Bookclub update and…PayPal censorship? Really?
Our Wine, Women & Words Book Club selection for February
We had so much fun at Book Club on Sunday, but we forgot to take a photo. Alas.
Here’s what you missed:
The Menu
~pork loin with baked apples
~green salad with honey-roasted pecans and MacIntosh apples
~vegan greens
~apple pie and ice cream
Do you detect a theme? Hint, hint. 
Steve Jobs was a genius who changed the world. I couldn’t agree more. But, his extremely long biography was filled with a great deal of minutia that probably meant more to people who actually get into computers. Since I just purchased my first Mac two years ago, I’m a late-to-the-game convert. And, all agreed that genius or not we never could have been married to the man. LOL.
So, our big debate came over what to read next. Strange as it sounds, we picked Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451. 
Why?
Well, believe it or not, this is National Read an E-Book Week! And since most of us read the Jobs book on an e-device of some kind, that got us talking about the possible demise of paper books…which got us thinking–can we live without our books in book form? I think not. But, as our hostess, Judy, demonstrated when she produced four electronic devices that can be used for reading (at least one belonged to her hubby): iPad, iPhone, Kindle and Kindle-Fire!–we also love, love, love the convenience of e-books.
My three self-published entries into the e-book world are on SALE this week. In fact, my short stories are both FREE and the biography I co-authored is HALF PRICE. That works, huh? Here’s the link: http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/111878
And, I just found out that my lone single title release for Harlequin, 2005′s BETTING ON GRACE, has been released as an e-book on eHarlequin, Amazon and Google Books. 
I have mixed feelings about this because the book was out-of-print and I’d hoped to e-publish it myself. But that didn’t happen–and that’s not the book’s fault. It was a lovely book that I poured a lot of my soul into and it got horribly shorted when Harlequin’s distribution machine hit a rough patch. So, if you missed it (a lot of my loyal readers did!!!), here’s the eHarlequin link: http://bit.ly/zdIcHZ
Another topic of conversation that came up at Book Club was the Paypal’s request/demand that Smashwords remove all titles containing bestiality, rape, or incest from sale, otherwise they threatened to deactivate Smashword’s PayPal account, which is the main vehicle for paying all authors.
Regardless your views on any of those topics, is it really PayPal’s place to decide what can or cannot be published? That’s one dangerous, slippery slope to start down. And, as a writer and a reader, I’m not happy about it.
As Smashwords’ founder Mark Coker wrote, “All writers and their readers should stand up and voice their opposition to financial services companies censoring books. Authors should have the freedom to publish legal fiction, and readers should have the freedom to read what they want.”
If you’d like to let the money men of corporate America know how you feel about censorship of any kind, here are some links:
Visa: http://finance.yahoo.com/q/pr?s=V+Profile
American Express: http://finance.yahoo.com/q/pr?s=AXP+Profile
MasterCard: http://finance.yahoo.com/q/pr?s=MA+Profile
Discover: http://finance.yahoo.com/q/pr?s=MA+Profile
EBay (which owns PayPal): http://finance.yahoo.com/q/pr?s=ebay+Profile
It’ll be interesting to see how this plays out.
Read well and prosper, my friends.
Deb
Tags: Betting On Grace, ebooks, Smashwords, Steve Jobs
March 6th, 2012 at 4:18 pm
Color me red
Duh apples – apple. I’m a little slow today.
I have Betting on Grace!! Shamed to say I haven’t read it yet, but I do have it.
March 6th, 2012 at 4:37 pm
LOL. I didn’t catch the connection right away, either, Marcie. I didn’t bring anything applish to the party. But I did bring organic–and Steve Jobs was a bit of a fanatic about his food.
I pulled out Grace to look it over last night. It has some sweet moments, I think. You’ll have to let me know when you’ve read it.
Deb
March 6th, 2012 at 8:56 pm
Hi Deb. ‘Betting on Grace’ was one of my favorites. Sorry you didn’t get to e-publish it yourself. I didn’t know you had three out there. I really am going to have to get myself a Kindle, I think. Take care…Jackie
March 6th, 2012 at 9:31 pm
Yes, Jackie, they’re a handy little item. But you can download the Kindle app for your computer and read on it. Not as handy-dandy, of course, but that way you can sync the books to your Kindle or other e-reader when you get one. Lots of good stuff out there for free or really cheap this week. I’m stocking up.
Deb