All tagged Ebooks

Links & Things + Books for Cheap

Links & Things + Books for Cheap

Sarah Moon
Links + Things
Links + Things: Alpha A-holes, Book Marketing and Delayed Ebook Releases

Links + Things: Alpha A-holes, Book Marketing and Delayed Ebook Releases

Sarah Moon
Links + Things

One of the reasons I wanted to update my content management system is because I am constantly clipping links and other interestingness in Everynote that I want to post on the blog, but I didn't have an efficient way to do so. The new setup makes this so much easier, so I'll be doing posts about interestingness I've found more regularly. 

Today's topics: the return of the asshole alpha male character, marketing saturation and delayed ebook releases.

Links

What's old is new again - the Alpha-Ahole (Drunk Writer Talk)

In real life most women I know wouldn’t walk but would RUN from this man. But romance isn’t real life and there is no shame in liking what you like. We just have to hope that all this testosterone is sometimes countered with books about incredible women. Because I want to read her story too.
Dear Googler: You Ask, CEFS Answers

Dear Googler: You Ask, CEFS Answers

Sarah Moon
Dear Googler

The other day I was looking through the CEFS web statistics and was browsing my favorite section: search terms. 

A fascinating trend I’ve noticed is that many Googlers put their searches in the form of a question, not dissimilar from Jeopardy! Since we get a lot of the same searches, I thought I’d answer a few of these common questions.

[Note: I’ve paraphrased a number of these searches that appear over and over again. But I swear, I’m not making any of this up.]

Friggin' Great.

General Books/Recommendations

What should I read next?

Um… I don’t know. I just finished Wanderlove and adored it. Actually, I don’t even know what I’m reading next, to be honest. Maybe check out our CEFS favorites page?

What are the main themes in [book name]?

Kid, you’ve got to read the book. I’m not doing your homework for you. 

Where can I download [book name] for free?

  1. Try your library, if there’s one in your area. Some publishers participate in ebook lending.
  2. If you’re a Kindle owner with Amazon Prime, you can also access the Kindle Owners’ Library in which you can access one book for free each month; many of these are self-published books, but there are a number of traditional publishers participating as well. 
  3. Check Books on the Knob for daily deals, including freebies. 
  4. If you live in a community with a library (not everyone has one, sadly), you can also check out print books for free—the one in my neighborhood actually holds back new releases each week for people who come into the library (Lucky Day Books), so it’s worth actually going in the library too. 
  5. Some ebooks are lendable. If one you want read is, see if a friend will virtually lend you a book for your Kindle or Nook.
  6. Whatever you do, please don’t pirate books. 

What are some books with lots of sex?

That’s probably a question better answered by Rebeca, whose knowledge on that subject is more broad than mine (I’m trying to get her to review the zombie apocalypse polyamorous novel she just read). But, maybe try Victoria Dahl? Her books are a little much for me, but with that said, they don’t have the yucky gender dynamics that can be very problematic. (Yes, this is a very, very common search term.)

What are some books with lots of action/violence?

I’m kind of a wimp when it comes to this subject, but check out our recommendations for my friend Matt in our Book Matchmaker feature. 

I want to read an urban fantasy series with a strong female lead.

Check out these ideas!

Review: All He Ever Desired by Shannon Stacey

Review: All He Ever Desired by Shannon Stacey

Sarah Moon
Books

“You are going to dance with Ryan before this party ends. I don’t care if I have to stand on a chair and announce to everybody that he has to dance with you.”

“If you do that, I’ll go to the library on Tuesday and check out every Nicholas Sparks book you have and not bring them back so you’ll have to tell everybody you don’t have any of his books. Forever.”

“You wouldn’t.”

Lauren smiled over the rim of her champagne glass. “Oh, I would.”

There aren’t a lot of Big R Romance writers whose books I’ll buy without a second thought.

For a long time, it was just Julie James, and then I found Shannon Stacey, whose Kowalski books published by Carina Press absolutely charmed me with their warmth and width. More recently, I discovered Molly O’Keefe and Ruthie Knox who both have distinctive (and quite different) styles. So whenever one of these writers releases a new book, I usually snatch them up ASAP. 

Unfortunately, I was disappointed with the fourth book one of my go-to author’s, Shannon Stacey, Kowalski series about a boisterous New England family, which shifted the setting of the series from New Hampshire to Maine. I was worried that the magic of the first three books couldn’t be rekindled. Fortunately, I gave this series another shot and very much enjoyed All He Ever Desired, the fifth Kowalski novel. 

Ryan Kowalski left his hometown of Whitford, Maine after confessing his love to his best friend’s wife and being rejected. He has since married and divorced and built a successful career for himself in Massachusetts, but returns to Whitford to help his brothers refurbish the family inn. Lauren, the woman he begged to come with him years before is now divorced with a teenage son. 

Ryan discovers Lauren’s son Nick vandalizing the inn and rather than force Lauren to pay for the damage, he makes Nick work at the construction site. And, it provides him a convenient reason to see a more of Lauren, the one that got away. 

All He Ever Desired centers around the theme of “what if.”

Why I E-Read

Why I E-Read

Sarah Moon
E-reading + Digital Stuff, Opinion

I couldn’t care less how people read. Hardcover, paperback, Kindle, Nook, iPad, whatever… I don’t care. Hell, you can read your books etched in stones if you want. (Though I question the practicality of that particular format, for both portability and storage reasons.)

As I’ve mentioned a time or a thousand, all I care about is encouraging people to read. The how or what is far less important to me.

However, a whole lot of people do care about the manner in which people consume books.

Jonathan Franzen and his cronies, for example, have stated that “serious readers” don’t read digitally. Other people have accused digital readers of heading to their Kindles or Nooks because they want to hide what they’re reading. Sometimes I can’t help but feel that I’m perceived as a less-serious reader or a traitor to “book culture” because I prefer a digital format, and honestly, that really bothers me. 

Whenever I come across another sweeping statement—which happens at least once a week—about people’s reading format preferences, I get my feathers ruffled. (The same feather-ruffling happens when 20-something digital natives accuse folks who prefer paper of being Luddites. Choice is a good thing—which is also why I think the possibility of print-on-demand is very intriguing.) 

In the effort of doing my little part of thwart the sweeping, inaccurate statements that pepper the web about the way people choose to consume books, I thought I’d delve a bit more into issues related to ereading and digital “stuff” (i.e., digital design, etc) in general, since I spend much of my time embedded in a digital environment and am an avid e-reader. I’ll start with talking about why I elect to primarily e-read. Contrary to the popular commentary, it has absolutely nothing to do with being embarrassed by what I read—instead, it involves a lot of factors, both sheer preference and the practical.

List-O-Rama: 5 Book-Related Trends I Wish Would Stop, Stop Right Now

List-O-Rama: 5 Book-Related Trends I Wish Would Stop, Stop Right Now

Sarah Moon
Listorama

It’s amazing when you start paying attention, how many publishing and book-related things are straight-up annoying after awhile. Some of these are plot devices, some are publishing-related, but they all annoy me and need to stop, stop right now. 

Photo by Sarah.

Delayed Ebook Releases

Okay, I get it. Publishers hold back the ebook releases so their books have a better shot at the bestseller lists. However, as a reader I don’t really care. If a book has a publish date of, say, June 1, I expect to be able to by either the paper book or digital version on that date. Don’t make me wait an extra week or two. This happened a lot with mass market paperbacks this summer and I cannot tell you how irriating it is when publishers (or anyone) make it hard for me to give them money. I can only speak for myself, but this doesn’t make me rush out and buy the paper book instead of the ebook—instead, it means I often forget to buy the ebook when it’s released the following week.

On the other hand, one of the things I’ve been most impressed with from publishers lately is Simon Pulse releasing several books simultaneously as hardcovers, paperbacks and ebooks—letting reader choose what works best for them is smart.

{Review} Easy by Tammara Webber

{Review} Easy by Tammara Webber

Sarah Moon
Books

Ignore the icky cover—this one’s worth reading.

College was probably the time in my life that most influenced the sort of person I am as a “real adult.” (Note: Adulthood is highly overrated.) It’s where my mind was opened about the world beyond the U.S., where I discovered that Women’s Studies was a legit major and where I met my super-cute husband who also knows how to fix stuff around the house. 

Yet college remains an elusive setting in fiction.

Yes, it appears in high-brow literary fiction on occasion, but that’s not usually my wheelhouse. Young adult fiction is limited to high school settings and most adult fiction ignores this formative and interesting time. The only book I can think of in recent memory set in college is Charmed Thirds/Jessica Darling #3, which I dearly love. Oh, and Jennifer Echols’ Love Story, which was just an okay read for me. So, when Jane at Dear Author recommended Tammara Webber’s Easy as a good read set in college, I clicked “Buy Now” without even downloading a sample. 

Easy is set in a southern state college and follows Jacqueline through the first semester of her sophomore year. She’s at the state school despite being an excellent musician because that’s where her boyfriend of three years, Kennedy, decided to attend as a legacy. At the beginning of the novel, two things happen:

  1. Kennedy breaks up with Jacqueline; and
  2. One of Kennedy’s fraternity brothers, Buck, attacks and attempts to rape her in the parking lot after a frat party.

Jacqueline is saved from Buck by a senior who’s in her economics class (he’s always in the back of class, drawing in his sketchbook), Lucas. However, despite his protests, she doesn’t report the crime. She then starts seeing Lucas all over campus (he holds down several odd jobs to pay his way through school) and her roommate Erin (a character I was quite surprised that I liked so very much) encourages her to pursue Lucas as a bad boy rebound fling. At the same time, she’s assigned an economics tutor, Landon, because she missed two weeks of class and a midterm, with whom she starts a kind of, sort of, maybe flirtation over email.

While this makes it sound like easy is the story of Jacqueline finding a new boy, what Easy is really about is Jacqueline finding her way back to herself.

{Review} Tomorrow Land by Mari Mancusi

Sarah Moon
Books

Tomorrow Land by Mari Mancusi hit my sweet spot for book brain candy.

And, yes, that’s a compliment—good book brain candy is hard to come by. However, I want to say from the outset that Tomorrow Land is campy. It’s cheesy. It’s over-the-top. But, I love action movies and comic book-inspired movies, so I’m always up for a bit of ridiculousness in my entertainment. If you don’t enjoy those things too, Tomorrow Land is not at all for you. 

Previously published in paperback as Razor Girl by now-defunct Dorchester (Goodreads, Amazon), Tomorrow Land is available only as an ebook (I believe it’s self-published, but it’s obviously professionally edited and formatted) at the moment. It is my understanding that Tomorrow Land was retooled as a YA novel while Razor Girl was an adult novel (I am curious as to the differences—Google hasn’t helped in determining this). 

The premise is a bit… wild.

{Review} Gentlemen Prefer Nerds by Joan Kilby

Sarah Moon
Books


Gentlemen Prefer Nerds by Joan KilbyI should’ve listened to my instincts that a book titled, Gentlemen Prefer Nerds wouldn’t work for me. 

However, I was compelled to hit the “request” button on Net Galley when I saw that, 

  1. It was published by Carina Press, the massively cool e-publisher that’s doing a lot of creative things both in what they’re publishing and their marketing and DRM-free books;
  2. It promised a heist/caper sort of scenario and I am a giant sucker for heists and/or capers; and
  3. It’s set in Australia.

Unfortunately, those positives didn’t cancel out the numerous problems I had with the premise and characters in this novel. 

The basic plot of Gentlemen Prefer Nerds is that nerdy (more on that later) girl gemologist Maddie Maloney is charged with caring for a pricey diamond known as The Rose (she also discovered the diamond in a mine in Western Australia). As part of her effort to find a nice man, she ends up being conned by a jewel thief known as The Chameleon into allowing him access to the stone, which is then—shocker!—stolen. Maddie is, obviously, suspected for the crime and winds up hooking up with a mysterious English dude who promises to help her recover the diamond and helps her escape from the police while they pursue the thief. 

Okay, so the premise is pretty silly—but I’m often okay with silly premises!