E-book week part 2

I've added more e-book links to the right. Notice the link for books by Pauline Baird Jones. Ms. Jones is an award winning author, gadget geek extraordinaire, and our guest today. I haven't read all her books -yet. I read and loved The Key.

CP: Welcome Pauline to my humble blog.
PBJ: Thank you. I'm happy to be here.

CP: I hear you have three different e-book readers. Is that true?
PBJ: I'm afraid that's old news. I now have four. It's not as bad as it sounds. One was a gift. One started life as a phone and new features were introduced later. I use them all for different tasks and/or situations.

CP: Do you have a favorite?
PBJ: Oh wow. I like them all! I got the ebookwise first. I like it because it is fast and easy to use. It has backlighting and you can make notes on the screen. I like to load my MIP and read it and be able to make notes. You can also easily jump around a document. You can get books through a usb cable OR through a phone line (you can shop using the phone line) If you're looking for an affordable reader, then its a great option. Battery lasts about ten hours, but you can boost that by adjusting the back light settings.

The Sony Reader was a gift from my sister and it's pretty cool. The screen has to be seen to be believed. The battery lasts several days, because it has no backlighting. I can sort my books into collections myself. The more books I load, the slower the start up (still faster than a computer) and it took me a while to figure how to move around inside a book. You can do it, but not as quickly as the ebookwise. I can load my own docs, but not make notes.

Both have dictionary function that will let you look up words. Both allow you to adjust text size and have a nice, reading screen.

My iPhone is my baby. My kids had them before I did and I sighed in envy, but my trusty Treo was still working. Well, it died quite suddenly and very abruptly and my hubby told me to get an iPhone, I'd had a tough year. He was so sweet. I still wouldn't have done it, though, if the salesman hadn't assured me that e-reading was on the way. I had to wait a couple of months for the big applications releases. The iPhone has a big screen for a smart phone. The touch screen is easy to use and you can adjust the font size. It can't go into huge print, because the screen is still smaller than a regular book. I use eReader, but I also have Stanza loaded. I can browse for books in Safari and download them through the program, or shop by computer and connect the iPhone and download.

If you don't require a book-like experience and want a multi function device, the iPhone is a great choice (or Palm has a nice smart phone for $99). I like it because I can listen to music while I read. I mean the iPhone does everything an iPod does, so it has all that. I'm lucky I can read a smaller screen because I had Lasik some years back and got mono vision. Obviously my cell is with me all the time, so that's nice. I like having the chance to read if I suddenly find myself waiting.

My Kindle2 just arrived and I haven't spent much quality time with it yet.

All four readers fit into my purse, with the iPhone, the easiest, the Sony Reader and Kindle2 next and the ebookwise last (its the heaviest of the devices and the bulkiest).

I tell people the choice depends on what you HAVE to have. If you want a more book-like experience, then the Sony Reader is the one you want. If you want multi function, a smart phone is the way to go. If you're concerned about price, but want a dedicated reader, ebookwise is a great option.

One device I've been watching is a phone, that has an eInk screen that rolls out for a larger reading screen, then rolls back into a nice, small phone. But as far as I can tell, its not for sale yet.

CP: Are you at the top of the the waiting list?
PBJ: I wish. Too bad they're not looking for beta testers (smiles).

CP: I know your Kindle2 is very new. I'd like you to come back and share some thoughts on it once you've had a chance to play with it.
PBJ: Thanks. I'd like that.

CP: Do you have any parting words of wisdom?
PBJ: A good place to get info about ereaders is EPIC. Published authors can join for $30. They also have lots of good information for people interested in e-publishing. They hold a conference every year and they always have reader demos.

CP: Thank you for stopping by and sharing your thoughts
PBJ: I had fun. I always enjoy talking about the tools of the trade.

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Pauline Baird Jones is the award-winning author of eight novels of action-adventure, suspense, romantic suspense and comedy-mystery. She's also written two non-fiction books, Adapting Your Novel for Film and Made-up Mayhem. Her seventh novel, Out of Time, an action-adventure romance set in World War II, is an EPPIE 2007 winner. Her eighth novel, The Key, released in 2007 from LL Dreamspell and won a Independent Book Award Bronze Medal (IPPY) for 2008 and 2007 Dream Realm Awards Winner. She also has short stories in several anthologies.



And now it's your turn. Do you have a favorite e-reader or e-book? If yes, please use the comments link below to tell us about it.

Read an E-book Week

As e-book readers become more affordable, more like real books, and more feature rich, the attraction of e-books is growing and the numbers of books available in e-format is also growing.

But did you know that some e-books don't require a special reader? Some formats can be read on any computer.

In honor of Read an E-Book Week, I added a number of links to the right panel that will take you to different e-book sights and e-book reader sites. I'll add to the list thoughout the week.

To learn more about e-books, e-book readers, and e-book sites, check out this informative article. To read about the trends that are helping this format into the mainstream, check out this one.

Happy Read an E-book Week!

Prepare for March 8

Are you ready for national e-book reading week?

During the week of March 8, I'll have information about ebooks and links to some of my favorites. Leading up to March 8, we'll be looking at different e-book readers. Today we begin with Amazon's latest - Kindle 2.

The new kindle contains seven times more storage enough for over 1,500 books. It has a longer battery life and faster page turns. And Kindle 2 even reads to you, with the new “Read to Me" feature. Follow the link below to find more information at Amazon.

Do you have a favorite reader that you'd like to see spotlighted here? Use the comments link to tell me about it.

The Burgeoning eBook Market

Today's post is from guest author Jean Henry Mead who began her writing career as a journalist, became a magazine editor and an award-winning photo-journalist before branching into full-length books. Her novels include a Wyoming historical novel titled Escape, and her new Logan & Cafferty mystery, A Village Shattered.

I first heard about the e-book market in 1999 when small electronic publishers sprang up like weeds in a flower garden. Many of their products were substandard and unedited, which gave the market a bad name. Now, the standards have not only improved dramatically, their quality is nearly, if not equal to that of the larger publishing houses.

Since the year 2000, Japanese ebook sales have reached ten billion yen. Reported sales in the U.S. from fifteen e-publishers total some $14 million for the first three quarters of this year, which doesn’t include library and discounted sales that may double the number.

I served as a judge for the recently held 2009 Eppie Awards competition, the "Oscars" of ebook publishing, and was amazed at the quality of writing. Some of the books I judged were from the British Isles and I will definitely look for additional work by those authors as well as our own domestic writers.

I signed with a small publisher for my last two books, and both have come out in print as well as ebook editions. I now have more control over the final product and there’s never a long wait between acceptance and publication. Now that promoting your book online has become so much easier than road touring, in less than a week of publication, my mystery novel, A Village Shattered, reached the number one spot in sales at the Fictionwise-ePress site. It’s a good feeling to know that your book can reach bestseller status in a worldwide market from a small publisher.

I’ve heard disparaging remarks on a couple of forums about “writers of that ilk,” meaning published in ebook form. I seriously doubt the writers who made the remarks have read ebooks lately. In my opinion, they’re first rate from most publishers. I’ve been writing professionally for forty years and have learned something about quality.

I’m also a bibliophile. I love books and have thousands of them in bookcases in every room in my house. In fact, we’ve run out of space. It’s gotten to the point where we’ll either have to build on another room to serve as a library, or make the transition to ebooks. I bought my husband and myself ebook readers for Christmas. My husband loves to read in bed and the reader is backlighted so he can read in the dark while I sleep. Most of the readers can store from 60 to 120 books in their small cases so they’re perfect for airline flights or long trips by car.

This year new marketing models have been developed to standardize ebook readers, and because they’ve achieved global distribution, and electronics manufactures are producing more e-readers for general consumption, the market is increasing dramatically. Amazon.com has its Kindle model, endorsed recently by Whoopi Goldberg on “The View.” She takes the Kindle with her wherever she travels, and loves the fact that over a hundred books are available in her palm-sized reader. There are a number of other e-readers just as capable of satisfying their owners, and hopefully will all soon be standardized so that every multi format book can be read on each one.

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Ms. Mead will be here all day to answer any questions you have about her books, the e-book business, or any other questions you may have (like how many books you read when you judge contests like the EPPIE). Please use the comments link below to ask your questions and check back later today to read Ms. Mead's responses.

Tommorrow, Ms. Mead takes her virtual book tour to Holly Jahangiri's blog. The full tour schedule is at MyBlogTour. At the end of the tour, three lucky winners will be selected to receive one copy each of A Village Shattered.