Wednesday, January 8, 2014

Feel the Paper

This blog may be an exercise in how to keep your reader reading past the title. Please carry on, this is not a pros and cons of e-books and print books, although I do have views on that. Nor is it very long: my more frequent blog reading of 2104 has taught me that as far as blogs are concerned less is definitely the best.  I'd say no more than half a cup of coffee's reading time: now there's a metric that could be useful.

So to paper, specifically, paper that books are printed on and the disappointing, even nasty feel of pages of cheap paper. More to the point, the challenge of writing on this type of paper. My example: a copy of Flash Fiction Forward arrived yesterday (speedy Amazon even to France), so good to get this in time to start to my flash fiction reading at the same time as writing the assignments for the course I'm doing.

Oh dear, its printed on that paper that smudges with every kind of pen ... so my notes become illegible, by the way, notes in books are just fine with me ... and it's a paperback that cost £15. Perhaps an e-book would have been a better choice!  And the feel, well, while not being 'nasty' it's not nice ... each time I put it down I want to reach for the hand scrub and hand cream!

Why does this make a difference? The stories I've read so far are all fine, some are very good, but there's competition for my reading and this one is not on the winning list because, yes, because of the paper.

Rant over, I said I'd keep it short. I'm off to see if the hens have laid any more eggs, we collected the first two of 2014 yesterday.


No comments:

Post a Comment