In reply to Narrator (msg # 86):

Is Reddit a town in the US somewhere? Pretty sure it is not a state...

No, none of those... some sort of open posting site.

Nah, it's in England.  It's where Harry Styles was born.  I'm told he's quite famous.

In reply to Che Beethoven (msg # 89):

Lol, they lied. Not sure what Harry's style was, but I have never heard of it!

I just googled him.  Apparently he was in a pop group by the name of Wand Erection.  Hmm, sounds like something to do with Harry Potter.

be back on tomorrow, was visiting my mother and aunt.

back tomorrow.

First time I read this, I read it as Ithanalin's Restoration -- which is a novel by Lawrence Watt-Evans, one of his Ethshar stories.

currently reading those! where I got the idea

And apparently there have been several additional novels since that one, which is the last I have in paperback.  Paperbacks are so expensive now, though...

Up to $18 for a trade paperback!

And that's the other thing -- what happened to mass market paperbacks?  My shelves are built for (several hundred of) those; a trade book just messes up my shelving system.  And those were already high when mass market books were still only starting up the slope.

And now, even Kindle format is up, for books that come through a traditional publisher; I see new work for $16.99 for a book I wouldn't even actually own (Amazon can pull a Kindle book right off your reader any time it's connected to wifi -- use software like Libre to make backups of anything the least bit controversial you read on Kindle and learn how to side-load).  My partner is an author on Kindle Direct Publishing, and sells for no more than $6.99 for books up to 100,000 words or so (less for shorter work), and puts everything on Kindle Unlimited (and for 100,000 words, makes more on KU than if you bought the book).

The other problem is that Watt-Evans (or his publisher) doesn't seem to put his books on KU at all, demonstrating that they still don't understand how this stuff works.  No, of course you can't make $16.99 when someone reads a 60,000 barely-a-novel, but you get MANY more reads, which means more readers will look for your next book, or your backlist that they haven't seen already, and some few will buy the book after reading it on KU.  Gatekeeping stuff like this is like pricing eggs at $15 a dozen.  Your margin is huge, but you don't sell many eggs...

I don't sell many 'eggs' either and mine are sold at £0.99

In reply to Ardenas Barehand (msg # 98):

His current publisher, Wildside Press seems to be (to me) almost a PoD vanity joint which would explain their prices.

That would explain their cover design (pretty garish, albeit representational, at least for Ithanalin).

On the other hand, there are a bunch of new publishers who've popped up over the last decade or so who publish mainly in ebook format, though, sometimes with a sideline in POD dead-tree (which are almost always trade format).  Searching his name on Amazon shows his books for sale at mostly reasonable prices ($5 to $7 each for Kindle format), albeit without a KU option.  Looks like I'm going to have to find a series list and start catching up on my Ethshar -- and look at some of his other works, since it seems like he's been busy since I last bought paperbacks on any regular basis.

My other big-volume author, Barbara Hambly, has a publisher who thinks $16.99 for a Kindle book is reasonable, which makes it really hard to read her stuff (at least one more Benjamin January novel -- 1840s New Orleans as lived by a free black man -- one or two more each Darwath and Ferryth stories after what I have on the shelf, one more vampire novel that I know of).  I was paying $6.99 to $8.95 for mass market paperbacks when I got broke for a while (and then all the local bookstores closed)...

Restoration, canonically by Magic, requires Major Healing, which requires Magery and Minor Healing, which requires Lend Vitality, which requires Lend Energy, which requires either Magery or Empathy.  DFRPG, by making those Clerical spells requiring only Power Investment (Clerical), removes the prerequisite chain, but also bars them from wizards...

Indeed. Gareth has a number of points spent in non-useable spells that are part of the prerequisite chains for necromancy; effectively being just alternate path perks.  This book is an artifact and one needs to retain possession of it in order to spend the remaining points in order to access an otherise clerical spell.  It effectively is power investiture useable on a single spell, hence, a perk.

In reply to Ardenas Barehand (msg # 101):

Look into borrowing ebooks from you local library system.  Although lesser known authors are hit and miss, you might get lucky and be able to read a book for free instead of having to pay for it.

I already pay $10 a month or so for Kindle Unlimited, all the books I can read as long as the author or publisher has made it available (they get paid by the page when the book is read).  The local library in my town/county is pretty country, but I'll admit the only time I've visited is to vote (early voting for my area is there).  Perhaps I should drop in and see what they have in circulating ebooks.

Sadly, few of my preferred authors are best sellers (I found most of them through short-term promotions on Book Bub), so they're less likely to land on the local library's lending list if they even have ebooks.

I'm not that fast a reader (or don't have that many reading hours), so I'm not sure KU is an actual bargain for me, but it lets me try authors I probably wouldn't have taken a chance on if I had to pay full price for a book (I'm also not one to take full advantage of Amazon's return policies -- because my partner publishes on Amazon, I know returns come directly out of the self-published author's pocket).

If you were anywhere in new york state you could get NYPL and BPL cards free and borrow ebooks.

Unfortunately, North Carolina is largely overrun with barbarians.  Folks who intentionally drive the biggest truck they can afford, even if they never put anything in the bed, and if it's a diesel will buy illegal "rolling coal" kits for them and then park them in front of an electric car charger.  I wouldn't be surprised to find the library system in my county doesn't have ebooks at all, though I hope they do.  The state library system, I know nothing about; I've done almost nothing with libraries since I moved here (got out of the habit when I lived in Seattle, and the libraries were annoying to get to and I didn't have time to read a book in a two week checkout).

shaking my head at that.

I am not sure Suleiman is still with us.

anyway, 83k!

Just stop by a library when you get a chance and get a card.  Once you are in the system, there is a big bunch of resources that you can access online.   No need to go back to the brick and mortar location.

In reply to Narrator (msg # 103):

Just two, Lend Vitality and Minor Healing. The book would require two more, Major Healing and Restoration, making a total of 5 points for the single spell. Of possibly more concern is the weight of the book, given Gareth is a bit of a wimp, physically.

In reply to Ardenas Barehand (msg # 107):

One of the things (maybe the only thing) I'm really grateful for in England is the large number of public libraries.  Back in the late seventies there was a suurvey of public libraries worldwide in terms of libraries per thousand people.  I can't remember the exact number but the top three were the UK, Switzerland and USA in that order.  The UK had ten times as many books per thousand as Switzerland, Switzerland had ten times as many as the USA and the USA had ten times as many as the 180-something other countries in the world combined.

I think our numbers have decreased massively since then but closing libraries is an even bigger election loser than closing hospitals so there's always an increase just before the general elections - our next being 4th July this year so I daresay our numbers will be going up temporarily over the next six weeks.