Make sure you are doing backups...

Have you been making good backups of your ebooks? Or relying on the publisher or an ebookstore to keep up with your library for you? If the latter, you may want to reconsider your decisions, as a few incidents this year have brought home, the last one occurring just today.

Due to a new policy, ChristianBook.com will no longer allow you to download your ebooks from them, if you added them during a free promotional period (ie, if they were "free" when you "purchased" them). I just ran into the new policy by chance, when I tried to download what was marked as a DRM-Free EPUB that I purchased today -- and found my entire library was no read online only. They claim this change is due to the added costs of serving out free books, but their decision applies equally to books that are DRM-free, where the only cost is bandwidth and that cost won't change by using their app. From now on, you will be required to read any freebies obtained from them using one of their proprietary apps (and I don't know about you, but I have gotten to where I refuse to install another app just to read a free book, especially one that I can get elsewhere and very much especially if I have to be online to do the reading). I hope everyone had a backup of their libraries there, as this is a retroactive decision, applying to all the books you have purchased (I just downloaded a couple of them last weekend, which I didn't have as an EPUB elsewhere, but I'm sure I will have lost at least a couple of books due to their decision).


They aren't the only ones making unannounced and unilateral changes to their libraries. Jasmine Jade used to be the store site for Ellora's Cave and when they moved everything back to their Ellora's Cave site, some libraries made it over and others did not (mine was one of the ones that did not). They are super nice and will help with redownloading any book you didn't back up, but you'll need to email them on each one (and probably provide your old order number). When Borders Bookstore closed, they transferred my library to Kobo - it was painless and took a couple of clicks; but when Fictionwise announced that they were closing, the process was apparently designed to work as badly as possible. You were supposed to sign up after receiving an email, then wait (some unspecified length of time) before you then responded again to a new email with a magical code in it. Then, all but a few books, listed titles would appear in your B&N account. The only problem - apparently they are doing everything by hand and many, including myself, are still waiting for a code to continue the process. Others managed to get thru that step, but still waited weeks for any of their books to appear. And that limited list of titles - it keeps growing every time I check it (and now they have a PDF linked that promises to list even more excluded titles). Contrast this to the process when Peanut Press and subsequent sites were purchased and rolled up to ereader.com -- my account and books moved along without me for several years, until I rediscovered the account, complete with every book I had purchased along the way (on my old palm devices/phone).

It's not only due to decisions of the site that you can lose access. In the last couple of weeks, DelphiClassics claims to have had their files deleted by their web hosting company. Since they apparently had their backups at the same location, they lost those as well (OK, who doesn't know that it's a bad idea to store all of your backups in the same location as your main copy?). If you didn't make a backup, you may be out of luck, unless an update to one of your purchases happens in the next year. In that case and if you kept track of your receipt, so you have the order number, you can follow these directions to request an update for that one particular title. Yes, your old purchase supposedly came with lifetime updates (and new ones don't), but that's as far as they are willing to go for past purchases.

Let these be a cautionary tale, if not a lesson, in why you should be downloading all of your ebooks up on purchase and keeping a copy (or two) somewhere safe. You should consider saving your emailed receipts, also (at the very least, keep them in a folder in your email client, but consider saving them to your hard drive, together in a folder, as well), in case you need to refer back to them in order to get your library restored. I've even had one or two (as far as I know, only about that many) books at Amazon that have completely switched content after the initial purchase and download (title changed and all) and had to use an old receipt to get them to investigate and fix my library (usually by having to repurchase the book, after they applied a promo code).

Free Audiobook - Beowulf

Get a free download of Beowulf ($9.95 Audible/Amazon), produced and directed by Yuri Rasovsky, read by Robertson Dean, from Downpour.com, Blackstone Audio's new consumer site.

Book Description
The earliest extant heroic epic in any European vernacular, Beowulf is considered the most important poem in Old English. The title character is a warrior of superhuman strength who accomplishes glorious deeds to honor his king. He also represents the ideal lord and vassal, generous to his own men while fulfilling all the forms of courtesy at court. The narrative itself falls into two parts: Beowulf first rescues the royal house of Denmark from two marauding monsters; then, after having ruled his people peacefully for fifty years, he is called upon to combat a dragon that is terrorizing the countryside.

Combining mythical elements with actual historical figures and events, the narrative ranges from fierce action sequences to detailed portrayals of court life and earnest considerations of social and moral dilemmas, all in a tone of sustained grandeur.

First transcribed circa AD 1000. Translated into English prose by Robert K. Gordon in 1922.

Get the free audiobook from Downpour. Add the Download edition to your cart, then enter coupon code LOLBEOWULF (make sure there are no extra spaces, if you cut and paste) and click on Apply. Make sure that the new total has been adjusted to $0.00, then click on Checkout. You'll be prompted to log into your account (or create a new one) and then taken to the final screen; click on Place Order and then on Continue to My Library in order to download the audiobook. The download is available in either MP3 (Kindle compatible) or M4B (iTunes) formats and is DRM-free.

Today's Deals 2/1

Today's Gold Box at Amazon is with "up to 35% on Rosetta Stone Language-Learning Software".

Today's Kindle Daily Deal is The Pirate Coast: Thomas Jefferson, the First Marines, and the Secret Mission of 1805 ($1.99), by Richard Zacks.

Book Description
A real-life thriller from acclaimed historian and author of The Pirate Hunter, Richard Zacks-the true story of the unheralded American who brought the Barbary Pirates to their knees in an attempt to stop the legendary Barbary Pirates of North Africa from hijacking American ships, William Eaton set out in 1805 on a secret mission to over-throw the government of Tripoli. The operation was sanctioned by President Thomas Jefferson, but at the last moment he grew wary of 'intermeddling' in a foreign government, and Eaton set off without proper national support.

Today's Kindle Romance Daily Deal is Night Visitor ($1.99), by Melanie Jackson, who also has a book in the current $1 Kindle Book deal from AmazonLocal.

Book Description
All Scots know of the brave piper who gave his life so long ago. Malcolm "the piper" calls to Tafaline so insistently, across the winds of night and time…and looking into her heart, Taffy knows there is naught to do but go to him.

Today's Kindle SciFi/Fantasy Daily Deal is A Suspension of Mercy ($1.99), by Patricia Highsmith.

Book Description
A major new reissue of the work of a classic noir novelist.

Alicia Bartleby was right - she had died at least 20 times in her husband's imagination. But then Sydney was a thriller script-writer after all. When she takes an extended trip to Brighton without getting in touch with anyone, Sydney goes through the motions of being a wife-killer.

About the Author
With the acclaim for The Talented Mr. Ripley, more film projects in production, and two biographies forthcoming, expatriate legend Patricia Highsmith would be shocked to see that she has finally arrived in her homeland. Throughout her career, Highsmith brought a keen literary eye and a genius for plumbing the psychopathic mind to more than thirty works of fiction, unparalleled in their placid deviousness and sardonic humor. With deadpan accuracy, she delighted in creating true sociopaths in the guise of the everyday man or woman. Now, one of her finest works is again in print: A Suspension of Mercy, a masterpiece of noir fantasy. With this novel, Highsmith revels in eliciting the unsettling psychological forces that lurk beneath the surface of everyday contemporary life.

Tiny Sunbirds Far Away ($1.56 / £0.99 UK), by Christie Watson, is the Kindle Deal of the day for those in the UK (the US edition is $3.49).

Book Description
Winner of the 2011 Costa First Novel Award

When their mother catches their father with another woman, twelve year-old Blessing and her fourteen-year-old brother, Ezikiel, are forced to leave their comfortable home in Lagos for a village in the Niger Delta, to live with their mother’s family. Without running water or electricity, Warri is at first a nightmare for Blessing. Her mother is gone all day and works suspiciously late into the night to pay the children’s school fees. Her brother, once a promising student, seems to be falling increasingly under the influence of the local group of violent teenage boys calling themselves Freedom Fighters. Her grandfather, a kind if misguided man, is trying on Islam as his new religion of choice, and is even considering the possibility of bringing in a second wife.

But Blessing’s grandmother, wise and practical, soon becomes a beloved mentor, teaching Blessing the ways of the midwife in rural Nigeria. Blessing is exposed to the horrors of genital mutilation and the devastation wrought on the environment by British and American oil companies. As Warri comes to feel like home, Blessing becomes increasingly aware of the threats to its safety, both from its unshakable but dangerous traditions and the relentless carelessness of the modern world. Tiny Sunbirds, Far Away is the witty and beautifully written story of one family’s attempt to survive a new life they could never have imagined, struggling to find a deeper sense of identity along the way.

Dying to Read ($1.99 Kindle, B&N), the first novel in The Cate Kinkaid Files by Lorena McCourtney, is the Nook Daily Find, price matched on Kindle.

Book Description
Cate Kinkaid is just dipping her toe into the world of private investigating until one of the many résumés she has floating around lands her a real job. All she has to do is determine that a particular woman lives at a particular address. Simple, right? When the big and brooding house happens to contain a dead body, this routine PI job turns out to be anything but simple. Is Cate in over her head?

Readers will be hooked from the very first chapter of this fast-paced and witty romantic mystery from bestselling and award-winning author Lorena McCourtney.

Today's Kindle Teen Daily Deal is The Many Lives of Lilith Lane ($1.98), by E.V. Anderson, which was originally released as a Kindle Serial

Book Description
Seventeen-year-old Lilith Lane has a hunk of a boyfriend, a wicked tongue, and a talent for solving the mysteries that pop up in her small home town of Mirabalis. But when her little sister goes missing in the middle of the night, both Lilith’s detective skills and her recall of sophomore year physics are put to the ultimate test.

To save her sister, Lilith must race against the clock with the help of Dr. Hammer, a mad scientist who pushes Lilith off the edge – literally – of his reality-bending skyscraper. Lilith’s world is turned upside down by her sister’s disappearance, and a skyscraper that is also a portal to a parallel universe suddenly doesn’t seem that surreal. With Dr. Hammer’s help, Lilith must put her girl detective skills to the test and try to save her sister.

A dashing snail expert, a scheming beauty queen, and the heir to a great advertising fortune are just a few of the unforgettable characters who round out the cast in this rollicking tale of love, loyalty, and multiple Earths.

Today's Deals 1/31

Today is the last day of Amazon's over 2,000 MP3 Albums for $5 sale.

It's also the last day for the current batch of $3.99 or less Kindle Books Sale and the last day of the month for Prime members to borrow a Prime Eligible book.

Today's Kindle Daily Deal is Poison Flower: A Jane Whitefield Novel ($1.99), by Thomas Perry. A Mysterious Press (Grove Atlantic) edition, it's well worth picking up for mystery fans that don't have it in their libraries.

Book Description
Poison Flower, the seventh novel in Thomas Perry’s celebrated Jane Whitefield series, opens as Jane spirits James Shelby, a man unjustly convicted of his wife’s murder, out of the heavily guarded criminal court building in downtown Los Angeles. But the price of Shelby’s freedom is high. Within minutes, men posing as police officers kidnap Jane and, when she tries to escape, shoot her.

Jane’s captors are employees of the man who really killed Shelby’s wife. He believes he won’t be safe until Shelby is dead, and his men will do anything to force Jane to reveal Shelby’s hiding place. But Jane endures their torment, and is willing to die rather than betray Shelby. Jane manages to escape but she is alone, wounded, thousands of miles from home with no money and no identification, hunted by the police as well as her captors. She must rejoin Shelby, reach his sister before the hunters do, and get them both to safety.

In this unrelenting, breathtaking cross-country battle, Jane survives by relying on the traditions of her Seneca ancestors. When at last Jane turns to fight, her enemies face a cunning and ferocious warrior who has one weapon that they don’t.

Today's Kindle Romance Daily Deal is Unlocked: A Love Story ($1.99), by Karen Kingsbury [Zondervan], with the companion audiobook for $3.99.

Book Description
Before You Take a Stand ... You Got to Take a Chance. Holden Harris is an eighteen-year-old locked in a prison of autism. Despite his quiet ways and quirky behaviors, Holden is very happy and socially normal---on the inside, in a private world all his own. In reality, he is bullied at school by kids who only see that he is very different. Ella Reynolds is part of the 'in' crowd. A cheerleader and star of the high school drama production, her life seems perfect. When she catches Holden listening to her rehearse for the school play, she is drawn to him ... the way he is drawn to the music. Then, Ella makes a dramatic discovery---she and Holden were best friends as children. Frustrated by the way Holden is bullied, and horrified at the indifference of her peers, Ella decides to take a stand against the most privileged and popular kids at school. Including her boyfriend, Jake. Ella believes miracles can happen in the unlikeliest places, and that just maybe an entire community might celebrate from the sidelines. But will Holden's praying mother and the efforts of Ella and a cast of theater kids be enough to unlock the prison that contains Holden? This time, friendship, faith, and the power of a song must be strong enough to open the doors to the miracle Holden needs.

Today's Kindle SciFi/Fantasy Daily Deal is The Girl of Fire and Thorns ($1.99), the first novel in Rae Carson's Fire and Thorns YA Fantasy series.

Book Description
Once a century, one person is chosen for greatness.

Elisa is the chosen one. But she is also the younger of two princesses. The one who has never done anything remarkable, and can't see how she ever will.

Now, on her sixteenth birthday, she has become the secret wife of a handsome and worldly king--a king whose country is in turmoil. A king who needs her to be the chosen one, not a failure of a princess.

And he's not the only one who seeks her. Savage enemies, seething with dark magic, are hunting her. A daring, determined revolutionary thinks she could be his people's savior, and he looks at her in a way that no man has ever looked at her before. Soon it is not just her life, but her very heart that is at stake.

Elisa could be everything to those who need her most. If the prophecy is fulfilled. If she finds the power deep within herself. If she doesn't die young. Most of the chosen do.>

Deceived Wisdom: Why What You Thought Was Right Is Wrong ($1.56 / £0.99 UK), by David Bradley, is the Kindle Deal of the day for those in the UK (the US edition is $9.99).

Book Description
Did your mother remind you to take off your coat when inside or you won’t ‘feel the benefit’ when you leave? Have you ever been informed that what you need to cool down is a nice cup of tea? And are you bored of being told that you have to let that red wine breathe first to improve its taste? If so then Deceived Wisdom is the book for you. Organised into easy-to-read standalone sections, it looks at the facts we all think we know and examines why we don’t know them at all. David Bradley’s clear and witty writing examines the science behind the statements to reveal the truth behind many popular myths.

Dixie Divas ($9.39 Kindle, $1.99 B&N), by Virginia Brown, is the Nook Daily Find. No price match (yet) on Kindle, but check your library on this one, as a different edition was free in Oct '10. I'm not sure what the difference in the two editions is, but both are Mobi format.

Book Description
The Divas are a martini-drinking crowd of aging belles in a historic Mississippi town filled with money and mansions. When the ex-husband of Diva Bitsy is found murdered, and Bitsy is accused, the Divas set out to solve the crime. Book one of acclaimed author Virginia Brown's cozy mystery series.

Today's Kindle Kids Daily Deal is Bus Stops ($0.99), by Taro Gomi.

Book Description
Brilliantly rendered drawings show the everyday events that make cities come alive. A simple text details the bus's path and riders, while a subtext challenges children to find a variety of objects and people. Gomi's pictures are beautifully composed, and will appeal to children for their simplicity and to adults for their strong graphics.

Grade Level: P and up

Today's Deals 1/30

Today's Kindle Daily Deal is Predictably Irrational, Revised and Expanded Edition: The Hidden Forces That Shape Our Decisions ($2.99), by Dan Ariely.

Book Description
In this revised and expanded edition of the New York Times and Wall Street Journal bestseller Predictably Irrational, Duke University's behavioral economist Dan Ariely explores the hidden forces that shape our decisions, including some of the causes responsible for the current economic crisis. Bringing a much-needed dose of sophisticated psychological study to the realm of public policy, Ariely offers his own insights into the irrationalities of everyday life, the decisions that led us to the financial meltdown of 2008, and the general ways we get ourselves into trouble.

Blending common experiences and clever experiments with groundbreaking analysis, Ariely demonstrates how expectations, emotions, social norms, and other invisible, seemingly illogical forces skew our reasoning abilities. As he explains, our reliance on standard economic theory to design personal, national, and global policies may, in fact, be dangerous. The mistakes that we make as individuals and institutions are not random, and they can aggregate in the market—with devastating results. In light of our current economic crisis, the consequences of these systematic and predictable mistakes have never been clearer.

Packed with new studies and thought-provoking responses to readers' questions and comments, this revised and expanded edition of Predictably Irrational will change the way we interact with the world—from the small decisions we make in our own lives to the individual and collective choices that shape our economy.

Today's Kindle Romance Daily Deal is The Bull Rider's Brother ($0.99), by Lynn Cahoon.

Book Description
On a girl's night out, Lizzie Hudson finds herself comparing her life as a single mom with her best friend's successful career when James Sullivan, the cowboy who got away, walks his Justin Ropers back into her life.

Seeing him shakes Lizzie's world but James is in for an even more eventful weekend: he learns he has a son. James has enough on his plate trying to manage his brother's bull riding career. Can he learn to redefine family and become part of Lizzie's life before she gives up on him and marries another?

Sensuality Level: Behind closed doors

Today's Kindle SciFi/Fantasy Daily Deal is Waking the Moon ($1.99), by Elizabeth Hand [Open Road].

Book Description
The reign of men has ended in this gripping thriller from Elizabeth Hand, and the fate of the world is on the line

Sweeney Cassidy is the typical college freshman at the University of the Archangels and St. John the Divine in Washington, DC. She drinks. She parties. And she certainly doesn’t suspect that underneath its picturesque Gothic façade, the University is a haven for the Benandanti, a cult devoted to suppressing the powerful and destructive Moon Goddess. But everything is about to change as Sweeney learns that her two new best friends are the Goddess’s Chosen Ones.

Rich and engrossing, Waking the Moon is a seductive post-feminist thriller that delves into an ancient feud, where the real and magical collide, and one woman is forced to make a decision that will change the world.

This ebook features an illustrated biography of Elizabeth Hand including rare images and never-before-seen documents from the author’s personal collection.

Days Of Grace ($0.99 / £1.56 UK), by Catherine Hall, is the Kindle Deal of the day for those in the UK (the US edition is $18.99).

Book Description
My memories of Grace never added up to how she really was. She was always impossible to pin down, dancing just out of my reach, exactly as she did when she was alive.

Nora was a girl of twelve when the war broke out and she was forced to join the train-loads of evacuees leaving London’s East End for rural Kent. Her surrogate family, the Rivers, are unlike anyone she has met before and she soon comes to love her new life with them, and in particular with twelve-year-old Grace. Over the next few years, as the dogfights rage ever more fiercely over head and it becomes clear that the Rivers marriage contains deep and irreparable cracks, Nora and Grace grow as close as sisters – though, to Nora’s confusion, even this is not quite as close as she would like …What happened next is a secret that will gnaw away at Nora for the rest of her life – a secret that she can only begin to tell when she is certain that she is approaching the end.

Beyond All Measure ($8.79 Kindle, $2.40 B&N), by Dorothy Love, is the Nook Daily Find [Thomas Nelson].

Book Description
Ada has loved deeply and lost dearly. But protecting her heart could mean missing the love of a lifetime.

Ada Wentworth may be young, but she's seen enough of life to know she can only rely on herself. Everyone including God it seems, has let her down. Having lost her family, her fiance, and her fortune, Ada journeys from Boston to Hickory Ridge, Tennessee, to take a position as a lady's companion. Though initially charmed by the pretty little Southern town tucked into the foothills of the great Smokies, Ada plans to stay only until she can earn enough to establish a millinery shop.

Her employer, Wyatt Caldwell, the local lumber mill owner, is easily the kindest, most attractive man Ada has met in Hickory Ridge. He believes Providence has brought her to town and into his life. But how, after so many betrayals, can she ever trust again? Besides, Wyatt has a dream of his own. A dream that will one day take him far from Hickory Ridge.

As the South struggles to heal in the aftermath of the Civil War, one woman must let go of her painful past in order to embrace God's plans for her. Can she trust Him, and Wyatt, with her future and her heart?

Today's Kindle Kids Daily Deal is In a Heartbeat ($1.99), by Loretta Ellsworth.

Book Description
When a small mistake costs sixteen-year-old Eagan her life during a figure-skating competition, she leaves many things unreconciled, including her troubled relationship with her mother. From her vantage point in the afterlife, Eagan reflects back on her memories, and what she could have done differently, through her still-beating heart.

When fourteen-year-old Amelia learns she will be getting a heart transplant, her fear and guilt battle with her joy at this new chance at life. And afterwards when she starts to feel different-dreaming about figure skating, craving grape candy-her need to learn about her donor leads her to discover and explore Eagan's life, meeting her grieving loved ones and trying to bring the closure they all need to move on.

Told in alternating viewpoints, In a Heartbeat tells the emotional and compelling story of two girls sharing one heart.