Speaker 1: Welcome to Before Breakfast, a production of iHeartRadio. Good Morning.
Speaker 1: This is Laura. Welcome to the Before Breakfast podcast. Today's
Speaker 1: tip is to read the free sample. With ebooks, it
Speaker 1: is often possible to give a book a try before
Speaker 1: buying it. This might nudge you to be a more
Speaker 1: adventurous reader. After all, you might wind up liking the book,
Speaker 1: or you might not, but then you've saved yourself some
Speaker 1: money and clutter. So I know some folks hate reading
Speaker 1: on screens. It's not my favorite either, but it is
Speaker 1: also so convenient that I think it's worthwhile. With ebook
Speaker 1: apps like Amazon's Kindle, you can read on your phone
Speaker 1: and turn any downtime or waiting time into reading time.
Speaker 1: That's good in its own right. But I've also realized
Speaker 1: a little hack for making sure you are mostly buying
Speaker 1: e books that you like. If you were in a bookstore,
Speaker 1: you would be able to pick a book up and
Speaker 1: read a few pages to see if it was appealing.
Speaker 1: To approximate this, Amazon allows you to download a free
Speaker 1: sample of many ebooks through the Kindlap. This is often
Speaker 1: a fairly generous sample, like ten to fifteen percent of
Speaker 1: the actual book. Now I recognize that this is a
Speaker 1: leap of faith for retailers and publishers. With some books,
Speaker 1: you can kind of get the point in ten to
Speaker 1: fifteen percent. You could also download six samples before getting
Speaker 1: on a plane and have a reasonable amount of entertainment
Speaker 1: without ever working over a cent. But I assume most
Speaker 1: people who read ten to fifteen percent of a book
Speaker 1: and like it do buy it. I almost always do,
Speaker 1: because by that point I am reasonably certain I will
Speaker 1: like the whole thing. People tend to go as they go,
Speaker 1: I mean not always. I was blindsided by a book
Speaker 1: recently that started off strong and then the author veilered
Speaker 1: off into some cringeworthy personal opinions, but hey, you can't
Speaker 1: win them all. I've also been saved from buying some
Speaker 1: real doozies that seemed like they would be right up
Speaker 1: my alley, but then it became clear in the sample
Speaker 1: that the author wasn't going in the alley. I thought
Speaker 1: they were good to know. I've argued on this podcast
Speaker 1: before that being willing to quit a book makes it
Speaker 1: more likely that you will read more books. You'll be
Speaker 1: willing to try things outside your usual genres, You'll try
Speaker 1: things by new authors. The fact that you can almost
Speaker 1: always get a free sample of a book. Like even
Speaker 1: a book your library has a three month hold list
Speaker 1: for just makes trying new things even easier. So if
Speaker 1: you've got a few minutes of time to kill, go
Speaker 1: ahead and download the free sample of an ebook you've
Speaker 1: been thinking of reading. Even if you don't like the book,
Speaker 1: you will have spent more time reading, which is probably
Speaker 1: better than scrolling. Also, now you know no need to
Speaker 1: go put a library hold on that book. But if
Speaker 1: you do like the book, you will feel confident buying it.
Speaker 1: In the meantime, this is Laura. Thanks for listening, and
Speaker 1: here's to making the most of our time. Thanks for
Speaker 1: listening to Before Breakfast. If you've got questions, ideas, or feedback,
Speaker 1: you can reach me at Laura at Laura vandercam dot com.
Speaker 1: Before Breakfast is a production of iHeartMedia. For more podcasts
Speaker 1: from iHeartMedia, please visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or
Speaker 1: wherever you listen to your favorite shows.