For Those Of Us Who Love Our E-Reader

I remember when I first got my Sony e-reader in November 2007--a gift from hubby for my birthday, lucky me. Being a reviewer as well as a reader, the e-reader was a godsend. The things I loved and still love about my e-reader ( I now have an Ipad too which I also use for reading) are:

1. The ability to change font size--my eyes have been eternally gratefully and I still don't need glasses for most things. How wonderful!
2. The fact I can carry around hundreds of books in one, slim tablet.
3. The fact I don't have storage issues with books anymore. Yes, I still read the occasional paperback but I prefer to get my reading matter digitally whenever possible.
4. The instant gratification I get when I hear about a book and in an instant can download it to my device with a few clicks and I'm off reading.
5. The fact that the Sony e-reader takes .pdf files so I can download from various sites and authors can send me their galleys. So convenient.
6. That with my Sony I can read in the sunlight.
7. That I can bookmark easily and thus, when using reference books, I am able to go back and find information that much easier.

Back in 2007 when I took my e-reader, at someone's request, to my chapter RWA, it created quite a stir. Most couldn't fathom giving up printed books to read on a digital tablet despite the advantages cited above. They thought it was just a fad. A few were very interested, including Eloisa James who thought there was potential in e-books for the publishing industry (not only is she a great writer but a smart lady).

So I found it interesting that just four short years later, U.S. publishers are "astonished" at how much of the book market is being served up digitally as referenced by this quote from an article on booksellers.com.

Speaking at the 40th anniversary keynote seminar, HarperCollins president and c.e.o. Brian Murray said the number of US e-readers—grown from 15m a year ago to 40m today—was having a disproportionately large effect on the market because they had reached "core" readers, those buying over 12 books a year. He said: “Some of the heaviest book buyers no longer visit bookstores.” He said some e-books had a 50% share of total sales during the first few months, a “watershed” for the trade.


The full article is short but insightful and can be accessed at:
http://www.thebookseller.com/news/heavy-book-buyers-avoiding-bookshops-says-hc-chief.html
Where this will push authors, publishers, booksellers and readers is anybody's guess but I suspect those who embrace the e-book readership, rather than resist, will fare the best. It's really just another delivery method, one that has the possibility of making the written word more accessible to more people, like the printing press did. And that can't be a bad thing can it?

A Painter in the House

Ahh the smell of fresh paint and the tap, tap of another human in the house while everyone else is at school or work. We'll be selling our house in a year or two and as part of the long process of getting it ready for sale, we are having some rooms painted.

I know, shouldn't I wait until I'm closer to selling? The answer is yes--except these rooms are so awful with tons of furniture marks and lots of scrapes that I just can't wait any more. And since I'm having Easter this year, I wanted it done before that holiday.

Gratefully our painter, the European, is the nice quiet sort. Except for the paint fragrance, I could easily forget he is here. Except, of course, that my house is even more topsy turvey than usual given one of the rooms he is doing is our den--which is the center of our home.  My daughter parked herself on the covered sofa this morning and insisted she watch the TV just inches from her nose because "I"m a creature of habit, Mom." Wait until she finds out he's buried the TV under a load of vinyl and paint cloths.

Normally, I would do the painting myself--after all, I did when we first moved in a decade ago. But with writing, the day job, and a teenager who is learning to drive and wants to be in  the car every available minute, I've got more than enough on my hands. Besides, this guy is actually doing it right, spackling and caulking, sanding and priming. Amazing how much better it looks when you do it the right way.

So yes, I should have waited and let the new home owners enjoy it but I couldn't. I want those nice clean, perfectly trimmed walls for myself, at least for a little while.

Review: A Creed in Stone Creek by Linda Lael Miller

I love to read as well as write and one of my favorite authors, among many, is Linda Lael Miller. She's launced a new series, The Creed Cowboys and below is my review of the first novel just released this month, A Creed in Stone Creek.

Lawyer Steven Creed suddenly finds himself the guardian of a bright and precocious five year-old named Matt after the tragic death of his friends, the boy’s parents. Steven recognizes this is the most important role he’s ever going to play in life and, after legally adopting the boy, he moves to the small town of Stone Creek where his distant relatives, the McKettricks, live to start fresh, away from the painful memories. He’s given up a lot for Matt including the woman he thought he was going to marry until she found out about the package deal. But Steven did so without hesitation, because he loves the little boy and, besides, any woman who couldn’t love Matt wasn’t a woman he wanted to be with. Still, bringing up a rambunctious five year old as a single dad isn’t going to be easy. And then he meets Melissa.


Stone Creek’s prosecutor, Melissa O’Ballivan, has always had problems with commitment. No surprise since her mother walked out when she was little and her father passed away not too much later. Raised by her brother and surrounded by her two sisters, one of whom is her fraternal twin, family is very important to her. All of her siblings have found their soul mate and have started families of their own, apparently able to overcome their difficult childhoods. All of them but her. She seems to sabotage her relationships whenever someone gets too close. ConsideringStone Creek isn’t a hot bed of criminal activity, she doesn't have work to keep her mind off of her personal life. When the parade committee lassos her into being the chair, she can’t very well say she’s too busy, because she isn’t. Besides, a cute little boy, new to town and named Matt, seems to have his heart set on seeing that parade and how can she disappoint him—or his handsome father.

Steven is struck hard by the competent, independent-minded, and hard charging Ms. O’Ballivan but unfortunately she reminds him an awful lot of the career woman who just walked out of his and Matt’s life. He’d have an easier time keeping his distance if she weren’t so darn attractive and Matt wasn’t drawing pictures with Melissa as his “new mom.” But when a conflict over a case pits Steven and Melissa against each other, it’s clear that they see the world in very different terms. And compromise just doesn’t seem to be in Melissa’s vocabulary. Can these two find common ground and make a little boy, and themselves, happy?

This novel, the first in the Creed Cowboys series, contains strong, well-defined characters, a welcoming small town setting, and a sizzling romance. The opening scenes depicting Steven and Matt’s relationship are sure to bring a tear to the eye as Steven grapples with the emotional toll of Matt’s loss. I fell in love with Steven Creed in those scenes and, having taken the “Whose your cowboy?” quiz at Miller’s promotional site, http://takeacowboyhome.com/ , it was no shock that he’s my cowboy.

While I would have liked to see a little more turmoil in the later scenes where Steven and Melissa lock horns, the romance is what keeps you turning those pages. This book also introduces the two spirited and engaging brothers whose love life will be depicted in the next two books. With Miller’s signature high flying cowboys and the feisty women who tame them, this series is bound to be another winner.

 

Spring at the Philly Flower Show

I definitely have spring fever after a trip to the Philadelphia Flower show! The theme was Paris and the flowers were spectacular. A nice break after a rainy, cold weekend. These pictures speak for themselves. Just lovely. Enjoy!

Cheyenne Frontier Days - Photos - SI.com

Cheyenne Frontier Days - Photos - SI.com

These are some pics from the Cheyenne Frontier days. As you'll see, most of the time the cowboy lost. I have a warm spot for the Daddy of them all, Frontier Days. My manuscript, Last Chance with a Million Dollar Cowboy, is about a saddle bronc rider coming back to his hometown event, Cheyenne Frontier Days, where he runs into his former love. Only she's not just an old flame...

Enjoy these pics. Sports Illustrated knows how to shoot a picture.

Homework for Family or How I Spent Mother's Day

Mother's are familiar with this drill. Child comes home with complicated project requiring Mom to pitch in--but over Mother's Day Weekend? Needless to say, nameless high school Public Speaking teacher received her share of "curses" this weekend as I spent my Mother's day either without my only child's company or in front of the computer trying to find the right computer program to meet the teacher's very specific demands.

On Friday, my daughter's class was told that they had to have an "instructional" speech ready to for Tuesday. This speech had to be about 7 minutes and on an activity the class wouldn't necessarily know how to do. This speech had to be taped and either downloaded to a DVD (not a CD) or on a device that could be hooked up to the TV (e.g. a camcorder).

Well here's the deal--our camcorder died in 2006 and given the advancement of digital cameras and their ability to provide video, we never replaced it. And burning DVD's? Well, we really didn't have the software.

I know, Windows Movie Maker can now burn DVDs--I found that out after a call to a teenager two years older than mine. However, my Kodak Camera takes .mov video (Apple's Quicktime program) and Windows Movie Maker only accepts .avi. That was the first issue.

The second issue was my daughter's choice of subject: How to make a cannoli. For those who might not recognize the name, a cannoli is an Italian pastry stuffed with a sweet cream/cheese concoction. Problem: she's never made them before and neither have I. And, as we found out, cannolis are NOT easy to make. The stuffing may be a breeze but the pastry--NOT.

But being a teenager, neither problem dissuaded my daughter.

Saturday I had a college alumni event to go to--one I'd been looking forward to. Thankfully, my husband agreed to step in and take her for the ingredients. $60 in supplies after three hours of shopping later (warning: you need special rods to form the pastry which you can only find at a specialty kitchen store. Imagine my husband trying to figure out where to go for that little tool!)

The filming began and took the rest of the day. At six o'clock I returned home to a kitchen mess, an exhausted husband and child, and a batch of delicious looking cannolis. I viewed the thirteen videos that captured six hours of cooking (yes, six hours as there's a lot of steps and waiting for things to cook and cool down in making this delicacy) and as an admittedly biased parent I must say she did a great job. It was like watching a Food Network episode from the way she organized the kitchen and ingredients to the demonstrations.

But now my work began. How to get these .mov videos into .avi format. In my family, I am the most computer savvy--which shows you just how bad off we are here. I apparently needed a special codec (whatever that is) for Windows Movie Maker to accept the videos if I couldn't convert them to .avi. I'll spare you the trials and tribulations that had me searching the Windows web site (they no longer support codec paks for this transfer), the web (based on the postings, this is a common problem with few solutions offered), web downloads (most are just "fronts" for other products and/or their downloads don't work or look fishy).

After spending most of Saturday night and Sunday, after we got back from brunch, (having forgone our traditional trip to a special outdoor garden so she/we could work on this) I finally I thought I found an answer--someone posted that upgrading to Quicktime Pro would allow you to convert the files. So I paid the $29.95 ($32.05 with tax) and upgraded.

But, the "save as" button didn't allow me to change the file type. Now nearing 4 p.m. on Sunday, my daughter was ready to give up and take a 20 point demerit on her presentation deciding to just burn it on a CD and be done with it. I persisted looking on the web despite her pleas to stop. There on Youtube I found a video that explained in simple terms what I had to do to convert .mov to .avi using Quicktime Pro. (I could have kissed the guy!) You have to hit the export button and then you can convert it. Who knew? Within a short period of time, she was in front of Windows Movie Maker splicing her videos together. She burned the DVD and tested it on our DVD player and it worked! By six o'clock Sunday we were both dancing around the room and high-fiving.

Not exactly what I had planned for Mother's Day but it was definitely spent doing a motherly activity. :) Now let's hope we get an A. :)

What I'm Reading Now....

Of course, I read a lot of the genre I write in--western romance, both contemporary and historical. I just finished reading a new mail-order bride anthology by Jillian Hart, Carolyn Davidson and Kate Bridges titled Mail Order Marriages. I just LOVE marriage of convenience stories and these three ladies have provided unique characters in unique situations for their stories.

I've already dived into Brenda Jackson's Hot Westmoreland Nights, a Silhouette Desire book and part of Brenda's Westmoreland series, having read Westmoreland's Way previously. The hero, Ramsey Westmoreland is just the type I like--tough, hard and so sure he's right that he inevitably jumps to the wrong conclusion to the heroine's delight!:) This is one I just might not be able to put down tonight!

And then I'm hoping to get to Madeline Hunter's new series books, Provocative in Pearls and Ravishing in Red (don't you love the titles?). These are Regencies (a genre I also like but, admittedly, not as much as the westerns) and Madeline writes riveting sexual tension. I recently took a workshop with Madeline and she gave great insight into character building--something she does so well.

Anyone read Steampunk? I'd like to read a Steampunk novel, which I understand is the Victorian era gone Jules Verne--akin to the old Wild, Wild West TV show if anyone remembers that. I'd appreciate any reading suggestions for this genre as it's all new to me.

Well, back to Hot Westmoreland Nights now to see just how far Ramsey can insert his foot in his mouth!:)