Are we all taking in each other's laundry?

I'm a newbie epublished author, but I'm starting to wonder how many actual readers there are out there for ebooks... Well, I know there are SOME. But so many people are involved in "the industry" as reviewers and promo loop list owners and publicists and writers and editors and publishers, that you start to wonder if maybe we're all buying each other's books in a sort of closed circle.

The ambitious authors are all making lists of twenty promo loops and twenty-five review sites and posting excerpts and promo blurbs everywhere. In the flood of promotion that everybody tells you that you have to do -- despite the fact that it seems to do very little real good, probably because we're all advertising to each other -- that there seems to be very little REAL word-of-mouth.

How many new erotic romance ebooks ARE there coming out every month? (We won't even talk about anything else because nothing else seems to sell.) Even the hardcore reading addicts can't keep up with it. And where are you going to get the real scoop on something that's good? When the average rating is 4.5 stars, how can the reviews help?

At least the higher bar for publishing in New York means that some of the sorting has been done for you. After getting burned on the quality of the stories a number of times, you become more hesitant to put your money down. When I first started reading ebooks one of the attractions was that there were different kinds of stories, a greater variety of sub-genres and settings. Then NY picked up lots of the paranormal stuff, and started up a bunch of erotic romance lines, and now ... Well, let's just say that there's not nearly as much of a difference as there was just two short years ago.

So if it comes to a choice of paying $5.99 for an ebook with a 40% chance that I'll quit after two chapters because apparently the author's "voice" consists of awkward sentences and sub-standard verb tenses and plot holes you could drive a truck through--or $7.99 for a 90% chance of finishing the book... I tend to play the odds.

Everything may change if somebody comes out with a GOOD handheld ebook reader, with type that aging eyes can read. Meanwhile, I'm not sure if the epublishing industry is maturing or stagnating or settling down to be a niche purveyor of sexy stories for women.

Grumpily,
Sara
(supplier of sexy stories for women)

Linnea Sinclair's "Games of Command"

February 27, 2007!!! Put the date in your calendar. Linnea Sinclair's "Games of Command" will be out that day, and you want to grab it as soon as possible. You really do, take my word for it.

Linnea's three books that have published by Bantam are all great:
"Finders Keepers"
"Gabriel's Ghost"
"Accidental Goddess"

I luuuuuuve all of her books, and can hardly wait to read "Games of Command", which takes parts of a previously e-published novel "Command Performance" and finishes off the story...

Happy reading,
Sara

The New Year and diets...

I wonder what percentage of the population goes on a diet as a New Year's resolution? If I had to guess, I'd go for something like 40%. Weight Watchers always gets a big surge in memberships in the first weeks of a new year, and it's a program that does work for many people. Unfortunately it hasn't been working for me lately. This time I'm using a Palm program "Diet and Exercise Assistant". I actually got this program several years ago and occasionally would fire it up, but I never stuck with for long. I just got the new version (7.0) and it comes with a couple of very handy new features--the ability to make a separate list of "Favorites" foods, and the ability to create a "Recipe" from a list of foods. It should make the logging MUCH faster.

I'll take any tools and technology that will make the whole process easier...

Sara