It’s hard to ignore an author like James Patterson. His books, an estimated 14 million copies sold, are everywhere from airport bookstores, in the supermarket and featured on prominent shelves in bookstores like Barnes & Noble and Borders. I’ll confess that the only Patterson book I’ve read is Sail (aff link). The novel was okay. At best it was entertaining. But I’m unlikely to be buying another Patterson novel in the future.

However, being a mega-selling superstar author, James Patterson is someone all struggling novelists should pay attention to and learn a thing or two.

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I just returned from spending a few days in San Diego on family business (hence my lack of posts this week). While my reason for going there was quite sad, it was nice to get away from the cold Chicago winter and spend some time in the warm California sun and visit with my extended family.

There are a two bits I wanted to share with you regarding my trip, both dealing with ebooks.

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I love books. I love reading books. There’s nothing more satisfying than finishing a good novel, especially one that keeps me thinking about the plot and characters long after I read the last page. But sometimes I like having more than just the story. I’m always pleasantly surprised when the author includes notes, written interviews or any other ‘extras’ that can illuminate the story even more.

On a simple level, all of you have seen this before (especially those with young kids). When you buy a kids book, the book has the written story, but it also has illustrations that complement the story and bring it to life in a way not possible with just words. Some childrens books even have accompanying stuffed animals and other toys (sold separately, of course).

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At my local B&N store there has been a lot of interest in the new e-reader Nook. I’ve heard more about this device since it has been announced than I ever did about any of the Sony Readers or the Amazon Kindle. Something about Nook is resonating with the reading public and the device won’t even ship until the end of November.

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Now that 2009 is coming to a close, we’re going to start seeing a lot of lists: Top books, top movies, top websites and so forth. I’m not a big fan of these kind of lists because my personal list for any given year would be a lot different than the lists that some of these literary organizations release at the end of each year.

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This is an update to an earlier post I wrote Race to the bottom: Amazon, Wal-Mart see who can sell the cheapest books. Now Target has entered the game and a lot of people aren’t happy about new release hardcovers being priced so cheap at these retailers. The first sign of protest comes from the American Booksellers Association (ABA), who wrote a complaint to the antitrust division of the U.S. Department of Justice.

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If you’re looking for dirt-cheap prices on a few upcoming major hardcover book releases, then you’re in luck. Online giant Amazon.com (full disclosure – I’m an Amazon affiliate) and retail giant Wal-Mart are in a heated price war over upcoming titles by some heavy-hitting authors.

For consumers, this is great, especially for the upcoming holiday season right around the corner. Major titles to be released are Stephen King’s Under the Dome; John Grisham’s Ford Country; and James Patterson’s I, Alex Cross – the latest in his ongoing series. For booksellers, publishers and authors though, this is a worrisome trend.

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I have a respectable size book collection made up of mass market paperbacks, trade paperbacks, hardcovers, fiction, non-fiction, reference and so forth. Some of the reference books I refer to a lot, the mass markets on the other hand are usually read once and then shelved. I know there are a lot of people out there who have a much bigger collection of books than I do. And there are those that constantly purge their collection to make room for new books.

Why do a lot of us keep so many books, especially if there’s little chance we’ll read them again?

I view books like trophies. Since I was never into sports, I don’t have any ‘real’ trophies to show off. Books represent my literary accomplishments. At the same time, they take up a lot of space and can get very heavy when packed into boxes making them a pain to move.

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In an earlier post I wrote (Should ebook readers be multifunctional?), I argued that for the most part, when I sit down to read, I want to read with few distractions. I don’t a bulk of my reading on my Sony Pocket Edition Reader and have found myself doing less reading on my iPhone. Call me a purist, but sometimes I just want to read.

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When a new ebook reader hits the market, or I browse through forums, blogs, comments and the general discourse about ebook readers, there is a small undercurrent that I find interesting: People want ebook readers to have more functionality than just reading ebooks. At the very least, most want to browse the internet. Let’s also not forget that many readers today are able to play MP3s as well.

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