posh accessories. Nowadays, with the myriad completion presented by TV, movies, music, video games, the Internet, etc., it’s a small wonder that anyone reads books at all. A format that makes reading easier and more accessible should be applauded by all authors. The absence of a racy cover may well be an incentive to read erotica and some romance in ebook format. But the growing adoption of the format has more to do with function than content.

Several years ago, after another agent rejection, I impetuously sent my novel to one of the first ebook publishers, where, to my surprise, it was accepted. After a bit of soul searching, I turned down the offer. See, this was before Kindles, Nooks, and other ereaders. My thought (a correct one, I think) was, “Who’s gonna pay to read a full-length novel on a computer?” Not like I can curl up in bed with my computer. And reading more than a blog on screen hurts my eyes.

Fast forward to 2010 and I submitted it to another epublisher. This time, I accepted the contract and my urban fantasy, The Music of Chaos, was published electronically. I didn’t own an ereader yet, but the demo versions I’d seen in stores looked promising. A year later, my second novel, The Canvas Thief, a romantic urban fantasy, was published by Carina Press, also as an ebook.

I finally got a Kindle this year and the experience has been positive. Currently, I’m reading two books: Lois McMaster Bujold’s The Curse of Chalion (ebook), and George R.R. Martin’s A Dance with Dragons (print). I waited months and months for Martin’s book, stuck in a long hold queue at the public library. (Bujold’s book was a great deal–just $2.99–I just had to buy it.)

Yet, at this point I’m 70 pages into A Dance with Dragons and 260 pages into The Curse of Chalion. Why? The answer is ease of reading.

Reading Martin’s hardback tome is a two-handed exercise, one my skinny little wrists loath. Laying it flat on a table doesn’t help; it refuses to stay open to the right page. I use a heavy tile coaster to hold it open, but there’s that annoying curve where the page meets spine. Because my bookmarks disappear into the same alternate universe as the mates to my socks, I keep my place by doing the dog ear thing to the pages.

My Kindle is light. I can prop it up on my teacup and turn the page with a light tap of my finger. Curled up in bed on a cold night, I can read with just one hand out of the covers, turning the page with a thumb. Since my up-close vision is going the way of the dodo, the ability to crank up the font size is a godsend. There’s an option to bookmark pages, but why bother? The Kindle starts up on the page I was last reading.

When A Dance with Dragons comes out in paperback, I’ll buy a copy. I love the series, and as with any keeper, want it on my bookshelf. One of my cures for writer’s block is to pull a fave off the shelf, flip to a random page and just start reading. Jump starts my reluctant muse every time.

But few books are keepers and in the long run, it doesn’t matter how readers read, so long as they just…read. As more readers discover the ease of ebooks, the format will continue to command a growing share of the market, benefiting authors in all genres.

***

P. Kirby’s latest release is The Canvas Thief, available in ebook and audiobook format.

Maya saw her first demon when she was seven. She learned to hide what she saw, ignore the paranormal beings around her and build an ordinary life. But she had to tell her secrets somehow, so she began drawing, creating her own world, her own characters.

Twenty years after that first demon entered her life, her normal existence is shattered when she’s faced with two of her comic book characters come to life. Living in our world for years, each has his own agenda.

Benjamin Black, sexy thief with a cause, wants to get back to his own world. The world Maya thought she created. Only now he says she’s his reason to stay in this one.

Adam Richards, once a cop, now a ruthless crime lord, wants to be immortal and he’ll do anything, including hurting Maya’s loved ones, to get what he wants.

The problem is, the men are inextricably linked through Maya’s drawings. Ridding the world of Adam means Benjamin disappears from Maya’s life forever…

***
P. Kirby lives in a little house in the desert with her long-suffering husband, a neurotic greyhound and an Arabian horse who thinks he’s a dog. (Well, no, the horse doesn’t actually live in the house; not because he couldn’t be housetrained, but because he kept stealing the TV remote and watching Jersey Shore.) “P” stands for “Patricia” and is a holdover from the days when she wrote horror. Nowadays, she wishes she had come up with a cool pen name like Natasha Kalashnikov. Visit her at But It’s a Dry Heat where she blogs about movies, horses, and life in the New Mexico desert.

Giveaway: One lucky winner will win a copy of The Canvas Thief. Leave a comment on this post to enter.

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