Like most people these days, I realized that I needed to gain control of my money. It seemed to flow out of my pockets into the wild yonder never to be seen again. It had gotten to the point where even I couldn’t tell where the money was going. I asked a friend who had majored in Economics to help me build a budget.
After looking through all my purchases, she asked me a vital question. Do you REALLY need a subscription to Kindle Unlimited, Oyster, AND Scribed? Yes, yes I do. I know on the surface this seems a little excessive to allow me to explain. I know I can’t be the only one who does this.
The Kindle unlimited allows me to read e-books from my favorite bloggers. Most of these are like little books that are a companion to their blogs. If I paid 4 dollars or whatever they are charging for it, then my Amazon bill would be a LOT higher.
Oyster has a million backlist books. Almost anything you can think of that is older than 3 years it has. I know they have newer books, I am just telling why I get all three services.
Scribed has books that Oyster does not have PLUS comics and romance books.
After defending myself, I started to wonder if three subscription book services were, indeed, excessive, but them I rationalized it by saying that a lot of people get Netflix, Hulu plus and Amazon Prime. So I am just the bookish version of overconsumption.
Plus the more you read the smarter you get. Right? RIGHT?! I like to tell myself this when someone starts talking about Gilmore Girls and I am all like huh? What’s that? I know I should not feel morally superior but that what I like to tell myself.
It seems that no one really understands the obsession that I have with reading material. I have this deep-seated fear of running out. Seriously, the mere thought of that happen sends anxiety straight down to the core of my being. So with THREE subscription services I can have like 30 books downloaded on my Kindle at once and even if the world ends, I will still have something to read. Or at least I will for 10 hours, which is how long my Kindle battery lasts. I know what you are thinking, Why not just hoard up on paper books? Well, what if I had to flee in a disaster or something. I can’t take my 2,000 books with me. But I can always grab my kindle and hope that somewhere there will still be electricity even if for short bursts of time.
Interesting and totally makes sense if you get through a lot of books. I personally only read one or two books a week and have more than 130 physical unread books on my shelves so I could never justify any of those subscriptions. Unless I stopped buying physical books, but I don’t see that happening because I love bookshops so much. My Kindle is mostly for a couple of short story magazine subscriptions and free classics from Project Gutenburg.
I have a lot of books in all different formats. People tell me that It will be impossible to read them all but it makes me happy to have options, if that makes sense.