[markism]

I like this.

I keep an ebook on my phone, so in little gaps I can read a book instead of ending up on social media. This doesn't lend itself to many books, but I end up reading around one a week this way.

I also keep Reddit and Facebook blocked on my computer, and don't have the apps on my phone. It keeps me from habitually typing in the URL or tapping the app and derailing myself from anything productive I was doing.

A problem I have is finding good long form content. Usually I find things through HN and Reddit, but that lends itself to mindless browsing. How do you usually find long form content?

[wallacoloo]

The most conventional way to find long-form content (i.e. novels) is probably to use a digital library. I can recommend https://openlibrary.org/ which is just an unbelievably awesome project that makes over 1 million books available free-to-download in a searchable catalog (most are public domain).

Depending on where you live, it's quite likely that your city's physical libraries also have an online presence. This gives you access to more recent popular releases, but at the cost that most of them have some archaic system wherein they simulate a limited number of "copies" that can be in circulation at any time and they mostly come in some format that requires a special device to read (e.g. a kindle, or perhaps a kindle phone app).

There's also Amazon.com, but with the same limitation as above. You're not going to find .pdf or .txt book formats in large stores or region-based libraries.

The author also mentioned fanfiction communities as a place where people tend to be especially friendly/supportive on the internet. From my experience, there are actually some really great self-published works out there (fan-based and wholly original) by hobbyist writers. And this avenue is unique in that it's especially easy to discuss the book with the author and with other readers online. You can probably find something of interest at http://nanowrimo.org/forums (National Novel Writing Month forums) or, if you identify with some fandom, you can consult http://fanfiction.net, though I've heard mixed things about the quality of the latter. Ironically for you, I find most of my long-form literature via some specific reddit book-sharing threads. It's actually the primary reason I even have a reddit account.