I’m over at Killer Fiction today talking about competing. Come and join me. It’ll be fun!

PS: You could win a book!

Talking a little about who I am and my thoughts on being a candidate for the 2009/2010 RWA Board of Directors. Come over and visit – you could win a book!

I’m a member of the newly revitalised ESPAN (have you checked them out? If you are an electronic or small press author it is worth your while), in fact, I was recently voted Vice-President. I’m very excited to help propel epubbed and small press authors’ interests forward within the RWA. Kristen Painter is our fearless leader, er, President and I know she feels strongly about doing the same thing.

As ESPAN kicks off and heads in a new direction, what better time to start heading forward than in the midst of “Read an Ebook Week”.

Check out all the great companies involved, or just read the history of ebooks.

Dear Author regularly posts about e-reading technology and their most recent post, How to Decide Between the Sony and the Kindle eInk Readers, is merely the latest in an ongoing debate. They seem to always be testing and trying out new gadgets, so they are a resource to check before buying your next ebook reader.

I’m quoting directly from our blog post on ESPAN for the info below:

If the nifty gadgets don’t convince you, how about this article from EPublishers Weekly called 30 Benefits of EBooks. Top of the list? Ebooks promote reading at a time when people spend more time in front of screens, than in front of books. Also, they’re environmentally friendly.

John Siracuse of Ars Technica gives a clear-eyed view of the changing face of e-book technology over the years with The once and future e-book: on reading in the digital age.

For writers debating the merits of e-book vs traditional publishing, please keep in mind that, as Angela James notes in this article, A Different Way Isn’t the Wrong Way.

“However you choose to read, remember that the platform isn’t the most important thing. It’s All About the Story.”

As an epubbed author myself, I really appreciate all of this information. I appreciate that more people are being educated about their options. How your book is delivered or read isn’t the issue. It’s how well the words are written, in whatever book you buy, whatever format you buy it in.

Happy Reading!

Well, I wasn’t sure so I asked the Divas to come up with some questions for me and then I answered them on my Guest blog on May’s blog.

Go see the questions and answers at Milady Insanity’s blog

If nothing else, you will find out about my favourite cheese. You did want to know my favourite cheese, right?

And you could be entered to win a copy of Vampire Oracle: Harmony (if you already have it, then something from my backlist).

I love books.

Last week I went to Chapters to use my Mother’s Day gift card from my kids (smart kids, a gift card from Chapters and a gift card from Starbucks, conveniently located in Chapters).

Armed with only $30, I knew I had to be very careful how I spent it. What would I choose? What was I in the mood for?

The first thing I did was wander around looking for any of my author friends and turning their books face out. My local Chapters was sadly lacking this time, but I did my best. I turned out Wild, Wicked and Wanton by Jaci Burton (weirdly located in romance instead of erotica, strange since it’s one of the hottest books I read last year – I mean smoke pouring off the pages), Unpredictable by Eileen Cook (a wonderful local author who’s doing so well and is a joy to talk to), several of the Midnight Breed series by Lara Adrian and Dark Garden by Eden Bradley.

Feeling very satisfied with myself I searched out books by Alison Kent and HelenKay Dimon, two authors who’s blogs I have been loyally reading this year. I couldn’t find either, but Chapters said they would bring them in. In fact, I wasn’t having any luck finding a lot of Brava releases (they had a 2007 release from Sylvia Day and I was looking for a new one), which I also pointed out to the clerks.

So then I went to the scan every shelf method. In the end this is what I picked up:

Well, ok, I picked up more than that, but I had to put some down didn’t I? $30 doesn’t go very far when the spines of books still show a $3-6 difference in the Canadian and US pricing (one example $13 USD, $17.95 CAD). Um, yeah, our dollar has been almost at par for some time now. According to the bookstore they bought them at the higher rate so that’s how they had to sell them. Right. So basically it’s cheaper for me to go to the US to buy my books. Point taken, but I still had that gift card that I had to use.

And yes, to get these four books with Canadian pricing meant that I actually spent $9+ of my own money, but since I couldn’t decide which one to put down I took them all.

So far I’ve only managed to read the Jane Porter book (met her at ECWC last year, she’s so interesting and I loved Flirting with Forty) because we’ve just finished moving. I can’t wait to read the rest! I love books (not that you could tell from the stack of boxes marked books, sitting beside me ).