All Romance Earth Day Free Book - Slave

There will be one of these a day, until April 21. I'll try to post the link each day, as I find out which one it is. If you find it first, feel free to leave note here in comments and I'll get a post up for everyone else.

Slave ($5.99 list), by Cheryl Brooks

Book Description
“I found him in the slave market on Orpheseus Prime, and even on such a god-forsaken planet as that one, their treatment of him seemed extreme.”

He may be the last of a species whose sexual talents were the envy of the galaxy.

Cat is an enslaved warrior from a race with a feline gene that gives him awesome beauty, fearsome strength, and sensuality and sexual prowess unmatched by any other males in the universe. Even filthy, chained, and beaten, he gives off an aura of power and virility and his feline gene gives him a special aura.

Jacinth is an intergalactic trader on a rescue mission and she needs a man she can trust with her life.

She has spent years pursuing her kidnapped sister from planet to planet. Now her quest leads her to a place where all the women are slaves. “Jack” needs a slave of her own—one who can masquerade as her master.

Enmeshed in a tangle of deception, lust, and love, they must elude a race of violent killers and together forge a bond stronger than any chains.

Just click Add to Cart or Buy Now and you'll see an automatic discount for the full price of the book. Be sure to complete the entire check out process (which takes about three pages of clicking), all the way until you see a link for the download (I've missed a book or two in previous promotions at this site, as I thought I was done, but didn't get all they way thru to the end). Available in the following (usually drm-free) formats: Mobipocket, Adobe Acrobat, Epub. If you want more than one format, you'll need to purchase the book more than once, but you get the discount each time.

Free Game - Glyph 2

The free game this week at Sandlot Games is Glyph 2 ($6.95 Amazon Game Downloads).

Game Description

• 2 addictively challenging ways to play - Quest and Action Mode
• Mini-tasks and powerful mouse gestures unleash level-altering power
• Build and upgrade ancient structures for added in-game features
• Deep gameplay and replayability with over 250 levels

Balance the forces of light and shadow to save an ancient land in Glyph® 2, an addictively stylistic Match 3 game!

An exile, trained in the forces of light and dark, is called upon to drive back the shadow elements that grip the distant world of Kuros. Uncover, harness and unleash the mysterious energy held within Glyphs buried deep below the surface of Kuros and, ultimately, heal this dying world. With 5 elemental worlds, stunning graphics, an all-new world-development feature, mini-tasks and powerful mouse gestures that unleash level-altering power, Glyph 2 is waiting for you to uncover its many secrets!

Click HERE to sign up for the free download. For step by step purchase and installation instructions, see this post.

Earth Day at All Romance Means Free Ebooks

Thanks to an alert reader, I checked my email and found that All Romance Ebooks/Omnilit are celebrating Earth Day by giving away a different free book each day for the first three weeks of this month. Today's free book is Wild Within ($6.10 regular), by Mima. Just click Add to Cart or Buy Now and you'll see an automatic discount for the full price of the book. be sure to complete the entire check out process (which takes about three pages of clicking), all the way until you see a link for the download (I've missed a book or two in previous promotions at this site, as I thought I was done, but didn't get all they way thru to the end). Available in the following drm-free formats: Rocket, Mobipocket, Microsoft Reader, Adobe Acrobat, Epub. If you want more than one format, you'll need to purchase the book more than once, but you get the discount each time.

Book Description
"You were all I had. No one but you can understand those words."

Choices. KarRa never had any in the Dark slums. Survival was a daily struggle for food and water. But the one thing KarRa did have was Rylan. She'd always had Rylan, from the first. He was all she really needed. Then Rylan made a choice that almost destroyed her. She had no choice except to survive without him. She learned, but she never stopped loving him.

"You left. And no one but you can understand that."

Then comes the day foretold, when Rylan has to face his Beast heritage if he wants to live. His destiny requires KarRa's blind sacrifice. She was ready to face any fate, except the one they offer: Rylan. For the first time a girl from the streets has choices laid at her feet: to start fresh, alone, or to forgive, to trust, to love. When life is about more than just survival, it gets complicated.

Are Publishers April Foolish?

If you've been reading other book blogs lately, whether written by readers, resellers or authors, you can't help but know that that April 1 has been designated as the change-over date for ebook resellers to cease to resell books and instead act as commissioned sales agents for five of the biggest publishers in the business. It's hard to see how anyone wins in this scenario (although some resellers will make more, percentage wise in the short term) - retail prices are expected to rise (although some prices may decline, if publishers keep their promise to lower ebook list prices to close to 1/2 the hardback price), so consumers will pay more. Authors will get less per book, as they are paid based upon the suggested retail price, not the selling price, the publishers will get less (70% of the new, lower prices) and book sales may decline (even without the $9.99 boycott movement, there are proven psychological barriers when sale prices add an extra digit and some author experiments on the low end brought substantially increased revenue as prices dropped). The resellers don't win long term, as they will no longer be able to offer sales pricing or discount/reward programs (at least, according to the blogs from several of the smaller booksellers), leaving perhaps only the range of platforms where you can read the ebook and the management of your bookshelf as their distinguishing factors when making a sale. Even the temporary increase in profit per book may be negated if sales drop (although it might be hard to do worse than losing money on the majority of sales, as Amazon has been doing; then again, they did it on shipping for many years to get customer share).

If there are books you know you'd like to read that are newly out in hardback and are on the $9.99 Kindle books book list, I'd go ahead and order them today. But otherwise, I would not panic, as the more popular books will drop into paperback prices (or at least, they will according to the publishers, who have been known to keep a book in trade paperback instead of traditional or mass market size, just for the higher prices) at some point. I did, however, pick up two books today, that I might have waited on otherwise (but only for a short while, as I have all the previous books in the series), which I've included below. One is a good deal as a pre-order and the other is at that magic $9.99 price today and I didn't want to chance having to wait until it came out in paperback (and I'm paying well over paperback prices for both, something the publishers should consider more - I think their inflated hardback prices have greatly contributed to the decline in reading).

We'll just have to keep track of our wishlists a bit better, so that we find mainstream books that drop to paperback prices. In the meantime, my Kindle has hundreds of unread books on it, most of them obtained free or at minimal cost, due to author sales and promotions, so I shouldn't run out anytime soon. If I do, there are several independent publishing houses that are not participating in the agency model, along with Random House (so far), as well as hundreds of independent authors, some of whose writing rivals or exceeds what is often on the best-sellers lists.

Silver Borne ($9.99), by Patricia Briggs

Book Description
When mechanic and shapeshifter Mercy Thompson attempts to return a powerful Fae book she'd previously borrowed in an act of desperation, she finds the bookstore locked up and closed down.

It seems the book contains secret knowledge-and the Fae will do just about anything to keep it out of the wrong hands. And if that doesn't take enough of Mercy's attention, her friend Samuel is struggling with his wolf side-leaving Mercy to cover for him, lest his own father declare Sam's life forfeit.

All in all, Mercy has had better days. And if she isn't careful, she might not have many more to live...

Black Magic Sanction ($8.65 pre-order), by Kim Harrison

Book Description
In New York Times bestselling author Kim Harrison's most complex and nuanced adventure yet, bounty hunter and witch Rachel Morgan fights a deadly battle—mind, body, and soul

Rachel Morgan has fought and hunted vampires, werewolves, banshees, demons, and other supernatural dangers as both witch and bounty hunter—and lived to tell the tale. But she's never faced off against her own kind . . . until now. Denounced and shunned for dealing with demons and black magic, her best hope is life imprisonment—at worst, a forced lobotomy and genetic slavery. Only her enemies are strong enough to help her win her freedom, but trust comes hard when it hinges on the unscrupulous tycoon Trent Kalamack, the demon Algaliarept, and an ex-boyfriend turned thief.

It takes a witch to catch a witch, but survival bears a heavy price.

If you've read thru the comments on my post about "free samples", you already know that we are unanimous in our opinion of them. So, for the most part I'll ignore them completely. But, there will always be an exception and I'm including one today, simply because the sample is available today (and you can now permanently delete them), while the book itself is not. The full book is on pre-order for $9.99 and I have no idea if it will be affected by the pricing changes taking place tomorrow. On the off chance it is and you (or your kids) are a Rick Riordan fan, you may want to take a peek at the sample of the first in his newest series and place a pre-order for the full book today. I'm still behind on the Lightning Thief series, but picked up the first four while they are under $5 each, so haven't decided on getting this one (or the last in the other series).

The Kane Chronicles, Book One: The Red Pyramid Chapter Sneak Peek! ($0.00), by Rick Riordan. Full book is a pre-order: The Kane Chronicles, Book One: The Red Pyramid ($9.99)

Book Description
Since their mother’s death, Carter and Sadie have become near strangers. While Sadie has lived with her grandparents in London, her brother has traveled the world with their father, the brilliant Egyptologist, Dr. Julius Kane.

One night, Dr. Kane brings the siblings together for a "research experiment" at the British Museum, where he hopes to set things right for his family. Instead, he unleashes the Egyptian god Set, who banishes him to oblivion and forces the children to flee for their lives.

Soon, Sadie and Carter discover that the gods of Egypt are waking, and the worst of them--Set--has his sights on the Kanes. To stop him, the siblings embark on a dangerous journey across the globe--a quest that brings them ever closer to the truth about their family, and their links to a secret order that has existed since the time of the pharaohs.

Author Spotlight and a Free Book - Diane Duane

You can get a free copy of A Wind from the South (out of print), by Diane Duane, is the first (and so far only) book in her Raetian Tales series, from the author's website (and a few other sites). She is perhaps best known for her Young Wizards series, which is not yet available on Kindle.

Book Description
In the remote mountain village where she was born, Mariarta dil Alicg lives the untroubled life of a peasant girl...until, soon after a mysterious stranger's arrival, she starts to hear voices in the wind. The voices whisper strange secrets in Mariarta's ears -- promising her the power to command the stormwind, hinting at an unknown, magical heritage, and prophesying a fate marvelous past all Mariarta's imaginings.

Mariarta's search for the truth about the beautiful and terrible creature attempting to possess her body and soul will lead her into hidden domains of sorcery both dreadful and wondrous, and finally embroil her in the growing rebellion against her land's cruel Austriac oppressors. But not before Mariarta comes face to face at last with the immortal Lady of the Storms, and challenges her to one final battle for control of her life, her soul, and her destiny...

Here are some download locations for the free version:

• Mobileread - (nice PRC format, load right onto the Kindle)
• Raetian Tales website - PDF, LIT and PDB formats
• Author's website - has disclaimer of limited time availability (but it's been free for some time); PDF, LIT and PDB formats, with Kindle version "in the works"

I'd recommend the version at mobileread for those with a Kindle.

Ms. Duane has also started re-releasing some of her backlist books in ebook form. A few of these are in the Kindle store and a couple of others are at Smashwords. I'd ignore the special order buttons on the author's website, as these lead to yet another purchase choice (and I like to keep my purchases at as few ebookstores as possible). Here are a few of the titles that are currently under $5.

Start Trek: Doctor's Orders ($2.79)

Book Description
When Dr. McCoy grumbles once too often about the way the U.S.S. Enterprise™ ought to be run, Captain Kirk decides to leave the doctor in command while he oversees a rountine diplomatic mission. Kirk beams down to a strange planet nicknamed "Flyspeck" to negotiate its admission into the Federation, leaving Dr. McCoy to enjoy his new authority.

However, the doctor soon learns that command is a double-edged sword when Kirk disappears without a trace. Desperately trying to locate his catain, McCoy comes under pressure from Starfleet to resolve the situation immediately. Matters go from bad to worsewhen the Klingons arrive and stake their own claim on Flyspeck

Then another, more deadly power threatens them all, and suddenly Dr. McCoy and the Starship Enterprise find themselves pitted against an alien fleet in a battle they have no hope of winning.

Star Trek: The Romulan Way ($2.80)

Book Description
hey are a race of warriors, a noble people to whom honor is all. They are cousin to the Vulcan, ally to the Klingon, and Starfleet's most feared and cunning adversary. They are the Romulans -- and for eight years, Federation Agent Terise LoBrutto has hidden in their midst.

Now the presence of a captured Starfleet officer forces her to make a fateful choice -- between exposure and escape. Between maintaining her cover -- and saving the life of Dr. Leonard McCoy.

Here, in a startlingly different adventure, is the truth behind one of the most fascinating alien races ever created in STAR TREK -- the Romulans.

The Door Into Fire ($2.99) is now out of print (but you can pick up a "new" copy for $130 HERE at Amazon!). I've used the new cover at Smashwords for the blog post, but you might want to check out the cover of the original paperback to see how Tor marketed the book in the mid-1980's (there are some reviews there, as well).

Book Description
The only man in centuries to possess the Power of the blue Flame, Herewiss cannot use or control it. With his dearest friend, the exiled Prince Freelorn, and the unearthly creature called Sunspark, Herewiss searches the forbidden Waste to find a legendary Keep full of doors into other worlds -- desperately seeking the one that will make him whole... (A two-time John W. Campbell Award nominee)

The Door into Shadow ($3.99), the sequel to The Door Into Fire is also long out of print (there are some "new" copies (at $79.49) and reviews, HERE).

Book Description
Second of Diane Duane's "Middle Kingdoms" sequence, sequel to THE DOOR INTO FIRE. The quest of Freelorn Ferrant's son, exiled prince of Arlen, continues as he and his people push eastward across the Middle Kingdoms in pursuit of his lost throne. But his companion, the warrior and sorceress Segnbora, brings her own possibly deadly agenda to the search...

It looks like The Door into Sunset will be coming to Smashwords soon -- so if you get hooked on the series (which totals four books), you won't have to pick up that $189.25 "new" paperback someone is trying to sell at Amazon.