News Flash: e-Books Older Than You May Think by Linda McLaughlin
August 16, 2017 by Linda McLaughlin in category The Romance Journey by Linda Mclaughlin tagged as Amazon, e-books, Janet Cornelow, Kindle, Linda McLaughlin, Project GutenburgA few weeks ago, I wrote a blog post about my preference for e-books over print. In it, I talked about reading my first e-book in 1999. Some of the commenters were amazed to hear that (so young) and author Alina K. Field suggested I write about e-book history. This blog post is a revised version of one I wrote in three years before.
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.
My dear departed friend Janet Cornelow reading on her eBookwise, 2006
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 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 was the best known of the early small e-book houses. My publisher, Amber Quill Press, started in 2002 and closed its doors in 2015. 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 became explosive, often 50% in a year, though sadly has slown since. 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, requiring a 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.
Kindle 1
My RCA Gemstar gave out shortly before the release of the Kindle1. I briefly considered getting a Sony reader, but decided that Amazon had already shown a commitment to the book business which I didn’t see Sony making, so decided to order the Kindle, despite the $399 price. I loved it from the beginning. There was no touch screen, just a wheel for scrolling up and down plus the keyboard. It seems unwieldy now.
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. Sadly, one-click ordering tolled the death knell of many small publishers.
One-click buying 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
Website: https://lindalyndi.com
2 0 Read moreemaginings: 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, historyA 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
Heck Yeah! E-Covers That Seduce & Sell
April 15, 2011 by Rebecca Forster in category The Write Life by Rebecca Forster tagged as DYI, e-books, e-covers, Rebeca Forster
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| See all my covers at: http://www.rebeccaforster.com/ |
by Rebecca Forster
I doubt this will come as a surprise, but ‘pretty’ sells. So does intriguing, shocking, soothing and sexy. That’s why I spent the last three weeks sweating over cover designs for my backlist romances (all of which I hope you’ll check out for your E-reader) and redesigning my thriller covers.
Why, you may wonder, did this exercise create such angst? After all, these are only E-covers. Nobody will run their thumb over the richly embossed type, check to weight of the stock or touch it in a bookstore. This isn’t a ‘real’ cover on a ‘real’ book. And that is my point exactly. These covers are more important than a paper because they will live on in perpetuity.
In this new publishing reality authors who have backlists and don’t own the rights to their covers must now become designers; indie authors who have never had the benefit of seeing their work transformed into a visual face a daunting task of identifying the soul of their books. Bottom line, unlike paper, an E-cover’s impact will be farther reaching than any of us can even imagine.
In the old days an author might reproduce their cover image on bookmarks and mugs. In this brave new world, E-covers pop up as thumbnails on Facebook, Linked-In and other social media posts. They are broadcast to readers of blogs and reviewers who promote your work. An E-cover makes a statement on your own website. An E-book cover is brought up full-size and full color on most readers. An E-book cover sets the tone for your book in a way that a paper cover never could because you – the author – have designed it and that is the truly exquisite bottom line.**
No longer am I at the mercy of a New York art director working off a synopsis of the book we spent months writing. Never again will I have a cover where Lady Justice had a sex change and became a sword-toting Roman guy. I have seen the last of a beautiful ocean on the cover of my book that is set in the high desert of California. Hurrah! I have taken the beaches of cover design, and planted my flag and you can too.
I must confess that initially I was like a young soldier rushing into war without realizing how important the battle was. I lucked out with my Witness Series covers but others looked amateurish, weak and unmemorable. I had that revelation as I readied my romance backlist for E-publication. I was determined to make my covers as easily identifiable as my writing style so when faced with the prospect of creating a minimum of 8 new covers, I knew I needed a plan. I studied E-covers of books I admired and those on the top seller lists. I began to experiment. I realized that, like a first draft of a book, my covers were not perfect the first time out. I began to understand that I had to kick everything up a notch to get noticed.
The new covers now reflect the theme of each book or are evocative of the mood of that work. With the romances and women’s fiction in particular I tried to limit the use of full-on portrait photography in order not to inhibit the romantic reader’s imagination. For me, blocking and color worked for the romances. For other authors, flowers and pastels might be the key to success. For my thrillers, I decided to go darker with ominous and/or graphic images. Though there are no hard and fast rules, here are some guidelines that worked for me:
• Clean is better than fussy
• People (especially parts of people) are intriguing***
• Experiment. Odd colors and disparate type faces can to work together and create drama
• The covers should reflect the tone of the book
• Slugs should be tight and to the point
• Spend a little money on stock photos (I use ‘small’).
• Plug in image search words that aren’t obvious.
• Use PowerPoint portrait setting for your design. The pixel height and width will be perfect.
So, Heck Yeah! Get on top of the the covers. Your E-career will thank you for it.****
*See more of my handiwork at http://www.rebeccaforster.com/ .
**Even if you had a designer, they worked at your direction. Own that cover!
***See The Reckless Ones – my favorite partial body shot.
****The same thoughts hold true for E-packaging!
e-maginings: Choosing an e-reader
August 16, 2010 by A Slice of Orange in category Archives tagged as e-books, e-maginings, e-readers, Kindle, Linda McLaughlin, Lyndi Lamont, nook, Sony readersAt the OCC meeting on Saturday, a friend asked me for advice on which e-readers to request from Santa. I jokingly said, “If Santa’s rich, ask for iPad. But if Santa isn’t, any of the e-ink readers should do nicely.”
Apple’s iPad, of course, is much more than a dedicated e-reader, and it’s quite a bit more costly. I’d sure love to have one, but I’ll wait. More companies are coming out with table computers and I’m figuring they’ll be cheaper than the iPad. (Sheesh, I had just published this post when I read an email about the Pandigital Novel, a “7-inch Color Multimedia eReader” which looks like an inexpensive iPad. It’s connected to B&N’s e-book store.) Apparently Bed, Bath and Beyond is carrying them, so I know where I’m going this week.)
At the moment, three companies dominate the dedicated e-book reader market: Amazon, Sony and Barnes & Noble. All make good devices, so how to decide which one is right for you? First, go look at them. I didn’t have that option when I bought my Kindle in December 2007. At the time, the only choice was the Kindle or the Sony reader and I chose the Kindle because I wanted the wireless delivery.
You can see and sample the nook at any Barnes & Noble bookstore. Last time I was in, I asked one of the sales clerks to show me and my husband how they work. He wanted to try out the internet browser function of the nook, but not being used to e-ink, he found it sluggish. That didn’t bother me, since I’ve been using a first-generation Kindle since 2007 and I know it takes a while for the little e-ink pixels to reorganize themselves into a new page. I have a couple of friends who have recently bought nooks and love it. If you want a reader that can also substitute as an internet browser, this is your best choice.
The Amzaon Kindle can be viewed at Target though the demos will be Kindle 2. The Kindle 3 has just been announced and Amazon is taking orders now for delivery in mid-September. The new Kindle offers a choice of wi-fi or wi-fi + 3G. If you buy a lot from Amazon anyway and don’t object to their proprietary format, this is a good choice. I have an Amazon Rewards card, so I can apply rewards certificates to e-books.
The Sony Readers can be seen at Target, Best Buy and Borders bookstores. If you can get into a Borders, you’ll get a better feel for the device as theirs seem to be fully functional, unlike the ones at Best Buy that flip between two advertising pages. I like the Sony Touch, with its touch screen and the ability to rotate the screen from portrait to landscape. I found it to have a more user-friendly interface than the nook, and this is currently my top contender for a new reading device. In addition to the company’s proprietary format BBeB, the Sony devices support PDF, ePub, MS Word and other text formats.
So how to choose one reader over the others? It depends somewhat on your reason for buying an e-reader and what you intend to do with it. One friend chose the Sony Touch over the Kindle because she wanted to be able to buy from the eHarlequin store instead of Amazon. She made a very wise choice for her.
Also think about whether or not you want a wi-fi or 3G (cell phone) connection. If not, you can probably save Santa a few bucks. But I warn you, once you’re tried a reader with the 3G connection, you’ll be hooked. I love that feature on my Kindle and I’ve updated my blogs and even bought books while riding in the car. But if you don’t mind transferring files the old-fashioned way, via USB cable, then look at the Sony models.
There are other e-book readers on the market: COOL-ER, the JetBook, and the Aluratek Libre eBook Reader, sold at Micro-Center. I don’t have any hand-on experience with these devices, so I won’t make any recommendations.
Which e-book reader do you recommend?
Linda McLaughlin
w/a Lyndi Lamont
e-maginings: e-Publishing Update by Lyndi Lamont
December 16, 2009 by A Slice of Orange in category Archives tagged as digital rights, e-books, e-maginings, nookA couple of things have happened in the e-book world this month. For one, the new Barnes and Nobel nook reader made its debut to a less than stellar review in the New York Times. Reviewer David Pogue states that “Every one of the Nook’s vaunted distinctions comes fraught with buzz kill footnotes.” He blames B&N’s impatience to bring the nook to the public prematurely. He found the device slow and balky and concludes: “To use the technical term, it’s slower than an anesthetized slug in winter.”
However, it might be a good gift for the hacker in your life. Wired.com reports that the nook has already been “torn open, hacked and rooted”. I’m not a hacker, so I don’t understand all the details, but apparently doing this lets you hook the nook, with its Google Android operating system and a free cellular connection to the internet directly to your computer. I’m sure B&N didn’t foresee this development.
In the area of digital rights, Random House is playing hardball by insisting that all their contracts, no matter how old, inherently include digital rights, no matter how vaguely worded (or perhaps nonexistent) the contract language may have been. They tried this some years ago with Rosetta Books and lost twice in court. Yesterday the Authors Guild protested their action. Click here to read the statement.
I’m being featured this month (as Lyndi Lamont) at the Rainbow Studio of TRS. Stop by and read the interview if you have a moment.
Happy Holidays to all.
Linda / Lyndi
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