Kindle Now Available in Canada!

If you’ve been following my blogs, you’ll know that I’ve written about e-books and electronic readers a couple of times, based on research from American readers. Well, this week it’s been announced that Kindle is finally available to Canadians for about $259 (U.S.) plus shipping costs. Although my budget prevents me from buying one right away, Kindle’s availability is certainly good news.

A writing colleague ordered one within hours of the announcement and can’t wait to use it. She just returned from a two-week vacation, where half of her suitcase contained books to read. Since Kindles can carry up to about 10,000 books, she won't have to worry about muscle strain in future. Also, Amazon currently has over 300,000 titles available for sale at very reasonable prices, and you can bet that number will grow.

In a recent Globe and Mail article, journalist Virginia Galt reported that while electronic books made up only 1% of the buying market in 2008. That number has doubled in 2009 and Indigo CEO Heather Reisman speculates that this figure could jump to 15% over the next five years. I think she’s right. This is bad news for authors whose works aren’t available on Kindle or Sony Readers, and is why all writers should make sure there’s a clause in their contract providing for electronic publication in a timely manner.

Galt also wrote that a small private school is ordering Sony readers for their students. These readers will be preloaded with textbooks, course outlines, and assignments, under an arrangement with Sony and textbook publisher Pearson Canada. Is this the wave of the future? I can’t picture universities doing this, given the price and size of student enrollment, however, I can see post secondary institutes eventually making textbooks and curriculum materials available on readers and encouraging students to purchase one themselves. They might not be cheaper than the price of a print textbook—in fact, I think they’ll be more expensive—but it sure will be convenient for students to have all of their books and materials in one handheld device...until they lose them and, trust me, that will happen. To read the entire Globe and Mail article go to http://tinyurl.com/ykuznsk

To read excerpts of Fatal Encryption and Taxed to Death, visit http://www.debrapurdykong.com/.

Fatal Encryption is available through amazon.com at http://tinyurl.com/ddzsxl and Taxed to Death can be found at http://tinyurl.com/czsy5n

Twitter 101: Creating Twitter Lists

Twitter recently introduced a new Lists feature. Now you can organize the people you're following and find them much easier. You can catagorize your lists in any way you like.

I created a list of some of my favorite authors. Later, I plan to make a list of Canadian authors, then one for publishers, etc.

If you haven't already explored list-making on Twitter or if you haven't figured out how to make a Twitter List, please visit Twitter 101: Creating Twitter Lists for complete, easy to follow instructions.

~Cheryl Kaye Tardif

http://www.cherylktardif.com

Kudos to Writers Who Want to Learn

Yesterday, I was one of six presenters at a one-day workshop organized by the Surrey Writers School. The event was called Writers’ Express and for forty-five minutes each presenter discussed their topic. Mine was Traditional Versus Self-Publishing: 25 Tips to Help You Decide.

As is common at workshops, some writers had been writing for a long time, others were published or just venturing into publishing while other attendees were new writers. The thing that drew everyone to the workshop, though, was the desire to learn. In my opinion, being willing to learn is a crucial element to successful writing and publishing.

It often seems like everybody wants to write a book. Maybe everyone really does have a story in them, but there are lots of different ways to tell it, and a number of different roads to publication. There are also people who refuse to take constructive criticism from anyone about their work in progress, or advice about how best to publish it. Many of them are doomed to flounder.

With over one million books being published worldwide every year, we all need to produce the best work we possibly can. And we need to keep working, learning and growing to be able to move our writing lives forward in whatever direction it takes us. So, kudos to those who spend their hard-earned money on workshops, conferences, editors, books, including how-to guides, and any other tool necessary to rise above and stand out. As long as we’re learning, we’re on the right track.

To read excerpts of Fatal Encryption and Taxed to Death, visit http://www.debrapurdykong.com/.

Fatal Encryption is available through amazon.com at http://tinyurl.com/ddzsxl and Taxed to Death can be found at http://tinyurl.com/czsy5n

Daughter Am I Blog Tour -- Final Week

My Daughter Am I blog tour is winding down -- I have seven days to go (eight if you include today) and I don't know whether to be sad or to rejoice. Since my promotion motto is "Promotion is just another word for party," I decided to rejoice and have an end of blog tour party on the 22nd and 23rd. You are all invited, of course.

The most interesting aspect of the tour has been coming up with unique guest posts that highlight various elements of the story. Unique, in this case, meaning that all the posts for the tour were different. I range from talking about the hero's quest, to gangsterism, to descriptions of my characters, to researching the book. This should, ideally, give prospective readers a better idea of the story than a simple blurb.

I didn't have a real tour for my first books. I just did a guest appearance on a few of my blogger friends blogs, but that was more of an international get-together than a real tour. Always one for a challenge, I halfway considered going ahead and doing a tour for those books now, but then I really would never get back to writing and, as hard as turning off the computer in the evening is going to be, I am ready to finish my work-in-progress. If nothing else, its completion will be another excuse for a party!

The point I'm stumbling over here is that I'm thinking of doing a series of articles in December similar to my blog tour posts, but focusing on my first two books, especially A Spark of Heavenly Fire. After all, odd though it may seem considering that I decimate Colorado with a bioengineered disease, it is a Christmas story. Since the story leads up to Christmas, I wonder if my blog could mirror those fictional December days without my giving away the story. Something to think about.

Click here to find the Daughter Am I Blog Tour Schedule

Click here to buy Daughter Am I from Second Wind Publishing, LLC.

Click here to buy Daughter Am I from Amazon.

Guest Post: Leave Your Ego at the Door – Collaborative Writing

I invited a friend of mine to pop by The Write Type today. Eileen Bell and I met a few years ago and for a while we were members of a small writers group that met every week. I knew she was a talented writer the first time she read aloud part of a story she was writing. Today, Eileen is going to share her experience of working on an anthology with 3 other authors. ~Cheryl Kaye Tardif

I recently finished a collaborative project called “Women of the Apocalypse,” a novella anthology that was released at the end of October. I worked with three other writers: Billie Milholland and Roxanne Felix from Edmonton, Alberta, and Ryan McFadden from London, Ontario. This is the story of how we survived.

From the outside, it looked like a simple assignment. We were tasked with writing one novella each for an anthology. A small cast of characters for each of us – one Horseman of the Apocalypse, one Archangel, and one female protagonist. We could write in any genre we wanted. The novellas were stand alone stories. No working story lines together. No “four writers writing with one voice.” Seemed like a dream come true, so we all said “Yes!”

We wrote our novellas without any input from the others, in order to allow each writer's voice and style to come through. It was a little difficult, due to a tight timeline and other aspects of our lives that demanded attention, but we all finished, on time, and barely scarred.

Then came the editing. We edited round robin style, giving each writer the opportunity to work on each novella. It was the right thing to do, because we all have different editing strengths, but this was the spot where egos threatened. As Roxanne said, “Need to lick your wounds? Rebuild your self-esteem? No time for such nonsense. Dive dive dive … into the rewrites. And edit your colleagues’ work, while trying to forget which one recently ripped apart yours.”

The hardest part about the editing process for me was remembering to leave the other person's voice and style intact, while cleaning up a wide ranging variety of issues – from grammar to plot holes big enough to drive a concrete truck through! We quickly figured out that ongoing communication was the key to keeping our stories our own, and keeping relationships with each other whole through this process.

The result? A unique anthology, with individual stories that stand on their own, but that work together to tell an even bigger story. And we all remained friends!

Women of the Apocalypse is now available online at www.womenoftheapocalypse.com, or on amazon.com. It is also available at Audreys Bookstore and Chapters Southpoint in Edmonton, McNally Robinson Booksellers in Winnipeg (after November 14th) and Pages on Kensington in Calgary (after November 13th.)

Eileen Bell has written (you guessed it) most of her life. She has completed 3 novels (one burned, one under her bed, one out in the world), several novellas, short stories and personal essays, and is happily working on several new projects. When she isn’t writing she’s living a fine life in a round house with her husband, her dog, her daughter’s cat, and two fish.

Bookcrossing: A Great Place for Book Lovers

There are many opportunities to discuss and share one’s love of books on the Net, but one site in particular has captured my attention. Bookcrossing.com is a global book sharing and recycling program that currently has over 800,000 members in 130 countries. The purpose of Bookcrossing is to share books with others around the globe, to discuss them, review them, and rate them, if you choose. It’s a terrific way to find homes for books you no longer have room for, and it doesn’t cost anything. All it takes is a little time to register yourself and the books you wish to release into the world.

Each registered book is assigned a number which you’ll place in the book along with a note that bookcrossing supplies. Then you leave the book in a public place for someone to find. If a Bookcrossing member picks it up, chances are they'll leave it at some other location. Many members take titles on vacation so they can leave them far away from home. One local writer's book made it to Pakistan!

While I was in Las Vegas, I left Fatal Encryption near a coffee bar at the Flamingo Hotel. Here's hoping the person who picked it up will read it.

The great thing about this program is that books are recycled, new authors discovered, and readers can come together to discuss their findings. So join up, share some books, and having fun. The website is www.bookcrossing.com

To read excerpts of Fatal Encryption and Taxed to Death, visit http://www.debrapurdykong.com/.

Fatal Encryption is available through amazon.com at http://tinyurl.com/ddzsxl and Taxed to Death can be found at http://tinyurl.com/czsy5n