Fr1700T The Magic of Collaboration
Fri 5:00 PM-6:00 PM Trinity
S. Brust, E. Bull*, A. Porter, D. Potter, H. Waldrop, S. White

Sa1700SB The Second Book is Always the Hardest
Sat 5:00 PM-6:00 PM Sabine
A. Downum, S. Leicht, S. Lynch*, A. Marmell, J. McDermott, S. White

Sa1800SA What’s New with Vampires
Sat 6:00 PM-7:00 PM San Antonio
A. Allston, M. Bey*, J. Hall, P. Roberts, D. Sylvan, S. White

Sa2200SB Writing Erotic Fiction
Sat 10:00 PM-11:00 PM Sabine
M. Fletcher, P. Roberts*, R. Rose, J. Vanderhooft, S. White

Su1300SM Finding Your Voice as a Storyteller
Sun 1:00 PM-2:00 PM San Marcos
N. Barrett, J. Blaschke*, S. Brust, A. Downum, W. Spencer, S. White

Visit ArmadilloCon on the web here: http://www.armadillocon.org

Hope to see you there!

Below are two examples of the new Kindle for the Web feature Amazon.com just rolled out. Basically, you can read the first full chapter from any supported book in a web browser with no plug-ins required. Better still, you can embed this widget in a webpage or blog entry, like I’ve done below, in just a few clicks. This allows people to sample a nicely formatted excerpt of a book (with things like font size adjustment and full-screen mode to enhance the reading experience), share it via email/Facebook/Twitter, embed it in their own site and, of course, navigate to Amazon to purchase the whole eBook.

Here’s the excerpt for In Dreams Begin and and Falling, Fly. Below that, I’ve included steps to add Kindle for the Web content to your own site, since this could be a cool way for authors and book bloggers to share rich, interactive samples:

Here’s how to add this content to your site:

1) Navigate to Amazon.com and find the product page for the print copy of the book you wish to share. (Note it must be the print copy; this doesn’t work for eBooks.) Here’s the page for and Falling, Fly.
2) In the right column, in the green ‘Kindle Edition’ box, you’ll find a new button that says ‘Read first chapter FREE’. (Amazon says this button only appears for ’select books’, so it may or may not be there for the title you wish to promote.) Click this button.
3) The Kindle for the Web reader will appear. When you’re done checking out the cool features, click the ‘Embed’ button in the upper right.
4) The ‘Embed’ pop-up window will appear. Click ‘Customize’.
5) Here, you can change the widget width and height (it defaults to 1220px wide; I changed it to 620 to fit the column width of this blog and left the height alone). You can also enter your Associate Tag if you participate in the Amazon affiliates program.
6) As you edit these things, the embed code will automatically update (you don’t have to click ‘done’ or anything).
7) When you’ve made the modifications you wish, copy the code from the field labeled ‘Copy and paste the text below’. Paste the text into your website. (See notes specific to WordPress.org below.)
Test and publish. That’s it!

(In WordPress.org, this code won’t work if you paste it in using the ‘Visual’ tab in the blog entry editor. You have to paste it in using the HTML tab. I’ve found that if I paste in the code and then switch back-and-forth between the Visual and HTML tabs, the code will get screwed up again. Thus, write your post, format it using the Visual tab, switch to the HTML tab, and paste in the embed code.)

I’ve checked out the result in Chrome and Opera on a PC, and a friend tells me it works fine on Safari on Mac, too. The only hiccup I’ve run into is in Safari on an iPad, where the Kindle pages appear out-of-order. I’ve sent this feedback to Amazon and maybe they’ll correct it.

Enjoy and feel free to ask questions in the ‘Comments’ section.

Bitter hugs-

Thrall

My friend Gabrielle Faust and I will be hosting a costumed Gothic tea event on Saturday 11/20 at BookPeople in Austin, celebrating the recent launch of In Dreams Begin and Eternal Vigilance III: Bound in Blood! We’ll be doing readings, signings, a costume contest and more.

Visit the event page for full details, and please share with friends!

Skye

Halloween party, October 31, 2010

Skye with friend & fellow author Christine Rose at ‘A Most Unsettling and Possibly Haunted Evening in the Parlour of the Brothers Grimm‘, secret location, Austin, TX, October 2010.

Please visit Christine’s website, covering her writing of the ‘Rowan of the Wood’ Celtic-themed YA series in conjunction with her lovely husband Ethan, and also check out her adult Steampunk writing as O. M. Grey. Do consider sponsoring her NaNoWriMo efforts by making a donation to the Office of Letters and Light youth/adult free creative writing program.

Skyler and Scott (Thrall) White at the 'Blood of the Bean II' Texas horror author reading event, October 2010.

Photo by Rhodi Hawk.

Be sure to check out Marta’s new book, Haunted Honeymoon, the final installment of heroine Milagro de Los Santos’s romantic misadventures in the Casa Dracula series. Readers are calling it “saucy, irreverent and surprisingly thoughtful” — can’t wait to check it out myself!

Here’s a taste of the In Dreams Begin excerpt over at Marta’s blog — head over there to read the rest!

Ida’s mind reached out toward the museum’s secret shelves hidden beneath and all around her. They held even the Kama Sutra in translation, locked away. Forbidden to women, of course, its simple, mysterious proximity still contributed to the deep erotic song in the silent air. How much was likewise hidden here? Every forbidden secret, in its original Sanskrit or antique Latin, every true answer waited somewhere on the open shelves ringing her, or in the catacombs and archives underneath. Ida blinked against the jealous tears.

A stray beam of raw spring sunlight pierced the distant clouds and shot through a high, arched window to anoint the handsome, bowed poet in a solitary streaming beam as if God himself reached forth to claim this man for His own. A fervent believer in signs, Ida closed her eyes. Swaying with the hum and whisper of all the world’s knowledge—open and occult—dancing around her, Ida could not find a solitary voice. How do you pluck a single seed from a field of poppies, a solo voice from a chorus, a guiding star from a night sky?

Mr. Yeats glanced absently up, and he saw her.

Ah, perhap that’s how. Had she not read, just recently, in Mr. Wilde’s new magazine, that domed spaces were extraordinarily conducive to telepathy? Ida smiled at the magus, and made a little wave.

Read more …

With Sherry Thomas at Barnes & Noble in San Antonio

With Mari Mancusi at the Texas Book Festival