We’ve seen it all over the years in book covers.
Cute cartoon covers, clinch covers, and the recent addition of “elegant bling” covers. Masks, cufflinks, a man’s tie–you know what I mean.
Now I’m excited about a new trend: Temp covers!
For the first time since I’ve published, Harlequin has put up “temp” covers for the Cosmo Red-Hot Reads.
Each of the books that I’ve found on Amazon by Lauren Dane, Tawny Weber, and Helen Kay Dimon all show the same wildly sexy, raspberry-red covers with the Cosmo logo.
Here’s the RED-HOT Temp Cover for my Cosmo Red Hot-Read: NAKED SUSHI!!
Amateur spy PEPPER O’MALLEY gets more than she bargained for when she discovers her sleazy boss is hiding corporate secrets.
She gets fired.
Was it her fault she got caught in the copy room with her pants down with a hunky thief?
The only way Pepper can get her job back is to become a naked sushi model and spy on her ex-boss.
She’s thrown into a world of corporate espionage she never imagined…
What do you think of the idea of Temp Covers? It’s definitely branding the books in a unique and exciting way. I can only imagine the sexy cover Harlequin has up their sleeve for Naked Sushi…
The Kobo eReader is now available in Canada and coming to a Borders near you next. At $149.99 US, it’s $110 less than the Amazon Kindle and BN’s nook and $50 less than the Pocket Edition of the Sony Reader. The lower price should appeal to readers looking for an affordable device. Kobo also has a Bluetooth connection, so users with certain smartphones can update their selections on the go. There are also mobile apps for the iPhone and iPod Touch as well as Palm Pre, Blackberry and Android.
Kobo uses the same e-ink display as the other readers and appears to be about the same size. It has 1 GB of memory, and unlike the Kindle 2, it has a slot for an SD reader card, expanding storage capabilities even further. It comes with 100 free e-books (all classics) so is ideal for a high school or college student. In fact, I think any e-reader makes a great graduation present, though the Kobo may arrive too late for this year. It’s due in Borders stores around Father’s Day.
Kobo provides an e-reader comparison page on their website. The file formats it supports are ePub, unsecured PDF and Adobe DRM.
I’ve been reading e-books for over ten years now, so it’s exciting to me to see so many different readers now available. Prices of e-ink readers have come down substantially since Dec. 2007 when I bought my first Kindle. This is getting really interesting.
What do you think? Will Kobo kill the Kindle? Or will it perhaps force Amazon and BN to lower their prices again? I suspect the latter, at least for the short term.
Linda McLaughlin
http://www.lindamclaughlin.com/
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Links to e-book readers mentioned in this post:
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Earlier this month, Amazon announced its new, larger Kindle DX, due out this summer. The DX is magazine-size with a 9.7 inch screen compared to the 6-inch screen of the Kindle 2. The DX has a rotating screen so you can read in either portrait or landscape mode; a built-in PDF reader, no conversion required (a much sought after feature); wireless connection and Amazon’s new, somewhat controversial Read-to-Me text to speech capability.
The new device is designed to enhance reading of newspapers and textbooks, and I can see where the larger size will be helpful in viewing graphics. I’ve had a Kindle for almost a year and a half ago, and one of the few downsides I’ve found is that graphs and photos are often so tiny as to be meaningless. Gadget purists are upset about the lack of a slot for a storage card in the newer models, but Amazon claims the increased memory makes an SD card unnecessary.
The pre-order cost of $489.00 will no doubt chase away some readers, esp. during tough economic times, but I think the Kindle is here to stay. The smaller Kindle 2 is still available for $359.00 and there are some used first generation Kindles available for $250.00 and up.
On the POD front, I found an interesting blog post about the Espresso Book Machine. Personally, I’d love to see one of these in every bookstore.
Linda McLaughlin w/a Lyndi Lamont
http://flightsafancy.blogspot.com/
http://www.lyndilamont.com/
Are $50 netbooks in our future?
Consumer Reports said that AT&T will start selling netbooks for as little as $50, but of course, with a content contract. Spurred by the popularity of Amazon’s Kindle e-book reader, they are also planning to enter the ebook market.
It’ll be interesting to see how this plays out. Netbooks, like the Acer Aspire and MSI Wind, have become increasingly popular, and prices are dropping. My DH bought his MSI Wind earlier this year and the price has since dropped by $100.00. I imagine a lot of people will find the idea of a $50 netbook irresistible. I also suspect AT&T knows it will make a lot more money on the monthly contract fees than they lose by selling the computer well under purchase price. In life, the devil is often in the details.
FWIW, this is the opposite of the Amazon Kindle business model. The Kindle 2 costs $359.00, but there is no contract and no monthly fee. The base price includes connection charges to download books, though there is a small fee to search the web or upload your own content.
I don’t think these two things are mutually exclusive. Those of us who prefer a dedicated e-book reader will go for the Kindle every time, and those who want internet connectivity and general computing power, including e-books, will go for the netbook. And the gadget freaks will want both. One of these days, I’ll end up buying a netbook.
Which would you prefer?
Linda McLaughlin
http://flightsafancy.blogspot.com/
A week ago, Amazon.com released the second version of its Kindle e-book reader. Owners of the first version had a day to order a new one and jump to the head of the queue, but I managed to resist the temptation.
The Kindle 2 is slimmer than the original, with more storage, longer battery life, faster page changes and an improved display. Another, more controversial, feature of the new device is the “Read-to-Me” feature which allows the Kindle to read aloud “every book, blog, magazine, and newspaper”. The Authors Guild quickly pointed out that this feature probably violates existing copyright laws.
Several of my books are available for the Kindle as e-books, but I own the audio rights and have not licensed them to anyone. On the other hand, if someone buys a copy of one of my books and wants to have it read to them by a goofy, machine-generated voice, do I care? At this point in time, I’m grateful for every sale. If the same books were available as professionally produced audio books, I’m sure I’d be looking at this differently.
I don’t know how all this will play out, but it seems like our rapidly-evolving technology has lawyers scrambling to keep up. It’ll be interesting to see what happens.
Linda
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