I've been busy getting ready for December. A week ago I was concentrating on "writing a book in a month" but then I was hit by virus hell and lost a few days. Thankfully my computer seems to be working now... So having lost my momentum, I moved on to promotional things for December so the word gets out about my new book, Gunshot Grange, out on December 6th. My website partner, Eilis Flynn, has her Introducing Sonica out on December 13th, so we are partnering with other authors on a big contest and on an ebooklove yahoo chat on December 13th. I'm part of another big contest going on in about a month too.

    We writers love to do the holiday contests. It's something easy and obvious for us to do, gathered together. But for those of us who don't have much in print yet, I do wonder how effective it is. Do readers have time to read and purchase e-books in December? Do e-books get given as gifts?

    My sister sent out a Christmas wish list and I was happy to see it had something that looked like e-books on it, but then I looked closer and saw it was audio book downloads. She wants them for her iPod, but did you know that you can play a Cerridwen Press or Ellora's Cave e-book as an audio book if you purchase the .pdf format? You have to have a computer with speakers, but it does work! Maybe someday we'll be downloadable to iPods too.