My New NOOKcolor, part 2

What I'm reading: Husband for Hire, by Susan Wiggs (eBookwise); Killer Heat, by Brenda Novak (NOOKcolor); The Object of His Protection, by Brenda Jackson (print)

Since I bought my NOOKcolor primarily as a book reading device, I thought I should spend a little time evaluating it in that regard. Yes, it does a lot more, but I'm saving those bells and whistles for future posts. If you missed my overall first impressions of the device, they're here. And again, I'm doing these posts to try to help others who might be considering getting an e-reader. As I've said before (often), it's about choices.

The NOOKcolor (NC) comes with some sample books pre-loaded. Some are free; others are samples only, and you have to purchase them. For starters, I used those books as a way to test the features of the NC.

The home screen has 3 pages. The top portion of each page displays whatever covers you care to put there. Right now, I'm only using 1 of them. The bottom shows your most recent downloads and they scroll separately.

The Unveiling

What I'm reading: The Oilman's Baby Bargain, by Michelle Celmer; Taken by Moonlight, by Dorothy McFalls

First, the 'official' unveiling of the cover for my next Five Star release, WHERE DANGER HIDES. The release date isn't until May, but since I turned in my last round of edits several months ago, it's nice to get a reminder that the book working its way through the system.



The publishing industry moves very slowly, so every step needs to be celebrated (So slowly that I had to go back to the manuscript to confirm what my characters looked like. Turns out the eye colors on the initial cover weren't what I'd described, and I'm fortunate the publisher was willing to make the swap. I also asked for confirmation that the flowers on the cover actually grew where the book was set, just to make sure.

WHERE DANGER HIDES picks up one of the secondary characters from WHEN DANGER CALLS. Those of you who have read the first book will recognize Dalton, Ryan's former partner. But I'm sure there are a lot more of you who haven't read the first book (and why not?).

To make it easy, you can find WHEN DANGER CALLS in digital formats just about everywhere—Kindle Store, the iBookstore, and Smashwords has links to just about every other digital format, so if you have any kind of a reader, it should be available.

When I wrote WHERE DANGER HIDES, I had no guarantee it would sell, so I wrote it to stand alone. If you've read the first, you'll know Ryan and (I hope) feel like an insider when he appears in the sequel. But if you haven't, I'm hoping I've walked that tightrope between back story dumping and having the reader wonder what I'm talking about.

What do you think? This is one of the scenes that reintroduces Ryan. As a bit of a setup, Dalton is in his car outside Miri (the heroine's) apartment after a tension-filled evening.

More on the Big E

I was going to continue Emerald City workshop recaps today, but decided to piggyback onto Pamela Loewy's post from yesterday, especially after a conversation with a couple we met while out to breakfast. The coffee shop is small, as is the community. We'd seen this couple in the shop many times, and finally made those introductions. During the getting acquainted phase, I mentioned I was a writer. Things followed the usual path from there, and I offered them my bookmarks. Normally, I get, "Can I get these at the bookstore?" This time, I got, "Are they on the Kindle?"

First, and I've said this before, I'm all for choices. Abolishing either print or digital formats is NOT a good thing. There's room for both, and definitely places where each works "better" for an individual reader.

Right now, we're watching e-publishing move from infancy to crawling. Publishing itself is changing, and digital options are nudging the changes at a speed traditional publishing isn't used to.