Boxed Sets Galore

Boxed sets, i.e. bundles of books sold together, are the big new thing in indie publishing, and there are some amazing deals out there. Some of these authors are friends, so I've collected a selection of bundles to share with you, in addition the Romance Super Bundle, which contains my historical romance, Rogue's Hostage. I'm including the links to the sets at Amazon, but some are available elsewhere.

There's something for everyone in this selection!  These bundles aren't just a wonderful bargain - they're also a great way to discover new authors to love - and book boyfriends to sigh over!

This set is for fans of rich alpha men...

BILLIONAIRE BAD BOYS OF ROMANCE BOXED SET (10 Book Bundle)
Selena Kitt, Tawny Taylor, Ava Lore, Terry Towers, Anna Antonia, Amy Aday, Nelle L'Amour, Dez Burke, Marian Tee

Tagline: Love your book boyfriends filthy rich, devastatingly beautiful & irresistibly bad?

Review: "I like alpha men, and I like bargains! This set of books is full of raw, powerful men and the ladies who love them (including me!)"

Also available at: Apple  ~ Amazon UK ~ Barnes and Noble ~ All Romance Ebooks ~ Kobo
Top 100 in Amazon, Top 50 in Barnes & Noble, and Top 20 in AllRomance

In the mood for romantic suspense?

IN HARM'S WAY by Norah Wilson, MJ Fredrick, and Trish Milburn

Three full romantic suspense novels in one collection

Review: "Three different books of damsels in distress and the great looking hunky men that rescue and then fall in love. Ive always been a sucker for a great romance book. These stories are original and a lot of fun."

For paranormal readers...

SHIFTER ROMANCE BOXED SET (11 Book Bundle) -- by Celia Kyle, Eliza Gayle, Selena Kitt, Tawny Taylor, Marina Maddix, Elixa Everett, Cynthia Brint, Dawn Steele, Aubrey Rose, Julianne Reyner, and Adriana Hunter

Stories from New York Times and USA Today bestselling authors Aubrey Rose, Eliza Gayle, Terry Towers (writing as Elixa Everett), Tawny Taylor , Aphrodite Hunt (writing as Dawn Steele) and Marina Maddix ,as well as #1 Paranormal author Celia Kyle, Top 20 Shifter Romance author Cynthia Brint, Top 10 Barnes & Noble and Top 100 Amazon BBW Romance Author Adriana Hunter, and Top 100 Amazon and Barnes and Noble best selling and award winning author Selena Kitt.


Review: "I'm in shifter romance heaven!  When I saw the all-star author line-up in this boxed set I couldn't pass it up!"

For fans of contemporary romance...


MIRACLE INTERRUPTED SET (Books 1, 2 and 3, Contemporary Romance & More)  - by Edie Ramer
Titles: MUST WORSHIP CATS, STARDUST MIRACLE, MIRACLE LANE

Review: "I love a book where the "heroine" bursts from her cocoon and blossoms into a full-grown, beautiful, real woman!"

For the mystery lover...

YOUNG LADIES OF MYSTERY Boxed Set by Stacy Juba
Twenty-Five Years Ago Today, Sink or Swim, Dark Before Dawn

Review: "Juba demonstrates an exquisite talent for leading her readers through a maze only for them to discover a completely different outcome..." ~ Ariesgirl Book Reviews

If you're already in the mood for holiday romance...


CHRISTMAS ON MAIN STREET - by E. Ayers, Susan R. Hughes, Tori Scott, Mona Risk, Jill James, Kristy Tate, Leigh Morgan, Carol DeVaney, Pepper Phillips, Stephanie Queen

Review: " I love Christmas-themed stories and these are just perfect to put me in the holiday spirit. An awesome deal for eleven books by talented authors."

And last, but not least (in my opinion)

ROMANCE SUPER BUNDLE by Dale Mayer, Donna Marie Rogers, Edie Ramer, Amy Gamet, Linda McLaughlin, Kate Kelly, Pamela Fryer, Lois Winston, Barbara Phinney, and Wendy Ely

Review: "Great buy for your money. If you're looking for various types of books then it's all here to enjoy thumbs up."

Amazon, All Romance eBooks, Barnes and Noble, Kobo, iTunes and Smashwords

What catches your eye this month?

Linda

May Giveaway

Update: Congratulations to winner Wilma F. 

I've been doing a giveaway each month and May is no different. Prize is a download of one of my Amber Quill Press titles, including the erotic and M/M romances written under my Lyndi Lamont pseudonym. To enter, comment on this post or email me at:

Winner will be chosen the day after Memorial Day and notified by email.

My bookshelves can be found at:

http://www.lindamclaughlin.com/bookshelf.html and
http://www.lyndilamont.com/Bookshelf.html

Linda McLaughlin also writing as Lyndi Lamont

Blogging at Slice of Orange

I'm blogging today at A Slice of Orange about the forthcoming ASUS dual screen e-book reader. Would a dual screen e-book reader tempt you? It sounds intriguing to me.

Linda

Free e-books from Random House

This holiday season Random House is generously offering free copies of selected e-books from their catalog. Titles include:

Murder List by Julie Garwood

The Whiskey Rebels: A Novel by David Liss

The Idiot Girl and the Flaming Tantrum of Death by Laurie Notaro

Free-Range Chickens by Simon Rich

A Dangerous Man by Charles Huston

Caught Stealing by Charles Huston

Prague by Arthur Phillips

Six Bad Things by Charles Huston

The Foreign Correspondent by Alan Furst

The books are available for the Amazon Kindle at the following e-tailers:

eReader

Fictionwise

Sony Reader

If you've never read an e-book, this is a good opportunity to experiment. Enjoy!

Linda

e-Books Making Inroads?

(Note: Link repaired 12-25-08, 9:45AM)

The New York Times published an article on Dec. 23, 2008 entitled Turning Page, E-Books Start to Take Hold. Authors Brad Stone and Motoko Rich did a good job of summarizing the situation.

The item that struck me the most was the fact that 20% of Amazon's sales of “The Story of Edgar Sawtelle” are Kindle sales. That's very encouraging to us e-book authors.

The only thing I'd quibble with is the authors description of Harlequin as "the Toronto-based publisher of bodice-ripping romances". (emphasis mine) Ugh, will that old meme ever go away? Romances have changed so much since that description was first used back in the 1970's.

I'll try to get my monthly astrology post up soon, but in the mean time, Merry Christmas and Happy Hanukkah to all!

Linda

Amazon Kindle Back in Stock

When the Amazon Kindle e-book reader was introduced on November 19, 2007, the existing stock sold out in 5 1/2 hours! After that, everyone who wanted a Kindle had to order it and wait weeks for delivery. Now, app. 5 1/2 months later, Amazon finally has Kindles back in stock.

I ordered my Kindle in late November and received it in mid-December, and I love it. It really has become my constant companion. I love the wireless connection and near instantaneous delivery of books, magazines and blogs. I love being able to adjust the font size of my books. I love the larger-size page (compared to reading on my PDA) and the fact that the Kindle is so lightweight. I could go on and on, but I won't bore you.

So the good news is, the Kindle is back in stock. The bad news is it still costs $399.00. Is it worth the price? It was to me, but I told my DH it counted as both Christmas and birthday present for the year. But I'm an avid e-book reader, not a new user, the the chance I would use my Kindle a lot was high. Obviously, this is an individual choice, but one I'm glad I made. What do you think?

Linda

For more on the Kindle, go to Me and My Kindle and Amazon's Kindle product page.

Read an e-Book Week

Today is the first day of "Read an e-Book Week", an annual event that draws attention to electronic books. I won't go into all the pros and cons of e-books here, but I will stay that e-books probably saved my marriage. ;) Before e-books, I used to have to sneak my book purchases into the house when my husband wasn't looking. Being able to store my reading matter on the computer hard drive instead of trying to find a place for yet another print book in my over-cluttered house has been a real godsend.

I've been reading e-books for 8 years or so now, and I'm a big fan. I started reading on my laptop, but it wasn't long until I wanted a handheld reader. My first one was a Franklin eBookman which I found less than satisfying, even before it quit working completely. So a few years ago, when I had a chance to pick up an RCA/Gemstar 1100 at a good price I jumped at it. (RCA had purchased the Rocket Book.) My 1100 still works just fine and I still enjoy reading on it. (The updated version is the eBookwise 1150, still sold online.) I still read occasionally on my PDA, too.

However, my favorite reader is my new Amazon Kindle. It's not the electronic ink I like as much as the size of the device and the fact that it's so lightweight I can easily hold it in one hand. I like the bigger screen, though that's also true of my 1100. Click here to read my Kindle review.

Who else reads e-books? Why or why not?

If you do, do you read on your computer or on a personal device?

Linda / Lyndi

Me and My Kindle

My primary Christmas present is an Amazon Kindle, and I love it. In fact, my Kindle and I are pretty much inseparable these days.

I've been an avid e-book reader for some years now. I've read e-books on my laptop, my RCA Germstar 1100, a PDA and a Pocket PC. I've enjoyed most of my readers (with the notable exception of the now-defunct Franklin eBookman), but the Kindle is rapidly becoming my favorite.

I'm amazed at how lightweight it is, much less than the comparably-sized RCA Gemstar 1100. The wireless is fast, unbelievably fast, so it's really easy to buy from the Kindle store or download updates to magazine or blog subscription. I like being able to download a sample to read before deciding to buy a book, too. That's a very nice feature. If you leave the wireless off most of the time, the battery life is excellent, and the device charges back up very quickly.

I thought I might miss the backlighting, and at times I do, but it's also nice to be able to read in sunlight, particularly when traveling in the car. (Not when I'm driving, of course!)

I'm glad I waited for the Kindle instead of buying the Sony Reader because, for me, the Kindle is more useful and versatile. I already had a lot of books in unprotected Mobipocket format which can be read on the Kindle without any conversion. It's easy to transfer files from your computer to the device using the USB cable. I had a little more confusion getting files onto the SC card, though. I thought I could pre-load the card, but the Kindle didn't recognize any of the files. I wiped them off the card then transferred them to the Kindle directly. After that I transferred most of the files to the SD card using the Kindle. So apparently anything on the card has to go through the Kindle first in order to write a directory file. Makes sense when you think of it.

Furthermore, if you download the Mobipocket Reader Desktop 6.1, you can use this desktop software to convert PDF, HTML, DOC and plain text files which can then be read on the Kindle. I've found this process to be about 95% effective. The only problems I've notice so far, with a couple of old HTML files, is that the title wasn't recognized by my Kindle.

The only real frustration I've had with it so far is that, while it will play MP3 music, it won't play my MP3 podcasts. I can't understand what the difference is beyond the fact that the podcasts in question are so much longer, about 45 minutes. They're all MP3 files, so what the hey? Oh, well.

Also, it's easy to hit the next page or previous page buttons by accident, but I figure once I get used to the device, that won't happen so much any more.

Is this the "killer device" the e-book community has been waiting for?

Probably not, but the wireless connectivity alone makes it a huge step forward. The real problem remains the lack plethora of formats, so that's a software problem that can't be solved by new hardware. Chances for real standardization range from a best case scenario of years to a worst case scenario of never. For now, it doesn't hurt to have more than one reader that will handle different formats.

The only other downside is the $399.00 list price and the fact that the device is only available in the US. The price may eventually come down, but probably not anytime soon, since the Kindle has been "temporarily out of stock" almost since it was released. I ordered mine at the end of November and had to wait about two weeks to get. It may take even longer now. The fact that demand appears to be steady is a good sign for the future of the Kindle. :D

If anyone has any questions about the Kindle, I'll try to answer them.

Lyndi / Linda