The ebook revolution is amazing for readers. Good books have never been so accessible at such great prices. The novelty of buying a book and diving into it seconds later is one that never gets old. There is a huge downside to this however, which I have discovered over the past year.
I’ve found that my finish rate has significantly dipped when it comes to reading. I have dozens of books on my Kindle that I’ve started reading but never finished; from fiction to non-fiction. Most would agree that you don’t need to actually read non-fiction from front to back as long as you obtain the information you need from it, but even with non-fiction I feel like I’m missing out on something crucial by not reading it through.
This dilemma has caused me to rack up a huge backlog of books that I still wish to read and finish, and having such a huge backlog is never a good thing as it can discourage you from reading period. Having such a large library of unfinished books is intimidating, and it give me a guilty feeling when buying a new book. This is a feeling I don’t want as a reader, because reading is important, not only to writers but to people period.
I’ve decided to tackle the problem by banning myself from buying new Kindle books until I finish at least five of the ebooks currently on my device. I will also enforce a minimum of 20 minutes reading time every weekday. The 20 minutes is simply a minimum, because I find once I start reading I can easily go for an hour, it’s forcing myself to read that’s the problem, so the minimum seems like an attractive slot of time in my head.
Id love to hear from other readers who have suffered the same dilemma. Are ebooks too tempting for you? Have you put a plan in place to tackle that backlog? Which books do you have in your backlog? Feel free to leave comments.