Skip to main content

Weather and E-books

    Hey, everyone. It's 35 degrees and snowing, here at the green retreat. I just came back from a walk in the woods. Our creek was overflowing its banks due to the heavy rain of the last 4 days. There was some sleet falling during my walk. Due to the temperature, the snow and sleet were melting, so the roads are fine.
    We have a wet-weather spring on the back of our place. In other words, it only flows when there has been a lot of rain. I was 'tickled' (Southern for happy) to see this spring was gurgling away, an abundant flow of clean, clear water. Funny how you don't appreciate water until you have to do without it. Then, all of a sudden, you understand that it is the source of life and truly a blessing from God.
     I was just looking around on the book stores. I'm talking about the on-line stores, like I-Books and Kindle. I am somewhat frustrated, as I've said before, with the high prices of e-books. They creep upward constantly. They are now up to an unbelievable $14.99 in many cases. I will not pay that anymore for a book which has used no paper, no ink, has not been shipped. I like the work of authors like John Locke. You can buy his books for 99 cents each and they are very good. You can buy the latest thriller from folks like James Lee Burke, whom I enjoy very much, for $10 or $12 or $14. Gee, is this a tough choice? All my own books are 99 cents. They are good reads, I feel. How long will it be before the book business changes completely to an app store type of economy where the norm for entertainment is 99 cents and the exalted prices go away forever? The truly large and exceptional games get away with $6.99 prices, sure, and we don't begrudge them that. The best authors should make $4, $5, $6 or $7 a book. But the greed of the publishers is about to bite them in the butt. The typical e-book is marked up to a price almost 100% out of reason. You will see an adjustment within 6 months, in my opinion. For a top notch e-book, from a famous author, the price should be no more than $6.99. Ever. That's the first day in the store. Whatever.
    Well, my rant is over and duty calls. I hope you have a pleasant day, in whatever far-flung place you reside. Thanks for reading the blog.
    I'm CE Wills.
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

It's So Easy

     Hey, everyone, out there in etherland. I've been playing some new songs this morning on my keyboard. You may remember a Buddy Holly tune called It's So Easy . I hadn't matched the title to the song before today so I was delighted when I saw that it was the one that goes like this: "It's so easy to fall in love, it's so easy to fall in love." It rocks pretty good. A later version of it, after amps and guitars had improved, really rocked. It seems like Joan Jett may have done a version. Anyway, I was playing this song and I thought about a fun thing I like to do. Sometimes I'll start to play a song and tell Carley, or the grandkids, whoever may be there, a silly story about it.      For instance, I would say that once upon a time Buddy Holly came to me and said, "CE, I need a hit, my man. The kids need shoes. I want to go on American bandstand, you know what I'm saying?"     "Yeah, Buddy, I hear you. But the thing is, I think ...
Post a Comment
Read more

The Biscuit

    Hey, everyone. What a relief that Christmas is over, huh? I don't think it was meant to be the way it is.     I started thinking about the so-called good 'ole days today. My wife says that at her house, they would take a left-over biscuit and shine their shoes before church. I one-upped her by saying, "Oh, yeah? I ate the biscuit when everyone got finished with it. And I was grateful for it." Truly, though, you can and people did, shine their shoes with a biscuit. Hey, they were greasy little buggers.     Speaking of greasy little buggers, I remember when everyone had wells and were very conservative about water, particularly those of us who had to crank a handle up and down to get a bucket of water. There was no daily bath. (No showers in those days, mate.) About twice a week we took a bath and here's the recipe: The oldest kid took a bath first, then the next oldest etc. You can see why younger siblings hated the older. Bathing in the...
Post a Comment
Read more

Movie Review: Limitless

    Hey, everyone. I ventured off the mountain today, down into the haunts of men. I'll tell you about a movie I saw, then later I'll tell you about some other stuff. The movie is Unlimited . This is a story that you would have to call science fiction, but in the not so distant future you may call it reality.      Bradley Cooper plays Edward Morra. If you looked up loser in the dictionary you would see this guy's picture. He has freeloaded off his girlfriend for years. He claims to be a writer but can't seem to put words on paper. His woman leaves him; he is a scroungy, dirty dude with no future, no drive and no money. He is about to be evicted from his scummy apartment.     Then he bumps into an old friend. The friend wants him to try a new drug which comes in the form of a small, clear pill. What Edward doesn't know is that the pill is pretty awesome. The drug is designed to unlock the true potential of the human brain. We only use a...
4 comments
Read more