GetPublished! Radio Show Goes Live Today

No April Fool - just fools for love of books and spirited debate. 

Featured Guest - Mark Coker, Founder and CEO of Smashwords


The GetPublished! premiere hour-long episode features three in-studio interviews with authors: William Anthony (I Am Fire and Air, YA sci-fi), Gary Young (Loss and Found: How We Survived the Loss of a Young Spouse), and Ruth Frechman (The Food Is My Friend Diet). Gary is also Director of Professional Development of the Independent Writers of Southern California (IWOSC) and President of the Publishers Association of Los Angeles.

Also on the show - call-ins with questions from listeners and Gerald's monologue on how he published his father's memoir.

eBook Suggestion of the Month: The Battle of $9.99

Looking for an educational, fascinating read on how the E-Book industry has revolutionized our reading an purchasing habits?  We suggest The Battle of $9.99:  How Apple, Amazon, and the Big Six Publishers Changed the E-Book Business Overnight by Andrew Richard Albanese. 

Discount Coupon Codes for Last-Minute Ebook Gifting

From now until mid-January, go to Smashwords.com and use the codes below to get three bucks credit toward one of Rollo Hemphill's zany adventures. That's $3.99 a copy for a gift that says, despite everything that's happened, you still have a "unique" sense of humor. These little books are about an airplane-read long, and you can read a chapter while you take a coffee break, wait your turn at the dentist (!), or would otherwise fret because your food order is still in the kitchen.

Smashwords links:

My Inflatable Friend code BY75K

Rubber Babes code AS78F

Many ebook formats available, including B&N Nook and Apple (EPUB), Sony (LRF), Palm (PDB), HTML, and several online formats you can simply read on a computer, SmartPhone, or tablet.

Kindle format is available on Amazon, but I don't control that price. Available here.

Same with Diesel PDF available here.

So if you're not yet a fan of Rollo or simply want to spread the itch, here's an inexpensive gift that says you care enough to mess with his mind.

Enjoy your holiday and why don't you stop back after your shopping's done to post on the blog?

P.S. Paperback editions also available on Amazon (ads below) if you're hopelessly stuck in the 20th century and still have some bookshelf space left.

 Paperback  edition

 Paperback edition

Don't give a blank e-book reader!

A friend asked me today whether the Rollo Hemphill comic novels are available in ebook versions. Decidedly yes, for both titles. Just make sure you get the right digital format:

Amazon Kindle My Inflatable Friend Rubber Babes

Adobe PDF (read it on your laptop, even) both titles available from Diesel E-Books

Smashwords (EPUB for Nook, also Sony Reader format, others): My Inflatable Friend (free) Rubber Babes (1.99) Also see "Rollo Will Do You for Free" post on the Boychik Lit blog.

Audio MP3 (excerpts) click here (all free downloads) for iPod and such.

So upload the devilish little device with laughter, why doncha. These are mercifully short, amusing books, just the right length for an airplane read, with bite-sized chapters easy to ingest while you're waiting for some cute elf to bring your holiday lunch.

Remember, too, there are at least three books in Rollo's unfortunate saga. The third comes out in 2010--Farnworth's Revenge: Rollo's End. (Spoiler alert: It's not necessarily the demise of Rollo, more like the target of the old man's ire?)

Of course, Amazon or Barnes & Noble will be happy to ship you paperbacks in case, like me, you're so bewildered by the profusion of ebook formats you don't know which to buy.

Gerald Everett Jones

Author of the Rollo Hemphill novels
- in paperback and ebook -
www.boychiklit.com

Rollo Will Do You for Free

For a limited time, Rollo's first comic adventure, My Inflatable Friend, will be available as a free ebook download in EPUB, Sony Reader, and plain-text formats on SmashWords. List-price ebooks are still available for platforms Kindle, Ingram PDF (DRM), and Mobipocket.

If you then yearn to read the sequel, Rubber Babes, you'll have to shell out $1.99, also at SmashWords.

Like so many players in the 21st century publishing biz, I've been puzzling over what business models will emerge for ebooks. And while we're at it, we should figure out how people are going to pay (if modestly) for all kinds of creative content, including music and movies.

I was really flummoxed by the article in the NY Times the other day about libraries doing online lending of ebooks. Almost certainly, the public should not have to pay to check a digital edition out of the local library database. But you'd think the library should either pay a somewhat higher "master-copy" fee or account for the rentals and pay a modest per-rental fee. That's pretty much what happens in the DVD rental market. Libraries loan DVDs, too, but not yet online, although that day is coming. Buying physical copies of CDs or DVDs simplifies per-use lending. But why on Earth would ebook readers have to "wait in line" for digital downloads? Yes, I understand why the publishers are pushing that, but it's a ridiculous imposition on the consumer.

At this point, I believe that "free" is an essential part of any electronic publishing business model--at least for products that have not yet achieved the status of name brands and household words.

That's frankly why Rollo is dropping his shorts and baring all--for nothing. In Hollywood, they call it "exposure work" for obvious reasons.

Dan Brown doesn't have to give it away, ever. The rest of us will have to learn how to do "garage-band marketing" and sell out of our virtual trunks. Until we don't have to.

Pre-Christmas E-Reader Wars Heat Up

See also: It's Going To Be an E-Reader Christmas



Sony Reader is now (finally) running a consumer-oriented TV ad, and the NY Times reported yesterday on the iRex launch. You can bet Amazon will hype Kindle to the max in the coming weeks, along with its promotion of the Kindle 3 large format in the college textbook market.

Apple is conspicuously absent, although you can use apps like Stanza to read ebooks on your iPhone. But that's hardly a competitive strategy for Apple. I'm betting they come out with a docking screen for some or all of the iPod models.

I decided to join the club and beefed up my membership and presence on ebook distribution service Smashwords.com, which supports open-source EPUB and Sony LRF, as well as lots of the other formats.

And then of course there's the proliferation of more general-purpose netbooks, palmtops, PDAs, and tablets. (See Maggie Ball's previously posted article on this blog.)

I'm thinking a big consideration for ebook buyers should be the long-term cost of buying content. Prices of ebooks vary widely, but many Amazon Kindle versions are advertised at just under ten bucks. Lots of Smashwords EPUB versions range from free to a buck or two, although bestsellers typically cost more. Then too, there's the public domain library offered by Project Gutenberg, where everything is both free and about a hundred years old. But if you're looking for Charles Dickens rather than Dan Brown, you can find him and thousands of other famous authors there in EPUB, HTML, and "plain-text" formats.

My Inflatable Friend and Rubber Babes, the first two books in the Rollo Hemphill series of comic novels, have been available in Amazon Kindle, Mobipocket (PDA), and Adobe PDF (Ingram) formats since the day they came out in paperback.

I'm jumping into the other formats now on Smashwords by offering Rubber Babes for $1.99 in EPUB, Sony LRF, and a variety of other non-DRM versions.

Ebook sales (and free downloads) seem to be taking off. For example, I just read today that a healthy percentage, if not a huge one, of The Lost Symbol sales have been ebooks. Perhaps the dominant business models. platforms, and formats in this new marketplace will now emerge, and quite soon.

Kindle the Yule Log and Ignite Rollo's e-Life!

I notice that Amazon.com has released a Kindle version of My Inflatable Friend, something that I did not expect but am thrilled to see. It's lonely on the bleeding edge, but hey. I have often said (and written in various blog posts) that an iPod for books is long overdue. And I don't mean as a replacement for the sweet smell of paper and ink, either. But it's sure to be a real boon to students or travelers who hate lugging backpacks full of textbooks or guidebooks. So that's ease of storage, for starters, something iPod users now take for granted.

Not to mention that e-books are also much cheaper and easier to obtain than traditional books. Many is the time I've departed for a business trip and searched in vain at the airport bookstore (or not had the time to browse) for something to read. With that Kindle wi-fi link (Whispernet, they call it), I stand to be instantly gratified (at least, to the extent that any reading material can satisfy my longings).

However, I don't own a Kindle yet (are you listening, Santa?). So I'm really curious how my product looks, displayed on theirs.

So I will offer a NOT INCONSIDERABLE PRIZE of Rollo Hemphill memorabilia -- personalized and shipped to you promptly at my expense -- to the first person who e-mails me at mailto:inflatable@lapuerta.tv that you've downloaded Rollo's adventure onto your new Kindle.

Come now -- you don't want him to unwrap his new Kindle only to find Merriam Webster inside!



Kindle Version ASIN:B000NY14KI My Inflatable Friend: The Confessions of Rollo Hemphill