This week I’m on vacation, so my posting might be a little sparse. This is one of the first ‘all digital’ vacations I have taken. No print books – I just loaded up my Sony PRS-500 with several titles and was good to go. I’ll write more about the experience next week.

Hopefully all of you out there in cyberinternetland will get a chance to relax as we head into August. As always, have a happy and safe weekend!

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I never really know what to think of most literary awards. Usually, the prestigious awards are voted on by a small committee of experts. And most of the time, they tend to pick obscure works with little mass market appeal. But at the other end of the spectrum, we have the science fiction Hugo award, where the finalists were decided by letting sci-fi fans vote for their favorite novels. The results were a little more mainstream, maybe too mainstream, according to one author.

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Ever since I first dreamed of being a novelist and sitting down to write my first novel in a spiral-bound notebook (never finished it, but I wish I could be that young again), I never gave much thought to the basic tools of writing. If I had a computer, I used a word processor. If I didn’t have access to a computer, I wrote everything out longhand.

Now that I’m all grown up, my tool of choice is usually my trusty Macbook. I use OpenOffice as my word processor of choice because I’m such a huge fan of open source software. And I’ve never given this much thought, until recently.

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The debacle over Amazon and their decision to remotely remove several George Orwell titles from their Kindle device, from customers who had paid for the books, has sparked a pretty fierce debate online. I’m actually a little surprised at the number of people who have come to Amazon’s defense and even applauded Jeff Bezo’s generic apology.

A lot of people, it seems, are getting hung up on the idea that the ebooks in question were illegally uploaded to Amazon’s system, and therefore, Amazon had every right to delete them from the Kindles and issue a refund. But I think there’s a deeper problem, and a danger lurking in the shadows if something isn’t done.

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Exciting week in the world of ebooks. Barnes & Noble came out with their own ebook reader for mobile devices and opened up its ebookstore on their website. As I have mentioned before, I hope this will provide some much needed competition for Amazon.

Other than that, things have been quiet in my neck of the woods. I will probably spend the weekend doing some mid-summer cleaning (how does a house get so dirty and cluttered so fast?).  Aside from that, it’s work and writing for me.

As always, have a happy and safe weekend!

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Romance is not a genre I read, much less write about on this blog. But the romance genre is fairly large and has a fiercely loyal following, so it’s no surprise that romance is still doing well, despite a grim economy. Thus this is a genre that cannot be easily ignored or shunned aside.

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Amazon set off a firestorm of criticism across the web the other day when they decided to remotely delete several Orwell titles off of customers’ Kindles because the ‘publisher’ didn’t have permission to to sell those titles as ebooks. The tactic shows how ruthless Amazon can be with their ebook business, on top of their already draconian DRM tactics.

The question I keep asking myself is: “What will it take for Amazon to change their ways?” Yes, a big enough lawsuit might do the trick. And yes, action on the part of the government (i.e. FTC), might also do the trick. But there’s a simpler way to force Amazon to change – competition.

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Today we have a special treat – an exclusive interview with author Wayne C. Long, who owns and operates LongShortStories, a website where he sells his short fiction as a subscription-based service. I first met Wayne back in 2008 after he sent me a message advertising his site – which I first wrote about in this post.

I’m going to keep this introduction short because I think the interview speaks for itself, and I hope you find Wayne’s answers as inspiring as I do. And when you get to the end of the interview, you might find a surprise!

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When I read yesterday that Amazon had removed several George Orwell titles from their Kindle ebook reader, I can’t say I was surprised. Sad but true. Not too long ago a story surfaced about an Amazon customer who had his account suspended (too many returns, I think) and all the ebooks on his Kindle became disabled. Is this becoming a disturbing trend on Amazon’s part?

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Some exciting times are ahead for Brad’s Reader: A really cool interview will be posted on July 20 (Monday) that you won’t want to miss, plus more book reviews, and I got some other goodies up my sleeve that I know you will all love.

This blog has seen tremendous growth over the last few months and I’d like to keep the momentum going. Of course, Brad’s Reader would be nothing without you, devoted readers, so I’d like to sincerely thank you for all your support.

Friday is finally here, the weather has cooled down (at least in the Chicago area) and I’m looking forward to a relaxing weekend with friends and family. I hope all of you will do the same. As always, have a safe and happy weekend!

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