So I saw…more than a few complaints from Sony reader users that “Kindle exclusive” authors were shutting themselves out of a rather large opportunity. Apparently Sony is fairly popular in Europe and other countries, especially since the Kindle isn’t yet available over there unless you can provide a US credit card and/or address.

The problem for authors and readers is the lack of a cohesive storefront. There are many sites for ebooks (and the formats range from RTF to Sony, to EPUB to .MOBI). Some of these ebook stores require and use DRM, some accept self-published, some do not. If a reader wants to buy a book at any of these stores, she has to create an account. Remember a password. Browse it occasionally to look for new books. The selection on the sites varies from a few thousand to many thousand. Some of the sites have a lot of public domain books (and not enough newer stuff), some have taken more time with making sure that uploaded formats are clean and formatted nicely.

For authors…same thing. Uploading multiple formats, stores all over the internet, accounts to keep track of, rules to keep track of, forums galore…it’s a distribution nightmare. Which ones to choose? All? None? The royalty paid to authors is different on each site. The price rules are different.

But we’re all about experimenting here at BMBooks. Gulp.

I made Sage: Tales from a Magical Kingdom available on Smashwords in those multiple formats I mentioned (PDF, HTML, Javascript, EPUB, MOBI, LRF, and PDB). Why Smashwords? Other authors gave them high marks. A few of those Sony users mentioned them as well. The process was not all that hard, although there were formatting issues to resolve (and some of those were real bears!) Their royalty contract was good, thoroughly explained and–did not require an exclusive. Some sites (I believe Fictionwise is one) requires exclusive listings. I’m not sure if this exclusivity expires after a time or if if it remains so long as the book is listed. Exclusivity is fine for a brief period, but after that–with all these ebook sites–yikes!

It’s hard to say which of these sites will garner a lot of market share. I was pleased to read that Smashwords signed a distribution agreement with Barnes and Noble. Right now B&N doesn’t seem to have much of a reputation for ebooks at all. So it could be slow going and an uphill battle.

If anyone has a Sony reader and has an opinion or likes/dislikes, where you shop for books–I’m all ears. Or eyeballs in this case!

Scamp waits patiently for her treat. She won’t go into the kitchen, and she never meows. But when it is time for treat, she sits in this spot and looks at whoever is in the kitchen. You know that look. It’s the one that domestic cats give you when you are trying to sleep in and they don’t want you to. The one you feel even with your eyes closed.

She eats her treat and then continues on with her day. Since she isn’t always around when Junior gets his treat (which originally was designed so that he would take his medicine) it took her awhile to know about treat times. She’s got it down now. Strangely, when she shows up just a bit later than Junior after he has already had his treat, he does not disturb her. Most cats would fight over the bowl. He doesn’t even try. We’re not sure if this is because she has trained him well (she would swipe at his nose if he tried to take food she wanted) or if he is just content because he has already had his treat.

I don’t talk music much. I do listen to it, and if you’re not in the car with me, I have been known to sing loudly and poorly. Very loudly. Very poorly. And very happily!

My favorite band: Moodly Blues. What harmony. What lyrics.

I Know You’re Out There Somewhere

This was by far the worst gardening season I’ve ever had. I think only one tomato plant is still alive (the Juliet). That type of plant usually produces in the worst heat, but not even it could withstand 104 for several days in a row, followed by 100 and then right back up. I pulled a lot of the plants this year to conserve water. I think in total, I got 5 cantaloupes. I picked and ate two watermelons and have two still growing. Not…great.

So it’s time to start over, all you Texas gardeners!!! It’s safer to pot during the winter season, but this year I am restarting a cucumber plant to put outside. It should go well until end of November, depending on when we get the first freeze. If I’m very lucky I’ll get three or four cucumbers from it. Normally I’d still have cucumber plants going out there, but 104 and the bugs was too much. The bugs. Did I mention them??? I have never seen such infestations of thripes and aphids. Overnight, every night, they just came out of thin air (part of being an organic farmer means that you don’t use strong stuff and that means…it doesn’t last long enough to kill very long.) It was awful. Ants were continuous and unkillable. Anything that wanted water was in the garden (Including Junior, who insists on licking the leaker hose. As if he doesn’t have four bowls of water all over the place.)

The tomato I chose is Juliet–nice steady producer, relatively small tomato so it will produce well in the winter. I may leave it potted. We’ll see how big it gets!!!

I probably won’t do quite as many plants as last year. The heat exhausted not only the plants, but me as well. We’re also on water restrictions. Normally I’d plant snap peas, snow peas and onions pretty soon here. I’m not sure I’m going to do it this year. The onions don’t take much water, but the peas do and I don’t get too many before the first freeze.

Happy planting! And Happy eating!!!!

This isn’t really a new magazine, but it is still in Beta. I can’t remember when I first read about Tor deciding to give an online magazine a try. It takes me a while to get over and read some stories or the blog or whatever they have on offer. The blog actually seems to cover…well, like any good blog, it seems to cover any book related topic that comes to mind, even if it isn’t a fantasy or sci/book. I read a Scalzi story and of course it was good. He is a very accessible writer. I haven’t figured out how often they post new stories, but the blog format has more than one post up per day.

Tor.com is in Beta, so I assume that means they are going to see how things go. It’s nice that there are some new ones out there. With Baen stopping production next year, Darwin’s Evolutions stopping a few months ago…and so on, I guess I’ll be needing a few different magazines to try!

A new review site–a reviewer who reviews Kindle books almost exclusively! Check out Red Adept and her reviews. She does a very thorough job. I added her to my review list (link is on the sidebar of my blog). Her reviews are also available as a Kindle subscription.

Came across this very interesting Kindle book: Miss Kitty, Rocky and the Immortals What a mix. A dead guy as a raccoon, involved with a cat and angels??? It’s either really good, really weird…or shoot. Could miss the mark entirely. One of those that just has to be read to find out if the author (Jay Stout) can pull it off!

I finally put in a book order this week (okay, another book order). Mindy Klasky’s Girl’s Guide To Witchcraft (Red Dress Ink). It’s been on my buy list forever. I hope it is as good as it sounds. So long as I was already ordering, I picked up The Glasswrights’ Apprentice. One or the other is bound to be good, right???

Can’t have too many books. They are like a security blanket.

I created an Amazon author page today. At least that is what I think I did. You can check it out here:

Maria’s Amazon Page

I’m not quite sure what to do with this fabulous new real estate, but in looking around, it seems to me that it could use some decoration. Maybe a bear symbol here or there on the walls, some clouds boiling over a mountain or a sunset?

I also think I linked my blog to the Amazon page. But I’ll have to check on that to see how it all works out.

Completely unrelated, if you happen to be a Terry Brooks fan and own a Kindle (or Kindle-device) one of his books is out there for free for Kindle downloads:

Magic Kingdom for Sale – FREE, probably for a limited time.

Junior is somewhere around a year old now. He’s always been a very quiet cat. Scamp is even quieter. I guess when you live in the wild, you learn not to make too much noise. The only time we see Scamp talk is when she is chattering at the birds. When Junior was a kitten, she would call to him very softly, but we had to be close by to hear her. He would squeak back. As Scamp demanded he gain independence he would call, but she wouldn’t answer. When she didn’t answer, he would go silent and generally either make the decision to follow her or stay put–quietly. For the most part, unless he is looking for us (generally at 5:30 in the morning when he mistakenly thinks it is time for us to get up) he has never been a talker.

About a week ago, he discovered that he can answer back when we ask how he’s doing! “Me-squeak.” It’s not a meow, because his voice is a little rusty. Sounds more like a half a bark or a bird chirp. Just today, he learned that if the door is closed and he squeaks next to it, I will get up and open it. All of our other cats were early adapters at using their voice to ask for food, to ask that doors be opened or to just complain and chatter. Junior is still pretty quiet, but he will now greet us–about…oh, maybe a quarter of the time, by voice. Sometimes his mouth opens and no sound comes out and he has to try again, but I expect that he might learn to talk a little more, especially if we respond.

He still spends quite a bit of time outdoors. We’ll see if that changes if it ever cools down. Scamp has learned that treat time is first thing in the morning–and she’s been making it a point to stop by more often then. She has her “treat” spot where she sits quietly and waits, informing us, without voice, that she knows it is treat time. They communicate, but they have their own way of doing it. I bet they feel the same way about us. “Talk, talk, noise, noise. Why don’t they ever rub noses???”

They’re both good kitties. Very polite and well-mannered, almost always.

I tried another saffron dish–this time, grilled salmon with saffron rice. Lucile from Glandeves gave me this recommendation (as well as the others I posted earlier.)

I love grilled salmon and it turned out well. I used the French Alp Saffron in this dish and it was very potent, just wonderful stuff! The rice went well with the salmon, but I missed the chicken that was mixed into the dish in the first recipe. I used fresh, homemade chicken broth as before, but really thought that the addition of chicken mixed into the rice would have made the entire dish…that much better. Of course, I don’t know how well chicken goes with salmon–I know it went well with the scallops so I don’t think it would be a problem. (My dad likes to keep seafood with seafood, beef dishes with beef and so on.) Perhaps I could have tried the mussels or some shrimp instead.

The saffron is really a delight to work with. I’m already looking forward to making the chicken/rice/saffron and scallops again. It was just over the top yummy!!!

I did a post a while back on the Kindle and trolled around looking for opinions on it. One of the interesting things I came across was people talking about reading on the iPod touch. What surprised me most was how pleased they were overall with the performance and readability.

So today’s post is from guest blogger and good friend, Max, who recently bought an iPod touch and downloaded a couple of books and did some reading. Here’s what he had to say:

I spent most of my flights on the way home reading Sage using the Kindle Reader app for iPHONE/iPOD Touch. Just a little on the flights up.

For the flight back, I’d turned the brightness setting for the screen down to 1/6 in order to help conserve battery life. The default setting of 1/2 brightness really sucks the battery down fast. While reading, I had music playing in the background the entire time. Contrast and readability on the plane was great with this setting – I’d left “auto brightness” enabled so I’m sure it automatically cut the display further once the sunlight disappeared. BlueTooth and WiFi were both turned off.

Battery life under these circumstances was great. According to the iPOD, I’d used around 1/8 of the capacity after about 5 1/2 hours of use.

If the iPOD reader app supports text-to-speach, I’ve not found it yet.

Finding and downloading “Catch An Honest Thief” was a breeze.

The actual “reading” experience was very good overall. Hard to find much fault with it – so far. The one thing that was a bit frustrating was that the reader doesn’t seem to allow for “copy and paste” functionality.

Thanks for the input! I’m hearing that people are sometimes happier with using the iPod touch–more functionality than just reading. I’ve heard from both Kindle users and iPod that emailing is possible (I don’t know if Kindle users versus iPod users are happier with that particular function.) Interesting little devices.

Anyone who has read my short stories or my list of favorite authors has probably guessed that I like zany, funny, light mysteries. The funnier the better…

In light of that, I’ve started a thread over at the Amazon Forums (I didn’t even know they had forums until a few weeks ago):

Crime Can Be Funny

I’m looking for the best, the brightest–the funniest! I included a funny space opera adventure in my starter list because I read fantasy and some sci/fi as well. I’ll add more as I think of them–but if you have a favorite cozy that includes humor, Tell Me! Post here or there, it doesn’t matter. It can be fantasy cozy with humor, science fiction, ghost stories–whatever made you laugh out loud–but had a good plot, a good story to go with it!

While I was running the book giveaway, I took the week off from posting so that the giveaway stayed at the top…but now I find I have a few news items running behind!

Why is it that cute socks wear out much faster than ugly work-out socks?

Okay, that wasn’t a news item…it was a stray thought. Up first…we’ve lost another short story magazine. Baen’s Universe will continue through about half of 2010 and then it’s all over. Yup. Not enough subscribers to support professional pay for the writers and artists. I enjoyed the magazine and I enjoyed submitting to it, even though the submission process was one of the toughest in the industry (You submitted to a critique board, received comments about your work, made edits and resubmitted. Writers must enter the forum with only words as weapons while the readers are equipped with daggers, swords, torpedoes…and some sort of gut-ripping tool that I never saw coming…)

In the short story arena, I have on hand the August issue of Realms of Fantasy. The cover itself seems to have drawn more attention this issue than any of the stories. Mostly it seems controversial because there’s a naked lady on the front. I didn’t notice that so much as the fact that the cover is ugly. It looks like someone sprayed gold paint on a lady and put the FTD flower delivery on her head. The artwork did not make me think of wonderful stories full of castles, mysteries, adventures, dragons, elves…thieves, human heroes…basically it didn’t call to mind any of the reasons I read fantasy.

So far I’ve read the editorial and a note from the new owner of the magazine. There are a lot of ads (many for books and I enjoyed looking at the various book covers displayed in the ads). There’s some artwork inside that is more read-the-story-inspiring and a couple of still shots from the Harry Potter movie (I haven’t seen the movies, but did the characters actually do *anything* besides sit around and talk????)

Stay tuned. More updates coming.

Sage: Tales from a Magical Kingdom – Now available for download to your Kindle, iPhone or iPod-touch via Amazon.

EDIT: Sage: Tales from a Magical Kingdom is now available in multiple formats, including Sony formats, HTML, PDF and EPUB over at www.Smashwords.com. Here is a link to Sage. The price is still the same: $1.00

Also available via Barnes and Noble.

Sword and Sorcery meets Agatha Christie. Three novellas introduce the Kingdom of Sage and those who protect its boundaries. Join Demetria and her husband Ward in their adventures as they protect Sage from evil: Rats, Snakes and perpetrators from within.

Sometimes it takes a more experienced hand to save an entire Kingdom.

The first of these stories, Toil, Trouble and Rot, was published in Coyote Wild Magazine; the other two are all new, original stories. In Dungeons and Decay find out just how far a mother will go when her child is in danger–and how much magic it takes to keep him safe. In Call to Arms, its a family affair; every hand is needed when a ghost invades the kingdom demanding old wrongs be righted.

Kindle has just released Catch an Honest Thief (A Haven Mystery) for download to Kindles, iPhone or iPOD touch.

If you enjoy cozy mysteries, check it out:

An Indiana Jones-style caper across the desert of New Mexico; high-tech gadgets, a mystery and a romance.

Alexia is trying to protect the crystals that power the city of Haven. Going undercover and stealing the crystals seemed like a great idea–until a real thief showed up.

Bait and switch is suddenly cat and mouse–but who is the real thief? And why is the new security chief spending so much time looking into her background?

Confessing her secret plans to protect the crystals might help the security chief narrow in on the real culprit, but it would cost Alexia her job, her freedom, and her status. Of course, if she keeps standing in the way of the real thief, it will cost her a whole lot more.

Young adults may also enjoy this cozy mystery with a romantic subplot.

Pages: ~260 or 3900 locations (Kindle terminology).
Price: $1.99.

Edit: Catch an Honest Thief is now available in multiple online formats, including HTML, Sony Reader and .mobi over at Smashwords.

Also available via Barnes and Noble.

THIS CONTEST IS CLOSED. The winner is:

Liliana of Maryland!!!! Your book will be on its way shortly. Thanks to everyone who entered; and a special shout out to Danna at her Cozy Blog for sending people this way!

In celebration of a new book in the series, I’m giving away a brand-spankin’ new copy of Kaye C. Hill’s first in the series, Dead Woman’s Shoes.

Kaye’s latest book, “The Fall Girl” is available for pre-order at Bookdepository. The release date is around August 12. Woot!!!

This contest is open only to US addresses–However–if you live in the UK, you’ve a little luck: Dead Woman’s Shoe’s is on sale at the publisher site: Creme de la Crime for only 2 pounds! Pretty darn good deal for a trade paperback! (You may need to scroll down to find Dead Woman’s Shoes.)

Dead Woman’s Shoes is a cozy/mystery with a lot of suspense and great characters including Kinky the chihuahua, a missing cat, a vet, a policeman, an entire drama club, and of course, an amateur sleuth, Lexy, who must sort it all out even though she is on the run herself! There are twists and turns, capers–-and many a thread woven into a completely captivating tale. Dead Woman’s Shoes made my list of top books for 2008. I fully expect “The Fall Girl” to make my 2009 list.

If you include your mailing address in the email, and you are selected as the winner, I will announce the winner and mail the book right away. If you don’t want to include your mailing address, I will attempt to contact you via email ONCE. You will have a week to reply with your US mailing address. If I don’t receive an email within the week, I will select another winner. Please enter only one time. Multiple entries will be disqualified!

I’d love to hear your thoughts on the covers or the books (if you’re read them!) Earlier, I posted some info about the covers and how the publisher designs their covers.