Seven Things: Much ado about nothing

01 - I find now I have no good ideas of what to post. When I did the a-z challenge this April, I was full of ideas but now that I'm back to regular blogging, I've got nothing. My purpose for blogging has not changed all these years: To share stuff - artworks, writings, books I read, movies/shows I've seen, anything that I experienced or thought about or any nonsense I thought to share. Now it seems all I post are books or book-related things, some fiction and maybe some art. I guess I'm more of a slacker blogger now as I post very little. 

02 - If anyone knows of any memes, challenges, blog hops, let me know. I'm always looking for new ones. I like memes/challenges because they allow me to post something without me having to think too much on ideas. It might be lazy blogging but blogging is blogging.
    Lisa at Bookshelf Fantasies had a long llist of memes/challenges over here which consisted of book-related memes. The memes/challenges I know of are (not listed on Lisa's blog):
- Words for Wednesday - this month's the prompts are hosted at River's blog.
- Thursday 13 -
- Friday Writings - 

03 - I don't know why but I keep procrastinating on my writings (and artworks). I have about maybe twenty or thirty stories/novels I had been working on but do I finish them? No. I am unable to. Sometimes I can eagerly work on them and then suddenly, I lost whatever motivation there was. Most times now I seem to be in a state of pauses. I have no idea what I'm waiting for. Perhaps for someone to club me on the head and demand I must finish them.

04 - I had my kobo ereader for over two years now and so far, it's working well but like everything else, it has its down side. One of the features that keeps driving me crazy is the font/text size setting. For example, book 1 can have normal text size (at least in terms of the size I preferred on my ereader) but if I open book 2, the text size can be huge and if I open book 3, the text size can be back to normal size and then book 4, it can be huge again. There is no individual text size preference for each book as the size is whatever you had set for the previous book which means it's like a surprise whenever I open a new book and there's like a 45% change of having to change the text size again. I guess this is one really great reason to read paper books instead.

05 - I had been using Firefox for many years and had been a decent browser but now it's just a messed-up browser where lots of odd things happens (such as zooming into a webpage for no reason) and all the updates just add new things I hate (such as grouping tabs and then coloring that group?). And every time I update, there again is another new feature I don't use. And after every update, there is another update. Why couldn't it update to the latest version when it updates? Why do have to keep updating every damn week?

06 - Closed my The memory of rain blog - that just means I make invisible all the footer elements and reverted all the post except for the one with the notice about the move. I thought of making it private but decide if people land on this page, they can go to my current blog. This is my way of moving on from that blog. 

07 - I updated/changed a couple of things on my blog. I have changed my blog header again. A bad habit that I couldn't stop doing. I think changing your blog's header once in a while sort of freshen up the blog without doing too much. I didn't change it too much. Usually, I had my headers in cool hues for the summer and warmer hues for the winter but now I don't bother with that. I just have light but bright hues.
    I have updated all the pages (links below my header.) I removed the a-z posts links into my introduction page (hello page) which I also updated. And I have updated the writing page which is where I listed with links all the fictions/short stories I posted on this blog. I don't think anyone uses that page but I like to update and organized it.
    I have reluctantly removed Elephant's Child link off the bookmarks list (aka my blogroll). I've removed links all that time when someone hadn't updated in years but for someone who had passed away, it seemed odd, different. Why it should be odd to remove it? I don't know. The world always seems different somehow when someone passes away. Certainly, the blogosphere is different now.

What's on your mind these days?

Some things that don't belong in the beginning of ebooks

I'm a linear reader, I go from cover, publishing info/copyrights/credits, the content list, dedication, to the first chapter, right toward the back cover which often do not exist. I don't skip any page even if I don't read them thoroughly because you don't really read a book if you don't at least look at all the pages. I read mostly ebooks (borrowed from my local library) and like paper books, they have mostly the same things in the beginning but on an ereader, it's slightly different. Here are things I think shouldn't be in the beginning of ebooks and one that just needs a little styling (#3). (Note: Not all ebooks have these things but many of them do.)

01 - Praises or reviews of the book — I'm already reading it so why do I have to read reviews and praises before I start the book? Only the book can convince me to read it.

02 - Author's bio & back list — Back in the days, the author bio and their back list is at the end of the book and I have always preferred that. After I finished a book, it's like a treat to read the author's bio and sometimes back list when you want to read more of the author's other books. I never read an author's bio if I didn't finish the book. 

03 - Long chapter titles for content list page — Long chapters titles are a problem with ebooks because you tap or press the screen to turn the page and if you hit one of these chapter list (which are links), you go directly to that chapter. Long chapter titles meant no space around the screen to tap/press an empty area to go to the next page (see example A below). So maybe I can just go click on, for example, Chapter 1 and start reading but I like to see all the content list. 
    I'm not against long chapter titles, I actually like them but maybe they need to be smaller than the chapter number (see example B) or put them inside the book and simply just used Chapter 1, Chapter 2, etc (example C). Also flush left text is better than center text but that's a preference.

04 - A preview (usually a future scene) — This just confuses me as sometimes I thought was I starting the book but it was a preview which is also in the book. I think any future scenes shouldn't start the book even if it might peak a reader's interest because it gives readers expectations that takes (sometimes) a long time to meet. If you know you have to read 300 pages of boring stuff to get to that preview, would you even start the book?

05 - An introduction — older books (such as classics) often had introductions which I'm willing to read but sometimes they give spoilers and assumes the readers already read the book - isn't that a good reason to put it at the end of the book? 
    And then there are these introductions by famous authors or famous people which are like love letters to the book or author and they give no new or interesting insights so what's the point? Why should I care about some famous person's opinion about another famous person or their book?

06 - Web link that took up almost an entire page — Once there was a book (two actually) with a page (I think it was about signing up for news or something from the publisher of the book) that kept asking to go to a website when I pressed/tapped to go to the next page and I kept pressing down on the screen at every possible place and it kept asking to go to the website. I experienced this before I learned to navigate my ereader so I must have restarted my ereader at least three or four times just to get out of that page. And I didn't read either book because I was too mad.  
    Only later, did I learn to pressed the very, very bottom corner edge of the screen to get out of such pages. Why would you make an entire page a web link? I have no reason to go to any web link on my ereader, not even to sign up for a free book - it's just something I don't do.
    Edit: The whole cover as a hyperlink — There is one ebook I recently opened and it showed the cover (sometimes an ebook have no cover when you open it) and when I tap to go to the next page, it asked me to go to a web link. No matter which area I tapped, it asked to go to a web link so I looked this up and found the only way out of that cover is to swipe it to go to the next page. Why the hell would you make a whole cover a web link? Why would I go to a website when I hadn't even read the book? 

07- Acknowledgements — Acknowledgements is not the dedication but it's like the dedication but extended. So yes, readers might skip this even if it's at the end of the book but readers still can skip this even at the beginning so it might as well be at the end. I think acknowledgements at the end makes more sense because then I cared enough to read those names unlike the beginning of the book where I really had no such care.

What things do you not want in the beginning of books?

A few complaints about ebooks, reading, ereaders

01 - Recently, I heard amazon is discontinuing their kindle devices released in 2012 or earlier on May 20 which means those older devices cannot be used to purchase new ebooks or borrow ebooks from your public library but can only read the books already on the device and if you do a factory reset, the device will become unusable, basically a paperweight. What was the point of all this except to force people to upgrade? 
    I find this unfair because most people cannot afford a new ereader. I admit, some devices are too old to use but aren't we creating more waste by not using what is still working? If amazon wants people to upgrade then they should allow people to trade their old devices for new ones and not just give them 10 dollars gift card for them.

02 - The problem with Overdrive (which I use to borrow public library ebooks) is that, it does not tell you whether a book can be read on certain ereaders unless you borrow books directly from the ereader. (I use a kobo ereader.) Basically when I search for a book at my library's Overdrive website, I had to take a chance whether it can be read on my kobo. Most of the time, if there is a kindle format, it can be read on a kobo which is like 80 to 90% of the time. The only certainty is whether it can be read on a kindle because that's one of the formats that is offered in most library books - why is that anyway? Amazon doesn't even own Overdrive.
    The ebook formats usually offered from a library (my public library anyway, I'm in the U.S.) are: Kindle, OverDrive Read (read in a browser), EPUB, Open EPUB, PDF, MediaDo (design for graphic novels but read in a browser) and audio books which I don't use. (Read all about the different formats here).
    Supposedly if the ISBN number of an ebook at the kobo store matches the ebook your library had purchased, you can read it on a kobo otherwise you have to sideload the epub version (by using Adobe Digital Edition with authorization of your ereader) or the open epub version (which didn't need authorization). 
    I got the kobo so I don't have to sideload books or use Adobe Digital Edition because Overdrive is built right on the device and yet I cannot read a book that is an OverDrive format. So maybe sideloading books isn't too hard but it really defeats the purpose of having Overdrive on your device. (Note: OverDrive is the correct term with the capital D but I find it confusing that there is an OverDrive format so I used Overdrive when not referring to the format.)

03 - Last month, when I closed a borrowed library ebook and sync my ereader (a kobo), that book became a preview which is basically a sample which means I cannot continue reading the book. I tried many methods to get the ebook back but nothing works. The only reason a borrowed library becomes a preview if it expired which it didn't. The other reason is if the book's license (which the library had purchased) expired which wouldn't make sense because if it had expired, I wouldn't be able to borrow the book at all. I had return it and borrowed it again but it won't load onto my kobo so I was forced to finish the book on my kindle ereader which I loathed. I know it's a bit of a luxury to have two ereaders but I've been meaning to get rid of my kindle ereader (by selling, trade it in to amazon or giving it away) but I was too lazy. Maybe I should do a giveaway here on this blog? Is it even worth it since it will probably get discontinued in a few years by amazon?

04 - Petty reason not to read/continue a book #1 - Using the four-letter f word in a cozy mystery or a cozy book. I had this strange idea that if a book is cozy, it should not be bombarded with four-letter f word, to sort of give it a tame and friendly feeling but this seems not to be true.
    I recently tried to read a book that is a contemporary/fantasy-ish kind of cozy book but I couldn't stand that the main female character who is forty-something keeps using the four-letter f word and even use it as a verb. A character can curse when they are frustrated and angry but doing it like a natural habit is not something I like. Sometimes I think of this using the four-letter f word is a sign of immaturity that I cannot accept in older characters. Or am I weird to think that? And why was it necessary for a forty-something woman to curse? Is this a dumb reason not to read/continue a book?

05 - Petty reason not to read/continue a book #2 - Having a main character who sleeps in a tent on the beach and having casual sex with the lifeguard. I didn't read this book (which is also a first book in a series) but I read this synopsis and this is the dumbest thing I have ever heard. As a grown woman, she can do the latter but to sleep in a tent on a beach on a daily basis is baffling especially since she can afford real housing. Why isn't she worrying about the weather or the sand or the sun or someone coming up on her and attacking her or murdering her in her sleep? And also, because she's a cop, there might be criminals who she put away and maybe want to kill her or harm her. How many dumb reasons do you need to not do this? Plus she has a dog - I would think to be a responsible pet owner, you should have a real place, if not for yourself, for your dog. 

06 - Petty reason not to read/continue a book #3 - Having one of the main character's wife killed so he can be a broody mentor to some new youngster - why should this make sense? Can not a mentor have a wife, a happy family life, while still teaching his new student? Why did he need to have something tragic to provoke him to take on a student? Or rather, why did he have to be a gloomy fellow? Does having a dead wife made him a better mentor? Or perhaps the question to ask is, why do we need this? Or perhaps the real question is since this is a sequel series re-starter, why ruin the happiness of a character to continue a series? I can't accept this so this is another petty reason for not reading. 

07 - I recently encountered a male author who wrote under the pseudonym of a fake female author who had a fake bio (on goodreads). This author wrote books with main female characters which annoys me more. This is surprising but at the same time I find this disturbing. When female authors used male pseudonyms, they don't pretend to be male (as far as I can tell). I may be bias about this. I think male authors had no need or reason to pretend to be females. 
    Since fictional authors (tv characters and such) can author books, why not fake authors? But we know those fictional character authors are fake unlike this male author pretending to be this female author who is fake but not every reader would know unless they go about researching it. But still, what is the point of writing as a fake female author? 

Do you have a complaint about your reading or books in general?

Some thoughts on reading library ebooks

Here are some thoughts on reading only books borrowed from my local public library and reading them on my kobo ereader (I have the Clara BW model.)

01 - No longer purchasing ebooks - I no longer see value in purchasing ebooks since I rarely re-read books and they would only sit in my ereader or in my accounts. As far as I can understand, when you purchase an ebook, you're buying the rights to read it and that's it. You can't re-sell them because that would require transferring digital rights which frankly, I don't quite know how. But if I really love a book, I might purchase a paper version but I haven't read any books that I love lately. 

02 - Library availability - I have to consider availability from my library when I choose what books to borrow and read. I can request my library to purchase certain books but I rather not since it takes so long for them to fulfill the request and most likely, they wouldn't make the purchase for tons of reason which most likely budgets.
    Public libraries have to purchase rights to ebooks (for a period of time) to loan them out so that right can expired so availability is not a permanent thing for ebooks. I'm wondering why libraries aren't given the privilege to purchase ebooks for indefinite use. It's not like they are making profits loaning them out. But I suppose publishers/authors wants to make money too.
    Also format availability - For example, for a series, book 1 may be available in ebook and audiobook formats but book 2 may be only available in audiobook format. I don't understand this but this hadn't changed in years. I think if you're an audiobook reader, you are likely to have more books available than if you're an ebook reader.

03 - I now waste more time searching for books to read than actually reading them - I don't know why I'm so picky. I usually read a sample of the book to decide if I want to read it. But sometimes I depend on the synopsis or even just by the cover itself. I don't have a definite way to decide, I guess it depends on my mood.
    A lot of times I find books that are in the middle of a series and then when I look for the first book, it's unavailable at the library which is a shame as I do prefer to read from the beginning of a series. I don't get why some book series have no book 1 available but others in the series are available - shouldn't book 1 be the one available?

04 - The more popular a book, the longer the wait time at your library - For example, if you place a hold on a book, you might get to read it in a week or in a few months or even a whole year. Even if it sometimes says the wait time is 2 weeks, that time can extend or shorten depending on readers. I don't mind waiting except when I'm reading a series. 
    And also, the more popular books, the more copies are available which seems unfair. Most ebooks from the library have one or two copies which I guess is the norm. So why are some books have more than 10 copies available? There should be a standard number of copies for all books for equality and besides that, popular authors don't even need their books in the library as much as much as less popular authors but I guess popularity wins out.

05 - Reading on a kobo and sometimes on a kindle - Even though I use mainly my kobo, I sometimes have to use my kindle because not all books available from the library can be read on a kobo since if a book is not listed on the kobo store, you can't get it onto your ereaders unless you sideload them. (Note: Sideload books means you plug your ereader into your computer and download books (from the library's website) and load them into your ereader like you would a file but there are things you have to do before you can even do that because you cannot just load a library book onto your ereader and read it - there are permission issues which I have not been successful in solving so I cannot tell you how to do it.)
    So my option when a book is not available through kobo but is available for kindle, then I read that on my kindle ereader. 
    But if I can't get that book on either devices, then I don't read that book at all which happens a lot but I don't mind it. I guess if I'm desperate to read a certain book, I might purchase it but it's unlikely.

06 - Please don't monopolize books - Having more than one library cards (which is legal somewhat) so you can borrow more books and have more holds is just dumb and disrespecting other library patrons. Since you can borrow more books from so many libraries and have so many holds, you will probably end up borrowing a lot of books at once and probably won't get to read many of them unless you're a speed reader. I just think respecting others by not monopolizing book is the proper thing to do.

07 - No back cover for ebooks - Some ebooks just ends where the story ends, there's not even an The End - it just stops. Then there are books ending with list of books that author had written or some copyright info or even the content list (which is just odd being at the end) but no back cover like paperbacks or hardcovers. I've only seen maybe two back covers of two ebooks and not have encountered another one since.
    You know how there's these notices that tells you not to purchase books without covers (front and back) because they might be stolen goods – ebooks without back covers is like stolen goods because the back cover is not there. How hard it is to put a back cover to the end an ebook? I know this isn't much an issue because most people wouldn't care about it but I think a back cover makes a book more complete and it gives you a feeling of having  finished reading the book when you see the back cover or am I mad to think this way?

Do you read library books? How is your experience on reading books from your library (digital or otherwise)?

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ 

Some useful links:
• Find your library at Overdrive's website 
• Overdrive help 
• How to borrow kindle books from your library
• How to borrow kobo books from your library

Seven Things

01 - Why are phones so huge? Recently, the battery in my old phone (old model that is quite small) is having a slow death so I had to get a replacement and the choices are large phones. Why? Why do we need such large screens on a phone? I'm a simple person. I don't use a phone for anything but calls and texting. I also don't need a 1,000 options and apps to customize it to the point of extreme personalizing. And it's so damm heavy. I guess I can use it as a weapon when necessary.

A few rants about ereaders & ebooks

These are some recent thoughts and rants about ereaders and ebooks. I may be wrong on some things but you can correct me if I'm wrong. These are from the point of view of a kindle paperwhite reader. (The correct term should be e-reader but I don't like that plus I had been using ereader so why change?)

01 - Ereaders are expensive. I waited to buy my kindle ereader during a holiday so I can save some money but I didn't really save anything because amazon makes you pay to remove advertising from their kindles (at least the regular and paperwhite models) which is the dumbest thing in the world. A product that comes with advertising should have made me not want to buy it, right? I guess I'm one of those dumb consumers because I brought it and paid more to remove advertising because who wants advertising on their device? But at least, I didn't pay the full price.

02 - The problems with ereaders, once you choose one, you are sort of stuck within their eco-system which means you mostly use just one format of ebooks. I chose to get a kindle ereader (over nook and kobo) because I had the strange idea that the kindle format is more widely used and it was probably true when I brought it a few years ago but I guess it's changing a bit.
    Just because a device accepts this or that format, didn't mean it's easy to get them onto your device. Amazon did add support for epub books. The whole DRM (Digital Rights Management) issue does make it harder to get epub books onto a kindle. Some people remove the DRM to get books onto their kindle which legally is not legal, at least, not in the U.S. Lots of books comes DRM-free but most are not so it's sort of a headache if you don't know how to get epubs on your device. I was never able to get epub public library books onto my kindle but I can do it with regular DRM-free epub books. Books that are not kindle format aren't even labeled books, they are labeled documents.

Thoughts on using the kindle after 4 years

I had my kindle paperwhite for about 4 years so here's an update on using it.  (My previous post about about using the kindle is here.)
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

The Bad
01 - Still didn't like how they changed the home screen to two separate sections — The Home page is basically advertising because it's the kindle home store in a smaller format. You can check out recommendations but that's it. Plus I see the same cover with what's-his-face (some guy who messed up twitter) and it annoys the heck out of me. The Library is where your books are. I only visit the Home section when I don't feel like reading what I have.

My kindle experience so far

I had my kindle for a little over two and half years. I brought the Paperwhite, the second least expensive version and without the ads but I did brought it on sale so basically I paid full price because the discount barely covered the amount to remove the ads. I think it's ridiculous people have to pay to keep advertisement off a device they are already paying for. Overall, I like reading on the kindle for most of the time but as with most devices, they have their pros and cons. Here's what I like and dislike about my kindle so far. (I know I should probably capitalize kindle but I don't care.)

The Sadness of Missing Back Covers for Ebooks

(Left) What I usually see at the end of an ebook. (Right) Popup notice to rate the book. Both are for Premeditated Myrtle by Elizabeth C. Bunce.

I now mostly read ebooks and I like it enough to keep on reading them. One thing that I miss is the back covers. Sometimes when I'm at the end of an ebook, I just keep tapping forward hoping to see something but there's nothing. Not to say there aren't any ebooks with back covers, it's just that, they are rare. Of all the ebooks I had read (less than 50), I only saw one back cover.
    Usually a paperback and hardcover have a back cover that had a blurb about the book and a UPC code. The back cover is usually used as a promotion/advertisement space to entice readers to buy the book. With ebooks, readers won't see the back cover unless they had already brought the book (or borrowed from the library) so I suppose this is why the back cover is no longer used

The rare back cover of an ebook. This is for the book, The Mystery of Black Hollow Lane by Julia Nobel.

For ebooks, the last page is either credits (such as publishers' info), acknowledgements, the book content list or the occasional book excerpt of another book followed by some popup box about rating the book or something else depending on which e-reader you're using.
    For me, the back cover of a book is a sign that the book has ended. Credits or acknowledgment to a pop-up box to rate the book does not do that. I guess this is another reason why ebooks will never be like paper books.