Terrific Blog Tour!

Happy Birthday to 1Romance EBooks! They're celebrating with a fabulous Blog Tour from July 15 to 31, over 30 authors, up to 2 a day, participating! GRAND PRIZE is a Sony reader TOUCH edition, selected by drawing from all participating and REGISTERED readers who comment. Every comment during the tour earns another chance for the reader, so you have lots of opportunities to win. Every author is giving out a prize too, so that's 34 more chances to win a prize. http://1romanceebooks.com

My day is July 29th, when I'll be in Orlando at RWA and the Beau Monde conferences, so I'll share my experiences with you. And I'll be giving away the winner's choice of an ebook from 1Romance EBooks, plus a beautiful hand-poured glass pendant necklace.

You MUST register at 1Romance EBooks before any of your comments will count, so get busy and sign up. It's free, and you'll get a chance to get to know a bunch of authors, all who write romance. You can earn more points, too. Just go to their site and read the rules. And have a great time touring with us!

Randy Ingermanson on the Future of Publishing

I just read this article from Randy Ingermanson's blog called The Future of Publishing. If you are interested in publishing and what your future is in the big flow of the mighty rivers within it, read this article. It's extremely insightful.  http://www.advancedfictionwriting.com/blog/2010/07/07/the-future-of-publishing/

 It's  long and very detailed, 9 specific predictions, looking at the broad expanse of publishing and how it will change. I'm inclined to agree, although I don't see anything in this article about how Amazon and other e-distributors will fit in. I think those things, which will ultimately determine the income of published authors, are in great flux right now, so certainly I would be reluctant to make such a prediction.

I'm guessing anyway, though. Apple's iPad is making a huge play for the ebook market. Sony, Barnes & Noble and many small distributors are also diving into the melee. Amazon's Kindle intends to own the whole show. But now Google is headed toward the skirmish pile. Then there are all the small ebook publishers. Will they be squeezed out by self-publishing in e-form? Well, I think the strong and innovative will stay strong. The weaker, poorly organized companies will miss too many opportunities. And in the end- or perhaps only the immediate end- Amazon will not rule the world after all. Sorry, Amazon. To use a parallel in nature: The mighty Amazon River flows into an ocean- the Atlantic Ocean. And the ocean is bigger.

Retro-Geek Triumphs Again!

I am discovering more and more every day about using The New Blogger as a website. Except that I don't think I'm even going to bother to call it a website. It's a Multi-Blog? I don't care.

What's new?

1. Linked the pages and related secondary blogs, and back-link to home blog. Need BUTTONS instead. I'll work on that.

2. Completed the Mexico photo blog on The Most Beautiful Place on Earth. Go check it out. Next is England, then the Mediterranean.

3. Getting the Books blog in shape. New posting on my newest coming release, LADY WICKED. I would still like to post the stories of how each book came to be. 

4. Added a Fan Page, but don't know how I'm going to organize it. Can't use my previous design- it won't work here.

5. More to do- no link to my videos, no reviews of books posted. 

Most important (for me), a new idea:

6.I don't have enough blogs! I felt like I needed a private place, to could organize myself, rant if I so pleased, keep all my notes handy and so on. I've used GMail's calendar and task list but it feels like I'm shoe-horning myself into their mold. So I designed a blog that really works for me.  A Day-Planner and Journal combined. The way I've used spiral-bound notebooks for years.

In the center is the blog part with titled postings. The documents, etc. On the left column is a dated list of things not to forget. Bills, tasks, appointments. On the right, a current shopping list, and links to sites I'm likely to need quickly. I want to post a small calendar because I've always found it helpful to visualize how much time fits between now and an event. The one I have found does link me directly to my Google GMail age calendar, which is nice, but 'd rather have it right on the blog. And I don't like the ad, but don't want to pay to remove it. So I will likely just put up my own link to the GMail page, and find an updating calendar for visual.

For me, this is a major success. As visual as I am, I'm always forgetting what is not in sight. And the organizer stuff I've seen for computers seems to fit a world that is a step beyond my reach. This blog does it my way! It's pretty, and it's elegant, and it's just mine. No one else can find it. Voila! Victoire! (Can you tell I don't speak French?)