Amazon to Acquire Dorchester?

Publishers Weekly is reporting Amazon will bid to acquire the assets of Dorchester, a publishing house which has been in financial trouble for more than two years.

According to PW, if the deal goes through, Amazon will pay all outstanding royalties owed to Dorchester authors. Amazon would acquire 1,900 active titles in many of the genres it already publishes in, including romance and westerns.

PW quotes Amazon as saying its authors will have a choice as to how they want their books published going forward. The final auction is on August 28.

According to PW,  the auction process was triggered by the owner of Dorchester's parent company, who is owed $3.4 million. The publisher has struggled in the aftermath of the drop in demand for mass market paperbacks.

Dorchester's troubles have been frustrating for authors and their agents, who've struggled to get owed royalties since their titles have continued to sell. Many authors have unsuccessfully attempted to get their rights reverted back to them.

Sunshine Deals Shake Up Amazon Bestseller List, Avon Cuts Prices

Amazon's experiment with lower priced ebooks is impacting the online retailer's bestseller list and might be influencing Avon's decision to discount about 60 of its titles as well.

Almost one-third of the books in Amazon's top 100 are part of the company's Kindle Sunshine Deals.

According to paidcontent.org, about 80 percent - 24 books - were not Kindle bestsellers before prices were slashed.

The two-week promotion includes lower pricing on about 650 ebooks. The prices range from $0.99 to $2.99. The Sunshine Deals all come from small- to mid-sized publishers like Candlewick, Bloomsbury and Sourcebooks.

The apparent enthusiasm for discounted titles is in keeping with a recent survey which found that the heaviest buyers of ebooks are significantly influenced by low prices.

My critique partner is one of those people. She's purchased so many of the lower-priced ebooks in the last couple of days, that her credit card company's fraud department called to make sure her card hadn't been stolen. I guess they thought they had a bargain book thief on their hands?     

Right now the major publishers set their own prices and pay Amazon a commission. The success of Sunshine Deals could influence them to lower prices. Avon might already be convinced. The publisher tweets that it will slash prices on about 60 of its titles.

On Twitter and Facebook, Avon announced its "Summer Sale," with titles available for $1.99 and $2.99. Sophie Jordan's "Wicked Nights with a Lover," (above right) is one of the reduced titles. It is now $2.99.

I love Jordan so, of course, I bought it. In fact, I purchased so many books at Avon's summer sale that Amazon had to remind me that I had already purchased one that I tried to buy.

If this trend of reducing ebook prices continues, I foresee big trouble ahead for me!   

Amazon Launches Romance Line

We should have seen this coming. Amazon plans to publish its own line of romance books.

According to the Wall Street Journal, the imprint will be called Montlake Romance and will publish both ebooks, tree-books and audio books.

Reporter Jeffrey Trachtenberg reports the online giant will eventually publish other genres as well, including thrillers, mystery and science fiction.

Montlake Romance is expected to launch in the fall with "The Other Guy's Bride," an original new work from New York Times bestselling author Connie Brockway.

"Romance is one of our biggest and fastest growing categories, particularly among Kindle customers, so we can't wait to make 'The Other Guy's Bride' and other compelling titles available to romance fans around the world," Amazon Publishing Vice President Jeff Belle said in an Amazon press release. 

Montlake is named for a Seattle neighborhood. It will publish a broad range of titles in romance sub-genres, including romantic suspense, contemporary and historic romance novels, as well as fantasy and paranormal.

Montlake is the fourth imprint from Amazon Publishing. The others are AmazonEncore, AmazonCrossing and Powered by Amazon.

Publishers Weekly reports agents are keeping an eye on this latest development, no doubt to determine whether the online retailer will be a viable a place for their books.

Given Amazon's amazing reach and its already incredible record selling ebooks - especially self-published ebooks not associated with traditional publishers - Montlake Romance looks like a winner to me. 

Get Library Books on Your Kindle!

Fantastic news for Kindle users. Amazon announced Wednesday that you will soon be able to borrow books from public libraries. Amazon is working with OverDrive, which manages ebook lending for most public libraries. The deal means Kindle users will soon have access to thousands of ebooks thanks to OverDrive’s 11,000 public library partners.

For me as a Kindle user, the inability to check out library books on my device has been a real drag. Especially since library ebook loans have been available for the Sony Reader, Nook,  iPad and smartphones. So kudos to Amazon for making this invaluable public resource available to Kindle users.

According to Amazon, library ebooks will be available for all generations of Kindle devices. The ebook's soaring popularity is evident at the library. Overdrive reports a 200 percent jump in library ebook checkouts over 2009.

Amazon says the Kindle Lending Library will launch later this year but has not released an exact date. I can't wait!

Read the full Publishers Weekly article here.

Kindle Lending Club

Now here's an interesting idea - a sort of library for Kindle books.

A small company called Kindle Lending Club is connecting people who are willing to lend e-books to strangers who want to borrow them.

The five-person start-up was founded by a 40-year-old Canadian mother of three. She began with  a Facebook page which proved so popular, that she hired two web developers to expand her idea into a bonafide business. So far, the Kindle Lending Club is said to have facilitated the lending of more than 1,000 books among strangers.

Amazon announced its own Kindle lending program late last year but that seems to facilitate e-book lending only among friends, not on a potentially global scale like the Kindle Lending Club.

I would never want authors to lose out on their just profits. But an e-book library seems like a natural progression. We have libraries for tree-books, why not e-books? If anything, I buy more books from authors whose work I first discovered at the library.

It will be fascinating to see how this concept  progresses.

Nora Roberts Joins the Million Kindle Club

Nora Roberts

Amazon announced last week that Nora Roberts has sold more than one million Kindle books to become only the third member of the "Kindle Million Club."

Roberts has sold 1,170,539 Kindle books under her name and her pseudonym, J.D. Robb. The Kindle Million Club recognizes authors whose books have sold over 1 million paid copies in the Kindle Store. 

Other members of the elite club include the late Stieg Larsson, author of the Millennium Trilogy, (The Girl with the Dragon Tatoo, The Girl Who Played with Fire and The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest) who was the first author to hit the million mark. James Patterson  was the second author to join the Kindle Million Club.

Roberts was the first author to be inducted into the Romance Writers of America Hall of Fame. The New Yorker recently called her "America's favorite novelist."

And don't forget...

Voting continues in the Writing with the Stars contest.

I am one of FOUR remaining finalists in Kensington/RT's contest. The person who wins the most online votes is awarded a book contract. Please take a moment to check it out HERE.

I'd appreciate your vote!  

Getting Frozen Out By My Kindle

I hate to say it, but my new Kindle has been letting me down lately. In the last week, it has frozen three times. Yep. It just sits there and won't respond. Sometimes I'm treated to a blank page, on other occasions the screen saver stares back at me. This is especially frustrating when I am at a good point in the book and the darn page won't turn.

I googled the problem and it seems as though I am not the only reader who has been frozen out by my Kindle. One of Amazon's suggestions is to plug it into its charger for a moment. That won't do me much good when I am on the bus with a frozen Kindle - looking forward to an hour's ride home with nothing to read.

Other advice is to depress the <ALT>, <Shift>, and <R> at the same time. This worked great the first time, although the second two times it took several minutes for the Kindle to reboot. There's also a hard restart that involves removing the back cover and pushing the restart button.

Reading has always been one of life's simple pleasures. I love being transported into another world. But it's hard to leave reality behind when you are constantly wondering whether you'll be able to turn the page. That latent anxiety takes some of the magic out of reading.

And it's not as though Kindles and e-books are inexpensive.

Sure, I still love my Kindle. It's still a cool way to read. But I have to say tree-books never let me down this way.

Crazy for the Kindle - Amazon Sells Millions

Kindle sales are skyrocketing, according to the latest word from Amazon.

In a letter to Kindle customers posted on its discussion boards, Amazon reports it has sold more of the newest version of the e-reader in the last 73 days than in all of 2009.

While not releasing exact numbers, Amazon also reports that the Kindle is far and away its bestselling gift item.

I'm one of those people who purchased a Kindle in the last couple of months. (OK, technically my husband bought it - for my birthday last month.)

I am a fan although I don't think I will ever completely give up "real" books. Instead of replacing the paper books, I see the Kindle as a nice complement to them.

For one thing, I am a little put off by the price of ebooks. They cost about the same price as paper books. As I've noted before, it has got to be cheaper to produce ebooks, doesn' it? I can't bring myself to pay full price for an ebook. If I am going to pay $7 or $8 for a new release, I'll still buy the paper version - at least for now.

The Kindle store is great for buying older books - especially ones you can't find in the bookstores - which often cost about $4 or less. All of the classics are free, so that's nice.

There are sometimes excellent deals on ebooks from debut authors. I just purchased Grace Burrowes new release The Heir  for $2.39. For those of who follow RWA chapter contests, Burrowes finaled in a ton of contests under the name Patricia Patton. It's exciting to see that she is now being published. I look forward to reading her debut novel!

Writing With the Stars

Round Three of the Kensington Brava/RT Writing with the Stars contest is going on right now.

I am one of six remaining finalists in the national competition. The winner of the online voting contest will be published. But I can't get there without lots of support because I am up against some very talented writers.

For this challenge, I had to write a back-of-the-book blurb. Agent Kristin Nelson does an indepth critique of each entry that you might find interesting.

Click here to check out all of the entries. I hope you will consider voting for my manuscript, Seducing Charlotte, a historical romance set against the backdrop of the dawning Industrial Revolution.

I promise voting is super quick and easy. You can click in, vote and be done in under a minute. No registration is required. Thank you!