Wondering on Wednesday: Uploading Files to Kindle

Hello everyone!
Today I'm going to share with you how to upload PDF or MOBI on your Kindle. You think this sounds like a simple task, but as soon as I got my Kindle Fire I was so confused.

The Kindle only accepts MOBI and PDF files.
Now there are a couple of ways to go about doing this. For all devices (other than the Fire) you can use the USB cord and plug your Kindle into your computer and simply drag and drop the files into your Kindle folder. When you unplug, assuming you're under WiFi, your Kindle will refresh and the books will appear. For me using my Kindle 3 Keyboard, this worked 90% of the time. But when it didn't....

Every Kindle has an e-mail address. So if you have multiple Kindles, you have multiple e-mail addresses. To find this e-mail address go to amazon.com, click on "Digital Content" in the top right hand corner and log in if you haven't already. From there, click on "Manage your Kindle", then "Personal Document Settings" on the left side and you will see your Kindle address.
For instance mine is : sapphire2277_44@Kindle.com for my Fire and sapphire2277@Kindle.com for my K3 Keyboard.

Now open your normal e-mail account, attach the file you want to send to your Kindle and Send the e-mail. When you're under WiFi it will show up. If you have a Fire you may need to go to "Settings" and press "Sync" for it to show up, but it will.

So anytime you get a book on Smashwords, you can get it to your Kindle this way. Or if you have your grocery list saved on your computer and you want it on your Kindle you can do it this way as well. Also, something else to note is that with smaller files you won't be charged for sending the files over, but if a file is over a certain size, you could be charged. You can also set it up where Amazon can't charge you over a certain amount for transferring data. But in all honesty, in every situation where I've sent personal documents to my Kindle, I've never had this issue. And I've had a ton of books, lists and everything else from being a blogger. So typically, it's not something you should worry about, but it's something I still wanted to throw out there.

I was going to include how to do this on the Nook, but they don't accept files as well as the Kindle does therefore the process is a bit more complicated. I'm going to do some more research and play with M's Nook Color and let you guys know in a couple of weeks. Or if you have a Nook and know how, teach us! We'd love to hear from you.

Until next time,

Review: Secrets by Liz Schulte

"While Olivia Martin observed life through her camera, the abyss gazed back at her. She discovers mysterious men follow her around, people close to her are dying, and her dreams are no longer her own as she falls head over heels for a perfect stranger. A chance encounter leads to an obsession that could destroy everything she has ever known or loved. Olivia is about to find out there is a lot she doesn't know and sometimes what you don't know can kill you."

There were a ton of things I adored about this book. Number one was the characters. Even in a situation that goes above our own comprehension of reality, Liz managed to create believable, lovable characters that you will celebrate in their triumphs and sob in their defeat. The friendship between Olivia and Juliet almost reflected perfectly the relationship between M and myself. And if you love a great bad boy, you'll be swooning over Holden. Second, I loved the format of the book. It switches back and forth from Olivia to Holden's perspective which gives so much more of an understanding and insight. From Olivia's side where she's fighting to figure out what's going on to Holden's where he struggles with himself and how to deal with his newfound emotions.

But what do you do when you're faced with only three decisions about the direction of your life and none of them seem to be in your best interest? That is exactly where Liv finds herself and her decision is one that truly exceeds anything I think I could handle if placed in her situation.

It was a bit frustrating going through the book not knowing what was going on with the underlining story, but with a title like Secrets you can't ask for much else! But when the truth bursts through and comes to light it's a pretty awesome spin on the paranormal genre. I want to go into so many more details, but I don't want to give anything away about this novel because this is one you absolutely want to read. I'm very happy Liz decided to take her hand at writing the paranormal genre and I cannot wait for the next book in the series.

My rating for this book:

Note: There is a sex scene and a bit of profanity which I note only to warn readers it could offend. However, I thought everything was done so tactfully that it didn't bother me.

About the Author:

Many authors claim to have known their calling from a young age. Liz Schulte, however, didn't always want to be an author. In fact, she had no clue. Liz wanted to be a veterinarian, then she wanted to be a lawyer, then she wanted to be a criminal profiler. In a valiant effort to keep from becoming Walter Mitty, Liz put pen to paper and began writing her first novel. It was at that moment she realized this is what she was meant to do. As a scribe she could be all of those things and so much more. When Liz isn’t writing or on social networks she is inflicting movie quotes and trivia on people, reading, traveling, and hanging out with friends and family. Liz is a Midwest girl through and through, though she would be perfectly happy never having to shovel her driveway again. She has a love for all things spooky, supernatural, and snarky. Her favorite authors range from Edgar Allen Poe to Joseph Heller to Jane Austen to Jim Butcher and everything in between.

You can follow Liz's blog here.

This novel was provided to The Ink Puddle by the author.

Giveaway and Contest Details!

Happy Monday everyone!
M and I were talking last night, trying to come up a fun Christmas contest/ giveaway to do. Finally, we had it! (Thanks to that Walmart commercial with the guy in the cat sweater. Makes me laugh everytime!)

An ugly Christmas sweater contest! 

Oh yes. I said it. So to enter, all you guys have to do is take a picture of yourself in the ugliest Christmas sweater you have ever seen and send it to my e-mail: jordan.butcher2@gmail.com with permission to post the photo on our blog. I will have a panel of around 10 people individually tell who they think has the worst sweater. The winner will recieve...

Yes, all 3 books in a set! All dystopia oriented (since that seems to be the cool book topic currently). You will have your choice of us gifting them to you in e-reader format or in physical book form.

But don't be discouraged if you aren't number one... the runner up will recieve a $10.00 gift card to their choice of Amazon or B&N.

 

 

So come on guys, let's have fun with this one! Tell your friends, family and co-workers even.

You have until December 25th, 11:59 PM to get your photos in.

We will present the winners on New Year's Eve.

Mainstream Monday: Divergent Movie

“One Choice Can Transform You”

And that it did for Veronica Roth when she wrote Divergent.  If you haven't read Divergent yet, you better get on it quick.  This past March, before the first book was even out, Summit Entertainment snatched up the rights.  For those that who may not be familiar with Summit Entertainment, they were the ones to produce hits such as the Twilight Saga and Abduction.  So, not only did a now big named movie company pick up the rights to the book but screen writer Evan Daugherty, who wrote the screen play for Snow White and the Hunts Man, is on board with the project. He is also writing the script so this is bound to be one hell of a movie!  Unfortunately, they have yet to cast anyone yet but we’ll be sure to keep you posted.

And for those of you who have read Divergent yet, check out my review.
Also, last week at www.hollywoodcrush.mtv.com, they had dystopian week.  So for those of you who are really missing Katniss Everdeen and are needing a little more dystopian in your life here are a few books that should do the trick:

• Matched and Crossed by Ally Condie, which me or J one plan to read in the near future.
• Shatter Me by Tahereh Mafi
• Legend by Marie Lu, also being brought to the big screen by Twilight producer Wick Godfrey who said “Legend would blow the socks of the Hunger Games adaptation”.
• Delirium and Pandemonium by Laura Oliver

I plan on reading all of these and then some over Christmas Break, so if you’re feeling iffy don’t fret, reviews on each of these will be up and coming soon.
Are you all as excited as I am to see this book be brought to life on the big screen?? Let us know and have a fabulous Mainstream Monday!


--M
All of my information was from Hollywoodcrush.mtv.com.

Weekend Roundup (11/28-12/2)

Hey everyone!
Here's what you may have missed this week on The Ink Puddle.

Monday: Pavarti K Tyler's Giveaway
Tuesday: Review: Clockwork Angel by Cassandra Clare, Clockwork Prince Release!
Wednesday: Nook Color Update
Thursday: Amanda Hocking, Trylle Trilogy News
Saturday: Guest Post: Ashley Dawn

We're pretty excited for some of the posts we have in store for you guys this week! But you'll have to just stay tuned to see. :)
Also, as you can see we changed up our layout again. I'm hoping this has a more professional but still fun feel to it, rather than teeny like how I felt our last layout was. What do you think of our new place?

Hope you guys are having a great weekend!
J&M

Guest Post: Ashley Dawn

Today we welcome Ashley Dawn, on tour with Virtual Blog Tour Cafe and author of the Shadows series. She has prepared a guest post for us to talk about important marketing tips that help authors out along the way to success. 

Without further ado...

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Marketing Tips
With so much going on with books on the internet, there are a lot of options for authors to promote their work.  I’ve used several of these…some worked and some didn’t.  For me it was trial and error type work so I thought I would share what has worked best for me:

1. A Blog.  This can be FREE or there are some places where you pay for the blog, either way it is useful.  I have a review blog where I read and review other author’s work.  It gets my name out there and I have a page on my blog dedicated just to my books.  That way, when authors are out there promoting their book and send people to my blog, I have the possibility to have them check out my books as well.  It isn’t a guarantee but it has worked for me.
2. Help other authors.  This one sort of goes along with the blog idea.  If you review an author’s book for them, you have made a contact that in the future (or now if you agree to do a swap with them) can do a review for you.  If you help other authors with reviews and promotion, they will help you.
3. Facebook page.  It is a wonderful and FREE.  You can post what is going on in your writing life, upcoming releases, book covers, etc.  People click ‘like’ on your page and immediately see your feed.  You have to post on there for it to be useful but there is a whole lot of people on facebook that can be reached through this and it doesn’t tie up your personal account.
4. Blog Tour.  On this, you set up a time frame (either by yourself or hire someone to do it) where on certain days you are on certain blogs either doing reviews, guestblogs, giveaways, excerpts…the possibilities are almost endless!  This way, you reach a completely new audience through the blogger’s followers and at the same time, you are helping them promote their blog by promoting your book!
5. Twitter.  It works a lot like facebook only with more limited character space.  I admit I don’t utilize this one like I should but it is there as a promotion tool for us authors and once again it is FREE.  You can promote yourself, gain followers, announce release dates, or just talk about what you are working on to keep people interested.

All 5 of these can be used together to help you market and promote your work.  Make sure to have fun with your marketing.  I know it is work and you so bad want to get all the exposure you can but remember to take time to stop and see what you are accomplishing along the way.  I hope this helps or at least gives a few ideas!

- Ashley Dawn

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Thank you so much Ashley for coming by! Make sure you check out her book series. Here's a summary of Book 3, Shadows of Pain!

"Revenge is sweet…unless you are on the receiving end of it.
“Do you know of anyone who would want…you dead?”
Officer Daniel Jenkins was no stranger to the dangers his job posed but usually he knew who was trying to kill him. Being stalked was a completely different ball game, and he wasn’t sure there were any rules…
“…I need you.”
Terrified didn’t even begin to describe how Kami felt with the stalker targeting her. As an FBI agent you were trained to handle stressful situations, but being the victim put the whole process in a different light.
As the killer gets closer, so do Kami and Daniel, but will they live long enough to see their love bloom?
Only God can save them from this unknown killer…"

Amanda Hocking: Trylle Trillogy News

Amanda Hocking announced the release dates of her Trylle Trillogy. The series will be released in the US, UK, Australia, India, South Africa, and Asia. Though the release dates are a bit different, the dates I will be mentioning are the dates of release in the U.S.

I listed them in order of the series. Switched will be here January 5th, 2012. Torn is March 1st, 2012 and Ascend is April 26th, 2012.

Now there are 2 copies of each book. The adult version and the young adult version and each have different covers (same cover- different colors; the covers above are the adult version). The stories in each version are the same, but at the end of each novel there will be a brand new, never read before short story. This is where things get changed up a bit to cater to your liking. The short story in the adult version is catered more towards adults (not X rated or anything like that...) and the young adult is more for well, young adults! I thought this was a really neat idea.

For those of you that don't know, Amanda Hocking self-published these books a year or so ago. She was then picked up by a publishing company and has decided to rerelease them in this format, so everyone can have access to them- not only people with e-readers. This series is also in the process of being written as a screenplay by the writer of the movie, District 9. Needless to say, Amanda has been a very busy woman.

So what do you think? Amanda Hocking's Trylle Trillogy were the first books I read when I got my Kindle for Christmas last year. I love them, I've just been holding out on reviewing them until these versions came out. I personally liked the other covers better (the ones after the blue swirlies with the name, they showed Wendy in a chair and such). But these aren't too bad. :)

Are you guys as excited about this as I am?

J