How to Read Ebooks without an E-Reader

I don't know who needs to hear this, but you don't need to own a Kindle, Kobo, or Nook device to read ebooks. Chances are, whatever you are using to read this blog post—has a FREE Amazon Kindle app that will allow you to shop in the massive Amazon ebook library. Some other retailers offer similar apps, but I'm really only familiar with the Kindle app because I own more Kindles than I can shake a stick at and still have that app on my phone, Macbook, PC, and Tablet.

Why am I telling you this? Because the dear lady behind me in line for coffee today, said she'd love to support me, but doesn't own an e-reader. First of all, some of my books like The Dark Unicorn can be purchased in paperback (she had been admiring the cover of the said book on my phone screen), but the ability to read ebooks even when you prefer physical books is practically a necessity for the extreme book lover. That's because authors have so many more options when creating content for the ebook market. Say an author wants to write some bonus short stories, in a world you love with characters you can't get out of your head! How do they deliver those little slices of heaven? They might not be long enough to turn into a book by themselves, and waiting until you have enough to bind up a paperback volume of them can take years in some cases.  I for one, am all for instant gratification when it comes to my OTPs, and as. an author I like the flexibility ebooks offer for publication.

Of course, I just smiled and said thanks. Mostly because that was in the real world and this is this internet, I am way smoother on the internet, but maybe that woman from Starbucks will see this blog and I know it was for her. ;)

Magick & Monsters; Bestselling Books FREE in an AWESOME package!

Right now you can get Skeleton Lake is this badass Urban Fantasy and Paranormal Romance collection. Magick & Monsters. Skeleton Lake is the first book in my Hollows Series, which is wrapping up this summer. You can get this set on every major retail outlet for free:

Get it at Amazon

Get it at Barnes & Noble

Get it at Kobo

Get it at Google Play
Get it at iBooks

P.S. If you've enjoyed Skeleton Lake in the past, I'd appreciate if you'd take a moment to leave a review about it on the set page. 

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Pre-Order 23 1/2 Hours to Live & Get the Swag of Your Dreams

I was totally going post that you can now pre-order my next-next book (because there may actually be one before that) book, and that you should totally do it right now.


But you know what? That's not good enough. We can make this way more fun. This book is MADE of Awesome, so now everyone in the United States that pre-orders an ebook copy of 23 1/2 Hours by next saturday at 11:59 their timezone will get there very own 23 1/2 Hours pin, seen here------------------------->

Yes, everyone from the US that pre-orders a copy by 11:59 PM their time zone 4/30 gets one!

Also everyone that orders one is entered to win a fancy new Kindle Fire in a fun new color:


AND they are entered to win a copy of the paperback version of the book before you can buy it.

After you pre-order your copy, please click here to enter your information.

Somethings to keep in  mind. This book is a new adult romance, and is not suited for kids. The actual release date is May 17th.





Here's (some of)the blurb:




Coming soon from bestselling author Angela Kulig, a new adult romance about crazy people… who are maybe in love. 

Forced out of college Freshman year and into a dead end job, Kaylee doesn't become angry and bitter; instead she does her best to not even exist. 

Here's a quick list of what Kaylee Hall expects from life: 

1. Nothing 
2. Nothing else 

She doesn't date. 
She doesn't make friends. 
She doesn't feel anything. 

So when the guy who ruined Kaylee's life in every way shows up and tries to casually rewrite her life story, she consults her list and doesn't know what to think. 

Click here to see the complete details, or to preorder your copy now!

Click here to enter your information to get your pin, and prize entries!

The Second PATH OF ANGELS Book is Out!

Time is passing faster than I can catch. Minutes, Hours, Days, all gone like the morning dew on spiderwebs at noon. But faster. I totally slept through last Monday when this book came out!

If you missed it, here is the first Path of Angels Book: MICHAEL.

Now about the second book Zadekiel:

Blurb:

The path is lost.

With Michael gone, the mantle of leadership falls to Zadekiel. In this time of darkness, with tempers running short, Zade struggles to guide his brothers. Hope comes in the form of a green haired woman with a unique gift. She represents a way back to the path they lost when Michael disappeared.

Zephyr fills books with cryptic poetry, a powerful compulsion, which is more a curse than a blessing. With no control over her ability, she struggles to live a normal life. When she meets Zade, he insists her ability is a gift from God. Reluctantly, she agrees to join the cause–it’s hard to dispute a man with wings.

Now the path is found, but one question remains. Will it lead to further darkness?

Amazon Link: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00VUBND3E

Goodreads Link: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/25316684-zadekiel

About the Author:

Patricia Josephine never set out to become a writer. In fact, she never considered it an option during high school and college. She was all about art. On a whim, she wrote down a story bouncing in her head. That was the start of it and she hasn't regretted a moment. She writes young adult under the name Patricia Lynne.

Patricia lives with her husband in Michigan, hopes one day to have what will resemble a small petting zoo, has a fondness for dying her hair the colors of the rainbow, and an obsession with Doctor Who.

Links:

Twitter: https://twitter.com/plynne_writes

Website: http://www.patricialynne.com

Google+: https://plus.google.com/u/0/108938106639683446081/posts/p/pub

Wattpad: http://www.wattpad.com/user/patricialynne07

Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/13460894.Patricia_Josephine

Spring for it... before it's too late!

Pigments of My Imagination, which until last week when Skeleton Lake passed it (again), was my best selling novel, is about to become Amazon exclusive. Not forever, just for three months starting next week. So if you want to get it on Kobo, or Nook, you better get it before the end of Sunday 3/8!'

Get it for Kindle | Get it for Nook | Get it for Kobo

Pigments of My Imagination has a 4.2 Star Rating on Amazon. Check out some of the reviews.

Pigments of my Imagination by Angela Kulig is a surrealistic coming-of-age novel centered on the exploits of Lucia, a new student at the Bayside Art Academy in East Texas. Wandering the halls of her new place of learning, she discovers a unique and mysterious group of prodigies who hold an irresistible attraction for her. Making the acquaintance of Ripley, she is introduced to Leo, a wunderkind who she feels particularly fascinated by. A sense of déjà vu makes her feel as if they had met somewhere before, setting the conflict into motion in Kulig’s romantic novel.

The theme of reincarnation resonates throughout the plot as Leo and Ripley bring the subject up in conversation, theorizing about how a group of ‘enlightened individuals’ might predict the rebirth of one of their kind. It sets up an epiphany for Lucia as it anticipates her discovery that her arrival at the Academy and her friendship is no mere coincidence. The element of kinship is also integral to the author’s tale as Lucia finds herself amidst a rivalry between the Painters and the Deceivers, as the enigmatic Mr. Garcia watches and waits to see how Lucia’s choices and allegiances will affect her life journey.

Kulig’s narrative is an interesting blend of literary concepts, including adolescent bonding and the rite of passage which is flavored by the supernatural manipulations and intrigue. Characters such as William Blake and Oliver Buchanan give us a blend of the old and new, the world of classicism merging with the metaphysical in an entertaining storyline. Pigments of my Imagination by Angela Kulig is one definitely worth checking out. 

 ***

I received the book and within a day and a half I had it read. I was so into Lucia and Leo, I could almost really feel their energy. I feel almost a little bad for reading it so fast because I did ignore my son...........but in my defense he was ignoring me while playing on his Leappad :-) Either way, amazing story line and I can not WAIT until the next book is released! So think this should be a movie series.........

 ***

"Pigments of My Imagination" isn't your average novel with an obvious plot and a straightforward concept, rather it is a refreshingly original story with fluid storytelling that sucks you in and takes you on a compelling ride filled with twists and turns. Angela Kulig does a wonderful job of engaging the reader with a vivid writing style that really does paint each scene with a fine-tipped brush; it's sharp, lush, descriptive, emotional, non-linear and fantastically addictive. Lucia's story (and life) is unusual and captivating in it's complexity, as she tries to unravel the mysteries surround her life and the school she attends. Ms. Kulig has a gift for storytelling that just charms and entertains the reader, creating a sharply woven tale that jumps from emotional drama with action-packed science fiction to introspective fantasy and more. Overall, this was a vivid and wholly original novel that was well worth the read; I would recommend it to anyone looking for a compelling and well-written science fiction/fantasy novel to sink their teeth into.

And keep this in mind...

Stocking Your E-Reader Sale 2014

The second annual STOCKING YOUR E-READER SALE has ended. Please check out our sponsors, and come back again at the end of the year! I'll be back momentarily to list the prize winners, and will contacting them by e-mail shortly!

Xio Axelrod | Benita Pearse | Steven Trae Lauder | Frank Freudberg

Michael Burnside | J.B. Markes |  Linn Schwab | Larry Kollar

The Wait is OVER! Dust of the Dead Sea is out NOW!

I know you Skeleton fans have been waiting, and the day is finally here! Dust of the Dead Sea, the second book in the Hollows series (third, if you count the prequel to Skeleton Lake, The Skeleton Song) is out now!

Next week we're going to talk about the history if this series, but for now...

Here is the blurbish:

There are many things between Heaven and Hell, and Marlow the Skeleton is just one of them. Taking the fight to the Hollows who tried to take her, Marlow travels with Raiden, the other half of her soul, to the worst place she can think of. The Dead Sea. Part crazy religious cult, part vengeful god, The Dead Sea isn't what she thought it would be—it's worse.

The thing is, you don't know you're addicted until you're in the monster's teeth. Marlow doesn't think she needs The Dead Sea, but it's poisoning her with every drop, and every raging wave, and all the dust collecting in her lungs. How do you fight a villain when the villain isn't a man, but a place?

Old characters with new agendas break the surface again, bringing fresh pain. Beneath a starless desert sky, Marlow and Raiden will confront a destiny that will end everything.

They should have never gone to The Dead Sea to look for answers—they should have gone looking for questions.

Get it on Amazon: http://amzn.to/1sRWtQa
Get it for Kobo: http://bit.ly/1AL6UNE
Get it on BN: http://bit.ly/1FmWqUq
Get it on Paperback: In time for Christmas*

*More on this later.

Anyway, what do you guys think? Can you believe it finally happened?

Don't have the other books in the series? Here are the links:
Skeleton Lake http://amzn.to/YUP9Yx
The Skeleton Song http://amzn.to/19ke9it

25,000 TWITTER FOLLOWER GIVEAWAY

Why say anything? This is my EPIC 25,000 Twitter Follower Giveaway. I could ramble on, and cry or something--but you're awesome, let's party!
a Rafflecopter giveaway

Subscribe to my mailing mailing list (you can still score that entry if you're already on it)

Smashed and Confused: an open letter to Smashwords CEO Mark Coker in regard to the Hachette vs. Amazon feud

I have been struggling for a while to put my thoughts on the Amazon/Hachette dispute into an article. I still believe that indie publishing and traditional publishing are on the same side, and deadlines kept me from getting my thoughts down. Lucky for me, my bestie and Green Envy Press partner Larry Kollar wrote a fantastic bit covering everything I would have said, and offering some fantastic perspective!

‡

If you’re an author, you’ve certainly heard about the big showdown between Amazon and Hachette, one of the Big 5 publishers. Or rather, you’ve heard the breathless reports from traditional media outlets about how the Amazon colossus is attempting to strong-arm helpless publishers into accepting its terms. Mark Coker, CEO of Smashwords (a combination eBook store and distributor to other stores) weighed in with a blog post titled Amazon Hachette Dispute Foreshadows What’s Next for Indie Authors, The title provides a strong hint at Coker’s views on the matter. What follows are my own views, in the form of an open letter to Mark Coker.

Dear Mr. Coker,

Your recent blog post does not only a disservice to those authors that you claim to champion, but your own company as well. Rarely has the phrase “cutting off your nose to spite your face” been more relevant. Frankly, I’m surprised—almost shocked—that you would so blatantly side with large publishers in this dispute, especially when you admit that the same publishers shun Smashwords due to your (correct) stance on DRM. Let’s be honest here: major publishers would be happy to see Smashwords dead, right after Amazon. 

If you are getting your information about the dispute only from the likes of the Wall Street Journal and Publisher’s Weekly, you’re getting a very one-sided view that is slanted to favor Hachette. That shouldn’t be a surprise; PW is the traditional industry's mouthpiece, while the WSJ is owned by the same conglomerate that owns HarperCollins (and Fox News, but we won’t go there today). Amazon, which owns no major media outlet to tell its side of the story, has mostly taken the more typical corporate approach: keep mum until reaching an agreement. One offer Amazon has made, that has somehow escaped the notice of the world at large, is to fund 50% of an author pool “to mitigate the impact of this dispute on author royalties” if Hachette funds the other half. So to say Amazon is unconcerned with how this is affecting Hachette’s authors is blatantly untrue. To my knowledge, Hachette hasn’t exactly jumped on this offer, which I think tells us who is more concerned about authors in this dispute.

The root of the dispute is this: Hachette is attempting to reinstate the Agency Model, and Amazon does not want it. Hachette, and other major publishers, were found guilty of collusion when they forced it on Amazon a few years ago. The problem with the Agency Model is that it turns the whole system of retailing on its head. Any store, including brick-and-mortar bookstores, pays a fixed price for each unit of inventory—be it groceries, CDs, monitors, books, or rolls of carpet—and sells them at some markup (usually). Amazon has never been shy about their corporate strategy: focus on market share, and profits will follow. So Hachette might set a retail price of $14.95 on a new release; Amazon pays maybe $7.50 and sells it at whatever price they decide best fits their needs at the moment. Larger retailers can demand (and often get) discounts—that’s how Barnes and Noble killed locally-owned bookstores; they used favorable wholesale prices to undercut the indies. Would publishers demand of Walmart, or B&N’s brick-and-mortar stores, the right to set prices? If not, why is it okay to demand the same of Amazon?

Now, let’s talk about Smashwords, and why some authors might stick with Amazon. (Hint: it isn’t because they’re all starry-eyed about the Kindle ecosystem.)

I’m a member of a publishing co-op, Green Envy Press. We pool our various talents to help each other produce eBooks with at least as much polish, inside and out, as major publishers. We have varying thoughts about diversification—of our authors, I’m the one most dedicated to the proposition. Nine of my ten books, including the just-released Into the Icebound, are available at Smashwords and the stores they distribute to. I have what I think are good reasons to spread my books far and wide, although my sales figures might disagree. When I look at my income, I see $600-$900 coming in from Amazon every quarter (paid monthly by the way), and maybe $20-$30 from Smashwords. Since I use Smashwords to aggregate the rest of the world (except B&N, because I like their Nook Press tools so much), it’s safe to say that 97% of my sales come from Amazon. On a good day, I’ll sell as many books at Amazon as I have in over two years at Smashwords proper (38 books). I know that other authors have different spreads, maybe a few lopsided the other way, but I can only speak for myself. 

How much effort goes into gaining that 3% of sales, then? In my opinion: far too much. If you hadn’t started taking EPUBs, I'd have given up on you and started going direct. I write in Scrivener, and format in Sigil, so my workflow doesn’t involve a Word file. The income I get from Smashwords is not worth the time to produce a Word file just for the Meatgrinder. I’ve uncovered two problems in the EPUB autovetter (y’all were using a ratty version of Epubcheck at first, and it checks the manifest instead of the spine for the title page). Fortunately, you have excellent and responsive support staff who want to make this stuff work. But why not take it a step further? There are excellent open-source tools that can automatically convert a good EPUB to all the formats you support—like Meatgrinder, only better because those of us who don’t work from a Word file could play.

So. Why is it that, despite the far wider reach that Smashwords affords, do I typically get 30 times the sales (or more) from Amazon? It’s not for lack of trying on my part—in the beginning, I tried to give all bookstores equal time, and my non-Amazon sales have actually picked up since I gave up and just focused on Amazon links. Could it be that Amazon mentions (and sometimes headlines) my books in their massive email blasts once a month or so?

Another possibility is that online publicity sites/newsletters work from the assumption that you're in KDP Select and can schedule free days whenever you need them. Maybe Smashwords should create its own promo services, or at least encourage the established services to be more Smashwords-friendly. I would love to see more revenue coming from Smashwords.

Amazon is winning the eBook wars for a number of reasons right now, not the least of which is that it's making a lot of authors a lot of money without much up-front hassle. Between the most basic of promotions that nobody else seems to do, and the Amazon-centric review and promotion ecosystem, a cycle of dependency is spinning up. Smashwords needs to counter that, somehow, before authors have no choice but to follow the money. But backing traditional publishers in a fight against Amazon isn’t going to do that.

Larry Kollar

Author of White Pickups and Accidental Sorcerers