Around the Bookish World: News Week-in-Review

A few weeks ago, I reported that Amanda Hocking had signed a huge deal with a major publisher for her upcoming series. Not only this produced headlines and a change of direction with the indie self pubbed author, another interesting tidbit emerged during the bidding process. Amazon who is traditionally an online vendor for books and ebooks although they offer self published authors to sell their books via their site. However it was recently known that Amazon teamed up with Houghton Mifflin Harcourt during their bid for Hocking’s new series, with HMH offering the print rights while they would offer the world ebook rights. The combined bid actually beat out St Martin’s Press’ offer – but this is just another sign that Amazon is focusing more on the publishing end of things.

I think right now there will …

Review: Friendly Fire by Megan Hart

Format read: ebook from the publisher through netgalleyNumber of pages: 53 pagesRelease Date: March 21st, 2011Publisher: Carina PressFormats available: ebookPurchasing Info: Goodreads, Author’s Website, Amazon, Carina Press

Book Blurb:

DEA Agent Kendall Frasier doesn’t want to see the man who shot and killed her partner. Zane Vincent wants to forget about the bust gone bad and the man he killed. When both officers arrive at the same tropical island for a department-regulated vacation, more heats up than just the sand and sun. Will they let their past prejudices keep them from giving in to their mutual attraction, or will Zane and Kendall both succumb to a little Friendly Fire?

My Thoughts:

I’m always a bit anxious when I pick up a short story because let’s be honest most of us have the prejudice that a short story can’t …

Around the Bookish World: News Week-in-Review

This week in the blogosphear we have Goodreads questionable policy and trashtalking galore for Dabwaha which has commenced this week in style. (Note this year has been brutal and if anyone follows Dabwaha on twitter – I apologize with the penis pics and the altered tweets which has led to cries of foul cheating!) But good luck to everyone who has entered Dabwaha!

Lauren Dane has highlighted another issue with Goodreads. She noticed that more and more star ratings are given to books that have hardly been written, and contacted Goodreads about this issue because it wasn’t realistically reflective of a book’s ranking. Goodreads replied with the following:

“Thanks for writing in with your feedback. While I can understand your frustration, it is not a requirement that …

My Wishlist: Must Reads Edition

Hello again.. Its great to be back here to give you all lil glimpse of what I desperately craving for this week’s wish list post.

Can’t believe how fast time has been passing by. Can’t believe March is half way over with. I hope you all are doing great and I hope for those enjoying their spring break are being safe yet having a wonderful time off.

So anyway here are the top of my TBR book pile list:

Christine Feehan’s Savage Nature (Leopard Series #5)
Penguin Group (USA)
April 26th 2011
Purchase Info and Links: Amazon, B&N, Book Depository, Goodreads

Book Description:

When Saria Boudreaux finds a dead body in the Louisiana bayou near her home, her first instinct is to go to the police. But there’s a problem: it looks like the …

Review: Demonic Persuasion by Mahalia Levey

Format Read: E-Book
Number of Pages: 75
Release Date: 15 November 2010
Publisher: Liquid Silver Books
Formats Available: E-Book
Purchasing Info: Author’s Website, Goodreads, Amazon

Blurb:

Born of a Navajo healer and a high-level prince of Hell, The Dine Gods demanded Fatal be turned over to her mother’s tribe to learn their healing arts and kept away from demon hands. But with her tutelage came cruel segregation and disrespect because of her father’s heritage. Not knowing why her life has suddenly come under demon attack, Fatal sets out, armed with her knowledge and her fighting skills, to take out any evil that getsin her way.As prince of a lower level of …

Review: Wilder’s Mate by Moira Rogers

Format Read: Ebook provided by the authorsNumber of Pages: 100Release Date: March 1st 2011Publisher: Samhain Publishing Formats Available: E-BookPurchasing Info: Author’s Website, Goodreads, Amazon, Samhain

Book Blurb:

Think a vampire-hunting bloodhound is dangerous? Try threatening his woman.

Bloodhounds, Book 1

Wilder Harding is a bloodhound, created by the Guild to hunt down and kill vampires on America’s frontier. His enhanced abilities come with a high price: on the full moon, he becomes capable of savagery beyond telling, while the new moon brings a sexual hunger that borders on madness.

Rescuing a weapons inventor from undead kidnappers is just another assignment, though one with an added complication—keeping his hands off the man’s pretty young apprentice, who insists on tagging along.

At odds with polite society, Satira’s only constant has been the aging weapons inventor who treats her like a daughter. …

Review: Tempest’s Legacy by Nicole Peeler

Format Read: Paperback
Number of Pages: 341
Release Date: 1 January 2011
Publisher: Orbit
Formats Available: Paperback
Purchasing Info: Author’s Website, Goodreads, Amazon

Blurb:

After a peaceful hiatus at home in Rockabill, Jane True thinks that her worst problem is that she still throws like a girl – at least while throwing fire-balls. Her peace of mind ends, however, when Anyan arrives one night with terrible news…news that will rock Jane’s world to its very core.

After demanding to help investigate a series of gruesome attacks on females – supernatural, Halfling, and human – Jane quickly finds herself forced to confront her darkest nightmares as well as her deepest …

Around the Bookish World: News Week-in-Review

This week has been pretty interesting with some surprising and not so surprising news!

Barnes and Noble has announced their recent profits from the last 3rd quarter, although there was losses compared to the previous year, growth of their ebooks sales have risen that they have claimed that they are now selling more in that format than in print. In fact they have also claimed that they are selling twice as many ebooks in any print format in their site. So according to their press release this means they have cornered 25 percent of online sales of ebooks? Because like Amazon who have claimed they have 70/80 percent of market shares of the market, although both have not offered hard data/figures to corroborate this claim. But it does seem that Barnes and Noble will be hopefully …

Around the Bookish World: News Week-in-Review

After last week’s epic news post and the authors gone HULK, things have been quite subdued this week, with some depressing and sad news of bankruptancy and deaths.

The biggest announcement has to be Borders filing for Chapter 11 insolvency and will be entering administration. Sadly 200 of their 600 megastores will be closing and around 6000 employees will face redundancies. This will also affect publishers which Borderes owes millions of dollars of debt and in turn as this article highlights will affect authors, because the majority of books being sold are via stores like Borders.

Another struggling mega store chain owner REDgroup is also facing bankruptancy, but this time its in Australia. Ironically enough they also own the Australian arm of Borders as well as, Angus and Robertson and Whitcoulls in New Zealand. This shows that traditional brick …

Review: Metatropolis: Cascadia by Jay Lake, Tobias Buckell, Mary Robinette Kowal, Elizabeth Bear, Ken Scholes & Karl Schroeder

Format Read: AudiobookNumber of Pages: 12 hours 45 minutesRelease Date:  November 16th, 2010Publisher: Audible FrontiersFormats Available: AudiobookPurchasing Info: Audiobook’s Website(audible.com), Goodreads, Amazon

Book Blurb:

The provocative sequel to the Hugo and Audie Award-nominated METAtropolis features interconnected stories by today’s top speculative fiction writers, performed by a galaxy of Star Trek ® stars.

As the mid-21st century approaches, the Pacific Northwest has been transformed — politically, economically, and ecologically — into the new reality of Cascadia. Conspiracies and secrets threaten the tenuous threads of society. The End of Days seems nearer than ever. And the legend of the mysterious Tygre Tygre looms large.

METAtropolis: Cascadia is the creation of Hugo and World Fantasy Award nominee Jay Lake; Mary Robinette Kowal, winner of the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer; New York Times best-selling author Tobias S. Buckell; Hugo Award winner Elizabeth …