I’m happy to be actually getting this newsletter out during the first week of the month because I missed it altogether in July. All I can say is forces conspired against me. *LOL*
I don’t know about you, but in Texas, we’re in the teeth of summer. And I do mean summer. The temperature in my neck of the woods has hovered around 100O for days.
DIXIE CASH NEWS:
OUR RED HOT ROMANCE IS LEAVING ME BLUE hit store shelves as planned on June 15th.
Dixie did a book signing in Abilene on July 10th at Texas Star Trading Co. Had a great time. The turnout there has always been good and the store owners are wonderful hosts. Besides books about Texas and books written by Texas authors, they sell “Texas” stuff, so check out their Web site at www.texasstartrading.com.
I finished listening to DON’T MAKE ME CHOOSE BETWEEN YOU AND MY SHOES on audio. It was very entertaining, even if I do say so myself. Of course, the reader, Peggity Price, makes it entertaining. I think she’s from New York, but she has our Texas way of speaking down pat and she has Edwina pegged dead-on.
KINDLE NEWS:
SWEET WATER, which I wrote as Anna Jeffrey, is continuing to sell in the Kindle book store on Amazon. I hired a pro to design a new cover for it and it’s up in Amazon’s Kindle book store now. A digital edition of the book is also now available on B&N’s Web site for the Nook and on the Sony e-book site for the Sony E-Reader. The price for those downloads is also $2.99. Hopefully, it will soon show up on Apple’s iPad and a few others. If any of you have an iPad and can find it on it, please let me know. (I would also add, that if you do have an iPad, I’m extremely envious.)
The number of titles that Amazon’s Kindle store offers and the number of people who own e-readers continues to grow. Statistics show that e-book sales have jumped from 2% to 8% of the market in just a year’s time. The prediction is that e-bookswill reach 50% in less than 5 years. Who knows if it will? I sure don’t. But it’s possible that in time, the Kindle edition of SWEET WATER could out-sell the print edition, particularly since it’s for sale for $2.99. I would be thrilled to pieces if that happened. One thing for sure is that digital self-publishing is going to continue to cause overall changes in the publishing and bookselling industries. It’s both exciting and scary if you’re an author.
Various retailing gurus are now saying that e-readers will be the #1 item on consumer Christmas wish lists and that you will be able to buy one for under $100. That could be true. You might keep it in mind for your own Christmas list, because e-reading is a truly great reading experience. Following that thinking, the price of the Kindle e-reader has come down considerably. When I bought one a few months ago, I paid $259 for it at Amazon. Now it’s for sale for $189 on Amazon’s site and there’s one that is for sale as low as $139. I’ve seen it in a Target ad in the newspaper, but I don’t know if it’s being regularly stocked at Target. Barnes & Noble is now offering the Nook for $149 and $199, which is way cheaper than it used to be. Awesome!
PRINT PUBLISHING:
My agent is still shopping my TEXAS ROYALTY trilogy to the New York crowd, but no one has made an offer on it. We’re running out of publishers. If no one buys it, I’ll finish it and self-publish it as an original Kindle book. It’s a good story with good characters. I’m not going to let the story or those characters I’ve spent so much time and energy on go to waste just because I can’t find a New York publisher. This is the beauty of independent e-publishing. If none of the “Big 6” buys it, I no longer have to shove it under the bed. I can’t tell you what good news this is for authors. I’m already ten chapters into Book #1, which I’m calling THE TYCOON. This trilogy will take in all of Texas culture--big oil, big ranching, big farming, celebrity cowboys and horses --and will be filled with larger-than-life characters. True Texans. *smile*
WHAT I’VE BEEN READING
This month I’ve read “Just the Sexiest Man Alive” by Julie James. I started having problems with my glasses and my contact lenses, so I had to get that resolved before I could pick up night reading again. I’ve also read “Heart of the Matter” by Emily Giffin. She has become one of my faves, even though she’s written only a few books.
I’m still quoting Bix Bender, but from a different book. Here are some pearls from “Horse Sense, Pure & Simiple.” For all of you gardeners out there, don’t forget this one.: “Crap not only happens. It makes things grow.” Does anyone doubt this one? “A wild horse has more secrets than a gentle one.” Or this one? “You can’t judge a horse by its color. A bad horse is often a good color.” And the following might be Bix’s best advice of all and we should never forget it: “There are no friendly rattlers.”
That’s all folks. Keep reading. And look into the Kindle books store on Amazon. Don’t forget, if you don’t have the reader, you can download a Kindle book to your computer.
Until next time,
SADIE (who is still half of Dixie Cash and who used to be Anna Jeffrey, who is now Sadie Callahan, and who might be someone else tomorrow)
Previous newsletters can be read by joining Anna's Yahoo group.
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