Second Wind Publishing discussion

Any library lovers out there? Or do you prefer your books to be new, with that special feel you get from opening a book that no one has ever opened before.
I never cared about new books until recently. I was a library addict.

Not long ago someone emailed me a slide show of library interiors--reading rooms from some of the oldest and grandest libraries in the world. The way these old libraries were designed, the shelves go from floor to ceiling with little catwalks and ladder-like staircases from one level to the next. Perhaps people go to these places as much for the setting as for the books.

Of course, most of us don’t frequent famous libraries. It doesn’t matter to me that my local branch is just a collection of ordinary rooms covered with a roof that sometimes leaks because what I love are the books that mosaic the walls. There’s a special smell in these book filled rooms, and a sense that every book has self-awareness and knows when it’s been plucked from the shelf. In the old days every book had a paper card inside and sometimes even the names of people who’d read the book before me were written there. A little tease of history for each book.

In a sense, when I hold a library book I am somehow attached to other readers. Sometimes this is just a fanciful thought but some readers have apparently decided that they must leave a more tangible trace. I’m speaking of the readers who pick up a pen or pencil and underline and annotate library books. Some of these readers apparently have my taste in novels and I’ve come to recognize their particular fetishes for correcting grammar or making smart remarks about plot points. But by far the very worst are the perfumers. I will know one reader if I ever meet her without even opening my eyes. (I assume from the fragrance it’s a female.)

So, there are downsides to borrowing from the public library. Yet, I always go back, even when I have the money to buy something new. How about you?

Mickey Hoffman is the author of the mystery novel School of Lies, published by Second Wind Publishing. She is wondering if her book is going to be perfumed or annotated any time soon.

I loved libraries when I was a kid, but somewhere along the way, I wanted my own copy of the books I read, and became a buyer of books. I guess part of it is that I like the idea of opening a new book and being the first to read it.

I love the library. I don't check out books much, but when there is a book that I want and the library has it, I will check it out. If the book is new and I have requested in ahead of time, I usually be the first or at least second person to read the book.

When a book is in the store, they may be new on the shelf, but that doesn't mean someone hasn't picked it up and read a little from it, because someone that's not them bought it.

I buy books at the library. Some be nice and some be older books.

I loved libraries as a kid, but having enough money to buy books as a young adult spoiled me. I want to put the book in the right place when I've finished, carefully filed, waiting like a friend to greet me again. I look at covers and remember feelings. And I love rereading books (something to do with having a really bad memory). Of course, having kids in college means I really should be frequenting libraries more.

Growing up most of the books I read were from the library. I still check books out from the library still but not as much as I used to. Depending on how quickly I want the book or if it's from a favorite author I'll go out and buy it. Otherwise I'll wait till it comes to my library.

My parents used to tell people we moved when I was 12 because I'd finished the library. We never had money for books, and if not for libraries, I'd have missed so much.

I now write for a publisher who targets the library market, and I LOVE IT when people go to a library and ask them to carry my book. They can read it for free (and because the library bought copies, I get my cut and so does the publisher). If they want it for their keeper shelf, they can buy it. But given the economy and the price of hard cover books, I'm happy if people will get my book at the library.

For favorite authors whose books come out in hard cover first, I'll read it from the library and then buy it either in digital format or paperback.

As a child I enjoyed libraries, but as I got older and as an adult not so much. I think because I want my own. I want to be able to go back to some books again and again, even if it's just to check a passage or compare passages. I love used book stores.

As a student, I worked in the libraries at Florida State and Syracuse Universities. As a college instructor, I had easy access to the Berry College Library. In most cases, the libraries tended to have what I was looking for.

Now, I live in a small town with a small, though busy, library. There's neither the space nor the funding for the kinds of collections that are standard in large libraries. Also, unless a small-press author happens to live in a town and donate his/her book, many of the small press books I'm finding online are never in the library. So, I prefer to buy the books. If I lived in a college town, I probably would check out a lot more books than I do now.

Malcolm

It really depends on what the book is and if I plan on keeping it. I have so many books that I tend to go to library for CD's to listen to books I dont have. The Waiting list is forever. I tend to use Better World and get my books and sell them back. THey work at saving the environment

Sheila wrote: "I loved libraries as a kid, but having enough money to buy books as a young adult spoiled me. I want to put the book in the right place when I've finished, carefully filed, waiting like a friend to..."

I know what you mean, Sheila. I love running my eyes up and down the shelves of my bookcase and taking in the titles, colors, designs and memories.

Libraries! Love them, at least, I love ours. It's big, roomy, light, many rooms for various functions, and the new book shelf is BIG. I can walk to the counter and have them order any book I want, as long as they can get it from their sources--the usual places--and when it arrives, it's automaticaly placed on HOLD for me. Yeah. Can't get much better than that. Oh, and they keep dozens of magazines, with a big reading area. I don't pay for subsciptions anymore, because I learned I only read one or two things in them, anyway. So once in a while, I go there and read certain mags and certain articles. Celia

Libraries are great for when you are not sure if you will like a book or if you really want to buy it. I don't mind reading Library books and then if I love the book I might buy it anyway..lol.

I grew up "having" my books, and I still prefer that--to have the time to read the book as I choose, to be able to look at it and possibly read it again later. It's tough to hoard books, because I have a small house, but that's my favorite way. From time to time, I'll cull my collection and donate the books (usually to the library).

I'm in a funny spot, since I work in one of those "famous libraries" (Salt Lake City Public Library...Library of the Year 2006), but I find that I don't check out that many books. I'm more likely to check out CDs. Still, I do get a lot of books from there. I go down to our Technical Services department and grab the Advance Reader Copies (to have!).

I am a heavy user of my local library system. I am a voracious reader and it helps keep one of my favorite hobbies affordable. :)

Of course, I still like owning some books.

But I've learned to be patient and use the hold system. :)

I love all books. New books, used books, library books. You can find hidden gems at a library, books that are no longer gracing the shelves of the book stores and every book you buy is another edition for your own personal library.

So far it seems the book buyers outnumber the library users. I can't say I'm surprised. The libraries might soon start to carry more CDs than books if that is where the demand lies.

Several people talk about rereading. I really don't feel the urge to actually keep books around with a few exceptions. I read them and give them away. My so called "better half" is the opposite so our house is loaded with books.

I buy all my books new. Nothing against libraries but I like adding the books to my collection when I'm finished with them. In fact, I pretty much buy all my books online so I seldom see the inside of a bookstore. Guess that makes me a product of the cyber age.

I love going to the library. I not only read books there but use them for research for writing projects. I grew up going to the library. I love to purchase my own books and love book stores, but my voracious appetite for reading is larger than my pocket book ... lol. So, I use both.

I rely on my library for books when my budget is ultra-slim. If the library does not carry the book (which is often the case), I purchase it or add it to my wish list.

There are a few books (new releases) that I purchase before publication so I can be assured of the unlimited opportunity to read and reread the book at my leisure. Self-published books which are not carried by most libraries are also books I purchase, often directly from the author at a great discount (and autographed too!)

I can't spend big money on books. I don't like taking a chance if I am going to like a book or not. I would be disappointed, if I bought a book from a bookstore and it wasn't a catcher to me. I don't care who the author is.

I love borrowing from the library. I also LOVE the smell of a big bookstore! Also, I do not like to spend an outrageous amount on a new book. I did enough of that in college. I am guilty of waiting to buy a book on clearance... including my own. LOL

I adore libraries. Even though I can afford to buy most of the books I want, I still go to the library and take out books at least 2 times a month. And, when I get around to "thinning the herd" at home, the books I am culling go to the library either for their semi-annual book sale or for the shelves. The library has been an integral part of my life since I was a kid. I was fascinated as a young child of this place that was filled with wonderful places to go and people to meet, and that sense of wonder has never left me. Yeah, I get kind of the same feeling in book stores, but most of the modern book stores are so clinical that I don't get the same warm, at-home feeling I get in a library or older book store.

Andrea wrote: "I love borrowing from the library. I also LOVE the smell of a big bookstore! Also, I do not like to spend an outrageous amount on a new book. I did enough of that in college. I am guilty of wai..."

Are you an author Andrea and if so, wouldn't you get your own book free? I would hope so. That would be messed up if authors have to buy their own books.

I gotta have my new books. The feel of them, just knowing no one else has read that particular book, I do still borrow from the library, just no where near as much as I use to. I want to hold MY book. And know it's there when I want to turn its pages again.

I check out books from the library. I have no money to spare to buy any.

After this past local election, voters tallied 3 to 1 against a tax increase to fund local libraries in order to keep staff and four of the smaller branches open. Taxes, even for some of the good stuff isn’t popular in this economy. Fortunate for me the branch I use will not close, but I know the future of what remains will change. Even still, I love going there to do research and find books absent from shelves of local bookstores. I also like the feel of a new book. Recently, one of the local library branches had to destroy a number of books returned to them that were infested with bed bugs, and there in lies my concern about books that have been in the hands (or homes) of others that don’t respect the value of what a book entails.

But let’s face it. The future for those of us who like to hold a book regardless of where it comes from, a book printed on paper and bound together by thread and glue, will at some point be a thing of the past. A local high school, the one my kids went to, was set, before the economy tanked, to issue Kindles to the senior class loaded with assigned reading (novels) and textbooks based on their course work. I will regret a future where I cannot hold a new book to read and turn paper pages and occasionally lose a bookmark and thus my place in the world it takes me to.

I don't use the library as much as I should, but I love the convenience of buying online since we are in a bit of a rural area. When I was in my late teens-early 20s I tried very hard to get a job at a library but was unsuccessful. In those days I lived in Vancouver BC and there were a lot of them. I had homeroom in the library in grade 5 and again in grade 7 (in those days there was no middle school, so this was in elementary school and junior high school), so I used the library a lot and got to know the Dewey system quite well, so I was quite disappointed not to be able to get work in one of the branches. I do love to browse, though, and am a member of Friends of the Library.

I love the library.. but now I'm addicted to buying books! I cant help it though.. its not my fault.. i love the smell of brand new pages.. MMM MMM good! lol

I have found borrowing main stream/popular books can be annoying when you have to wait for them to be available.. especially if its a series..

I haven't borrowed a book in months.. maybe since Feb or march

Arch wrote: "I love the library. I don't check out books much, but when there is a book that I want and the library has it, I will check it out. If the book is new and I have requested in ahead of time, I usual..."

I also buy from the library.. i love books.. just love em.. they are all over this house... and i cant get enough!!!

Arch, yes I am an author, however, the publishing house I went through only gives me "discounts"... LOL. I am researching different publishing houses now. Yes, I agree... "it's messed up that I have to purchase my own story."

Libraries are notorious for the books they DON'T carry. Their buyers usually have an agenda, and will not even shelve donated books.

They will soon be replaced by sites with electronic versions of books and periodicals. A sad state of affairs.

Crossing the room, he ascended the stairs to the loft above, from the landing he could see row upon row of shelves containing ... books! Real books, of paper and sewn bindings, books from centuries gone by!
The end of the Twentieth Century, and the decades beyond had been fatal for the shelf libraries of the world. Progressive generations of people worldwide became accustomed to electronic media. Television all but replaced the imagination of the mind and the written word to conjure up the scenes and images the authors of the past described in literature. Writings were stored on drives, in databases, and memdevs. Then reading itself was replaced by synthetic voices of computer lecturers. The novel was replaced by the synopsis: Moby Dick could be heard in thirty minutes, Ulysses in an hour, The Hunchback of Notre Dame became the simple story of hard times in medieval Paris, Mark Twain was edited to remove any suggestion of racial slurs. Not that it was censorship per se; the complete stories were there in the memory banks if one persevered. Many did not; overview became the educational standard for literature. Books! Books were obsolete; heavy burdensome things, vulnerable to the elements, small children, and small minds.

Fe Fi FOE Comes

I love the library, I do. But if I could afford to buy books, I'd choose to buy instead.

Andrea wrote: "Arch, yes I am an author, however, the publishing house I went through only gives me "discounts"... LOL. I am researching different publishing houses now. Yes, I agree... "it's messed up that I h..."

LOL Andrea. I am glad that I just write for fun. I have been writing for 22 years. I can't see myself paying for my own book. I would rather go the library and check it out, if I had to pay for it.

Arch, the first two copies were free... :~D

Mickey, yes, I love libraries. Maybe this is a function of age, but I used to adore getting books with my Mom. I remember reading through all the children's stuff, and then beginning to read what she took out.

The most splendidly Gothic Library near me is the PA State Library. The building is in terrible repair; rain sometimes drips on the top floor. There are open ironwork stair cases and a large research room into which you may look down if you are walking around and around in the stacks layered above--it's vertigo central. Despite that, the smell and feel of the books there is for me a hypnotic.

I've spent literally days of my life sitting on the floors of libraries, reading. I buy books, too, but tend only to buy books I'm going to use/re-read again and again. (I'm on my third copy of Robert Graves' "The White Goddess.")

Andrea wrote: "Arch, the first two copies were free... :~D"

Okay Andrea. I still believe they could be nice and give a free book away all the time.

When we lived on a farm in the Lower Mainland of the Fraser Valley in B.C. the five of us would pile in the car and come home with such a load of books (for 5) that I used to make a list of them and pin it on the calendar in order to get them all rounded up and back to the library in time.

Library all the way. What a wonderful concept: march in with a purpose, grab a book, check it out and read. Or saunter in, peruse though sections, pulling books at random and find a gem that you never would have expected. Check it out and read. Sure you can do this at a bookstore or online but there is something so singular about a public library--it is for all.
I believe libraries should be well funded and guarded as a great treasure of our society. I know if I did not have access to my local library as a child I would not have discovered the wealth in the wonders of reading. Our local library was small and meager but it offered an avenue and comfort in exploring larger libraries.

The library is a marvelous community resource that provides a great deal of service for the limited amount of funding it receives. I agree with Sweetman that our libraries need to be treated as treasures. Getting my first library card was such a treat; the magical world of ideas was wide open to me.

I love libraries for the wonderful service they provide. Back when I had more reading time, I would wander through the library for books. I tend to buy most of the books I read, however, and pass some along to friends when I'm done, and keep others--all signed ones, especially,

I love libraries so much I work in one :) I am an academic librarian and go to the public library in the next town to borrow the more popular fiction items that we don't happen to have in our research library.

I used to buy a lot of my books, but after moving a few times I pared down and now only buy the books from the series I really want to keep. I still buy books for my nephews and nieces for their birthdays and holidays. They love getting them and I love giving them.

As for myself, being an author, high school student at ten, i really love the library it supports in many ways than one. Often i find a book at the library first look at it and then decide if i want to own it otherwise i will just check it out! I am involved in a major charity and starting my own things like becoming a speaker on bullying and the importance of school, so for me the resources are so important a place of not just reading a book but the resources of learning to do the things i plan on doing and learning from research, i even have something in my mind lately it is to somehow open a small book store of new and used books and have the proceeds go to the charity i am deeply involving myself in, thanks for reading my thoughts. Shanaya

Yes, Shanaya, the library is a great place to find information and while you're looking for something specific, to find something unexpected and interesting on the nearby shelves.

You've got such good "book" energy, as we say out here, and I wish you luck in your projects! As we say out here, "You go, girl!

Arch wrote: "Andrea wrote: "I love borrowing from the library. I also LOVE the smell of a big bookstore! Also, I do not like to spend an outrageous amount on a new book. I did enough of that in college. I a..."

Arch, most of us have to pay some nominal fee for our author copies nowadays. The number of "freebies" is severely limited.

I was fortunate enough to be able to do research work in the Library of Congress years ago and it was a wonderful experience. Walking through the stacks with the smell of the old books, ancient leather, brittle paper, mildew and just the entire ambience once gave me the feeling that the world had some hope for itself if it could store and absorb such magnificent works. I would often study at a table in the main reading room and every few hours I would lean back and marvel at the architecture and the statues above me, absorbing the majesty of the place. That was part of reading the books.
Even at my local library as I was reading an old volume of D H Lawrence a month or two ago, the lovely old leather bunding feeling rich in my hands, I spent the afternoon in a comfortable chair with the resurrected notion that civilization might yet turn away from its flimsy ways to that of something more substantial.

When I buy books, and I always try to buy old ones, I love reading the markings of someone else, perhaps someone of a different age and I try to assimilate the points which they make. It is wonderful to feel that you are sharing a commonality of being truly human beyond the superfluous fluff the modern age values. Sometimes people write spurious things but oftentimes they are thought provoking. Thus it is nice to unite with others the ideas of the past and one day, should the earth prevail, I hope that others might yet esteem parts of my library in a similar way.

I have fond memories of college libraries in Cambridge, the silence of rustling pages, file drawers with cards faded with age, and that "old book" smell. These days it's more clean air and the hum of computers. Just not the same. So I do most of my research at home, piling books round my own computer and drinking coffee if I want to.

I do miss the old card catalog and things like that, but time unfortunately marches on. The thing I am particularly proud of libraries and librarians for is their dedication to making sure that ALL books are available somehow. For the most part, they are the front line of the fight against literary censorship and I will honor and support them in that fight forever.

Sharon, I am glad to hear I am not the only one... thanks for sharing. :~D

Sharon wrote: "Arch, most of us have to pay some nominal fee for our author copies nowadays. The number of "freebies" is severely limited.
"

It still sucks.

I have a question. Do authors have to pay for books they want to give away? I know some authors have little contests and give books away.

Arch: Authors will usually get 'promotion' or 'author' copies. How many depends on the publisher. One of mine gives me 10 copies. Another gives me one. Although I can buy them at a discount (which doesn't count toward royalties in many cases), it's still a significant out of pocket expense. If I enter a contest that wants 5 copies of the book, I pay for them, AND I pay the postage. Likewise with my own contests. The author foots the bill (unless you're lucky enough to be with a publisher that gives many more author copies),it's a contract negotiation point, but with small presses, not usually a fruitful one.

I have a question. Do authors have to pay for books they want to give away? I know some authors have little contests and give books away.