When I turned on my Nook E-reader the other day I was in the mood for a sweet treat–to buy a few self-published E-books with a good buzz. Well, I was gobsmacked. Several titles by different authors on my TBR list had vanished! They had existed in the Nook Store a few weeks ago but were no longer for sale. Their authors have taken them down from Nook, iTunes, and all other E-booksellers to enter an exclusive deal with the Amazon Kindle Select lending library program. These books will be gone from the rest of the cyber-world for three months–and maybe longer, if the authors prefer this route.
Wow! It is terribly frustrating to know about a E-book–but be unable to purchase it. And while I’m not faulting authors for trying this scheme which Amazon suggests will raise everyone’s profits by at least 26 percent, at this point, I’m not in. I’m glad to be able to offer my growing collection of E-books (Shimura Trouble, Girl in a Box, The Typhoon Lover, The Convenience Boy and Other Stories of Japan) to anyone with any kind of E-reader, in the Nook Store, iTunes and Amazon.
To keep things going for those of us living outside the Kindle Bubble, I’m going to sponsor a daily giveaway of one Shimura Trouble E-book through March 12. The catch is that you’ll download the book from Itunes, which means you need an Ipad, Nook, Sony E-reader or other NON-KINDLE to be able to read it.
Enter the giveaway by sending me an email with Giveaway in the subject line at sujatamassey@mac.com
I’ll use an impersonal computer algorithm to pick each day’s winner, but if you’re chosen, I’ll personally email you with congratulations and the access code to download the book from iTunes/iBooks. Yes, the code is unique and will only get you to Shimura Trouble. It won’t work for The Mill River Recluse (which isn’t on the market anymore except for at Amazon).
If you’re wondering whether Shimura Trouble is a book you’d like to read, you can look under the Rei Shimura section of this website for a chapter 1 preview and published book reviews. It was the most recently published Rei mystery (2008–oh my gosh, a lifetime ago!). Rei, her father, Uncle Hiroshi and cousin Tom solve a mystery in Hawaii that relates to a lost family branch and the history of Japanese sugar plantation workers on the dry western side of Oahu. It also features Michael and Hugh!
For those of you without E-readers who are interested in getting a paper version of the book, it’s now in trade paperback and retails for approximately $15.95. You can find it at online retailers like B&N and Amazon, but there’s only one place to get an autographed copy: my neighborhood bookstore, onceuponacrimebooks.com, who mail worldwide and are very nice people.
I’m curious what you think about the Amazon controversy. Will it affect your buying decision if you’re in the market for an E-Reader, or the Internet or bricks-and-mortar retailer you go to when buying paper books?
Hi, Sujata,
I was surfing around and stumbled on your blog and your reference to my first novel, THE MILL RIVER RECLUSE. I wanted to let you know that I have never enrolled the book in Kindle Select or any of Amazon’s “exclusive” programs (despite pressure from Amazon to do so) because I did not want to limit the ability of people to read it on only one kind of e-reader. My book has always been — and still is — available for sale on multiple major e-book retail sites (Amazon, Nook, iBooks, Kobo, etc.). If you’re having trouble locating it on a non-Amazon retail site, please send me an email through my website (www.darciechan.com), and I will be happy to help sort out the problem.
Additionally, I’m thrilled that both THE MILL RIVER RECLUSE and my second book, THE MILL RIVER REDEMPTION, will be released in print (as well as in electronic form) this summer, on June 17 and August 26, respectively.
Best wishes,
Darcie Chan
I’m glad to hear Mill River Recluse is on all platforms–weird, I couldn’t find it some months ago, and I apologize if it was on Nook and I didn’t see it.
Best of luck for your print editions, too!