When I research this type of stuff I always tend to look online, for a couple of reasons. First living in a rural area I can’t find anything close to home, and second the selection is always better when I shop online. At any rate I found a great site with exactly the bedroom set I wanted, but unfortunately the site is in Ireland.

It isn’t that I would have any problems ordering from a site in Ireland, but I imagine the shipping from there to Canada would be horrendous. So, if any of our readers from Ireland is making the trip to Canada (for the Olympics maybe), if you can figure out how to fit some bedroom furniture in your luggage let me know.

What does bedroom furniture have to do with eBooks?

Well nothing really, but as I was sitting here browsing for a wooden bedroom set, I realized that for the first time in close to four months I had sat at the PC and I didn’t have 2 dozen writing projects to complete. In other words, I actually have time. So, WOW!

With extra time on my hands – one thing I’ve been neglecting is this site. In March we managed to sign up close to 2000 people for eBook week, and at that time I was posting eBook reviews on a regular basis.

Being entirely too busy over the past couple of months though, I haven’t been available enough to make any decent updates. Of course I’ve been reading, and I’ve likely read 2 dozens great eBooks in the past couple of months, but with a lack of time I haven’t share those views with you.

At any rate, it’s obviously time to get some updates on this site.

Expect some great eBook reviews to come over the next few weeks. I realize there haven’t been enough updates here, and oddly enough all it took me to realize I actually had time to keep up again was a little time looking for bedroom furniture (my mind works in weird ways, I know).

Oh yes, and for our Irish readers – if you think you can fit an entire bedroom set on the boat/plane ride over, I’d be eternally grateful. I can’t find the same furniture here (apparently living in rural Canada has its downside). If you don’t think the airline will allow you to ship a wooden bed as a piece of luggage – that’s okay too – just be sure to come back for some great eBook reviews.

Cheers,

Trevas

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To purchase a complete alternative energy solution for your home may cost $15,000 to $20,000. By choosing to do it yourself you can convert your entire home for pennies in comparison.

Being somewhat involved in the non-fiction eBook industry, I’ve had the chance to read alternative energy guides like Earth 4 Energy or Power 4 Home. After reading those eBooks though, and then getting the chance to review Peter and Jen Lowe’s Green Power Easy, I must say that this new guide is better by far than the others.

Green Power Easy walks you through the steps it takes to convert your home to solar or wind power. It includes instructions on how to build solar panels, how to build wind turbines, and most importantly it’s the only guide I’ve ever come across that can teach you how to perform a whole-home conversion.

The eBook itself is 137 pages and walks you step-by-step through every aspect of alternative energy the DIY Way. With this guide you’ll get well-written instruction to alternative energy, and you’ll also get professionally designed illustrations that show you what you need to accomplish with each step.

The eBook package also comes with some bonus items. It includes:

1. Green Power Easy - The EASY DIY Guide to Solar and Wind Power
2. Green Power Easy Implementation Guide - Walks you through the steps you need to take to convert your entire home.
3. Green Power Easy Parts Guide - Where to source the part to perform your alternative energy conversion for as little cost as possible.
4. Green Power Easy Rebates Guide - Learn how to get government rebates to reduce the cost of your green energy solution by as much as 75%.
5. Supplementary Videos - Easy to follow video instruction to build upon what the eBooks cover.
6. Optional Green Power Easy TV Series - A monthly video series that includes further instruction, and completely new DIY ideas from the industry.

Since I have become involved in this project, if you want a second opinion before you decide to choose this guide. Industry insider, John O’Ryan is also rating it as the top guide on the market. You can read his reviews of the top three guides to alternative energy with this link.

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Reviewer: Laura

Blurb:

Something is causing people to freeze to death in Florida during
ninety-degree weather. Ancient Indian lore holds the answer to these
mysterious medical aberrations. A newly constructed Florida male prison sits
on ancient hallowed grounds called Forbidden Hill. Soon after the prison
opens, two male inmates freeze to death without exposure to frigid
temperatures. John Randall, a widowed prison doctor, meets Lena Windmaker, a
single, off-duty sheriff detective at a local library. Their initial
plutonic relationship soon kindles into a more amorous one. They hide a
personal secret that could bring them together or destroy them. They uncover
articles in local, post-Civil war newspapers describing residence succumbing
to Frozen Death. John and Lena race to discover a cause before it chooses
other victims

Review:

Frozen Death takes place in and around the Timucua State Correctional Institute.  The first few chapters grab you and keep you guessing as to the reason why prisoners are dying suddenly.  As the story goes on, it follows Dr. John Randall from being the prison physician, to being an investigator to an archeologist of sorts.  He wears many different hats in this book and may cause the reader to wonder as to the reasoning.  Throw in a beautiful Native American law enforcement officer, and the plot thickens.  Overall, the story was intriguing but not riveting.  The central theme held such promise but I felt a little let down that there weren’t more twists and turns throughout.   The ending was unexpected, but I felt like the author rushed to include so much information in the last chapter that it made the reveal lose some of its punch.

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Short. Sweet. Simple. Three tiny words in this complicated world that humans love to hear or read. These three tiny words are also what I use to describe www.795marketingplan.com’s ebook on how to create a memorable domain name for less than $10.

The ebook is quite easy to read and follow and being only 40 pages long helped. The pizza example on how to create a marketing plan was fun and the every day common language used to write this plan was great. It wouldn’t matter if you were young or old, an experienced entrepreneur or just a beginner, this ebook was very easy to read and follow. The use of internet links to show examples of already established domains and easy to follow exercises were a plus! The links worked even when the book was downloaded to the PC.

I would honestly recommend this ebook to anyone even considering starting their own business or just trying to get the word out about an existing one.

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Ellie Conway works during the day as an FBI agent who works on serial crime cases. At night as a hobby she runs an internet poetry chat room. Someone breaks into her home and tries to kill her and she soon realizes that it has something to do with the chat room. Things take a turn for the worse when the killer is found dead in the trunk of her car.

Ellie runs to her friend Mac who she met through the chat room. The killer almost gets her at Mac’s house so they go on the run to evade the killer while at the same time figure out who it is and catch him. The FBI is called in and as the killer starts picking off the chat room’s members one by one they realize they need to find the killer and stop him fast. Even though there are numerous crime scenes they do not have enough evidence to catch the killer much less figure out why Ellie is being targeted. The killer is clever and manages to mess with them while managing to escape right under their noses several times.

Once there are victims that were not part of the chat room the FBI, Ellie, and Mac realize something more sinister is going on. Eventually a chance remark from twelve years ago give them a clue to help them start to piece together who it is and how to stop him.

This was a great book! I really enjoyed this one and couldn’t wait to read what was happening next. It kept me on the edge of my seat the whole time I was reading it and I didn’t want to put it down. Which unfortunately at points I had to since I was traveling and they make you turn off all electronic devices during take off and landing (I sincerely doubt leaving my Kindle on was going to make the plane crash but I was a good girl and followed the pilot’s instructions and turned it off. Darn it!) This killed me since I was dying to keep reading so I could find out who the killer was. Luckily for me taking off and landing doesn’t take that long and I was able to get back to the book and finish it. And it was worth the wait. I highly recommend this book and am going to read anything else this author has written immediately. Buy this book! You WON’T be disappointed.

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Reviewer: Val

Meghan had just inherited her family home and is back to claim it.  Appearances can be deceiving, especially in this big mansion.  There are people who don’t want her there or are they ghosts?  Now that I cannot tell you as it would give away much of the story but let me just say that you will be gasping in horror at some of the scenes throughout the book but I will make this promise, it is totally worth every minute spent reading this book.

I picked up Meghan’s Legacy for the mystery/ suspense aspect alone and found it to be one of the best books that I have read.  K.J. Dahlen most definitely knows how to write a chapter with one heck of a cliffhanger.  I love how K.J. Dahlen’s mind works. Just when I thought I knew what happened, boom, another surprise!  This book does contain a sensual romance and characters who sizzle together, but the main focus is on the mystery as, for this book, it absolutely should be.  It’s what made the book a compelling and well crafted read.  I found this book to be fast moving with a lot of sitting on the edge of your seat suspense.  The villian is always lurking just one step behind Meghan and Quinn.  I consider this book to be an instant pick me up book and I know that I will be reading it for a long time to come.  I will definitely be looking for more work by K.J. Dahlen and this author has just become a mandatory add to my automatic to be read list.

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OK, here’s the deal, tomorrow will never come. That sounds like a very philosophical statement coming from me and I’m not normally a philosophical writer, but hear me out. To prove my point check out my waistline. I know, what does that have to do with writing!? EVERYTHING! I keep telling myself that I will diet, and I will exercise, but I’ll do it tomorrow. I’ll do it tomorrow because I’m too tired, or that roast beast (beef) looks too good to only have one helping. I can’t diet today because that Almond Joy cake Momma made for dessert can’t possibly be left for her to eat! She’s a diabetic for crying out loud. I’m saving her from herself. I must save her and I must do it twice TODAY! So TOMORROW I will diet. But for some strange reason it is always today. Today is the only day that we have to think about, so let’s make the most of it.

You need to make yourself write sometimes. At first it will come easily. You are going to be so stoked by a great story. You are going to do nothing but write, write, write. They ideas are going to flow from your fingers. The sparks will fly, and your significant other will be standing nearby with a fire extinguisher to make sure that no fires are started. Then your darling child comes up to you and says, “I’m hungry!” or my personal favorite, “I’m bored!” So you get up quickly and run to the kitchen to make a quick PB&J and then you are headed back to write. You then see the mail on the table that has to be put away. Dang is that the credit card bill that was due last week? Why didn’t that get paid? Now you are making a mad dash for the check book to pay it before too many late fees get added. Hold up, the check book’s not balanced? It’s always balanced, do you have enough to pay the bill? By this time, you have forgotten that you were writing in the first place.

It’s especially hard on a nice sunny day. But you need to set a goal, even if it’s small.

* My goal for today is 400 words, in other words, you can set a word count goal!

So if you decide that you are going to write that 400 words act like the Nike commercial and Just Do It! Sit down and write 400 words. It needs to be something. It doesn’t have to be the most wonderful thing you have ever written and if you are stuck on the story that you are writing, start on something else. Don’t force the words to come that will only frustrate you and drive a very painful and potentially LONG writers block into your near future. (I hate writers block! In the infamous words of my children, “It sooooo sucks!”)

* My goal is 5 pages, I’m sure you get where this is going, a page goal right!?

It’s time to be selfish. Have your spouse watch the kids. Go somewhere quiet, or semi-quiet if you live in my house and close the door. Put several full laundry baskets in front of the door and sit down to write. You have to take the time to do this.If you don’t take the time to be selfish with your writing, no one else is going to do this for you. If you don’t take care of this child, (Yes, your writing is your baby too! Don’t believe me? Wait till your first not so good review when you want to beat the heck out of some reviewer for having an opinion. And do remember folks, it’s just an opinion. OK?) no one is going to do it for you. So you need to get off your duff and take time for it. You can not blame anyone but yourself if you don’t get it done.

* My goal is to write for 30 minutes and last but not least…a timed goal!

I know you’ve heard it before but use a timer. The advice is sound, tried and true guys. If you don’t have an egg timer, a timer on your microwave, your stove, your phone, or an alarm clock, I do have solutions. I absolutely love this site: http://www.nakedalarmclock.com/ because you can set it and have it go off whenever your goal time is complete. Besides, the name is fun. (I bet over half of you have already clicked on the link thinking you would find something naked on there, HA fooled you.) Make sure if you set a timer for yourself, that you are not punishing yourself. Try not to make this a time out like you would give your child. So, don’t do it for 3 straight hours in a row. When I tutored college Accounting, I always told students never to study for more than an hour at a time, take a 10-15 minute break and then go back to studying. That way your brain doesn’t go into overload. If you force your brain to work non-stop for 3-4 hours then you may end up resenting the time that you are sitting there, and won’t enjoy what you are doing. Another fun thing that I can tell you about is http://lab.drwicked.com/writeordie.html. You can go to that site and put in your word goal, a time limit, and if you would prefer the program it to go easy on you, be strict or just be plain evil. It’s a little difficult to explain, so you may want to go there and play with it just for fun! If nothing else, it kicks you in the butt and gets your mind working and breaks the monotony of a brain fart or writers block.

Make sure to come back next week when we talk about organizational skills! It’s a great thing baby!

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The new Cool-er reader (Price Matters…) came out in mid July, right around the same time that Amazon lowered the price of the Kindle 2 by $60, and I stated that I really didn’t expect to see an eReader break the $200 mark before the end of the year.

Well Sony has done it. There have been lots of articles about this but best one so far is this post by Canada’s own Globe & Mail. The ‘Pocket Edition’ of the Sony eReader will be retailing for $199 at the end of August. The Pocket Edition is smaller and a little limited compared to current eReaders. At 5 inches (vs the 6 inch Sony readers , the Cooler, & the Kindle 2), it can’t play music and can ‘only’ hold 350 books but the sub-$200 price point

“breaks an important psychological barrier”

In an ironic twist, the article includes a quote from Sarah Rotman Epps, a media analyst at Forrester Research.

“This is something that is affordable for the holiday season, and I think that you’ll see sales of e-readers outpacing current forecasts”

The current forecast has sales of eReaders doubling this year to 2 million, up from 1 million in 2008.

Sony is also announcing a higher-end eReader, the Touch Edition (note: Sony seems to finally be catching on that names are a lot catchier and easier to remember than model numbers - the Pocket Edition replaces the PRS-50 and the Touch Edition replaces the PRS-700). This model will retain the same 6 inch size and touch screen abilities, losing the built-in light that seemed to cause more trouble than it was worth.

Another major milestone for the new Sony eReaders is their compatibility with both PC’s and Mac’s.

Neither of these readers has the same wireless access that sets the Kindle apart but given the recent furor over Amazon’s bungled book recall, this isn’t such a bad thing. Certainly for those of us outside the US this isn’t a limitation as Amazon’s Whispernet is limited to US states, with the exception of  Montana and Alaska. Even in covered states, it has been reported that coverage is often close to non-existent outside of major urban centers.

Sony is apparently working on a wireless eReader but won’t say when it will be available. Hopefully it will be soon as a new eReader from iRex is entering the marketplace. The 8.1 inch eReader with wireless 3G capabilities and a touch screen is slated for fall 2009 and is rumored to be able to connect with a large on-line eBook store.

The eBook market is also progressing with the recent launch of Barnes & Nobles eBook eReader software and eBook store (An Embarrassment of Riches).

The eBook market will change in ways that we can’t foresee but for the moment the future for eBooks is here.

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This story is fraught with twists and turns that make for interesting reading.  One critique I do have is there are too many people comprising Sable’s team.  The characters get a little lost in the plot while the reader attempts to keep up with who is who.  I think paring down the numbers would have kept the story intact without sacrificing the integrity of the plot.  Also, the killer in the story did not do very much in the way of killing.  He beat up a lot of people and left them for dead.  However, the idea of his killing people is what put the fear in most of the people in the story.  To have him not make absolutely sure his victims were dead did not make a lot of sense to me.  All in all, the story was compelling, intriguing and captivating. I read the story in one sitting because I could not stop turning pages.  I loved the unexpected ways that the story came together in the end.  I plan to recommend this book to several friends because writing this good should not be overlooked.

Laura Moreno
Reviewer

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Here is just a sampling of a few of them:

PCMag.com reviews the new Barnes & Noble eReader software for PC, Mac and iPhone and overall rates it 3½ out of 5. It also takes a shot at Amazon and the Kindle, stating that B&N allows you to read titles on devices you already own. It also compares Amazon’s Kindle library (300,000 titles) to B&N’s eBook library (700,000 titles). Overall the B&N appears to be an attractive eBook store alternative to Amazon, and the addition of an eReader from Plastic Logic that promises to start shipping in early 2010 will only make the comparison even easier.

Adding insult to injury to the beleaguered Kindle is a damning article in the New Yorker. The article has some harsh criticism for the device and Amazon’s proprietary format, although to be fair some of the criticism is specific to eInk devices, notably the lack of color and back-lighting. Overall the author does seem positive about eBooks but seems to prefer the Sony eReader for eInk and the Apple iPhone / iPod Touch where color, illustrations, and back-lighting are important.

Another interesting article appeared in IT Canada regarding the EPUB format, which was developed by the Toronto based International Digital Publishing Forum (IDPF). It states that the EPUB format

is quickly becoming an e-book industry standard as support from publishers and tech giants such as Adobe Systems Inc., Sony Corp. and Google Inc. continues to grow.

In sharp contrast to Amazons proprietary DRM restricted AZW format, EPUB is an open, non-proprietary, XML based format, in which DRM is optional.

The industry has gone into two camps: Amazon and everyone else … You have Amazon and they’ve got their proprietary, closed standard, DRM, one-source-for-everything (approach) and you’ve got the rest of the world trying to agree on an open standard for which you can have multiple book stores.

There is also the news that Samsung has launched their eBook reader, although it is only available in South Korea for the moment. The device is smaller than a Kindle and will offer some neat features like hand-writing recognition.

Finally there is the possibility of Apple competing against Amazon with the rumored introduction of a Tablet PC. The combination of a Tablet PC and the iTunes store could

blow Amazon and other e-book makers out of the water…

The success of iTunes for music and iPhone applications indicates that there is market potential for eBooks by making eBooks just as easy to download. It goes further to speculate about à-la-carte ordering books, something that already possible through the Shortcovers program from Canada’s very own Indigo Books.

The one thing that none of these articles dispute is that there is a future for eBooks. What this future looks like, how we will be reading eBooks, and what format the eBooks will be available in, are all very good questions. Personally having seen what DRM has done to the music industry, not to mention how Amazon bungled it’s recent recall of illegally published Kindle books, I’m hoping for the success of an open format like EPUB and as many readers as possible.

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