Reader To Reader

When you read a great book you always want to tell someone about it - your mom, best friend, the noisy neighbor across the street.  You want to scream so loud that everyone who hears you goes out, buys it and reads it.  Bertrand Russell said, "There are two motives for reading a book; one, that you enjoy it; the other, that you can boast about it [on Goodreads]."

 

Goodreads.com is the largest online site for readers around the world.  There are currently over 7.7 million member with new ones joining daily.  Goodreads was started in January 2007 by
Otis Chandler.  He created the site because he believed that reviews and recommendations about books were more valuable and more accurate when they came from friends instead of a computer.  Sounds a lot like their mission; “to help people find and share books that they love.  Along the way, we plan to improve the process of reading and learning throughout the world.”

The nice thing about Goodreads is that you can use the site as a virtual shelf so that when you find a book that you like you can “shelf” it to read later.  It also allows you to post to your friends what you are currently reading as well as what you’ve already read.  You can post comments on the book as you read; mark where you are currently within the book either by page number or percentage and when you finish you’re able to rate the book anywhere from 1 to 5 stars and write a review of the book to let people know what you thought of it.  You can also get an export of all the books you’ve ever read and rated that you’ve posted on Goodreads.

A Screenshot of my Goodreads Page

On your home page you have a timeline of your friend’s comments and posts, well as a general bar showing what your reading, quotes from some famous people, voting polls on different subjects and if you’re doing the reading challenge it will show how far you are in to it.  I’m currently at 31 of 75 books in my 2012 reading challenge.  Another great thing about the timeline is that you can see what your friends or favorite authors are reading, what they thought of them and if you think they sound good mark them as “to read” on your shelf.  I’ve found so many good books that way it’s crazy!

But if you can’t decide what to read next, don’t worry Goodreads is totally the place for you.  They take your shelves (to read, currently reading and read), analyze them and then give you tons of recommendations for what you might like to read later.  This is a great way to find that next hit book to scream about! 

There are also forums that people create either on certain books, genres (everything and anything you can think of has a genre and noting and I mean nothing is left unturned), movies, devices, or just a subject.  This is a great way to make new reading “friends.”  Think of them as your Facebook friends, not people you actually know but people who like the same types of books you do.  You can create your own little book club with these friends but instead of sitting around Betty’s coffee table you’re all at your computers reading and typing away!

So are you ready to post what you’re reading and find some new friends to get recommendations.  Take the Goodreads tour and come find me.  Let’s read together!

Video with Otis Chandler discussing Goodreads.com

Do you miss signed books…never fear – KindleGraph is here!

Do you remember when your favorite author would do book tours and you stopped into the little bookstore on the corner of your street and get an autograph in their newest books.  Well what if you have an ereader and their new book as an ebook.  Never fear you can still get that coveted autograph.  Evan Johnson, a Former Amazon developer, created a program called KindleGraph and entered it for the $25,000 prize in the national DocuSign Hack-a-thon.  He didn’t win the big prize, he came in second, but many people said thought that he should have won it.  “A 10-year-veteran of Amazon who left the company earlier this year, Jacobs came up with the idea after he wanted to get digital autographs from authors on his own Kindle. He described it as a “fun side-project” according to John Cook.

Their website says, “KindleGraph lets authors send personalized inscriptions and signatures ("KindleGraphs") directly to the electronic reading devices of their fans.”  They currently have over 15,000 books from over 3500 authors and more are signing up daily.

Authors don’t have to pay to have their books featured and even better is that people (you and me) don’t have to pay anything to get their signatures.  KindleGraph is powered by Twitter for authentication purposes, they have their own twitter account you can follow @kindlegraph.  Once you’ve set up a twitter account all you have to do is type a book or authors name into the search engine to see if their available.  If they do you send a request to the author, once they receive the request they fill out their KindleGraph with a personal message or just their name and then it gets automatically sent to your Kindle.  Easy peasy!

“Anyone who is watching can request a KindleGraph and they get it seconds later delivered straight to their Kindle,” said Jacobs. “It makes those author and fan connections much more available.”  If you sign up to get an author’s autograph, don’t expect it to get it delivered to you seconds later. When I’ve requested one it usually takes a few days to get delivered to my Kindle and a lot of times authors will personalize them for you.

Dan Reid commented on John Cook’s write up, “I’ve seen this in action personally, and this is VERY cool.  I was a hardcore “book buyer in hardback” for years, and though I am a total Kindle-nut now (I read on every device you can imagine) I had always missed the signed copies.  This is exactly what I needed.”  I’m with Dan, I love seeing that authors are up on KindleGraph and I can let them know how much I loved their book and would like their autograph.  I personally have over 100 KindleGraphs and when I buy a new book it’s one of the first things I check out.  If they do have one I sign up to get it.

These are two of my personal KindleGraphs.  The first one is from Brenda Pandos for Everblue and the other from Jessica Park for Flat-Out Love.

It is not the same as having an autographed book on your shelf, but it's the closest the digital world has, and I'm loving everyone single one I receive.

Connecting With Authors...

Reading can really pay off - not just in the educational and “you look more brilliant” type of way but you can also win a lot of free stuff.  All you have to do is follow your favorite authors and post reviews for their books on websites like Amazon, Barnes and Noble and Goodreads.

I was fortunate enough to read a book by Bella Andre’s called The Look Of Love, if you haven’t read it yet – do – if you like romance like me!  I read her book as an ebook and I away make sure I go until my Kindle tells me I’m at 100% of any book because you never know what you’re going to find at the end.  I’m glad I did because in this book she had a contest.  All she asked was you write a review for her book and post it to any site then send her an email with where you posted it and the user name you did it under.  I did this for her book and sent her an email.  I woke up on April 6^th to an email telling me I WON a Kindle Fire!!!  If you were a fly on my wall that morning you would have had to cover your little ears.  I was beyond excited to find out I won new Kindle!  So see…it pays to read!

Pretty much ever author out there now has some way for the reader to connect with them.  Most of them have 4 or 5 different outlets that let you connect with them to find out what they are up to.  Most of them have a website of some sort that lets you know what they are working on, give-a-ways like bookmarks and stickers and if they are involved with any type of book tours, hops, review.   These three things all sound the same and they can be or they can be very different.  Cathy C. Hall of Cathy C’s Hall of Fame breaks it down into how they are different but yet similar.  A book tour is where an author’s book goes to a different authors sign and that person basically interviews the author on how they came up with the idea, what they like to do and what they’re going to do next.  A blog hop (which I think is the greatest because you can get A LOT of free books on some of them) is usually centered on a theme – Halloween, romance, vampire.  Here the authors posts a blog on their page and encourages people to post comments at the bottom of the page and answer a question or just leave a random comment with their email address and then send you on to the next authors page.  Get it; it’s a hop so you jump from page to page.  The author then uses your email address and sends you the free ebook that they were promoting.  A book review has nothing to do with the author themselves.  Their book is sent to a blogger and that person is asked to read the book and write up a review as to what they thought about it.

Authors are up-to-date when it comes to social media.  I haven’t found one yet that isn’t on Facebook and Twitter.  They not only use social media to promote their work but to connect and interact with their fans.  I know the ones that I follow (and yes I follow a lot of them) don’t just sit on the sidelines and watch what their fans are saying but actively engage them and respond with comments and suggestions.  Bella Andre’s on her Facebook page yesterday (April 23^rd) put “Have I mentioned recently how much I love my readers?!  I heart all of you!! : ) Thank you so much for the sweet notes and messages : )” To this comment alone she received 15 comments and 73 likes.  Other authors that are constantly talking with their fans and chatting back-n-forth are Michelle Madow, Lacey Jackson Weatherford, Belinda Boring and Brenda Pandos.

Another way that authors connect with their readers is by using a site called Goodreads.com.  This is a site that is used like a virtual bookshelf and book club.  It is where you can list the books that you have already read, the one you’re currently reading and what you are planning to read in the future.  This site is a site that a lot of authors use and you can get book recommendations from them and if you have a lot of authors that you follow you can get their latest blog posts all in one location.

Following authors is a GREAT way to find out what’s coming up next as well as getting incite one what their reading and if it’s any good and worth taking a look at.  If you have favorite authors that you like I highly suggest you find out if they have a blog, Facebook page, Twitter and Goodreads accounts.  It’s worth the effort to be in the know!

Another one of my favorite author Chelsea Fine who wrote Sophie & Carter thanking readers for all the comments they left her and just for reading the book...also giving updates to what she's up and directing them back to her blog for current updates!

IT’S FINALLY HERE!!

Ok so I’m beyond excited right now.  Pottermore has FINALLY opened and I received by username!!!  So if you need anything this weekend…sorry I won’t be around but you can come find me at Hogwarts!!! See you there!!!

~  LUMOS ~

Your Personal Gateway Into Pottermore!

Update -

Yeah I got my wand...

Price Fixing on eBooks…

This has been a HUGE week for electronic books and the pricing war that has been going on between Amazon and Apple.  The Justice Department has sued Apple and several large name publishers claiming ebook price-fixing.  The publishing houses that are part of the lawsuit are CBS Corp's Simon & Schuster Inc., News Corp.'s HarperCollins Publishers Inc, Penguin, Lagardere SCA's Hachette Book Group, and Pearson and Macmillan.  Hours after the filing of the lawsuit HarperCollins and Hachette decided to settle with the DOJ instead of battleing it out in a courtroom unlike the Penguin Group and Macmillian who both decided to fight the DOJ.   The lawsuit was brought about after a two year probe into how Apple and the publishing houses were try to change the pricing model that Amazon brought on, where the price of nearly all ebooks would be no more than $9.99.  The Department of Justice said that they believe that people have paid millions of dollars more for some of the more popular books on the market.

According to the lawsuit "Each Publisher Defendant desired higher retail e-book prices across the industry before '$9.99' became an entrenched consumer expectation. By the end of 2009, however, the Publisher Defendants had concluded that unilateral efforts to move Amazon away from its practice of offering low retail prices would not work, and they threafter conspired to raise retail e-book prices and to otherwise limit competition in the sale of e-books. To effectuate their conspiracy, the Publisher Defendants teamed up with Defendant Apple, which shared the same goal of restraining retail price competition in the sale of e-books."

The late Steve Jobs had a meeting with publishing house and said, "We'll go to [an] agency model, where you set the price, and we get our 30%, and yes, the customer pays a little more, but that's what you want anyway." 

That may be the way the publishing houses want it but that is a FAR cry from how the consumer wants it!  I remember when it was announced that several of the big publishing houses were going to start charging upwards of $12.99 for new releases.  The forms on Amazon and book sites like goodreads.com went crazy.  People were outraged and a lot of them started to boycotted books that were published by those companies.  In reality this is probably what helped so many of the independent authors get their books and name out.

Tom Neumayr of Apple released this statement on the lawsuit, “The DOJ’s accusation of collusion against Apple is simply not true. The launch of the iBookstore in 2010 fostered innovation and competition, breaking Amazon’s monopolistic grip on the publishing industry. Since then customers have benefited from eBooks that are more interactive and engaging. Just as we’ve allowed developers to set prices on the App Store, publishers set prices on the iBookstore.

Again remember I’m a huge Amazon Kindle supporter so this lawsuit is great in my eyes.  There are so many books out there that have inflated prices because Apple with its iPad didn’t think it could win a war against Amazon and the Kindle.  They finally found something that they were not #1 at and tried to attack the entity that was winning…too bad for them it didn’t work and the DOJ stopped them.  I know that I along with millions of other Kindle owners, Nook readers and Google downloaders are looking forward to the lower prices on books!

eBook Reading...

I personally was not an avid reader until I bought my Kindle in April 2009.  There's something about holding a 400 page book that seemed overwhelming to me.  Whereas holding that same book on a 1/2 inch device seemed more appealing.  For me the idea of reading was mind or over matter.  Today I'm happy to say that I'm now an avid reader and since I received by Kindle I've read over 300 books!

Amazon announced in January 2011 that for the first time the sales of ebooks has surpassed that of paperbacks.  In a statement the company announced "Amazon.com is now selling more Kindle books than paperback books.  Since the beginning of the year, for every 100 paperback books Amazon has sold, the company has sold 115 Kindle books.  Additionally, during this same time period the company has sold three times as many Kindle books as hardcover books."  From these numbers it looks like more and more people are getting on board with reading on an ereader versus the traditional route of paperback reading.

But why are people making the switch.  One of the biggest reasons that people are making the switch to ebooks is that they have the ability to change the size of the font and zoom the text.  On an Amazon form there was a discussion on which people liked better, ebooks or paperbacks, Jody talked about why she prefers ebooks, "first of all it is because I can't adjust the font size on paper books.  Since my eyesight is affected by diabetes, there are many days I have to have very large fonts to read, and other days I can see with medium-large - but never the small font in paper books any longer.  For a person who read voraciously since I was about 3 years old, not being able to read would be devastating to me."  Another huge reason people are making the switch is the ability to carry multiple books with them anytime, anywhere but also having all those books on one little device gets ride of the "clutter" of books lying around the home.  With ability to carry around over 1800 books on one device it doesn't matter where you are you or what you're in the mood to read, you will always have options!

Or they could be just like me and the thought of trying to get through 1440 pages of War and Peace scares the living day lights out of them!

There are still some books that are at times better viewed in the traditional paperback/hardback form such as textbooks.  But as time goes on those too are being changed and updated to be better viewed on electronic devices.  Textbooks are starting to be written so that when they are viewed with a device there are videos embedded within the text so if the chapter is on lions living in the wild in Africa they could have videos attached showing how they hunt in pacts, the group family dynamic and the environment in which they live.

Ebooks have started to take off and even the most reluctant authors are publishing their works as ebooks now.  Just look at J.K. Rowling with the Harry Potter books.  She was adamantly against publishing her work as an ebook for over 10 years and sadly she paid a huge price in terms of piracy because of it.  But on March 27th, 2012 she released all her books as ebooks for the world to LEGALLY buy.  That shows the power of ereaders and ebooks.  People want to read, so let them...don't limit how it's done but enhance it by offering it in as many ways as possible!

Smartphone Reading Apps...

My last post was about buying an ereader - but you just spent $300 on a new smartphone and don't have the money to buy one, no worries.  There are so many apps available for all lines of smartphones out now that you don't need on and better yet, most of the apps are FREE!!!

Amazon has their own Kindle app that allows you to sync your books between the different devices you have.  SO if you have an actual Kindle, the Kindle app and the Kindle for PC, you can sync your books between the different devices and never lose your place when you read.  This is a great feature because say you're at the doctor's office waiting for your appointment but you forgot your Kindle and the wait is forever.  "Amazon offers seamless synchronization between devices.  If you leave off reading your book on page 112, for instance, when you open any other Kindle app or Kindle reader, you'll be at page 112 automatically" stated Joel Friedlander at the http://www.thebookdesigner.com/.  The Kindle reading app is very much like the actual Kindle where you can search though the book and make notes.  The Kindle app is available for all phones that run Android based software as well as the iPhone.

Posted by http://www.talkandroid.com/

Apple also offers a reading app called the iBook.  Unlike the Kindle app this is only available for the iPhone.  The biggest difference between these apps is that the iBook is suppose to "feel" like a real book, where you can see the binding of the book as well as the words on the next page as you turn it.  The iBook is said to have better user control when it comes to the shelving where you can moved the books around to have them placed on the home screen where you want them vs. the Kindle where they are placed either in collections or are in line as downloaded.

Posted by www.

iphone3gsystem.fr

Google Books is available for both the Android and iPhone platforms.  The Google Books app is more of an open platform that is not connected to any outside ereading device (this soon could change as Google makes their way into different markets.)  This app is a no thrills type of app where it basically opens, closes and save the spot the reader left off.  Unlike the Kindle and iBook app where there are search features, note spaces and highlighting opportunities.



Posted by www.cultofmac.com

 Each of these readers is good and work in basically the same fashion.  It becomes a person preference on systems and whether or not you have an outside reading device that you want to sync with.  I did a quick search in Google Play with the words "reading book" and it pulled up over 1000 different apps, so if the Amazon Kindle, Apple iBook or Google Books doesn't sound like one you want to use, there are many, many other ones for you to look at.  Below are 3 videos created by duncan33303 on YouTube that give a little more in-depth review of the 3 reading apps above...enjoy!

Picking the perfect ereader for you…

There are so many e-book readers on the market today that it can be hard to figure out which ones the right one for you.  Just three years ago you could base your decision on price alone, with most of them costing in excess of $400.  Pricing now is almost the last thing you take into consideration when deciding on which one in best for you.  The cost of the cheapest Amazon Kindle is $79, Barnes and Noble Nook Simple Touch - $99, Sony Reader - $129.99 and the iPad comes in at over $499; and those are just the name brands makers.  There are many more offshoot companies now putting out ereaders and even free apps for people who have smartphones.

When deciding on which ereader is best for you, you need to think about what exactly you want to use it for.  If it’s for reading alone, you’re probably leaning more towards a basic Amazon Kindle or the Nook Simple Touch, as these readers are dedicated to reading a book and little else.  If you think that you’re going to not only read a book on it but possibly watch a movie, listen to some tunes or play the latest version of Angry Birds then you’re going to be increasing your budget and going with the Amazon Kindle Fire ($199) or the iPad which are more tablets than ereaders.

The nice thing about ereaders becoming so popular is that you can do so much research on the ones you like online and then go to your closest Best Buy or Staples and try them out first hand to see how you like their functionality and design.  There are so many websites as well as youtube videos out there debating which ereader is the best like http://ebook-reader-review.toptenreviews.com/ and the youtube video posted  by tenzai18oolong which shows their comparison of the best ereaders of 2012.  They both claim that the Amazon Kindle 3 is the best one on the market this year (remember I'm Amazon bias so I'll totally agree with them on this one!)  The people at Top Ten Reviews say "the top four things you need to be on the lookout for with an e-book reader are design, content, memory/battery life and additional features."  Personally I think the number one thing for an e-book reader is the battery life - you don't want to be in the middle of a book and have the thing konk out on you.  The average battery life for an Amazon Kindle is 1 month with the wifi turned off.  That’s pretty amazing!



http://ebook-reader-review.toptenreviews.com/



E-book reading has gone up over 147% in the last 8 months which shows people are making the switch from paperback reading to electronic reading.  Whichever ereader you choose to go home with make sure it’s one you love for years on end because you will become a bookaholic in no time!  I know I did.

video post by: tenzai18oolong - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6lTZoY-LJrA

Blog Description

In this blog I will discuss the different types of eBook readers on the market, how anyone can become an author these days with advancements in independent publishing, how authors interact with readers and how readers interact with each other.

**Side note - this blog will be skewed towards my love for the Amazon Kindle.  This is the current eReader that I have as well as everyone in my family.  Take this into consideration when reading this blog**


http://www.bibliaholic.com/ereaders-choose/