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Time Passes

July 6, 2014 by Linda O. Johnston in category Pets, Romance & Lots of Suspense by Linda O. Johnston tagged as Harlequin Nocturne, Linda O. Johnston, Midnight Ink, Pet Rescue Mysteries, Supersition Mystery

Hi. This is Linda O. Johnston.

It’s July already, and I’m a bit obsessed about how quickly time has been passing this year. Not that it hasn’t in other years. But I also blogged this week on the same topic at one of my other blogs, Killer Hobbies.

I didn’t blog here at a Slice of Orange last month, unfortunately. I’d mentioned in my May post that I had family coming to visit, and their delightful presence not only prevented me from doing much writing for a couple of weeks, but it erased some of my concentration. I didn’t get to the OCC meeting at all, and I neglected to even write my blog.

And now it’s July 6. The year is a little more than half over.

I still have a lot to accomplish in 2014. I have several important writing deadlines to meet, as well as editing stuff I’ve written, some before I turn it in and some after getting feedback from editors.

Then there’s promotion. I’m delighted to say that I have a new Harlequin Nocturne being published next month, LOYAL WOLF, my second this year. And October 2014 is the publication date of my first Superstition Mystery for Midnight Ink, LOST UNDER A LADDER. I want to make sure the world knows about both of them! Plus, I recently self-published my first story, a novella in my Pet Rescue Mysteries, CHIHUAHUA CHAOS.

One thing that I hope will help is that I now have a street team. It only started a couple of weeks ago and I’ve lots to learn, but so far it’s been fun.

I’ll be at OCC this month. And at the end of the month I’ll be at RWA National in San Antonio, which should also be fun.

How about you–will you be at RWA National? What do you have to accomplish by the end of this year?

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emaginings: e-Books Older Than You May Think @LyndiLamont

June 16, 2014 by Linda McLaughlin in category The Romance Journey by Linda Mclaughlin tagged as Amazon Kindle, e-books, emaginings, history

A few weeks ago, a blog I was reading mentioned something to the effect of “when e-books were new back in 2007-2009” which left me both amused and nostalgic.

News flash: e-books have been around since at least 1971 when Project Gutenberg started digitizing public domain works. The US Declaration of Independence was the first document chosen. Check the Wikipedia page for more early e-book history.

I started reading e-books in 1999 on my laptop. I’d gone to the Romance Writers of America conference in Chicago and signed up to moderate a panel. By sheer serendipity, I was assigned to moderate the e-book panel presented by Janet Lane Walters and the late great Jane Toombs, two true e-book pioneers. I came away with an interest in e-books and a couple of samples on 3 1/2 inch diskettes. (Remember those?)

Back home, I read the books on my laptop using either Adobe Acrobat or an Internet browser, depending on whether the format was PDF or HTML. I’m a voracious reader and book buyer, and the house was already full of print books. The idea of being able to store book on my computer seemed like a godsend to me. A way to buy and hoard, I mean, store books without cluttering my already cluttered house. I was hooked!

Commercial e-books were in their infancy, but dozens of small publishers sprang up, most of them no longer in business. Ellora’s Cave is the best known of the early small e-book houses. My publisher, Amber Quill Press, started in 2002. Romance readers got hooked early, and small presses deserve credit for reviving the paranormal romance genre, which NY had lost interest in, for feeding the erotic romance craze and for pioneering gay erotic romance.

While e-book readers were a tiny minority at first, the growth was explosive, often 50% in a year. The numbers didn’t start to hit critical mass until Amazon got into the game with the Kindle 1 in late 2006, though Sony gets the credit for having the first available e-ink reader. There were commercial e-readers available before the Sony Reader and the Kindle: the original Rocket e-book reader, its successor the RCA Gemstar 1100, using my stylus to make selections. (You had to press a lot harder than on a tablet.) Also, books could be read on the little PDAs, like the Palm Pilot and Pocket PC. I read a lot on my Sony Clie and on my RCA Gemstar until it quit on me. By then, Amazon was about to release the Kindle, so I ordered one and never looked back.

In 2006, Janet Cornelow and I took pictures of each other reading on our e-book devices for a contest at Fullerton Public Library. We thought it would be cool if tow of the photos showed people reading electronically. Needless to say, I did not win. The picture above shows Janet reading on her RCA eBookwise.

Sony produced the first e-ink reader, beating the Kindle, but Amazon’s real innovation, the one that made it the leader in the industry, was the one-click purchase followed by wireless delivery directly to your device. No more having to buy from the publisher’s site–with different accounts at each site, were we dedicated ebook readers or what?–download the books to your computer and then side load your e-books using the USB cable. This step took e-book reading beyond the limits of the technologically proficient among us. The ability to download a sample before buying was (and still is) another popular feature. I was an early adopter of the Kindle 1 and still have my device, though it’s no longer in use. I’ve moved on to a Kindle Keyboard and the iPad.

Do you read e-books? If so, when did you start and what device(s) do you use?

Linda McLaughlin / Lyndi Lamont
New website: http://lindalyndi.com
Blog: http://lindalyndi.com/reading-room-blog/
Twitter: @LyndiLamont

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HOW THE BRODIE BROTHERS WERE BORN

June 2, 2014 by marianne h donley in category Archives, Guest Posts, Spotlight tagged as Against the Wild, Alaska, Kat Martin

With ten or more reality shows about Alaska, it’s becoming clear that word is out on this magnificent jewel of a state.

A lifelong dream of mine was to drive there–a more than five-thousand mile journey from my home in Montana. In the end, Alaska was so wonderful my husband and I made the month-long trip in the back of a tiny pickup camper–two times!

It was the time I spent in Alaska that sparked the idea for AGAINST THE WILD, which is Dylan Brodie’s story. (Dylan first appears in AGAINST THE MARK. He’s Ty Brodie’s cousin, so sexy he just had to have a story of his own!)

In AGAINST THE WILD, Dylan’s the new owner of an old fishing lodge in remote Eagle Bay, Alaska, a place he intends to rebuild as a home for himself and his eight-year-old daughter.

Unfortunately, the crew working on the lodge are beginning to believe the old place is haunted. So does sexy, red-haired interior designer, Lane Bishop, the woman Dylan has hired to help him with the extensive remodel.

But is the haunting real? Or is it something even more sinister?

There was so much about Alaska I wanted to explore in my writing that the project expanded to include novels for Dylan’s two brothers, Nick and Rafe. AGAINST THE SKY and AGAINST THE TIDE are scheduled for release next year.

I hope you enjoy AGAINST THE WILD and that youâ€™ll look for the next Brodie brothers’ adventure.

Till then, all best and happy reading, Kat

FACEBOOK: https://www.facebook.com/KatMartinAuthor

TWITTER: https://twitter.com/luvromance

WEBSITE: http://www.katbooks.com/index1.html

BUY LINKS: B&N Amazon Indiebound

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emaginings: Life Off the Grid

May 16, 2014 by Linda McLaughlin in category The Romance Journey by Linda Mclaughlin tagged as 21st century, emaginings, Linda McLaughlin, reading, technology

I’ve been hiding out at the beach this week to stay out of the worst of the heat, but I didn’t plan on losing cable TV & Internet for the better part of two days. It reminded me of what life was like before the advent of the worldwide web. In some ways, it was even more retro than that, since we’re in a near dead zone here. Broadcast TV consists of three San Diego digital stations, when we can pick them up on the antenna. The iPad cellular connection is so bad here, it’s like going back to modem service. I mean sloooow. The most reliable technology we had was the radio. Turned out a cable guy had come into the neighborhood to hook up a new customer and somehow disconnected us in the process. My husband muttered about sabotage, but I reminded him that one should never assume malice until incompetence has been completely ruled out.

Now I’m done complaining, I have to admit it wasn’t all bad, because for the first time in quite a while, I sat and read. I’d picked up Naamah’s Kiss by Jacqueline Carey, a big hard cover fantasy novel on Sunday, expecting it would take weeks to read it. But without the distraction of the Internet, I grabbed the book, curled up in the recliner and real. It was pure bliss. (And yes, I know I could have been writing!) It was kind of odd to be reading print again. Late at night I was wishing I could make the font bigger. But it was good to relax and enjoy a big book, reminiscent of the long hot summers of my teen years in Azusa that I spent devouring every library book I could get my hands on.

The previous month was a pretty hectic one for me. I’m working on setting up a new blog and website, so I’ve been learning how to create WordPress pages and set up a nav system, and so on. I hope to have the new site ready before next month’s blog. I also took our own Elena Dillon’s awesome online class Social Media for the Dazed and Confused. I’m still dazed by all the information she threw at us, but maybe a little less confused. Seriously, if you have a chance to take a class from her, jump at it.

Life in this 21st century is a lot more complicated than it was way back in the 20th century, but believe me, we’ll miss all this technological interconnectedness if it ever goes away. And if you’re interested in a little nostalgia, check out this post about 10 Concepts That Didn’t Exist 10 Years Ago. (She’s right about nine of them. I’ve been reading e-books longer than that.)

Which piece of 21st century technology would you miss most? Your smart phone, iPad, laptop, flat screen TV? There are so many choices, I’m not sure.

Linda McLaughlin / Lyndi Lamont

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Facebook, Twitter, and Google+ – Oh My, Oh My, Oh My!!

May 2, 2014 by Jann Ryan in category Jann says . . . tagged as Azalea March Mysteries, Beth Yarnall, Elena Dillon, Facebook, Google+, Jann Audiss, Jann Ryan, romantic suspense, Social Media, The Misadventures of Maggie Mae, The Pleasure at Home Series, Twitter, YA

I’m technology challenged. When it comes to the social media world I’m plain scared. Just the thought of posting something incorrectly has stopped me dipping my toe into the water for years. My goal is to break through the fear. When OCC announced its Online Class schedule I was thrilled. There it was– April’s class–Social Media for the Confused and Terrified presented by Elena Dillon. No more excuses by golly. I signed up.

Week 1 – The class started with Facebook, and for four days straight I had my desktop and laptop computers running side by side. Reading lessons and asking questions on one, doing class assignments on the other. I was learning about personal pages and author pages, friending and liking. Even though I’ve had a personal FB page for several years, I’ve never really interacted on it. I had started an author page (Jann Ryan), but hadn’t made it public to the world because I’m not a published author. Well, I hit the published button and it’s now live. To support my fellow classmates (which are a terrific group), I’m friending and liking and trying to comment on posts.

By the fourth day, I was on Facebook overload. I needed a bit of a break, so I thought I would start going through a couple of my file boxes filled with years of writing paraphernalia (handouts, conference stuff, articles and pages of stories.) It was suggested by a good friend to scan what I wanted to keep and toss the rest. I DIDN’T COME OUT OF THE ROOM FOR 4 DAYS! I was scanning and tossing from morning till way into the night. My determination to master FB was transferred to cleaning out paper. I couldn’t stop myself. From the file boxes, I moved to the bookshelves, then back to the file boxes. I was obsessed.

Week 2 – Monday, I came up for air only to be confronted with the next week’s class–TWITTER. I hadn’t conquered Facebook, now I was facing the Twitter monster with its hashtags, retweets and Tweet chats. Thanks to the wonderful instruction and guidance from my teacher Elena, I marched into the Twitter world. I installed Tweetdeck and selected people to follow. I was fortunate to see meet up Beth Yarnall, author of the Azalea March Mysteries, The Misadventures of Maggie Mae and the Pleasure at Home Series, who gave me some hands-on instructions. Check out her website http://www.bethyarnall.com/ . I’m still feeling awkward with Twitter, but I know I’ll be Twittering up a storm soon.

Week 3 – My Waterloo is Google+. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve been receiving great instructions, but I realize I need hands on instructions when walking into the unknown. I get the overall idea, but just can’t seem to figure it all out. I need to spend more time on my lessons and work with it more, but life is getting in the way this week. It’s similar to FB, but now I Hangout with a Circle of Friends (actually, I’m not hanging anywhere yet).

I have one more week to go and one more social media item to learn. Heaven help me.

All that being said, I’m happy I ventured into this new world. I have some wonderful classmates and a great teacher, Young Adult Romantic Suspense author Elena Dillon. Stop by her website http://elenadillon.com/.

Go forth and conquer!

Jann Ryan grew up with the smell of orange blossoms in Orange County in sunny Southern California, where she has lived her entire life and dreamed up stories since she was a young girl. Never an avid reader, she was in her thirties when she picked up her first romance quite by accident. She fell in love with happily ever after and has been reading romances ever since.

Wanting to put pen to paper, Jann joined Romance Writers of America. Currently, she is working on a romantic suspense series set in Stellar Bay, a fictitious town along the California central coast to fulfill her publishing dream.

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