Book Pricing

When I went to the store last week, I was pleased to find "The Brass Verdict" by Michael Connelly back on the shelf and displeased to find it US$2.00 more than in February.

Still, the $7.44 price is less than the cover price of $9.99 which was two dollars less than the ebook price of $11.99, now up to $12.99, which is why I wanted to buy the paperback instead of the ebook. It's simple economics.

What I don't understand is why the publisher wants more money for the ebook than for the paperback instead of less since no trees are killed in the making of ebooks and no oil is consumed to truck ebooks to the distribution points of sale.

One might assume that the publisher is taking advantage of ebooks to cash in on their rising popularity. It isn't only Connelly's publisher that's doing it because I've seen higher prices for the ebook version of other best-selling titles, too. Even the typical $9.99 is too much for an ebook because it costs so much less to make and distribute compared to a paperback.

One might also deduce that by pricing ebooks higher than paperbacks and releasing ebooks several weeks after books printed on paper, publishers are trying to retain their traditional control over authors' works by discouraging readers from buying ebooks through delayed availability and over-pricing.

Once an author realizes that s/he can receive more money from a self-published ebook or print-on-demand contract than through a traditional publisher which takes approximately 52% of the price of the book, there might not be enough incentive for an author to try for the traditional route. Already, publishers are experiencing the desertion of writers, although not yet in the droves one may expect due to the lingering stigma of the vanity press.

The advantage for readers is that with traditional publishers losing control over the writers who are going for independent publication, they're also losing control over what is available for readers to read. Censorship by editors rejecting manuscripts solely because of personal bias, such as the editor who rejected a novel containing capital punishment only because she is opposed to capital punishment, is being eliminated by authors bypassing the traditional publishing houses in favor of the independent route. This makes the digital revolution the best expression of freedom of the press we've yet to experience.

What's surprising to me is how traditional publishers are fighting against and trying to resist the inevitable change after seeing how newspapers have declined and blogs have flourished instead of trying to figure out how to work with the transition for everyone's benefit. It's always difficult for those in power to step back and give up even a little of their power when the normal attitude is to gain even more power.

These certainly are interesting times.

Kindle Games on Sale

In case you didn't know, beside reading material, there are games to play on the Kindle when we want a break from reading including a variety of Sudoku games and New York Times crossword puzzles plus free games like Blackjack, Every Word, Mine Sweeper, Shuffled Row, and Video Poker. Occasionally, some of the games go on sale which is, of course, the best time to get them. At this time, several games are available until March 27 for only US$0.99. Unfortunately, some are not available to residents outside the U.S.

So far, the games I enjoy most are:

Maze A Thon (regular price $0.99)

Slingo (regular price $3.99) and

Solitaire (regular price $3.99).

This week, I picked up:

Chess (regular price $2.99)

Hangman 4 Kids (regular price $1.99)

Mahjong Solitaire (regular price $3.99)

Scrabble (regular price $4.99) and

Texas Hold'em (regular price $3.99)

saving nearly $13 off the regular prices. Score!

Score your own by checking out your favorite games or find new ones you might enjoy while the sale lasts.

Free MP3 Bible

A couple of years ago, I downloaded the book of Jude from the Firefighters for Christ which offers a free MP3 KJV Bible, read by Stephen Johnston, as part of their ministry for those who want it on their computers or MP3 players.

I downloaded it to see if it's like my Bible on cassette (it is) because I like Stephen Johnston's narration with faint background music between the chapters and books better than Alexander Scourby's narration with no background music of my CD Bible. I forgot about it because I've been waiting to buy an MP3 player when I really need one. Finding Jude on my laptop while looking for an MP3 file to try out on my Kindle, I realized that maybe I didn't need to buy the TTS Bible.

However, since the complete MP3 Bible is 1.1 GB, and since the Kindle's 3 GB is shared by ebooks, magazines, Audible files, MP3 files, and personal documents, the MP3 Bible may be larger than anyone might want to keep on a Kindle.

Fortunately, individual books may also be downloaded.

As a result, I downloaded the New Testament, 231 MB, one book at a time during last month's snow storms and am enjoying it on my Kindle. An important point I learned in the process is that everything has to be moved to the Kindle at one time to keep everything in order. When I transferred another book later, it didn't get appended to the end but was inserted somewhere else, chapters straying at random.

I'm thinking about transferring the entire Old Testament to my Kindle as well because I can always delete ebooks I've read and restore them from my Kindle Archive.

Also, I can free up Kindle space by deleting the MP3 Bible after I get an MP3 player. I think I still need to get an MP3 player eventually because I have over 15 GB of music on my laptop and don't like having to hook it up and turn it on just for music on the road. My road trip mix folder alone is over 6 GB.

Last week during my day trip to lunch with my friend, I tried listening to my Kindle but found it too soft for the ambient road noise. Fortunately, I also took along the cassette adapter from my Sony Discman. Setting the Kindle's volume to the max enabled me to listen to the New Testament through my car speakers just fine.

As usual with no buttons being pushed to keep my Kindle awake, the screen went into Sleep mode but the audio kept playing. After reaching my destination, I slid the power switch to awaken the Kindle and turned the audio off by pressing Alt + Space before powering the Kindle off. Tucking the unit into its case then into my handbag, I headed into the restaurant and had a great visit with my friend.

My Kindle's turning out to be everything I hoped it would be.

Visiting with a Friend

I had a funny experience on Facebook a few weeks ago when a friend now living in South Dakota was talking about her daughters' Girl Scout cookies.

Being facetious I asked, "Do you deliver?" and it turned out she was planning a trip close enough for me to drive over on a day trip to meet her. As it turned out, her husband came instead and we met for lunch last Thursday at the Red Lobster restaurant in one of the larger cities.

We talked about lots of stuff from the last time he ate at Red Lobster (when he proposed to his wife on her birthday) to driving in San Francisco (We agreed the thing to do is not drive - park your car and use the excellent public transportation to get around instead.) & L.A. to our beliefs and how some people like to ignore the scripture and make God out to be what they want Him to be, in effect, turning Him into a man-made god. Our backgrounds are different, but we're pretty close in many of our beliefs when we're not spot on. He gave me some things to look into the Bible about and I believe he got some from me, too.

Somehow, our conversation inspired some changes I've been wanting to do on my websites and I've been busy incorporating them. One has to do with the copyright notice. I had made one using JavaScript which makes it maintenance-free for me, but part of it won't show up if visitors don't have JavaScript enabled in their browsers.

Another modification is to change a drop-down menu into an include file so I won't have to upload all the other pages whenever I add a new page. By using an include file, all I have to do is upload the edited drop-down menu and the new webpage.

Suddenly, it dawned on me. Putting my copyright notice into an include file will solve the issue. I'll have to edit and upload only one little file one time each year I modify my websites and it won't matter if visitors have JavaScript enabled or not.

Whoo-hoo!

RSS Feed

This is a notice for those of you who subscribed to my blog via RSS feed: I will be discontinuing it later this week for personal reasons.

I apologize for any inconvenience.

Cabin Fever

It's overcast and cold which is to be expected of February.

Imagining myself outside flying a kite under a warm, blue sky, I think of things I want to do, need to do, could and should do. They range from going through mail to shopping for new clothes to (re)learning French, German, and Spanish because I want to travel, to redesigning my websites. Yesterday, I tried a couple of color schemes.

Reconnecting with a past president of my former writers group whose memoir chapbook is scheduled to be published next year, reminded me that I need to learn how to use the aids I've acquired to market my own books which I have to actually finish writing first in order to get published.

The horse goes before the cart.

Honestly, I have so much to do, I don't see how I'll ever die.

If only life worked that way for everyone.

James 4:
13. Go to now, ye that say, To day or to morrow we will go into such a city, and continue there a year, and buy and sell, and get gain:
14. Whereas ye know not what shall be on the morrow. For what is your life? It is even a vapour, that appeareth for a little time, and then vanisheth away.
15. For that ye ought to say, If the Lord will, we shall live, and do this, or that.

Snow Days

Now that the worst of the snow days have passed, it's time for a recap.

Since I checked my emergency food kit last fall and had plenty of groceries for regular daily use, the day before the big storm hit two weeks ago, I looked for what last minute items I'd need to see me through the rest of the week and, not needing anything, decided to be snowed in with a pan pizza from Pizza Hut. The pizza lasted two days.

Although I stayed in for the most part, there were a few times that I went outside just to get out. I've never had problems in fresh snow, but after it melts and refreezes overnight, walking gets dicey. I easily pulled the YakTrax Walkers onto my rain boots for the first time since I bought them in 2009 and really like how they bit into the icy snow and secured my footing. My appreciation tripled after hearing another woman slipped and fell, breaking a leg in two places. She's due to have surgery next week.

After the roads were cleared of the worst, I went to buy a few perishables such as bread, cheese, and bananas. Either I was too early and the store hadn't been restocked or other customers had already purchased the same items I wanted preparatory to the following week's snow storm that turned out to be a lot milder. I lucked out on bread probably only because I wanted wheat; all the white bread was gone.

Another store had bananas so green, I decided to buy grapes instead.

While unloading my few groceries, I visited with a woman who said she and her sister went to the store to stock up the day before the big snow storm hit and found it such a madhouse, they put their children in the shopping carts to protect them from the other customers' pushing and shoving. She said all the bottled water was gone.

I gave my report and was secretly glad I was able to skip buying groceries until after the big storm when the store was a lot calmer.

Being prepared is well worth it!

The only glitch was that a book I want to read is more expensive as an ebook than as a discounted paperback. Since buying the paperback was a spur-of-the-moment impulse, and I wasn't sure of the title, I didn't get it thinking there were enough copies on the rack for me to get it when I returned after the next snow storm if it was the one I hadn't yet read.

Surprise, surprise! Not only was "The Brass Verdict" by Michael Connelly completely sold out when I returned after last week's snow storm, there was only one copy of his "Nine Dragons" left. Obviously, other people had the same idea about reading through the snow storms that I had.

I passed the time during the snow storms and waiting for the roads to reopen by watching TV, downloading an MP3 Bible, reading several ebooks including "The Tenant of Wildfell Hall" by Anne Bronte and Nathaniel Hawthorne's "The House of the Seven Gables" and playing Solitaire on my Kindle.

Death of a Liar

I feel odd.

Over five years ago, my ringing phone awakened me from a nap. It was an attorney in another state dunning me to pay on my credit card.

Being sleepy, my first reaction was fear that I had forgotten to make my payment on time. Then, I realized that the company would have added a late payment fee onto my next statement and wouldn't have sicced a collector onto me until I missed several payments. That this was an attorney meant the situation was serious.

Gradually more alert as minutes ticked away, I began arguing with the attorney. I wasn't the one she was after. She had the right phone number, but the wrong location, wrong occupation, wrong Social Security number, wrong spousal information, and wrong everything else because she was talking to the wrong person. I didn't even have the credit card she was calling about.

After she apologized for disturbing me and hung up, I started pulling pieces together from things I recalled seeing on the Internet about a person fitting what the attorney said was supposed to have been about me. Spending a few minutes to verify my memory and find a phone number, I used my Caller-ID to call the attorney back and gave her the other person's phone number saying, "Try this number."

She thanked me and was curious as to why I tracked it down for her and from where I got it.

I replied, "Because I hate lying deadbeats and remembered I saw it before on Yahoo."

The reason I feel odd now is because while searching for something else on Google, I discovered that the person who had apparently given out my phone number to avoid collection calls back then was a member of the First Baptist Church in her town. From her photo, she was a nice, responsible woman like my deadbeat aunt who also attends church albeit Lutheran in a different state.

The sad part is that I ran across the information about her being a member of the Baptist church in her obituary online. I wish I could ask her, as a Christian, whatever in the world made her think she could put my phone number on her credit card account as if it were her own and get away with it? It wasn't a mistake. The numbers are much too different for it to have been a typographical error.

I hope she repented.

Psalms 37:21. The wicked borroweth, and payeth not again

Revelation 21:8. But the fearful, and unbelieving, and abominable, and murderers, and whoremongers, and sorcerers, and idolaters, and all liars, shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone: which is the second death.

Does H.R. 3 Redefine Rape?

There's a lot of noise going around about how H.R. 3 "No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion Act," sponsored by House Reps. Christopher H. Smith (R) of New Jersey and Daniel Lipinski (D) of Illinois and 175 mostly Republican cosponsors, redefines rape.

The noise-makers are trying to rouse opposition to the bill by saying things like federally-funded abortions will no longer be available to rape victims unless the victim is battered and suffers broken bones. They say rapes occurring to women who are incapacitated by alcohol or drugs will no longer be considered rape if the bill becomes law because force will no longer be a factor. They say statutory rape will no longer be rape, either. They say a lot of things.

The actual text at the heart of the controversy is:

''SEC. 309. TREATMENT OF ABORTIONS RELATED TO RAPE, INCEST, OR PRESERVING THE LIFE OF THE MOTHER.

The limitations established in sections 301, 302, 303, and 304 shall not apply to an abortion-

(1) if the pregnancy occurred because the pregnant female was the subject of an act of forcible rape or, if a minor, an act of incest; or

(2) in the case where the pregnant female suffers from a physical disorder, physical injury, or physical illness that would, as certified by a physician, place the pregnant female in danger of death unless an abortion is performed, including a life-endangering physical condition caused by or arising from the pregnancy itself."

The FBI's Uniform Crime Reporting Handbook (2004), which is used by local, state, colleges for crimes on campus, and other federal agencies when submitting data to the National Incident Based Reporting System states:

"Forcible Rape-Rape by Force

Definition: The carnal knowledge of a female forcibly and against her will.

'Against her will' includes instances in which the victim is incapable of giving consent because of her temporary or permanent mental or physical incapacity (or because of her youth)."

In United States v. Bright, the decision includes that "the force involved in penetration will suffice." United States v. Torres and United States v. Sargent say that force can be subtle and psychological, and need not be overt or physically brutal.

Therefore, H.R. 3 is merely closing loopholes left open by other federal rules, many temporary, prohibiting our tax dollars from being used for the abortions chosen by women wanting to limit the size of their families who eschew the options of contraceptives, abstinence, or adoption.

Please encourage your Members of Congress to support this bill and encourage your Representative to cosponsor it if s/he hasn't already.

Happy 3rd Blogiversary!

Today is my third blogiversary!

Thanks to my readers and visitors who encourage me by continuing to stop by, I produced 61 posts over the past 52 weeks, a slight increase over previous years.

Since a celebration calls for some type of refreshment, please help yourself to the Red Velvet Pancakes.

Happy Blogiversary!