Kindle update

A week after receiving my Kindle (okay only five days in but still close enough), I have had a chance to read some books, Jim and Joyce Lavene's two latest in both series I enjoy - Deadly Daggers (a Ren Faire mystery) and Touch of Gold (a Missing Pieces mystery), two short stories (Tea Time at the Baltimore and Emails: A Maeve and Kate mini mystery by Maureen Mullis). I started reading Deadly Daggers Monday after receiving the Kindle and getting everything situated, charged and what not. I completed it Wednesday night. If this had been a regular book, I would have probably just finished it last night or tonight. I started reading A Touch of Gold Thursday sometime between working, picking up the girl, et cetera and finished it last night. Of course, I worked a short bit yesterday and read most of the afternoon since I had to run here, there and everywhere so figured I would just read.

I read both the short stories the same day - while the girl was at the doctor's office - I'm thinking Tuesday - sat in the parking lot and read. The first one - Emails was about 30 or so page flips (so in book format that would have only been about 10 or 15 pages really) and the second one was only 5 page flips (not counting all the introduction stuff) - so this was a very short story - my guess less than 500 words or no more than 750.

I still like holding books and reading them but there are some great advantages reading on the kindle. 1) it is lightweight; 2) feels like a book and reads like a book; the screen looks like a page in a book - it's that clear as far as the sharpness of the letters go; 3) reading is quicker or at least I feel I'm going through books quicker (proof being that I've read two full length novels in less than a week's time already); 4) Kindle isn't cumbersome like books are, especially when reading in bed at night - I don't have a headboard and sleep on my side and usually lie on my side to read and holding a book like that is kind of cumbersome and if it's thicker than a normal paperback, I tend to drop it while reading (Kindle I don't worry about that since I've found a comfortable position to read while lying in bed, not on my back).

The disadvantages to the Kindle are not many but there are some: 1) when lying in bed reading holding the kindle, have to position my hands so as not to hit the page forward buttons which are on both sides of Kindle so you can actually flip pages with either hand; 2) battery life is not as amazon states. After a week and not using it every day or even for hours on end every day, I'm down to just below half a supply batterywise, and this has been with minimum use of my wi-fi feature which is supposed to be the biggest battery drainer.

I have uploaded the PDF files of three of my books so am still wondering if uploading them as ebooks would be the same since the PDF file is pretty set in the format, I wonder if the pages would look right as an ebook. I also have to wonder if my readers would actually find having my books available in ebook format would be a good thing. I'm considering putting the books in ebook format using smashwords.com but am only considering it. Until I have enough feedback, I can't really say that they will do well as ebooks or not. It may be the future of the books but there are some things that are still best as printed books.