Tuesday 8 February 2011

What's up?

Wow. I just previewed the film trailer for The Glass Harmonica that Dorothee's cousin Jakob has been making in Berlin, taking in the nape and hands of a beautiful young woman, and a glass harmonica they tracked down in the Musikenstrumentenmuseum in Leipzig. It's going to raise the neck hairs for sure.

So, I'm between two projects at present, but needing to keep active in both. The Glass Harmonica: A Sensualist's Tale is out in the world, being warmly received and quietly gathering readers to itself. We have to keep making its presence known by all the social and web media within our reach and budget. I hope more people will take the leap and buy the ebook, even if they don't have their e-reader yet. More sales means more time I can spend preparing the next manuscript. I believe that all the work I put in to Rosa Mira Books is worthwhile, but at this early stage, each sale gives a boost, that extra 'vote of confidence'. I've applied for funding to help with the next push — getting the Slightly Peculiar Love Stories edited, designed and marketed. This collection is going to be fun to read — quirky, intense, flighty, pensive: there will be a story for every mood.

Meanwhile, I've been reading a manuscript on the iPad's iBooks app. Because the story is well written, spell-checked, and captivating, and although it's in PDF, I might almost be reading an ebook already. Digital readers surely spell death to the slush pile, those toppling boxes of paper, wistful manuscripts that are, in the end, sent home or shredded.

I've yet to download the application Chris told me about: Docs To Go, which enables one to edit Word documents on the iPad. So many devices and applications offer to make our lives more streamlined — if only we overcome the initial resistance against yet another new task, another set of instructions, to learn by measured steps what our children tackle headlong and intuitively.

5 comments:

Tim Jones said...

I'm one of those people who doesn't have an e-reader yet, isn't quite sure what to get (or whether to go with an e-reader emulator for my computer), and hence hasn't bought any e-books.

So, when you say "I hope more people will take the leap and buy the ebook, even if they don't have their e-reader yet", I'd like to know - how does this work? And, to buy the book at this stage, do I need to specify what e-book format I'll be reading it in?

Apologies if this question shows I haven't been paying enough attention!

Penelope said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Christine said...

Tim, just a thought – I've downloaded Calibre (a free programme) for viewing ebooks in various formats). I found it very useful on my Mac laptop. I've downloaded some free ebooks and am now onto purchasing... Here's the start of the explanation:

Calibre is an open source e-book management tool. Simply put, calibre allows you to organize your e-book collection, convert e-books to various formats, and interact with your e-book reader, all in an intuitive and friendly manner. It is compatible with Microsoft Windows – XP, Vista, and 7 – as well as Apple's OS X (and various flavors of Linux. It was created by Kovid Goyal, who still leads its development. A number people around the world, including myself, contribute to calibre's development. (Throughout this guide and the online docs you will see 'calibre' instead of 'Calibre'. That's how Kovid named his program, so that's what we call it.)

The purpose of calibre is to simplify management of your e-book collection. It does this in several ways:

Calibre organizes your collection as a database so you can find the book you want when you need it. Calibre easily handles any size of collection, with a variety of tools to manipulate e-book metadata – title, author, rating, etc..
Calibre converts between multiple e-book formats.
Calibre supports a growing number of e-book readers, including Kindle, Sony, Nook, and many others.

Penelope said...

Thanks Tim. It's possible to download all three versions (PDF, ePub and Kindle/Mobi) as soon as the purchase has been made, before exiting the download page on the site.

And Christine, thanks for that useful link. Several apps are available for use on the PC, from Kindle, to Stanza, to Calibre which, as you say, is multipurpose, doing format conversions, too.

Tim Jones said...

Thanks, Christine and Penelope. The version of OS X on my Mac laptop is too old to run Amazon's Kindle emulator for the Mac, so I will look at alternative options.