All things Kindlicious

The “big” news of late? Kindle now has a lending feature. Big news is a relative term as it pretty limited, just like the nook lending feature. Both devices now allow book lending between devices and apps following these restrictions:

• A book may be lent once, and only once.
• A book is lent out for 14 days only and during that time is inaccessible on the owner’s device
• Not all books are available for lending and which books are available depend upon publisher restrictions. Currently Barnes & Nobles has about 30% of its ebook stock, which includes public domain free books, as lendable. I have yet to see a number for Amazon.

I was hoping that Amazon would be a little more lenient and allow it to be lent more than once, it would have been a great selling point for those who are in book clubs, but I didn’t expect it.

IReaderReview.com had a slew of really good posts over the last month. A few of my favorites:

• The Race to Zero – a good look at ebook pricing after the installment of agency pricing.
• $55,500 for Indie Author in 31 Days – 5 Independent authors earned over $15,000 and 25 independent authors sold more than 2,500 ebooks in December.
• What else can you do with the kindle besides read? – a great list!

Something that seems to have gone almost unnoticed but I think is far cooler than the lending feature is the ability to side-load your kindle formatted books onto your iphone/ipad/itouch devices. You are no longer restricted to only books in your amazon account while using the Kindle app on your iDevice. Through iTunes you can add mobipocket/prc/azw books onto your device and read them in the Kindle app. This is especially useful for book reviews who don’t have a kindle but like ebooks.

Entirely random but I ran across this graphic from Newsweek and thought it was an interesting comparison. I’d love to see the sourcing but can’t seem to locate it.

Author News

Rachel Vincent announced the details her new adult series. The first book in the Unbound series will be Blood Bound and have a stronger romance theme than the early shifter books. It sounds like a unique world and I am definitely looking forward to it!

The first book in Keri Arthur’s new Dark Angel series, Darkness Unbound is now up for preorder on Amazon.com.

Richelle Mead posted an excerpt from Iron Crowned, the third book in the Dark Swan series, here. I miss Eugenie, can’t wait for this release.

Moira Rogers has the coolest post ever here. I’ve been trying to be better about taking notes and keeping a notebook of series I love and their characters. I appreciate this post so much. Also. Andrew is still mine.

Books Read in December & January so far

• Bayou Moon by Ilona Andrews – 5 stars
• Alpha by Rachel Vincent – review coming
• Total Eclipse by Rachel Caine – review coming
• The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson
• The Girl who Played with Fire by Stieg Larsson
• The Girl who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest by Stieg Larsson

Books Added to Kindle This Week…

Music listening to while writing this blog entry…Back in Your Head by Tegan and Sara

Related posts:

• Sunday Sound Off ~ April 10th, 2011
• Saturday (eh Sunday?!?) Sound Off (4)
• Saturday Sound Off (2-27)

I know – it’s like I disappeared off the blogging planet. The truth is, I’ve been in a reading funk. But the first step to fixing it? I hear it is admitting it! or something. With the help of a little poking from a friend on twitter, I decided today would be the day I step back into my blogging shoes… or fuzzy slippers as they may be and just write what I have been thinking. Basically.. how did I get into this funk!??! I think I have read may 4 books over the last 2 months…. I was reading 2-3 books a week at one point.

The first thing to consider when questioning why a blogger may be in a funk…. what is going on in my life? Is something I am doing causing me to be in a funk? But really.. the answer is no. Life is pretty much the same as it always has been… the exception that I actually have had more time to read over the summer and plenty of opportunity since I find myself at the gym quite a bit. The kids may drive me batty with their bickering, but they are easy enough to send to their room and let myself cuddle up with my Kindle.

Is it just me? Maybe I need to take a break and stop reading and recollect myself? Maybe I burnt myself out reading 300+ books since I got my Kindle? I took a good hard look at this one, because its possible! Yet, I don’t think its the number one factor. Yes, I read a lot and needed a break.. I’ve taken a bit of one by reading less… by not accepting every review offered to me so I don’t feel obligated. Yet some books I’ve picked up lately, I just felt “meh” about anyway. At the same time, at least one book I picked up over the last 2 months I absolutely LOVED.

What all this rambling comes down to is this…. I think my tastes as a reader have evolved. I have read some really fantastic books over the last year. Moira Rogers, Jim Butcher, Ilona Andrews, Shiloh Walker… all authors that have absolutely blown me away in one way or another with their work. The more I read from them, and other authors of their caliber, the higher I set my standards for a book. At first, I thought maybe this is a bad thing? Maybe they are artificially inflating my expectations for their respective genres?

But really, how could expecting great reads be too much? Why should I settle for things that are “meh” or good when I know there is better waiting for me? The more I think about it, the more I feel this is where I am at. Will I eventually want to spend my time on the just “good enough” ..? I am sure I will. But for now, I want to be completely captivated and blow away when I pick up a book. I want that feeling that you get when you can not bear to set a book down, splashing cold water on your face at 3 am because you do not want to sleep til you get to the next chapter. Maybe this is too much to ask… but then I have to ask you… why would it be?

Related posts:

• 2009 Reading Wrap Up

The writing duo of Moira Rogers is kicking off a brand new contest in celebration of the release of their new books, Sanctuary Unbound and Safe Harbor. What is so kick ass about this contest? Its taking place across all of your favorite blogs and YOU could win a brand new Kindle. Check the bottom of this post for more details.

This will probably not come as a surprise to anyone, but I am declaring myself, Team Werewolf Bootlegger. Why you ask? As if I need to explain. Bree and Donna, of Moira Rogers, happen to write the best damn werewolves I have ever read. They never fail to disappoint me in all the growling dominant ways that matter. But for your sake, I thought I would do a quick list of why werewolves are better than vampires.

Werewolves are always better than vampires because….

• They are alive. Yes, blood pumps throughout their body and i mean ALL of their body, if you know what I mean.
• When they growl, they mean it. Its so natural and authentic goosebumps will pop up along your arms and your body will tingle in all the right places.
• It is part of a werewolf’s nature to protect you and the family, you will always feel safe.
• Want to go out shopping at 2 in the afternoon? Have no fear, your werewolf will be there hold your purse while you pop into the dressing room to try something on. No pesky sun allergy to deal with. (As a side note, this also means afternoon sexy time is possible…bow chicca bow wow)
• Werewolves eat real food, not blood. Why is this important? First, drinking blood is gross. Second, It means they can make you breakfast… I am thinking waffles. Bonus points if you get the werewolf to make you waffles but you never get around to eating them because he is too damn sexy to not jump upon and have your evil ways with, on the kitchen floor. Yes Derek…. this one is dedicated to you.
• If you ever get cold, your shifter can simply change to wolf and cuddle up with you for hours of warmth and fuzziness.
• Werewolves have super strength, I am going to assume super stamina has to go along with this….Stamina is important ladies
• If your particular werewolf is a bootlegger….. you get free booze. +10

Now for a few of my favorite Moira Rogers werewolf quotes…. as if you need further proof:

Connor

The voice in his head protested. He ignored it and reached into her pocket, plucking out her key. He held it in front of her as he bent close to her ear. “Do you want to go upstairs with one of them, or with someone who knows what the geeky slogan on your T-shirt means?”

She leaned into his caressing fingers with a soft noise of pleasure. “A hunky brilliant techie werewolf with a dirty mind…” I’m in love. “That’s pretty much the hottest thing ever.”

Zack

When Zack didn’t thrust all the way into her, she growled and whipped her head around, not bothering to stop the giddy flood of power that spilled from her along with her challenging words. “I can take anything you can give me, so fuck me already.”
He tugged her head back with a low growl and slapped her ass with his other hand. “If you ask nicely.”

Derek

One hand dropped to her ankle, and his large fingers encircled it easily. “Tell me to stop.”

She couldn’t. She wouldn’t. “No.”

Derek dragged her ankles apart and dropped to his knees between her legs. He tickled his fingers up her calves as he jerked his gaze to hers again. “Put your hands over your head.”

Sheer primal instinct drove her to obey.

What team are you on?

This post is a part of Moira Rogers’ Creature Feature Kindle Throwdown Contest. By leaving a (meaningful) comment, you will be entered to win a Kindle from Amazon.com, or an alternate grand prize of $275 to spend at an online book retailer. For a full list of rules and more ways to win, visit the contest page.

Related posts:

• Review: Crossroads by Moira Rogers
• Contest: Celebrate Release Day with Moira Rogers!
• Want a kindle of your very own?

So, I sat down to write a heart felt letter to an author…. yet I couldn’t get the words out. Let’s face it, I am not a heart felt sappy letter type of girl. Instead, you are getting my hopefully funny, but just as cool letter to my favorite new to me author of the last year.

Dear Moira Rogers,

Or should I say Bree and Donna? Or maybe @moirarogersbree and @donnajherren considering I am your permanent twitter stalker. Anyway, I wanted to use this day to thank you for so many things, but most importantly hot sexy growly men. Just kidding, you have done more for me than just tease me incessantly with thoughts of a hot sexy, tattooed, geeky, boxer wearing, Andrew. How do I love the super ninja writing duo of Moira Rogers? Let me count the ways….

First, you popped my small publisher cherry. Hard to believe but before your books, I had never purchased from Fictionwise or MyBooksandMore. I was a big five, popular author, Amazon book buyer. It was with both great trepidation and a little hope that I clicked “buy” on Crux after seeing book bloggers raving about it. With that one click, my book buying world opened and expanded. Your writing and your stories are intelligently written and expertly plotted. You gave me confidence in smaller publishers and taught me that sometimes you have to just take a chance on a name you don’t recognize.

The second reason why I love you more than Nutella on pita bread? You take two genres that I love, throw them in a blender and out pops something magical. Well I am sure it doesn’t just pop out for you guys… probably more work than that. When I pick up a Moira Rogers book I don’t have to choose between great story, plot, and characters or great romance and sex scenes. You prove that its possible to seamlessly merge urban fantasy with paranormal romance without sacrificing quality, and you do it with style. I will go so far as to say you are Romantic Urban Fantasy Ninjas and because of it you have your own genre category here at KindleVixen. If only I had Keith Melton‘s paint skillz right now….oh wait….

Lastly Bree and Donna (and yes I realize this letter is bordering on crazy stalker length and you may block me for your own safety), you two write heroes as if you live inside my head. The men in your books are strong, dominant, alphas with attitude. They growl, swear, brood, and are totally dirty in all the right ways. Yet, they are never “standard man candy” and you write them in such a way I never feel like less of a strong, empowered woman for enjoying them. You aren’t afraid to flip off annoying romance rules and stereotypes, giving your characters a sense of realism and relatability.

For all of these reasons and more (I mean really… I could go on), I want to say thank you Moira Rogers. Thank you for being my gateway drug into a world of truly great authors, for not making me choose between urban fantasy and romance, and for giving me hot men to lust after. You have forever influenced my reading habits and are never too busy to let me harass you with useless drivel on twitter. Between your writing, well thought out (and useful!) website, and friendly twitter presence you are an example to authors everywhere.

Sincerely Yours (and Andrew’s),
Tiffany

P.S. Don’t be alarmed if books start showing up at your house asking for your signatures on them…. they are just for my personal shrine. Feel free to pop beta copies of book 3 and 4 in the return box.

P.P.S. You know my email address if you would like to shed some more light on Andrew’s tattoos, geekiness, or body parts (if ya know what i mean).

You can get a complete list of the blogs participating here. Check out tomorrows Fan Letter over at Moonlight to Twilight.

Related posts:

• Author Interview & New Release: Moira Rogers
• Fan Letter to an Author Blog Crawl
• Review: Crux by Moira Rogers

On top of that this morning we went out and climbed some rocks.

Upcoming for KindleVixen

Currently Reading: Lion’s Heat by Lora Leigh
Up Next: Tempest Rising by Nicole Peeler and The Devil’s Playground by Jenna Black.

All things Kindlicious

Books on Board put up a notice about moving to the Agency Pricing model as required by 5 of the 6 big publishing companies here. What does this mean? It means that books from the following publishers will all be priced according to “Required Ebook Pricing (REP)” which is set by the publisher, not the book store.

Hachette (publisher of Stephanie Meyer, David Baldacci, James Patterson and more)

Penguin (publisher of Nora Roberts/JD Robb, Lora Leigh, Nalini Singh, the Sookie Stackhouse series by Charlaine Harris)

Harper Collins (publisher of much Dennis Lehane, Christine Feehan, James Rollins, Johanna Lindsey, Diane Mott Davidson, Kerrelyn Sparks, J.R.R. Tolkien, Lisa Kleypas, Jodi Picoult, Jeaniene Frost, and Tony Hillerman)

MacMillan (publisher of Lisa Scottoline, Governor Mitt Romney, Terry Goodkind and more)

Simon & Schuster (publisher of Kresley Cole, Kathy Reichs, Sabrina Jeffries

Books from these publishers will probably go up in price and may be susceptible to sales tax when they were not previously. More info on what this could mean here.

Author News

Jeaniene Frost posted the cover for the next book in the Night Huntress World series (the Cat & Bones spinoff) here. I hate to say it because I have loved all of her previous covers, but I am just not feeling this one. I can’t explain why tho…. it just doesn’t do it for me.

Ilona Andrews posted a contest for Magic Bleed advanced review copies. Its over, so don’t go running over there trying to enter. What makes it news worthy is that she actually had more than 1200 entries…. that must be some sort of bloggy world record of some kind. To say that Magic Bleeds is highly anticipated is clearly an understatement…. we are all pervs. We want the Curran/Kate smexin and we want it now!

Moira Rogers has finished Sanctuary Unbound and posted a super neat list of releases and projects they are working on here. Is it sad that even with 4 new releases in the next year I think they need to write faster? I could never be an editor.

Around the Blog World

Have you ever checked out The Pioneer Woman’s blog? I admit I have peeked at it on occasion looking for a recipe, but I have never browsed it fully. I had some spare time on my hands Saturday morning and happened to click on a link called Black Heels to Tractor Wheels and next thing I knew it was 3 hours later. Her real life love story is funny, entertaining, and so romantic I almost wish I had myself a hunky cowboy with a ranch. Click here, you won’t regret it.

FictionVixen had her Josh Lanyon cherry popped over at SmokinHotBooks. There is even a Mr. Clean badge. I <3 me some Josh Lanyon and can't wait to get to Somebody Killed His Editor.

I first found the Mighty Buzzard hanging out over at WickedLilPixie‘s comments and fell in love. He is funny and sarcastic and totally entertaining. I pestered him about signing up for twitter, but instead he now has a blog. Go, read, follow…. you can thank me later. Feel free to pester him into getting a twitter account…. we could use his snarkiness. I am hoping to convince him to do a guest post on ebooks/etc here for me…. so Buzz if you are reading this… wanna? :p

Books Read This Week (review linked if available)

Music listening to while writing this blog entry…Say Hey, I love you by Michael Franti and Spearhead. I need some new music to add to my iPhone… any suggestions?

Related posts:

• Sunday Sound Off (5-30) … it’s been a while
• Saturday (eh Sunday?!?) Sound Off (4)
• Saturday Sound Off (3-13)

Upcoming for KindleVixen

I mentioned a couple of weeks ago about our twitter weight loss blog… well its live and we are breaking it in! My day to post is on Thursdays. Feel free to stop by and say hi! Twitloss – women twittering with purpose.

All things Kindlicious

Amazon announced its Free Book Collections “store” – making it easy for you to find free reads.

With over 450,000 titles, the Kindle Store contains the largest selection of the books people want to read including New York Times® Best Sellers and most new releases at $9.99, unless otherwise marked. And Amazon provides thousands of the most popular classics for free including titles like The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, Pride and Prejudice, and Treasure Island with more coming.

But of course, the Internet is huge and there are lots of older, out-of-copyright, pre-1923 books online. We wanted to make it easier to find these collections, which today represent nearly 2 million titles. See the sites and instructions below to download free classic and other out-of-copyright, pre-1923 books and transfer via USB to your Kindle device or read on Kindle for PC.

Note that these large collections of older free books are typically created from scanned copies of physical books and can have variable quality.

Around the Blog World

Author Joe Konrath has a really fabulous post on ebooks and writers up on his blog.

I get to talk about Danielle at Alpha Reader twice this Saturday! she has been rocking my blog world lately, posting really great content…. totally making me jealous! My poor blog, it feels neglected. Anyway, curious about which of your favorite Urban Fantasy books were/are being made into movies and more? Then check out her post here. Wondering what an author is up to lately? Check out her post here. Can I just say how excited I am that Karen Chance’s Pritkin is getting his own story?!?! No I can’t say because I am too excited for words.

Evil Author extraordinaire Moira Rogers posted some snippets from their “Works In Progress” – including Deadlock. *thud* …. that was my head hitting the desk. How long til January 2011 again?? If you like math and numbers and charts (and really, if you don’t I have to wonder about you)… then check out Bree’s post on 3rd party royalties. Its interesting to say the least.

Jackie at Literary Escapism is getting ready to host another group author challenge and needs your help! Go here for more info and to add your opinion!

Books Read This Week (review linked if available)

Books Added to Kindle This Week…

Music listening to while writing this blog entry…nothing unless the soundtrack to Maggie and the Ferocious Beasts counts.

Related posts:

• Saturday (eh Sunday?!?) Sound Off (4)
• Saturday Sound Off – January 15, 2011
• Saturday Sound Off (2-27)