Amazon buys Goodreads

Over the last few years Goodreads has become a major resource for both readers and writers, effectively setting itself up as the Facebook of the book industry. It might not come as a surprise to some then that book giant Amazon has today announced an agreement to buy Goodreads.

Goodreads now has 16 million members and 30,000 book clubs. It is so popular that within the last 90 days members have added over four books per second to their “to-read” shelves.

Of course, some readers and writers may fear that Amazon is simply enhancing its already dominant position in the industry. There will be integration with Kindle, for example, but it is unlikely that Nook or Kobo readers will get similar treatment.

Something that is also likely to change is the default layout of the list of online bookstores to buy books. Currently the drop-down list puts Barnes & Noble at the top and Amazon at the bottom, a fact that Amazon might see as hurting sales.

One feature that some will want is the ability to post reviews to both Amazon or Goodreads in one go, but there is no word yet on this even being a consideration. In fact, it might never be implemented, as Amazon has been getting stricter with reviews on its website, requiring purchases be made from a reviewer’s account, while Goodreads is currently much more open.

In 2008 Amazon bought Shelfari, a similar book sharing website, but despite integration with Amazon’s website Shelfari has failed to attract the same support as Goodreads. This is unlikely to be its last acquisition as it attempts to retain its bookworm crown.

“Amazon and Goodreads share a passion for reinventing reading,” said Russ Grandinetti, VP of Kindle Content at Amazon. “Goodreads has helped change how we discover and discuss books and, with Kindle, Amazon has helped expand reading around the world. In addition, both Amazon and Goodreads have helped thousands of authors reach a wider audience and make a better living at their craft. Together we intend to build many new ways to delight readers and authors alike.”

Goodreads will maintain its name, and its headquarters will stay in San Francisco. The deal is expected to close in the second quarter of this year. The financial details of the acquisition were not disclosed.

Check out The Call of Agon on Goodreads.

Interview with Ashley Barron

I had the pleasure of interviewing Ashley Barron, author of romantic thriller Ava. Check out the great responses below.

1. What inspired you to write?

A love of reading led me to explore writing fiction.

Before I wrote my first novel, I had no concept of just how much work goes into crafting a story, a plot, characters, scenes, twists, openings, closings, and choosing names for people and places! I now have a great appreciation for the time, energy, and creativity that goes into developing a novel – even if that novel isn’t suited to my reading tastes.

Long before I had finished the first draft of Ava (Book One in the Priya Series), I knew there would be many more books to follow and had already started charting the key element of future novels in the series.

It is addictive, living certain hours of the day in a fantasy world completely of my own creation. On that note, you’d think I would have created a perfect, flowery world filled with peace and happiness. But I didn’t. Not long after I realized my first novel would be a romance, the bomb scene showed up on my page. With that new plot line in mind, I ended up classifying my novel as a romantic thriller.

It is funny how unexpected changes sneak past my conscious mind and make their way onto the pages of my stories. I love it.

2. What is the most enjoyable aspect of writing?

My favorite writing time is definitely a time that annoys everyone in my life. It’s when I turn off the phones, close all the doors, sit down at my computer, and simply start typing.

At the beginning of a session like this one I may think I know where I’m going with my words, my plot and characters, but I don’t. On the best days, the pace of my typing reaches a fevered pitch and I don’t know what I’m writing until I read it on the page, afterwards.

I also enjoy the opportunity to create complicated situations and then bring the story to a positive resolution. I’m a big fan of happy endings, but I also enjoy working through emotional tangles that are made worse by unexpected twists in the plot.

The only time I get to be surprised by what happens in one my novels or short stories is when I’m writing the words on the page for the first time. I believe this is why I enjoy writing so many different types of books: novels, short stories, and non-fiction.

When a new story begins to rise, when I feel new characters pushing their way out of a cocoon-like place deep in my mind, the feeling is one of pure pleasure. I try to release the characters at the earliest possible opportunity, and this often means I’m sitting at my computer, typing furiously, long into the night. For me, there is something so freeing about writing beneath the moon and the stars.

3. What is the most difficult aspect of writing?

I don’t write novels in order. I generally write a series of mini-stories and then weave them all together. When I make a small change to one character or story line, it can be difficult to find each and every sentence in a 100,000-word manuscript that has been impacted by that change. Generally, this happens during the first editing stage, so I would say that this is most difficult aspect of writing for me.

Another complicated aspect came about when I decided to turn my almost completed first novel into a series. Suddenly, every choice, sentence, and action taken by a character had new significance. I found I needed to map out as far down the road as I could see – even knowing there would be many changes when it came time to write those sequels – and to try and find the threads that would fit well into Ava.

I ended up rewriting Ava four full times! Perhaps, it is best to go into writing a first novel with the idea that you will write a sequel or two. It helps to keep loose ends tidy and to give emphasis to secondary characters by adding an extra layer or two to them.

4. Do you plot in detail beforehand or let it unfold as you go?

I’m a combination of plotter and pantser. I do create a general outline of a novel before beginning it, but I find that many changes come along naturally during the writing process. Lately, I’ve been getting into storyboards and charting, too.

In contrast, the short stories I write are not planned. In fact, I never planned to write them in the first place!

There are 18 of the short stories, including The Birthday, Famous, and Zippers, and each one was unexpected. I found that there were days when I simply needed to “tell a story” and not “work on a novel.” (The two mindsets are very different for me.)

So I put my fingers on the keyboard, opened my heart, and simply let the story come out. They are all very emotional stories about love and relationships, but they bear little resemblance to my own life. I’m not really certain where they came from, or if there are any more like them waiting to be told.

5. What attracts you about the genre you write in?

Stories about love have always attracted me, from my earliest of reading days. Love comes in so many different forms. The obvious category is Romance, but there are also plenty of stories about love that center on family relationships, or best friends.

Love seems to have been so sexualized as a word that we aren’t always focusing on the healing beauty of a story that finds a way to bring about a happy ending from a complicated family situation, like a parent with Alzheimer’s, or a spouse or sibling wounded in war.

Every story I write carries a theme of love, of finding a measure of happiness even in one’s darkest hours. Even when it seems impossible. It’s my belief that as humans, hope is our most precious emotion, and that love is not a feeling but rather a series of actions we undertake to communicate to another human that hope lives within us.

It serves to follow, then, by my reasoning, that true love is in fact never giving up hope. Not for any reason. Not at any point. The hope, expressed through the actions of true love, is eternal.

6. Are there any other genres you might consider writing in?

I am laying the foundation for future novels in other genres. I have an action/adventure in the works, plus a paranormal and a YA series in the early stages of development. The timeline for writing and publishing these novels is currently being planned, and though I had hopes for a 2013 release for at least one of them, it is looking more and more like 2014.

At some point, I would like to take one of my stories and turn it into a screenplay. What a fascinating experience it would be to have an opportunity to see one’s own work in a whole new light. Even though writing a screenplay is currently only on my wish list, at least it has made it to some list in my keeping.

I would also like to write a few short stories in which another author and I trade characters. I wrote a blog post on this some time back, and I think pairing my contemporary romance characters with those of a historical romance author would be seriously fun. Suzan Tisdale and I have talked about doing this together and I hope we will find our way to the project within the next six months.

7. How do you think the publishing industry has changed?

Let me count the ways! There is such energy and enthusiasm everywhere I turn. The spirit of entrepreneurship is alive and well in publishing. The most obvious examples are Amazon Kindle and self-published authors, but there are many other areas of the marketplace that are growing. Book cover artists, formatters, and freelance editors are a few, along with marketing experts, web designers, and social media pros.

Change can sometimes be painful, but innovation is always a gift. Small businesses are popping up daily, it seems, and newly-minted authors are bringing their books to the e-shelves. Best of all, readers certainly seem to be hungry for more stories, for new plot ideas, and for cross-genre novels.

Last week, I launched IndieBookWeek.com as a gathering point for self-published and indie-published authors who want to promote a book, share a blog post or book trailer, and meet new potential readers through interviews, blog tours, and contests.

There are a number of new marketing features for authors coming to IndieBookWeek.com in the next few months and all of them evolved as a result of the gaps I found in the marketplace while journeying from occasional writer to published author.

8. If you could be any of your characters, who would you be, and why?

I don’t think I could pick just one; they all carry some small part of me. Maybe it’s my loud and happy laugh, or the way I’m always losing my keys, or that I’m obsessed with flowers. Something in each and every character – even the bad ones – comes from me.

Strange as this many sound, it would feel disrespectful to choose one character over another.

9. Tell us about Ava in a single sentence.

True love is always worth the risks one must take to find it.

10. What can we expect from the sequel?

The second book in the Priya series is Bonner.

Bonner Danilov is a feisty journalist in love with a man, Locke Arden, who is not as he seems. Readers first met both of them in Ava. I must say that this story is going to hurt before it heals. A big part of that is due to the thriller arc started in Ava and carried forward in Bonner.

I’m reasonably sure that no one who read Ava will be prepared for what’s coming in Bonner.

When the story opens, the reader might think Yes, yes, okay, what I expected, right on sched—BOOM! And in a single second, in a moment that can never be reclaimed, everything changes. Forever.

Bonner will be available in paperback and e-book in time for Memorial Day. Get ready!

 

Ashley Barron loves books, Washington, D.C., her family, and all things small business. In addition to writing novels, short stories, and how-to guides, she is an active blogger and can often be found on Twitter as @dcPriya.

 

Website: http://www.IndieBookWeek.com
Twitter: https://twitter.com/dcPriya
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Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/AshleyBarron.Author
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First Interview and More Reviews

My first author interview has been published at Gary Philip Pennick’s blog. He asked some great questions, and I hope you find the answers interesting.

Some more reviews have also come in. Here are some highlights:

“…a beautifully written book full of loveable twists and well developed characters.” — Roger Gerald Scott at DLH Book Reviews.

“This story is jam packed with verbal and visual treasures.” — Patrick at Amazon.

“…a well written fantasy book” and “an interesting read.” — Angie Coder at Zephyr Book Reviews.

If you haven’t got a copy yet, you can do so here. I have also received a few requests for signed copies, so I’ve set up an order page for personalised copies. Make sure to include what you want for the dedication in the “Instructions to merchant” box.

Authors object to Amazon web domain monopoly

Amazon has bid for new top-level domains (the .blank suffixes at the end of web addresses) that include generic book-related terms, angering authors and publishers, who fear the online book store’s move will hinder competition.

Both the Authors Guild and the Association of American Publishers objected to Amazon’s attempts to register .book, .author, and .read, which would allow it, and only it, to launch websites with these extensions.

So if I wanted, for example, www.deanfwilson.author I would not be able to get it unless, perhaps, I signed a publishing deal with Amazon, enhancing the company’s already dominant position in the industry.

Amazon’s senior corporate counsel, Stacey King, has defended the bids by highlighting that companies can already buy domains with generic words and this has not caused any “market power.”

Amazon will have to pay a lot of money to ICANN, the domain registration firm, for the privilege, including yearly fees of thousands of dollars. It is also not restricting its bids to the book market, with .like also in its sights, a move that might upset Facebook.

Personally I’m a bit too indoctrinated with standard top-level domains like .com, .co.uk, and .org. In fact, when I register a domain I usually avoid using .ie, the Irish suffix, because most people will naturally use .com instead, and any deviation from this could make my website harder to find.

As a matter of principle, however, I do object to any company trying to trademark or otherwise secure exclusive use to generic terms. Amazon can legitimately claim the right to .kindle, but the word “book” should be no one’s property.

Source: The Telegraph

The Call of Agon – Book Trailer

The poem:

Darkness knows no better host
Than he, the agonised of all;
He knew intimately pain the most,
The every cry, great and small—
In sorrow he was claimed its thrall.

His master groomed him as a beast,
And, sheltered from the light divine,
He knew not the sun’s rise in the east,
Nor the ardent splendour of its shine—
The daylight was to him malign.

His cradle was his grave, his tomb,
And darkness was his consort then.
Fate casts webs that weave great doom
In the sunlit lives of foolish Men—
This world would know the night again!

His lord knew not his own successor
And cast dark pearls before his swine;
The shadow was the Beast’s confessor
And torture was his holy shrine—
In there he would both moan and pine.

He yearned to share his constant pain
Or end the world that gave him life;
No longer could the Beast sustain
His endless torment, ceaseless strife—
He took the shadow as his wife.

So now there is no shining light
And no sunrise, no waiting dawn,
No moon or stars to conquer night,
And soon our final breath is drawn
By the death-noose of the Beast Agon.

Excerpted from The Call of Agon by Dean F. Wilson

First Review of The Call of Agon

The first review of my debut epic fantasy novel The Call of Agon is in:

The hurdle that every writer of fantasy fiction must face is that of being compared with the master of the genre – J.R.R. Tolkien. As soon as wizardry, dark forces or a pedigree of ancestors is detected, a disparaging cry will go up from some quarter. Dean F. Wilson need have no anxieties on this score. At no point in his first novel, ‘The Call of Agon’, must we endure hearing about some mediocre Middle Earth. This is an original, gripping saga with, above all, deep insights into human motives and desires. Warriors – like the battle-scarred Herr’Don – contrast tellingly with characters who are not born to combat, like the poet Yavun. [Ifferon] is by far the most enigmatic figure, and it would not be fair to reveal too much of his pivotal role in the tale.

An air of fear often dominates the story, and Wilson depicts this debilitating emotion masterfully. The Shadowspirits drive men to madness, and they are never far away. But this is not a depressing tale, love that once shone in the Past is rekindled, faith is transformed into hope through courage. Lyrical songs are dispersed throughout the text and serve to lighten the mood. When magic appears, it is introduced subtly and unexpectedly, thus it is all the more marvellous

‘The Call of Agon’ tells us that dreams and reality are interchangeable, if not inseparable. The major riddle of the tale, ‘In whose veins does the sacred blood run?’ is answered, partly with scholarly reasoning, but mostly through the logic of its own myths. Even in the midst of battle – scenes described with a skilful and dispassionate touch – profound moral questions always remain. The most powerful symbol appears at the conclusion of the tale, most fitting as the excitement does not let up until the final page…and this is only Book One!

— Gordon Strong, author and speaker.

Win a free copy of The Call of Agon on Goodreads

Goodreads Book Giveaway

The Call of Agon by Dean F. Wilson

The Call of Agon

by Dean F. Wilson

Giveaway ends March 31, 2013.

See the giveaway details
at Goodreads.

Enter to win

The Call of Agon Out Now

My novel The Call of Agon: Book One of The Children of Telm is out now! You can order it on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, The Book Depository, and numerous other vendors.

Read the blurb:

THE LAST LINE. THE LAST WORDS. THE LAST CHANCE.

Ifferon is one of the last in the bloodline of the dead god Telm, who mated with mortal women, and who imprisoned the Beast Agon in the Underworld. Armed with a connection to the estranged gods in the Overworld and a scroll bearing Telm’s powerful dying words, he is tasked with ensuring the god’s vital legacy: that Agon remain vanquished. Fear forces Ifferon to abandon his duty, but terror restores his quest when the forces of Agon find his hideaway in an isolated coastal monastery.

Weighed down by the worries of the world, but lifted up by the companions he encounters along the way, Ifferon embarks on a journey that encompasses the struggles of many peoples, the siege of many lands, and discoveries that could bring hope to some—or doom to all.

Buy the paperback version here:

Buy the Kindle version here:

Help get the word out! Tell your friends. Share on Facebook, Twitter, Google+, Goodreads, and anywhere else you frequent. Thank you!

The Importance Of Google+ For Authors

Emilyn Chand from Novel Publicity was recently interview on Blog Talk Radio about the importance of social networking, and Google+ in particular, for authors. It’s a very interesting listen, with lots of good advice, and I personally echo Chand’s praise of Google+, some of the features of which I outlined here.

Check out the show and feel free to share your tips and tricks for Google+ and other social networks.

Also, feel free to “circle” me on Google+. You can check my profile here.

Bookstore Chain Borders Closes For Good

Borders, the second largest bookstore chain in the US, was forced to close this week after failing to secure a buyer.

The company, which went bankrupt earlier this year, will now close all of its remaining 399 stores, with the loss of some 10,700 jobs, according to the Wall Street Journal.

This is sad news for readers, writers and publishers alike, as it means less access to books for readers and a smaller market for writers and publishers. Borders was a big name, and its closure will send shock waves across the book industry. If such a large book empire can close, can smaller chains and independent stores survive?

“Following the best efforts of all parties, we are saddened by this development,” said Mike Edwards, President of Borders. “We were all working hard toward a different outcome, but the head winds we have been facing for quite some time, including the rapidly changing book industry, [ebook] revolution and turbulent economy, have brought us to where we are now.”

The mention of ebooks is important, as this is one factor that brick and mortar stores, and publishers and writers, will need to take into account for the short-term and long-term future. Recent reports from Amazon and others have shown that the ebook industry is booming, and a potential deal with Google later this year to make the largest digital library in the world could have a monumental impact on how we approach reading.

The impact of the closure on authors could be particularly bad, according to Michael Norris, an analyst at Simba Information, who told the Wall Street Journal: “The liquidation of Borders is an irreplaceable loss of a big part of the book-discovery ecosystem. Thousands of people whose job consisted of talking up and selling books will eventually being doing something else, and that’s bad for authors, agents, and everyone associated with the value chain in books.”