Features

Monday Midday Links: Cover Contest Is Alive, Scripts Released as Ebooks, Used Bookstores and Digital Books

Monday Midday Links: Cover Contest Is Alive, Scripts Released as Ebooks, Used Bookstores and Digital Books

The annual cover contest is ready for your votes.  Go forth and vote for the best and the worst. The worst are really bad. The Gift of Charles – CNN.com – “Charles fell into the family’s arms in November 2007. Tremica’s cousin, Charles’ biological father, had been imprisoned for illegal possession of a firearm, his [...]

First Page: Man of Her Dreams

First Page: Man of Her Dreams

Welcome to First Page Saturday. Individual authors anonymously send a first page read and critiqued by the Dear Author community of authors, readers and industry others. Anyone is welcome to comment. You may comment anonymously. You can submit your own First Page using this form. One Jared lowered his suitcase, grimacing when it scraped the [...]

Friday Midday Links: DRM Free Day, Deals, New DA Reviewer KatiD, Some Audiobook Thoughts

News Kati D of Katidom has been blogging for five years.  By herself!  She got a little worn down putting out new content everyday and was considering shuttering her blog.  But losing a voice like Kati’s would be a real loss for the romance community so while Kati recharges her batteries, she is going to [...]

Friday Film Review: Jab We Met (When We Met)

Friday Film Review: Jab We Met (When We Met)

Jab We Met (When We Met) (2007) Genre: Romantic Comedy Grade: B “Changing fortunes await wealthy but dejected industrialist Aditya (Shahid Kapoor) when he meets a spirited chatterbox named Geet (Kareena Kapoor) on a train in this breezy romantic comedy from Bollywood director Imtiaz Ali. Nursing a broken heart, Aditya ends up traveling with the [...]

Interview with Mary Balogh (and Giveaway)

Interview with Mary Balogh (and Giveaway)

This month we are fortunate to have the latest release of Mary Balogh “The Proposal” featuring Gwen’s story.  Gwendoline, Lady Muir, has been a long time denizen of Balogh novels and there has been a great deal of speculation about who she would end up with and whether she would even get her own story. [...]

Wednesday Midday Links: S&S gains offset by legal costs; Amanda Hocking is doing really well in traditional publishing; Kindle Fire refurb

Wednesday Midday Links: S&S gains offset by legal costs; Amanda Hocking is doing really well in traditional publishing; Kindle Fire refurb

The best deal today is $139 for a Refurbished Kindle Fire. This is sold by Amazon and comes with the same customer service. Onto the News: CBS Corporation Reports Record First Quarter 2012 Results – MarketWatch – “Publishing (Simon & Schuster) Publishing revenues for the first quarter of 2012 increased 14% to $176 million from [...]

Debut Print Book: Wicked as They Come by Delilah S. Dawson

Debut Print Book: Wicked as They Come by Delilah S. Dawson

I’ve had some concerns by readers who are primarily print readers that the coverage at Dear Author has been too focused on ebooks. When I asked the readers what they were interested in seeing, they responded that they would like to know more about print debut authors. We developed a little questionnaire and every Wednesday [...]

Tuesday Midday Links:  DPLA Moves Forward; 3M Launches Digital Lending Platform (Plus lots of deals)

Tuesday Midday Links: DPLA Moves Forward; 3M Launches Digital Lending Platform (Plus lots of deals)

News At West Coast Meeting, Digital Public Library of America Begins to Take Shape – “The [DPLA] steering committee is charting a path that would deliver something more like a distributed network of digital library collections, rather than a single centralized repository. DPLA would start by aggregating descriptive metadata about existing collections that would be [...]

Is There A Right Way to Read Rape?

Is There A Right Way to Read Rape?

  In the wake of ubiquitous popularity for The Book That Shall Not Be Named, the reality that women do experience – and even enjoy! – sexual fantasy has collided with far more than 50 shades of judgment about who, what, where, when, why, how, and whether that’s okay. Last week, Leigh at AAR wrote [...]

Monday Midday News: BN & Microsoft’s Nook Deal. Is this the end of B&N?

Monday Midday News: BN & Microsoft’s Nook Deal. Is this the end of B&N?

On Saturday, I received this email from a reader. I have her permission to repost it. I find it ironic that I am posting this today when the news in the book world is replete with details about Barnes & Noble’s new deal with Microsoft. Jane, I noted some posts about B&N & its possible [...]

DA/SBTB Bestseller List, week ending  April 24, 2012

DA/SBTB Bestseller List, week ending April 24, 2012

DA/SBTB Bestseller List, Week Ending April 24, 2012 Master of Crows by Grace Draven  A | BN | K | S Love Only Once (Malory Family) by Johanna Lindsey  A | BN | K | S | ARE I Kissed an Earl: Pennyroyal Green Series by Julie Anne Long  A | BN | K | S | ARE [...]

First Page: Unpublished Manuscript

First Page: Unpublished Manuscript

Welcome to First Page Saturday. Individual authors anonymously send a first page read and critiqued by the Dear Author community of authors, readers and industry others. Anyone is welcome to comment. You may comment anonymously. You can submit your own First Page using this form. Duncan Sinclair hadn’t come to the Haven for the fires, [...]

Friday Midday Links: Kindle Fire Driving Down Sales of eInk Devices

Friday Midday Links: Kindle Fire Driving Down Sales of eInk Devices

Some people have argued (Micah Bowers of Bluefire for example) that dedicated devices will go the way of the dodo bird and I’ve always disagreed. Seeing the rise of the affordable Kindle Fire, however, is making me wonder if Micah Bowers et al is correct. E Ink Holdings reports first loss in 10 quarters | [...]

Friday Film Review: Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day

Friday Film Review: Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day

Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day (2008) Genre: Romantic Comedy Grade: C This is a movie I wanted to love, yearned to love, and hoped to love. Unfortunately, I didn’t. First, some background. Back around 2003, a friend of mine who lived in Berkshire at the time, told me about a wonderful bookstore she found [...]

Thursday Midday Links: Female Writer Moves to Pen Name to Appeal to Men

Thursday Midday Links: Female Writer Moves to Pen Name to Appeal to Men

Scots crime writer Shona MacLean ‘killed off’ to appeal to men – Scotland – Scotsman.com – “SCOTTISH crime writer Shona MacLean has been forced to change her name – to S G MacLean – to make her novels more appealing to men.  The change follows the publication of three successful historical crime books under her [...]