Wednesday, August 22, 2012

New Young Adult Novel

Here's a new novella aimed at young adults, called Weighted.  It's by an author names Ciara Kinight, is selling for $1.99 in Amazon.  It is described as a post-apacolyptic work of fiction geared towards young adults.  I would encourage everyone to check it out.  I bought a copy, and will post more information after I read it.

http://www.amazon.com/Weighted-The-Neumarian-Chronicles-ebook/dp/B008ZTD5BO/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1345552757&sr=1-1&keywords=Weighted+by+ciara+knight

Monday, August 20, 2012

Microsoft Office Alternative, OpenOffice is Free

My laptop is dieing.  The "i" key sticks, so that sometimes when I type fast, it doesn't register and words like "Bikini" look like "Bkin" when I look back at what I've typed.  The battery is now dead, so I can only use it when it is pugged in.  The light that tells me when the bluetooth is on has burndt out.  And since it it 7 years old, it is too slow to run my favorite video game.

With that inmind, I bought a new netbook at Walmart for only $220.  It won't play video games, but it is perfect for surfing the web and writing my books.  The only problem is, it doesn't come with Microsoft Office preloaded.  For $120, I can download them, but that's a good chunk of change.

So I go online, and look for alternatives.  Wordperfect is even more expensive, so I rule that one out. 

Then I find OpenOffice.  It's free, and word compatible. I had heard of OpenOffice before, but had never seen it.  Reading through the description, it's exactly what I need.  It also has the equivalent of powerpoint and excel built into it.  I download it, and fire it up.  I open up my latest book, which I had saved in Word format, and there it is.  I type a bit, hit the save key, and it saves to Word format.

Call me a convert, no more buying overpriced Microsoft software for home use.

You can download it here:  http://www.openoffice.org/

Thursday, August 16, 2012

Some Great Ebooks by Independent Authors

Ebooks make great, affordable reading, and here are a few recommendations, all of which were written by new, up-and-coming authors. Looking at the descriptions, each of these look like they are well written and exciting:

A Whisper in Space - David C. Drizzit ($.99 Kindle Edition)


Big Damn Love Story - David C. Drizzit ($3.99 Kindle Edition)
http://www.amazon.com/Damn-Story-Adventures-Spitfire-ebook/dp/B008EP3I1Q/ref=pd_sim_kstore_1

Hawk of May (Down the Long Way 1) - Gillian Bradshaw ($9.99 Kindle Edition)
http://www.amazon.com/Hawk-May-Down-Long-ebook/dp/B003YFJ4VE/ref=pd_sim_kstore_9


Felix Faust (the Arcane Insurrection - Dexter Morgenstern ($.99 Kindle Edition)
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00896N19E/ref=pe_160490_25378790_pe_vfe_dt1


Lady Grace: A Thrilling Adventure Wrapped in the Embrace of Epic Love - Sandy Nathan ($3.99 Kindle Edition)
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B0084F4MOI/ref=pe_160490_25378790_pe_vfe_dt3

Quicker (an Ell Donsaii story) - Laurence Dahners ($2.99 Kindle Edition)
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B005ORQO7W/ref=pe_160490_25378790_pe_vfe_dt8


Neverfound (Seven Masks) - Katherine Velthuyzen ($.99 Kindle Edition)
http://www.amazon.com/Neverfound-Seven-Masks-ebook/dp/B008N6VU7A/ref=pd_sxp_grid_i_1_2


Happy Reading!