Freebies for Read an E-Book Week!

Celebrate by reading an ebook! Have you read any good ones lately? I have so many on my hard drive waiting to be read. I really need an ereader.

Which makes me curious - how many of you own ereaders? Or do you simply read ebooks on your computer? Have you ever read an ebook on a different device? Maybe your phone?

The industry's shifting all the time, and ever, it seems, in the direction of digital. Ten years ago, I probably couldn't have imagined reading a book on my computer, or even being an e-published author. But now I have fourteen available, and have released four short stories through Smashwords/Kindle. Another three ebooks will release soon.

So I'm definitely celebrating ebooks! These past two years have been an amazing experience. My stories range from sweet to erotic, contemporary to historical, paranormal and fantasy, flash to novel-length. I hope you'll give some a try. :)

For Read an E-Book Week, I'm participating in the Smashwords celebration and making all my titles free. Yes, you read that right - free! They were very affordable before at 99 cents, but now they cost nothing. Nada. Gratis. Grab 'em now!  Most were previously published by small online presses or web zines.

Hotline to Hell's a fun little paranormal story, another cautionary tale about selling your soul without exploring other options.

Reflections is another fun little paranormal, set during one of my favorite times of the year - Halloween. On the night when the veil between the two worlds thins, you never know what might cross over and cause a little mayhem and chaos. :)

Imprints is a more mainstream/literary short story. Much of it was derived from real life, based on the experiences of two reporters whose tales sometimes embodied the old phrase "truth is stranger than fiction." 






 

If your tastes run more to speculative fiction, Trick of the Light is always available for free from Smashwords.

I have another free read available from the Wild Rose Press:

Cinderella Dreams (are tough to shake) is a short Vintage, set in the 1980s. Yes, relive your days of Madonna wannabes and Eighties music. :)

Give them a try! And I'd love for you to come back for more stories. I have lots to choose from. :)

Amazon's practices questioned again

It never occurred to me that once you download an ebook onto your Kindle, it might disappear for reasons other than mechanical failure. Naively, I assumed it was a one-way transaction.
Apparently Amazon keeps the connection open, as customers who purchased George Orwell's 1984 and Animal Farm found out. When they looked for their copy on their Kindle, nothing was there. A situation that may reoccur, according to some.
I'm sure The New York Times' David Pogue wasn't the only one to notice the irony of the situation.
As ebooks - and ereaders - gain popularity, it's an issue that will have to be dealt with through policy, if not regulation. Same for ebook piracy, a rising threat to ebook authors and publishers. One I hope will be addressed - including penalties for illegal sharing sites - soon.

Free is in the interpretation?

Awhile back, I'd mentioned in a post about the concept of publishing your book for free. The editor-in-chief of Wired, Chris Anderson, posited free books made the most business sense.
Hmm. I respectfully disagreed then, and now, even moreso. Apparently, Anderson's book, Free: The Future of a Radical Price, appeared on the Scribd site. Sure, it logged more than 17,000 views in one day.
But apparently, "free" comes with a catch. Readers can *only* view it online. No downloading. Not surprisingly, readers have not been amused. As a business model, the strategy failed.
As a writer, I depend on the income from selling my stories. It's not so much about profit as survival.
Making your work available for free can be a great marketing tool, even if it's an unknown quantity. My free read with The Wild Rose Press, Cinderella Dreams (are tough to shake) has garnered some nice praise, though I have no idea how many people actually read it.
I've also linked all the flash and short stories published with web zines to my web site; though these tend to receive zero feedback, unfortunately. Still, they're out there, please read them and if you enjoy them, I'd love to hear from you.
They're free. Enjoy.

I'm over at Popculturedivas today

Come on over to Popculturedivas (formerly MissMakeAMovie) and let me know your take on e-books!
You could win a copy of Seventh Heaven, too!

The future of book publishing

In 2006, Forbes magazine predicted the death of books, to paraphrase Mark Twain, was greatly exaggerated. According to its research, people were reading more, not less.
This bears out in 2008 as well. But in what format will they survive?
In June, Publishers Weekly reported that electronic stories have boosted readership and sales. It specifically mentioned Wild Rose Press, where I have several stories due out soon, as having more success rather than less.
Apparently New York Magazine thinks the bell is already tolling for traditional publishing, as it describes in its article, The End.
But is e-publishing a good deal for authors? An article in Conde Nast’s Portfolio called Engineering the Risk out of Book Publishing explains the idea behind HarperCollins’ new unit, HarperStudio. Not having had a book published (yet!), I have no frame of reference so can’t render any personal pearls of wisdom, but merely pass on what others have said. For instance, author L.J. Sellers sees it as a positive move. Her blog even caught the attention of a HarperCollins exec, who rebutted another’s comment that the move would cheat authors, saying HarperStudios still allows up to $100,000 in advances and pays fifty percent of the net profits.
Delivery systems such as Sony’s E-Reader and Amazon’s Kindle have made e-books portable, further boosting their appeal. And not just for erotica, as Publishers Weekly seems to think.
It certainly seems as if e-books will be a serious competitor, if not overtake, traditional publishing. The Telegraph UK’s 2007 article, Electronic books the future of publishing, states that the Booker Prize Foundation intended to release ebook versions of the shortlisted book titles, though it laments that (as of Oct. 2007) ebook readers had not yet become available in the UK.
In Galleycat’s blog, author Bill Tancer has some intriguing ideas about what data culled from the Internet might reveal to publishers (watch the video).
I’m no expert, but I think nothing can be ruled out, at this point. If readers want more interactive content, as Tancer says, then there are many more avenues for publishers – and authors – to pursue. Some of which are already done today, such as books being remade into video games. So who knows where it will all end up? Stay tuned.