Zoe Winters...

is giving away a Kindle. You can read about it here.

Sigh...

Apparently the original edition of Karen McQuestion's A Scattered Life has been grayed out of people's archives. When someone emailed Amazon about it, they were told "We're no longer able to make 'A Scattered Life' available to you for redownload from Archived Items because we believe the third party who listed this book in the Kindle Store did not have rights to make this book available for sale." I think it's clear this is someone's stupid error, and will likely be fixed quickly, but people are getting ticked about it. Amazon, Amazon *shakes head*....

Saturdays are a thrill

Today, I'm weeding. I know, I know, it's so exciting *rolls eyes*. But some of my weeds have grown into the mutant-plant-that-ate-New-York variety, so maybe it's not quite as boring as it sounds. Some of them are so big I keep expecting them to bite my hand!

Twitter

I've unfollowed or decided not to follow a couple of Twitter accounts lately. Even though they were familiar names, when I looked at their tweets, all I saw were endless ads for books. This doesn't strike me as a good way to use Twitter... who wants to follow someone who just posts ads all the time? Maybe it's just me, but I'd rather see random stuff or links to interesting blog posts or something besides repeated ads for books.

An article

The Wall Street Journal weighs in on whether ebook readers are worth it here. Their opinion: not for casual readers (true), beware impulse buys (God knows that's true), wait for prices to come down (are you kidding? The Kindle and Nook just dropped prices, dudes), and ebooks are overpriced (true, but read an indie author instead!).

Publishers Weekly

J.A. Konrath and Lee Goldberg both have informative blog posts up on PW's "processing fee" for self-pubbed authors to be included in a quarterly "special issue." Goldberg is blunt: "This is a money grab, a blatant attempt to exploit self-published authors to improve their sagging bottom line. It's PW pissing on their own good name."

Mighty guard dogs

We mowed part of the lawn earlier, and left the lawnmower sitting in the side yard. A while later, the girls and I let the dogs out, and sat on the deck talking and patting the dogs. Suddenly Impy let loose with his "Alert! intruder!" bark, which sounds like boo-woo-woo-woo!, and took off for the edge of the yard, yapping ferociously. Hero followed him to that side of the yard, growling, and all the fur on his shoulders stood on end as he spotted what Impy was barking at. They both stood there, barking defiance at the scary intruder, and bravely protecting their people and their yard.

Of course, you've probably already guessed that the terrifying intruder was... the lawnmower. We finally had to put it away entirely to get them to calm down.

2000 copies!

I am pleased to report that In the Mood (which was the first book I put up on Kindle in February) has just passed 2000 copies sold. Thanks to all my lovely readers!

No more traditional publishing...

... for NYT Bestseller Seth Godin: "I really don't think the process is worth the effort that it now takes to make it work. I can reach 10 or 50 times as many people electronically. No, it's not 'better', but it's different. So while I'm not sure what format my writing will take, I'm not planning on it being the 1907 version of hardcover publishing any longer."

Vicki Tyley

Vicki Tyley is an often-mentioned example of a true indie author with no previously established platform whose first book (THIN BLOOD, which I read and enjoyed) sold very, very well. I just wanted to point out that her second book (SLEIGHT MALICE) was only released a couple of days ago, and is already up to #188 in the Kindle store. Go Vicki!

Dorchester bad news

More stuff about Dorchester (Leisure) here, including the information that their editorial staff has been cut down to one person, and that they are no longer filling bookstore orders. Apparently they are woefully behind on royalty payments, too. The blogger says bluntly, "What’s my advice to my fellow Leisure authors? Run. Get the fuck out and don’t look back. It is my opinion that we are screwed. At this point, you’re an absolute fool if you sign with them for anything else."

Cockamamie!

From the Amazon boards, here's an AP article ostensibly wondering if e-readers are a fad, or the future or reading. One amusing quote: "'It's cockamamie to think a product like that is going to revolutionize the way most people read,'" analyst Michael Norris of Rockville, Maryland research firm Simba Information Co. said in an e-mail."

The article amuses me because it's confused. Its title is "E-reading: Revolution in the making or fading fad?" It then associates e-reading with EInk and talks about how the iPad has already sold 9 million units, "whose five-month sales history has left their one-dimensional models (Kindle and Sony) struggling to keep up." The rest of the article goes on about the competition between dedicated e-readers and tablets. There are no figures given at all to suggest that e-reading is a "fading fad"-- quite the contrary, they say "Sales (of dedicated Eink devices) in 2010 — four years after the first devices hit the market — will probably reach 10 million units, according to Austin, Texas based research firm Display Search, up from the four million sold in 2009."

In short, the headline is on the sensational side, and has very little to do with the article.

Angry, angry people

It amazes me how angry people get about indie publishing. Check out the anonymous comments on J.A. Konrath's latest post for an example. Sure, Joe's blog tends to push buttons a bit. That's evident. But why all the nasty, bitter rage? As I said in the comments, if you don't think indie publishing is the way to go, that's your prerogative. Go submit to traditional publishers and don't worry about it. But for heaven's sake, don't personally attack people who are interested in indie publishing, suggest that all indie authors are idiots and illiterates, and generally act like an ass. It's not good for your karma or your blood pressure. And if you're not interested in indie publishing, what do you care what other people do, anyway?

Seriously, some people need to learn to relax.

Karen McQuestion

The Kindle edition of Karen McQuestion's book A Scattered Life has hit #9 on the paid Kindle bestseller list, according to a post on Kindleboards (right now it's at #10). Technically, of course, this is no longer an "indie" book, since it's published by AmazonEncore. Nevertheless, she made her name as an indie author, and I believe this reflects on the fanbase she established as an indie. Yay for Karen!

Another happy weekend day

Yesterday was also a great family day. We went over to visit my parents-in-law in the afternoon. I hung out with them while the kids swam in the pool, and then we all had a nice dinner together. I'm conscious of school rushing toward us, so I'm trying to make sure to enjoy the leisurely summer time I get to spend with my kids and family!

How I spent my Saturday

This morning I cleaned house with the kids. Then the oldest and I shared lawn mowing duties and got most of the lawn mowed (the mower died when she was finishing up the front edge, and I don't know why-- I may have to beg my Mr. Fixit neighbor to help me figure it out). It badly needed trimming, so this was a good thing. I then cooked spaghetti, and after dinner we settled down to watch Fantasia (because the five-year-old saw a glimpse of "The Sorcerer's Apprentice" in the Great Movie Ride at Hollywood Studio and wanted to see the rest of the movie). We watched most of it (we always skip the last segment, which is a little creepy for small ones) and then segued to watching quite a bit of Fantasia 2000 as well.

In short, it was a pleasant, family-oriented day, and we had fun and got things accomplished. That's a good Saturday!

Playing games with tags

There are threads on Amazon and Kindle asking people to tag books, and be tagged in return. I confess I don't really understand tagging, but it seems to be a way of getting your books noticed by having tags in certain categories-- a useful system.

However, like many things, it can be misused. There is anger on the Historical Romance Forum tonight, because of the image that represents the forum. Previously, it was a well-known Lisa Kleypas book. Sometime around the beginning of August it switched to a CreateSpace/Kindle book by a relatively unknown author, which image was apparently being used to represent the forum because it had the most "historical romance" tags. To quote a reader on the board: "How could the book in the current image garner over 200 tags???? It's not a major author nor a well-known and widely-read historical romance. Makes you wonder, doesn't it?"

This set off a major effort by the forum members to get the Kleypas book back and to get rid of the indie book's image (which they have now accomplished). It also led to some bashing of the indie book and author, and some bashing of the tag system in general. I understand the impulse to use tags to get some free advertising. But this seems like a painfully blatant way to go about it. It's fine to use the tools Amazon gives you, but cheating in an obvious way does not win you readers, IMHO... and it tends to reflect badly on all indie authors, besides. Of course, for all I know it wasn't even orchestrated by the author, but by some of her fans. Either way, it doesn't seem to have impressed that group of readers favorably.

Family and cars

I'm going to see my dad today, for the first time since before our vacation. He's been lonely, although I called him several times from Florida. I'll be glad to see him.

Meanwhile, Orlando killed my car's AC. I took it in to be serviced yesterday, but alas, they had to order a part, which won't be in till Monday. I hope it's cool all weekend!

Various

I did significant rewriting on my werewolf story yesterday and added 500 words. It still needs a lot of backstory added. Who are these characters, how did they get here, and why should the reader care?

Hero has been kind of sick for a couple of days. He's eating, but with no enthusiasm, and he's not his normal peppy self. This morning he threw up, so I switched him to bland diet (chicken and rice). I called the vet and she told me to keep an eye on him for the next day or so. She suggested it might be the heat. But this is a dog who has always inhaled his food and eagerly looked around for more, no matter the temperature, so I don't think that's it.

Back to work

Today I'm rewriting an old werewolf story and trying to get it ready to go up on Kindle. It's about 6500 words; I'm hoping to get it up to 10,000 or thereabouts. This will only be my second paranormal romance.

Back from vacation

The kids and I had a great time in Orlando. We visited all four Disney parks and both Universal parks, as well as a water park. Harry Potter was great, and if you get the chance to go it's worth it to stand in line for the Forbidden Journey (we were lucky and only had to wait an hour or so). None of us cared for butterbeer or pumpkin juice except for the eldest child, who loved them both. We did buy wands.

Overall, it was a nearly perfect vacation. Alas, on the final day I got woozy from the heat (Florida heat just kills me), fell over a curb, and faceplanted, pretty much smashing one of my front teeth to smithereens. I'll need to see the dentist this week, obviously. Otherwise I was unharmed (except for skinned knees and a fat lip), which was lucky-- I slammed into the ground pretty hard and could easily have broken an arm if I'd fallen wrong. But other than that unfortunate mishap, it was a great trip. I hope to get some pictures of our vacation up tomorrow!

Still in Florida...

but I did have to post that a blogger posted a glowing review of Love Remembered, even though it wasn't what she was expecting.