Dear Author » free-book

REVIEW: Kamikaze by Moira Rogers

DA_January — Tue, 24 Apr 2012 19:00:49 +0000

Dear Ms. Rogers,

I saw Kamikaze listed as a free book and an introduction to your new self-published series, Last Call. The cover seemed eye-catching enough and the blurb promised smoking hot action. Sounds good to me. This read did exactly what it promised – it was short and physical. Unfortunately I struggled to connect to either character.

The premise for Kamikaze is a fun one. There is a bar called Last Call, where supernatural women can order a specific drink, and that drink telegraphs to the men in the bar what she is there for. I thought that sounded like a fun set-up, especially for a shorter work, and was intrigued. Zoe Bennett is the heroine of the story, and she is a werewolf who is in heat and needs a man. She doesn’t have one, so she shows up to Last Call and orders a Kamikaze: werewolf in heat, looking for temporary mate.

Connor O’Malley is a werewolf working on the security systems at Last Call. He sees Zoe and steals her away before the other men can stampede in their race to get to her, and convinces her to go upstairs with him. They go upstairs and have lots of sex.

That’s the entire storyline; there are no hidden depths to this story as it’s very short. It’s thirty pages long, and in actuality, this feels like both the story is too long and too short. It’s too short in the way of the characters. I don’t know anything about Connor other than he has an Irish name, is a werewolf, and works security systems. I don’t know anything about Zoe other than she’s looking for a man. Both characters are very vaguely sketched out, leaving me not much to root for. These two feel like strangers to me, and in the hands of an author with stronger characterization skills, it could have come across as part of the plot to see them slowly learn about each other. I just found these two boring.

The story also felt very long because the vast majority of it is sex. And after a few scenes of them having sex, it became dull for me. The sex was well written but lacking spark, and it should have been hotter. Also, other than the mentions of the werewolf nature of the two characters and the fact that Zoe is in heat, there are no supernatural goings-on in the story. I would have liked more, but there was only 30 pages to work with.

It was a free read, and I don’t regret reading it, but I’m going to have to say that your writing just doesn’t work for me. Which is a shame, because I like the concept of the series, and some of the later stories look fun. But after struggling to finish even 30 pages? I’m afraid I’m out. It’s not you, it’s me. This one gets a C .

All best,

January

Amazon BN Sony Kobo ARE

Thursday Midday Links: New eReaders to debut from BN and Amazon

Jane — Thu, 05 May 2011 15:00:16 +0000

There is a lot of news today. First up Barnes and Noble is set to announce a new ebook reader during BEA which is in a couple of weeks. Amazon is releasing a new ebook reader this fall. The BN Nook 2, as Mike Cane believes it will be called, is likely to have a Mirasol type screen which is a color eInk screen. I saw a Mirasol screen a couple of years ago and it was beautiful. The Amazon ebook reader is likely to be a full fledged Android tablet.

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Free ebooks this month:

5/1/2011 to 5/31/2011 Long Hard Ride Lorelei James
5/1/2011 to 5/14/2011 A Little Harmless Sex Melissa Schroeder
5/15/2011 to 5/28/2011 Fortune’s Deception Karen Erickson
SEALed with a Kiss by Mary Daughtridge
A Tailor-Made Bride by Kare Witemeyer

More here.

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Amazon has launched a new publishing imprint featuring romances called Amazon Montlake. Connie Brockway is the debut author in that line. According to Ms. Brockway, this cover is just a placeholder. One hopes so because otherwise I have my doubts about the success of that line. More genre specific imprints are coming from Amazon. We wrote about Amazon as a publisher in 2009:

This was correctly read as Amazon’s foray into the marketplace as a publisher, not just a retailer. While this may have been a surprise to some, it seemed like the natural progression of Bezos’ moves in the last few years. We actually discussed this just last month wherein I suggested the next logical step for Bezos was to become a publisher.

AAR has an email from Brockway about why she’s made an about face from her recent announcement that she would self publish. There is no mention of whether she received an advance (and my guess is that she did not) but she will get a book in print and audio as well as on the Kindle platform. She will also receive editing support. Again, no details of the terms of the deal are released.

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Revenue reports are coming in from all publishers:

Harlequin:

The company’s total first-quarter revenue increased to $351.4 million from $335 million, and Torstar said sales from Harlequin, which publishes romance novels, more than offset declines in other divisions such as lower print advertising revenues.

Simon & Schuster:

“We got out of the gate faster than usual,” said S&S CEO Carolyn Reidy led by sales of e-books that doubled in the quarter and accounted for 17% of revenue with digital audio adding the other one percent (about $28 million). The steep increase in profits was attributed to lower shipping, production and returns costs as well as the “painful” belt-tightening that S&S has implemented over the last 18 months plus the higher sales, Reidy said.

Hachette (PDF):

However, “EBook sales momentum was considerable” in the first quarter of 2011, “up 88% compared to Q1 2010, accounting for approximately 22% of revenue in the United States.” Brisk sales in the U.S. for reading devices at the end of 2010 are a key factor in the explosive growth of digital reading in the first three months of this year. HBG has had 23 titles on the New York Times eBook bestseller list since the list’s debut on February 13, 2011.

Pearson (parent of Penguin):

Pearson PLC (PSON.LN) said Thursday that revenue rose 9% in the first quarter, bolstered by its extensive education and publishing operations, and reiterated that it expects sales, margin and earnings growth in 2011.

Pearson said the FT Group has made a “good start to the year”, and that Penguin “continues to benefit from consistently strong publishing and a leading position in digital reading, with ebook sales doubling in the first quarter” from a year earlier.

Harper (paid link):

In the US, eBooks comprised 19 percent of sales in the US, and 11 percent of worldwide revenues. The company says “we expect to see those figures continue to grow as more readers enter the market over the next year.

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The rise in digital sales is good because publishers need it. Borders looks to be dead in the water as the CEO makes a plea for a bailout and retail publishing sales slump to an eight year low.

Thursday Morning Links: It’s a Jane Austen Celebration

Jane — Thu, 16 Dec 2010 12:05:14 +0000

I wanted to post this early in the morning. Our reviews will follow later on today. Today is Jane Austen’s birthday and to celebrate Sourcebooks is giving away digital copies of the following books (look for them at your favorite etailer):

Eliza's Daughter, by Joan Aiken (Sense and Sensibility continuation)
The Darcy's & the Bingley's, by Marsha Altman (Pride & Prejudice continuation)
Mr. Darcy Takes a Wife, by Linda Berdoll (Pride & Prejudice continuation)
What Would Jane Austen Do?, by Laurie Brown (contemporary/time-travel romance)
The Pemberley Chronicles, by Rebecca Collins (Pride & Prejudice companion)
The Other Mr. Darcy, by Monica Fairview (Pride & Prejudice continuation)
Mr. Darcy's Diary, by Amanda Grange (Pride & Prejudice continuation)
Mr. & Mrs. Fitzwilliam Darcy: Two Shall Become One, by Sharon Lathan (Pride & Prejudice continuation)
Lydia Bennet's Story, by Jane Odiwe (Pride & Prejudice continuation)

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In keeping with the Jane Austen theme, The Republic of Pemberly is hosting a short story contest in conjunction with Ballantine Books. The short story contest begins January 1, 2011. The grand prize is publication of your entry in the Ballantine anthology “Jane Austen Made Me Do It.” Publication of this anthology is tentatively set in the Fall of 2011.

Contest Highlights

Eligibility: Previously unpublished U.S. residents over the age of 18
Entries must be approximately 5,000 words in length
Manuscript submission January 1 – February 13, 2011
Voting for the Top Ten finalists February 14 – 28, 2011
Top Ten finalists announced on March 1, 2011
One Grand Prize winner receives $500.00 and a contract for publication in the anthology Jane Austen Made Me Do It
Grand Prize winner announced Fall 2011 in conjunction with the official release by Ballantine Books (Random House, Inc.) of Jane Austen Made Me Do It

Jane Austen Made Me Do It contains more than twenty best-selling and popular authors who have contributed short stories inspired by Jane Austen, her novels and her philosophies of life and love. From historical continuations of her plots and characters to contemporary spinoffs and comedies, the stories encapsulate what we love about our favorite author: romance, social satire and witty humor. Contributing to the line-up are best-selling authors Karen Joy Fowler (The Jane Austen Book Club), Adriana Trigiani (Brava, Valentine), Lauren Willig (The Pink Carnation series), Laurie Viera Rigler (The Jane Austen Addict series), Syrie James (The Lost Memoirs of Jane Austen), Stephanie Barron (Being A Jane Austen Mystery series), and the husband and wife writing team of Frank Delaney (Venetia Kelly's Traveling Show) and Diane Meier (The Season of Second Chances). Many Austenesque authors and others from related genres have also contributed stories to the project. One spot in the anthology remains open for the lucky Grand Prize winner.

The anthology's editor, Laurel Ann Nattress of Austenprose.com, is very excited at the prospect of discovering the next star in the burgeoning sub-genre of Jane Austen sequels and inspired books. "Jane Austen has been inspiring writers for close to two hundred years. It seems quite fitting that she should be the witty muse of our anthology and short story contest. Encouraging writing and discovering new talent is in spirit with her true legacy. I am "all anticipation' of what will develop, and am honored to be part of the selection team."

Visit the official Jane Austen Made Me Do It Short Story Contest web page for official contest rules and eligibility requirements. Best of luck to all entrants.

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Samhain is giving away freebies, although not related to Jane Austen but rather to New Year’s Eve. These four New Year’s themed stories are freebies on Kindle and Nook and will run a full month from mid-December to mid-January.

The first date is the day the book price flips to $0.00 and the second date is the final day and the original price will go into effect again.

12/15/2010 to 1/15/2011: Going All In by Jess Dee
12/15/2010 to 1/15/2011: Make Mine Midnight by Annmarie McKenna
12/15/2010 to 1/15/2011: The Bite of Silence by Mary Hughes
12/15/2010 to 1/15/2011: With this Ring by T.A. Chase

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Remember the pedophile book? Amazon is continuing to censor books that its reading public decides is offensive. This time around erotic romances featuring incest is being pulled from the self publishing ranks. As Ars notes, part of the settlement over the George Orwell debacle was that Amazon would not remove purchased content from a consumer’s account without a court order. Yet, some readers have indicated that these now banned books have been deleted from their accounts. No confirming details have been given. Amazon’s censorship is concerning yet there isn’t enough of an outcry because the books being banned by Amazon are on the margins. I guess so long as Amazon just removes the fringe books, then it’s all okay?

Note: Amazon is censoring. Censorship, however, is not the same as a violation of the first amendment.

Tuesday Morning Links: Real Life Romance

Jane — Tue, 13 Jul 2010 10:00:50 +0000

Borders opens its ebook store to the public. It sells epubbed books using the standard epub encryption. Borders ebooks can be read on all devices that read epub. It is fulfilled by Kobo and thus has some backlist title problems which will hopefully be resolved over time. I’m not sure that Borders can gain 17% of the market just by opening its doors when it has missing content.

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Round 2 of Barnes and Noble v. Amazon involves a battle over students. According to one study, over half of college students are going to buy an ereader. Barnes and Noble’s gambit is to offer Nookstudy, a software application to be launched next month. The software application is designed to be a note taking, text book reading application. Amazon is offering free Prime membership for one year to all college students.

Spicing up the competition between the two is the news that Amazon has recently been granted a patent for a dual screen ereading device that is broad enough to cover the nook. There is no word, yet, on what Amazon intends to do with such a device but it has not been shy about enforcing patents in the past. Amazon patented 1-Click shopping experience. Apple licenses this for iTunes and its iPhone/iPad/iTouch. Barnes and Noble tried to implement its own 1 Click experience. Amazon sued BN and was granted a preliminary injunction. An out of court settlement was reached and BN instituted a two click buying process.

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Calvin Reid, writing for PW, notes that agency pricing has achieved publisher’s goals of seizing control over pricing, raising ebook prices, and allowing more merchants in the marketplace. Of interest, it notes that when there is pricing freedom, Amazon Kindle prices are lower:

On the other hand, Stephen King’s Under the Dome is available for $9.99 for the (agency model priced) Kindle edition, but rises to $16.99 on the iBookstore-’so buyer beware and go figure. And pricing can get even stranger. Kensington Publishing offers its books through the agency model for Apple and sticks with the wholesale model for Amazon. The resulting pricing for the iBooks and Kindle editions is much the same-’except when it isn’t. Mary Monroe’s novel, God Ain’t Through Yet, sells for $9.99 for the Kindle and $10.99 in the iBookstore, but L. Devine’s Drama High: Cold as Ice, a popular African-American teen series, is priced at $5.71 on the Kindle (a non-agency model price) and $8.99 in the iBookstore-’Kensington’s genre titles range from $4.99 to $9.99 in the iBookstore.

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Tony Holland, chair of the Society of Authors, spoke at the Romance Novelist’s Association and urged the authors to foment for larger royalties. Holland, among others, wants to see a 50/50 split in ebook royalties. Ironically, Holland uses the same arguments for higher royalties that readers use in arguing that prices of ebooks should be cheaper:

Although publishers “are inclined to dismiss the argument that costs are reduced on ebooks”, Holland said: “Once a system has been set up, publishers won’t be paying for warehousing, distribution and printing, and we have to ask ourselves what are they spending the money on?

Contrast this with Sandra Brown’s statements at Thrillerfest (Via EbookNewser):

“The huge downside is that they didn’t start charging enough, it should be closer to hardcover pricing,” she said. “I almost feel guilty when I download a book from a colleague, because I know how much blood sweat and tears went into that. I would pay more if they charged more.”

I give Sandra Brown an “E” for effort. (Seriously, I am going to start writing E for Effort reviews. No author will be insulted by those, right?) As several others pointed out when this article appeared, “What the fuck is with the comic book comparison” and “does she buy mass market reprints ever?”

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Author Ilona Andrews is giving away free content on Smashwords. What is the content you ask? Outtakes of the books from Curran’s point of view. Fun!

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Barnes and Noble is undergoing a lawsuit brought by investor Ron Burkle. BN voted in a poison pill provision which essentially would dilute Burkle’s interest and make a take over very expensive. Burkle sued, asserting that this was against the company’s best interest. In testimony, a few interesting things came out. Burkle wanted BN to buy Borders.

BN has suffered a 54% stock decline in the past 11 months and some are wondering whether BN’s purchase of founder and Chairman Len Riggio’s college textbook business to the tune of $514 million made sense.

Publishersmarketplace is the only venue that I could find that reported on Len Riggio’s impeachment during the trial. Riggio testified at trial that the poison pill was adopted to protect the company but in a videotaped deposition earlier admitted that the poison pill was to protect his family.

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James Patterson has announced he has sold over 1 million ebook copies. Of course, he has also sold over 205 million print books. It would be interesting to know how many print books he sold during the time period during which he accumulated the 1 million ebook sales.

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Author Tony Woodlief complains about the restrictions of copyright law and how it is economically and creatively inhibiting creators.

The copyright thicket is a growing frustration among writers and editors. One editor of a popular literary anthology (who asked to remain anonymous for fear of reprisals from publishers) confirmed that many publishers pursue illusory short-term profit at the expense of both profit and art. By demanding fees that most people won’t pay, they forsake free advertising for the artists they claim to protect. If restaurants behaved that way, not only would they deny you the right to take home leftovers to your dog, they’d try to charge you for smelling their food when you pass by.

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And finally, a little real life romance story. Iker Casillas is the captain of ~~Real Madrid~~ the Spanish team and the goalkeeper. In the first match of the WorldCup, ~~Real Madrid~~ Spain lost to Switzerland and Casillas was blamed. Some accused Casillas of being distracted by the sideline reporter, Sara Carbonero, who happens to be Casillas’ girlfriend. Spain wanted Carbonero gone.

Many fans have been angered by her presence in South Africa, fearing it could prove a distraction for the goalkeeper and prove a destabilising influence within the squad. Carbonero was asked by her own TV station, Telecinco, about her influence. “Can I destabilise the team?” she said. “I think it is nonsense.”

Casillas went on to make two crucial saves in the final World Cup match and helped bring home to Spain their first World Cup trophy. In a post game interview with reporter Carbonero, Casillas gets emotional and then, well, you really need to watch it:

Life. You can’t script it better than this.

Monday Midday Links Roundup: ebooks signal death of midlist?

Jane — Mon, 14 Jun 2010 15:39:58 +0000

I can’t recall if I posted this but the winner of the copy of Petals from the Sky from last week's Intro Interview with Mingmei Yip is Ms. Bookjunkie. Send your post info to Alyson at daintrointerview AT gmail DOT com, and she'll get your book out to you. Congratulations!

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Donna Hayes, Harlequin's Publisher and CEO is the recipient of this year's "W Award" presented by the YWCA of the City of New York. Ms. Hayes is being recognized not only as a business woman at the top of her field, but also for supporting the YWCA's mission to empower women and eliminate discrimination through the books she and Harlequin Enterprises publishes each month. The award will be given on June 24. Here is information about the event:

Who: Donna Hayes, Publisher & CEO of Harlequin Enterprises Wins the 2010 "W Award"

What: YWCA of the City of New York's 6th Annual Summer Soiree

When: Thursday, June 24 from 6:30 PM to 10:00 PM

Where: Trump SoHo New York, 246 Spring Street at Varick Street

Why: New York City's premier soiree in support of women – an evening of cocktails, light fare, silent auction, networking, music and dancing at the brand-new Trump SoHo New York. Tickets start at $225 and are tax-deductible.

To purchase tickets, contact: Sara Raassi at (212) 735-9708 or sraassi@ywcanyc.org. Holy crap, expensive right? YWCA is offering 20% off to Dear Author readers. If you go, let me know how it went!

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Today is the last day for you to download Undercover Lover: Take Me, Lover, Book 2 by Charlaine Teglia for free. Tomorrow Samhain will offer Moira Rogers’ Cry Sanctuary: Book 1 of Red Rock Pass series for free until the 28th.

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The Wall Street Journal put together a brief video history of the book. Thanks Kay!

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James McGrath Morrison says that ebooks will kill the midlist because people will no longer browse. Browsing is all done in the retail stores.

Digital books create a retailing bypass that diminishes the exposure of midlist books to potential readers. Supermarkets have long understood the importance of this aspect of sales, arranging their stores so shoppers have to pass through aisles filled with tempting items in order to pick up a quart of milk. So while eBooks will offer publishers an easier and more economic means to sell more works by leading authors it will increase the challenge of marketing books by others.

I think I buy more midlist authors in ebook format than I ever did in print format and I do far more impulse buying. That one click is a frigging killer.

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Authors Guild sent out a warning over new contract terms Wiley would like for its authors to agree to. Wiley wants to pay royalties off the net and not retail. Further it wants to change the rights of reversion. Essentially Authors Guild is arguing Wiley wants to keep the rights for longer and pay less money. Wiley disagrees and argues that its new contract terms would pay most authors more. Authors Guild has been wrong before but it never hurts to read your contract twice.

via PubRants

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Rachel and Doystel & Gooderich points us to a Huffington Post piece on epic fantasy hookups between authors (not of the sexual kind but of the collaborative kind). I generally dislike collaborations and frankly can’t think of one hookup I would like to see. How about you?

Dear Jane: Can I read the free ebooks if I don’t have an Ereader?

Jane — Sun, 13 Jun 2010 10:00:06 +0000

Dear Jane:

I’m see all these promotions for free ebooks (or cheap ebooks) but I don’t own an ebook reader and I don’t want to buy one just yet (I’m waiting for that perfect device). But I still want to read some of these books for free. Is there anyway I can do that?

~Lynn

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Dear Lynn:

Yes, for almost all free ebooks or cheap ebook promotions, you can take advantage of these deals by using just your laptop or desktop. The truth is nearly half of people who read ebooks do so using some type of personal computer. The only disadvantage is that you might have to download more than one software program to your desktop to take advantage of these promotions.

There are three major retailers that support the publisher promotions of free and cheap. Those are Kindle (PC and Mac), Nook (PC or Mac), and Sony (PC and Mac). The nook and Sony both sell epubs which you can read with Adobe Digital Editions, however, you will still need to use the retailers’ software in order to download the free books.

The nook does have some in store specials that require you to go into the store and show them a BN ereader on your computer, handheld device, or your nook in order to get the special. Most ebook promotions are available to anyone who has a computer.

Long Answer: How do I keep track? Dear Author posts the monthly specials that they know of but there are three good sources for the publisher promotions: MobileReads “Deals, Freebies, and Resources” forum; Books on the Knob blog; Kindle Besteller list (broken into free and paid).

Random House and Samhain, offer monthly FREE ebooks. For example, this month you can download the following for free:

His Majesty’s Dragon by Naomi Novik, published by Del Rey, a division of Random House. This is the first in the Temeraire series.
No Place for a Lady (Heart of the West Series, Book 1) by Maggie Brendan, published by Revell a division of Baker Publishing Group
Undercover Lover: Take Me, Lover, Book 2 by Charlaine Teglia, published by Samhain
Colters’ Wife by Maya Banks, published by Samhain

This month, Tor has released shorts of its award winning authors:

Overtime by Charlie Stross
Eros, Philia, Agape: A Tor.Com Original by Rachel Swirsky
First Flight: A Tor.Com Originalby Mary Robinette Kowal
A Memory of Wind: A Tor.Com Original by Rachel Swirsky

Kensington often has short, unannounced freebies.

Harlequin has its free books from last year’s 60 year celebration and has added three new free titles. It is also offering freebies directly from its ecommerce site such as Speed Datingby Nancy Warren.

Hachette and Random House offers discounted promotional ebooks. Hachette has been promoting the backlist of Elizabeth Peters. The following Elizabeth Peters books are all $1.99:

Other $1.99 deals are:

A Highlander Never Surrenders by Paula Quinn, published by Forever.
Between the Sheets by Robin Wells, published by Forever.
Seduce Me by Robyn DeHart, published by Forever.
Knight of Desire by Margaret Mallory, published by Forever.
The Surgeon: with Bonus Content by Tess Gerritsen, published by Random House.

Pocket, HarperCollins and Penguin rarely, if ever, feature free backlist giveaways. I haven’t seen giveaways for Ellora’s Cave, Loose Id, Red Sage, or Liquid Silver, to name a few ebook companies.

Dear Jane: Are we really getting $100 worth of free books with an eReader?

Jane — Sun, 06 Jun 2010 10:00:05 +0000

I received an email from reader Lynn about MyPadMedia selling access to free books. MyPadMedia was using Feedbooks feed improperly but the email prompted an issue I have wanted to talk about for a bit but never gotten around to it and that is the sale of public domain books through every internet retailer out there.

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Dear Jane:

I see promotions for ebook readers saying that the ebook readers come with $100 of free books but is this really a great deal?

~ Curious

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Dear Curious:

Short Answer: It really is no deal at all. What the ebook device sellers are doing is collecting a number of popular books in the public domain and preloading them onto your reader. This can actually be a hassle when you go to power up your ebook device and have 100 unwanted books you’ll need to delete. But the great thing is that there are organizations that are creating digital books that are freely accessible to you without buying a digital reader at all. I highly recommend checking out Project Gutenberg, MobileRead, and Feedbooks. Feedbooks provides access to both public domain and original works. All free and perfectly formatted for your reading devices.

One book you might want to check out (among the favorites from Austen and Bronte) is E. M. Hull’s The Sheik which is one of the first captivity narrative romances and possibly the mother of modern romances. (note: this is a forced seduction story).

Long Answer: Public domain books are books whose copyright has expired and thus no one owns the rights to the books. Copyright is a legal term that describes the ownership a creator has over a work produced. An author has the copyright over the book she has written. She then sells access to her copyright to publishers in exchange for money such as an advance (up front lump sum) and royalties (when the up front lump sum is exceeded by a percentage of the revenue earned by sales of the book).

The author is entitled to a copyright for a certain period of time. When the statute creating copyrights was first enacted in the US, the length of a copyright was 28 years renewable for another 28 years. Since 1909, the copyright law has been amended several times and now the length of copyright is the life of the creator plus seventy years. Each country has its own term of copyright. This wikipedia chart provides an exhaustive summary of the different copyright lengths.

It is the different copyright lengths that led to the Amazon George Orwell debacle. The Orwell books became part of the public domain in many countries like Australia, Canada, and Russia but they are still in copyright in the U.S. and the European Union. A company had been digitizing public domain books and included Orwell books in the Kindle release. The Orwell Estate sent a notice asking the books to be removed and Amazon complied by deleting the books off people’s Kindle devices and sending a refund. (Amazon has since promised that they will never reach into people’s Kindle accounts again and remove content without a court order). (Source: Boing Boing, Times, and Make)

Once a book has fallen into the public domain, we members of the public can do with the work what we want. We can take a Jane Austen book and create new works from it like the famous Pride and Prejudice and Zombies. Or we can take a Jane Austen book, create a digital copy, and sell it ourselves. Penguin is famous for its Penguin Classics which essentially takes works in the public domain and repackages them for sale.

The great thing about digital books is that there are organizations that are creating digital copies out of all the books that have fallen out of copyright. Digitization of public domain books is one thing that Google is doing and why it is claiming that it will have over more books available than anyone else.

Project Gutenberg is a non profit organization that is dedicated to the digitization of public domain works as well. Project Gutenberg has over 30000 of the most popular classics digitized and available in different formats. You can use my handy chart to help you decide which format to download.
The readers at MobileRead have also been digitizing public domain works and these are also available for free.
Another great source of both public domain works and other free fiction is Feedbooks.

The point is that those $100 worth of free books can be had for free by anyone. You just need to know where to look. Happy downloading.

Midday Links: More Amazon Review Drama, Scholarly Edition

Jane — Wed, 21 Apr 2010 17:00:29 +0000

This New Yorker article is one of the best articles I’ve read about the Apple pricing model, Apple, Amazon, and publishers. Pieces of interest include that Apple has agreed to this type of pricing model for only one year and only publishers believe that higher digital prices can be sustained.

No matter where consumers buy books, their belief that electronic media should cost less-’that something you can't hold simply isn't worth as much money-’will exert a powerful force. Asked about publishers' efforts to raise prices, a skeptical literary agent said, "You can try to put on wings and defy gravity, but eventually you will be pulled down."

Publishers Marketplace took exception (paid link) to the gossipy tone of the article and the suspect math (only a $1 left over for profit?) but the New Yorker article is great for the overview because it gives insight on the publisher mindset and how the retail rivals are shaping up. Obviously, Steve Jobs is in the I win/you lose school too. Witness the drama between Apple and Adobe or Apple and HTC or Apple and Google or Apple v. anyone who submits an iPhone App.

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To borrow a word from the Auletta article, academics in Britain were incandescent over reviews left by Dr. Stephanie Palmer, a senior law lecturer at Cambridge University and wife to Dr. Orlando Figes, a history professor. Dr. Palmer, under the name “Historian” left scathing reviews of other historians’ works.

For some reason this led to one angry author to email 30 some other targeted authors and resulted in legal threats and ultimately Amazon’s removal of the reviews. I know that the UK has much stricter libel laws, but the reviews had to be removed? And were the subject of legal threats?

One author, the subject of a negative review by Dr. Palmer, said that the online reviews were “unpleasant personal attacks in the old Soviet fashion.”

So thus, the lesson is if you leave a negative review calling a book “dull” and “awful”, you are a communist. And, you will always be found out if you are anonymous.

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One thing that our librarian did NOT do in “What the Librarian Did by Karina Bliss” is have sex in the stacks but according to one library survey at least 20% of librarians find the stacks a perfect trysting place. I worked in my college library and the stacks were a musty, dusty place with a lot of dark corners. Plus, it totally enclosed in the middle of the library.

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Amazon has sued for declaratory judgment in Seattle asking the court to clarify whether Amazon must turn over customer information requested by North Carolina. The State of North Carolina says that it must have this information to collect sales tax. Amazon has provided some information but has balked at providing the names and addresses of all residents who has bought anything from Amazon since 2003 arguing that it is an invasion of privacy. I have to agree with Amazon here. As long as they are providing sales data without identifying information, I don’t believe North Carolina is entitled to know what books each and every resident purchased.

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The Impact of Free eBooks dissertation has been published and (PDF LINK) made available for free.

Conclusion: free ebooks appear to help print sales but there are a lot of variables and this may change as ebooks become a larger part of the market.

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Mike Shatzkin blogs again about the danger of an internet purchasing world. The danger to print publishing is not just in digital books, but in online sales and the loss of brick and mortar retail power. Shatzkin argues that as many as half the book purchases could be online by the end of 2012 and the danger is that “inventory creates sales that wouldn’totherwise occur.”

how books are displayed and what clerks say (which is also affected by how books are displayed) -’ influences a lot of purchases. If we don't have retail locations with books merchandised to entice people to buy, I believe overall book sales will go down.

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In another blow to independent booksellers, New York School system has decided to purchase its trade books directly from wholesale discounters instead of more than 100 small vendors selling fiction, non fiction, and supplemental textbooks.

The library services division of Ingram, the country's largest trade-book wholesaler, and The Booksource, one of its main competitors, outbid their rivals with guaranteed discounts of as much as 38 percent on single titles.

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Someone at MobileRead noticed that Barnes and Noble is advertising the nook at a book file sharing site. I think its probably smart of BN but is it ethically wrong?

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I bet Bob Sessions of Penguin Australia wishes he could have do over. Penguin Australia released “Pasta Bible” which had the phrase “freshly ground black people” instead of “black pepper.” The publisher pulped and reprinted 7000 copies but could not recall all the books on the shelves. Sessions then said that anyone who complained about the “silly mistake” would be given a new version. Sessions just didn’t understand why anyone would be offended.

I know race relations are very different in other parts of the world but still.

Friday End of the Day Links: GetGlue Is Pretty Cool

Jane — Sat, 06 Mar 2010 01:03:02 +0000

I had a product demonstration of GetGlue today with Ami Grecko. I had learned of GetGlue before but I really didn’t understand how it worked. After all, do I really need another social networking service? At the end of the thirty minutes, I was convinced that this wasn’t just another social networking service and I could really see value in it, enough so that I am going to try it out. One of the things I really liked was that it gathered all the media products: TV shows, movies, DVDs, and books, in one place. Another thing I liked was that, if you downloaded the browser add on, you could have get glue follow you around the web. If I was at Amazon, looking at a book, the GetGlue add on would show me how my GetGlue friends have rated the product. I’ve arranged for Ami to come back after DABWAHA and give an interview about the product. It’s free. That’s the first, most important, thing, right?

Disclaimer: I have no financial interest in this product whatsoever. Ami did sit next to me at Tools of Change during a lunch but the lunch was part of the TOC conference package. I don’t think that counts, does it?

Further Disclaimer: I did get invited to guest blog at The New Sleekness, Ami’s publishing blog. I blogged today about reader fickleness.

Usually I don’t post these, in part because there is so much to post, but today’s Harlequin Friday Freebie is Anne Stuart’s first category, Tangled Lies. Yes, it is free. It is free if you buy two other books. Sorry for not reading the promo carefully. Another free book is Half Past Dead by Zoe Archer and Bianca D’Arc from Sony. Mireya notes that you have to call customer service to get a refund for the free book. Further updated: this promo is available only to US readers. Non US Readers have to pay $10.08. Thanks Christine M. Again, free has strings I guess.

Continuing on with the “free” concept, John Hilton III and David Wiley have released the results of a study they did on free digital books and the affect on print sales. Hilton and Wiley used bookscan to track the variances of sales pre and post promotional freebie. Most of the time sales increased, although not all of the time. I wonder if the decrease in sales, however, was the result of lack of availability in the bookstore. It’s hard to measure. Hilton and Wiley suggest caution for publishers using their study as the basis of a promotional strategy and urge that more studies be performed.

In our own survey, 92.70% have downloaded a free book with 70.44% making a purchased based on that free read.

Here’s a really delightful news piece on romance genre that is based on the Yale class being taught by Lauren Willig and Andrea DaRif. I really liked this paragraph but the whole article is worth a read:

Others rebut feminist critiques of romance novels by saying that such criticism is, at best, beside the point. Even if you believe that the books perpetuate harmful stereotypes, romance is hardly be the only genre to systematically denigrate women. "In many genres-’horror or spy fiction, for example," said Willig, "Women are treated horribly by men, whereas in romance novels at least the women are the heroines." The pervasive nature of sexism in media means that to expect romance novels to be paragons of gender equality is to hold them to a much higher standard than any other form of popular entertainment.

Author Rob Thurman is desperate to get on the NY Times Bestseller list and to be reviewed on Amazon. To ensure the former happens, Thurman gave specific instructions to her readers on how to make this happen which includes ONLY buying from physical retail stores and ONLY buying the release date. As far as I know, print sales on Amazon does count toward the NYTimes list and only a select few bookstores around the US are considered NY Times reporting stores. She suggests that you aren’t a troo fan if you don’t and even proceeds to tell readers to cancel their orders if they don’t comply with her demands.

She’s impatient with those who don’t understand:

One more time people:now..cough..FRAKKING LISTEN. I’ve said it 1000 times in the past 2 wks, ONLINE sales DON’T COUNT. Don’t help me at all

To ensure the latter happens, Thurman offered free books and other goodies in exchange for reviews at Amazon. When one reader took offense to this, Thurman responded with these comments.

R. Thurman says:
How do you think I even get *60* reviews? NYT #1 sellers get hundreds of Amazon reviews because they have about a hundred thousand readers more than I do. I have young fans who aren’t inclined to take time to leave a review, I many have fans who buy the book the first day from a bookstore and it doesn’t cross their mind to leave a review at a place where they didn’t buy it. So if you have any suggestions to catch attention other than giving away prizes to leave reviews (of *your* choice, good or bad), well, goddamned, I’d love to hear it.

and

R. Thurman says:
How about this, JP? Get off your butt and try selling books when your publisher does not contribute a penny to do it. Try to get people to leave reviews who don’t buy off Amazon (as most of my fans don’t…they hit the bookstore first week.) And try to read a little more closely…if you wanted a signed copy of a book you did hate, I *would* think you had problems, but if you still wanted it, I’d give it. I didn’t read the Amazon reviews of people I chose at random to receive the books. And a long time fan of mine left me a scathing review (I just found out) ripping the book to shreds. Do I know if I gave her a signed copy? No idea. Oh, and I make less than 50 cents per book before taxes. I make less than the person working the McDonald’s drive thru–part time. So how about you cut me some slack? Writing these days is 10% writing and 90% promotion, and while I hate that, I have to do it. When you’re willing to support me and save me from this ‘bribe’ ridden life, give me a call.

We’ve reviewed Thurman positively here. Jia tells me she is a great author. Obviously people are loving her books. But browbeating readers doesn’t seem like a good marketing scheme in the long run.

In true irony, though, Thurman has been outed as a fan fiction author who wrote ghostbusters fan fiction under her real name: Robyn Thurman but has been known to decry the fan ficcers who write slash about her main characters.

The tech blogs have news about Microsoft’s Courier which looks about as lust worthy as the iPad. The rumor is that the Courier is due to be released in late 2010. Pre orders for the iPad begin on March 12 and April 3.

Craig Mod takes a look at books and design suggesting that some books are form agnostic and some are form definite. The iPad (and I presume devices like it) are allowing for form definite books that eink readers and small smartphones have not.

We’re going to see new forms of storytelling emerge from this canvas. This is an opportunity to redefine modes of conversation between reader and content. And that’s one hell of an opportunity if making content is your thing.

(Via Christine Rimmer)

Ace Books is partnering with UBISoft to produce a novel based on the video game, Assassin’s Creed. I assume that this novel will be ghost written. I’ve never read novelizations based on TV series or movies but I know the Star Trek novel series is pretty popular, right?

REVIEW: Lenore Black’s oeuvre (doesn’t that sound smart? :)

SarahF — Wed, 17 Feb 2010 20:57:55 +0000

Dear Ms. Black.

I reviewed a short story of yours in my review of Sindusty I from Dreamspinner Press. It was one of my two favorites of the anthology. I had this to say about it: “I adored this sweet little story. Patrick is a video game designer, working the final kinks out of a game weeks before release. He's not perfectly sculpted and toned-’he's a dork and kind of soft around the edges. His friends buy him a prostitute for his birthday, just so he'll get laid. But Jack keeps coming back, "the gift that keeps on giving." The connection between the characters, the fun they have and the affection between them makes this a gem of a story. Grade: A-”

But I didn’t realize I’d already read a story of yours when I dove into the short (70 pages) “Rules Were Meant to be Broken” from Dreamspinner. I chose it because it’s labeled a BDSM romance and while I think that’s a gross mislabeling (one-time use of handcuffs does NOT make a BDSM romance), I certainly don’t hold that against you because the story was just wonderfully fresh. Aaron has lusted after his best friend for 15 years and has an elaborate set of rules he follows so that Dale doesn’t find out:

“In fact, he'd devised a "Big List of Rules For Hiding That You're In Love With Your Best Friend" just for this purpose. Rule #4 was: seeing the guy really shouldn't make your heart beat faster, so just pretend it doesn't.”

Rule #9 said: you're not supposed to be jealous of the girls who sleep with your best friend. It was always the hardest rule to follow.

It was hard for me to warm up to Dale. He’s a no-good layabout with no job, no ambition, and indiscriminate taste in women…and apparently in men, too, as Aaron finds out later. It’s that indiscriminate taste that is the cause of him calling Aaron at 3am one morning so Aaron can help him out of the handcuffs one of his bar pickups left him in attached to the bed before she stole his wallet. And Aaron’s reaction to being that close to Dale while he’s freeing him makes Dale realize how much Aaron wants him and Dale acts on that realization. However, by the end of the book I loved Dale and I adored Aaron the whole way through. I loved the quirky secondary characters and the obvious deep friendship between the men, even before the grow biblically closer. But most of all, I loved your voice. The “in love with my best friend for year and YEARS” storyline is trite and can be awful, but you pwned it so beautifully, with such a freshness, I loved the story. Grade: Another A-

Then I moved to “Ganymede,” a short story in the I Do Too anthology by MLR Press (review of the whole anthology forthcoming). This story is incredibly different from the other two of yours I’ve read. If asked, I would have said they had different authors. But again, your voice shines through, even though it’s so different in the other two stories. An American vinter goes to Italy to drop in unannounced on a legendary but retired Italian wine-maker who is experimenting with non-technological ways of making wine, in order to become the Italian’s student — acolyte, even. The story is told in present tense, which threw me, but the language is evocative and exciting, and the characters are brilliantly detailed snapshots of two deeply imagined, beautifully written men. I think the relationship happens a little too quickly, but the lushness of your language and the richly layered characterization and motivation mostly make up for that. I also loved that these men were both (?) older. Certainly the Italian was over 60 probably. The story is just…different, but in such a good way that it makes me excited about your future stories as long as you keep writing. Grade: B+

The question becomes at this point: you’re brilliant with short stories, but what are your longer stories like? Can you sustain that brilliance? All’s Fair in Love and Advertising allowed me to figure this out. Quick answer: Oh, hellz YES!

The book is about 150 pages and Max is a character I should have hated. He’s an advertising genius, a complete workaholic, but not in the grim alpha-hero way. He’s neurotic and melodramatic and completely over-the-top. One of those people who’s impossible to work with but absolutely brilliant. He’s not over his wife leaving him two years previously (and breaking their partnership) and he hides his hurt by “turning gay.” Which should be insulting and obnoxious and awful, but just isn’t, somehow, because it’s just…Max.

He’s competing for an account for Avionics, a flight technology company that needs to up its visibility and therefore its stock value in order to avoid a take-over bid by Omnion, the Evil Corporate Empire. Of course, Max meets Joe, the founder and owner of Avionics and falls for him, hard. But in a completely neurotic, manic, Max-like way.

Again, voice is what carried this story. It was told in deep third person perspective from Max’s perspective. I haven’t laughed out loud at a book so much in a long long time. I was giggling through most of it. Max was maddening and adorable at the same time. In trying to find a quote, I just want to cut and paste the whole thing. But try this. Joe just told Max that he liked his work, and Max, who is a typical New Yorker who can’t get beyond the fact that Joe is from Montana, challenged him to name his favorite:

"You know, I liked the gum thing. That was catchy. And the beer stuff. Everyone likes that. But I think my favorites are the commercials you did for that financial services company, the serious ones with the black-and-white footage and the literary quotes. Gotta admire someone who can work e.e. cummings into a commercial about asset protection."

Max blinked. That campaign dated from at least ten years ago. It wasn't one he was generally remembered for, but it happened to be his own personal favorite. He lifted his chin stubbornly. Just because Bennett appreciated his work didn't make him any less of a yokel; it just made him a yokel with good taste. Any moment now, Max knew, the charm would rub off, and Bennett would show his true, narrow-minded colors.

Max did his best to hurry along the process. "I read your company is headquartered in Montana."

"We have a small office here in New York. But, yeah, most of the operation is back in Wilcox," Bennett said. "A small town, but we like it. Great views of the mountains. And we're one of the biggest employers in the state. So that has its perks."

"Is that what drew you there? Tax breaks?" Max lifted an eyebrow inquiringly. "Or was it the handy proximity to the local militias?"

Bennett laughed again, but it didn't have quite the same humor as before. "Naw, no playing at war out in the woods for me. Wilcox is where I grew up. After I retired from the Air Force-’" His voice got tighter. "Medical retirement. My jet got shot down in Bosnia. It just made sense to come home. Be near family while I was laid up. I ended up staying put."

"Oh," Max said weakly. "I didn't realize-’"

Bennett shrugged. "Hey, all in the past now, right?"

Happily, the sommelier chose that moment to descend upon them. Bennett turned his attention back to the wine list, and Max fidgeted in his seat. There was an uncomfortable feeling in his chest, something he wasn't used to, something that left him off-kilter. Possibly it was a sense of shame. That would explain why he didn't recognize it right off the bat.

And that makes Max sound like an asshole — and he IS — but I loved him all the way through and I loved that Joe liked his abrasiveness. And Joe was delicious — I could totally see how he fell for Max and it was obvious what he was feeling and why, even though we never get into his head. And again, the secondary characters were wonderful. For such a short story and the large cast of characters, the characterization was pitch perfect. And I totally did NOT see the twist at the end of the story, which was refreshing. Altogether, I adored this book, devoured it, and will come back to it again and again. Grade: A

And finally, there’s the unfortunately-covered “SPAM! It’s what’s for Christmas”. Ben is a washed-up, unemployed baseball pro with a bum knee. His boyfriend just threw him out and he’s desperate to get him back. Desperate enough to answer an ad for nude male models. Where he meets the delicious photographer, Gavin. Hijinks ensue, but Ben really wants his boyfriend back…he thinks. We don’t see much of Gavin, to be honest, even though what we do see *is* delicious. This is Ben’s book and Ben is…adorable. Trying to make it work, trying to readjust his life after his dreams are destroyed, trying to figure out what he really wants. Again, the tone of the story, Ben’s voice and his characterization, make it something I just couldn’t stop reading. Grade: B+

You’ve got free fiction on your website (bittersweet) and on your Livejournal (a fairy tale retelling with beautiful writing that stretches my disbelief a little bit too much on the plot, but still gets a B grade because the characters are so good). (Oh. Also: a short story in a Ravenous Romance anthology that I refuse to buy or even request. Not even for you. Sorry.)

And sadly, that’s it. You need to write more. And longer. And OMG, if you keep it up, I think K.A. Mitchell’s got a rival in the m/m world (although the beautiful thing is, of course, you’re not rivals. If you both just keep writing, then the world will be a better place and we can all be friends with sunshine and rainbows and ~~iPads~~unicorns!).

Best regards,
-Joan/Sarah F.

Monday Midday Links: Promotional Copies Make Sense for Some Publishers

Jane — Mon, 25 Jan 2010 19:23:56 +0000

Motoko Rich has a piece on the advisability of free giveaways on Kindle. Random House, Harlequin, and smaller publishers are giving away copies of books at Amazon. Other publishers like Penguin and Hachette believe that giving away books devalues the book itself.

Similarly, a spokesman for Penguin Group USA said: "Penguin has not and does not give away books for free. We feel that the value of the book is too important to do that."

Of course, Penguin doesn’t even believe this as it gave away the first books in the J.D. Robb series in physical form a few years ago.

Interestingly, Chris Brashears of Samhain gave statistics of how promotions had positively impacted her authors. Lauren Dane, for example, sold over 6,000 copies of her books in the months of the free giveaways.

Mike Shatzkin argues that offering free books only cannabalizes the market by encouraging readers to simply read free books.

HarperCollins has officially launched inkspot, a writing site for teens. HarperCollins will have an editorial board to review the top five member selections and will be reviewing the site’s offerings for potentially publishable manuscripts. HarperCollins will also have a platform to promote its own publications for sale.

Ian McEwan, the Booker prize winner, has signed a deal with Rosetta to publish his ebooks which will enable him to double his backlist royalties. The digital books will be available exclusively through Amazon for a period of time. Other authors are looking to strike similar deals.

Free Fiction Download & 10 Book Giveaway: Jennifer Estep’s Spider’s Bargain

Jane — Wed, 20 Jan 2010 17:53:02 +0000

Last winter we linked to a free fiction short from author Caroline Linden and I was contacted by Pocket to see if we would host a free fiction download for author Jennifer Estep. Of course we would. Readers like free fiction and I think it’s a great opportunity to be introduced to the writing voice of a particular author.

Today we have Spider’s Bargain by Jennifer Estep. This short fiction work ties into Estep’s February release, Spider’s Bite. You can download the PDF here. At Jennifer’s site, you can read more about the series, discover the cast of characters, and even obtain a recipe or two.

If you want to win a copy of a Spider’s Bite, the first book in the series, leave a comment. We will be giving away 5 print copies and 5 digital copies of Spider’s Bite to a total of 10 random commenters. Please indicate whether you want a digital or print copy. I hope you enjoy.

December Ebook Deals

Jane — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 18:44:45 +0000

We begin with the monthly Orbit/Grand Central specials:

Orcs by Stan Nicholls $1.00
Pitch Black by Susan Crandall $1.99 (I recommend getting these. Crandall is a good RS author and at $1.99 these two books are a total bargain).
Seeing Red by Susan Crandall $1.99
Bad News by Donald E. Westlake $1.99
Dark Harbor by David Hosp $1.99
The New Centurions by Joseph Wambaugh $1.99
Deception by Denise Mina

From Samhain. Remember that the Begin Date is the start date of the promotion and the end date is, well, the end of the promotion. These are only for the Kindle (fortunately all PC owners can have access through the Kindle PC application)

12/1/2009 – 12/14/2009, The Wallflower: A Hunting Love story, Halle Puma Series Book 1 by Dana Marie Bell FREE!
12/15/2009 – 12/28/2009 Weaving Words by Kim Knox FREE!

From www.omnilit.com and www.allromanceebooks.com 25% REBATE discounts on ALL Harlequin titles from Dec 1 to Dec 14th only.

$1.00 Books v. Free Books (or why Authors Should Charge)

Jane — Sun, 29 Nov 2009 10:00:13 +0000

I’ve been a long proponent of authors giving away their content as a way to seed new readers. Publishers tend to agree with this concept giving away free digital books or even masses of free paper books. The idea is that the author’s own words is the best promotion.

One thing I’ve noticed in the recent months is while I’ll download every free book available at Kindle, I rarely read them. Conversely, I also take advantage of the low price specials from Grand Central Publishing and Harlequin and I almost always at least start, if not finish, those books. These books are priced anywhere from less than $1.00 to $1.99.

As I was reading my fifth book this past holiday weekend, I realized that it was a book for which I had paid money even though I had also downloaded three more expensive books that had been priced at zero. I always intend to read the books that I’ve downloaded for free and I do think that giving away books is a great way to seed the backlist and frontlist titles. I’ve been told that this promotional pricing have had success and at least one independent study has evidenced some positive results (the original post has been taken down, presumably because the data is part of a research paper to be made available at a later date). The fact is, though, I still have not read all 16 books offered by Harlequin as part of its 60th Anniversary celebration. Alison Kent’s With Extreme Pleasure was available for free last week. I’ve yet to crack it’s virtual cover.

But time and again, I’ll download these freebies to read at some point while proceeding to read the books I’ve purchased. I believe I choose to read the books I’ve purchased over the free books because I’ve some personal investment in them, no matter how small. I simply can’t let my $.50 or $1.99 go to waste by allowing that book to languish on my iPhone or Sony Reader. I will, at least, start the book that I purchased. I feel the same sort of obligation toward books I get for review. I will, at least, start those books. (I say “start” because I probably read the first chapter of some 50 books in a month but will only finish 15-20).

There is a certain tangible quality about having the physical book sitting on your shelf or nightstand. It’s constant presence reminds you to read it. A digital file is somewhat hidden, particularly with the primitive software reading programs which don’t allow you to mark whether a book is read or unread. Self discovery is much harder for digital files.

So while it might not be in my best interest to suggest this, I think authors and publishers should charge a nominal amount of money for their promotional books. This nominal amount of money will encourage readers to actually read the book instead of merely hoard the free digital file. If the book can be made available at the author’s website, it should be free, particularly if the retailer is charging some amount. This can serve to drive readers directly to the author’s site but also avoids the charge of the author “ripping off” the reader if the retailer is giving the book away for free. At retailers like Amazon, Sony, and BN, however, it makes sense for the retailer to charge some small amount. The reader feels like she is getting a huge deal and she has some incentive to actually try out the book.

I know that every reader is not like me and clearly the free reads have actually been read and resulted in sales. The question is by what proportional rate will downloads decrease because of a nominal charge but actual reading of the material would increase.

What do you readers think? Do you try every free book you can download? Would you be more likely to read the book if you had paid some amount of money for it? What’s the upper end of a “nominal amount” (mine is $1.99)? Authors, how do you feel about the free download?

Note: I use the word “book” in this post and by that I mean full length novel and not novella or short story. Those I think should always be free as a promotional item.

GIVEAWAY: Caroline Linden Offers Free eBook Short

Jane — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 16:00:21 +0000

Caroline Linden and Avon are giving away a free sample of her work in the form of a free short story. Now we know not everyone reads digital books so Caroline Linden is having a few of these printed up to give away for free. If you want a taste of Caroline’s work and would rather read paper, leave a comment. We’ll pick a random five. If you want to read the story for free, right now, you can download the PDF from this link. This short is a companion piece to “For Your Arms Only” which is due out in December.

Thursday Midday Links: Rosario, One of the Best Bloggers You May Not Read

Jane — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 17:17:08 +0000

Rosario is one of the oldest (not in age but in internet years) bloggers in romance. She was one of my first blog stops ever. She took a few years off from blogging because she was attending graduate school but now she’s back, churning out a quality review almost every day. If you haven’t put Rosario on your feed reader or bookmarked her, you may want to give her a try. (Although, how could you give Anyone But You by Sarah Mayberry a C+? That’s my favorite Mayberry!)

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Siren of the Storm, a fan fiction writer, has a short 2 minute Regency read.

Heroine: Everyone knows that reformed rakes make the best husbands, because they have the four qualities women desire most in a husband: sexual prowess, commitment issues, promiscuity, and a diverse selection of venereal diseases!

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Motoko Rich from the New York Times published an article yesterday on the rise of digital lending. What caught my attention most was that MacMillan, the parent of St. Martin’s Press and Tor (among others), and Simon & Schuster were not allowing their books to be sold, in digital format, to libraries.

But some publishers worry that the convenience of borrowing books electronically could ultimately cut into sales of print editions.

"I don’t have to get in my car, go to the library, look at the book, check it out," said John Sargent, chief executive of Macmillan, which publishes authors like Janet Evanovich,Augusten Burroughs and Jeffrey Eugenides. "Instead, I’m sitting in the comfort of my living room and can say, "Oh, that looks interesting’ and download it."

As digital collections grow, Mr. Sargent said he feared a world in which "pretty soon you’re not paying for anything." Partly because of such concerns, Macmillan does not allow its e-books to be offered in public libraries.

First, it should be noted that a digital library book works like a paper book. The library lends only one copy at a time, requiring readers to be placed on a wait list until the digital copy is “returned” after three weeks. The return happens automatically because the reader’s access is turned off after the three week period. Why Sargent believes that access to books is only allowable by going out of one’s house for shopping, I have no idea. I maintain that the biggest competitor to books is not other books, but other forms of entertainment and if other forms of entertainment are ON DEMAND in one’s house who is losing here?

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In contrast to MacMillan and Simon & Schuster, look at this article about the revival of Dungeons and Dragons online. Apparently online D&D gaming subscriptions were down. The company decided to allow its client software to be downloaded for free. Gamers could then play, up to a certain level, for free. Result? Subscriptions are up 40%.

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Mobility examines the Times article and contrasts that with what Harlequin is doing which is to make its catalog available to as many people as are willing and able to buy at reasonable prices. Even libraries.

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There is more on Jane Friedman’s new business venture from Richard Nash. Her new digital publishing and online marketing platform will focus on big legacy titles and on niche areas such as LGBTQ and African American lines from Kensington. Any new publishing will be based on the digital model – no advance and some profit sharing. What will RWA do now?

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According to this Press Release from Libre Digital, one in three readers who samples something online will end up purchasing the book.

Highlights of other general online book browsing trends include:

* Women are spending nearly 70 percent more time browsing books online than men
do.
* The most popular genre of books browsed online is romance novels, followed by
books for tweens/teens and business books. The peak time for browsing romance
titles is 11pm – 1am, in contrast to 4pm – 11pm for tween/teen books and 9am -
5pm for business books.

Malle Vallik from Harlequin blogs over at Romancing the Blog about how authors should handle blog comments. I agree with everything she wrote. I think everything is more readable in list format, don’t you?

Friday Midday Links: To Heaven and Back Again, the Ebook Saga

Jane — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 18:00:20 +0000

First up, the good news. Kresley Cole is releasing the first story (PDF link) in her Immortals After Dark series titled “Warlord Wants Forever.” It’s one of my favorite works of hers so if you’ve been wondering what kind of writer she is, you can download this FREE PDF copy of the book that ordinarily you would have to pay through the nose to get (and suffer through some really awful stories).

Flush with the news of the big sales for digital copies of Dan Brown’s The Lost Symbol, the ebook community is slapped around with the latest news that etailers like Fictionwise and WH Smith are being forced to remove access to books that people have already bought because of geographical restrictions. I know you can’t see it but I’m shaking my fist right now. (okay, not right now because I am typing but I was before.) I don’t think a simple refund is going to make people happy. This sort of thing results in two actions: 1) piracy and 2) decline in adoption of ebook reading. Way to go!

Speaking of things encouraging piracy, songwriters, musicians, and composers are lobbying to get a law passed that would allow them to get a performance fee for any downloaded digital media. In essence, the law would require a payment for access of digital media, including 30 second previews that we all avail ourselves of on iTunes and Amazon:

“In the US, while we do get paid a mechanical [licensing fee] from ITunes, we are not getting any performance income from Apple yet,” David Renzer, chairman and CEO of Universal Music Publishing Group, said in a recent interview. “[On iTunes] you can stream radio, and you can preview [tracks], things that we should be getting paid performance income for. Also, if you download a film or TV show, there’s no performance [payment] and typically there’s no mechanical [payment] either.”

Library Thing is being forced to remove all other bookseller links from the first page of each book to link to Amazon alone. The reason for this is Library Thing’s database is powered by Amazon data. I’m fairly sure that Amazon provides this data access for free and this is the “payment” that it is now requiring. LibraryThing is not moving away from taking the Amazon data because it is the most complete and error free. Case in point is a competitor’s database MUZE which supplies Borders and eBay. Up until today, MUZE had not updated the covers for several July, August, and September books. Library Thing acknowledges that the covers are very important to its website.

One thing that independent booksellers have been asking publishers to do is to provide a better digital catalog for booksellers. Library Thing wouldn’t have to feed all its primary page traffic to Amazon if it had a good alternative. Who better to provide that than the publishers who control those books?

Speaking of Amazon, it is producing its own line of private label goods. You probably see these in your grocery store. Costco’s brand is Kirkland and Target’s is Archer Farms. Amazon’s private label brand is, well, Amazon. Is there anyone who really doubts that Amazon will be getting into publishing?

Author Andrew Keen is resistant to the ebook shift because he finds ebooks soulless and predicts that ebooks will make authors soulless too. I hadn’t realized that paper and glue imbued the books that authors wrote with soul. I certainly understand that there is some affirmation that authors get with the physical book that perhaps they don’t get with a digital book but if Keen is convinced the only the physical incarnation of the words he wrote is what gives his stories soul, it’s not a very positive comment on his writing. I particularly liked this passage:

Yes, you can call me a reactionary, but, as a book author, I want my work to be fingered by my readers. I want young women like Lillian to wait in line for me to sign copies of my work. Like a character in a Stephanie Meyer fantasy, the e-book drains the blood from the physical text. No, this cultural revolution can’t be recommended.

Nalini Singh, Meljean Brook, Ilona Andrews, Jill Myles and Patrice Michelle have a new blog called the Oddshots wherein they basically make fun of themselves and each other. Meljean redid Jill Myles’ cover to include a cover quote from her mom.

Oh, Jill, honey…it’s very, um, funny and I laughed a lot. But did you have to make it so sexy? I mean, for God’s sake, Jill, what will the family say? *sob* – Jill’s Mom

Paul Graham has a provocative piece about publishing arguing that publishing has never been about the sale of content. He argues essentially what I did a few weeks ago (but only in nicer more cogent terms):

I can see the evolution of book publishing in the books on my shelves. Clearly at some point in the 1960s the big publishing houses started to ask: how cheaply can we make books before people refuse to buy them? The answer turned out to be one step short of phonebooks. As long as it isn’t floppy, consumers still perceive it as a book.

That worked as long as buying printed books was the only way to read them. If printed books are optional, publishers will have to work harder to entice people to buy them. There should be some market, but it’s hard to foresee how big, because its size will depend not on macro trends like the amount people read, but on the ingenuity of individual publishers.

Tuesday Midday Links:

Jane — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 17:00:14 +0000

I have to go to the dentist today for an aching tooth. Yes, my hardliving consisting of peanut m&ms and Mountain Dew is catching up with me. That’s some real news I know you all were dying to read.

DNAML, a company with more consonants than sense, is selling a PDF to ePub converter. This would be great if we knew how well it worked but alas, DNAML doesn’t believe in trial versions of its software. It’s $99 if you want to take the chance.

Laura Benedict explores the advantages and dangers of the free giveaway.

Technology gives us the ultimate democracy. Ultimate freedom. Anyone can be an artist. Put the work out there and you, too, can be judged in the marketplace of ideas. As long as you don’t plan on making a living at it.

Rupert Murdoch has begun to charge for the Wall Street Journal’s mobile content. In an interview, Murdoch sounds positive about the future of journalism.

Almost in every property at the moment [there is] a slight lift," Mr Murdoch said. "It’s very much better than it was a couple of months ago. It’s everywhere," he added, highlighting an 8 per cent fall in revenues at News Corp’s television stations in September, compared with an expected 20 per cent decline for the year to date.

Murdoch is convinced that moving to digital will reduce costs because there will be no unions (the printing unions are apparently killing him), no paper, no printing plants. I’m not as convinced as Murdoch that the costs of journalism will decrease so dramatically but it’s nice to see him have a positive outlook, right?

Ariana Huffington will be launching a book section to the Huffington Post and a new book club. It’s highly unlikely that romance will ever star in Huffington’s new book club. In a bid for legitimacy, the only appropriate action is to condemn the genres and go straight for the literature books with a capital L. Huffington will be partnering with New York Review of Books. The editor of the site is Amy Hertz, a Penguin editor for the Dutton division.

Gizmodo links to an article on Transhumanists and their opinion of the future of sex. Basically virtual reality will destroy physical relationships. The future is either full of woe or WHOA depending on your point of view.

News Round Up: Free Actually Works

Jane — Tue, 11 Aug 2009 15:20:20 +0000

Last week there was a source at TUAW that Apple was rejecting all ebook applications. I had some doubts about this as I couldn’t imagine well established apps like Stanza or the individual ebook apps from ScrollMotion getting the boot. Can you imagine the teen uproar over the removal of the Twilight series?

In any event, Apple responded yesterday to the controversy. They are not rejecting all ebook applications. Second, content that is not properly labeled (i.e., 17+) will be rejected.

“The issue that the App Store reviewers did find with the Ninjawords application is that it provided access to other more vulgar terms than those found in traditional and common dictionaries, words that many reasonable people might find upsetting or objectionable….Even though the developer chose to censor some terms, there still remained enough vulgar terms that it required a parental control rating of 17+.”

I’ve raised the issue of ratings a number of times and I believe it is coming for books. I would prefer that the publisher take control of this issue than have it forced on them, but I have my doubts that this will happen.

Andy Kessler gives tips on how to game the AMAZON bestseller list:

“After countless hours watching the timing and delivery of PR for my books-’radio, NPR, cable TV, broadcast TV, newspapers, magazines, blogs, newsletters-’I have picked up on the rhythm of Amazon rankings,” Kessler says. “I’ve done the best after a week or two of decent PR followed by an e-mail newsletter (from a third party with a big, big following) with a link to click. The former sets up a base, and the latter spikes the sales within a few short hours or over the course of the day.”

But it’s not worth it, according to Kessler, other than the ego boost.

This article talks about romance being about sex, sex, sex, and more sex. I assume from the reading of it, that romance readers are the most sex hungry individuals in the country. Consuming more sex than the average porn addict so long as the sexxoring ends with the couple together at the end of the book.

The chairman of Barnes & Noble owned a number of college bookstores in the US and now Barnes & Noble has purchased those from the chairman for $596 million.

Hugo Award winners announced. Nothing new or surprising here.
Hillel Italie writes about the number of publishers who are jumping on the “free ebook” bandwagon because, surprise, suprise, the giveaways have increased sales of other titles. Del Rey has seen Naomi Novik’s titles increase by more than 1,000 percent when it gave away the first book in her series.

William Morris Agency came out against the Google Book Settlement and Authors Guild fired back. AG will be holding a conference call on Thursday at 2 pm EST so that it can convince all you haters that it was right put authors in the position of having to opt out in exchange for the Book Rights Registry. See more at E-Reads.

Random House Starts Free Content Library

Jane — Thu, 05 Mar 2009 01:39:36 +0000

Just thought I would quote the press release:

NEW YORK, NY – March 4, 2009 – Random House, Inc. today unveiled the first five titles in its new Suvudu Free First Book Library. Designed to introduce new readers to popular and acclaimed science fiction and fantasy series, the Suvudu Free First Book Library allows readers to access free digital copies of the first book in each series.

The program launches with access to the following novels:

His Majesty’s Dragon by Naomi Novik (we love this book here at Dear Author)
Assassin’s Apprentice by Robin Hobb (I’ve heard great things about this book)
Settling Accounts: Return Engagement by Harry Turtledove
Red Mars by Kim Stanley Robinson
Blood Engines by T.A. Pratt

The books will be made available through Random House’s science fiction/fantasy portal, Suvudu.com (http://www.suvudu.com), as well as on other content services, including Scribd.com and the Stanza ebook reader application for the iPhone.

Says Christine Cabello, Random House Publishing Group Deputy Director of Marketing: "The Suvudu Free First Book promotion provides us with a new digital vehicle to build an author’s fan base and is an ideal way to bring new readers to these series."

New titles are scheduled to be added to the Suvudu Free First Book Library on a regular basis. Coming soon are Terry Brooks’s Magic Kingdom for Sale-’Sold!, Elizabeth Moon’s Trading in Danger, and many more.