The Power of Google and Wards
Posted by Meg
Books are precious. As fans, avid readers, writers and fantasy geeks we know firsthand how important books can be (and are!). But living in a country where books are literally at your fingertips, we sometimes forget how hard it can be for other people in the world to get their hands on the books they want to read. Or any books for that matter.
Friend and fan David sent Peat this touching story about the power of reading and how ebooks can bring the gift of literature to people worldwide.
Here’s what David had to say:
On a recent trip to Romania ….
At my friend’s house, they had a 10 year old neighbor – Rosianu Ilie Constantin, his nickname is Calin. I did not speak Romanian but he wanted to practice his English which was really good. He was really smart also for his age. Showed him my Google phone, Amazon Kindle, etc etc. Then my friend told him I worked at Google. I already know the influence that the Google name has anywhere I go but I did not expect what happened next … he started to ask me a lot of questions about all the tech.
So I started to think and research and realized how hard it was for him to get a Kindle and access to unlimited books. Romania is full of hackers, that’s well known, and Amazon does not ship anything there and the UK price is ridiculous. After some analysis and testing him, I decided to give him my Kindle and to fund any books he ever wants to buy from now on. Everyone should have access to books. Period. Hacker or not.
I was still reading Desert Spear … cause I work too much. Of all the books on the Kindle, and there were plenty, he chose to read this and finished it in about 1 week. He loved it. I just gifted him Painted Man. He’s excited, it’s now like reading a prequel. He’s looking forward to the third book also.
Wow! This is more than amazing! And very, very, very awesome that people like David are in this world! I am from Bulgaria but living everywhere else in the world and I know exactly what he is talking about…
I know it does not affect me personally, but thank you very much and, of course, for sharing this here, Peat!!! 🙂
Funny… A lide condasending/misinformed but nevertheless nice post
(rom is not full of hackers.. Just that yeah prices are a little disproportioned even for locally published novels,… But if translated there is a good a 22mio market out of which the normal procentage is actually buying… Things are changing… Slowly and since as such there is a chance to happen more organically probably better)