Books, advertising, and independent vs. large corporation

My books-to-read list keeps getting longer and longer, possibly because I wander the internet so much and find interesting titles.  My next problem is that when I choose a book to read, how shall I obtain it?  As a hard copy from a library, an independent bookstore, or a large corporation like Amazon?  Or shall I get an eBook from another large corporation, Apple?

Getting a book from a library is free and my borrowing a book helps it stay in circulation for others to read.  Getting my own hard copy is either calling ahead to an independent bookseller or ordering it online.  Getting it from a local bookseller helps the local economy.  Ordering it online may get the copy to me faster.  Most would opt for Amazon or Barnes and Noble.  I opt for ABE Books which is a consortium of independent booksellers.  An advantage to ABE Books is that I can find foreign titles and maybe even have them shipped free.

But then I already own so many books, where can I put new books without throwing out older ones.  And which ones?

If I get an eBook, I can have a bigger choice of reading when I'm away, I can easily add comments, and I can easily copy excerpts for a blog entry.

Life is so full of choices!

So, what does all this have to do with advertising?  I've noticed that many sites that mention a book have links to that book at Amazon.  From reading about Maria Popova's "Brain Pickings" and seeing some of her links, I know that web authors can get a small fee if readers click on the book reference, probably only if someone buys the book.

Now I always like to earn a few bucks more if I can, but do I want to earn those bucks by supporting a large corporation?  If I go that route, I'll probably have to drop the Google Ads, which aren't providing many bucks anyway.  The easiest thing is for me to do nothing; given the underwhelming readership of this blog, the revenue from either source would be about the same, not much.  Maybe I should make this blog a "cleaner" reading experience by having no ads at all.

So, dear reader, if you see me around, please let me know what you think.  I think I have five or six regular readers in Duluth.