Confessions of a Kindle Addict

Hello, my name is Jami and I am … an e-book addict.

It started slowly, as these addictions often do. Marketing my own book, KEEPING SCORE, I was referred to BookBub. Ah, Bookbub. Home of the free, the 99 cent, the dollar 99 download. I bought one book. Maybe two. They all sounded so good! For instance, zombies on the Titanic. I love zombies and I love Titanic so it’s like it was pretty much written for me!

Of course the problem is Bookbub issues a newsletter every day. They don’t even take off weekends. And then there’s the Fussy Librarian, Kindle Books and Tips, and many, many others.

The result? According to my Kindle, I have 257 books. Of these, I’ve read maybe 50.

That leaves over 200 books I’m dying to read. TWO HUNDRED.

And every time I turn on my Kindle, it helpfully tells me on the bottom row about other wonderful books I’ve missed.

It takes about 3 hours to read your average 85K word book. I don’t have a spare 600 hours. And that’s not even counting the manuscripts I read for the literary agency I work for, or the private editing and consulting I do, or the 37 books on my "TBDR" list (that's "to be downloaded and read ... I don't even have them yet!).

I really want to read these books. I may not finish them what’s I’ve started – I really need to get pulled in if I’ve only spent pennies on it – but I want to give each of them a try.

But when? Should I give myself 90 minutes a day no matter what to get through these novels? Should I forbid myself from buying anything new? Should I quit watching the Walking Dead and Shondaland shows, and devote that time to reading?

How many unread books are in your Kindle? Do you have a strategy to get through them? Do you delete them when you’re done reading them?