"Yeah, this pic is slightly off topic, but I'm a pig..."
If you recall I wrote a blog post for the Vox last year titled The Kindle and the Ladies Book Club in which I explained my personal experience of pushing my novel Moonlight Falls to a local ladies book club while at the same time, singing the praises of this new little clever electronic reading contraption called the Kindle. You might remember how resistant the ladies were to even the mere thought of giving up paper for reading something on a computer screen. "It will hurt my eyes," one of them said. "I love the smell and the feel of paper," said another. It seemed there was nothing I could do to persuade this crowd of a dozen educated, attractive, and for the most part, 50+ women (aside from one young woman who might be about 30) about the benefits of owning a Kindle, the least of which is being able to store an entire library inside something smaller than your average Denny's menu.
I revisited the Ladies Book Club this past week where the book of the month was The Paris Wife. Obviously I am not the author of that book, but I am somewhat of a Hemingway aficionado. So I was there to dispel the fact from the fiction. While we were talking about Papa and his affairs, somehow the subject shifted back to e-Readers and how well some of my novels had done in that market over the past year, The Innocent and The Remains especially. While one woman chimed in immediately, proclaiming that she would still never buy "one of those things," a couple of others pursed their lips, cocked their heads over their shoulders and, somewhat bravely I might add, announced that they were seriously thinking about buying one. One of the two was interested in a Kindle Fire, and the other a Nook. Since I more or less work for Amazon now, I tried to talk the Nook person out of it, and I think I succeeded. What came as a surprise, but shouldn't have, was that the young, thirty something woman, had indeed already bought a Kindle and she was beaming about it. "It's awesome," she said. "So much easier to read than paper."
So I guess, my prediction that by this time this year all these women would own a Kindle or an e-Reader of some kind was a little bit off, but not too far off. After all, it's tough to break away from old tried and true habits, especially after 45. I should know, I'm 47. But I'm guessing all it will take is another few months before the Ladies Book Club becomes the Ladies Kindle Club. Has a better ring to it anyway.
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