Holidays

I am sure everyone and anyone who has any level of access to news media has heard about the new lineup of Kindle devices.  The only one that means anything in my opinion is the Kindle Fire.  The others are just more of the same with shiny new packaging.  I think Tychus Findlay said it best.  Hell, it's about damn time.

The only concerns I have with the Kindle Fire is it's marketing.  First is do not try to become a tablet iPad competitor.  It needs to remain an eReader first and a tablet second.  The last thing Amazon needs to do is piss Apple off and they pull the Kindle for iPod/Pad app and force everyone to go to Apples iBookstore.  With over 250 million iOS devices out there, this would be a serious blow to Amazon.  As far as self publishing goes, most of us won't be too effected because our works are already on the iBookstore.  The exception being that Amazon is king of the eBook and it would take quite a while for sales to migrate.  Amazon should focus on doing what they do best only better, not try and take on Apple who since the invention of the iPod and the iTunes store has single-handedly crushed all attempts at trying to compete.

So what does this mean for us?  My prediction is this holiday season, bad economy and all, Amazon is going to have a mega year.  There will be millions of new Kindles sold.  Some will be replacing older models, but a lot of them will also be new owners.  Nooks and iPads also will be unwrapped come December 25th.  This is something that you will want to leverage for yourself if you can.

My advice is to have something ready to go this holiday season.  If your current book is ready, consider delaying to December.  If you are almost done, put in some extra hours so it's ready to go for December.  Have a series already out?  Create an anthology.  Have a sale, something.  There is going to be about a two to four week window after Christmas that has everyone playing with their new eReader and you will want to take advantage of this.

Missed Goals and Catching up.

Labor Day is past and everyone is finally back to school.  Collage football started as well.  I enjoyed watching Boise State defeat Georgia.  It has been a fun five years watching a team from Idaho stomp the nation.  If you are not familiar with the Boise State Broncos, here are some little facts.  Since the 2006 season they have a winning record of   62-5.  Two of those seasons, 2006 and 2009 they were undefeated and won their BCS bowl games.  I don't care what the pundits say about Boise, they are a fun team to watch and they win.


Last week I set some aggressive goals for myself.  I wanted to write 10,000 words last week and 10,000 words this week.  Unfortunately I only reached 9,000 or so words last week.  I had intended to get those last thousand words done on Saturday, but the night before I got a phone call and helped a friend who had thrown out his back move.  We didn't finish until 2am.  When I woke up around noon, I just bailed and headed out for the weekend sore and tired.

To make up for missing the goal, I set Monday's goal to be 3,000 words to keep on track for this week and to make up the thousand missed words.  I want to give a big shout out to DJ Fresh and his Gold Dust Remix.  I set that song to loop, put the head phones on and when I was done for the day a cool 4,669 words were added to Guardian. My goal was not only caught up but blown out of the water.

It feels really good to get a lot of writing in.  It's the same feeling I had the last two weeks when I wrote Requiem.  The momentum has returned and baring any delay, I feel I can get the initial rough draft of Guardian finished by the end of the month.  The first week of September has passed us now, how are your goals shaping up?

Lastly, the September eBook a day giveaway for Requiem is still going on.  It's not too late to sign up and there are still 24 chances to win.  Congratulations to the following winners so far.


Sept 1, Walt Lamberg
Sept 2, Diana Langvin
Sept 3, Duane Hunsaker
Sept 4, David Anonymous
Sept 5, Ranae Rose
Sept 6, Carmon Colette