Ordinary Day

In 2013, shortly after I got Faerie Blood‘s current edition out into the world and as I was trying to deal with both my Carina work and getting Bone Walker out, I was doing a series of blog posts pertaining to how to self-publish your work. Those posts are amongst my most frequently read on the site, and it’s nagged at me that I haven’t managed to finish the series yet!

Over the next several weeks I’m going to address that problem. Particularly as I will be going to Clallam Bay Comicon with Dara this weekend–at which I will in fact be giving a panel on how to self-pub. I’ll be using my previously written blog posts on the topic as an overview of what to talk about.

Previous posts in this series can be found under the “Advice on Self-Publishing” category tag. (You can get to it easily if you look at the Blog Post Series menu item at the top of any page on the site, and look at the dropdown menu under that.) These posts are as follows:

Part 1: Write the Book

Part 2: Beta Reading and Editing

Part 3: Turning Your Manuscript Into an Ebook

Part 4: Cover Art

Part 5: Deploying the Book for Sale

Immediately following this post, I’m going to do Part 6: Review of Sites That Will Format and Sell Your Ebook. Stand by.

Mirrored from angelahighland.com.

Amazon’s new Kindle Unlimited service, which is basically their attempt to do Netflix for ebooks as far as I can tell, has been getting a lot of attention in the publishing world. Reactions, from what I’ve seen so far, are quite mixed. (Mr. Scalzi, for example, has an interesting writeup on the topic over here.) So here’s mine.

With my reader hat on, I’m feeling right now like this service won’t be useful to me, since it doesn’t really address how I interact with ebooks. If there’s a book I want to read that I don’t want to put down money for up front, I already have a way to address that: the Seattle Public Library and the King County Library System, both of which are very friendly to ebook checkouts. Granted, this doesn’t always work, since there are some books that these two systems might not actually have and which I could in theory immediately grab via Kindle Unlimited if I were so inclined.

But here’s the thing. If there’s a book I want to read ASAP, chances are very high that it’s by an author who’s already on my buy list. In which case, if I want it, I’ll be buying it. If it’s not an author I know already, chances are equally high that said book is competing with the several hundred other things on my To Read list, and it’ll come off the queue when I get to it. If the library systems don’t have it, I can generally wait till they do.

And if I happen to become unemployed again, the service becomes even more superfluous. $9.99 a month isn’t much if you have a regular, well-paying job. But if you don’t, every new dollar adds up. And this would be one of the first expenses I’d drop if I happened to be a subscriber who suddenly lost her job.

Really, though, when you get right down to it, I’m perfectly happy to use the library for books I’m not sure I want to buy yet. And if it becomes a question of “who gets my money”, I’d just as soon donate to the library rather than blow $9.99 a month for access to books I will most likely not actually read in any given month.

Because I mean, seriously, people, there are currently over 1,200 titles on my Goodreads To Read shelf. Many of which I already own, and most of the rest of which I can grab from the library when necessary. I’m not seeing much need to blow $9.99 a month on top of that to get access to those books via some other mechanism.

Meanwhile, with my author hat on, my reactions are mixed. Whether my titles with Carina show up on this service is beyond my control. If Harlequin elects to deploy Carina titles to the service, it’s certainly possible that I might get a few extra pennies I might not otherwise get, which is fine. (Though at the level at which I currently operate, yeah, a few extra pennies would be what I’d have to expect here.)

And as y’all know, since I’m not publishing Faerie Blood exclusively with Amazon, that title certainly won’t be getting out there. So in regards to my self-published stuff, Kindle Unlimited isn’t a benefit to me at all.

How about y’all? Anybody out there going to sign up for this thing, as a writer OR a reader?

Mirrored from angelahighland.com.

I’m not quite convinced that participation in a meme still counts if you get tagged twice for the same thing–but that said, I’ve been re-tagged on the Writing Process one, specifically by M.M. Justus, who put up her post on the meme right over here.

And in case you missed it, my post on the meme went up in April, and you can find it here.

***

I’m continuing to see a lot of sound and fury bouncing around re: the Amazon-Hachette dispute. B&N is apparently taking advantage of this by doing a Buy 2, Get One Free deal on affected books. So just in case something from a Hachette author is on your personal buy list, you might check this out.

Meanwhile, I was pointed at this post on the matter, in which the author is quite well and firmly on Amazon’s side. I was asked for my thoughts, and can sum them up pretty much thusly: I feel that particular writer has some cogent points re: the good things Amazon’s doing for authors. But on the other hand, I’m still not cool about the strongarm tactics they’ve been using against Hachette. My overall point remains that at the end of the day, when entities as big as Amazon and Hachette go at it, the people who are ultimately hurt by this are still authors–who can’t sell their stuff via Amazon–and readers, who can’t buy the books they may want to get.

And as a general reminder, if you want to read ebooks, Amazon is not your only option. There’s B&N. There’s Kobo. There’s the iBookstore, if you’re an Apple user. There’s Google Play, if you’re Android-inclined. There are device-agnostic places like Smashwords, and there are all sorts of publishers and imprints who sell directly on their own sites–like, of course, Carina. But I also heartily recommend the good folks at Angry Robot, Book View Cafe, and of course savvy longer-term, ebook-reading SF/F fans will be aware that Baen was a pioneer in the DRM-free ebook arena. Likewise, many authors are publishing their own backlists (e.g., Doranna Durgin, highly regarded in these parts). And many small presses may well be selling their own ebooks as well.

Long story short, a judicious ebook-buyer doesn’t have to be constrained to any one device. Do a bit of research and you may well find something awesome you want to read, available in a way that will let you get more money into the hands of the author.

***

Last but not least, for those who may have missed the news yesterday, Jay Lake finally succumbed to his fight with cancer. The SF/F community will be grieving for him for a while, I think. I’m continuing to see people posting about him all over the Internet, which just goes to show that his impact on the greater SF/F community was deep indeed. I particularly appreciated commentary I’ve seen from people who’ve also been fighting cancer, and who found him to be an inspiration–and also, just from readers who are grateful that his works remain as his legacy. If a writer has to go, I think leaving behind a lot of fans who’ll miss you and treasure your books is a decent way to do it.

My own brief post about this is here, and I reiterate my condolences to all who knew Mr. Lake, whether as a loved one, a friend, or an author.

Mirrored from angelahighland.com.

I totally fell over finishing these posts up, but would like to get back to this series of posts now that I have new data to add to them courtesy of my recent iPad. And, conveniently enough, that ties back into the last post I did, which was about how to check out library ebooks!

I have discovered to my pleasure that there’s an iPhone/iPad app called Overdrive Media Console. This thing talks to Adobe DRM, and will go out and yoink down ebooks for you from any library websites that are compatible with the app. Here’s what you do:

• Go install the app from the App Store.
• If you don’t have one already, create an Adobe ID so you can authorize your i-Device to unlock Adobe DRM books.
• Log into the app with your Adobe ID, and let it authorize your device.
• Click the “Get Books” button up in the right hand corner to search for library websites. I found mine with little effort, and once you’ve found your library, the app should add it to your list.
• You can then use the app to load your library’s website (it’ll open in Safari). In my case, that loaded in Safari and gave me a mobile version of the site, hooked into the app.
• Log in with your library’s website credentials so you can get at your account.
• Use the website’s systems, whatever they may be, to download items you check out. In my case, when testing this tonight, I had two books checked out and was able to simply tap the Download button on each to have them come straight down into the app.
• Read!

This was, in short, awesome. Don’t get me wrong, I actually prefer reading on the Nook (for various reasons I’ll get into in the next post in the series), but getting the library books onto the iPad was so much easier and less headachy than getting them onto the Nook that I will probably do this for all future library checkouts. The main point of headache for Nook-based checkouts, the painful ADE app Mac-side, is completely bypassed this way. I would definitely recommend this for my fellow i-Device owners.

Now, here’s the best part: this app is not exclusive to i-Devices, either. There are desktop versions for both Windows and Mac, AND there are mobile versions for Android and Windows Mobile users as well. Check out these other versions, people, and report in on how well they work for you!

All of this does of course assume that you have a valid account on whatever library system you’re checking out books from, so be sure and handle that separately from getting the app installed. You may need to hunt around a bit to find a library system you can use, if your local one doesn’t support electronic checkouts. Y’all please feel free to report in on what library sites you like, whether or not they allow checkouts from persons who don’t live in the area, and anything else you’d like to share!

As a last note, thus far my library experiences with ebooks are limited to the Nook and to my iPad. So if folks out there are aware of other systems that allow interesting ebook checkouts, share those too!

Mirrored from angelakorrati.com.

This is the (overdue) part 4 of my series of posts on how to choose what you want in a reading device. This particular post’s topic: do you want a device that just focuses on reading books? Or do you want it to do other things as well?

I was pretty happy with my iPhone as a reading device until I got the nook and made a hugely important discovery. The fact that the nook focuses on being a reader, for me, means that it comes closer to the experience of reading a physical book.

The nook does actually have other functionality–it’s got rudimentary web access and a couple of games on it, for example, and you’re supposed to be able to listen to music and audiobooks as well. But since these functions aren’t as obvious as the reading functions, I can pretty much safely ignore them. I don’t have the impulse of “oh hey I’ll just check Facebook/Twitter/my email/whatever for a minute” to distract me from the book I’m reading.

The e-ink screen contributes to this for me as well. I see the e-ink, and it looks a lot more like a printed page to me. So I’m much better able to think of the nook as a “book-like thing” rather than a “gadget I can do various nifty things on”. If I open the nook’s cover, reading will ensue, just like with a printed book.

On the other hand, one of the reasons I resisted getting an ereader for so long was because I disliked the idea of carrying around multiple gadgets. I had already condensed the cell phone, iPod, and PDA I’d been carrying before into one iPhone, and I didn’t want to bump my gadget count back up–extra gadgets, of course, meaning extra things to have to keep track of so that they don’t get lost or stolen as you carry them around.

And there’s also the very real question of budget. If your finances are an issue, you’ll want to think seriously about the dedicated ereaders just because they’ll be significantly cheaper than an iPad or any smartphone that’s also capable of reading books.

In short, what do you need your device to do, and what are you able to spend? The answer to these questions for me was certainly “I want and can afford a dedicated ereader in addition to my smartphone”. For others, it’s a harder call.

But what about if you want to read ebooks even if you don’t have an ereader? Part 5 will be all about how to read an ebook on your computer.

Mirrored from angelakorrati.com.

This is the post where I get a bit into the agency pricing model, how it’s affected what books you can buy where, and how much you can expect to pay for them.

Read the rest of this entry »

Mirrored from angelakorrati.com.

As y’all know, I’m an e-author as well as a voracious reader of ebooks. So I get asked about this semi-regularly, and just this afternoon keethrax was the latest person to ask me about recommendations for e-readers.

So I thought I’d do me a series of posts about ebooks and e-reading devices. I don’t have firsthand experience with all of them, so I’m going to focus on what e-reading experience I’ve had, and try to give as clear a picture as I can to folks. I’ll break it down roughly into the following topics:

1. Ebook formats, who sells what format, and what devices can handle which formats
2. Ebook pricing, whose prices are better, and how the agency pricing model has affected who sells what titles
3. Touchscreen vs. e-ink and which is better to read when
4. Do you want a dedicated e-reading device, or a device with many other functions as well?
5. Can you read ebooks on your computer? How?
6. How to check out ebooks from the library
7. Some technical differences between devices, or, how much of a pain in the neck is it to get your books onto the thing you want to read them on?
8. Pointers off to reviews of various devices

That should get me started and give me plenty to post about, but if anyone has any specific requests or questions they’d like to see me address, please drop a comment! I’ll be linking off to the various excellent reviews of various devices that the fine ladies at Smart Bitches Trashy Books have done, too. However, y’all please feel free to link me up with any reviews that have influenced you in favor of specific devices as well.

Ready? Next post to come: ebook formats!

Mirrored from angelakorrati.com.