Eclipse Follow Up from Stephanie Meyer - The Short Second Life of Bree Tanner

Coming this June 5, 2010 is Stephanie Meyer's newest book called The Short Second Life of Bree Tanner. If you loved the Twilight series, then there's no reason not to get into this one.

I read on Stephanie Meyer's website that she came up with this while writing Eclipse to figure out what it was like being a new vampire. This section was supposed to go into the Vampire Guide she was going to release but ended up too long. The material here was also used in the movie as the director/ producer and actors wanted to be able to understand how they should portray the rising team of young vampires

After type-setting, this part of the book got too long to be inserted in the Vampire Guide and so here it is, it's very own "novella" as they call it. 200 pages of Bree Tanner's short second life for everybody to enjoy

Will Kindle And Other eBook Readers Lose Out To iPad?

A recent survey by ChangeWave Research took a look at over three thousand consumers shortly after the iPad was revealed to the world. They gave special attention to the device’s function as an e-reader or its ability to snatch the sales crown from the Kindle.

A whopping 40% of those looking to bring an e-reader home in the next ninety days chose the iPad. The Kindle comes in second with 28%, Barnes & Noble’s Nook with 6%, and Sony with a miniscule 1%.

I've heard the criticisms and I love both Jeffrey Bezos and Steve Jobs - as to which product will sell better. We shall see when iPad launches next month

The Self Publishing Boom And How It Gave Birth To Unsuspecting Authors

We have to admit that self publishing is now a very acceptable means of putting your work out there.

To quote Mediashift, "Mid-level authors already know that the era of large advances, generous royalties, book tours and media spots are over. They have to spend their own time and money to create a website and publicize their books. Publishers just don't have the resources to offer them full support. Why? The Internet, online bookstores, e-books, and an economy in decline are cited as some root causes of the steady slump in the traditional publishing industry. In 2005 sales were down by 9 percent (and have continued to fall). Yet in 2006 print-on-demand exploded."

Sure the big names like Random House might still make a difference in terms of publisher credibility but the power of the big publishing houses are no longer as prominent as they'd like it to be. Self publishing has blurred the definitions and means of "HOW" to get published as long as well they see the light at the end of the tunnel and eventually just get their book to the marketplace.

Today's definition of self-publishing includes subsidy and vanity presses, print-on-demand companies, and book packagers, which many would like to clarify as being publishing or author services companies.

"Author Solutions' brands -- AuthorHouse, iUniverse, Trafford, Wordclay, and Xlibris -- have published more than 120,000 books by 85,000 authors," Publishers Weekly's Lynn Andriani reported her article.

In the end I think it's going to lean a lot on the author's preference, ambition and capacity to pay.


Read the full article, Self-Publishing, Author Services Open Floodgates for Writers

Random House Acquires Rights to Michael Jackson's Autobiography

Big money is on the way for Random House after buying the rights to Michael Jackson's best-selling 1988 autobiography, “Moonwalk,” U.S. and Canadian rights were bought by Harmony Books, an imprint of Random House, which is owned by Europe’s largest media group Bertelsmann. Harmony will print an initial run of 100,000 copies.Harmony Books spokesman Campbell Wharton declined to comment on the terms of the deal made with Jackson’s estate.

Good for them! With the varying stories coming out these days about Michael Jackson as well as his life & death. That'll be of greater value now that he's gone that's for sure. More than in life, he's making money for people even in death

The Real Book or The Kindle Book?

Here's a nice entry by Scott Stein I found on CNET. It's about how Kindle ebooks are replacing the physical books - hard bound or soft-cover doesn't really matter. He poses some pretty good arguments on how ebooks are cheaper with the convenience of pocket-size access.

Nevertheless the feel of a book & its pages in your hands, still has the feel of permanence & sentimentality I guess would be a corny description. I still prefer books though but who knows I don't have a Kindle. Maybe if I get one I can actually compare.

Why does Scribd work as an online selling tool for books?

Scribd is deemed the newest challenger to Amazon. However this was pretty much discovered accidentally by publishers. One author - Bob Seidensticker, complained just a year ago that his book was being made available on Scribd.com (this is short-hand for scribbled by the way).

Scribd quickly took it down after the complaint was posted by publisher, Berrett-Koehler.

However one thing led to another & Scribd was later on discovered to be a very viable marketing venue for books.



Here's some background: Simply put, Scribd is like the Youtube for printed material. It's simple enough to understand - people get to upload material on to Scribd like presentations, files & yes... books too.



So how do we make money off this? Scribd is now uploading excerpt for books on to its site. It's quite similar to Amazon's "Search Inside" feature so it isn't that big a deal really. However publishers seem to be attracted to the idea of having a thousand more views than normal.

The combined material makes Scribd a proverbial library of excerpts for book lovers to enjoy. The lay-out is also pretty simple (in fact it's a knock off of Youtube so it's not that hard to figure out)



So there you go. A new marketing venue for your book. Scribd is FREE by the way so there's no cash out to join. They get a cut from books that are sold through their store though, but I bet you it's not as high as Amazon.

I've been to the site a lot of times because search engines usually lead me there when I'm looking for some items on literature, research material & most of the time non-fictional work. The pages are saved as text so imagine the depth of the content for your book as well as the categorization.
I don't think Scribd will beat Amazon, but I do think it's a worthwhile option to consider.

Another Side of Miley cyrus - A 16-year-old writes her autobiorgraphy

Miley Cyrus has had a movie, a tv series, concerts and practically every kind of children's paraphernalia to support the campaign and here she is again with a book... a BOOK of all thing. Talk about brain-washing the kids.

Well I guess if you're famous you have an excuse to write your autobiography even if you're just sixteen years old

In the pages of her first book, "Miles to Go," Cyrus tells PEOPLE she hopes that her fans will see "that I'm a real person just like them." "Most of the time you see me smiling — I mean that's how I got my name! — but that's not what it's all about. Everyone goes through hardships and heartbreaks," she says.

In her book she also talks about the time before she became Hannah Montana, Cyrus writes, she had to endure daily hazing from bullies in sixth grade, who did everything from stealing her books to locking her in the school bathroom. Looking back, "sometimes I wish I could get an apology (from the mean girls), but to be honest I don't need one," she says. "I moved on and I believe they moved on as well. It helped make me the person I am today."

Well I do hope they stick to the facts and not end up with fiction