Carmen's Page

Wednesday, May 25, 2011

A whole crop of new eReaders!

Barnes & Noble just announced a new touch-screen e-ink Nook ereader with a Pearl screen for only $139. In an amazing coincidence, that's the same price as a wi-fi-only Kindle, unless you get the cheaper one with ads. Ooops! I mean the one with special offers. -)

The new Nook looks pretty cool! And now they are claiming superior battery life over the Kindle. No mention of how it competes with Sony Reader Touch, who now has the dubious distinction of being almost $100 more expensive than the new Nook for what looks like the same features.

And then there's the Kobo touch screen which Border will sell in the US for $129. It's like ereaders are coming out of the woodwork.

Personally, I'm not that enamored of touch screens in an ereader. One of things I like about the Kindle is the one-handed reading, which, with the cat in my lap (see his photo in the right-hand column) is all I can manage. I can hold the Kindle in my right hand and press the Next Page button with my thumb with no problem. That works while standing on the subway, too. I have used my husband's iPad to read, and while the color screen is fabulous for short term reading, I get tired of needing two hands to read.

But the best thing about new ereaders is it shows companies like Amazon, Barnes & Noble and Kobo are invested in digital reading. Remember it's not printing that makes a book; it's the story that counts. And ereaders mean that reading is now more convenient, which will (hopefully) mean that people do it more often.

Tuesday, May 24, 2011

I am now a GoodReads author

You can find my GoodReads page here. I have 162 books listed as read so far. Feel free to check them out and compare them to your own.

Monday, May 23, 2011

Great review of THE SIXTH DISCIPLINE!

Over on the Mental Geysers blog, blogger/editor Kae Cheatham posted a great review of The Sixth Discipline. Here's a quote:

"All the characters are sharply drawn and believable, from the dock-side workers who become Ran-Del's friends, to Ran-Del's grandmother who is unsure of the very modern Francesca. The final resolutions include Sansoussy rituals and political maneuvering in Shangri-la. Tension is high and the outcome satisfactory. A good read (great cover, too)"

Sunday, May 8, 2011

Some Kindle tips

If anyone out there has a Kindle (the actual device, as opposed to using the Kindle app on something like a PC or an iPad), the Dear Author blog is mostly about romance books, but because romance readers were ebook and ereader pioneers, it's also a good source of info on those topics. Today's post is a list of useful Kindle tips. There are more tips in the comments, too.

Tuesday, May 3, 2011

Another guest blog post

This week I am featured on fantasy/chick lit author Mindy Klasky's blog. Her recurring feature (an illustration of how kind writers can be to each other) is called Inside Track, and this week it covers how I came to write The Sixth Discipline.

Mindy has featured a lot of interesting authors, and besides that, she always has something interesting to say!

Tuesday, April 26, 2011

I am guest blogging!

Go here to my friend Stephanie Draven's blog to see the post. It's mostly about my favorite topic, ebooks!

Sunday, April 24, 2011

I am on LibraryThing

In case you aren't familiar with it, LibraryThing is a social networking site for book lovers. I have recently joined as a member and also added myself as an author.

Social networking for book lovers is a good way to find new books by seeing what people who own the same books are reading. Two other sites in addition to LibraryThing are GoodReads and Shelfari. Check them out to see if one would be right for you!

Friday, April 22, 2011

Library ebooks come to the Kindle!

In the past, when people asked my advice about what ereader to get, I always asked them where did they plan/want to get the books? If they said they wanted to borrow library books, I told them, “Don't buy a Kindle.” Unlike other ereaders, such as the Sony, Nook, and Kobo, the Kindle didn't support borrowing library books. Quite frankly, I thought Jeff Bezos had no interest in helping people borrow books; he wants to sell them books.

Well, I'm pretty sure he still wants to sell books, but Amazon has recently announced that by the end of this year they will support borrowing library ebooks on the Kindle through OverDrive, the primary US provider or ebooks for libraries. This move pretty much shoots down the main argument for not buying a Kindle, as least in the US.

After I got over the shock, I started thinking about how it would work. Some folks who perused the notice on the Overdrive site noted that they were advising librarians that they would not have to re-buy the ebooks; their existing collections could be loaned to Kindle owners. Now, since Kindle's format (and pretty much only the Kindle's) for ebooks is based on Mobi, and not ePub, that suggested that Amazon planned to make the Kindle support ePub.

I don't think so. I think Amazon plans to clone the workflow they used to put user-to-user Kindle borrowing in place. Here's how that works:

If I have a friend named Sue, and she loans me a Kindle book (assuming she can find one that the publisher hasn't turned off borrowing on), she initiates the loan from her Amazon web page. She provides my email address, and once I accept the loan, I have to provide an email address that is linked to a Kindle or Kindle app. At that point in time, Amazon sends the book to my Kindle, and they send Sue's Kindle a message that basically deletes that book from her Kindle (it looks like it's still there because the title still appears on the home screen, with an “on loan” notation, but it's not really there). Amazon doesn't somehow send me Sue's copy of the file, they send me a copy from their servers, just like they do when I buy a book. Once the two-week loan period is up, my Kindle gets a seek-and-destroy file that deletes the borrowed book. To get it back on her Kindle again, Sue has to reload the book from her archive. She doesn't have to delete the entry that says “on loan,” but it won't go away until she does.

Once they have everything set up with Overdrive, I think Amazon will actually initiate the loan, and send the book to the user's Kindle. If they can do that, then they will actually have wireless delivery of library books, which no one else has; right now a library borrower has to download to PC and copy the file over via a USB cable. It's possible that Amazon will require that, too, especially since only the Kindle 3 has wifi, and Amazon would have to pay for the wireless charges. But who knows? Maybe they could allow for wifi delviery of library books to the Kindle 3's out there. They are already offering to let you highlight and annotate the library book, and they say they will keep those annotations and if you later buy the book, voila! They will be part of the book again. In order to do that, I think the book on the Kindle has to be standard Mobi/prc format.

What I'm not sure of is how Amazon will make money from this. It's possible they have a deal with Overdrive— who has now expanded their potential client list exponentially— to get a small cut when a book is loaned. But I can be pretty sure that Jeff Bezos didn't cut this deal from the goodness of his heart. He may be more reader-friendly than say, Steve “Nobody Reads Anymore” Jobs, but he is still a businessman and he is out to make money.

But I think it's a good thing for libraries and for readers and, in the long run, for authors. I already bought one book because I didn't finish it before the loan period was up. I'm sure I'm not the only one who has done that.

Tuesday, April 19, 2011

The Sixth Discipline Got Its First Review!

The Sixth Discipline got a review on Amazon! The reviewer gave it four stars and wrote a very lengthy and in-depth write-up! You can read it here if you're interested!