Today's Deals

Mills & Boon, the UK romance publisher, is having a Pink Tuesday sale, which ends at Midnight in the UK. For those who both read romance and use EPUB's, there are some good deals.

Samhain Publishing is having a one-day sale, as well, with 30% off all books bought direct, today only, by using coupon code LOVE12 during checkout. I looked thru the Formats Available tab on a few books, and since Kindle is included each time, I have to assume their books are all DRM-free and you can just email the file (after you download the correct format) to your Kindle.

For those who don't do pre-orders, but do read SF short stories, be sure to pick up Some of the Best from Tor.com: 2011 Edition, which released today (and it's free!).

Another store with a "Deal of the Day" (but it doesn't start until 11AM EST, so I forget to check it) is Diesel e-Books. Again, their books are DRM'd EPUB, so not for everyone, and they have both a set time and limited number of copies each day (so, they often "sell-out" of their ebook special). However, it is worth checking now and then. Today's book is Intimate Knowledge, by Amanda Stevens, for $0.80. If you click on Buy It, you'll next see a cart for checkout; if the qty field is zero, it's sold out for the day.

It's a bit late to celebrate Darwin Day, but you can still pick up a number of free books (PDF) from the National Academies Press' website. The site works best if you create a login, although you can get them as a "guest" on the site. Just be careful on the site, as "Darwin's Gift" isn't included in the free downloads.

Additional formats on these free books are now available:

• Gatekeeper (K/N/DF)
• A Taste of Twilight (K/N/DF)
• Young and in Love (K/N/DF)
• Into the Free (K/N/DF)
• From Ashes to Honor (K/N/E)
• The Call of Zulina (K/N/E)
• Medical Error (K/N/E)
• Shrouded in Silence (K/N/E)
• The Pastor's Wife (K/N/E)
• Walking on Broken Glass (K/N/E)

Twilight ($2.99), the first of the Twilight Saga books by Stephanie Meyer, is today's Kindle Deal of the Day, a sweet, innocent romance for Valentine's Day (even if it is an underage girl and a century old "teen" vampire). Part 2 of Breaking Dawn doesn't hit the theaters until November, so if you start now, you should have plenty of time to re-read the entire series before it debuts.

Book Description
Bella Swan's move to Forks, a small, perpetually rainy town in Washington, could have been the most boring move she ever made. But once she meets the mysterious and alluring Edward Cullen, Bella's life takes a thrilling and terrifying turn. Up until now, Edward has managed to keep his vampire identity a secret in the small community he lives in, but now nobody is safe, especially Bella, the person Edward holds most dear.

Deeply romantic and extraordinarily suspenseful, Twilight captures the struggle between defying our instincts and satisfying our desires. This is a love story with bite.

PS, I Love You ($1.59 / £0.99 UK), by Cecelia Ahern, is the Kindle Deal of the day for those in the UK (the US edition is $3.96). If I didn't have a review copy of this one already, I'd be more tempted by it than the first one (although it's obviously going to be a more somber subject).

Book Description
Meaningful, moving and magical - the classic bestselling love story

Everyone needs a guardian angel…

Some people wait their whole lives to find their soul mates. But not Holly and Gerry.

Childhood sweethearts, they could finish each other's sentences and even when they fought, they laughed. No one could imagine Holly and Gerry without each other.

Until the unthinkable happens. Gerry's death devastates Holly. But as her 30th birthday looms, Gerry comes back to her. He's left her a bundle of notes, one for each of the months after his death, gently guiding Holly into her new life without him, each note signed 'PS, I Love You'.

As the notes are gradually opened, and as the year unfolds, Holly is both cheered up and challenged. The man who knows her better than anyone sets out to teach her that life goes on. With some help from her friends, and her noisy and loving family, Holly finds herself laughing, crying, singing, dancing – and being braver than ever before.

Life is for living, she realises – but it always helps if there's an angel watching over you.

The Inn at Eagle Point ($2.14 Kindle, B&N), the first title in the Chesapeake Shores series by Sherryl Woods, is the Nook Daily Find, price matched on Kindle. Fans of the author will find a number of ebooks marked down in either store, but I give the win here to Amazon, who has The Summer Garden for $2.99, at least one title in their Kindle Lending Library and a free Audible edition short story, The Valentine Wedding Dress.

Book Description
It's been years since Abby O'Brien Winters set foot in Chesapeake Shores. The Maryland town her father built has too many sad memories and Abby too few spare moments, thanks to her demanding Wall Street career, the crumbling of her marriage and energetic twin daughters. Then one panicked phone call from her youngest sister brings her racing back home to protect Jess's dream of renovating the charming Inn at Eagle Point.

But saving the inn from foreclosure means dealing not only with her own fractured family, but also with Trace Riley, the man Abby left ten years ago. Trace can be a roadblock to her plans...or proof that second chances happen in the most unexpected ways.

Free Book - ... Guide To Understanding Men (K)

Your Gay Friend's Guide To Understanding Men, by Bo Sebastian, is a repeat freebie in the Kindle store, courtesy of Bell Bridge Books. This is not LGBT material, but a self-help guide for women on understanding the male of the species.

Book Description
Girlfriends, get ready for some straight-talk about straight men from a gay friend.

• What do men really want from women? How do you avoid Mr. Wrong in your search for Mr. Right?
• What kind of emotional baggage is likely to send a man packing? Is your heartthrob a deadbeat?
• Where are the best places to search for the man of your dreams?

Explore all these questions and more with renowned Life Coach, Bo Sebastian. Find ways to make your life and relationships better.

Free Book - Homeschooling (K)

Homeschooling, by Carol Guess, is free in the Kindle store, courtesy of UK publisher PS Publishing Ltd. The story line could be a bit controversial, so be sure to read the tags before one-clicking.

Book Description
Reckless and passionate, Eleanor is a bohemian artist with a weakness for the pretty models she sculpts. When she moves from urban Seattle to a sleepy suburb, she forges an unexpected friendship with Laurel, a Fundamentalist Christian mother of six. As their connection deepens, Eleanor realizes that Laurel's family is not as perfect as it seems, and that the most dangerous lessons are sometimes learned at home. Known in the United States as a poet, Carol Guess uses lyrical language and multiple narrative voices to bring Eleanor's story to a startling conclusion.

Managing Your Kindle Library , Part I

If you've been following this blog for long (or had your Kindle more than a few days), you are probably starting to discover a couple of flaws in how Amazon handles your library both on the Kindle and in the archives. This post is intended to help you with a few of those and includes observations I've made from having a rather huge library (I've been told by Kindle support people that they considered 100 books to be "quite large", despite early press conferences where Bezos bragged of someone that was hitting 1,000, and mine was the largest they had ever seen); with nearly 9,000 titles at this point, my library has become so unwieldy that it is nearly impossible to find anything in it and its size is impacting performance of my Kindle ereaders and the Manage My Kindle page. OK, sure, my library is huge, by most standards; after all, it includes nearly every non-indie free book that Amazon has had in the last several years (I've had a Kindle since about midway thru the original Kindle's first year, so I did miss some of the good, early titles, and I've actually missed one or two since then, but not many) and an increasing large number of indie & backlist titles. The entire family is on the account, so we have books of all genres and for all age groups. I used to try to manage it with collections, but finally gave up on that, on the Kindles themselves. Your collection may not be as large (but if you add 5-10 of the indie books a day, it might not be long before it gets there), but you may want to read thru the post to see if the method I use might take care of giving you some privacy or parental controls with your Kindle library.

One major issue is that the "3,500" books that Amazon claims you can get onto your Kindle is entirely smoke and mirrors. It might physically hold that many, but like any FAT based directory structure, dealing with that many files slows it way down (a problem compounded by how the Kindle loads its collections, if you choose to use those as your primary display). When Amazon added even more features in recent updates, they more than doubled the number of files for each book (there is the .AZW? (or other) file that contains the book, the .MBP that contains bookmarks and notes, the .EA and .PHL for social media information and .APNX); if you did download 3,500 books onto your Kindle, you would be forcing it to deal with 17,500 files in that directory alone, plus all the indexes (and collections) that go along with them. In practice, even as you approach a few hundred, every Kindle starts to slow down (an issue that could have been addressed by different means of displaying the home page, although perhaps at the cost of using a bit more memory when a book was open; as a long time programmer, I am aware that there are always trade-offs, but this one seems driven by inexperience and short-sightedness on the design side).

Another issue is that when your library gets too large, the Kindle (all but the Fire) starts having problems after it syncs - all of mine reboot if allowed to sync, once they try to refresh the archive list. The only solution is to refuse to allow it to sync (keeping wireless off) or to leave it plugged in if wireless is on (so the endless rebooting doesn't drain the battery). The apps don't have the same issue, but a related one - if you remove them (or clear the archives by deregistering), they only want to load the first 3200-3500 or so books (hmmm... there's that number again; looks like a clear programming bug) and then only add new ones added after that. The Kindle devices do something similar, with most of them displaying only older books in the archive (although a couple of the Kindle 3's are now trying to show the entire list after some of the reboots), with roughly that same 3200-3500 titles. It appears (and I've seen other reports of this) that any library over 3,200 or so books will trigger this behavior. Since I like to leave the Special Offers Kindle's wireless on all the time (so I don't miss any), that can be a bit of a problem (I also now send all freebies to it, which helps in sorting the books later on). Also, my main reading Kindle has to have wireless off, so the battery lasts, so I don't get any blog or news updates right away and I have to wait to get any samples or new books I've sent (usually including waiting for it to reboot after it is done).

So, I've started working on fixing my library to be smaller, without actually deleting the books from my archives (and thus, losing access to them) and getting the library more organized. What you'll see below is that first step, which uses the well-hidden (but ever so useful) Media Library feature at Amazon. I don't know why they didn't simply expand this area to give you the social media functions of kindle.amazon.com, but they didn't (the two areas don't even connect on ratings you assign, which means I never go to kindle.amazon.com unless I want to copy down a highlight or some notes I made on a Kindle device). The media library allows tags, but they don't show up at kindle.amazon.com and don't relate to the collections you can create on your Kindle (again, a huge missed opportunity at Amazon to truly produce a social media center that you would never abandon and that could do everything Calibre does, but better) and notes (again, that you only see there) and ratings. You can also add books you own in paper and manage them there, as well. You used to be able to share out your media library (only items you selected to share), but (although the options appear to be there) that function no longer works. You can, though, print out a listing of your collection; with any PDF print driver, that means you can create a PDF of your library (or any category in the Media library or search results) to use for reference when not at home. But, the most useful feature, both for this purpose and for a very primitive version of Parental Controls, is the ability to move items into the "Trash."

Unlike the trash in most email systems, though, this trash area never gets cleaned out. It just accumulates anything you want to add and holds it until you want it back. It also has one big side effect: moving a Kindle book to the Trash removes it from your visible archives and removes it from the Manage My Kindle page (which vastly increases its speed, as well). It doesn't remove it from the kindle.amazon.com page, though, and you can move it from the trash back to your main Kindle collection at any time, at which point you can download it from your library again. As you can imagine, this is a feature that many people will want to take advantage of, whether to hide that racy book you bought, so it isn't visible in the archives when you are showing off your Kindle, or just to hide books in the archives that you don't want your kids to see on their Kindles or Kindle Fires. To get started, first you need to locate the Media Library and that can be a bit tricky. You could go to the Your Accounts page, then find the Your Collection link under Media Library section, or just click this link to go there directly. After you log in, you should see a screen similar to this one (although hopefully a lot less fuzzy):

You'll want to use the pull-down menu next where it says View and pick Kindle Items (you can even narrow that down to Kindle Books on the sub-menu that is displayed if you hover the mouse on Kindle Items). You'll then see a listing of your books in the lower half of the screen. You can search (upper right corner) or sort (middle right pulldown) or just scroll thru them (the default is by date added, which is generally just what I want).

As you scroll thru and locate books that you want to remove from the "active archives", you may want to look up more info on a book. I've found the best way is to right-click on the cover or title of the book and choose the "open in new tab/window" option from the menu. Go to the new tab and click on the title of the book, which opens (yet another) new window with the Amazon product page. It's a bit round-about, but you don't lose any progress you have made in checking titles, this way.

Back in the Media Library, to select a title you'll need to click in the box on the left of the (very tiny) cover image for the book. When you do, a popup will display similar to the one shown here. While you can leave that displaying on the page and keep working, I find it highly annoying (and you can only see about one title at a time below it, on my computer). So, click the little "minus sign" in the upper right corner of the box and it will minimize and get out of the way. You can keep scrolling down and checking off titles, but I've found it's best not to do too many at a time, as there is a time-out set on the page that requires you to log back in and if it elapses, you lose all the work you've done. I have gone over a hundred on checking off books, but now try to limit myself to about 50 at a time, assuming they are all bunched together and I don't do too much researching in between.

Once you have the items you want checked off, we want to get the message box above back, so click on the "plus sign" to the right of where it says "Perform Action" in about the middle of the page. Then, click on the Move to Trash button in the center of the box that is displayed. After a second or so, most of the page will be "dimmed" and you'll see the confirmation message in the center of the screen. Go ahead and click on Move to Trash once again. You'll see a progress bar as it works and when it's done, the number of items in Your Collection and in the Trash will have both been updated. You can use the pull-down next to View to see the totals and to open the Trash itself. To get a book back from the trash, just reverse the process - starting in the Trash, click the box next to the book, and then click Return to Collection (DO NOT click on Delete from Trash or the book will be removed from your account, from what I can tell).

That's it - a quick tutorial on how to move Kindle books out of your "active archives" without losing them (those you truly don't want to keep, at all, can be permanently deleted from the Manage My Kindle page). Using it regularly should help keep your Kindle running smoothly, save any embarrassment when someone wants to look at your Kindle and let you hide books your 6-10 year old just isn't mature enough to read, just yet, while keeping them on your account for all the benefits of a shared account.

You'll find some other features on the Media Library page that could be useful (such as tags), but most of them have been disabled by Amazon. Tags can be assigned, but the search by tags is broken (you can see them on the book detail page that you access by clicking on the cover or title). The rating feature only seems to work if you tell it a date that you read the book and if you enter comments, be sure to click save before leaving the page. All of which, though, are only useful in the Media Library and none of the sharing features work.

One feature that does work, though, is one that is quite useful: you can open Your Collections, the Trash or do a search, then use Print (near the upper right corner) to create a file that lists all the items. I use a PDF print driver (CutePDF), but you can use the built-in XPS driver (although the output is Windows only, not useful on the Kindle itself). After the PDF file is created, I drop it over into Dropbox, which automatically syncs it to all of my computers and makes it accessible on my phone, iPad, Kindle Fire and even the Kindle itself (using the web browser, although it's easier to just email yourself a copy to get it onto the Kindle). I keep a listing of what is "in the Trash", along with the active ones in my Collection - either are easier to search than viewing the archives on the Kindle (although hopefully I'll eventually get those trimmed down enough that my Kindles will actually show the entire list and stop rebooting all the time (that makes using the web browser essentially impossible). I did try changing the paper size, so the list would display better on the Kindle, but wasn't very successful (a better PDF print driver might help, though). Instead, I just print to a standard letter size and view it sideways on the Kindle. The print is small, but readable and can be searched.

I do wish there were similarly useful ways to manage your library at B&N (which lacks even a search facility) or Kobo, but there isn't. For those, you'll need to manage everything elsewhere, which is where Calibre comes in handy (and not just for EPUBS, it can manage your Kindle books, as well; no DRM-stripping required).

Today's Deals

If you have a Kindle Fire, an Android tablet or even an Android phone, be sure to pick up today's free Android App, Biscuit's Valentine's Day. It's a first reader interactive book (with a puppy and Valentine's Day theme) that should be perfect for young kids. It even lets you color the "pages" in the "book" and has a "stickers" mode that lets you recreate the story (or create a new one, I suppose).

If you are a gamer (or just play a few games on your Kindle Fire), you may want to check out the Humble Indie Bundle, which lets you buy several games at a single price (you decide how much) and split the amount paid between the hosting site, the developers and a charity. If you give at least the current average/bundle (about $6.17, last I looked), you also get World of Goo thrown in, making it six games total. Once you've paid, you get a link for downloading and you get the Windows, Mac, Linux and Android versions of all the games, so you can play wherever you are. For the Kindle Fire, you use the link to open a web page in the browser and should see the download link for each of the APK's - click to download and have the Fire install (if you don't see the links right away, be sure to change the browser settings to display all windows in mobile mode, not desktop, then refresh the page).

Today's the last day on the current batch of 25% off coupons at Kobo. it's the first day, though, of the last week to get entered into their Winter Escape contest: "Every week until February 19 Kobo will draw one lucky weekly winner to receive an all-inclusive paid vacation for two to a winter escape destination!" It's a Canadian company, so the rules on contests are a bit different from the US: you enter simply by making any ebook purchase. If you don't want to make a purchase there, you can enter by mail.

If you are into romance, be sure to check out the selection at Carina Press and get an extra 15% off your order with coupon code EX15CPB or 10% off your order with coupon code EX10CPB at Checkout (exp Feb 29; one time use, each).

For those of you who shop at ChristianBook, be sure to check out their Feburary Sale, which has several categories of 40$-70% off books (print copies) and 60% off Bibles.

These UK-Kindle freebies are now free for US Kindlers and the first four are now free from Barnes & Noble:

1. The New Players in Life Science Innovation (K/N)
2. Extreme Money K/N)
3. Investing Essentials K/N)
4. The Truth About Managing People K/N)
5. Into the Free (K/N)
6. Have a New Husband by Friday (K/N)
7. The Transforming Power of the Gospel (K/N)
8. Young and in Love (K/N)
9. Shrouded in Silence (K/N)
10. From Ashes to Honor (K/N)
11. The Call of Zulina (K/N)
12. The Pastor's Wife (K/N)
13. Walking on Broken Glass (K/N)
14. Medical Error (K/N)

Vienna Triangle ($0.99), by Brenda Webste, is today's Kindle Deal of the Day.

Book Description
A young woman named Kate explores her historical connection to the development of Freudian theory and the early beginnings of psychoanalysis in this mystery rooted in the past. Based on real facts concerning the pivotal figures in the development of modern psychology, the complicated lives of Sigmund Freud, his colleague Helene Deutsch, and his rival Victor Tausk are carefully reconstructed to show how their interpersonal intricacies may have led to conspiracy and deceit in the writing of early 20th-century history. When Kate realizes that Tausk was her grandfather, she begins to uncover the details around his mysterious suicide. Only as Kate uncovers the truth is she able to make important decisions about her own future.

Brenda Webster has immersed herself in the lives and the sexual entanglements of an extraordinary set of people - Sigmund Freud, his family and disciples. From the artifacts they left behind (or that Webster has fashioned), her characters pose crucial questions about women, war, psychoanalysis - all the unavoidable conflicts of twentieth century life among the intelligentsia who shaped their time. Vienna Triangle is a fascinating set of speculations buttressed by facts as contradictory and incomplete and in need of imagining as is all history.

Diamond Queen ($2.50 / £1.59 UK), by Andrew Marr, is the Kindle Deal of the day for those in the UK (no US edition).

Book Description
With the flair for narrative and the meticulous research that readers have come to expect, Andrew Marr turns his attention to the monarch – and to the monarchy, chronicling the Queen’s pivotal role at the centre of the state, which is largely hidden from the public gaze, and making a strong case for the institution itself. Arranged thematically, rather than chronologically, Marr dissects the Queen’s political relationships, crucially those with her Prime Ministers; he examines her role as Head of the Commonwealth, and her deep commitment to that Commonwealth of nations; he looks at the drastic changes in the media since her accession in 1952 and how the monarchy – and the monarch – have had to change and adapt as a result. Indeed he argues that under her watchful eye, the monarchy has been thoroughly modernized and made as fit for purpose in the twenty-first century as it was when she came to the throne and a ‘new Elizabethan age’ was ushered in.

Highland Protector ($3.49 Kindle, $3.99 B&N), by Hannah Howell, is the Nook Daily Find, but is cheaper on Kindle.

Book Description
The Murrays are back! From New York Times bestselling author Hannah Howell comes an all-new story of the beloved Scottish family, and two lovers entangled in a plot against the king. . .

Someone would see Ilsabeth Murray Armstrong hang for murder.

When her dagger is found buried in the body of one of the king's men, there is little room for doubt--the perpetrator must pay with her life. But Ilsabeth is no killer, and only one person can help clear her name: Sir Simon Innes, a man so steely and cool that no danger can rattle him. . .and no woman in distress can sway his heart.

Until now. Simon has spent his life searching for truth in a world fraught with deception. But the hauntingly beautiful fugitive seeking his aid affects him so deeply, he wonders if he can trust the flawless judgment he has always relied on. For all signs point to Ilsabeth's guilt, except one--the unparalleled desire he feels at her slightest touch. . .

Today's backlist/small press/indie free books on Kindle, which are not likely to be free for long, so double check prices before one-clicking (genres are my best guess):

• Snowed in Together, by Ann Herrick (romance)
• The Devil's Right Hand (Jack Keller), by J.D. Rhoades (suspense/thriller)
• Legwork (Casey Jones Mystery Series), by Katy Munger (suspense/thriller)
• A Stone's Throw (The Gryphonpike Chronicles), by Annie Bellet (fantasy)
• Remix, by Lexi Revellian (romantic suspense)
• Kathleen's Cariole Ride , by Margaret Kell Virany (historic travel romance; short)
• One True Love, by Lisa Follett (Regency Romance)
• Stained, by Ella James (YA paranormal)
• Stardom Can Be Murder: Charlie Parker Mystery #12 , by Connie Shelton (suspense/thriller)
• Cougar Cub Tales: I'm Just Like You, by Sharon Cramer (children's, illustrated)
• CHAMPAGNE FOR TWO, by Patrice Wilton (romance)
• Burden of the Soul, by Kate Grace (fantasy)
• Looping for Love, by Ginney Etherton (humor/golf)
• Manifesting Matisse: A Practical System for Reality Creation, by Dr. Michelle K. Nielsen (self-help)
• Broken Promises Never Mend, by Allison "Essence M" Edwards (romance/novelette)
• Wild Girls, by Lisa Morton (suspense/thriller; novella)
• Slipping, by David B. Silva (short story)
• God Laughs When You Die, by Michael Boatman (short stories)
• Teddy Bear Cannibal Massacre, edited by Tim Lieder (short stories)
• Demons Hide Their Faces, by A.A. Attanasio (SF short stories, repeat)
• P.R. Problems, by Eric James Stone (horror short story, repeat)
• Sacrificial Hearts (Time Guardians), by Skhye Moncrief (SF romance; novella)
• Conference Cupid, by Eden Elgabri (Erotica; short story)
• Produce, Publish, Publicize -Updated, by Sabrina Sumsion (hmmm... wonder if this blog is in it?)
• Four books from publisher Books We Love
• Three books by Amber D. Sistla (short stories)
• Seven books by Kevin Michael and Lacy Maran (including romance, golf and zombies eating lawyers; short stories)
• Six books by Mark Wheaton (including one with an "easily distracted yet occasionally ferocious German shepherd" cadaver dog that is the only thing standing between mankind and the Apocalypse; complete with zombies, of course)