Great Kindle Deals

Great Kindle Deals Newsletter - 6 November 2011

2011-11-06T14:09:00.000-08:00

Hi everyone, a lot has happened since the new Kindle was released last month, there's lots of free and cheap books out at the moment and I have a few clarifications to make in this issue about what we reported last time. The focus this week for the cheap books section is Halloween.

Clarification:
Last issue I wrongly stated that the UK was getting an unfair deal when I compared the price of the Kindles - it actually turns out that these are two slightly different models, the UK version comes without adverts (or special offers as Amazon calls them) and the US version comes with them.

News:
1. Amazon Prime subscribers in US get free books - Subscribers to Amazon Prime in the US are getting another free service, as well as getting 2-day shipping for $79 a week they are also getting 1 free book rental from a limited Kindle library - this rental can last for an indefinite period. They also get unlimited movie streaming of selected movies for subscribing to the service.

2. New Kindle Personal features:
Your documents are now automatically archived in your Kindle library (you can control this from the Manage Your Kindle page at www.amazon.co.uk/manageyourkindle.

• Archived documents can be re-downloaded from your archive to the all-new Kindle, as well as Kindle Keyboard (Kindle 3rd Generation--requires the latest software update v3.3 from www.amazon.co.uk/kindlesoftwareupdates) – you will be able to find and download your documents from any of these devices that are registered to your account.

• Now (just as with Kindle books) Whispersync automatically synchronises your last page read, bookmarks and annotations for your documents (with the exception of PDFs) across devices.

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Cheap books:

1. Speed dating with the dead by Scott Nicholson - £2.14
Rated 3.5 stars average from 3 customer reviews
Synopsis: "When Digger Wilson brings his paranormal team Spirit Seekers International to the White Horse Inn, he is skeptical that his dead wife will keep her half of the bargain. He doesn’t believe in ghosts, and just before she died, she promised to meet him there.

But when one of the conference guests channels a mysterious presence and an Ouija board spells out a pet phrase known only to Digger and his wife, his convictions are challenged.

And when guests start to disappear, Digger and his daughter Kendra must face the circle of demons that view the hotel as their personal playground. Because soon the inn will be closing for good, angels can’t be trusted, and demons don’t like to play alone . . ."

2. Zombie Bits - £1.55
Rated 4 stars average from 2 customer reviews
Synopsis: "A collection of eight zombie short stories from best-selling author Scott Nicholson. Includes two stories from "The Best of All Flesh" series, as well as the original post-apocalyptic story "A Farewell to Arms" written especially for this volume. Also includes a short story from Jack Kilborn (ENDURANCE) and a "Zombie Apocalypse Survival Scorecard" from Jonathan Maberry (PATIENT ZERO, ROT AND RUIN), as well as a post-apocalyptic survival tale from Joe McKinney (DEAD WORLD series). From bone-chilling terror to horror humor, this collection is for zombie fans with good taste. Or who taste good."

3. Locked In (Jessica Daniel Book 1) - £0.98
Rated 4 stars average from 47 reviews
Synopsis: "Most people who get promoted at work are pleased but for Detective Sergeant Jessica Daniel it comes with the knowledge she is replacing her mentor who was stabbed in a bar fight.

She barely has time to start doubting her abilities before a body is found in a locked house with seemingly no way in or out.DS Daniel not only has to prepare for a court date against the scourge of the force, barrister Peter Hunt, she also has to hold off a journalist who seems to know more than she does about her case.

With a car that even junior officers joke about, an investigation with no leads and a best mate whose love life is finally settling down, the detective thinks she has enough on her plate and that's before a second body turns up in identical circumstances to the first. How can a murderer get to victims in seemingly impossible situations and what, if anything, links the bodies?"

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Free books:

1. Throwaway
Rated 3 stars average from 31 customer reviews
Synopsis: "Jessie Jones is living the life--except for the fact that she earns it by working the streets. She's been under pimp Spence's thumb for fourteen years, and she isn't looking to change it. That is, until undercover cop Gabe walks into her life and offers her something she's never had before: a love, a future, a home. But even if Jessie could walk away from Spence, there are darker forces of evil who want her to stay put, or worse, dead. In this romantic suspense, author Heather Huffman delivers an adventure from the vibrant streets of St. Louis to the caves of the Ozarks as Jessie discovers whether she can love another, whether she can love herself, and whether any of it is enough."

2. I'll be there
Rated 5 stars from 1 review
Synopsis: "In Angel Ridge, Tennessee, not much goes on around town in the winter. After Christmas, folks usually hunker down and wait for spring to come to the Smokey Mountains. But given recent events, which included a bombing and newspaper publisher Jenny Thompson’s disappearance, people in town are understandably on edge. Now Jenny’s in hiding on a nearby mountain, waiting for trouble to catch up with her and none too sure it hasn’t, when reclusive mountain man Cord Goins comes to her rescue. Stuck between a beginning and an ending, both she and Cord feel powerless to control the dangerous situation they’ve found themselves in, along with the unexpected consequences of falling in love."

3. Freaks
Rated 3.5 stars average from 32 reviews
Synopsis:"Homicide cop Jane Rizzoli and medical examiner Maura Isles have seen their fair share of mortal crimes, but the death of Kimberly Rayner may qualify as inhuman in more ways than one. When the corpse of the emaciated seventeen-year-old girl is discovered next to an empty coffin in an abandoned church, mysterious bruises around the throat suggest foul play. Caught fleeing the scene is the victim's closest friend, Lucas Henry, an equally skeletal, pale teenager who claims he's guilty only of having a taste for blood-a craving he shared with Kimberly. But the victim's distraught father doesn't believe in vampires, only vengeance. And now, another life may be at risk unless Rizzoli and Isles can uncover the astonishing truth."

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I also have to announce that this will be the last edition of Great Kindle Deals. It has been a pleasure serving you but the posts have become less frequent as time has gone on and as I feel I am no longer able to give you, the readers, the regular updates you deserve, the blog will cease to function as of this week. This is due to other commitments now taking place in "real life."All the past issues will be on greatkindledeals.blogspot.com for you to take a look at. Your subscriptions will be automatically cancelled but please do go into the Amazon blog options to confirm this. I hope you have enjoyed the blog and hope to meet you one day in another venture. For now, adios amigos!

If you want to read more from me, check out my blog which covers travel, food, tech and more.

Great Kindle Deals - Wednesday, 28 September 2011

2011-09-28T16:40:00.000-07:00

Hi everyone,
Sorry for the lack of posts over the last few weeks but the news we were all waiting for is finally here - Amazon has announced the new Kindle and the Amazon Tablet too.

News:
1. The current Kindles stay - The current Kindle Wifi is priced at £109 and the Kindle 3G is £149. Both the price they were when they were originally released - these have been renamed the the "Kindle Keyboard" and the "Kindle Keyboard 3G."

2. A new, slimmer Kindle - A new Kindle has been introduced in the UK - simply called "Kindle." It does not play audiobooks but still does books, magazines, newspapers, docs and games. It has 2GB of storage, 1 month of battery life, weighs only 170grams, is even smaller, and is Wifi only. It therefore has half of the storage of the current Kindle, is 18% smaller, 30% lighter and has 10% faster page-turns, it loses its keyboard and costs £89 - £20 cheaper than the current Kindle. Unfairly, the same new Kindle is $79 in the US and £89 in the UK - after tax that is equivalent to £60.57 vs £89, meaning the UK market pays at least 40% extra for the same product!

3. A touchscreen Kindle for the US - The US also gets a new touchscreen Kindle - one with 3G and another with Wifi, both without a keyboard and has a form-factor resembling the new slimmer Kindle. They are priced at $99 for the Touch Wifi version and $149 for Touch 3G version.

4. The Kindle Fire Tablet - Amazon's new tablet is called the Kindle Fire. It is priced at $199, about £153 after tax. It has a 7 inch screen and is seen as a big competitor to the iPad being less than half of its price. It is currently a US only product as it would be effectively useless in the UK at the moment due to Amazon UK not having licensing deals in place for apps and movies at the moment. The tablet's features, as posted on the website are:

*18 million movies, TV shows, songs, magazines, and books
*Amazon Appstore - thousands of popular apps and games
*Ultra-fast web browsing - Amazon Silk
*Free cloud storage for all your Amazon content
*Vibrant color touchscreen with extra-wide viewing angle
*Fast, powerful dual-core processor
*Amazon Prime members enjoy unlimited, instant streaming of over 10,000 popular movies and TV shows

It is unclear whether the UK market will be getting this tablet in the near future or even at all - as said above first a streaming service of TV shows and movies needs to be established, as well as the App Store.

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Cheap books:

1. The Alchemist's Secret (Ben Hope 1) by Scott Mariana - £0.49
Rated 4 stars average from 82 reviews
Synopsis: "PRAISE FOR The Alchemist's Secret: 'Fans of Dan Brown will love this thrilling adventure'. Closer Magazine 'The [Alchemist's Secret] establishes Scott Mariani as an author to watch.' M.J. Rose, international bestselling author of The Reincarnationist 'Mariani does a great job of balancing the historical stuff with the basic plot to keep the pages turning.' Oxford Mail 'Scott Mariani brings it all to the table in this fast-paced thriller that rockets off the first page and never slows down. The Alchemist's Secret is packed with dark intrigue, danger around every corner, bullets flying, sexual tension, and an endless assault of nasty villains bent on stopping ex-SAS Ben Hope from finding the secret to an ancient manuscript. It's everything a thriller should be and more.' Joe Moore, international bestselling co-author of THE GRAIL CONSPIRACY"

2. White Lies and Custard Creams - A Romantic Comedy by Susan Alison - £0.97
Rated 4 stars average from 33 reviews
Synopsis: "All Liz Houston wants is to keep her head above the financial white waters of her life. Somehow, though, other people, including ex-husband Hugh, repeatedly get in the way.
Hugh just wants a quiet life and to be there for the people he cares about. Caring for Liz does not lead to a quiet life.
Moocher, Liz's Border Collie, wants to be where all the crumbs are, he wants to keep all his paws, but most of all he wants to keep Liz company as she rides the rapids of her life.
Add in odd-shoe-wearing lodger Simon, Git-next-door, a lost brother, an illicit fortune stashed away decades ago, a trio of part-time thugs, kidnappings, a tree-climbing tortoise and a dog-flap with a story of its own, and it becomes apparent that a few white lies (and custard creams) between friends are the least of Liz's problems."

3. Snow White: Rose Red crime thriller series (Book One) by Saffina Desforges - £0.86
Rated 5 stars average from 18 reviews
Synopsis: "A priceless artefact is stolen en route from the Louvre to the Victoria & Albert Museum and now the mysterious Queenie wants The Hunstman to get it back. For Red the case is a distraction from the more pressing matters of hoodies terrorising the elderly on London estates.
But when Red's boss and mentor is targeted by The Hunstman things get personal. Very personal.
Set in modern-day London, Snow White is a fast-paced, gritty urban thriller that will leave you wondering whether fairy tales really do have happy endings."
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Free books:

1. The Penal Colony by Richard Herley
Rated 4.5 stars average from 7 reviews
Synopsis: "The British government now runs island prison colonies to take dangerous offenders from its overcrowded mainland jails.
Among all these colonies, Sert, 25 miles off the north Cornish coast, has the worst reputation. There are no warders. Satellite technology is used to keep the convicts under watch. New arrivals are dumped by helicopter and must learn to survive as best they can. To Sert, one afternoon in July, is brought Anthony John Routledge, sentenced for a sex-murder he did not commit. Routledge knows he is here for ever. And he knows he must quickly forget the rules of civilized life. But not all the islanders are savages. Under the charismatic leadership of one man a community has evolved. A community with harsh and unyielding rules, peopled by resourceful men for whom the hopeless dream of escape may not be so hopeless after all ..."

2. Throwaway

Rated 3.5 stars average from 16 customer reviews

Synopsis: "Jessie Jones is living the life--except for the fact that she earns it by working the streets. She's been under pimp Spence's thumb for fourteen years, and she isn't looking to change it. That is, until undercover cop Gabe walks into her life and offers her something she's never had before: a love, a future, a home. But even if Jessie could walk away from Spence, there are darker forces of evil who want her to stay put, or worse, dead. In this romantic suspense, author Heather Huffman delivers an adventure from the vibrant streets of St. Louis to the caves of the Ozarks as Jessie discovers whether she can love another, whether she can love herself, and whether any of it is enough."

3. Touched by Angels

Rated 4 stars average from 6 reviews

Synopsis: "Single mom Sarah Love is determined to make a fresh start in Alabama for herself and Jenny. Born special, Jenny struggles to do the things other four-year-olds take for granted. Sarah hadn't counted on Jenny escaping her vigilance and racing in front of Jake Townsend's motorcycle. And she certainly hadn't counted on falling for the sexy, complex daredevil who nearly wrecked his bike to save her child. Nor had Jake, who had lost his own child, expected to find himself drawn into the lives of a courageous mother and her stubborn, endearing daughter. Could Sarah and Jenny be his second chance? Could he be the hero Sarah and Jenny believe him to be? The sequel to this book is A Prince for Jenny."

I hope you enjoyed this week's newsletter, there's more news and reviews about the tablet and the new kindle next time as well as some great free and cheap books!

Great Kindle Deals Newsletter - Sunday, 11 September 2011

2011-09-11T15:12:00.000-07:00

Hi everyone! Sorry for the hiatus between posts but it has just been a nightmare getting everything lined up for the rest of the year and real life took over for a couple of weeks. To make up for it, there's lots of news, a feature, some great free books and lots of cheap books too.

News:
1. Christmas Amazon Tablet - CNET UK is reporting that a 7-inch Amazon Tablet will be released before Christmas, by the end of November, and will be retailing at around £149. The tablet will run android and will incorporate perfectly with Amazon's MP3 store, their Android app store and in the US with their video store too.

2. Techcrunch has touched the Amazon tablet - High-profile blog techcrunch claims to have touched the tablet so it is very much real, also reporting the same specs that many others had spoken of, see those above.

3. Waterstones to launch its own e-reader - The BBC reports:"Waterstone's is to launch a digital e-reader to rival Amazon's Kindle next year.

The company's managing director, James Daunt, told Radio 4's You and Yours that he had been inspired by Barnes & Noble's successful Nook device.

The US bookseller is one of the few high street retailers to have challenged Amazon's growing dominance in both physical and electronic sales."

Feature - New kindle on the way:
It is clear that a new kindle will be coming very very soon. There's been rumours for a few months but these now seem to be coming closer and closer to fruition. Lately, Amazon has offered refurbished kindles at almost half price meaning that all the refurbished stock have been sold and they are most likely just depleting their existing stock before releasing a new version

For a logical point of view, Amazon will want to keep a black and white e-reader as well as introducing a new one (As the rumour goes). This may mean that Amazon will have to make a loss on both - maybe selling the B+W 3G version (With ads) at around £69 and the new colour tablet/kindle at around £149-£199 to be competitive against the iPad.

We're now going into back to school season and I imagine this is the perfect opportunity to deplete the remaining stock and we'll be seeing a new round of Kindles and that Amazon tablet soon, definitely in time for Christmas.

Free books:

1. Mama Does Time: A Mace Bauer Mystery
Rated 4 stars average from 4 reviews
Synopsis: "Meet Mama: a true Southern woman with impeccable manners, sherbet-colored pantsuits, and four prior husbands, able to serve sweet tea and sidestep alligator attacks with equal aplomb. Mama's antics — especially her penchant for finding trouble — drive her daughters Mace, Maddie, and Marty to distraction.

One night, while settling in to look for ex-beaus on COPS, Mace gets a frantic call from her mother. This time, the trouble is real: Mama found a body in the trunk of her turquoise convertible and the police think she's the killer. It doesn't help that the handsome detective assigned to the case seems determined to prove Mama's guilt or that the cowboy who broke Mace's heart shows up at the local Booze ‘n' Breeze in the midst of the investigation. Before their mama lands in prison — just like an embarrassing lyric from a country-western song — Mace and her sisters must find the real culprit."

2. The Facebook Killer

Rated 4 stars average from 10 reviews

Synopsis: "Dermott Madison has lost everything. His wife, his daughter, his cherished home and most of his face. One man is responsible; Abdul Hamid. When his Old Bailey trial collapses, due to a technicality, Madison takes matters into his own hands.

His manner of revenge comes to him in a dream; but how can you track down someone's nearest and dearest? You log in, look closely and let the devastation begin.
Madison takes you on his journey from being a middle-class banker to a serial killer, through his own eyes. You will feel his emotions, the hatred and rage, pain and guilt, culminating in his descent into madness itself."

Cheap books:

1. White Lies and Custard Creams - A Romantic Comedy - 97p
Rated 4.5 stars average from 19 reviews
Synopsis: "All Liz Houston wants is to keep her head above the financial white waters of her life. Somehow, though, other people, including ex-husband Hugh, repeatedly get in the way. Hugh just wants a quiet life and to be there for the people he cares about. Caring for Liz does not lead to a quiet life.Moocher, Liz's Border Collie, wants to be where all the crumbs are, he wants to keep all his paws, but most of all he wants to keep Liz company as she rides the rapids of her life.

Add in odd-shoe-wearing lodger Simon, Git-next-door, a lost brother, an illicit fortune stashed away decades ago, a trio of part-time thugs, kidnappings, a tree-climbing tortoise and a dog-flap with a story of its own, and it becomes apparent that a few white lies (and custard creams) between friends are the least of Liz's problems."

2. Pets in a Pickle - 99p
Rated 4.5 stars average from 25 reviews
Synopsis: "Drawing on his own experiences of working as a vet, Malcolm Welshman brings to life a wealth of colourful characters - including the formidable practice receptionist, Beryl, with her one steely eye - and an ark's worth of marvellous animals. As enchanting as it is funny, this wonderful story will delight any animal fan. When Paul Mitchell arrives for his first day's work at Prospect House Veterinary Hospital, he never expects this...Oh his very first day, he is bitten by a feisty hamster...but this is a mere prelude to a cavalcade of hilarious - and often painful - encounters with fish, flesh and fowl. From stalking a feral cat to rescuing a cow stuck in a gravel pit, life is never short of animal adventures for the newly qualified vet. On top of treating all manner of creatures at the practice, Paul and his girlfriend Lucy, also nurse a host of waifs and strays back to health at their home. Besides six budgerigars, two love birds, a hoard of guinea pigs and three tabby cats, their menagerie includes Gertie the Goose, whose talent for house security saves her from the Christmas Day table, and Nelson, their lovable - and stone deaf - Jack Russell."

3. A Game of Thrones: Book One of Songs of Ice and Fire

Rated 4.5 stars average from 610 reviews

Synopsis: "The first volume in the hugely popular and highly acclaimed epic fantasy. There is passion here, and misery and charm, grandeur and squalor, tragedy, nobility and courage.Soon to be a major HBO series starring Sean Bean and a stellar cast.The first volume of George R R Martin’s glorious high fantasy tells the tragic story of treachery, greed and war that threatens the unity of the Seven Kingdoms south of the Wall. Martin unfolds with astonishing skill a tale of truly epic dimensions, thronged with memorable characters, a story of treachery and ambition, love and magic. Set in a fabulous world scarred by battle and catastrophe over 8000 years of recorded history, it tells of the deeds of men and women locked in the deadliest of conflicts and the terrible legacy they will leave their children. In the game of thrones, you win or you die.And in the bitter-cold, unliving lands beyond the Wall, a terrible winter gathers and the others — the undead, the neverborn, wildlings to whom the threat of the sword is nothing — make ready to descend on the realms of men."

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That's it for this week, I'll see you next week for some more great kindle deals and hopefully more news about the tablet/new kindle. See you then!

Great Kindle Deals Newsletter - Thursday, 18th August 2011

2011-08-18T15:09:00.000-07:00

Hi everyone, welcome to this week's edition of Great Kindle Deals. This week there's some news, an interview and some great books too.

News:

1. Amazon clamping down - "Amazon has announced that it will begin cracking down on authors who upload so-called "private label rights" e-books via the Kindle Direct Publishing service. According to an email sent to the authors of titles that were removed, Amazon is now filtering and deleting "undifferentiated or barely differentiated" e-books submitted for publishing on the Kindle store because they "diminish the experience for customers."

2. Kindle Cloud Reader - Amazon "now have an alternative Kindle option for iOS users interested in stepping away from the whole “downloaded app” situation. Readers can now load up the Kindle Cloud Reader in their internet browser and get on with their reading. No fuss or input from the device manufacturer required.

To get any use out of the new service as it stands right this minute, you’ll need to have either Google Chrome or Apple Safari installed on your system.

Interview:

This week we're speaking to another indie author - Darcie Chan. The full interview follows:

0. Introduce yourself to us please, and tell us one fun fact about yourself.

I was born in Wisconsin, and I lived there until I was about six. After that, my family moved around quite a bit – we lived in Indiana for a year, then Colorado for five years, and then back to Indiana. In most of these places, I lived in small towns…in fact, the town where I attended middle school – Cheraw, Colorado – is so small that that the kids there attend public school only four days per week. (It’s cheaper for the school district to have a longer school day for four days than it is to operate buses, pay staff, etc. for a five-day week!)

The fun fact: I actually met my future husband at a national science competition right after my senior year in high school. We each won our respective divisions at the national level and got to know each other during a two-week trip to the London International Youth Science Forum during July and August, 1991. (Tim was representing California and I was representing Indiana.) We went off to different colleges after that, but we kept in touch and eventually became good friends, got engaged, and then married during graduate school. I haven’t been back to England since that time, but London will always be a very special place to me. Moral of the story -- you never know how your life will change in the future because of someone you meet today!

1. How did you get into writing? Had you always wanted to be a writer?

I remember writing letters and poems when I was very young. In middle school, when I was either 11 or 12 years old, I entered a one-day writing contest and ended up winning the short story category and placing third in the poetry category. I came home and announced that I wanted to be a writer, and I think that that was the first time that it really occurred to me that writing was something I wanted to do -- if not as a career, then at least as a serious hobby. Writing fiction for my own personal enjoyment went on the back burner for several years, through college and law school and for the first several years I worked after finishing my education, but I have been able to get back to it during the past few years.

2. And is writing your full-time job?

In my “day job,” I draft environmental and natural resource legislation for the U.S. Senate (which is one of the two houses in the American Congress, the other being the House of Representatives), so I am literally writing or editing almost all day, every day. BUT – writing legislation is very different than writing fiction. Legislative drafting is formulaic and technically demanding and requires adherence to certain conventions. After working on bills and amendments all day, it is refreshing to be able to write fiction, where the only limitations on what and how I can write are imposed by my own imagination.

3. What advice do you have for aspiring writers?

First, I think I would ask someone to understand that learning to write is a lifelong process. My advice would be to read widely, including in areas or genres that you might not normally read. Write for yourself first, and gracefully accept as much constructive criticism as you are able to get. Read your writing aloud to yourself to hear how it flows, how realistic the dialogue sounds, etc. Research your subjects carefully, because there will almost always be readers out there who know more (much more!) than you do about them. Above all, believe in yourself and never give up!

I really enjoyed the book On Writing by Stephen King. It’s part humor, part autobiography, and part writing tutorial. I think it would be a very helpful and entertaining read for anyone who writes.

4. How have you found the kindle has worked out as a business model for you?

I originally made my novel available for the kindle because I wanted to see how it would fare in the marketplace. I am a completely new, unknown writer, and the The Mill River Recluse is the first novel I’ve written and the first fiction that I have made public. I wanted to know whether people would actually buy and enjoy something that I had written. It is an amazing thing that one can just put a book out there now and have that book be immediately available to millions of readers. I never dreamed that my novel would become an Amazon bestseller, and I have been thrilled and humbled by readers’ responses to The Mill River Recluse.My primary interest in having my novel “out there” is still to build a readership and get feedback, and not to make money (hence the low price for my novel)…but I suppose as a business model it is fair to say that the kindle has been an enormous help in achieving those goals.

5. What projects are you working on now?

Currently, I am working on my second novel…I hope to have a draft of it complete in about a year. With my (demanding) day job and an (equally demanding but adorable) 18-month-old son, the novel-in-progress takes up almost all of the little free time that I have.

6. Is there anything else you'd like to add?

I would like to extend a huge THANK YOU to everyone who has read or who plans to read The Mill River Recluse. As a new writer, it means the world to me that people are giving my first novel a chance and that so many have responded so positively to it. I greatly appreciate all constructive comments on my novel – feel free to visit me in cyberspace at www.darciechan.com to let me know what you think of it!

I would also like to extend my appreciation to Great Kindle Deals for this interview. Your giving new writers exposure in the marketplace is an amazing service and crucial to helping writers and readers connect!

Cheap books:

1. The Mill River Recluse - £0.86

Rated 4.5 stars average from 59 reviews (in the US)

Synopsis: "Disfigured by the blow of an abusive husband, and suffering her entire life with severe social anxiety disorder, the widow Mary McAllister spends almost sixty years secluded in a white marble mansion overlooking the town of Mill River, Vermont. Her links to the outside world are few: the mail, the media, an elderly priest with a guilty habit of pilfering spoons, and a bedroom window with a view of the town below.

Most longtime residents of Mill River consider the marble house and its occupant peculiar, though insignificant, fixtures. An arsonist, a covetous nurse, and the endearing village idiot are among the few who have ever seen Mary. Newcomers to Mill River--a police officer and his daughter and a new fourth grade teacher--are also curious about the reclusive old woman. But only Father Michael O'Brien knows Mary and the secret she keeps--one that, once revealed, will change all of their lives forever.

The Mill River Recluse is a story of triumph over tragedy, one that reminds us of the value of friendship and the ability of love to come from the most unexpected of places.

2. Solom by Scott Nicholson - £1.71
No ratings
Synopsis: "Katy Logan wasn’t quite sure why she left her finance career in the big city to marry religion professor Gordon Smith and move to the tiny Appalachian Mountain community of Solom.

Maybe she just wanted to get her 13-year-old daughter Jett away from the drugs and bad influences. Maybe she wanted to escape from the memories of her first husband. Or perhaps she was enchanted by the promise of an idyllic life on the farm that has been in Gordon’s family for 150 years.

But the move has been anything but stress-free, because the man she married seems more interested in the region’s rural Baptist sects than in his new wife. The Smith family secrets run deep: Gordon teases Katy and Jett with a story about a wicked scarecrow that comes in from the fields at night to slake an unnatural thirst. Gordon’s great-grandfather was a horseback preacher who mysteriously disappeared while on a mission one wintry night, and some say a rival preacher did him in."

Free books:

1. Guns by Phil Bowie
Rated 4.5 stars average from 2 reviews
Synopsis: "Sam Bass is tall and lanky, loves old western movies, wears cowboy boots and drives a beat-up Jeep Wrangler. He has a gorgeous girlfriend, Valerie, a Cherokee widow with a young son, and he’s a hot shot pilot. A hot shot pilot with a past. And when Sam makes a daring and dangerous rescue of a couple lost at sea in a storm, he gets publicity he definitely doesn’t need. The Cowboy, as he’s known in certain circles, has finally been located and a hit team is dispatched to take care of unfinished business. A bomb is planted in the beat-up Jeep. But it isn’t Sam who drives it that day. Grief stricken, Sam visits Valerie’s grandfather in the North Carolina mountains to tell him he plans to avenge Valerie in the ancient Native American way of members of a wronged family seeking justice – with no help from the law. With only the old man’s help, Sam trains his mind and body for the task ahead. And then the bloody hunt is on."

2. Grammatically Correct by Annie Stilman
Rated 4.5 stars average from 3 reviews
Synopsis: "How does good writing stand out?

If its purpose is to convey facts, findings, or instructions, it need be read only once for its content to be clear. If its purpose is to entertain or to provoke thought, it makes readers want to come back for more. Readers of this book will never break the rules of language again—unintentionally."

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That's it for this week. See you next week for more great kindle deals.

Great Kindle Deals Newsletter - Wednesday, 3rd August 2011

2011-08-03T13:18:00.000-07:00

Hi everyone, and welcome to the latest edition of Great Kindle Deals. If you noticed a lack of a post last week, I'd like to apologise but I was outside the country with little/no access to the internet. Nevertheless, we're back to our regular weekly emails as of now.

News:
1. Amazon.com - rent textbooks
Amazon has come up with an ingenius solution for US ollege students who usually have to buy textbooks for hundreds of dollars - to allow people to rent them on their Kindle and get up to 80% off. This is an interesting idea and I'm sure university students in the UK would appreciate something similar. Since textbooks are mainly colour this really does lead credence to the idea that a colour Amazon tablet will be arriving in the coming months. This could also mean that we'll be able to rent regular books at some point in the future.

2. Is Kindle saving newspapers?
The Kindle could be the newspaper industry's saviour, new figures have revealed. Boston Globe" being the owner of the New York Times, reported that "Digital advertising revenues rose 2.6 percent." In the UK, "The Times says paid digital subscribers totaled about 224,000. Meanwhile, ... it has 57,000 paid digital subscribers to e-readers like Amazon’s Kindle. Overall, ... 281,000 paid digital subscribers."

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Free books:

1. Maddy's Oasis
Rated 4 stars average from 3 reviews

Synopsis: " With an ill mother in need of expensive surgery, Madeleine flies from NYC to the west Texas desert to take on the doomed Desert Oasis resort project in hopes of earning the bonus attached to finishing it on schedule. She soon finds there's only one thing hotter than the desert sun: Jake, the infuriating Texan whose dislike of the fast-paced city puts them at odds at everything from her high-heels to her to-do lists. When the Oasis reveals its dark secret, Maddy finds she must choose between money and those she cares about."

2. Stress Proof your Life!
Rated 5 stars average from 5 reviews
Synopsis: " Elisabeth Wilson looks at the sources of stress – occupational, genetic and environmental – and reveals 52 brilliant techniques for creating a stress-free zone. When your batteries are blown and burnout is imminent these top tips can help you regain control."

Cheap books:

1.Cold Kill by Neil White -99p
Rated 4.5 stars average from 31 reviews
Synopsis: " Every breath you take, he’ll be watching you…Every breath you take, he’ll be watching you…When Jane Roberts is found dead in a woodland area Detective Sergeant Laura McGanity is first on the scene. The body bears a chilling similarity to a woman –Deborah Corley –murdered three weeks earlier. Both have been stripped,strangled and defiled.When reporter Jack Garrett starts digging for dirt on the notorious Whitcroft estate, he finds himself face-to-face with Jane’s father and gangland boss Don who will stop at nothing until justice is done. It seems that the two murdered women were linked in more ways than one and a dirty secret is about to surface that some would prefer stay buried.As the killer circles once more, Jack and Laura must get to him before he strikes again. But his sights are set on his next victim and he’s watching Laura’s every move… "

2. That summer in Ischia by Peeny Feeny - 99p
Rated 3.5 stars average from 31 reviews
Synopsis: " In the long hot summer of 1979, best friends Helena and Liddy travel to the beautiful island of Ischia to be au pairs to the children of two wealthy Italian families: the Verduccis and the Baldinis. From the opulent hillside villas and sun-drenched beaches the girls plan their great adventure to find romance and excitement, whatever the cost, on the sleepy island. But when a little boy in their care goes missing, the spell is broken and the girls find themselves under suspicion from police. Under pressure, the cracks in their relationship begin to show and one will betray each other, changing the course of both of their lives forever. Twenty-five years later, Liddy, walking her dog on an English beach, spies a figure oddly reminiscent of her estranged friend. And so begins a startling quest to the villa where it all went so wrong for Helena and to the heart of the mystery of what really happened that summer in Ischia."

3. Witness by Cath Staincliffe
Rated 5 stars average from 11 customer reviews
Synopsis: "

Four bystanders in the wrong place at the wrong time. Witnesses to the shocking shooting of a teenage boy. A moment that changes their lives forever. Fiona, a midwife, is plagued by panic attacks and unable to work. Has she the strength to testify?

Mike, a delivery driver and family man, faces an impossible decision when his frightened wife forces him to choose – us or the court case.
Cheryl, a single-mother, doesn’t want her child to grow up in the same climate of fear. Dare she speak out and risk her own life?
Zak, a homeless man, offers to talk in exchange for witness protection and the chance of a new start.

Ordinary people in an extraordinary situation. Will the witnesses stand firm or be prevented from giving evidence? How will they cope with the emotional trauma of reliving the murder under pitiless cross-examination? A compassionate, suspenseful and illuminating story exploring the real human cost of bearing witness."

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I hope you enjoyed that, we'll be back next time with more great kindle deals, including very soon with a special interview we've got lined up.

Great Kindle Deals Newsletter - Friday, 14th July 2011

2011-07-15T12:49:00.000-07:00

Hi everyone, I hope you're having a great day, it's almost time for the weekend again when you can sit back and relax for a bit. There's a lot of Kindle news this week, as well as a deal on the Kindle itself and of course cheap and free books.

News:
1. Ad-supported Kindle 3G drops by $50 in US - We reported a while back that Amazon in the US has an ad supported Kindle which has ads when on the lock screen and book listings, but not during books. The price meant that the Kindle has dropped from $189 to $164 if you bought the ad-supported kindle. Now another $25 has been shaved off due to sponsorship by US telecoms company AT&T, it now costs $139. In pounds that's a saving of £31 meaning if the deal does eventually come over across the pond, the Kindle could be available from as little as £80.

2. The Amazon Tablet - More and more rumors surrounding the Amazon Tablet have surfaced this week, including, crucially, a report from the Wall Street Journal which claims that Amazon will release a tablet before October competing with the iPad and offering a book reading ability, as the iPad does. This may mean a price drop for the Kindle (depending on the price of the tablet). The tablet is said to have a 9-inch screen, significantly bigger than the current Kindle.

3. Guardian and The Observer - The Guardian and The Observer have made it to the Kindle store this week. You can subscribe to the newspaper directly from the Kindle store for £9.99 a month for a full 7-day a week subscription. A paper subscription for 7 days a week costs £27.60, making the Kindle version very good value for money. "The Guardian and Observer Kindle edition is available in the UK, US and more than 100 other countries, and carries the content from that day's newspaper, including all the editorial sections and supplements." The Kindle newspaper does indeed have images. You can get a 14-day free trial on the Amazon website here and it's an affordable £9.99 a month after that, about 34p a day.

An iPad and an Android app will be available "soon."

Feature - Discounted Kindle:
The Kindle is currently being offered at a discounted price of £79.99 at the moment right here on Amazon. If you cant click the link, type this into your web browser - http://goo.gl/zAht6 (it is case sensitive). There is a small catch though, the Kindle you are buying are refurbished. However at £31 off in my opinion this is worth it. There are never any discounts on the Kindle so this is a cracking deal if you want to get a Kindle for your parents, or partner, or even another for yourself to keep somewhere else. Amazon describes the item as "Factory refurbished. Package factory sealed. Ships with USB cable only.. All purchases eligible for Amazon customer service and a 30-day return policy"

Cheap books:

1. That Summer in Ischia - by Penny Feeny - 99p
Rated 5 stars average from 15 reviews
Synopsis: "In the long hot summer of 1979, best friends Helena and Liddy travel to the beautiful island of Ischia to be au pairs to the children of two wealthy Italian families: the Verduccis and the Baldinis. From the opulent hillside villas and sun-drenched beaches the girls plan their great adventure to find romance and excitement, whatever the cost, on the sleepy island. But when a little boy in their care goes missing, the spell is broken and the girls find themselves under suspicion from police. Under pressure, the cracks in their relationship begin to show and one will betray each other, changing the course of both of their lives forever. Twenty-five years later, Liddy, walking her dog on an English beach, spies a figure oddly reminiscent of her estranged friend. And so begins a startling quest to the villa where it all went so wrong for Helena and to the heart of the mystery of what really happened that summer in Ischia."

2. Confessions of a GP by Benjamin Daniels - 99p
Rated 3.5 stars average from 70 reviews
Synopsis: " Benjamin Daniels is angry. He is frustrated, confused, baffled and, quite frequently, very funny. He is also a GP. These are his confessions.Benjamin Daniels is angry. He is frustrated, confused, baffled and, quite frequently, very funny. He is also a GP. These are his confessions.A woman troubled by pornographic dreams about Tom Jones. An 80-year-old man who can't remember why he's come to see the doctor. A woman with a common cold demanding (but not receiving) antibiotics. A man with a sore knee. A young woman who has been trying to conceive for a while but now finds herself pregnant and isn't sure she wants to go through with it. A 7-year-old boy with 'tummy aches' that don't really exist.These are his patients.Confessions of a GP is a witty insight into the life of a family doctor. Funny and moving in equal measure it will change the way you look at your GP next time you pop in with the sniffles."

3. Into the Darkest Corner by Elizabeth Haynes - 99p
Rated 5 stars average from 137 reviews
Synopsis: "Catherine has been enjoying the single life for long enough to know a good catch when she sees one. Gorgeous, charismatic, spontaneous - Lee seems almost too perfect to be true. And her friends clearly agree, as each in turn falls under his spell. But there is a darker side to Lee. His erratic, controlling and sometimes frightening behaviour means that Catherine is increasingly isolated. Driven into the darkest corner of her world, and trusting no one, she plans a meticulous escape. Four years later, struggling to overcome her demons, Catherine dares to believe she might be safe from harm. Until one phone call changes everything. This is an edgy and powerful first novel, utterly convincing in its portrayal of obsession, and a tour de force of suspense."

Free books:

1. "The Big 5-OH!" by Sandra D. Bricker
No Reviews
Synopsis: "Olivia Wallace has a birthday curse . . . or so she thinks. It was a broken heart on her 16th, a car accident on her 21st, pneumonia on her 30th, and a fall down a flight of stairs on her 35th. There were Ohio blizzards on her 38th, 39th, and 40th; and six days before her 45th, she lost the love of her life to a heart attack. Numbing grief stole that birthday and a couple more to follow and, on the morning of her 48th birthday, she received the call she’d dreaded ever since losing her mom so many years ago…she was diagnosed with stage-3 ovarian cancer. The doctors didn’t hold out a lot of hope, but Liv survived and maintained her faith. Months of surgeries and chemotherapy and radiation treatments followed. But now, as her 50th birthday creeps up the icy Ohio path toward her, her hair has grown back, her energy level is up, and she is officially cancer free. It makes her nervous. After everything she’s gone through, Liv hates the idea of driving on icy roads and returning to work as an O.R. nurse in a local Cincinnati hospital.Her best friend Hallie knows just the thing to break Liv out of the winter doldrums, while providing a safe haven of warmth, sunshine, and a time to regroup: a holiday in the Florida sunshine!"

2. Harry Potter Collector's Handbook by William Silverton
No Reviews
Synopsis: "Harry Potter Casts His Spell On Collectors!
Welcome, Muggles, to the magic, mystery, and merchandise of the wonderful wizarding world of Harry Potter!
Harry Potter Collector's Handbook will bewitch you with colorful images and current values of licensed products based on the famous boy wizard and his charming chums and nefarious foes. Just for you, we've conjured:

1,000+ spellbinding listings, pictures, and secondary market values.

Information arranged-magically!-in alphabetical order to make it easy to find what you're looking for.

A diverse array of collectibles from rare first editions of books worth thousands of dollars to items worth slightly fewer galleons.

If you're mesmerized by "Pottermania," you'll never want to depart the enchanting world of witchcraft and wizardry presented in Harry Potter Collector's Handbook."

3. Syndrome by Thomas Hoover
4.5 stars average from 4 review
Synopsis: "Alexa Hampton runs her own interior design firm in New York’s Soho but now a heart mishap threatens her life. Her black-sheep younger brother insists she go to a New Jersey clinic owned by his eccentric boss for stem cell experiments. There she and her long-ago lover, a medical reporter, uncover a bizarre experiment to reverse the aging process.

Idea points: Medical Thriller, Heart disease, Stem Cells, Aortic Stenosis, Aging, Fountain of Youth,"

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With Harry Potter and the Dealthy Hallows: Part 2 out today, I think the collectors handbook in the free books section should be enjoyed by some of you. See you next week.

Great Kindle Deals Newsletter - Saturday, 9th July 2011

2011-07-09T13:28:00.000-07:00

Hello everyone, welcome to this week's edition of Great Kindle Deals. I know some of you subscribe to the New York Times so there's some exciting news in this week's newsletter, this week I've substituted the "Cheap books" section for a "Highest rated books" section as a one-off, however looking at the prices these books are still all very cheap and mostly under £5. Let's get straight into the content:

News:
1. NYT on Kindle - Businessweek reports "People who subscribe to The New York Times on the Kindle and Nook electronic readers are now getting unlimited access to the newspaper's website at no extra cost. The additional option became available Thursday, slightly more than three months after The New York Times began charging $15 every four weeks, or nearly $200 per year, to read more than 20 articles a month on its website." The New York Times costs £17.98 per month.

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Bestselling books:

1. Allen Carr's Easy Way to Stop Smoking: Be a Happy Non-smokerfor the Rest of Your Life (Allen Carrs Easy Way) - £4.49
Rated 5 stars average from 779 reviews
Synopsis: "The revolutionary international bestseller that will stop you smoking - for good. 'If you follow my instructions you will be a happy non-smoker for the rest of your life.' That's a strong claim from Allen Carr, but as the world's leading and most successful quit smoking expert, Allen was right to boast! Reading this book is all you need to give up smoking. You can even smoke while you read. There are no scare tactics, you will not gain weight and stopping will not feel like deprivation. If you want to kick the habit then go for it. Allen Carr has helped millions of people become happy non-smokers. His unique method removes your psychological dependence on cigarettes and literally sets you free. Accept no substitute. Five million people can't be wrong. "

2. The Help by Kathryn Stockett - £3.99
Rated 5 stars average from 621 reviews
Synopsis: "Jackson, Mississippi, 1962. Black maids raise white children, but aren't trusted not to steal the silver. Some lines will never be crossed.

The Help is a deeply moving, timeless and universal story about the lines we abide by, and the ones we won't. Itis about how women, whether mothers or daughters, the help or the boss, relate to each other - and that terrible feeling that those who look after your children may understand them, even love them, better than you . . ."

3. Holes by Louis Sachar - £0.99
Rated 4.5 stars average from 517 reviews
Synopsis: "A complex story, riddled with the harsh imagery and barren despair, Holes is a perceptive and intricate homage to family and friendship which never shies away from the harshest of realities yet injects the story of a seemingly hopeless boy with a sly, sideways humour that crackles against the backdrop of the arid wastelands of the desert. An absolute must for anyone, young or old, who relishes an intelligent, courageous and dynamic read. (Age 11 and over)"

4. Noughts and Crosses by Malorie Blackman - £3.59
Rated 4.5 stars average from 332 reviews
Synopsis: "Sephy and Callum have been best friends since childhood, and now they are older and they realise they want more from each other. But the harsh realities of lives lived in a segregated society are beginning to take their toll: Callum is a nought--a second-class citizen in a world dominated by the Crosses--and Sephy is a Cross, and the daughter of one of the most powerful men in the country. The barriers they would have to cross to be together at first seem little more than minor obstacles to the two idealistic teenagers, but soon those barriers threaten not only their friendship but their lives."

Cheap books:

1. Fire Lord's Lover by Kathryne Kennedy
Rated 4.5 stars average from 5 reviews
Synopsis: "If his powers are discovered, his father will destroy him...
In a magical land ruled by ruthless Elven lords, the Fire Lord's son Dominic Raikes plays a deadly game to conceal his growing might from his malevolent father-until his arranged bride awakens in him passions he thought he had buried forever...
Unless his fiancée kills him first..."

2. Back on Murder by J. Mark Bertrand
Rated 5 stars average from 3 reviews
Synopsis: "Det. Roland March is a homicide cop on his way out. But when he's the only one at a crime scene to find evidence of a missing female victim, he's given one last chance to prove himself. Before he can crack the case, he's transferred to a new one that has grabbed the spotlight--the disappearance of a famous Houston evangelist's teen daughter.

With the help of a youth pastor with a guilty conscience who navigates the world of church and faith, March is determined to find the missing girls while proving he's still one of Houston's best detectives."

3. Concrete Underground by Moxie Mezcal
Rated 5 stars average from 1 review
Synopsis: "An idealistic journalist sets out to expose corruption among the city's elite and soon finds himself immersed in a conspiracy of murder, blackmail, espionage, and human trafficking. Pitted against the enigmatic CEO of one of the world's largest tech companies, he must play a deadly game that threatens to unearth its players' darkest secrets.

CONCRETE UNDERGROUND is postmodern pulp fiction - a gritty, labyrinthine murder mystery about identity and alienation in the digital age."

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See you next week with more great kindle deals.

Great Kindle Deals Newsletter - Thursday, 30th June 2011

2011-06-30T11:47:00.000-07:00

Hello everyone, and welcome to this week's edition of Great Kindle Deals. It's already the end of June and summer is nearly here, so it's time for some great summer reads in this week's cheap and good books. In the news, "Harry Potter" author J.K. Rowling has changed her tune with regards to e-books it seems...

News:

1. Pottermore! - J. K. Rowling, author of the "Harry Potter" series of books and one of the wealthiest women in the UK, has announced that she will be releasing e-book versions of the Harry Potter series starting this Autumn. A website entitled "Pottermore" will be launched in October, "a free website that builds an exciting online experience around the reading of the Harry Potter books." Entry to the site will be free and there will be no subscription charges. Rowling describes it as her chance to give back to her fans. E-books will be a paid-for option on the website.

However, the e-books will ONLY be available via Pottermore, meaning they won't be available for purchase in the Kindle Store. The e-books will be DRM-free meaning they may be put onto any supported device as many times as you want. Whether the Kindle willl be a supported device remains unclear. Understandably, retailers are fuming.

The BBC reports that "retailers have criticised the move, with Waterstone's saying that physical bookshops were "effectively banned" from selling the digital editions. A Pottermore spokesman said: "The decision to make e-books exclusive to the site was to ensure ease of availability across all reading devices and to the widest possible audience."

Cheap books:

1. The Beach by Alex Garland - £3.99
Rated 4 stars average from 5 reviews
Synopsis: "Late at night in a seedy hotel, Richard is drawn into a strange conversation with a fellow guest. Through a narrow strip of mosquito netting he hears for the first time of a secret beach, and island Garden of Eden hidden somewhere in the scattered islands of a Thai marine park. The next morning, Richard finds a map pinned to his door, and the man who put it there has slashed his wrists. The challenge is irresistible, and Richard sets off on a perilous journey in search of Shangri-La."

2. Too Proud to be Bought - £2.19
Rated 4 stars average from 2 reviews
Synopsis: "The humble waitress and the Russian billionaire… Waitress Zara Evans doesn’t belong in glittering high society. That is until she finds herself unexpectedly at an exclusive party and manages to captivate the most soughtafter man in the room – Russian oligarch Nikolai Komarov – by attracting his undivided attention… For Nikolai, there’s something about Zara’s beauty that makes her stand out from the firstclass crowd. Experience has taught him all women have their price, but he has never encountered anyone like Zara – a young woman who is too proud, too independent, too wilful to be bought…"

3. The Emporer's Gold - £1.00
Rated 4.5 stars average from 13 reviews

Synopsis: "July 1805: The armies of France have only to sail to England to complete Napoleon’s domination over Europe. Britain is militarily weak, politically divided, unsettled by her rioting poor. Into this feverish environment comes a dead man. Pulled half-drowned from a shipwreck, his past erased, Tom Roscarrock is put to work for the Comptrollerate-General for Scrutiny and Survey, a shadowy Government bureau. He is thrown into a bewildering world of political intrigue and violence. In France, a plan is underway to shatter the last of England’s stability. In England, the man who recruited Roscarrock has disappeared, his agents keep turning up dead, and reports of a secret French fleet are panicking the authorities.

His life in danger and his motives increasingly suspect, Roscarrock must pursue the complex conspiracy across England and then into the heart of Napoleon’s France, there to confront the greatest mystery of all. The Emperor’s Gold is the first in a series of historical espionage thrillers taken from the newly-uncovered archives of the Comptrollerate-General for Scrutiny and Survey."

Free books:

1. The Awakened [Book 1] by Jason Tesar
Rated 4.5 stars average from 3 reviews
Synopsis: " Over five thousand years ago, a renegade faction of angels abandoned the spiritual realm and began their inhabitation of earth. Worshiped as gods for their wisdom and power, they corrupted the realm of the physical and forever altered the course of history. Amidst the chaos of a dying world, a lone voice foretold the awakening of a warrior who would bring an end to this evil perpetrated against all of creation. But with the cataclysmic destruction of earth and rebirth of humanity, the prophecy went unfulfilled and eventually faded from the memory of our kind—until now!"

2. Chief Cook and Bottle Washer by Rita Hestand
Rated 5 stars average from 1 review
Synopsis: " Emma Smith hadn't been straight with her new boss, but he hadn't given her much of a chance to explain. Trapped in her own lies and uncertainties Emma was running in fear of losing her baby. Deke Travers, oldest son on the 4 Bar None Ranch, needed one thing to make his life more peaceful, his brothers to settle down and get with the business of ranching. There was only one solution, marry them off to country girls. And Emma will be the first bride on the 4 Bar None Ranch."

3. The Arrival by Nicole MacDonald
Rated 4 stars average from 5 reviews
Synopsis: " Cat, Kassie, Sian and Loi are anything but damsels in distress. Fed up with a lack of decent male specimens they cast a love spell in the hopes of finding their soul-mates. And inadvertently land themselves on another planet.
Oops.

The Arrival, follows the girls' adventures as they stumble through a foreign and often hostile world where humans are NOT at the top of the food chain. Friendships are forged and love teeters on the horizon while the threat of civil war looms thanks to the girls' very unexpected 'gifts'. Will the girls master these gifts in time to survive a war in which, not only are they the ultimate weapons, but also the ultimate prize?"

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I'll see you next week with more Great Kindle Deals.

Great Kindle Deals Newsletter - Thursday, 23rd June 2011

2011-06-23T13:13:00.000-07:00

Hi everyone, I trust you're having a great week and welcome to this week's edition of Great Kindle Deals. This week we're taking a look into e-book spam, as well as having our usually cheap and free books.

The News (Extended Feature) - Spam Books:
Several news outlets have been reporting about the increase in "spam books," books which essentially offer no relevant content and are in low-quality English.

"TheGlobeAndMail" reports that instead of people writing these books themselves, "they are built using something known as Private Label Rights, or PLR content, which is information that can be bought very cheaply online then reformatted into a digital book."

Another technique that many are using is to use automated programs which generate books randomly with only a few keywords: these are usually non-fiction titles.

Perhaps the worst case however is when one of these people publishes a book which us not their own work. Several cases have been found where someone has simply copy and pasted an entire book and submitted it under a different title to the original. This has garnered the fake book good reviews, yet gives no percentage of that to the original author.

So, what's your opinion: have you encountered any of these spam books? We encourage you contact us at greatkindleldeals@gmail.com and to rate the said book with a 1 star rating and explain the situation in the comments. Hopefully measures like this will cut out ebook spam. Of course if you feel a book is a spam book you can always contact Amazon via email or phone reporting the book, as well as requesting a refund.

Other news: Indie author sells 1million titles - 7 authors have already sold 1 million copies of their books on the Kindle store and now the 8th joins then - John Locke. The difference being that John Locke is a completely independant author who has no backing from a publisher and has sold over 1million copies. A very big well done to him. As a credit to him, you can fund one of his books in this week's "cheap books" section.

Cheap books:

1. Vegas Moon by John Locke - £0.49
Rated 5 stars average from 3 reviews
Synopsis: "In order to save his own life, Donovan Creed signs on as bodyguard to the most famous gambler in Las Vegas history, Jim “Lucky” Peters. Lucky, worth millions, has hit a losing streak and must raise a lot of cash in a short period of time from some of the world’s creepiest people. It doesn’t take long for Creed to learn that the person who holds the key to his survival is none other than Lucky’s smokin’ hot wife, Gwen, who has secrets of her own.

Preliminary reviewers term Vegas Moon “Hilarious!” “Uproarious!” “Funniest book in the series!” With Vegas Moon, “Locke hasn’t just hit a home run, he’s hit it over the fence, out of the park, and into the comedy hall of fame!”"

2. Shadow of the Serpent by David Ashton - £0.94
Rated 5 stars average from 8 reviews
Synopsis: "McLevy is one of the great psychological creations and Ashton is the direct heir to Robert Louis Stevenson' - Brian Cox, star of the BBC Radio 4 McLevy play'David Ashton's writing is excellent, his characters thoroughly convincing, and his narrative grabs you . . . and doesn't let you go' - The Sherlock Holmes Society of London'An intriguing Victorian detective story . . . elegant and convincing' - The Times Known as the father of forensics and a likely influence on Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, real-life police inspector James McLevy is here reinvented by David Ashton in a thrilling mystery, Shadow of the Serpent. 1880, Edinburgh, Election fever grips the city. But while the rich and educated argue about politics, in the dank wynds of the docks it's a struggle just to stay alive. When a prostitute is brutally murdered, disturbing memories from thirty years ago are stirred in McLevy who is soon lured into a murky world of politics, perversion and deception - and the shadow of the serpent."

3. How to be a woman by Caitlin Moran - £4.19
Rated 5 stars average from 15 reviews
Synopsis: " 1913 – Suffragette throws herself under the King’s horse.1969 – Feminists storm Miss World. NOW – Caitlin Moran rewrites The Female Eunuch from a bar stool and demands to know why pants are getting smaller. There’s never been a better time to be a woman: we have the vote and the Pill, and we haven’t been burnt as witches since 1727. However, a few nagging questions do remain… Why are we supposed to get Brazilians? Should you get Botox? Do men secretly hate us? What should you call your vagina? Why does your bra hurt? And why does everyone ask you when you’re going to have a baby? Part memoir, part rant, Caitlin Moran answers these questions and more in How To Be A Woman – following her from her terrible 13th birthday (‘I am 13 stone, have no friends, and boys throw gravel at me when they see me’) through adolescence, the workplace, strip-clubs, love, fat, abortion, TopShop, motherhood and beyond."

Free books:

1. Thirst by Claire Farrell
Rated 4 stars average from 7 reviews
Synopsis: "Ava Delaney calls herself a hybrid - a living, breathing human who happens to have vampire poison running through her veins. The only thing greater than her thirst for human blood is her capacity for guilt. She does her best to avoid the human world, for everyone's sake.

When Ava accidentally enslaves a human while saving him from a vampire, she realises she has to look for help setting him free. Despite her misgivings, she expands her world but finds herself dragged into a possible vampire civil war. With the help of some new friends with ambiguous loyalties, she tries to find a way to keep her human, and herself, alive.

At approx. 45,000 words, Thirst is the first in a series of paranormal novellas. Now comes with preview chapters of Taunt (Ava Delaney #2)."

2. Be Assertive: The How to Guide
Rated 4 stars average from 5 reviews
Synopsis: "Have you noticed that assertive people tend to get more of what they want out of life? Learning to be more assertive can help you improve relationships, get promoted, reduce stress, and gain respect. Download “Be Assertive: The How-To Guide” now and get simple, winning strategies for being more assertive in your daily life.
With this Vook you’ll learn effective ways to become a more assertive communicator in all facets of life, in eight engaging chapters. First you’ll learn what assertiveness is and how to use assertive language in all of your verbal interactions. Then you’ll learn how to become more confident and poised with your body language and voice, and how to deal assertively with difficult friends, family members, coworkers and bosses. Finally, you’ll learn how to navigate pushy customers and service people and explore creative ways to respond when you’re met with a “No” and you want to hear a “Yes.” Helpful tips throughout provide additional strategies to improve your communications at home, at work, and in your free time."

3. Clutter-free home Living: The How-To
Rated 3.5 stars average from 5 reviews
Synopsis: "Wish you could get organized and STAY organized at home? Introducing “Clutter-Free Home Living: The How-To Guide," a Vook with easy instructions that will help you establish a cleaner, clearer living space, and save you time and money. Download it now and put an end to the cycle of constant clutter!
Researchers have found that we lose about a year of our lives looking for items we need. A clutter-free home not only makes you and your guests feel more comfortable, it also makes the things you need easier to find, literally saving you time and money. In eight chapters “Clutter-Free Home Living: The How-To Guide” highlights the important reasons to get your house in order and how to do it. You’ll learn step-by-step how you can better organize areas that tend to attract clutter, such as your kitchen, bathroom, and closets, putting you back on track. You’ll also discover how to organize items such as gadgets and electronics that tend to go missing when you need them most, and how to purge the items that you don’t really need.
Get this Vook and take control of your home and life from now on!"
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I hope you enjoyed this week's newsletter. We'll have more great deals and free books to keep you going next week.

Great Kindle Deals Newsletter - Tuesday, 14th June 2011

2011-06-14T15:16:00.000-07:00

Hello everyone, I hope you are having a very good week. As the Summer edges closer and closer and the nights get shorter, you have more time to read in the natural daylight and may even want a few summer reads for the beach - we have some great free and cheap deals you'll love.

Father's Day
Amazon is offering a special deal on Kindle cases for Father's Day. If you purchase any Kindle Wifi or Kindle 3g, you get 20% off the official Kindle cases. This is one of the very few times that official Kindle items are on sale so you may want to grab yourself a bargain. A Kindle is one of the most perfect gifts for Dad and with thousands of free books and cheap chart books, it is the gift that just keeps on giving.

News:
1. Kindle only children's series - Thebookseller reports: "Agency 1454 has developed a new interactive children's adventure series that will be published exclusively on the Kindle worldwide. It is thought to be the first time a children's series has been produced solely for digital release.
BookSurfers, written by the children's writer David Gatward, is aimed at nine to 12-year-olds and is based on the classic novels Treasure Island and The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. The four Booksurfers, Ryan, Jake, Becca and Harriet use a bespoke digital gadget called The Nautilus to jump into classic adventure stories with the reader able to use hyperlinks to connect to the corresponding points in the original classic." The first 2 books are currently on sale for £3.67. Take a look!

Cheap books:

1. Troubled by Scott Nicholson - £0.70
Synopsis: "When twelve-year-old Freeman Mills arrives at Wendover, a group home for troubled children, it’s a chance for a fresh start. But second chances aren’t easy for Freeman, the victim of painful childhood experiments that gave him the ability to read other people’s minds.

Little does Freeman know that his transfer was made at the request of Dr. Richard Kracowski, whose research into the brain’s electrical properties is revealing new powers of the human mind. Kracowski is working for a secret society called the Trust, but also has his own agenda in exploring the nature of the soul. His experiments have an unexpected side effect, though. The electromagnetic fields used in his experiments are summoning the ghosts of the patients who died at Wendover back when it was a psychiatric ward."

2. The Emperor's Gold by Robert Wilton - £1.00
Rated 4.5 stars average from 10 reviews
Synopsis: "July 1805: The armies of France have only to sail to England to complete Napoleon’s domination over Europe. Britain is militarily weak, politically divided, unsettled by her rioting poor. Into this feverish environment comes a dead man. Pulled half-drowned from a shipwreck, his past erased, Tom Roscarrock is put to work for the Comptrollerate-General for Scrutiny and Survey, a shadowy Government bureau. He is thrown into a bewildering world of political intrigue and violence. In France, a plan is underway to shatter the last of England’s stability. In England, the man who recruited Roscarrock has disappeared, his agents keep turning up dead, and reports of a secret French fleet are panicking the authorities.

His life in danger and his motives increasingly suspect, Roscarrock must pursue the complex conspiracy across England and then into the heart of Napoleon’s France, there to confront the greatest mystery of all. The Emperor’s Gold is the first in a series of historical espionage thrillers taken from the newly-uncovered archives of the Comptrollerate-General for Scrutiny and Survey."

3. Mommy, May I? by A. K. Alexander - £0.69
Rated 5 stars average from 3 reviews
Synopsis: "Helena Shea is putting her life back together. Once a highly paid supermodel and now the owner and CEO of her own modeling agency, a recent bitter scandal that nearly destroyed Helena and the daughter she gave up for adoption years ago seems to be settling down. With a chance to have a relationship with her daughter, Frankie, and the development of a center for wayward young mothers that Helena is funding, it looks as if life is turning around for mother and daughter. However...

EVIL LURKS

A killer raised amidst evil and seeking revenge is targeting Helena. Leaving a trail of blood in his wake, this sadist plans his return into Helena's life. When the madman abducts Frankie, Helena fears she might never see her daughter again. Seeking help from the journalist who almost destroyed her, an FBI agent with suspicions toward her, as well as her ex-lover who is also Frankie’s father, Helena must find the strength to fight past addictions and see her daughter back home again—alive.

Prepare to lock your doors. This eerie thriller will have you up late into the night looking over your shoulder. It is as equally compelling as it is disturbing."

Free books:

1. Falling Star by Diana Dempsey
Rated 5 stars average from 6 reviews
Synopsis: "For customers who enjoy Emily Griffin, Jennifer Weiner, and Sophie Kinsella: The page-turner for every woman who’s ever had better days …

Natalie Daniels’ husband just dumped her. Her boss is scheming to replace her. And she’s falling in love with her sexy Australian TV news agent – who’s about to propose to somebody else.

What’s a woman to do? Dig deep and show what she’s made of – which just might land her both the job and the man of her dreams."

2. Fifth Avenue by Christopher Smith
Rated 4 stars average from 31 reviews
Synopsis: "Look beneath all the power and all the wealth that represents New York City's Fifth Avenue, and you'll find greed, blood, revenge. In the international best-selling thriller "Fifth Avenue," each intermingles within a revered society that is unprepared for what's in store for it when one man finally strikes in an effort to destroy another man for murdering his wife thirty-one years ago.

Louis Ryan is that man. George Redman, his wife, two daughters and their close friends are his targets. Both men are self-made billionaires who came from nothing to stake their claim to Fifth Avenue. But when Louis Ryan hires an international assassin to literally rip the Redman family apart, a series of events that can't be stopped catapults them all through a fast-paced, hard-edged thriller in which nobody is safe. "

3. World Kitchen: World Recipes
Rated 4 stars avergae from 1 review
Synopsis: "Get 20 great recipes from our bestselling World Kitchen series -- each triple-tested in the Murdoch Books Test Kitchen for cooking success every time!

Recipes include Italian Wild Mushroom Bruschetta, Spanish Potato Omelette, Moroccan Beef Tagine with Okra and Tomatoes, French Raspberry Soufflé and many more.

The World Kitchen series takes you on a culinary journey exploring the influences of geography, climate, culture and tradition that have shaped some of the world's most popular cuisines."

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That's it for this week. See you next week for more Great Kindle Deals and Happy Father's Day for this weekend!

Great Kindle Deals Newsletter - Tuesday, 7th June 2011

2011-06-07T16:03:00.000-07:00

Hello everyone, welcome to the latest edition of Great Kindle Deals. There's no news on the Kindle front this week, so instead we've some Kindle tips and tricks, and the usual free and cheap books.

Kindle Tips and Tricks:
1. Web browsing - Got your Kindle with you when out and about? If you have a 3G version you can access web pages on it wherever you are. Make sure 3G is switched on, then go to Menu > Experimental > Web Browser. The browser is basic but if you need it, it's better than nothing.

2. Two games on your Kindle - On the main page with your book listings press Alt, SHift and M at the same time and you can play minesweeper, instructions are at the bottom of that page. Press G and you can play noughts and crosses.

3. Instant dictionary definitions - Use the arrow keys to find a word you dont know, place it over the word and at the bottom (or top) a definition will come up. Press return and a full definition will be expanded, then press back to get back to your original book.

4. Turn pages automatically - A tip from TechRadar: "Can't be bothered pressing the next page button? Trigger the text-to-speech function (press the Aa button, then turn on text to speech) and then turn the volume down until you can't hear anything. Pages will now turn automatically... eventually"

Cheap books:

1. Catch Your Death (for Fans of Dan Brown and Stieg Larsson) - £0.95
Rated 5 stars average from 3 reviews
Synopsis: "A secret conspiracy. A killer virus. A race to save the world.

Imagine if Dan Brown, Steig Larsson and Michael Crichton sat down together to write a fast-paced medical conspiracy thriller set in the English countryside, featuring evil scientists, stone-cold killers, a deadly virus and a beautiful but vulnerable Harvard professor.

That's CATCH YOUR DEATH, the new novel from Louise Voss and Mark Edwards, the writing team behind the Amazon Top 50 thriller KILLING CUPID.

Esteemed virologist Kate Maddox thought she was escaping to a new life. But before she can face the future she must deal with the ghosts of the past.
20 years ago, Kate was a volunteer at a research unit in the English countryside where scientists experimented to find a cure for the common cold. That summer, Kate fell in love with a handsome young doctor, Stephen. But her stay at the unit ended in Stephen's tragic death and Kate fled to Boston and a new life at Harvard.

Now, Kate is back in England and on the run again – this time, from her cruel husband – and trying to find a fresh start for her and her young son. But a chance encounter with Stephen’s twin brother, Paul, sets her on a terrifying path of discovery. What really happened at the Cold Research Unit two decades ago?

As Kate and Paul travel across England in search of the answers, they are unaware they are being hunted. Pursued by both her estranged husband and a psychopathic killer who has an unhealthy obsession with his quarry, Kate must fight to solve the puzzles of the past – uncovering a sickening betrayal and a truth she never dreamed possible."
Free books:

2. Life and Laughing: My Story by Michael McIntyre - £3.99
Rated 5 stars average from 167 reviews
Synopsis: "Michael McIntyre has become Britain�s biggest comedy star. His debut stand-up DVD, Live & Laughing, was the fastest selling of all time, only to be eclipsed by his second, Hello Wembley, that sold over 1.4 million copies and was the 2009 Christmas number one. He hosts his own BAFTA nominated BBC1 series, Michael McIntyre�s Comedy Roadshow, and won the British Comedy Award for Best Live Stand-up in 2009 following his record breaking fifty-four date Arena tour.
But how did he get there?
Michael reveals all in his remarkably honest and hilarious autobiography Life & Laughing. His showbiz roots, his appalling attempts to attract the opposite sex, his fish-out-of-water move from public to state school and his astonishing journey from selling just one ticket at the Edinburgh Festival to selling half a million tickets on his last tour. Michael�s story is riveting, poignant, romantic and above all very, very funny."

3. The Confession by John Grisham - £3.59
Rated 4 stars average from 71 reviews
Synopsis: "An innocent man is days from execution.Only a guilty man can save him. Travis Boyette is a murderer. In 1998, in the small East Texas city of Sloan, he abducted, raped, and strangled a popular high-school cheerleader. He buried her body so that it would never be found, then watched and waited as police and prosecutors arrested Donte Drumm, a local football star with no connection to the crime. Tried, convicted and sentenced, Drumm was sent to death row: his fate had been decided.Nine years later, Donte Drumm is four days from execution. Over 400 miles away in Kansas, Travis faces a fate of his own: an inoperable brain tumour will soon deliver the end. Reflecting on his miserable life, he decides to do what’s right. After years of silence he is ready to confess. But how can a guilty man convince lawyers, judges and politicians that they’re about to execute an innocent man?"

Free books:

1. Murder on the Mind
Rated 5 stars average from 1 review
Synopsis: "Jeff Resnick hardly knew his well-heeled half-brother. But after suffering a fractured skull in a vicious mugging, he reluctantly accepts the fact that he has a long and brutal recovery to face—and his closest of kin can provide him with the time and place to do it.

Now, Jeff is haunted by unexplained visions of a heinous crime—a banker, stalked, killed, and eviscerated like a ten-point buck. When Matt Sumner’s murder is discovered, a still-recovering Jeff realizes this was what he had seen. Jeff must not only convince himself of his new-found psychic ability, but also his skeptical brother Richard Alpert. Since Sumner was Richard’s banker, both brothers have a stake in finding out what happened. With Richard’s reluctant help, Jeff’s investigation leads him to Sumner’s belligerent family and hard-nosed business associates, none of whom want him snooping around.

When Jeff discovers a second victim, he knows he must relentlessly chase his quarry even if it means risking his brother’s life."

2. Guilty as Sin
Rated 3.5 stars average from 6 reviews
Synopsis: " When seventeen-year-old Danielle Levy goes missing one lunchtime, DS Wendy Knight and DCI Jack Culverhouse believe they have a routine case on their hands. When a prominent local businessman is found dead in his warehouse, however, the case takes a whole new disturbing turn as Knight and Culverhouse begin to unravel the connections between the two cases which lead to a dark and disturbing secret."

3. L.A. Nore: The Collected Stories
Rated 5 stars average from 1 review
Synopsis: "Rockstar Games has partnered with Mulholland Books to publish a collection of short fiction expanding the world of the newest groundbreaking achievement in storytelling: the interactive crime thriller L.A. Noire. 1940s Hollywood, murder, deception and mystery take center stage as readers reintroduce themselves to characters seen in L.A. Noire. Explore the lives of actresses desperate for the Hollywood spotlight; heroes turned defeated men; and classic Noir villains. Readers will come across not only familiar faces, but familiar cases from the game that take on a new spin to tell the tales of emotionally torn protagonists, depraved schemers and their ill-fated victims. With original short fiction by Megan Abbott, Lawrence Block, Joe Lansdale, Joyce Carol Oates, Francine Prose, Jonathan Santlofer, Duane Swierczynski and Andrew Vachss, L.A. NOIRE: THE COLLECTED STORIES breathes new life into a time-honored American tradition, in an exciting anthology that will appeal to fans of suspense and gamers everywhere."

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See you next week!

Great Kindle Deals Newsletter - Monday, 30th May 2011

2011-05-31T14:46:00.000-07:00

Hi everyone, hope you had a lovely Spring bank holiday. This week there's a bit more exciting news in the Kindle world, as well as some free and cheap books.

News:

1. Kindle 3G also gets Special Offers in US - You may remember a few weeks ago we reported that the Kindle Wifi is being offered at a $25 discount in the US in exchange for adverts on your homepage and lock screen. They have now extended this to the 3G kindle which does make more business since in reality, as they dynamically updated the ads 24/7. The 3G Kindle with adverts (Special offers) is available now for $164 instead of $189 for the non-ad-supported Kindle.

2. Amazon doubles Kindle battery life - After the latest Nook was released in America, Amazon has claimed that the current Kindle 3, including those previously manufactured, have a battery life of 2 months instaed of 1. The reasonapprently is because before the battery life stated was too conservative, to be fair I do agree, my current Kindle charge is at 50% charge and was last charge about 4 weeks ago.

Cheap books:

1. Bone & Cane - £1.00
Rated 5 stars average from 13 reviews
Synopsis: "Nottingham, 1997. Sarah Bone, Labour MP, is about to face the election battle of her life. At least she’s had some good publicity. On the night Sarah celebrates the overturning of Ed Clark’s conviction for murdering a policeman and his wife – her personal triumph – he sexually assaults her and brags that he did kill them, and more. As the murdered policeman’s sister Polly Bolton demands justice, Sarah’s obsession with the case deepens. Is she responsible for a terrible injustice? Nick Cane is fresh out of the same prison as Ed Clark, having served five years for growing wholesale amounts of cannabis in the caves beneath his old flat. A former teacher and political activist, Nick was the love of Sarah Bone’s life when they met at university, but they haven’t seen each other for thirteen years. Nick's only career option now is to drive a cab (illegally) for his brother’s firm, where he discovers Ed Clark again, this time as a colleague, and has a love affair with Polly Bolton. Nick has a mystery of his own eating away at him: who told the police about his dope-growing operation five years ago?The old chemistry still sparks as Nick reconnects with Sarah. Can an MP keep her relationship with an ex-con hidden from the media as together they attempt to expose Ed Clarke’s guilt?"

2. Mommy, May I? - £0.69
Rated 5 stars average from 2 reviews
Synopsis: "UNSUSPECTING...

Helena Shea is putting her life back together. Once a highly paid supermodel and now the owner and CEO of her own modeling agency, a recent bitter scandal that nearly destroyed Helena and the daughter she gave up for adoption years ago seems to be settling down. With a chance to have a relationship with her daughter, Frankie, and the development of a center for wayward young mothers that Helena is funding, it looks as if life is turning around for mother and daughter. However...

EVIL LURKS

A killer raised amidst evil and seeking revenge is targeting Helena. Leaving a trail of blood in his wake, this sadist plans his return into Helena's life. When the madman abducts Frankie, Helena fears she might never see her daughter again. Seeking help from the journalist who almost destroyed her, an FBI agent with suspicions toward her, as well as her ex-lover who is also Frankie’s father, Helena must find the strength to fight past addictions and see her daughter back home again—alive.

Prepare to lock your doors. This eerie thriller will have you up late into the night looking over your shoulder. It is as equally compelling as it is disturbing."

3. Least Wanted - £0.69
Rated 5 stars average from 5 reviews
Synopsis: "Stephanie Ann "Sam" McRae's busy, but orderly life as a Maryland lawyer takes a chaotic turn when two clients are accused of murder. A poor, black girl is accused of killing her mother. A young man suspected of embezzlement is accused of murdering his boss. The cases collide in a bizarre way involving girl gangs and computer pornography.

Sam ventures into the heart of DC's suburban ghettos to find answers. A maniacal killer who'll do anything to hide them stalks her. After a nearly disastrous confrontation, Sam must do business on the run. As the body count grows, Sam races to learn the truth and clear her clients before she becomes the next victim.

"

Free books:

1. Fifth Avenue
Rated 4 stars average from 20 reviews
Synopsis: "Look beneath all the power and all the wealth that represents New York City's Fifth Avenue, and you'll find greed, blood, revenge. In the international best-selling thriller "Fifth Avenue," each intermingles within a revered society that is unprepared for what's in store for it when one man finally strikes in an effort to destroy another man for murdering his wife thirty-one years ago.

Louis Ryan is that man. George Redman, his wife, two daughters and their close friends are his targets. Both men are self-made billionaires who came from nothing to stake their claim to Fifth Avenue. But when Louis Ryan hires an international assassin to literally rip the Redman family apart, a series of events that can't be stopped catapults them all through a fast-paced, hard-edged thriller in which nobody is safe.

Secrets are revealed. Sex lives are exposed. The Mafia get involved. And George's two daughters, Celina and Leana Redman, come to the forefront. More than anyone, it's they who are caught in the throes of their father's past as Louis Ryan's blind desire to kill them all takes surprising turns in his all-out effort to see them dead."

2. Hollywood Scandals
Rated 5 stars average from 2 reviews
Synopsis: "Tina Bender is the gossip columnist at the infamous L.A. Informer tabloid. She knows everything about everyone who's anyone. And she's not afraid to print it. That is, until she receives a threatening note, promising, "If you don't stop writing about me, you're dead." Now her managing editor, Felix Dunn (from the High Heels Mysteries), has her teaming with a built bodyguard, a bubbly blonde, and an alcoholic obituary writer to uncover just which juicy piece of Hollywood gossip is worth killing over."

3. Broken Phoenix
Rated 4.5 stars average from 2 reviews
Synopsis: "When Gabriel Morgan's sister disappears somewhere in New York's underground, he'll do anything to save her. But finding her is only the beginning, because Marcus Slade won't let her go for less than ten million dollars – earned through Gabriel's blood.

Slade, one of five ruthless leaders of an organization identified only by a symbol, runs hookers and street fighters, and never gives up what's his. Including Gabriel's sister. To win her freedom, Gabriel is forced to undergo a brutal training program with Slade's top fighters in order to become one of them. He is branded, broken, given a new image, and a new name.

In the ring, Gabriel is known as Angel…and he does not lose.Because the price for losing is his sister's life."

Great Kindle Deals Newsletter - Tuesday, 24th May 2011

2011-05-24T09:05:00.000-07:00

Hi everyone and welcome to this week's edition of Great Kindle Deals, there's some nice news, some cheap books and a few free books too for your enjoyment.

1. 1 in 8 women download ebooks illegally - Here's a random piece of news which seems to have crept out of nowhere, the International Business Times. "Based on a poll of 1,959 consumers, the report discovered that compared to the average one in 20 women who admit to illegally downloading music, one in eight admit to illegally downloading e-books...Traditionally viewed as a "safe" group that generally maintains a low crime rate, the news has set alarm bells ringing for several of the major publishing houses -- many of which have taken the revelation as a potential warning sign that the e-book industry could soon suffer the same mass-piracy issues plaguing the music industry." Food for thought. Though, with the affordability of ebooks on the Kindle it is worth rewarding authors in my opinion and I'm sure my readers do just that.

2. UK, hardbacks outsold by Kindle - The London Evening Standard reports that "Amazon revealed that in the US ebooks have outstripped all printed books and, in the UK, Amazon now sells 242 ebooks for every 100 hardbacks. Gordon Willoughby, European director at Kindle, said: "This is truly astonishing when you consider that we've been selling hardcover books from Amazon.co.uk for over 13 years and Kindle books for only nine months." This is a fantastic milestone for the UK Kindle market and truly has shown that the Kindle is doing very well, hopefully one day we'll achieve the same as the US and outsell all books with ebooks.

Free ebooks:

1. Germs, Genes and Civilization: How epidemics shaped who we are today
Rated 5 stars average from 1 review

Synopsis: "AD 452: Attila the Hun stands ready to sack Rome. No one can stop him--but he walks away. A miracle? No...dysentery. Microbes saved the Roman Empire. Nearly a millennium later, the microbes of the Black Death ended the Middle Ages, making possible the Renaissance, western democracy, and the scientific revolution. Soon after, microbes ravaged the Americas, paving the way for their European conquest.

Again and again, microbes have shaped our health, our genetics, our history, our culture, our politics, even our religion and ethics. This book reveals much that scientists and cultural historians have learned about the pervasive interconnections between infectious microbes and humans. It also considers what our ongoing fundamental relationship with infectious microbes might mean for the future of the human species."

2. Little Women

Rated 4.5 stars average from 72 reviews

Synopsis: " Part of the ANDRE DEUTSCH CLASSICS series, a classic story of four young women who struggle to overcome the trials of keeping up appearences whilst battling poverty and awaiting news of the fate of their father who is fighting the Civil War. Includes an introduction by Trevor McDonald."

3. One True Love

Rated 4.5 stars average from 6 reviews

Synopsis: "RITA Award-winning author Barbara Freethy has enchanted readers with her warm, rich stories of love and family. Now, in an extraordinary tale of a man and a woman, once parted, now reunited, she brings readers to a place where life's sorrows are wiped away by the power of love. Fans of Kristin Hannah, Luanne Rice and Susan Wiggs will enjoy this heartwarming, sometimes heartwrenching, story. She Walked Back Into His Life ...

The last place Lisa Alvarez expected to find herself was babysitting for her ex-sister-in-law's three rambunctious kids. But when Maggie called her up and begged for time alone, something in Lisa made her say yes - for one weekend she'd leave behind the career she'd built and her new fiancé. But Lisa never expected her handsome ex-husband Nick to show up on the doorstep, walking back into her life, and taking over more than the weekend...."

Cheap Books:

1. Daddy's Home - £0.69
Rated 4.5 stars average from 4 reviews
Synopsis: "A KILLER STALKS HIS PREY…
A calculating and deadly killer is in search for what he terms as his perfect family. Preying upon single mothers and their innocent children, the police have dubbed him "The Family Man.”

HE WATCHES THEM...HE TAKES THEM...
He plays out his role as the perfect father. When things don’t go so perfect in his insane fantasy world, the family man kills.

HOLLY JENNINGS IS ON THE CASE…
Crime Scene Investigator Holly Jennings of the San Diego Police Department is determined to track him down and see that justice is served. With Holly being a single mother herself, this man's crimes are deeply personal to her, and turn more so when a friend and her daughter become the latest victims of “The Family Man." "

2. Jenny Lopez has a Bad Week - £1.99
Rated 4 stars average from 7 reviews
Synopsis: " Jenny Lopez is miserable. Having spent the summer working in LA, she’s back home in New York, and missing the three key elements in a girl’s life – a roommate, a job and a boyfriend. Jenny formulates a plan; surely someone must need a roommate and surely someone must need a girlfriend?By the end of the day, she has arranged a viewing for a potential roommate, the gay blond aka the Sex God,secured two dates, and work looking after a top supermodel. Things look like they are back on track; everything is going to work out great. If only life was so easy…"

3. The Unremarkable Heart - £0.49
No reviews
Synopsis: "International, multi-million copy bestselling thriller writer Karin Slaughter is known for her compelling storytelling, intricate plotting and her ability to put the reader right at the heart of the crime. In The Unremarkable Heart she has turned her talents to a gripping story that will chill you to the bone.

This exclusive eBook short story includes extra material: the first chapter of her new paperback, Broken, out this June. And the first chance to read the opening chapter to her compelling new novel, Fallen, out in hardback this July."

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See you next week, where we may just have some more information on this rumoured Amazon Kindle Tablet.

Great Kindle Deals Newsletter - Monday, 16th May 2011

2011-05-16T13:29:00.000-07:00

Hi everyone and welcome to this week's edition of Great Kindle Deals. I hope you had a lovely weekend. A big welcome to all our new readers and those that have been with us for a while too. This week we have some more interesting news on the kindle and Amazon's tablet, as well as nice little kindle accessory and some free and cheap books.

News:
1. Fourth Kindle Millionaire - Amazon.com this week announced that Charlaine Harris is the fourth author to sell over 1 million Kindle books, becoming the latest member of the "Kindle Million Club." The Kindle Million Club recognizes authors whose books have sold over 1 million paid units in the Kindle Store . Stieg Larsson, author of the Millennium Trilogy, was the first author to hit the 1 million mark, followed by James Patterson and Nora Roberts. "All Charlaine Harris' books, and in particular her 'Sookie Stackhouse' series, are favorites with our Kindle customers, and the great sales of the 11^th book in this series, 'Dead Reckoning,' have helped push Harris past one million books sold," said David Naggar, Vice President, Kindle Content. "We're happy to welcome her to the Kindle Million Club." Well done to Miss Harris and I hope that we'll be able to congratulate more and more Kindle Millionaires here on Great Kindle Deals over the coming few months.

2. Remember Amazon's ad-supported Kindle? - A few weeks back we reported that Amazon.com would be selling a Kindle with ads for $25 less than the normal Kindle 3 (US only). Well it's now on sale and the ad-supported Kindle is now its best-selling Kindle selling more units than the old non-ad-supported version. It looks like this innovative move has paid off for Amazon, now it remains to be seen whether Amazon can make their money back off ads in the coming months and years and whether user satisfaction is just as high on these Kindles.

3. Kindle to top $5.42 billion is revenue this year - Analysts are predicting that sales of the Kindle device and its associated content will reach $5billion this year worldwide, and will climb to almost $8billion in 2012. The report claims that this is due to the rapid increase in titles in the Kindle Store with thousands of new titles added every month and almost every new book being launched in print and in digital form simultaneously. In fact there are over 713,000 books, magazines and newspapers in the UK Kindle Store today.

4. Kindle tablet confirmed - Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos pretty much confirmed the Amazon tablet this week by asking consumers to "stay tuned" for the Amazon tablet. Rumours online says that they are "99% sure" that Samsung will be manufacturing the tablet and that it will not be replacing the kindle due to its higher price point, but rather be another option.

Spotlight:
This week's spotlight is well, on an actual book light. This Really TINY Reading light is great for attaching to your kindle if it has a case - its tiny, light, uses next to no power, lasts long and covers the entire reading area whilst not lighting up the whole room. It even comes in handy as a torch if you need one. It costs £5.85 delivered straight to your door.
For a direct link to this item visit www.greatkindledeals.blogspot.com or click the link above.

Cheap books:

1. Creative Spirit by Scott Nicholson (£0.70)
Rated 5 stars average from 4 reviews
Synopsis: "After parapsychologist Anna Galloway is diagnosed with metastatic cancer, she has a recurring dream in which she sees her own ghost. The setting of her dream is the historic Korban Manor, which is now an artist's retreat in the remote Appalachian Mountains. Drawn both by the ghost stories surrounding the manor and her own sense of destiny, Anna signs up for the retreat.

The manor itself has secrets, with fires that blaze constantly in the hearths, portraits of Korban in every room, and deceptive mirrors on the walls. The house's brooding atmosphere affects the creative visions of the visiting artists. A mysterious woman in white calls to Anna from the forest, while Mason is driven by the whispers of an unseen critic. With an October blue moon looming, both the living and the dead learn the true power of their dreams. A modern Gothic thriller.

2. The Child Taker by Conrad Jones (£0.99)
Rated 4 stars average from 51 reviews
Synopsis: "A stand alone novel based on high profile child abductions, which have been followed by millions of concerned parents on the news. 5 year old twins are abducted from a tent in the Lake District and the hunt for a dangerous peadophile ring begins. Police procedure follows the premise that 60% of abducted children are murdered within the first four hours of being taken. The first hour is called "The golden hour" and the longer a child is missing, the less chance there is of them being recovered unharmed. The Child Taker follows the desperate search for the missing twins."

3. Bye Bye Baby (£0.86)
Rated 4 stars average from 28 reviews
Synopsis: "When a seven-year-old boy disappears after school, the case is handed to Detective Frank Collins. He's been looking to lead a high-profile case for a while, and sets out determined to prove his worth. But the missing schoolboy is only a trigger for another crime. Someone is intent on exploiting the boy's grief-stricken mother. And they have plans for Frank Collins too."

Free books:

1. You've gone too far this time, Sir
Rated 5 stars average from 6 reviews
Synopsis: "When Danny Bent cycled 15,000 kilometres from the UK to India to raise money for ActionAid, it was a decision that took twenty years and one minute. For twenty years he had wanted to do something to raise money for charity. The one minute was when as their teacher he was put on the spot by his pupils and declared that the means was by bike, and he was going to India. What he had signed up for was slogging along roads with trucks bearing down on him, unable to see and choking in the smog; shooting down treacherous descents with 100 foot drops, shaking with cold and too numb to brake; muscle burn and saddle sores; delirium and food poisoning; thirst and malnutrition; foul and insanitary conditions; life-threatening crises; obstructive border guards, crazed dogs and inquisitive passers-by.

'You've Gone Too Far This Time, Sir!' is a real and compelling blow-by-blow account of Danny's trip across Europe, the former Soviet Republics, Russia, China, Pakistan and India."

2. Perfect Crime
Rated 4 stars average from 3 reviews
Synopsis: "A San Francisco wife plots to murder her philandering husband by being in two places at one time. She commits the Perfect Crime and starts an exciting new life with a sexy new boyfriend, living off the life insurance policy of her murdered husband. Until her doorbell rings one night . . . ."

3. The Defector
Rated 4.5 stars average from 6 reviews
Synopsis: " What would you do, when it's you or them? This is the dilemma at the heart of The Defector - can Martin Cormac turn his back on his ruthless past as a currency trader, a major city player, and do the right thing? Not when he's looking for answers in a succession of sleazy dives...

One night, Cormac gets caught trying to chat up the bar owner's girlfriend and soon needs rescuing. But his white knight is anything but - Janac's a big-time drug dealer with a psychotic urge to test people to the limit, and if possible... over it. And soon Cormac is running from more than his past, he's running from the most dangerous game he will ever play."

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I hope you enjoyed the newsletter and found some nice bargains, thanks for subscribing and see you next week.

Giovanni Costa
GreatKindleDeals

Great Kindle Deals Newsletter - Friday, 6th May 2011

2011-05-07T09:02:00.000-07:00

Hi and welcome everyone to the latest edition of Great Kindle Deals. I'd like to apologize for last week's newsletter not being sent as the publishing platform appears to have messed up and not send last week's edition. So, this week I'll include both week's worth. Sorry about that.

News:
1. Amazon reports loss in earnings - Amazon has posted a net profit of £122million for the past year, down 33%, although sales have risen by 31% from last year. The explanation - Amazon has been invested significantly in "new products and technologies." The key bit for us Kindle users is just these "new products and technologies." And if you read on, you will see where these technologies may be leading.

2. Amazon to take on iPad - The Telegraph reports: "First Amazon’s Kindle revolutionised the book market – now the company is set to release its own rival to Apple’s iPad. Taiwanese manufacturers are gearing up to produce up to 800,000 of the new tablet devices per month in the second half of this year, sources at Quanta, a company that also works for BlackBerry and Sony said. The new Kindle is likely to be based on Google’s operating system Android, and has caused excitement because Amazon already sells movies and music downloads. Amazon has also recently launched its own App store to rival that provided by Apple."

3. Ebook sales up in 2010 - The official figures are out and sales last year of ebooks were up 38% (for me, actually a surprisingly small number), there for £120million in digital book sales accounting for just 4% of the £3.1billion. The Register says: "The book market here is actually a larger than that – the Association notes that sales figures it receives are probably around 70 per cent of digital book sales. Extrapolating from this and other surveys, the Association reckons the true size of the digital slice of the market is nearer to £180m, out of a cake worth £3.8bn"

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Feature: Interview
GKD: Introduce yourself to us please, and tell us one fun fact about yourself.
Scott: I’m Scott Nicholson, and I live in the Southern Appalachian Mountains in the U.S. I’ve
written 20 books and six screenplays, but the most interesting thing about me is I am an
organic gardener and heirloom seed saver.

GKD: Interesting. So, how did you get into writing?
Scott: I always had pencils and paper around and I was always drawing, writing, just making stuff up. It was a fun little escape from a crowded family.
The smell of crayons still gives me a thrill.

GKD: So, had you always wanted to be a writer?
I always knew I’d be a writer someday, but I ventured into music for a number of years. It wasn’t until I finally got a college degree that I was afraid I’d live a normal life, so I immediately started writing every day.

GKD: And is writing your full-time job?
Yes, I’ve been writing for 15 years while working as a newspaper reporter, but in February I went full-time, thanks to all the wonderful Kindle readers.

GKD: What advice do you have for aspiring writers?
Scott: Make your craft your biggest asset. Work hard and expect disappoint. Most of all, do good and be kind.

GKD: Have you found the Kindle has worked out as a business model for you?
Scott: Absolutely. I’d had nine books from “real publishers” but usually only one or two would be in a store at any one time. Now all of them are available all the time, all around the world, and I feel a real close connection to my readers.

GKD: What importance would you attribute to social media in book promotion?
Scott: Your friends are your success in life, whether they are online friends or people in your daily routine. Treasure them!

GKD: What projects are you working on now?
Scott: I’m working on a sequel to Liquid Fear and starting a big promotion for The Skull Ring, another suspense thriller. We’re developing some children’s books and I’m also collaborating with bestselling writer J.R. Rain. You can keep up with things at my web site, Haunted Computer.

GKD: Is there anything else you'd like to add?
Scott: Due to rights issues, I have some supernatural thrillers out for Kindle in the UK that are unavailable in the U.S.: Creative Spirit, Troubled, Solom, and The Gorge. I believe British readers will love them, since they didn’t get over here in paperback. Thanks, Giovanni, for your cool blog and your service in getting the word out about Kindle books.

GKD: Thank you very much for your time and good luck with your books.
Scott: Thanks!

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Cheap books:

Truth Dare Kill by Gordon Ferris - £1.00
Rated 4.5 stars average from 37 reviews
Synopsis: "Memories can lie…
Especially when other people mess with your mind... Danny McRae is a private investigator. He’s no Philip Marlowe but what else is a demobbed SOE agent to do now the war is over and the world struggles back to normality? Not that anything will be normal for Danny until he fills the void in his memory which swallowed up an entire mission to France. But first he has a case to investigate. Elegant, upper-class Kate Graveney has made a shocking admission, and Danny needs to get her off the hook. Danny sets off on a hunt through bomb-ravaged London, the bleak cityscape mirroring the ruins of his mind. The head injury which gouged his memory also gives him blackouts: hours, sometimes days, are a complete blank. Newspaper headlines about a brutal killer stalking London’s red light district make him uneasy, and a visit from an old adversary awakens dark misgivings. At least there’s Valerie – but even she proves elusive. He is assaulted by the police and befriended by the madam of a cat-house. He is torn between his upper class client and the shop girl who believes in him. The odds stack up against Danny and soon he fears for his life. The only escape is through that gap in his memory…"

2. Replica by Lexi Revellian (The author of bestseller Remix) - £0.99
Rated 5 stars average from 21 reviews
Synopsis: "REPLICA is a fast-paced thriller/romance you will find hard to put down.

Beth Chandler works in a government research institute, and is accidentally replicated in a flawed experiment. The replica has no official existence, and when she overhears plans to liquidate her, goes on the run. Homeless, penniless and pursued by MI5, she has to learn how to survive on icy London streets. Meanwhile, the original Beth, unaware of what has happened, becomes romantically involved with Nick Cavanagh, the spec op she believes is there to protect her. In fact, he’s hunting her double."

3. "Silver" by Steven Saville - £0.68
Rated 4 stars average from 27 reviews
Synopsis: ""There is a plague coming....For forty days and forty nights fear shall savage the streets. Those steeped in sin shall burn. The dying begins now"With this chilling message a wave of terror unlike anything the world has ever seen sweeps the streets of Europe. Thirteen martyrs burn themselves alive in thirteen major cities simultaneously.

And this is just the beginning.A religious cult calling itself the Disciples of Judas has risen in the Middle East. They twist the words of ancient prophecies to drive home the fear. Everything you believe in will be proved wrong. Everything you hold true will fail.
Day by day the West wakes to increasingly harrowing acts of terror. As fear cripples the capitals of Europe, the only question is where will be the next to fall? London? Rome? Berlin?
In a race against time - believing the terrorists intend to assassinate the Pope - Sir Charles Wyndham's unique Special Ops team, codename Ogmios, track a labyrinthine course through truth, shades of truth and outright lies that takes them from the backstreets of London to the shadow of Checkpoint Charlie in Berlin and all the way into the heart of the Holy See itself."

Spotlight: In June "Madeleine" will be released, Kate and Gerry McCann’s personal account of the disappearance and continuing search for their daughter.“There are several different reasons as to why I finally came to the decision with my husband Gerry to write and publish this book,” said Kate McCann. “This decision has not been an easy one. Many factors needed to be given thorough and careful consideration, not least the impact of such a book on the lives of our three children. My reason for writing is simple; to give an account of the truth.Publishing this book has been a very different decision and is one that we have taken after much deliberation and with a very heavy heart. However, in the last few months with the depletion of Madeleine’s Fund, it is a decision that has virtually been taken out of our hands.Every penny we raise through its sales will be spent on our search for Madeleine. Nothing is more important to us than finding our little girl.”Gerry McCann said: “We are hopeful that this book may help the investigation to find Madeleine in other ways too. Our hope is that it may prompt those who have relevant information (knowingly or not) to come forward and share it with our team. Somebody holds that key piece of the jigsaw.”Bill Scott-Kerr, Publisher at Transworld, bought the book from the Christopher Little Literary Agency for publication in Spring 2011. All royalties will be donated directly to Madeleine’s Fund – Leaving No Stone Unturned Limited.Bill said: ‘It is an enormous privilege to be publishing this book. We are so pleased to be joining Kate and Gerry McCann in the Find Madeleine campaign."The McCanns' Literary Agents, Christopher Little and Neil Blair, said: "We are honoured to be part of this emotive project and to support the McCanns in their search for Madeleine."

Given all the controversy I am sure this book will be one of the most sold this year. This is a pre-order copy which will be released May 12th on paperback and May 16th on Kindle, it will be automatically delivered for free on its release date. Madeleine costs £8.10 on the Kindle here, or £9.00 in Hardcover here.

Spotlight: Royal Wedding Fever - although the big event was last weekend, how about continuing the celebrations with the biography of William and Catherine with William and Catherine: Their Lives, Their Wedding for just £3.99. Synopsis: On 16 November 2010, the long-awaited engagement of HRH Prince William to Miss Catherine Middleton was formally announced, with a London wedding promised for April 2011. Andrew Morton, the leading royal biographer famous the world over for his million-copy bestselling, authorized biography of Diana, Princess of Wales, has written a full-length biography of William and his new bride Kate.Morton has followed the prince's life since birth and has unrivalled insight into the royal family.

Free Books:

1.The CV by Alan Sugar
Rated 2 stars average from 1 review
Synopsis: Read Lord Sugar's CV, with its extracts from his bestselling autobiography What You See is What You Get, and discover what it takes to make a true entrepreneur.

Alan Sugar was born in 1947 and brought up on a council estate in Clapton, in Hackney. He started spotting money-making opportunities as a kid, engaging in activities as diverse as selling surplus 35mm film to schoolmates (undercutting the photographic shops by 50%) and making and selling his own ginger beer. At the age of nineteen he set up his own company; through his CV we see how Amstrad's groundbreaking ventures in hi-fi and computers made him the darling of the stock exchange. The breadth of his experiences is apparent, from buying Tottenham Hotspur FC and exposing corruption in the football industry to starring in the BAFTA-winning television show The Apprentice; from his appointment as Enterprise Champion, advising the government on small business and enterprise, to his elevation to the peerage."

2. Life of Pi by Yann Martel [GRAB IT QUICK!]
Rated 4 stars average from 359 reviews
Synopsis: " This title is the winner of The 2002 Booker Prize. After the tragic sinking of a cargo ship, one solitary lifeboat remains bobbing on the wild, blue Pacific. The crew of the surviving vessel consists of a hyena, a zebra (with a broken leg), a female orang-utan, a 450-pound Royal Bengal tiger and Pi - a 16-year-old Indian boy. The scene is set for one of the most extraordinary pieces of literary fiction of recent years."

3. The Stolen Child by Brian McGilloway
Rated 4 stars average from 1 review
Synopsis: "An exclusive free edition of Brian McGilloway's acclaimed short crime-story, featuring Garda Inspector Benedict Devlin.

Includes the opening chapters of McGilloway's dazzling new novel, Little Girl Lost ('Truly chilling' Ann Cleeves)."

4. The Sheperd by Ethan Cross
Rated 4.5 stars average from 9 reviews
Synopsis: "Marcus Williams and Francis Ackerman Jr. both have a talent for hurting people. Marcus, a former New York City homicide detective, uses his abilities to protect others, while Ackerman uses his gifts to inflict pain and suffering. When both men become unwi"

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Great Kindle Deals Book Club
One of the most popular responses from our recent survey was the idea of a Book Club where all the members could read something together at the same time and then share discussions about the book. So, I'd like to know what you all think - would you participate in something like this? We'd be sure to choose books which were relatively cheap and maybe even some classics which are free. Send in your suggestions too for a book we could start off with, and we'll get the ball rolling. Email us at greatkindledeals@gmail.com

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That's it for this week, see you next week with another newsletter packed with more news, free books, cheap books and features. Also, why not suggest Great Kindle Deals to a friend? For less than a price of coffee every few months they can get 52 week's worth of Kindle goodness and more than make their money back from all the free books we offer. See you next week.

Great Kindle Deals Newsletter - Friday, 22nd March.

2011-04-22T13:14:00.000-07:00

Hello, and welcome to this weekend's edition of Great Kindle Deals. It's been an absolute scorcher of a week with temperatures almost hitting 30 degrees in some parts of the country, and it's only April. What happened to the April showers? Now, that's proof of global warming if you ever needed any. For the religious amongst us, Happy Easter! And for everyone, I hope you have a great week ahead!

Feature: Spotlight on Scott Nicholson
This week we are taking a look at Scott Nicholson, writer of US-number 1 Kindle bestseller Liquid Fear. He's partnered up with Great Kindle Deals over the coming months to get you some of his books at spectacular prices. His work has had rave reviews and is still at number one in bargain books in the US. In fact, we've featured this number-1 best-seller as one this week's cheap books in this newsletter. Next week we'll be featuring an interview with the man himself.

News:
1. E-books outsell paperbacks - A few months ago we reported that Amazon is now selling more e-books than paperbacks and no-longer is this confined to just Amazon.com, no. Now, in the entire US more e-books are being sold than paperbacks. That's more e-books from Amazon, Barnes and Noble and other e-book stores than from traditional high-street stores. It almost seems impossible to believe but e-books really have taken the US by storm. Let's hope the UK follows suit and save some trees. I do however think that shops such as WHSmith are very aware of this fact - my local WHSmith sells toys now and the books section is less than a quarter of the entire shop floor. I do not want to see these shops go, or books go in general. I just think that writers are now getting a fairer percentage of their work through direct sales but we'll always need physical books to get signed by authors, right? Apparently not. See below.

2. Digital book signing - The Daily Mail reports that "a new electronic book app is offering readers the chance to get their virtual books signed by their favourite authors without them having to resort to writing on the outside of their Kindle or iPad cases. The Autography application allows fans to have the signature of their favourite writers added to the inside page of their eBooks." As one commenter said: "Anyone can electronically copy signatures over and over, once someone gets it they can copy it and email it to someone else and it becomes completely devalued, this is just one thing that cant replace the reality of human contact."

3. Borrow from your library with your Kindle (US) - In another move that is set to increase the proliferation of Kindle adoptance, and enrage UK consumers, US Kindle users will now be able to borrow books from their library digitally and even make annotations on it. These will be retained if you borrow the book again or buy yourself a copy from the Kindle Store. The service will be provided through Amazon and OverDrive. OverDrive currently operate in the UK with a similar system available for Sony e-readers - it's even available in my local library. The selection for the current uK OverDrive system is about 20 e-books at my local library. Let's hope that the Amazon Kindle compatible service comes over here too and allows us a much wider choice.

4. German Kindle Store - BusinessWeek reports: "Amazon.com Inc. said Thursday that it has launched its Kindle e-book store in Germany, bolstering a catalog of German-language books that it had already offered to customers of its U.S. and U.K. websites. The store launched with more than 25,000 German-language e-books. "

5. Kindle Android update - As Amazon makes its platform available on more devices, it has now updated its Android app to be compatible with Honeycomb Tablets. CNET reports that "the updated version offers a virtual bookshelf that stretches across the screen to let people visually browse and view titles at the Kindle store. The new interface also provides quicker access to customer reviews, recommendations, and other items of interest to book buyers. Further, Amazon has tweaked the layout for magazines and newspapers so that readers can now see full color images on their tablets."

Cheap books:

1. Liquid Fear by Scott Nicholson - £0.71

Rated 4 stars average from 12 reviews

Synopsis: "The US Number 1 Kindle Best-seller. hen Roland Doyle wakes up with a dead woman in his motel room, the only clue is a mysterious vial of pills bearing the label “Take one every 4 hrs or else.”
Ten years before, six people were involved in a secret pharmaceutical trial that left one of them dead and five unable to remember what happened. Now the experiment is continuing, as Dr. Sebastian Briggs concludes his research into fear response and post-traumatic stress disorder. He’s backed by a major drug company and an ambitious U.S. Senator, but he also has a personal stake in the outcome.
Only by taking the mysterious pills can the survivors stave off the creeping phobias, sexual impulses, and inflicted madness that threaten to consume them. But the pills have an unexpected side effect—the survivors start remembering the terrible acts they perpetrated a decade ago. They are lured back to the Monkey House, the remote facility where the original trials took place, and Briggs has prepared it for their return.
Now they are trapped, they each have only one pill left, and cracks are forming in their civilized veneer. After the pills are gone, there’s only one option. “Or else.”

2. The Crimson Petal and the White - £1.47

Rated 4 stars average from 100 reviews

Synopsis: "Although it's billed as "the first great 19th-century novel of the 21st century," The Crimson Petal and the White is anything but Victorian. It's the story of a well-read London prostitute named Sugar, who spends her free hours composing a violent, pornographic screed against men. Michel Faber's dazzling second novel dares to go where George Eliot's The Mill on the Floss and the works of Charles Dickens could not. We learn about the positions and orifices that Sugar and her clients favour, about her lingering skin condition, and about the suspect ingredients of her prophylactic douches. Still, Sugar believes she can make a better life for herself. Despite its 800-plus pages, The Crimson Petal and the White turns out to be a quick read, since it is truly impossible to put down."

3. The Eagle of the Ninth

Rated 4.5 stars average from 36 reviews

Synopsis: "One of Rosemary Sutcliff's acclaimed books set in Roman Britain. The Eagle of the Ninth tells the story of a young Roman officer who sets out to discover the truth behind the mysterious disappearance of the Ninth Legion, who marched into the mists of northern Britain and never came back.The Eagle of the Ninth is the first in an outstanding series of books about the Roman occupation which was followed by The Silver Branch and The Lantern Bearers also published by Oxford Children's Books.Packed with real-life detail about Roman warfare and featuring a likeable adventuring hero, this story will have particular appeal for boys.Rosemary Sutcliff is the acknowledged master of children's historical storytelling, she was awarded the OBE for her services to children's literature in 1975. She died in 1992."

4. A Game of Thrones (Song & Ice of Fire 1) - £5.49
Rated 4.5 stars from 476 reviews
Synopsis: " The first volume of George R R Martin’s glorious high fantasy tells the tragic story of treachery, greed and war that threatens the unity of the Seven Kingdoms south of the Wall. Martin unfolds with astonishing skill a tale of truly epic dimensions, thronged with memorable characters, a story of treachery and ambition, love and magic. Set in a fabulous world scarred by battle and catastrophe over 8000 years of recorded history, it tells of the deeds of men and women locked in the deadliest of conflicts and the terrible legacy they will leave their children. In the game of thrones, you win or you die.And in the bitter-cold, unliving lands beyond the Wall, a terrible winter gathers and the others — the undead, the neverborn, wildlings to whom the threat of the sword is nothing — make ready to descend on the realms of men." If you are going to buy this, I'd advise you to buy the paperback as unfortunately it is cheaper than this version.

Free books:

1. Rampant
Rated 4.5 stars average from 7 reviews
Synopsis: " The moment she arrives at her rented vacation cottage in Scotland, Zoe Daniels feels it—an arousal so powerful she's compelled to surrender to the unusually forceful carnal desires...with nearly anyone who crosses her path. Crawford Logan, the boat builder with the wayward grin. The devilish restaurateur Cain Davot, who seems to know more about Zoe than he lets on. Even her sexy neighbor Grayson Murdoch, whose eyes delve into her soul as he explores every inch of her body. Yet there's something unsettling about the way the locals watch her, something eerie about these overwhelming encounters. Zoe knows she's not quite in control and wonders if there's any truth to the legend of Annabel McGraw, a powerful, promiscuous eighteenth-century witch who once owned the cottage, and whose spirit is rumored to affect anyone who stays there. Zoe doesn't believe in anything occult, but now strange visions are turning frightening...and only one man's touch can bring her back to earth."

2. The Secret Holocaust Diaries
Rated 4 stars average from 6 reviews
Synopsis: "How this story came to be written is a big part of the drama. The only World War II survivor of her wealthy Russian, devout Christian family, Nonna Lisowskaya came to the U.S. in 1950, married Henry Bannister, and never spoke about her Holocaust experience––until a few years before her death in 2004, when she revealed her diaries, originally written in six languages on paper scraps that she had kept in a pillow strapped to her body throughout the war. Now those diaries, in her English translation, tell her story of fleeing Stalinist Russia, not knowing what was waiting in Hitler’s Germany, where she saw her mother murdered in the camps, escaped a massacre of Jews shot into a pit, was nursed by Catholic nuns, and much more. The editors’ commentary in different type constantly interrupts the memoir, but the notes are helpful in explaining history and context. The added-on heavy messages celebrating Nonna’s Christian forgiveness seem intrusive and unnecessary, no matter how heartfelt. --Hazel Rochman"

3. Almost Perfect
Rated 4 stars average from 3 reviews
Synopsis: "A Free Spirit and a Reformed Bad Boy -- a Perfect Match?

Maddy was always the artistic one of the group, alive with color and mischief from her saucy red curls to her vintage hippie skirts. Her challenge, the friends decide, is to get her artwork accepted at a gallery. A job as arts director at a summer camp near Santa Fe—with its multitude of galleries—seems like a start in the right direction.

There’s just one catch: The camp is run by Maddy’s high school flame, Joe, whose heart she broke—okay, smashed—and his anger towards Maddy hasn’t cooled one bit. But neither has their attraction.

Old desires burn hotter than ever as Joe makes it clear there’s only one way back to his heart: She has to get serious about her art. But will falling in love help or hinder Maddy as she struggles to meet her challenge?"

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That's it for this week folks, see you next time!

Great Kindle Deals Newsletter - Sunday, 17th April 2011

2011-04-17T15:43:00.000-07:00

Hi everyone, and welcome to the latest edition of Great Kindle Deals. Can you believe that we're in the middle of April already?! It seems like just yesterday that everyone was celebrating the new year. This week there's only one piece of Kindle news but a major piece at that. There's also the usual information about cheap books and some nice free books too.

Reader survey:
I'd like to thank everyone who has completed the reader survey so far, but I'd like more of you to complete it as at the moment only around 2-3% of readers have done so. Please can you fill our our reader survey here - it means I can target the newsletter better to you the readers. It is free and really will help the newsletter. It will take less than a minute to complete. Thank you very much.

Feature - Interview with Amanda Hocking
Amanda Hocking's assistant got back to me saying that unfortunately she is currently unable to conduct interviews as she is busy writing her new book. However, here is an excerpt from a recent interview which contains muchof what I was to ask her:

"DAVID WISEHART: What writers inspire you most?

AMANDA HOCKING: I really enjoy Richelle Mead. Her characters are very strong and funny and real, and I definitely learn from her as much as I can.

DAVID WISEHART: What is your writing process?

AMANDA HOCKING: When I get an idea, I think about it for a few weeks, and then I outline. Once I have an outline ready, I sit down at the computer and write. Sometimes, I’ll write for 8-12 hours a night. When I’m writing, I usually shut myself off from the world for a few weeks and just write. Then I’m done, and I come back to real life.

DAVID WISEHART: Why publish on Kindle?

AMANDA HOCKING: I tried shopping around My Blood Approves, but with the market as saturated as it is with vampire books, I didn’t get any takers. I still really liked the book, so I thought I’d try Kindle. I’d heard some things about publishing on it, and it had to be better than the books just taking up space on my hard drive."

There is much more in the full interview at the Kindle author blog here (http://kindle-author.blogspot.com/2010/07/interview-amanda-hocking.html

The news:
1. New ad-supported Kindle - Amazon.com has announced a new ad-supported Kindle selling for $25 less than the current Kindle Wifi. It's equivalent RRP in the UK would be around £100 (a mere saving of £11). In return for this saving, readers will have ads delivered to the lock screen on their device, meaning that instead of the face of famous authors there'd be an advert there instead. Ads will also be present on the home screen when selecting books. This product will only be available for sale in the US at the moment.

The idea is interesting, yet for me a saving of £11 would no warrant having ads on the device. In my opinion, the device would have to cost around £50 for me tolerate ads on the device. It still remains to be seen whether Amazon can make back the $25 discount through ads and whether it will be available at some point in the UK. What do you think of an ad supported Kindle? Email us at greatkindledeals@gmail.com and let me know.

Cheap Kindle Books:

1. The Good Son by Russel McLean (£0.99)
Rated 3.5 stars average from 6 reviews
Synopsis: "Scottish farmer, James Robertson, finds his estranged brother's corpse hanging from a tree. The police claim suicide. But Private Investigator J McNee is about to uncover the disturbing truth behind the death. With a pair of vicious London hard men loose in the Scottish city of Dundee, its only a matter of time before people start dying.
McNee must confront his own demons and these brutal killers in a violence showdown that threatens to leave no one alive.
The first in the acclaimed J McNee novels, THE GOOD SON was nominated for a Shamus Award by the Private Eye Writers of America."

2. Bloody Valentine (Quick read - 144pages) (£1.59)
Rated 3.5 stars average from 17 reviews
Synopsis: "Exclusively for World Book Day, James Patterson brings his unique storytelling gift to the Quick Reads schem. This year Valentine’s Day isn’t for romance. It’s for murder.Mega rich restaurant owner Jack Barnes and his second wife Zee are very much in love. However, their plans for Valentine’s Day are about to be torn apart by the most violent murder.Who is the strange figure plotting this sick crime? Who hates Jack that much? There are plenty of suspects living in Jack’s fancy block of flats. Is it them, or could it be the work of an outsider with a twisted mind? One thing’s for sure, the police have got their work cut out solving this bloody mess."

3. Unlikely Killer - £0.69
Rated 4.5 stars average from 16 reviews
Synopsis: "Usually a serial killer will have a modus operandi that can lead to their capture. This one is breaking all the rules.
It takes a journalist's keen eye to grasp the terrifying truth. This killer is recreating infamous murders from history. Despite researching historical murders in an attempt to catch the killer in the act, the police are repeatedly outwitted. With the Jack the Ripper murders next on the agenda, a bloodbath seems inevitable.
With the clock ticking and the killer becoming increasingly frenzied, a detective and criminal psychologist join forces to stop this unlikely killer."

Free books:

1. No fear
Rated 3.5 stars average from 4 reviews
Synopsis: "Welcome to Medusa’s Island . . . a vacation paradise complete with beautiful beaches and the quaint town of Medusa. But the island’s serenity is shattered when two young women are found dead from no apparent causes despite their expressions of terror. Chief of Police James Winchester and Emma Gray fear a monster from the past has returned to make Medusa its feeding ground. With passion flaring between them and a storm isolating the island, Emma and James have no choice but to again face the horror of a killer who exploits the deepest fears of his victims.
When James and Emma discover that Emma is destined to be the next victim, will the love they share be strong enough to save them? Or will the monster finally finish what he started five years before?"

2. The Charmer (Dark lands)
Rated 5 stars average from 2 reviews
Synopsis: "What would you do if your best friend was the wolf queen?
Jasmine didn’t realize her friend Wiley was something special until they were both drawn into another world. Here Wiley is the ruler of the Haunt, a were race as dangerous as they are proud. Cousins to wolves, they have no place for an ordinary human, especially one set on helping their reluctant princess escape.
Keilor is the master of soldiers, a man few would cross, yet he’d never met a menace like the little brunette his princess called friend. Determined to protect Wiley in their own way, the two cross verbal daggers as Jasmine tries to find the portal home.
But when Wiley begins to develop feelings for her betrothed, Jasmine is at a loss. Should she still try to run, or act on the animal attraction between her and her wolfman?"

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Thanks for subscribing, I'll see you next week.

Great Kindle Deals Newsletter - Sunday, 10th April 2011

2011-04-10T07:23:00.000-07:00

Hi everyone, and welcome to this week's edition of Great Kindle Deals. I hope you've had a fantastic week and at least here in London it has been very hot over the past week or so. I'd like to start off by thanking everyone who has left a review of the blog on Amazon after my request last week - all of them were 5 star reviews bring our average review up to 4 stars at the moment.It has also meant that the blog has moved up the rankings and is now the 11th most subscribed blog - although I don't understand how the top 2 blogs are ranked so high considering they are US Kindle blogs and have 1 star reviews due to containing no UK information. If only they knew about Great Kindle Deals.

I'd like to apoligise for a minor error in last week's newsletter it was in fact from "April" and not "March" as it said in the title. In other news, I myself am thinking of writing a thriller exclusively for the Kindle Store. I already have a vague draft ready and would like to do this for the experience of writing not only a book, but more specifically for the Kindle platform. Also, I have asked Kindle-millionaire-seller Amanda Hocking for an interview which I'd like to publish soon if she can take time out of her busy schedule for that. I'll keep you updated.

Now, after that lengthy introduction, here's the news:

1. Apple to challenge Kindle directly? - Rumours are emerging that Apple may be creating a hybrid-display technology allowing the iPad and other Apple devices to use e-ink technology as well as a standard LCD-screen. In my opinion, this is highly unlikely as the price of having both technologies in one device, as well as the extra space it would require, seems counter-intuitive to me. Read more here.

2. Kindles in libraries - A library in the US in offering e-reader rentals, not e-book but e-reader rentals. They have bought an Amazon Kindle and are offering it to be loaned out with several hundred books on it. The standard library rules apply whereby it must be returned within a certain date. There is a $2 fee per day if you return the Kindle late. Although this sound like a move forward, to me it seems like a backwards step, although more people will get acquainted with the Kindle - it will have to be locked down and shouldn't we just be able to rent books directly to our own Kindles instead of carrying around one that it used by many others. Original article here.

3. Searches for "Kindle" on Google soar - After the New York Times Paywall rose, and they announced that Kindle subscribers get free acccess to the online edition for $20 a month, searches for the device have increased by 40%. The independent has the full story here.

4. Users angry at Kindle book prices - US users are very angry with publishers in the US as they have started leaving 1-star reviews on Amazon books. The movement started as a result of people noticing that certain Kindle books are more expensive than their print counterparts and were being sold at $14.99 - roughly £9.10. I guess we're lucky here in the UK, although there are certain books which are more expensive on Kindle the majority of e-books are cheaper. And around 75% of the Kindle best-sellers are £1 or less and none are above £7. CNET has more.

Cheap e-books:

1. Classic British Fiction - Thomas Hardy's complete fiction - £0.71
Rated 5 stars average from 1 review
Synopsis: "This file includes the complete text of: Desperate Remedies, 1871; Under the Greenwood Tree, 1872; A Pair of Blue Eyes, 1873; Far From the Madding Crowd, 1874; The Hand of Ethelberta, 1876; The Return of the Native, 1878; Wessex Tales, 1879; The Trumpet-Major, 1880; A Laodicean, 1881; Two on a Tower, 1882; The Romantic Adventures of a Milkmaid, 1883; A Changed Man and Other Tales, 1885; The Mayor of Casterbridge, 1886; The Woodlanders, 1887; Tess of the d'Urbervilles, 1891; A Group of Noble Dames, 1891; Life's Little Ironies, 1891; Jude the Obscure, 1895; The Well-Beloved, 1897; and The Dynasts, 1903."

2. The Unquiet Heart - £1.00
Rated 4.5 stars average from 18 reviews
Synopsis: "LONDON AND BERLIN, 1946. The perfect partnership - gang-busters by day, lovers by night… Danny McRae, private detective scraping a living in ration-card London.
Eve Copeland, crime reporter, looking for new angles to save her career. It’s an alliance made in heaven. Until Eve disappears, a contact dies violently and an old adversary presents Danny with some unpalatable truths. His desperate search for his lover draws him into a web of black marketeers, double agents and assassins, and hurls him into the shattered remains of Berlin, where terrorism and espionage foreshadow the bleakness of the Cold War. And Danny begins to lose sight of the thin line between good and evil…"

3. Mr Right for the Night - £0.86
Rated 5 stars average from 14 reviews

Synopsis: "Anna who is attending a ten year school reunion hosted by the ex school bully. Can she find a willing man to accompany her to the bash or will she have to turn up alone and face the girls who once made her life hell?"

Free books: (There's a nice variation this week)

1. A World I Never Made
Rated 5 stars average from 1 review
Synopsis: "Pat Nolan, an American man, is summoned to Paris to claim the body of his estranged daughter Megan, who has committed suicide. The body, however, is not Megan's and it becomes instantly clear to Pat that Megan staged this, that she is in serious trouble, and that she is calling to him for help.This sends Pat on an odyssey that stretches across France and into the Czech Republic and that makes him the target of both the French police and a band of international terrorists. Joining Pat on his search is Catherine Laurence, a beautiful but tormented Paris detective who sees in Pat something she never thought she'd find--genuine passion and desperate need. .A World I Never Made is an atmospheric novel of suspense with brilliantly drawn characters and back-stories as compelling as the plot itself. It is the kind of novel that resonates deeply and leaves its traces long after you turn the final page."

2. 50 Ways to Hex your lover
Rated 4 stars average from 3 reviews
Synopsis: "The three-century, on-and-off-again romance between Jazz, a witch, and Nicholas, a vampire cop, takes an all new turn when Nick enlists Jazz's help to track down a maniacal serial killer with his own supernatural powers. Original."

3. Get into bed with Google (Non-fiction)
Rated 4 stars average from 26 reviews
Synopsis: "It's all very well having a stunning website, but what if browsers can't find you? What if you're not visible on the main search engines, and on Google in particular? Making your site Google friendly or employing SEO should be a priority because if you don't rank on those results you may as well not have a website at all - it's that serious. Get into bed with Google can help you optimise your website. The 52 brilliant ideas contained within are canny and quick fixes that should result in immediate benefits to your site. This second edition of the bestselling Get into bed with Google contains new material on social networks and Google analytics that will catapult readers' websites to the top of search results pages. Simply brilliant."

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That's it for this week - I have one small favour to ask which is that if you have 30 seconds please can you fill our our reader survey here - it means I can target the newsletter better to you the readers. It is free and really will help the newsletter. Thanks and see you next week!

- Giovanni

Great Kindle Deals Newsletter - Tuesday, 5th April 2011

2011-04-05T12:19:00.000-07:00

Hi everyone, hope you had a lovely mother's day. Here is this week's newsletter which has some exciting news for Harry Potter fans. :

News:
1. Harry Potter soon to come to Kindle? - Empowered news.net reports: "Harry Potter is coming to the Kindle and iPad as soon as creator J.K. Rowling agrees on making the hugely popular fantasy books available for download. The author is considering how to replicate the success of her work after winning fans through traditional publishing and the movies, this time in the e-book market.

“We are currently actively looking at all the various options for Harry Potter in this space, that is e-books,” Rowling’s agent Neil Blair told AP in an e-mail." Although this is not confirmed, it does seem that they we are one step closer to having Harry Potter on the Kindle. In my opinion this would be a great time to release the books digitally with the last film coming out in just a couple of months now would be the perfect time to get people to purchase the books on Kindle, talk about Harry Potter and make sure they all go out and see the film.

2. Free New York Times - Subscribers of the New York Times on Kindle now also get free access to the website. The website is behind a paywall meaning users must pay to read content on it usually but subscribers of the paper edition and the Kindle version get free access to the web edition too.

3. The Times Paywall - As you may know, The Times (of London) is also behind a paywall here in the UK. In fact it now has 79,000 paying subscribers paying £2 a month. That's £8.2million a year being paid by subscribers online, on the Kindle and on the iPad. The paper's physical sales have deceased drastically but despite this the new online sales have added an extra 20,000 subscribers. The Times has really demonstrated that digital media (incl Kindle sales) really can work and can be done in a profitable manner, if the content is good enough.

4. Stephen Leather news - The Kindle-famous British writer has revealed that he is selling up to 2,000 ebooks a day. This really does show the potential of an indie writer - pricing books at £0.71 or $0.99 really does attract consumers. Why wouldn't consumers pay under £1 for a thriller on the Kindle when a normal paperback can cost upwards of £7? We wish him and future aspiring writers luck.

Cheap books:

1. Memoirs of a Holocaust Survivor: Icek Kuperberg (£0.70)
Rated 5 stars average from 3 reviews
Synopsis: " Powerful in its stark simple language, Icek Kuperberg chronicles his personal experiences as a concentration camp prisoner during World War II. Interned in various work and death camps, Icek had to use his guile and wits to simply stay alive. That he persevered despite tremendous horrors and obstacles, testifies to his strong will to survive."

2. Silver (£0.70)
Rated 5 stars average from 8 reviews
Synopsis: "In a race against time - believing the terrorists intend to assassinate the Pope - Sir Charles Wyndham's unique Special Ops team, codename Ogmios, track a labyrinthine course through truth, shades of truth and outright lies that takes them from the backstreets of London to the shadow of Checkpoint Charlie in Berlin and all the way into the heart of the Holy See itself.

3. Kill&Cure (£0.70)
Rated 4 stars average from 36 reviews
Synopsis: " David Stichell, a London Chiropractor, is an ordinary man plucked from the normality of his existence and thrown into hell. As a helpless witness to the brutal shooting of his fiancee he escapes her killer and alerts the police. They arrive expecting a murder scene but the place is clean and his fiancee has vanished... Kill & Cure is fast, furious and incredibly well plotted..Reading Matter"

Free books:

1. Graveyard Games
No reviews
Synopsis: "Dusty has always been the hothead in the pair -- her twin, Nick, he was the calm, cool and collected one. But now Nick is dead, found murdered in their local cemetery, and Dusty, on forced leave from her job as a Chicago police officer, goes back to her childhood home to attend the funeral."

2. Spying in High Heels
No reviews
Synopsis: " L.A. shoe designer, Maddie Springer, lives her life by three rules: Fashion. Fashion. Fashion. But when she stumbles upon the work of a brutal killer, her life takes an unexpected turn from Manolos to murder. And things only get worse when her boyfriend disappears - along with $20 million in embezzled funds - and her every move is suddenly under scrutiny by the LAPD's sexiest cop. With the help of her post-menopausal bridezilla of a mother, a 300 pound psychic and one seriously oversexed best friend, Maddie finds herself stepping out of her stilettos and onto the trail of a murderer. But can she catch a killer before the killer catches up to her..."

3. When you went away
Rated 4.5 stars average from 5 reviews
Synopsis: " Only a few months ago, Gerry Rubato had everything he thought he needed from life. He was passionately in love with his college sweetheart after nearly twenty years of marriage, he had a bright, independent-minded daughter, and he had the surprising addition of a new child on the way. Then everything changed with stunning rapidity. With little explanation, his daughter ran away with her older boyfriend. Then, only a month after giving birth to their son, his wife died suddenly. Now, Gerry needs to be everything to his infant child while he contends with two losses he can barely comprehend. And when a woman walks into his life as a friend and their relationship verges on something more, Gerry must redefine all that he knows about himself, about love, about loyalty, and about his dreams.An emotionally charged novel filled with warmth, humor, wisdom, and unforgettable characters, When You Went Away is a novel you will take to your heart."

What I've been reading:
This week in addition to our usual segments I'd like to tell you a buit about what I have personally been reading (if you have read something particularly good lately please do email me at greatkindledeals@gmail.com). At the moment I've been reading the deeply emotional tale of Eilis in "Brooklyn" by Colm Toibin. Taking scenes from "Pride and Prejudice" and updating this with modern views of love, Toibin provides a truly spellbinding novel. It is £4.48 as a paperback and unfortunately more expensive at £6.49 for the Kindle version.

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Before I bid my farewell, I'd like to ask a little favour of you please that should take just a moment of your time - the blog has been running for a while now and I'd really like to get reviews of the blog on Amazon.co.uk considering we are the only UK Kindle Deals blog and only have 3 reviews which on average give Great Kindle Deals a rating of just 2.5/5 stars. If you appreciate these blogs for less than a cup of cup of coffee every 3 months, I would really appreciate it if you'd give us a positive review. Just go to the Amazon website now, type in Great Kindle Deals in the search box and then lick the little number next to the stars and click "Create your own review." Or just click here and then "create your own review." I very much appreciate it.

Thank you for subscribing and I'll see you next week.

Great Kindle Deals Newsletter - Monday, 28th March.

2011-03-28T14:20:00.000-07:00

Hello and welcome to another edition of Great Kindle Deals. This edition has been slightly delayed by a day due to the blogging system which this is posted through but it's here now for your pleasure! Thanks for all the positive emails to greatkindledeals@gmail.com as well as making us one of the Top 10 Kindle Blogs. Let's get straight in: to start there's a mixture of both positive and negative kindle news:

1. Writers donating to Japan Relief - a number of writers have decided to give all of part of their profits from their books to Japan to help the disaster. Thank you to everyone who has done this, I am sure the people there really do appreciate it. As there have been a large number of authors who have done this I didn't think it fair to only include some and not others directly here in the newsletter.

2. Ebook lending site shut down by Amazon.com - Although ebook lending is not avaialble in the UK as of yet, Amazon.com (in the US) has disabled the e-book sharing site "Lendle." This site allowed users to find others to trade books with; instead of just their friends they were able to trade with anyone onine. Amazon clearly didn't like this and shut the system down. What difference it makes to Amazon who is reading the book remains unclear to me..

3. Audiobooks come to Kindle - US only for now - Audiobook service Audible.com is now available for American customers on the Kindle. Both UK and US users can copy Kindle files and listen to them through the MP3 player app on the Kindle, but now US users can download these files directly onto their Kindle for ease of use.

4. Kindle Millionaire gets 4-book deal - Minnpost.com reports: " 26-year-old Minnesotan Amanda Hocking, aka the “Kindle millionaire,” has signed a seven-figure, four-book deal with St. Martins Press got around very fast. On the New York Times blog Media Decoder, Julie Bosman writes: “A heated auction for the rights to publish her books began early last week, and several major publishers, including Random House, Simon & Schuster and HarperCollins, dropped out as the price climbed into the seven figures. The bidding eventually rose beyond $2 million for world English rights ... The first book in the series will be released in fall 2012, a spokeswoman for St. Martin’s said."

5. More kindle apps - Appleinsider.com today reports that: "Henri Hansen, the developer of Atomium, a periodic table reference app that sells for $0.99 in the App Store, contacted AppleInsider to note that Amazon had invited him via email to bring the app to Kindle, noting that the company was especially interested in educational apps."

Cheap books:

1. Sugar & Spice (£0.71)
Rated 4.5 stars average from 50 reviews
Synopsis: "Driven by the need to know why, a mother confronts the man accused of her daughter’s murder, He presents a compelling defence, convincing Claire not only that he is innocent of harming her daughter, but that his previous convictions were not what they seemed.
Would you trust a convicted sex offender to help you find your daughter's killer? Claire did...
Teaming up with a second-year psychology student and a fourteen year-old truant schoolboy, Sugar & Spice is the story of a mother’s fight to bring one man's reign of terror to an end."

2.BURN, BABY, BURN (£0.71)
Rated 5 stars average from 22 reviews
Synopsis: "Donna O'Prey is the most junior member of a small private security firm. A routine search for a missing teenage girl escalates into something much more serious when a ransom demand is received. Donna becomes convinced that Marcus is responsible for the abduction. Eleven years previously, while still a child, Marcus had been convicted of the brutal murder of two young children, but a Home Office review board has now sanctioned his release.
Donna needs all her battling qualities as she attempts to rescue the missing girl, but how will she cope when her own safety is threatened?

3. The Complete Father Born Mystery Collection (£0.71) - 52 Mysteries in 1.
Rated 5 stars average from 11 reviews
Synopsis: "Father Brown, a short, stumpy Catholic priest with shapeless clothes and a large umbrella, has uncanny insight into human evil.
Father Brown solves his crimes through a strict reasoning process more concerned with spiritual and philosophic truths rather than scientific details, making him an almost equal counterbalance with Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes, whose stories Chesterton read and admired. Father Brown was the perfect vehicle for conveying Chesterton's view of the world and, of all of his characters, is perhaps closest to Chesterton's own point of view, or at least the effect of his point of view."

4. But Can You Drink the Water? - £0.70
Rated 4 stars average from 22 reviews
Synopsis: "A humorous portrayal of a naive working-class family’s attempts to fit in after emigrating from Liverpool to apartheid SA.
When Frank Turner informs his wife and teenage son they are emigrating from Liverpool to sunny South Africa, he is unprepared for their hostile response. His defiant son makes his own silent protest, and his wife’s assertion that “we never shoulda come” is parroted at every minor calamity.
The bewildered working-class scousers are thrust into an alien world of servants, strange African customs, unintelligible accents, and unexpected wild life (‘crocodiles’ on the wall). "

Free e-books:
1. A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens
Rated 4.5 stars average from 39 reviews
Synopsis: "The story is set in the late 18th century against the background of the French Revolution. Although Dickens borrowed from Thomas Carlyle's history, The French Revolution, for his sprawling tale of London and revolutionary Paris, the novel offers more drama than accuracy. The scenes of large-scale mob violence are especially vivid, if superficial in historical understanding. The complex plot involves Sydney Carton's sacrifice of his own life on behalf of his friends Charles Darnay and Lucie Manette. While political events drive the story, Dickens takes a decidedly antipolitical tone, lambasting both aristocratic tyranny and revolutionary excess--the latter memorably caricatured in Madame Defarge, who knits beside the guillotine."

2. Emergency: Wife Lost and Found by Carol Marinelli
Rated 4.5 stars average from 7 reviews
Synopsis: "Marriage reunited – in A&E! Every emergency doctor dreaded recognising someone in Casualty – even cool-headed consultant James Morrell. But he was doubly shocked when the unconscious patient he was asked to treat was instantly familiar. It was his ex-wife!
Dr Lorna McClelland hated being ill, hated being stuck in a hospital bed, but above all she hated having to rely on James. Then, as she recovered, all the wonderful things about their marriage came flooding back"

3. Mia's Scandal
Rated 3.5 stars average from 4 reviews
Synopsis: " Billionaire Oscar Balfour’s daughters are the darlings of the tabloid press – so it’s no surprise that the arrival of an illegitimate Balfour girl sends the gossip columns wild! Mia needs to learn the gilt-edged ways of his world fast. Brooding Greek tycoon Nikos takes her on as his personal assistant. Can he come to her rescue"

I hope you enjoy these books and grabbed some great freebies. See you next week!

Great Kindle Deals Newsletter - Saturday, 19th March.

2011-03-18T17:49:00.000-07:00

Happy weekend everyone, with Spring starting this next week, it really means that we are well and truly into 2011. And what a year it's been so far, we have a lot of news which shows that the Kindle is well and truly being more and more massmarket as well as some good free books to keep you occupied for a few weeks. Enjoy the newsletter and share it with your friends.

News:

1. New Kindle 4 in the works - With the Kindle 2 being relased 15 months after the first Kindle, and the current 3rd generation being released around 15 months after Kindle 2, it seems that we are on track for a November release date for the Kindle 4. But does Amazon really need one? The New York Times is reporting that they may be working on an Android-based Kindle which may or may not feature all LED screen instead of the e-paper screen, as well as being colour. Although colour is a nice addition, I feel it would add too much to the price of a Kindle and for me it does have to be e-ink as it currently is, it's easy on the eyes and a pleasure to read which isn't the case with an LCD screen for me.

2. Or how about a free Kindle 3? - The price of the Kindle has been reducing at a steady pace, leading to speculation that the next generation of the device may be free, provided users pre-purchase a number of books or book credits. This would be an interesting system is say, Amazon allowed users to buy £75 worth of books and get a free Kindle. Then, market adoption would be immense. Kindle books already outsell paperback books.

3. Or how about a free Kindle 3 right now? - Well, there is one catch. If you sign up to a mobile contract at the Carphone Warehouse that costs £15 a month or more, you can get a free Kindle too. Best Buy is doing this too in theUK.

4. Kindle proliferation - Speaking of the Carphone Warehouse, they and Best Buy are both selling the Kindle at same prices as Amazon.co.uk in store giving consumers a chance to feel it and try it before they buy it. Let's hope this helps with the proliferation of the Kindle in the UK market.

5. Real page numbers - You can already get real page numbers on your Kindle 3 by updating the software but now theis feature is also available on the mobile apps for the Kindle such as the iPad app.

Free books:
1. When Darkness Falls (Part 1, 2, 3 currently available)
Rated 5 stars average from 4 Reviews
Synopsis: "From the moment Miami criminal defense attorney Jack Swyteck is called upon to defend a new client—a homeless man jailed for threatening to jump off a bridge—it's obvious something is amiss. For one thing, the man called Falcon manages to come up with the $10,000 bail...in cash. Then the body of a brutally murdered woman is found in the trunk of the abandoned car he's living in.
But it isn't until a panicked Falcon takes a group of innocent people hostage, including Jack's best friend, and barricades himself and his prisoners in a motel room that Swyteck realizes how much is truly at stake. For Falcon has a bigger agenda than suicide, and Jack Swyteck must get to the root of a dark history and bitter secrets before Falcon decides he has nothing to lose by killing them all."

2. Pride and prejudice by Jane Austen - A classic
Rated 4.5 stars average from 170 reviews
Synopsis: "Elizabeth Bennet is the perfect Austen heroine: intelligent, generous, sensible, incapable of jealousy or any other major sin. That makes her sound like an insufferable goody-goody, but the truth is she's a completely hip character who ,if provoked, is not above skewering her antagonist with a piece of her exceptionally sharp, yet always polite, 18th-century wit. The real point of the book though, the critical question which will keep you fixated throughout, is: will Elizabeth and Mr Darcy hook up? Read this genuine all-time classic and discover the answer while enjoying a story that has charmed generation after generation."

3. Get Some by Daniel Birch
Rated 3.5 stars average from 4 reviews
Synopsis: "Anybody who has read Danny Birch's groundbreaking first novel, 'Clipped', will be expecting a fast-paced, sharply-written, emotionally charged gangster thriller, written in Danny's inimitably catchy, witty and streetwise style. If so, prepare yourself for 'Get Some', a gangster revenge thriller that fizzes and crackles off the page like few others.
It is the tale of two childhood friends, Tommy and Joey, and of how they stand by each other in traumatic times. Tommy's trauma is to be betrayed by an army colleague to a militant group in Iraq and to be subjected to routine and gruesome torture. Pity his betrayer should Tommy manage to escape. And Joey's trauma? Ah, for that, you have to read this book. "

Cheap Books:
1. The Case of the Missing Boyfriend by Nick Alexander (£0.99)
Rated 4.5 stars average from 9 Reviews
Synopsis: "C.C. is nearly forty and other than her name (which she hates so much she can’t bring herself to use it) everything about her life appears to be wonderful: she has a high powered job in advertising, a great flat in Primrose Hill, and a wild bunch of friends to spend her weekends with. And yet she feels like the Titanic – slowly, inexorably, and against all expectation, sinking. Could her best friend be right? Could her past really be preventing her from moving on? And if she unlocks that particular box, will the horrors within simply drift away and leave her free? Or will they sink her?"

2. Sugar & Spice by Safina Desforges (£0.71)

Rated 4.5 stars average from 40 Reviews
Synopsis: "It's every parent's worst nightmare: A child fails to return home. As hours turn to days, all they can do is hope. Some children never come back... Sugar & Spice is a ground-breaking new crime-thriller set against the background of Britain's fragmented criminal justice system, with the key protagonists the mother and partner of a murdered child."

I hope you enjoyed the newsletter, have a great week and stay tuned for next week's edition!

The return of Great Kindle Deals

2011-03-07T10:20:00.000-08:00

Hi everyone,

Despite being just 5 weeks gone, the emails I have recieved from all my former readers have been overwhelming in support and asking for the blog to return. Well - here it is.

Now, some of you may be wondering why I have chosen to bring back the blog and the answer is very simple - Amazon has provided me with statistics. Yes, the lack of statistics made the blog disappear but now Amazon is giving me up to date statistics for every subscriber meaning I can communication coherently with you.

So, what does this all mean?
Great Kindle Deals is returning with at least one newsletter a week packed with reviews, tips, news, free books and of course Great Kindle Deals targetted only at the UK Audience.

How do I subscribe?
As before, just search for Great Kindle Deals in the Amazon Kindle Store and subscribe from there. All new posts will come to your Kindle automatically as soon as they are published.

But I didn't just want to leave you there hanging until next week, so here is some quick Kindle News, much more will follow in usual issues including reviews and free books.

News:
1. Apple's 30% asking - Apple is asking App makers such as the Kindle for 30% of all their sales. Amazon has not commented on the issue but is understood to be in talks with Apple. If these talks do not succeed there will be two options - either remove the Kindle store from Apple devices and make it a book-reading only app with no ability to purchase books, or remove the App entirely. Amazon has another couple of months to decide its options.

2. Kindle millionaire - Amanda Hocking has made over $1,000,000 in book sales from the Kindle store through her vampire books as an independant author. Nice job!

3. Kindle firmware update - You can update your kindle through the settings menu and you cna take advantage of new features: page numbers - just like real books, you'll get a page number as well as a location meaning you can follow along with others reading regular paperbacks; Public notes - see notes in books left by others; Before you go - as soon as you finish a book you are now prompted to review it, please do this as it allows people to get a better understanding of which books are worth buying; new layout - magazines and newspapers now had a better, more skin-readable layout.

4. Kindle books outsell paperbacks - Although this is only on Amazon's website, Kindle books have outsold paperbacks for the first time - in fact for every 100 paperback books, 115 Kindle books are sold. The e-reader is truly proliferating.

So that's it for this quick update - I'll see you this weekend for the regular newsletter packed with Great Kindle Deals!
Go on, Subscribe now.

Final post from the blog

2011-01-30T13:18:00.000-08:00

Your weekly newsletter is here once again but I regret to inform that there is sad news as this will be the final post from Great Kindle Deals for several reasons:

1. Amazon provides no statistics to blog owners for UK subscribers meaning I have absolutely no idea how many readers I have - it could be anything from one to over 1000. Only reader emails provide some sort of indication - though one or two emails a week provides no indication of how many total readers there are.
2. Amazon provide no information, and have just removed the little they did provide, on the money the blog was bringing in. They were keeping 70% of 99p a month meaning just 29p per subscriber - plus I have no option to see how many subscribers I have meaning I have no idea what I am making - there have been no payments and I have no idea when there would be one. I was not doing this for the money but no statistics means no feedback and no info for me to keep motivated.
3. The UK Kindle audience is far too small at the moment - this is probably the reason that there are no other (as far as I am aware) UK-centric Kindle blogs.
4. Finally, and perhaps most importantly - real life and work has caught up with me meaning very little time for reading, let alone writing a blog every week.
5. Some readers are extremely discouraging - when the blog was publishing I achieved only 1 review of 5 stars, as soon as the blog did not post for 2-3 weeks, there was two or three 1 and 2 star reviews which have not been changed since which is extremely discouraging as a sole writer.

So what happens now?
This blog will be deleted from the Kindle store when this post is sent. The blog will stay up at greatkindledeals.blogspot.com for archival purposes. Please cancel any subscriptions you have to the blog in your Amazon account though these should be cancelled with my removal of the blog.

If Amazon does provide detailed statistics to blog publishers in the future I may consider restarting the blog provided real-life conditions allow it.

So, I'd like to apologise to you, my readers. I thank you all very much for subscribing and hope you enjoyed the last six months of updates. I will be removing this blog from the Kindle Store.

Meanwhile for your Kindle fix please take a look at the links on the right hand side of this blog: http://www.ireaderead.com/

If you do have any comments, the email is greatkindledeals@gmail.com

A sorrowful farewell,

Giovanni Costa
Great Kindle Deals

Great Kindle Deals - 24 Jan 2011

2011-01-24T13:40:00.000-08:00

Hi everyone and welcome to another edition of Great Kindle Deals - there's news in this issue, as well as cheap books and a few freebies too. Apologies for the slight lateness of this newsletter - it should have been with you yesterday.

News:

1. Top 1,000 titles loaned 40m times in 2010 - The bookseller reports: "Dan Brown's The Lost Symbol was the most loaned book in 2010, according to data from Nielsen BookScan' panel of libraries. The Lost Symbol was loaned out an estimated 183,000 times, putting it ahead of two Lee Child novels, Gone Tomorrow and 61 Hours. In total Nielsen estimates that the top 1,000 most-loaned library books were checked out more than 40m times in 2010."

2. Campaign to save libraries - The bookseller has launched a website dedicated to saving local libraries around the UK due to budget cuts and the need to save them for the local community. Take a look at http://bit.ly/fight4libraries for more info and to help save your local library.

3. Amazon buys Lovefilm - Although not directly related to Kindle, I thought it would be apt to mention that Lovefilm is now owned by Amazon - hopefully this will mean more streaming movies without the need to received DVDs in the mail and a better service for everyone.

Free books:

1. Uprising (Vampire Federation)
Rated 4 stars average from 14 reviews
Synopsis: "For millennia, the vampires walked the earth undetected, feasting on humans in keeping with ancient tradition.In the Information Age, vampires realised they must be more careful to avoid detection. In the late 20th century they created the global Vampire Federation to police vampire activity, with special agents like Alex Bishop authorised to hunt down her own kind who break the laws. The old traditions are history.But not all vampires bow down to Federation rule. When rebel vampire Gabriel Stone declares war against them, Alex and her team are plunged into danger.Police inspector Joel Solomon, haunted by a secret terror of vampires, discovers a series of corpses left behind by Stone's bloodthirsty gang. As he and Alex are drawn together in an unlikely alliance between human and vampire, the race begins to destroy the evil Stone before his uprising tears their world apart."

2. Shadow Project, The
Rated 4 stars average from 20 reviews
Synopsis: "Ex-SAS soldier Ben Hope is enjoying life at Le Val, the facility in Northern France where he trains others in the dangerous art of hostage rescue, until a chance incident forces him to take on the role of bodyguard to the Swiss billionaire Maximilian Steiner.The victim of a recent abduction attempt, Steiner believes that a neo-Nazi terror group are bent on seizing a prized document from his personal collection - one that could support claims that the Holocaust never happened.But what initially seemed like a straightforward VIP protection job is turned upside-down by the appearance of a mystery woman from Ben's past. Could he be right about her, or is he losing his edge?On a quest across Europe, Ben finds himself embroiled in a deadly kidnap intrigue and a sinister project that has lain dormant since 1944. The stakes are global - and this time Ben is also fighting to protect the people closest to him…"

Cheap books:

1. Hard Landing: The First Spider Shepherd Thriller - £0.49

Rated 4.5 stars average from 40 reviews

Synopsis: "Hard Landing is the first book in the best-selling Dan ‘Spider’ Shepherd series. Former SAS trooper Shepherd is used to putting his life on the line. Working for an elite undercover squad he has lied, cheated and conned in order to bring Britain’s most wanted criminals to justice.But when a powerful drug baron starts to kill off witnesses to his crimes, Shepherd is given his most dangerous assignment yet. He has to go undercover in a top security prison, a world where one wrong move will mean certain death.As Shepherd gambles everything to move in on his quarry, he soon realises that the man he is hunting is even more dangerous than the police realise. And that he is capable of striking outside the prison walls and hitting Shepherd where it hurts most – his family."

2. Deed To Death - £0.71

Rated 5 stars average from 8 reviews

Synopsis: "Real estate agent Toni Matthew's problems begin when her fiancé, Scott, is murdered. Having to bury the man she loves on the very day they planned to be married is almost more than Toni can take. Dealing with her loss becomes even harder when Scott's estranged brother, Brian, contests the will, threatening to take away her home.

After learning Brian is in deep financial trouble, Toni suspects he may be the one who killed Scott. Determined to find the truth and frustrated with the police, she begins her own investigation. Toni soon realizes she didn't know her fiancé quite as well as she had thought. Scott had been keeping secrets. Secrets that make Toni the killer's next target."

3. But Can You Drink The Water? - £0.72

Rated 4.5 stars from 5 reviews

Synopsis: "A humorous portrayal of a naive working-class family’s attempts to fit in after emigrating from Liverpool to apartheid SA.

Set in 1988, BUT CAN YOU DRINK THE WATER? uses subtle observational humour, with an underlying pathos, to portray the upsets, hurt and changing family dynamics that emigration brings.

It will appeal to fans of Educating Rita and Shirley Valentine, and to expats, and potential expats worldwide."

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Thanks for subscribing, I'll see you next week.

Great Kindle Deals - Issue 59 - 15th January 2011

2011-01-16T08:39:00.000-08:00

Hello, hope you're having a great weekend and welcome to another edition of Great Kindle Deals filled with lots of news this week, reader emails and great kindle deals. Remember to send me your comments, suggestions and ideas to greatkindledeals@gmail.com - or if you've found a bargain email me too!

News:
1. Kindle book lending club - Although Kindle lending is not yet available in the UK, the US have had the feature enabled now for a couple of weeks and a Kindle lending group has been created by Catherine McDonald. "The Kindle Lending Club" at http://www.kindlelendingclub.com/ is a fantastic start up which aims to match up kindle borrowers and lenders. The site hopes to make money from referral fees if users buy a book. There is no charge to be a member or to lend or borrow a book, select a book that you wish to lend or borrow, enter a email address and you're done! The website's Facebook page has over 5000 "Likes" in less than a week. Hopefully something similar, or this very website, will be around when lending finally reaches the UK. The same restrictions are in force by Amazon - users may lend a book once to one person for up to two weeks. After the two weeks the book cannot be lent again. What are your thoughts on the idea? Is it stealing from the writers and publishers?

2. Tesco's book sales rising - Although specific figures for books have not been revealed, Tesco said: "we saw strong category growth in toys, books and gaming." Total sales increased by 4.2%, with like-for-like sales up 0.6%.

3. 18.9% of number 1 seller digital - HarperCollin's number one seller "Shatter the Bones" has proved the potential of the e-book market, as almost 18.9% of sales were digital copies. The e-book was priced at £4.99 whereas the paperback with an RRP of £14.99 sold at an average price of £7.37.

4. UK Kindle store passes 530,000 books - This week the UK kindle store passed 530,000 ebooks making it larger than ever, however it is still trailing behind the US store which at the moment has over 800,000 books - 50% more than the UK store.

5. Three Kindle million selling author - The third Kindle book to sell 1,000,000 kindle copies has been anounced - Nora Roberts. Her 74 books has sold an average of 13,500 copies each amounting to over 1 million sales. The other two authors were Stieg Larsson with just 3 titles and James Patterson who also happens to have 74 titles - maybe that's the magic number?

6. Amazon UK non-lighted covers causing problems:

David Ludlow from expertreviews writes:
"Amazon customer services in the UK have told us that the Kindle leather cover problems, which cause the eReader to reboot and do other strange things, is caused by the plastic clips on the standard case.

The lighted leather case, which uses metal clips in order to conduct power from the Kindle to the light is immune to these problems...

As such, Amazon.co.uk will credit affected users with the £50.99 required to buy the Lighted Leather Cover (UK US) instead.

From our experience, the process is a painless one. Just make sure that you phone the UK phone number, as the US site will attempt to refund in dollars instead of pounds."

7. Kindle apps updates - Kindle apps for the iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad have been update with new features:

Instant word lookup
Finish downloading a book in the background
Support for some non-Amazon book files
Zoom has been improved
A new book indicator

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Reader email:
Some emails are edited for brevity.
"Hi,

Glad to see you are up and running again!

You mentioned Waterstones in this week’s news...I thought you would be interested in what I read in the Times on Sunday 9th Jan.
They reported that according to Bookseller magazine that Waterstones’ book sales fell 0.4% in the 5 weeks to Christmas (their biggest problem is clearly the HMV side) but are at risk from the downloading and internet book sales. Amazon apparently have about ¼ of the British book market, neck and neck with Waterstones. However Amazon’s growth has vastly outstripped the high street rivals recently. The former owner of Borders said that the e-book revolution is only just starting to have an impact. Supermarket chains are also hitting them hard.

I must say I am surprised; with all the doom and gloom around Waterstones I thought the situation was more terminal but clearly the potential growth is nil and must reduce. I was also surprised that the Amazon market share isn’t greater and Waterstones MUCH lower. And surely the supermarkets and independents can’t cover the remaining 50%-nor would I have thought book clubs would take up a huge percentage either!" --Caroline Sanders

That's some very interesting news and interesting to see that Waterstones is still doing remarkably well, but as you say potential growth is very low, I expect to see Amazon's market share increase rapidly in the coming years especially with more people going online and the proliferation of e-readers. Thanks for your email Caroline.

NB: A report from June 2010 says profits were down 70% to £2.8 million. Waterstones is estimated to have lost £2million in sales from the snowy conditions over the Christmas period. 20 Waterstones stores will shut this year.
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Free books:
A few more free Kindle book have been added this week for your reading pleasure:

1. William Walker's First Year of Marriage
Rated 4.5/5 stars average from 22 reviews
Synopsis: "William Walker has just married Isabel, the girl of his dreams. The happy couple live in a small flat in north London while William labours away at his magazine job, revelling in his recent promotion from a column for which he was required to taste different brands of cat food to more dignified reportage. So far, so perfect.But William has a Bridget Jones-ish knack for messing up the happiest of situations – he can’t help shouting at the obnoxiously precocious work experience girl and has an embarrassing tendency to forget names of women he has previously tried to sleep with. It doesn’t help that Isabel’s creepy best friend Alex is very obviously in love with her. Nor that Saskia, a vixen-ish old flame of William’s, has just moved in downstairs. As Alex slithers his way into Isabel’s heart, Saskia seems intent on resuming relations with William – or at least giving Isabel that impression.Increasingly beset, increasingly unlucky and increasingly hilarious, William battles his way through a series of comic disasters that threaten to destroy his relationship and reduce him to a state of sad bachelorhood – a fate, he soon realises, worse than death."

2. A lesson in Passion
Rated 5 stars, 1 customer review
Synopsis: "Ginny has a successful career, nice home and good friends. The only thing she's missing is love. Her past attempts at dating always seem to end badly, until a friend recommends some romance novels. Meant to be instructional, Ginny laughs off their usefulness.
Ian is a powerful Scottish laird, living in Medieval times. As the new leader of his clan, he is honor bound to make decisions that benefit his people. Tough, but fair, Ian has made a name for himself among the clans of the Highlands.
A freak accident leaves Ginny in a world within herself, the world of the romance novel heroine. Fighting off an evil band of Lowlanders, Ginny meets her hero, Ian, powerful laird of the clan McKenna. Ginny soon realizes she is in the body of an Englishwoman and is being forced to live with the McKenna clan.
Ginny assumes she must fall in love to move out of this world and back into her own. So before her hero can marry another, she schemes to win him back and hopefully reach her goals."
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I hope you enjoyed this edition of the newsletter, see you next week!