Impatience and Excerpts

I am an impatient person about some things. (Shocking, I know.) Books in particular. I hate excerpts, sample chapters and the like and avoid them like the plague because - unless the book is already out - if it’s well done, I have to wait for the next page. Sure, sometimes when waffling on a particular choice I’ll skim some pages, but that is again on books already out. I don’t like waiting more than I have to to read the good stuff. And publishing is a whimsical business. That’s why of the five pieces we heard at Cherry Con, two of them are (freaking, finally) coming out this year. I may have told a person or twenty about my excitement about this. But that is an interminable (in my opinion) amount of time to wait. I accidentally read the excerpt for the next of Eilieen Dreyer’s historicals, and I have no idea how I’m going to wait for April. (Better be April or sooner people, or I’ll...be crankier.) I have been known to peek at an excerpt in an ongoing series to get a sense of who the next book was about. And sure, once, I read the whole freaking excerpt on purpose because in my excitement about the resolution the next book was going to provide my peek turned quickly into reading the whole darn thing. But generally, while I absolutely see the value in having excerpts and sample chapters, I don’t read them. Nope, not at all. So, now you know what I’ll be doing November. And April.