Posts Tagged ‘leisure’

Why You Need An Ebook Reader

Friday, March 16th, 2012

Do you read a lot? Do you spend a lot of money on books and magazines? Or do you go on vacation and have to heave half-a-dozen paperbacks with you to read at the poolside? If you do then it is worth considering acquiring an ebook reader.

A paperback might be $10, so if you take six books with you then that is $60, whereas an ebook reader will cost between $120 and $200, which includes access to millions of books and articles, lots of which are free.

Most ebook readers are a little bit bigger than a paperback, but only a third or the thickness. The reader can be preloaded with thousands of books so that you never need to be short of reading material. What is more, if you buy certain readers, you will have Internet access to libraries of books to download anywhere in the world.

If you are an avid reader you will recoup your outlay on the ebook reader within a year or so, because electronic forms of books are generally much cheaper than their hardcopy counterparts. Numerous ebooks cost less than $5 and millions that have gone out of copyright are completely free.

If your ebook reader is ready for the Internet and most of them have worldwide Wi-Fi access, you can go online, browse the Internet and read and send email too. This is a colossal advantage as it means that you have a cut-down laptop computer at your disposal for little over $100.

That will save you having to visit an Internet cafe to keep in touch with your friends and family while you are on holiday. If you travel much, you will recover your outlay even more quickly in this way. The ebook reader is also small enough to fit in your pocket, briefcase or handbag..

Most of these ebook readers have a two-tone display, but there are more expensive devices that will also display in colour. For instance, Kindle has a new item known as Kindle Fire for $199 which is a colour ebook reader which will go online as any normal laptop will.

The big difference is that as an Amazon customer, you will have access to over 18 million books, magazines, films and TV programs. This is the route that these ebook readers are going. They are in fact becoming total entertainment devices.

Let’s say you like a TV program and read a favourite magazine each week. If you go on holiday abroad, you will be able to watch the program and read the magazine before you get back home. These are quite brilliant advantages from what used to be humble ebook readers a few months ago,

Not just that, but say you begin watching a program on the bus on the way home. When you get home, your electronic account manager will remember where you are in the film, book or TV program and you can start it up from there on your large screen TV.

Owen Jones, the writer of this piece, writes on a range of subjects, but is now concerned with Kindle fire. If you want to know more, please go to our website at Kindle vs Book

Ebooks: The Alternative To Print Publishing

Sunday, March 11th, 2012

Have you written a book and been trying to get it published? If so, you will know how hard it is to write 120,000 words of attention-grabbing material. However, it does not end there, frequently it is harder to get the book printed than it was to write it.

You can spend years writing your book and it is really depressing when nobody displays any desire to publish it. Some writers take years to find a publisher and some never manage it at all. If that sounds familiar, how about publishing it yourself?

Years ago, this just meant one thing – paying a publisher to print a few hundred copies that you have to sell yourself. However, nowadays there is a second alternative and that is to publish it as an ebook. This is quite easy nowadays and you can realistically have your ebook on sale within a few hours.

If you have written a book, say, a novel, you will want to see it on book shelves in book stores, which means that you will have to hawk it to publishers until you get bored with it. If you decide that you want to publish anyway, this is how you go about it.

You will probably have written your.book in MS Word format, which is as handy a format as any. First download OpenOffice from the Internet, you will find it by Googling ‘OpenOffice’. OpenOffice is a free office suite equivalent to and, many say, better than MS Office.

Then load your book into OpenOffice and locate the PDF converter in the ‘File’ tab. Save your document as a PDF document. First add a few photos if you think that they will improve the book.

Next go to Amazon and open an account at their Kindle Direct Publishing department. Go to Bookshelf and click on ‘Add a new title’. The Wizard will lead you through uploading your book on to their shelves and you will be able to set the cost for your ebook.

You will receive up to 70% of the revenue and you may choose this percentage yourself too. You will be able to upload a picture for your book as well.

Amazon will deal with all the aspects of transacting the sales for you. They will advertise your book, take the money and provide the customer with a link to download your book. The proceeds from sales will be held in your Amazon account until it reaches $100, when a cheque will be dispatched to you.

Sales will be made in US dollars, Pounds Sterling and Euros and capital will mount up in the three currencies. The currencies are not amalgamated so you will have to wait until you get 100 Euros and 100 GBP. You will also get a link to your book’s ad, so that you can promote it yourself by email, newsletter or website.

Owen Jones, the writer of this piece, writes on a range of topics, but is now concerned with kindle reader format. If you want to know more, please go to our web site at Kindle vs Book

Publishing Your Ebook

Saturday, March 10th, 2012

Computers changed industry in a huge way when they became popular in the Eighties and Nineties. Then the Internet brought a new wave if innovation in the Nineties and Naughties. It is hard to imagine an industry that has not been profoundly altered by these excellent innovations. The latest industry to be shaken to its nucleus is the publishing industry.

Publishers used to have a stranglehold on which books got published and which did not. Publishers yardstick for whether to publish or not was simply financial: is the book liable to create money or not?

This is reasonable enough, but it means a weighty bias towards commercial novels written by well-known authors. It was very difficult for new writers to put a foot in the door.

The music industry was the first part of the publishing industry to lose its domination over its sphere of influence. The book publishing sector will be the next to go and the change is already well underway. Nowadays, you can download a free publishing software package which is at least as feature-packed as MS Office.

Open Office has a highly-rated word processor with which you can compose your book. It has an image editor with which you may design the book cover and other illustrations. It also has a built in PDF conversion module. This equals that you may publish your ebook in a style that any computer in the world can read.

When your book is ready to publish, there are at least two ways to go, if you live outside the US; within the US, Google will help too. Google’s Publisher works like Amazon’s more non-discriminatory system, so let us have a look at that one. First go to Amazon and then click through to Kindle Direct Publishing, a sister company of theirs.

Then you will have to open an account with Kindle DP. This is simple, free and quick. Go to your bookshelf and click on ‘Add A New Title’. Follow the directions and your book will get uploaded into the Amazon system.

You decide on how much you would like to sell it for and you can choose how much of that you want for yourself. It seems a daft question, but you can take up to 70%.

If your book is accepted by a reviewer, it will be assigned an exclusive book number and will become part of the colossal number of books that Amazon sells worldwide.

It will be downloadable anywhere in the world; Amazon will deal with the payment and keep the money in your account. You will also be able to download a bit of code to promote your book on your own web site.

The alternative is ClickBank. ClickBank will also organize for your book will get showcased to over 100,000 affiliates who may be willing to help you sell your book for a percentage of the proceeds.

Look very cautiously at CB’s small print on paying out. I have sold things on CB and never received a bean from them, because of the small print. I do not bother with them any more.

Amazon is the route to go. In 2010 they sold more ebooks than paper books for the first time ever. They also have a motive to be promoting ebooks – the Kindle, which is their own ebook reader.

A traditional publisher would pay the author 5-6% of the profits on a book with Kindle it is 70% of the sales price – that is a big difference for the writer.

Owen Jones, the author of this article, writes on a variety of topics, but is now concerned with electronic book devices. If you want to know more, please go to our web site at Kindle vs Book

Home Arts And Crafts

Friday, February 24th, 2012

We all attempt to do our bit with regard to recycling and although most people might not be trained art critics, they know what they like, so why not strive to create new objets d’art out of things that you are able to recycle? It seems like the ideal solution to help the environment and to convey your artistic urges.

There are several methods of doing this, but one of the easiest is decoupage. Decoupage is the art of sticking bits of paper (pictures, words and shapes) onto other items. So, all you need to get started is some old magazines, a pair of scissors, some glue and something to decorate.

Things to decorate can literally be anything: boxes, table tops, headboards, walls, ceilings – anything. The first thing to do is to thoroughly degrease the surface to be decorated and perhaps ‘rough it up’ a little with sandpaper, so that the glue has a good key.

Whilst you are doing this, think about the theme of the artwork. What do you want to convey? Is it for yourself or is it a present for someone? Where will it hang or where will it be sited? Are you going to include words or just pictures? Are you going to cut things out of magazines or use your own photographs?

Animals and flowers are always nice. So is scenery. However, a dog-lover might prefer just dogs on his gift, a lover of sailing might like pictures of yachts and the coastline. The opportunities at this stage are endless. Cut out sufficient pictures (and words) to cover your surface.

Then assemble them on the surface. Play around with the placement of the things until you are glad with the overall effect and then stick them down using plenty of glue. Make sure there are no air bubbles under the articles of paper. It does not matter if the pieces of paper overlap; in fact it can result in a pleasing impact.

Leave the artwork to dry truly well. There should be absolutely no moisture in the paper before proceeding to the next step or you will ruin the impact. If there are any bubbles, cut them with a razor blade and squirt glue underneath before rubbing them flat.

Next cover the whole surface with either a transparent glue or varnish. It is normal to use clear, gloss varnish, but you can accomplish a different effect with matt varnish and you can instantly ‘age’ the piece by using stained varnish.

Carry out trials using different seals for different effects. The seal will protect the papers, keep them from getting wet and produce a lovely effect. It is better to add a number of layers of sealing varnish, because this will give greater protection and add a certain ‘depth’ to your artwork.

Shoe boxes create perfect starter items for decoupage. A decorated shoe box may be used to save coins in or to hold odds and ends. Such a waterproof box is useful in the kitchen to place tissues in or as a sewing box.

Owen Jones, the author of this piece, writes on a number of subjects, but is now concerned with large boxes for shipping. If you want to know more go to Where Can I Buy Shipping Boxes?

The Particular Dugi Routine Having To Do With Playing WoW

Sunday, February 19th, 2012

Becoming one of the greats on your Warcraft server is not an easy task. It’s going to be a long road from level 1 to 85, and then to mastering the game beyond. Your work doesn’t end when you hit the level cap, actually it’s just beginning. That’s why you need strategies from Dugi to get you there fast.

If you want to hit the level cap quickly, then you’ve found the best guide out there to do just that. This is going to take you from level 1 to 85 in just over a week. That means just a week of your time to hit endgame.

Dugi is going to take your hand right from the start, and show you how to get from point A to point B every step of the way. That includes advice on questing, and leveling up really fast.

But of course, what you really need is to make sure that the guide is always up to date right? Well Dugi comes with free lifetime updates, so you can be sure that your information is always current with the game.

The major pitfall that most players fall into with World of Warcraft is not using their time intelligently. This is a big game, and it takes a really long time to do just about anything, that’s why you’ve got to be prepared.

What’s going to happen with this game, is you’re going to end up being overwhelmed if you don’t know how you need to spend your time. That’s because everything in WoW takes a lot of time.

That means prioritizing to make sure that you hit endgame as quickly as possible, so that you can worry about everything else later. It’s going to take forever to get geared, so that’s the most important thing of course.

Dugi is going to update your Warcraft guide for free everything something major happens, so that you’re always on top of the latest changes, and so that you can still stay on top of the game as well.

See extra of this writer’s articles about Dugi Guides review.

Young Adult Fantasy Books Which Inspire Thought

Wednesday, February 15th, 2012

Witches, vampires and werewolves, oh my. These are just a few of the inhabitants of the world of young adult fantasy novels. This genre has really taken off in the past decade for young readers looking for thrills, chills and, surprisingly, romance. These books make reading a pleasure for teens and the best of them are true literature that inspires and provokes the mind.

The “Harry Potter” series by J. K. Rowling is king of the genre. Teenagers enjoy these books tremendously as they feature a boy wizard who fights against the evil Lord Voldermort. Harry is a schoolboy at the Hogwarts school of magic who must defend himself and his friends against the constant presence of opposing forces. His wit, heart and courage make Harry an intriguing and much loved hero.

Those who prefer eternal love and romance in their teen novels are drawn to Stephanie Meyer’s “Twilight” books. These are all about the ordinary schoolgirl Bella who falls for the intense beautiful vampire named Edward. Things get complicated when a werewolf named Jacob, who has an inherent hatred of vampires, also vies for the love of Bella.

While these books represent the best selling works of the genre, there are other notable tales as well for teen readers. Among the most noteworthy of these is Lois Lowry’s “The Giver”. A boy named Jonas lives in what should be the perfect society where pain and suffering do not exist. The realization that this world is not all that seems becomes apparent to Jonas when he is assigned the role of receiving all the world’s memories from the society’s “giver”.

Nancy Farmer’s “House of the Scorpion” is another fantasy novel that deserves attention. Teens reading this work learn of the life of Matteo, a clone of a rich drug lord, who has been created to be a living bank of spare parts for the original El Patron. The novel is intense, dark and revealing as it considers the controversial subject of cloning and its possible repercussions.

Readers everywhere can revel int he young adult fantasy books that have become so popular. Teens should look for the best in this genre so that can not only enjoy these books but consider the tough concepts they embody. It is a sure bet these books will line the shelves for a very long time.

If you’re in the market for a new fantasy and adventure novel, get ready for Victoria Foyt’s upcoming book release, “Revealing Eden”, the opening book of her “Save the Pearls” trilogy. In a familiar but alternate reality where higher social ranking is directly tied to more melanin in the skin, the light-skinned ‘pearls’ must adhere to stringent mating rules.

How To Get The Most From A Free Ebook Marketing Campaign

Monday, February 13th, 2012

All the best Internet marketers use ebooks as part of their major promotional campaigns. The reason for this is that many individuals like to read free ebooks on subjects that interest them in their eternal search for more information. A lot of people wold rather surf the Net now than read a book.

I do both, but I can completely understand people who prefer to surf and increase their level of knowledge than read some writer’s fantasies that ultimately they will forget.

If you would like to run a successful ebook advertising campaign, it is these individuals that you need to target, because many surfers for information also pass interesting articles and ebooks on to friends that will appreciate them.

Therefore, the first thing that you need is an interesting topic.. Select a topic that interests a lot of individuals, but be suspicious of going for a huge issue that everybody writes on, because of the competition, unless you have a unique context. Instances of saturated markets are: ‘How To lose Weight Quickly’ and ‘How To Get My Boyfriend Back’.

So, once you have a popular issue in a non-saturated market, you require a catchy title. The title should be intriguing – it has to make the reader want to know more: ‘How to…’ and ‘The Best Way To…’, so is ‘7 Ways to…’. Write down twelve titles and read them aloud. Test them on your family. If you have two decent titles, use one as the main title and one as a sub-title.

Once you have your title, you have to tailor good quality content on it. Make sure that you stay targeted on the title for an piece. If you are composing an ebook, how long is it going to become? Think of chapter titles on the book title. Allow 500-1,000 words per chapter, so if you would like a book of 20,000 words, you will require about 25-35 chapters. Keep each chapter’s content focused on the chapter’s title.

When you have composed your ebook, write a list of contents and a list of relevant links (back to your website(s)) and place an ad for your product on the same page as the table of contents. Put it in the footer of each page if you like and find a good, relevant image for the book cover.

When your book is at this stage, you have to wrap it up. By this I mean format it. The two main formats are EXE and PDF. EXE files are actually programs, so this ebook would become a self-extricating ebook for MS operating systems only. It is a convenient format if you would like to allow others (affiliates) the right to rebrand it.

PDF format can be read by any other computer, so you will not be excluding possible clients and it can be rebranded, but not so easily. It is the best format if you are giving your book away, but EXE might be better if you would like affiliates to help you sell it.

Compression is vital to people who do not have a fast Internet connection, but use a common compression technique that comes with free with most computers like WinZip or individuals will be confused. Strive to keep everything automated; offer your book in both formats and compressed and uncompressed if you are in doubt.

Send your ebook to ebook libraries for free distribution. Offer owners of substantial newsletters the opportunity of a free advert in your book, if they will put a link to it in their next newsletter. Make certain you select a newsletter on a related issue for increased success.

Owen Jones, the writer of this piece, writes on a range of topics, but is now concerned with handheld book readers. If you want to know more, please go to our website at Kindle vs Book

Should You Publish Your Viral Ebook In Exe Or PDF Format?

Monday, February 13th, 2012

First, let us all be certain what .exe and .pdf is. They are entirely different types of computer files because .exe is a computer program peculiar to Microsoft Operating Systems whereas .pdf denotes a document in Adobe Acrobat’s own format.

This makes a big difference because it means that the .exe ebook is a self-opening program that opens an ebook in set-ups that can run MS programs, whereas .pdf documents can be read by suitable programs under any operating system.

As the writer of an ebook, you will want to make it available to as many people as possible. Most people use an MS in business system like Windows, so it would seem a decent concept to publish your ebook using a MS program.

However, you would be excluding hundreds of millions of computer users who use the Linux in business system and millions of crowd who use an Apple computer and these people are often the ones who take computing seriously enough to be interested in your ebook, depending on what it is written around.

If you want to compile your ebook as an Adobe Acrobat file, you are expected to buy a PDF compiler from Adobe, but you do not have to. Open Office is a colossal suite of office software to rival Microsoft Office. Lots of people say that it is far better than MS Office.

Open Office container read (and compose) MS Office files too, so you bin compose your ebook in MS Word (if you want), load it into Open Office and export it as a PDF file. Open Office is free as well.

PDF files compress more than EXE files and there are more features within the Adobe format than there are in MS Word. You will also be relieved to know that PDF are not focused on for viruses like EXE files, so individuals are less suspicious of downloading them as well.

Despite the many advantages of the PDF format over EXE programs, there may yet be a decent reason for your preferring to go with EXE. EXE ebooks can be rebranded whereas PDF’s cannot (easily).

So, if you want to sell your ebook and encourage others to sell it (because it has your links in it), you will need your customers to be able to brand it with their own PayPal address easily (without your intervention).

So, the question of: should your viral ebook get Exe or PDF? bin become answered by first deciding what you are trying to do with your ebook. If you are selling it alone or if you are giving it away because it contains your links, you should use PDF.

However, if you are selling to front line affiliates to sell on, they will require to become able to rebrand it, which equals that the ebook ought to get an EXE (executable) file.

Owen Jones, the author of this piece, writes on a range of topics, but is now concerned with electronic book devices. If you want to know more, please go to our website at Kindle vs Book

What Science Fiction And Fantasy Books Are All About

Sunday, February 12th, 2012

Science fiction and fantasy books fall under the category of fictional writing. Imagination revolving around things such as future settings, scientific elements and technology, space travel, beings from other planets and paranormal stuff is mostly employed in writing SF books. Those involving magic and supernatural activities are classified under fantasy writing.

Fictional science books are mostly written on the possibilities of alternate worlds and the future. They are more or less like fantasy books only that they are written to obey the laws of science, meaning only practical imaginary things are applied. In nineteen fifty four the word sci-fi was introduced and over times, with entrance of popular culture writers, critics began to associate this word with works that were done on low budget and technology.

Fantasy writing though still a genre of speculative fiction, does note involve any kind of scientific or macabre themes. It is largely dominated medievalist forms. It also includes fairy tales, wizardry, sorcerers and witchcraft completely steering clear of events that might be termed as horror.

To many people SF is unrealistic but it should be kept in mind that they use what is called suspension of disbelief. The person reading the book is provided with applicable explanations and solutions involving the use of fictional elements. The elements involved include time setting, special setting, characters of fiction, future technology, contradicting scientific principles and paranormal activities.

Those disciplines that include the study of fantasy are English, cultural studies, medieval studies, comparative literature and history. Fantasy writers use the theory of Tzvetan Todorov to several connections of political, historical and literature medievalism and popular cultures.

The categories of scientific fiction and fantasy are not easy to tell apart from the way they overlap. To define them is definitely a daunting task. The best way to distinguish them is not by defining them but through reading both works. It has been said that scientific fiction the improbable made possible where as fantasy is the impossible made probable.

Looking to move your children away from the computer for a bit? Consider introducing them to fiction reading. Such novels for teenagers are numerous as are the quality authors, with the genres of science fiction and fantasy books, science fiction and post-apocalyptic books leading the way. One upcoming work like this is the first of the “Save the Pearls” young adult series, “Revealing Eden” written by Victoria Foyt.

What We Can Learn From Adventure Books

Saturday, February 11th, 2012

Power thrills mankind. It can be explained in many ways but the ultimate one is where one person exercises some form of influence over another person irrespective of the resistance from the other person. This is one of the themes that come out strongly in the adventure books.

A series of events are usually arranged in order to come up with a plot. Ideally, one event is supposed to lead to another. The suspense builds with time and the reader will be engrossed with the read as the plot is crafted.

This genre has taken drastic changes since the 19th century. These changes have been inspired by new reading appetites. It is a genre that is arguably taking center stage and is increasingly becoming more popular than romance, poetry and even mystery. The novels take different forms but they are all characterized by the thrill they bring to the audience.

This visualization brings a general thirst for his audience to read more to see how the character eluded the danger. All this novels have not only been written to written and narrated later to friend but they virtually have the power to steal all your feeling, reasoning and lifestyle and can never be forgotten.

The main character in these novels typically goes through a variety of bad luck but eventually comes out as the hero. Of course this is not the case in all novels as different authors have different styles of writing. Some authors even make the antagonist come out victorious at the end of the day.

Most adventure books end with a punch. The good guy wins and the bad guys get punished. But even so, authors have to be creative in order to sate the obvious yet in a not so obvious way. This is what makes the novels interesting.

As of late the popularity of books geared to younger readers greatly rose, especially fantasy romance novels. And now these days there many superb young adult novels by many authors from around the world. If you’re looking for a fresh voiced American author of adventure books, then check out Victoria Foyt and the upcoming release of “Revealing Eden”, the first book in her “Save the Pearls” sci-fi trilogy.