Awesome news! Macmillan to Offer Entire E-book Backlist to Libraries

I just saw this on Publishers Weekly and had to comment.

Apparently Macmillan is making about 11,000 books available to libraries, which is pretty spiffy. Ever since college started to royally kick my butt and demolish most of my spare time I've mostly spent my time listening to audiobooks, but getting more e-books is always a good thing. I can vouch that there is nothing more frustrating than trying to download a certain book and finding that the library doesn't have the ebook for that specific book. Sometimes they'll be part of series, which will really get someone flustered.

This is ebook only, but this is pretty great news that makes me fairly optimistic about this opening the door for more audiobooks to hit the library OverDrive systems. That's still a pretty underserved portion of the online library market where you have maybe about one audiobook to every ten e-books, but this gives me hope that eventually more publishers will make their audiobook catalogues more available.

Now this doesn't guarantee that your library will necessarily option the books for distribution, but it does mean that it makes it more likely that it'll happen. Of course you could look at this as another step towards libraries becoming obsolete (a reason why I'm going to get my library degree in information systems), but it's something that will greatly benefit a lot of people who have internet access but can't immediately access a library for whatever reason. (Distance, illness, disability, etc)

Want exciting books to review? Try Simon & Schuster's Galley Grab program!

Are you hankering to read some of the best fiction out there? Love authors such as Holly Black, Becca Fitzpatrick or other great names in the business? Then you should read up on a new reviewing program run by Simon & Schuster called "Galley Grab".

It's open to anyone who is a "bookseller, librarian, teacher, journalist, blogger, producer or other publishing professional", which is a pretty open ended list. So far I've heard nothing but great things about it. If you're curious about the program here's a list of FAQ for you. You can also sign up for the service via their website at this address here.

I've received a pretty interesting title from them, Brandon Mull's latest novel A World Without Heroes. While it ended up not being my cup of tea, the writing in it is FANTASTIC & I can predict that this will easily be hitting the top ten of most young adult fiction lists.

UPDATE:

I got emailed with an incredibly good question:

"Do you get to choose the galleys you get?"

Unfortunately the Galley Grab program doesn't allow for you to pick & choose which books you receive. A representative for the company will review your blog & whatever sources you provide (I'm guessing if you link to goodreads, they'll glance at your goodreads), then choose a book that is within the same types of genres that you read. From what I've seen of the various people who have received books, they're pretty good about choosing things similar to what you like.


UPDATE 2:

The company is now putting out a newsletter type setup where you can choose your book from a list. I'm not sure if the list is targeted or not but I can definitely say that when I got mine I was pretty enthusiastic about some of the choises they gave me. (I was especially happy about Holly Black's Red Glove being on the list!)

Nook Color Review!

Before I get started, I'll just say that my review comes from the unit we got at the bookstore to display. The overall product will still be the same, but some things (like the instruction manual) might be different.
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Reading: It's a nice clean picture & the backlit screen isn't too annoying, but I have a feeling that people will be feeling the eyestrain later. If you're looking to buy this for reading at length, you'll need to be aware of this.

Downloading: Pretty fast download times, although I only downloaded the free samples from the storefront. (Hilarious since I work at a Books-A-Million & the storefront's B&N. We're so going to lose money on ebook sales.)

Internet: Pretty decent. I pulled up facebook (didn't log in though- not on the store unit) & the page is crisp, clear & loads quickly. It'll probably get bogged down if you go to a site with tons & tons of things on the page, but that'll happen with any unit like this for the most part.

Battery: Not bad, but obviously won't last as long as the Nook or some of the e-ink units out there. You'll get about 3-4 hours if you leave the wifi on. Not sure about the non-wifi battery life right now, but since the company says it's 8 hours I'd say it's probably about 6-7 hours.

Extras: You can change the font, screen background color, & a few other things. While that's nice, I couldn't help but feel a little underwhelmed by it. There's also the option to be able to toggle back & forth between the publisher default & your aesthetics of choice. You can also change the background on the main page of the NookColor, which is a nice touch. Since we're not supposed to change that with our store unit, I wasn't able to play with that any.

Touch Screen: It's OK. Pretty easy to use, but a few times I found myself really having to wrestle with it to turn pages. Sometimes it would be too sensitive & I'd end up a few pages ahead of where I wanted to be. Not a deal breaker, though. It didn't happen enough to where I'd get overly irritated, but people who are all thumbs with touch screens will be irritated.

User Friendly: It's not very intuitive to use. People savvy with e-readers & gadgets will be able to figure it out pretty quickly but people who are new to the scene will be pretty confused with everything. The unit for my store didn't come with any written directions- it was all on the unit. That means that if it's like this on the sale unit then that won't be all that helpful for the people who aren't able to navigate well on the unit.

Overall: My opinion is that it's OK, but not exceptionally so. Go for the iPad if you really want something like this. It's basically a Nook/iPad hybrid, but without the option for all of the extras & apps. Overall it isn't a bad unit but it just doesn't have anything to really make it stand out. If you're a big fan of the Nook then go for this unit, but I'd play with it in the store first.

If you're curious, the EBook Reader has also reviewed the NookColor & did a pretty awesome writeup on it.

The Diva Ate Her & Laurell K Hamilton

If you're aware of the inner circle of Laurell K Hamilton, then you've probably heard of Darla Cook. Up until a few years ago, Darla worked for Hamilton as a personal assistant & helped maintain various parts of the website, fanclub, & storefront. Neither party has really given out a lot of information as to why Darla no longer works for Ma Petite Enterprises.

A few months after she'd posted about her newly unemployed status, Darla started posting excerpts of a then untitled book she'd been working on. The book was to be about a beleaguered employee of a best selling author who was well on her way to becoming queen of the divas. While Darla has since removed the posts from her myspace account, excerpts can still be seen on the internet.

When the blog posts were up, Darla claimed that the book was not based upon her time with Hamilton & was instead based on a mashup of various author diva antics, with only one part of the book being based on an actual Hamilton event. (The event in question was an overreaction to a floral delivery.)

Even so, certain sites are still abuzz about how much of the book is based on Hamilton & how much of it isn't. (I'll admit, I started one of the various threads about said book.) I have to admit that when I'd read the book I couldn't help but mentally compare the character of Miriam (the diva author) to Hamilton.

Is the book based off of Hamilton? I can't entirely say because quite obviously, neither side is talking & all I have to go on are rumors that can't really be verified. Either way, the speculation is sure to fuel more than a few sales for Darla's new book.

The Diva Ate Her is available for purchase on Amazon via the Kindle.

Carina Press: Harlequin's e-book only branch

In June Harlequin released a new branch of their company that would focus on only digital releases. This means that for the time being the books released under this label will not be in traditional paper format.

This is an interesting development since it not only means that ebooks are becoming the way to go, but it also appears that it might allow for a wider variety of books to be published through this label. One look at this site shows a range from inspirational to horror to comedy to gay/lesbian themed titles. The prices don't seem to be too bad either, with books ranging from the $2 to $6 in price. There's even a free title on there.

While it looks like most of the titles are available for purchase on sites such as amazon, readers should still check Carina Press's website for all of the most recent titles.

What is the future of Barnes & Nobles and the Nook?

As many might have heard, Barnes & Nobles went up for sale this month. This leaves many to wonder what will ultimately become of what was quite easily the strongest bookstore going for a while. As a bookstore employee for Books-A-Million I know that they're the biggest competition in our area. But I also know that like us, they've been hit by more & more people heading towards the e-book and/or online market.

What this leaves me wondering is what will become of the chain- and more importantly, what of the Nook? Does ownership of the product shift with the store or is that something to be sold independently of the chain? How will this affect the product's usage? I know that part of what is luring me into purchasing the Nook is that I can read many books for free while I'm in the store & I imagine that is the same for other buyers.

If the Nook is purchased along with the rest of Barnes & Nobles then it would be foolhardy for the new owners to discontinue the Nook or to cease some of the product perks. While the Nook hasn't had a launch as wildly popular as the first Kindle had, it is still considered to be one of the better e-Readers out there.