Chrissy Munder's Blog, page 58

Thank You! Dreamspinner Press Customer Appreciation Sale!

CUSTOMER APPRECIATION SALE!!!

As a thank you to their loyal customers, Dreamspinner Press is offering 20% off all eBooks, audiobooks, and in-stock paperbacks now through midnight on Sunday, September 30. Stock up now and save!

Can you say Chrissy's Backlist? I thought you could.

Ha! I knew it! Cats Adore, Manipulate Women

Finally, the truth has come out. An article available on Discovery News details new research that shows "The bond between cats and their owners turns out to be far more intense than imagined, especially for cat aficionado women and their affection reciprocating felines," 

And, according to co-author Manuela Wedl of the University of Vienna, "female owners have more intense relationships with their cats than do male owners."

Click here  if you'd like to read the article in full.

Me, I'll just keep reading. Aloud. To my furry and oh so cunning manipulator.

Me and my Kindle. How do you use your eReader?

I've been staring at the ads for the new line of Kindles and admiring the pretty. The truth is that having convinced myself to make the leap and spend the cash, I now can't imagine life without my handy eReader extraordinaire. But as I was talking it up with a friend (and yes, convincing them it's worth the price) he made me laugh because I *still* don't use my Kindle as Amazon intended. Is it just me?

The reality is I still use my Kindle Keyboard (WiFi) as a jump drive I can read off of. And I love it to pieces for that very feature. I sometimes use it to play music or audiobooks, and I often use the text-to-speech function, despite the rather amusing voice. But I don't use it to purchase books, magazines, or serial subscriptions from the Kindle store. I don't use the web browser, and I can count on one hand the number of books I've actually bought from Amazon or elsewhere and paid real money for.

As any visitor to my blog or Twitter can catch me regularly rambling on, I love the free personal document conversion service, and I love, absolutely love eReaderIQ.com for its updated lists of free Kindle books. Despite the rather deep well of prejudice toward free eBooks I've found some great reads as well as some bestsellers, both fiction and nonfiction. I tend to use the Kindle for PC app and send most of the books there to hang out in my archive and wait for me to xfer to my handheld and read them. And while these personal habits work for me, they aren't exactly what Amazon had in mind when pricing their eReaders low, expecting to make their money on the book purchases.

So I'm curious. How do you use your eReader? Do you buy DRM-free versions or pdfs and convert them for easy eReader use? Do you scour the free eBook sites to see what's new this week? Or do you use the device to head straight out to Amazon and purchase the latest release to read in an instant? How personal have you made your eReader experience and can you imagine life without it?

*image courtesy of Catie Rhodes @ the Wana Flikr Commons

A War to Watch - Bruce Willis versus Apple iTunes and digital rights

Back on the 5th of September I shared a link from the Passive Voice Blog on my Twitter Feed which led to a most excellent article dealing with our digital libraries and rights to our music and ebooks.

Chrissy Munder‏@ChrissyMunder

Life in the Cloud-who will inherit your digital library? Can they? Check out this article over at @PassiveVoiceBlg http://www.thepassivevoice.com/08/2012/who-inherits-your-ebook-and-music-library/ …

With further input from the Passive Voice and per this Sky News Report it appears that Bruce Willis is wondering about the same thing. This will be interesting as it unfolds:

Where Does Your State Stand on LGBT Issues?

Visit LGBTMap.org and see.

From their website: Equality Maps provide quick and easy summaries of laws that affect LGBT Americans on a state-by-state and issue-by-issue basis. The maps present information on laws in areas from employment discrimination and relationship recognition to hate crimes protections and anti-bullying laws.

Today Only!! 30% off EVERYTHING in the DSP Store

Check out the new releases, revisit your favorite author's backlist. 30% off everything.
*whew* Erh...I'll be shopping.

Life is a celebration

May our memories bless us, and help us to remember those we love and lose with smiles and laughter once our tears have dried.

On the fascinating side of things - check out the Global Incident Map

Want to see where the Wildfires are? How about Disease Outbreaks or Haz-Mat incidents? From Amber-Alerts, Earthquakes, Presidential Threats to Terrorism event predictors. Check out the Global Incident Map and choose your filter of choice.

What we used to watch while waiting for Men's Gymnastics and the Olympics

Note the "floor exercises" at 1.42 and 2.55. :) Jean Claude Van Damme and Dolph Lundgren were top o' the list. While Van Damme appears to have overcome his mental health issues and seems happy and less flamboyant at 50 (click here to see) Dolph always was my favorite and has definitely aged well.

Clare and Chrissy - Everything Old is New Again

Clare: and Chrissy: Hello everyone, welcome to the August Edition of The Clare and Chrissy Show. It doesn't matter if you are dashing about getting ready for back-to-school, or finalizing your plans for the UK Meet (only 4 weeks to go!) we're happy to see you.

Clare: Some of you may remember earlier this year when Dreamspinner Press celebrated their fifth anniversary.

Chrissy: Confetti Time!! Both Clare and I were honored to recognized as two of their first year authors, despite our shock at realizing five years had gone by since we were initially published.

Clare: Good Lord, that means five years since we first met online.

Chrissy: Awwwwwh, sweetie. You remembered. I thought we weren't going to celebrate anniversaries?

Clare: It had all rushed by so fast! That's what stunned me. It seemed like only a few months had passed since I agonized over my pseudonym, set up my first attempt at a website, and dipped my stubby little toe into the rocky waters of online promotion.

Chrissy: Instead it's been years. Here's a case where time traveled much faster than a speeding snail. Wow, I'm going to need some more confetti.

Clare: Gawd, I'm going to need another margarita. This is worse than my sons' birthdays, when I start doing the maths and figuring out that if they're this age, then I'm … *gasp*

Chrissy: My lips are sealed.

Clare: They'd better be! I was a child bride, you know *coughcough*.

Chrissy: In addition to realizing it's past time to revamp each of our now-expired five year career plans (now there's a blog post waiting to be written), we also face the fact that somehow along the way we acquired a backlist.

Clare: Quite different from only having one or two titles under our collective belts.

Chrissy: Usually we don't tend to notice unless we are updating our websites, or preparing a layout of covers.

Clare: As most of our attention is firmly fixed on our latest release, and those - hopefully - upcoming.

Chrissy: There are edits to be made, excerpts to pull, blog hops, and group chats to calendar.

Clare: Don't forget reviews to be read! (or skimmed past quickly *lol*)

Chrissy: All circling us back once again to even more website updates. It's an attention-consuming cycle.

Clare: Then, just when we think we've got it all handled and we can get back to the business of writing, it's time for another new release and we start all over again. Dammit, do I sound like I'm complaining?! That's not the case, of course!

Chrissy: But when we stop and take a breath, or *cough* haven't released anything new in a while it's a different matter all together.

Clare: All we can say is, each of the older stories has already received their time in the sun. We've posted excerpts up one Yahoo Group and down another twenty-four. Chatted and given away free copies until we're convinced that there's no one on the planet who hasn't had a chance to win their own copy.

Chrissy: At what point do we figure we've beaten this poor horse of a story to death and beyond?

Clare: Welllll... This is where the advantage of age and experience comes to the fore.

Chrissy: As in, old age and treachery beats youth and skill?

Clare: Less of the old from you, Munder. The thing to remember is that the web world is not only fickle, but distracted as well.

Chrissy: Add in the veritable onslaught of new titles released every week now compared to a few years ago and we begin to understand that despite our personal perceptions - and hopes! - our work may have only reached a small percentage of our intended audience.

Clare: And the audience changes as well. It's interesting to check the number of members in any online group and realize how much they've grown over the years.

Chrissy: Many of these members are not only new to the group, but also new to the M/M genre.

Clare: We authors love a reader who tries one of our stories and then goes on to investigate our entire catalogue of work.

Chrissy: But there are just as many readers who pick and choose, depending on what's caught their eye for moment.

Clare: Chrissy and I love to get together and participate in online chats at some of the various group sites.

Chrissy: They're a great place to have some fun, expose older excerpts to lurkers, and get to know more of our audience. We also post excerpts of older works on our websites, offer holiday deals, and celebrate our older work on our blogs.

Clare: No matter the venue, each time we've dragged some of our backlist out into the light we always have someone chime in and tell us….

Clare: and Chrissy: "I hadn't heard of that story!"

Clare: Rather sobering actually. Reminds me there's little chance of me becoming an internationally-famous household name at this rate ... but I daresay that's character-building! LOL

Chrissy: We're lucky in that unlike authors who tell us they can't stand to reread their older work, it's a pleasure for us to sit down after a chat or blog post, reread an older work, and get to know the characters all over again.

Clare: Sure they may be a few things we cringe over, or wish we could change (e.g. my becoming-notoriously-legendary overuse of exclamation marks, for example!!!), but those just go in the big list of things to do on a reissue. Well, assuming there ever *is* a reissue. :)

Chrissy: In the meantime we have the joy of introducing these characters to an entirely new audience.

Clare: As well as remembering why we liked them so much and deciding they probably merit penning a sequel ... or two.

Chrissy: That happens all the time! Then I tell myself that no, I have to finish the story that's in progress now, then I can get back to them.

Clare: Hmph, my characters aren't nearly so well behaved or willing to wait.

Chrissy: Well, that is one way to shine the spot light on an older story we didn't discuss - write the sequel!

Clare: Works every time (*starts doodling a scene for Red and Carter...*).

Clare: and Chrissy: Tell us what you think!

Readers, do you scour an author's backlist or are you happy to pick and choose from the latest offerings? Does it bore you to tears when an author continues to flog a story from years past, and do you just wish they would stop?

Authors, how do you feel about publicizing your older work, and do you ever feel a story has been overexposed? Have you ever been proved wrong? And what about those you think have been neglected? What do you do to bring older works back into the public view?

Everyone who comments to this month's post will be entered into our random drawing for some of our Free and Festive Clare and Chrissy Swag! Winner to be announced at our next monthly blog post.

SPECIAL NOTE: We're gearing up for a special "open forum" episode of The Clare and Chrissy Show later this year. Do you have a question about one of our posts? One of our stories? Love or Hate our characters? Interested in our favorite music? Reader's choice! All Clare, all Chrissy, all questions will be answered. But fear not shy soul, no names will be used, only questions.

You have between now and September 30, 2012 to think of a question you'd like answered and email it to chrissymunder@yahoo.com. Be sure to mark which one of us the question is for, and then sit back and get ready to learn all.

July Winner: egret17- Congratulations! Please choose a story from one of our backlists, and then send an email to Chrissy at chrissymunder@yahoo.com for your free download.

Missed a month? Follow the sticky post for these rambles of ours HERE

And to learn more about us:


Here's Chrissy! website // blog.


Here's Clare! website // blog.

pic credits:  savage chickens/doug savage