Read an E-Book Week

E-Book Week

E-Books are here to stay--or are they? Remember cassette tapes? Remember videos? Are you still using CDs? With technology fast forwarding at dizzying speeds, predictions that e-book readers may soon be superseded are appearing on techy websites.

But, as always, the more things change, the more they stay the same. Nineteenth century French editor Alphonse Karr said it first --Plus ca change, plus c'est la meme chose. 

Even vinyl is making a come back. The young read and write more than ever using the latest devices and social media sites. And those of us who are older are finding it so much easier to change up to larger fonts to read e-books rather than lugging around a heavy large print edition, if we could even find one.

Read an E-Book Week (3rd to 9th March), supported by authors and publishers, celebrates and promotes e-books all over the world.

The home page not only offers free e-books, competitions to win e-readers and gives you an option to recycle old Kindles, it links to articles on the future of e-books and e-book trends

Today's contest (March 7) is for a Nook Simple Touch Reader from Barnes & Noble. It's based on a simple question about an interface which will allow e-book readers to "page" through an e-book just like a paper book. lol. Plus ca change.....

read an ebook now

E-Book Recommendations

My e-book library started off gleaned from Project Gutenberg, then SmashWords and now is increased most weekends by selections from the Top Hundred Free books in the Kindle Store.

I also have some firm favorites from content editing at MuseItUp Publishing where Read an E-book Week extends from March 10-16. Indie publishers have opened up the world of books allowing some very talented authors a chance to make a name for themselves. 

What have been your favorite reads this week? Drop a recommendation in the comment box below. More books are sold through recommendations than massively expensive publicity.

Recommend a book or books. If we all help an author find another keen reader, we help keep good books on our shelf (or e-reader lol)

Why haven't I recommended a favorite author? I started listing best books and the list just went on and on and on.... :-)

So over to you...

Writers On The Move: The Million Dollar Writing Question

Writers On The Move: The Million Dollar Writing Question: Spurred on by the gratification of almost instant virtual publishing, more and more people are queuing up to achieve fame as authors or wo...

I wrote this at the weekend for Writers On The Move and hoped someone would help me debate what makes a good book.

Obviously it's horses for courses. Some days we want to be entertained, some days we want to learn, some days we want to consider universal dilemmas.

But is there an underlying theme or structure that helps us choose what we want to read?

Wish I knew...

New Writing Year

Now why don't I just settle for what I can do? 

New Year, new tricks.

I have given in and invested in Dragon NaturallySpeaking version 12. With so many assignments to do this year as well as my editing commitments and long promised webinars for Writers on the Move, I am hoping that talking to my computer will be far quicker than  typing. It also gives me the chance just to ramble on as I would normally.

This is the first morning of using the program so I will write an updated review after I've been using it for a month.

I am still amazed when it does what I tell it and how accurate it is after such a short time.

GOALS AND MOTIVATION

No goals but loads of motivation. The year as always starts with frenetic activity – Editpalooza lll at Savvy Authors has produced another wonderful team of authors editing their romance and urban fantasy novels throughout January. Another set of exciting propects.

Tip from one of my team members:

If you're writing a romance novel in any shape or form, have a look at signing up for the free webinar offered by Crimson Romance on January 23 at 3 PM Eastern. This is a relatively new publishing house open for romance submissions and publishing four titles a week.

If you're short on the motivation, click on Joan Y. Edwards' Never Give Up logo that's heading the right hand column. Joan is indefatigable and it's infectious.

Back soon to add in the missing links and perhaps even do some planning. But for the moment I'm tired of talking and I have a horrid feeling that I perhaps need to type to function.