By Sasha White
November 27th, 2008

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Money is on everyone’s minds these days, and when that happens, books, movies and various other forms of ‘entertainment’ are the first things people tend to cut back on. For some of us, that totally sucks.

Like most writers, I’m an avid reader. And like most people, I’m watching where I spend my $’s right now. What I want to do is remind other readers that there are some more cost effective alternatives out there. The days when you had to walk into a bookstore, and fight the urge to fill your arms with books, is gone.

E-Books are always available, and usually at a much cheaper cost than pocketbooks. New York publishers are even putting their books out in electronic format now. E Publishing is not only for erotic romance or erotica! Places like FICTIONWISE.com and Diesel Books carry all genre’s of books. (And you can ever PRE-ORDER books at Desiel, and they’ll downlaod it to you at midnight the day of release….like my November release PRIMAL MALE)

Samhain Publishing is first and foremost an ePublisher. (Many of their books do come out in print, about 6 months or so after the electronic release.) Novellas run at about $3.50 and novels approx $5.50. That’s a very reasonable cost. Sure you don’t get to feel the crisp new pages in your hands, or breath in the ‘new book’ scent. But that doesn’t mean you have to sit at your computer desk to read either. There are mutltiple versions of E-Book readers on the market today, the Amazon Kindle being only one of them, or you can just read them on your laptop, like I do. (To learn more about eReader, check out DEAR AUTHOR.com, they have some very informative posts on them.)

Now, yes, eBooks are more reasonable than print books. What’s even better than that? FREE READS!

Samhain publishing has their Discover New Authors program, where you can downlaod certain eBooks for free. Tor.com also has a list of free eBooks for readers. There are many other ways to find free reads as well.

As an author I’ve been putting Free Reads on my site for a while. There are a couple of Travel articles, Writing articles…and some Erotic Reads too. Most are posted on my site, and you just read them there, (They are short) but one of them, MEANDROS is a a PDF download. (WARNING: My stories contain explicit sex and language)

Lynn Viehl, otherwise known as PaperBack Writer, has been a huge proponent of Free Reads. You can find her’s listed here.

Many authors have free reads on their websites, somewhere. So surf your favorite authors site and see what you find. Then surf some New authors, and maybe you’ll find a new favorite!

Oh, and if you’re interested in a chance to win a FREE KINDLE, already loaded up with books(including a copy of GYPSY HEART), check out Samhain editorAngela James blog. She has a HUGE giveaway planned for December.

And, if you’ve never hung around Access Romance’s blog during the month of December, I highly recommend it. There is a giveaway everyday of the month for FREE BOOKS. Starting with a giveaway from me on December 1st!

Nobody likes to cut back on what gives them pleasure, and reading definitely does that for many, so when things are tight, I hope some of my links here will help you out!

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