Becoming A More Mindful Book Consumer
In so many ways genre readers are incredibly fortunate right now. We have literally hundreds of new books a month to choose from in both digital and print; self-publishing is evolving to the point where solidly produced books are entering the market at very competitive prices; subscription services like Scribd, Oyster, and Kindle Unlimited are like private library subscriptions; and there is a tremendous amount of legally free content, through public domain digitization and author promotion, among other sources. Content is affordable and ubiquitous.
Simultaneously, purchasing content (or purchasing a license to view content) is becoming easier and more automatic. In his essay The Evolution of Money: Every Device Will Become A Vehicle for Commerce, Dan Rowinski points out that while cash still is the medium of choice for global economic transactions, we are in the middle of a fundamental shift from money as a thing, a physical object, to money as data, transferred in entirely digital environments. And smartphones are facilitating this process, along with platforms like Apple Pay and the Amazon Dash Button:
Eventually, payments may become invisible. Instead of handing over cash or a card to a person or machine, our mere presence will be able to conduct a transaction for whatever good or service we desire. The progression from hard currency to fiat currency to the digitization of money and payment cards mixed with the power of smartphones and the Internet of Things is what makes this not just feasible, but probable within our lifetimes.
It’s is the ultimate endpoint for the notion of currency.
And, of course, the easier it becomes to buy things, and the less physically connected we become to money as a physically limited resource, the easier it is to buy, buy, buy. Which is exactly what commercial agents want us to do, from publishers, to authors, to bookstores, and any number of retail outlets. In fact, we routinely hear the message that buying is good, especially when we’re buying books. We’re supporting the continuing production of creative content; we’re ensuring that authors can feed their kids and pay their bills; we’re keeping bookstores in business and helping our favorite authors to keep writing.
And yet.
The more we’re encouraged to buy automatically, to push a button every time we run out of laundry detergent or toilet paper, the less attention we may actually be paying to what we buy. And attention, like digital money, is a limited and invisible — but valuable — resource that we’re constantly being invited to spend indiscriminately:
Attention is a resource; a person has only so much of it. And yet we’ve auctioned off more and more of our public space to private commercial interests, with their constant demands on us to look at the products on display or simply absorb some bit of corporate messaging. Lately, our self-appointed disrupters have opened up a new frontier of capitalism, complete with its own frontier ethic: to boldly dig up and monetize every bit of private head space by appropriating our collective attention. In the process, we’ve sacrificed silence — the condition of not being addressed. And just as clean air makes it possible to breathe, silence makes it possible to think.
Matthew Crawford goes on to point out that in our current consumer environment (he mentions the ads in the bottom of the airport x-ray trays as an example), “[s]ilence is now offered as a luxury good. . . . Because we have allowed our attention to be monetized, if you want yours back you’re going to have to pay for it.” In other words, we’re not treating attention as a public good that needs to be protected like any other shared resource. And that means we’re more likely to over-spend it, and to do so in ways that are not always aligned with our best interests.
Like money, attention is a resource we have to spend to use, and we are invited to spend it in myriad, competing ways every day. I have talked a lot about being an aspirational book buyer at this point in my life. Which means I am buying a lot of books that I aspire to someday read, once I have adequate attention to spend on them. In other words, right now I probably have more money than attention to spend on books. My mistake has been to assume that price is most important measure of affordability for me.
So I’ve decided it’s time to spend some of my limited attention on a more reflective, mindful approach to buying and reading. Because at this point I’m basically using my Kindle shelves as a wish list. And I’m purchasing in digital, which can cut two ways: the technology may change by the time I am ready to read those books (I think of the Adobe digital books I’ve lost over the years to software upgrades), or the theoretical perpetuity of digital means that I can buy the book at any time in the future. In some ways the ubiquity of books has been great, because I have discovered new authors re-discovered DNF’d titles by having a ridiculously large digital TBR. But now I’ve got too many books, many of which I cannot even remember buying, let alone why, and scrolling through my Kindle library feels overwhelming rather than inviting.
I’ve already made a little bit of progress by not buying anything during the Audible half-off sale. And I’m still reading the Daily Deals posts, because I still love a bargain, but I’m starting to put books on my wish list, instead of buying every inexpensive or sale book simply because they’re cheap. I’m getting a new library card and am going to figure out how to use Overdrive, and I’m going to try out at least one of the subscription services to see if the model suits my reading habits. If I give myself too many rules, I’ll feel deprived and jump off the wagon, but I think even small changes have the potential to make a big difference. After all, I have ultimate control over when I buy and read, no matter how much marketing is out there. It’s not the marketing as much as my own lack of attention that’s the problem here. And even though attention is a scarcer resource for me right now, that doesn’t mean I can’t and shouldn’t be spending it smarter.
I realize that this plan may seem to conflict with the goals of the book buying culture that is so prevalent right now. But if I’m not actually reading most of the books I’m buying, I don’t think I’m engaging with books in a way that communicates much value, anyway. And more than anything, I want to be more focused on books, and more constructively and meaningfully engaged with reading and talking about books. And to do that, I need to be more mindful about how I’m buying, borrowing, and reading them.
With the return of Agency Pricing and the myriad options available to legally acquire book content, do you feel you’re getting everything you want out of buying and reading books right now? If there’s one habit you’d like to change, what would it be, and what would it take for you to make that change?
One thing that has frustrated me is that I will buy a book, and then before I can read it, it will become a daily deal or I will see listed on Gorilla. Even books before they are released are sometimes found discounted as a promotion. Now, unless it is one of my top authors, I download the sample on release day. If the sample is in my library, I won’t forget about it. I can read the sample and if I am still interested, then I can buy the file. Or if the book is discounted before I read the sample, I can decide to buy it.
I use my Amazon wishlist as a personal book store. Every book that looks interesting gets added. Then, when I have the money and energy for a book I shop the list. A lot of books get dumped after the high of that glowing review wears off. It also makes it easy to monitor for sales.
The advent of digital books has been a quantum shift in how often I buy books–I’m another aspirational book buyer. “Oh hey this looks good, I’ll go buy that.” This is REALLY easy when you’re buying digital and when you are fortunate enough to have decent disposable income.
But. I noticed some time ago that I buy books way faster than I read them. I started tracking how many books I buy in a year vs. how many I actually read, and the for the past several years for me, the former number has been larger than the latter.
That seems skewed to me. I mean, I like buying books and supporting good authors! But it seems like if I’m going to _buy_ a book, I should make some effort to eventually actually _read_ it.
So I’ve been taking some small steps to try to better balance these numbers. If I don’t know the author but want to take a chance on a book, I try to get it via one of my two local library systems. If they don’t have it, I’ll snarf a sample via Kobo or B&N.
You know, I hadn’t thought of book buying specifically when I wrote that article. But it makes perfect sense. Think of it this way: you can buy a book … from the book you are already reading.
On attention inventory: I have personally thought a lot on this over the past years and have attempted to become much more efficient with where I spend my time, especially while reading. I feel guilty when i re-read books (The entire Wheel Of Time, for instance) because that is time spent reading something old when I could be forging ahead to something new and unknown. But then I rationalize with myself, noting that hey, I enjoy what I enjoy and there is no use stressing about what I do and do not have time and attention for.
I tend to snap up free or cheap books that interest me, because I have a limited budget and if I wait until I’m ready to read a book, I may not be able to afford it.
I do check the library system first, but I have a lot of items saved to various lists there and its not set up well for browsing. Also I can’t read a book NOW from the library, unless it happens to be in their digital collection and in.
Of course, set me loose at a library book sale and I pretty much do the same thing with paper books. (Minus the checking the library part.)
I am trying to read more books I already own, but even though I have them fairly well organized, its really easy to forget about ebooks, since they don’t sit around on shelves or in piles waiting to catch your eye.
Silence is hard to find, and yes, if I want it, I do have to pay for it. I turn off the internet (but I have to do a tidge of research on my phone) but it costs in time. That said, I don’t need to buy it from the outside world. I have to buy it from my kids.
I go to the library (pack up my office, drive to library, set up office, work, pack up my office, drive home, set up my office). I may or may not have to deal with noisy patrons and/or librarians who like to shout across the library at coworkers and patrons (yes, really), depending on which library i go to.
OR
I can stay at home and stay up all night, which costs in sleep and time I DO want to spend with my kids.
As for invisible money, I can’t think of a faster way to get in the hole. I’m about to start using cash and prepaid visa cards.
Interesting post. I have a 12 year old kid who I’ve been trying to teach the “value” of a dollar to. Early on in the process, I realized that part of her lack of understanding is that she rarely sees me pay for anything with cash. I hand over a card or type in some numbers and magically what we want is “purchased” and ours. She doesn’t see the consequence of the debit to my bank account etc. As I started thinking about all of that, I realized that I was dissatisfied with my own rate of savings and honoring the “value” of a dollar, so I decided to get all hardcore about tracking my spending for a few months. It was staggering and so illustrative that my daughter wasn’t the only one not paying attention. The amount of money I spent on ebooks was insanity. And then the heartache of knowing that I didn’t/haven’t read most of them. It’s too easy to do buy with 1click and then not see how individual transactions reduce the balance of my bank account. Having estatements and paying electronically really disconnects you from the fiscal impact of your individual purchases.
From that point, I put myself on a $20/mo “media” diet. $20 for songs, books, movies etc. I try to spend a little at places like bookbub to discover new authors. When I love something I got cheap or free, I deliberately find something else by the author if I can that I want to read and pay the full price. $20/mo is still luxury level, but given that I read 4-6 books a month and that’s largely what I do for entertainment in the winter, it’s a good figure for me. This whole experiment has also made me sit back and analyze how much pleasure I’m deriving from the freebies versus things I’ve shelled out for. That’s my next experiment. Seeing if there’s much of a “you get what you pay for” effect with ebooks.
I’m sure I’ve said this to you before, but the more books I have demanding my attention, the harder I find it to pick one and sit down to read. I have deliberately NOT signed up for a subscription service (yet), because the last thing I need is thousands more books to browse. I’m trying to cut back on library browsing for now and just request things I know I want to read. Because what I need to browse and read from is my ridiculously large TBR, full of great books I haven’t gotten to. I want to be a reader, but a lot of the time lately I seem to just be a buyer. This abundance doesn’t make me happy. It makes me anxious. READING makes me happy.
(Also, agree with Mullgirl that it’s harder to teach kids about money when so much of it is invisible and so much buying is immediate.)
@Mullgirl: That invisible spending can really creep up on you. I remember reading about a study that found that when states went to automatic toll paying systems (like iPass in Illinois), rates almost always went up afterwards, and with almost no public outcry, because the public was less aware of how much they were paying to drive the tollways. It made me realize that I have NO idea what the current toll rate is in Chicago, and I used to know that – I used to have the rates memorized for all of the tollways I regularly drive. And now I just breeze by and let them deduct money automatically and I just don’t think about. And the same with the automatic bus fare cards we have in Chicago – it’s much more convenient to load up money on my card than it was to buy tokens, but now, I’m less aware of how much I’m spending for each ride.
This is why I started blogging actually. I was plowing through books and buying books, and I wasn’t doing a bit of thinking about it. Blogging lets me/makes me think and plan, and any time I spend blogging is time I am not reading or searching for more books. It has enabled me to slow down. And, like other posters, I have started using my Amazon Wishlist instead of my purchased books, as my TBR with the addition of linking it to ereaderIQ, so when something I want to read pops up as free or under $1, I can buy it when i can afford it. And, my intention is to mark that book as downloaded on my Goodreads shelves and unmark downloaded once I have read it. This way way I am looking for something to read next, I have a much smaller TBR of things I don’t have to currently spend money on to sort through. Marking the book as downloaded is the place where I am falling a bit behind, as a couple of times I have caught myself trying to purchase something I’d already purchased.
As for overdrive, really it is pretty awesome. I wish Texas had a state wide consortium like Tennessee and I think Wisconsin do.
That’s part of the reason why I resist Apple pay and not plan on doing it any time soon – as you said, just too easy. As to books spending, I definitely got much better with one clicking, or to be more precise with not one clicking. I still do, but I am getting better with checking whether the book is on Scribd first, just yesterday I was looking at NY times bestseller list and wanted to check out Ann Ross’ Miss Julia books and I almost clicked on the first one, but then looked at Scribd and YAY, it was right there. And here it is Scribd monthly fee payed off right there – book was 9.99 on Amazon.
Re: deals, well it depends, I was never clicking at every deal that DA does, only those I found interesting, but even those now I try to think first – sometimes it works sometimes it does not, the thinking part I mean :-).
Same with m/m books, I buy much less than I was used too, thanks goodness. I will still click on the authors I love, but if I want to try new author, Scribd first :). Of course sometimes new book looks very attractive and I have no patience, but as I said in the Scribd thread mm publishers are getting better at not waiting for too long before putting the book on Scribd.
And so … I saw a 99¢ book on Amazon that looked awesome and hit one-click before thinking. *headdesk*
My second official day at university, we got a guided tour of the library. I was in heaven.
Took me two years to start reading books, and I managed that because I randomly walked until I found a shelf with two authors I liked and then proceeded to ignore the rest of the place.
It was a crime, but that meant I actually got to enjoy reading.
Which is probably why I avoid digital subscription services. I’m overwhelmed by my Kobo Library, and that one is a hundred free e-books. (Thank you, DA’s Daily Deals!) .
If I could change one habit, it would be the need to read the best book possible for each moment. I can’t keep spending the time I could read wondering if I’d like this one better than that one.
This post really resonates with me. For five years before I retired I stockpiled ebooks, thinking that even if I didn’t read them then, I’d read them after retirement. Then I retired, and found I really had not much more time to read than previously. So I have a really big TBR pile…many of them bought during the Fictionwise Monday sales, to tell you how old they are. (I still have a vaguely good feeling about Mondays because of those sales!) My tastes have changed, though, so many of them I really don’t want to read now. And I keep buying new books on sale because…just because.
So I recently subscribed to Scribd, and decided to buy no new books. I made a list of the TBR books I still really want to read. Now I’m reading those, and when I get the urge to get new books, I spend some happy time searching Scribd and adding books to my library. I then alternate between TBR and Scribd. I also have been putting new releases that I want in my Amazon wish list so that I remember them later when they make it to Scribd or a really good sale. It makes me feel much better to have control over this book-buying habit, and I’m enjoying the books I do read much more now that I’ve admitted to myself I won’t read them all.
So much yes in this post!
I have some feelings of guilt and being overwhelmed by my ebook stash. And, yes, I have books in there that I don’t remember buying and now have no interest in ever reading. But, I’m just glad that they’re ebooks rather than paper books so I’m not going to beat myself up over them. Ebooks don’t overwhelm my physical space and attention the way paper does. So, while I’ve finally gone on a brutal purge of my paper library, I’m trying to not let my ebook library trouble me (for now).
That said, I have been increasingly better at resisting the urge to mindlessly clickclick. As @sandyl said, I also found myself buying high-priced books that I had to immediately own, but then letting them languish without actually getting around to them and, insult to injury, seeing them on sale for a fraction of what I paid for them. It’s probably irrational of me, but feeling that I got scalped on a book price also affects my feelings of enjoyment about a book. I kind of resent the book and am more reluctant still to actually pick it up and read it. And, if I do pick it up, my expectations have changed. That had better be one hell of a book to make up for my paying $12.99 (or whatever) for it when everyone else only paid $2.99 on sale. (Yes, I do know I need therapy.) So, while I’ll still buy the occasional high-priced book, it won’t be an impulse buy. If it’s not an author/series I’m already deeply invested in, it goes on one of my wish lists. I intentionally go through my lists only a few times a year to do a cleanout. Some books that I’m still interested in I’ll buy right then, especially if there’s been a price drop to entice me. The “whatever was I thinking?” books get deleted. And most will just stay on the list with no sense of urgency until they eventually fit into one of the other two categories.
I totally need to be more mindful. One clicking has made my TBR pile overwhelming and made a mockery of my media budget. I have bought books I don’t care about and the sheer number of “good deals” has in someways interfered with my excitement about auto buy authors I really do love. When I started researching book hoarding for kindle owners I realized things had to stop. E buying made things so impersonal.
I am now starting to wish list more. I am also trying to stick to my resolution of using overdrive books from the library if possible. This helps me to keep to a budget but also frees funds for pricier books I was holding off on buying. I am trying to just let go of my TBR pile. I want to get back to the joy of reading and away from guilt reading. More book reading and less book buying…
As an author and editor working for a publishing house but even more so as a reader, discussions like this fascinate me. Last year, my husband of 23 years and I separated and for pretty much the first time in 23 years, I am solely responsible for my spending and man, has it been eye-opening. It’s one thing to spend when you have a “backup” and quite another when you spend and overspending may mean a bill, like the mortgage, is late. Puts a whole new perspective on impulse buying which is EXACTLY what one-click is and Amazon knows that. I suspect that was a huge factor in deciding to offer this. Can’t fault them–we are a race of impulse by and large. :)
For me, as much as I want to support other authors, and I do, I have to rein in the impulse buying so lately I’ve been doing what others have suggested–using wish list or cart to hold potentials until I decide I really want it or don’t. Sadly, because my reading wishes change and too many become don’t buys. I even reduce how many free I get as I realized that I don’t read them. Someone noted that their kindle library was starting to be intimidating. That’s how I feel and that’s just crazy.
Two weeks ago, for the first time ever, I returned a digital book. Usually, even if it’s not quite what I wanted or even if I didn’t really care for, I keep. But as the sole provider, I can no longer do that. And because I don’t think that’s fair to either give the free click, the purchase click to “try”, the impulse to buy books I may now to have return due to finances is fading. It has to. I can’t afford otherwise–financially or peace of mind. :)
@Maite “If I could change one habit, it would be the need to read the best book possible for each moment. I can’t keep spending the time I could read wondering if I’d like this one better than that one. ” I totally feel the same way. Sometimes I start mentally creating my “to read next list” and it takes me away from enjoying what I’m currently reading.
@Liz Mc2 – spot on.
I’ve fallen into this same rut too of buying books when I have no time to read them all. On the Kindle paperwhite too, they have that screen at the end that now suggests other titles as soon as you’ve finished the book. It’s so tempting to start shopping, instead of continuing to read actual books that you already own (whether digital or paper).
My resolution, which is going “OK” right now, is not to buy any more books on sale. If I’m going to buy a book this year, it has to be something amazing that I’ve been waiting for (like the continuation of a series, for example).
One of the big challenges is that I belong to two book clubs, so each time I go buy the book for that club, I get tempted by other items and fall even farther behind on Mount TBR.
I’ve noticed though, that now each time I manage to resist buying the book on sale that just looks SO GOOD I SHOULD GET IT RIGHTTHISSECOND, that I feel better a few minutes after…it’s almost like the same high of one-clicking, or like the great feeling you get when you don’t succumb to the ginormous piece of chocolate cake because you know you’ll feel better if you don’t on that particular day. (Note on the chocolate cake: then there are those days when you absolutely know you deserve that piece of cake, haha).
I use my Amazon wish list to keep track of books I want to borrow from Overdrive. When Tangled recently went on sale, I almost bought it, but then I went to go check my Holds on Overdrive and, sure enough, it’s right there. It’s hard when the books are so cheap and on sale, but I’m really trying to stick to Overdrive. I really needed to cut back my spending and Overdrive seemed the answer for me. There is one challenge: I tend to have to put books on hold because so many others want them. Because karma loves me so much, multiple books come available at the same time.
This is something I’ve been thinking about a lot lately. Like Susan, I’m trimming my paper collection down to the bare minimum–down to a dozen or so, mostly signed or mildly valuable editions, from two full bookcases several years ago.
I’ve been over the moon with how many digital titles my library carries. In addition to my city’s local library (which already has a great selection), I have access to the enormous library of the largest city in my region. It’s fairly clear I’ll never run out of “impulse reads” in those two catalogues, which leaves me buying only the handful of books–mostly m/m–that I MUST read, but which the libraries aren’t going to buy anytime soon, if ever. And my Overdrive wishlist gives me none of the guilt that my Kobo’s TBR list does; if something no longer appeals, I can delete it, no problem.