Over the years, I’ve been to school a whole helluva lot. Seriously. Half my life has been spent in a classroom as a student, a teacher, or a professor.
For the past three years, I’ve had the great pleasure of teaching Composition II at Austin Community College. Due to my time at ACC, I now get three tuition vouchers per fiscal year, so I’m starting with Cultural Anthropology this Fall and moving into Physics and Mathematics next Spring. I never took these types of courses when I was in college. My MA is in English Literature, and I did everything I could to avoid Math and Science classes back then. But now I’m up for the challenge and very excited to be taking college courses again.
That is… until I tried to get my textbooks.
OMG! $160 for ONE TEXTBOOK?
You’ve got to be fricken kidding me.
It has been a good ten years since I’ve taken a college course and a lot of things have changed. Do you know, for example, that you can now RENT textbooks?! What a wonderful idea! Textbooks are also available in eBook formats, although…
I tried the new Barnes & Noble Nook Study program on my computer, and it caused nothing but troubles. First, I had to upgrade my operating system to X10.6 (Snow Leopard) just to run the program. That upgrade cost me the use of my printer (no driver for Snow Leopard) and an afternoon of frustration to the point I nearly threw my MacBook Pro out the window. . . not to mention the $30 for the upgrade.
Next, it seems one can only rent eBooks on the thing, but they do offer a 7 day free trial. However, every time I tried to open my free trial textbook, the program crashed.
Every. Single. Time.
Needless to say, I deleted Nook Study from my computer and decided to just rent the textbook from Barnes & Noble, which by the way, was actually cheaper than renting the eBook on Nook Study.
Finally, once I confirmed those were actually the books I needed for the course, the shipping cost had doubled overnight. Still, I ordered the books, paying a few dollars more for 1-3 business day shipping (I have to get them sent to Ohio, as I’ll be on the road during my distance learning class).
Done, right?
Wrong.
I get the confirmation email only to see that it won’t ship until SEPTEMBER 2nd!
Really? I’m paying for 1-3 day shipping for a class that begins on August 23rd, and my rented textbooks won’t ship until nearly two weeks after the class starts?
Cancel.
Screw B&N.
Is this what my students have to go through every semester? Geesh!
With some help from a Facebook friend, I was turned on to a textbook rental place called CHEGG.com. And they fricken rock.
Affordable. Fast shipping (I’ll get it by the 19th). Helping students earn $$ for college in their Champion Program. PLUS…
They plant a tree for every textbook rented.
So fricken cool.
I saved over $100, and I’m hooked. I’m telling my students about Chegg.com.
Rent your textbooks this semester. Save time & $! **Use this PROMO CODE (CC132789) to save an extra 5%!**
Read an eBook Week, March 7-13, educates and informs the public about the pleasures and advantages of reading electronically. <taken from their website>
If you have seen our art, read our books, or even had a conversation with either me or Ethan, you know that we are strong environmental advocates. We brought our own bags to the store before they sold them at the register, back when people would look at you as if you had grown a second head when you said “I don’t need a bag,” or “I brought my own.”
Now you get a discount for bringing your own bag. It’s the way it should be.
Hybrid cars are being produced by every major car company, doubling and sometimes quadrupling the gas mileage. It’s the way it should be. I wouldn’t drive anything else.
We supplement our electricity with solar power, create recycled art, and have been vegetarians for over a decade, the most environmentally (as well as animal) friendly diet one can have.
We make every consumer choice with Mother Earth in mind, constantly trying to reduce our own carbon footprint. It’s the way it should be.
So you can imagine how much I love eReaders and eBooks! Don’t get me wrong, I also love Love LOVE books, but with over 800 titles published every day in the US alone, that’s a lot of my beloved trees, too!
So, read an eBook this week. Give it a try. On your PC. On your Mac. On your phone. There are free eReader apps for nearly every smart phone (Kindle, B&N, Stanza, etc.) or splurge and get a Kindle, Sony, or Nook. I’ve got a Kindle, and I love it. It’s well worth the money.
Start reducing your carbon footprint today. Studies show that a paper book creates FOUR TIMES the greenhouse gas emissions than an eBook Reader, countless more times than an eBook. Plus, you’ll not only save money on books (eBooks are normally much less than their paper counterpart), you’ll also save trees!
During Read an eBook Week, Rowan of the Wood is FREE on Smashwords and Witch on the Water is 1/2 price at $0.99. The coupon codes are RFREE and RAE50, respectively.
This issue keeps popping up on my radar. Even on Twitter, and through the recent #140 character conference, the question remains on what will happen to big publishing if they don’t change. At BEA, it was noted that big publishers are in greater financial dire straights than the little indie publisher. The NY Big Boys are still working on an antiquated business model that’s approaching its 100th birthday.
Times have changed.
The way people read has changed. The way people process information has changed.
The more I read, the less I want to find an agent and big publisher. Unless a publisher offers us a HUGE advance (like $500K or more for a 5 book series + a huge marketing budget & media connections/movie deal, all of which over 95% of their authors DO NOT get), I really don’t see what they can do for us that we can’t do for ourselves… except print larger runs (and accept larger returns) and take 95% of the money.
We’ll *still* will have to do our own promotions with our own money.
I think we’ll stick with the little guy for now.
We’ll continue with what we’re doing, marketing and pounding the pavement. Perhaps we’ll garner the attention from a big boy publisher who will offer us the above ($500K+, marketing budget, movie deal, media connections)… then we’ll happily say yes. Because we know they they won’t drop our book after 3mos if they’re putting that kind of $ behind it.
So, I’ve reprinted the below article with links intact. Please go to the site there and read the comments. I’d love to hear reasons why we should spend our time/resources actively seeking out an agent and big publisher … please. Convince me.
E-books are just in their infancy. Amid worries that Amazon carries too much clout in E and elsewhere, that’s how some people shrug off the antitrust risks.
Much will change in e-bookdom. And meanwhile Google is gearing up to compete more directly against Amazon.
But what about POD, traditional paper books, and many other tricky areas—not to mention Amazon’s vast collection of user comments on books? Or how about the Kindle and the use of proprietary format, along with Amazon’s dissing of the ePub standard?
Is it possible that Amazon’s combined resources do give it an unfair advantage over rivals—perhaps even worthy of notice from the U.S. Justice Department and similar agencies elsewhere?
Timely Time article
I read with interest, then, a Time Magazine piece headlined, “Is Amazon taking over the book business?” Yes, it mentions the Kindle, and it leads with an example of Amazon’s Encore program to refine and remarket Legacy (right) and other books from small houses.
Such moves would be smart ways to deal with the concerns that the Time piece raised about Amazon’s activities in a number of areas. Excerpt:
As numerous publishing journalists and bloggers have pointed out, Amazon has diversified itself so comprehensively over the past five years that it’s hard to say exactly what it is anymore. Amazon has a presence in almost every niche of the book industry. It runs a print-on-demand service (BookSurge) and a self-publishing service (CreateSpace). It sells e-books and an e-device to read them on (the Kindle, a new version of which, the DX, went on sale June 10).
Anthony has now done FIVE videos himself! He certainly has racked up the most entries, current count is well over 1500, by doing these videos and RT (retweeting) “What Would You Do 4 A Kindle 2? http://tinyurl.com/wwyd4ak2 Plz RT @christinerose #WWYD4AK2″ a gazillion (ok, maybe 10-15) times a day! On Friday, we’ll have an Anthony montage video, including him singing “Like a Surgeon” by Weird Al Yankovich!
I can’t wait!
Keep those entries coming!
ONLY SIX MORE DAYS TO ENTER!
It’s not too late to try!
*WWYD4aK2 = What Would You Do for a Kindle 2 Contest. Details here.
Rowan of the Wood is the WINNER of the Indie Excellence Award for YA Fiction.
We’re, as you can imagine, THRILLED to Win this category! Thank you so everyone over at Indie Excellence!!
This is the second National award Rowan of the Wood has been honored with, and we couldn’t be more pleased.
You can get your copy of this TWO-TIME-Award-Winning book (1st printing, 1st edition, author-signed) here: GET ROWAN. After your purchase, if you leave a comment on this page (WWYD4aK2), you’ll not only be entered to win a Kindle 2, you’ll be entered to win 100 times with your book/eBook purchase! (or, you’ll be entered to win anyway without purchase… just with a comment!)
The eBook is less than a (Decaf/Nonfat/NoWhip) Mocha & Blueberry Scone from Starbucks… and provides hours of entertainment!
Totally. We can see the light at the end of the tunnel. April was a very dark month for us. We discovered, during our Beltane Blog Tour that our books were SOLD OUT, suddenly unavailable in all major trade outlets! Despite several assurances from our (now former) publisher that more were on the way, they never showed up in the system.
Needless to say, we went through a little reorganization. New publisher. New plan with a guarantee that it will always be available!
Now we have a 2nd edition already showing up in some outlets!
NEW ISBN:978-0-9819949-0-1
SMASHWORDS!
eBook aficionados! Rowan of the Wood is now available on Smashwords! You can read up to 60% of it without paying a dime! When you decide to buy it, please use this coupon code for additional savings: AU76F
However, if you prefer your eBook in PDF format, please get it directly from us. It’s formatted nicely in our version. The automated process at Smashwords gets the job done, but it’s not that pretty.
More and more books are available in electronic formats. I, for one, am very happy about this!
My husband and I are long-standing environmentalists, and anything that will reduce the miserable waste of paper in this country is okay with me.
Sure, there are things that must be printed. Granted.
Just think of the junk mail that STILL comes in your mail.
Think of the newspaper that’s delivered to many households every day. Where one or two pages (at most) are read by the average newspaper subsriber. The other 45 line the bottom of a bird cage or get thrown directly in the trash (or hopefully the recycling bin).
Think of the magazines you never have time to read.
Think of the pile of romance novels and mysteries and others you find at your local book reseller. And those are just a fraction of the ones that were thrown away.
Perhaps eBooks will help reduce the amount of paper used. Newspapers just need to go online with their news and deliver their product electronically. Magazines, too. The information is still there!
The eBook will not replace the printed book, of course. Never. Not in our lifetimes. Just as email SPAM hasn’t replaced Junk Mail. It’s just reduced it.
Although, I’m not sure the iPhone is the greatest device on which to read an entire book. At least not for me… but there are many people who read books on their iPhone. Some have even read our book on the iPhone! And many more have read it on the Kindle.
In honor of eBook Week (Mar 8-14), we’ll be focusing our posts on eBooks! (imagine that!)
I recently read an article in the Dallas Morning News calling for Kindle to pay audio rights for the books it reads aloud. Roy Blount Jr, who authored the piece, makes some valid points but leaves me unconvinced. As he is the president of the Authors Guild, I can understand his concern. But as an author myself, I can see a greater benefit from not pursuing audio rights for e-books.
Blount’s argument is that audio rights are more valuable than e-book rights. This is true, but if e-books can be read audibly, this can only increase the value of e-books and the rights to them. This seems like a win-win situation to me. Everyone who listens to an e-book has paid for the right to experience the book. Does it really matter what form they choose?
As for the Kindle taking the place of a parent at bedtime, the ones who really lose out are the parents and child who lose a shared experience, and I truly can’t foresee the Kindle taking the place of any loving parent (no more than it will take the place of a printed book).
Audio books are also expensive to produce, while e-books cost almost nothing. Why not pass some of that savings on to the consumer? I also can’t imagine that a computer generated voice will replace professional entertainers anytime soon. I have often chosen to listen to a particular book because I liked the narrator, but by the same token I have abandoned listening to books I was really interested in because the narrator disagreed with me.
Last week I listened to a podcast called “Druidcast.” It’s awesome. One episode had a woman playing a Celtic Harp while telling a story in the ancient Bardic Tradition. Afterwards, the host told everybody to pause the podcast and go buy a Celtic Harp…. thus began my obsession. This idea merged with one given to us by a fellow Merchant at Hoggetowne Medieval Faire. She said we should do a short “Storytime” to introduce our book, kinda like a performance.
Since Celtic Harps are in the $1000s… I thought perhaps I’d start with a Lyre Harp for about $150. This way I can tell the story of Rowan of the Wood at Renaissance Faires. This would not only give our audience a taste of the great story that is Rowan of the Wood, but it would also teach them about the Bardic Tradition of storytelling. Since Rowan is a Druid — it’s perfect!
- Wednesday 2/18 5pm CST: TheTuberRose on blogTV broadcasting live from the Las Cruces, NM Barnes & Noble book signing!
- Wednesday 2/18 8pm CST: TheTuberRose on blogTV broadcasting live from the El Paso, TX Barnes & Noble book signing!
- Thursday 2/18 5pm CST: BlogTalkRadio “On the Road to a Bestseller with Christine Rose” talks about the Amazing Kindle with Kindle expert Leslie Nicoll, an author of The Amazon Kindle FAQ and a leading light at the Kindle Boards forum.
Over the years, I’ve been to school a whole helluva lot. Seriously. Half my life has been spent in a classroom as a student, a teacher, or a professor.
I tried the new Barnes & Noble Nook Study program on my computer, and it caused nothing but troubles. First, I had to upgrade my operating system to X10.6 (Snow Leopard) just to run the program. That upgrade cost me the use of my printer (no driver for Snow Leopard) and an afternoon of frustration to the point I nearly threw my MacBook Pro out the window. . . not to mention the $30 for the upgrade.
As part of the promotion of our upcoming sequel 
WOO-fricken-HOO!
