Amanda Hocking: The Mockingjay of Indie Publishing

I heard about Amanda Hockings recent two million dollar deal with St. Martin’s Press for her newest series Watersong in a four book deal Strong reactions have come  from the Indie Publishing industry. Some people are happy for her, some are angry with her, and many others are trying to understand why she did it. I haven’t read the reactions on twitter because I haven’t been on there lately. Every free moment is spent editing Claimed by Desire. When I finally read about the deal, my first reaction was, Amanda Hockings is Indie Publishing’s Mockingjay. I recently read The Hunger Games Trilogy  and I think it is one of the best series of books  ever. I know everyone did not read The Hunger Games, but if you didn’t, you...

Welcome back Mac

I did it. I got Mac OS X installed on my Dell Vostro 1310 and I am loving it. A few months ago I accidently erased Windows XP from my computer. Good thing I had backed up to Amazon S3 (using Dragon Disk) before so I didn’t lose all of my files. Anyways, instead of re-installing windows I decided to try to use a linux distribution. So I did and I used PCLINUXOS. The installation went well enough and I was off and running. PCLINUXOS was fine but there were some things that just didn’t work. I also thought my computer was able to operate faster than PCLINUXOS had it moving. I used the linux distribution for a few months then it started acting up. So I bought an external HD (WD Elements desktop external HD 2TB) That offers a ton of memory. More memory...

Daily Digest: Interesting Links and Such

Articles I found interesting 1/4/2011 Smugglivus 2010: Airing of Grievances (The Book Smugglers) 2010 is over, 2011 has begun, and Smugglivus is nearly complete! Which means that we must also undergo another very important ritual… The Airing of Grievances(in which we air out any dirty laundry from 2010. Warning: plenty of swearing and spoilers ahoy)Read More Between today and January 10, Kaplan Publishing is staging its second free e-book promotion, this time allowing consumers to download more than 130 e-books, including legal, medical, nursing, general educational and test prep books. The titles can be found on FreeKaplaneBooks.com. The aim “to help the multitude of new owners with e-book reading devices.” Kaplan president and publisher Maureen...

interesting links and such

I wanted to post interesting links I’ve come across today from various venues. Some of the links will be books and publishing related and some will be random. Here goes:HowtoLose20lbs.of Fat in 30Days… Without DoingAny Exercise In the last six weeks, I have cut from about 180 lbs. to 165 lbs., while adding about 10 lbs. of muscle, which means I’ve lost about 25 lbs. of fat. This is the only diet besides the rather extreme Cyclical Ketogenic Diet (CKD) that has produced veins across my abdomen, which is the last place I lose fat (damn you, Scandinavian genetics). Here are the four simple rules I followed…Read More 5 situations where it’s better to tell than show in your fiction One piece of writing advice gets held up as more sacred than any...

Happy New Year. Welcome 2011

Happy new years! I am happy 2011 is here. I did not hate 2010 but I do enjoy new beginnings. I’m not one for resolutions, because I feel most of them don’t get last the first few weeks. The changes I want to make, I want go make sure they happen. I’m going to write down my goals for 2011 as a somewhat guide and a reminder did the year. Here goes:1) write every day. Whether a blog post or add to my WIP.2) lose 50 pounds and keep it off.3) Finish my WIP4) earn a large some of money5) enjoy my family That’s all I can think about right now. At the end of 2011 I will see how good ive done. What are some of your goals for 2011?

Cheating and The Crackerjack Conundrum

After a hypothetical question on facebook about cheating, my husband and I started to talk about it. We got down to why people cheat and he said this that made me think. Hubby: “It’s like opening up a box of crackerjacks when you’re a kid.You’re like oh wow, ummm, I love these. They taste so good. crunch, crunch, crunch, OMG! a prize, that’s great. you play with the new toy and keep getting surprised. After a while… you might find a stale peanut. Or the box of crackerjacks finish. You’re full but that only lasts for a time. That’s one of the reasons people cheat. There is no excitement, no surprise any more.” Me: “Ok. What can be done to help that. You can eat but so much crackerjacks, after a while...