Any day now my first child will be born. I’m very, very excited, but also a little nervous. It’s a huge life changing event. However, my excitement far outweighs any anxiety I feel.

As I’ve mentioned before, the posting frequency on Brad’s Reader is about to go way down. I can’t promise how much I’ll be able to post or even if I’ll get the weekly Friday Link Love in. Everything is up in the air. But rest assured, Brad’s Reader isn’t going anywhere.

That’s all I have for now. It’s a beautiful day here in Chicago as the humidity has gone down. Hopefully this will be our new trend until Autumn. As always, have a happy and safe weekend.

Continue Reading

Apologies for the very late Friday Link Love. I’ve been very preoccupied this last month or two (hence my decreased number of posts) with some personal matters. Don’t worry though, you’ll soon find out why and it is very good news. Once things settle, I should be back to posting several times a week.

That said, it’s Saturday and the weekend is almost halfway over. Stay safe!

Continue Reading

I’m not the superstitious type, so being Friday the 13th has no real meaning for me. Just another day. However, I was watching the news this morning and one of the anchors pointed out that today is the only Friday the 13th in 2010. A very minor interesting bit of trivia.

There’s really not much else to say today. I have a fairly busy weekend ahead so I may not be writing any new posts in the next few days. However, I try to post on Twitter as much as possible (140 characters is much easier than a blog post). So if you’re not following me already, now might be a good time.

That’s it. Have a happy and safe weekend!

Continue Reading

Given the e-reader price wars going on between Amazon and Barnes & Noble, I’m predicting that by this time next year there will be either a Kindle or Nook available for $100, or even less. Obviously consumers will follow these lower prices, causing more people to embrace ebooks.

The only variable that is too hard to predict (at least this early in the game) is the price of the ebooks themselves. Publishers want higher ebook prices while ebooksellers like Amazon and consumers want lower ebook prices. If ebook prices increase, then it will probably negate the lower-priced e-readers.

Yes, it’s an exciting time for ebooks. While they still remain less than 5% of overall book sales, their rapid growth will surely bring some interesting surprises over the next decade.

But enough of that. It’s Friday and you know what that means. Have a happy and safe weekend.

Continue Reading

Today is an “abbreviated” Friday Link Love because it has been a pretty hectic week – both on the writing front and at home. This also explains my only writing one post between last week’s Link Love and this week’s.

It has been a big week in ereader news. Amazon announced Kindle WiFi, selling for $139. There’s no doubt they are trying to compete with Barnes & Noble’s own Nook WiFi, which retails for $149. While the retailers continue their ereader price wars, the consumer wins. Lower priced ereaders will convert more people to ebooks.

There was a lot of other big news this week – too much to cover here. But I’ll be scrutinizing the big stories and writing posts on the one’s that I feel are the most important.

With that said, have a happy and safe weekend!

Continue Reading

Amazon made waves this week by claiming they sold 180 ebooks for every 100 hardcover books. A lot of people were skeptical of this claim (myself included). But publishers confirmed Amazon’s numbers.

While this isn’t the death knell for hardcovers, it gives ebooks another boost of credibility. And with ebook prices far below that of print books (at least for now), penny-pinching readers might be willing to forget how much they love the feel of a “real” print book.

That’s all I have for today. Keep on reading. Keep on writing. And as always, have a safe and happy weekend.

Continue Reading

I just started reading the third book in Stieg Larsson’s Millennium Trilogy series The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest (aff link). I plowed through the first two novels of the series, as they were real page-turners. The third is a bit different. I’m not going to go into details yet, as I’m not even halfway through the novel. Once I finish, however, I’ll be posting a review here – so stay tuned.

That’s all I have for this week. As always, if you have any blog links related to ebooks, writing, books/literature or publishing, please feel free to send them to me to be included in Friday Link Love. Just remember that they need to be for the current week.

As always, have a safe and happy weekend.

Continue Reading

The holiday weekend here in the U.S. (Fourth of July) really threw my week off. Today it feels like it should be Thursday, not Friday. This probably explains why I was a little short on posts this week.

Don’t forget, I’m always looking for great links for my Friday Link Love feature. If you have a post (whether your own or another post you’ve found) that you think would be great, send me the link! Remember to keep the links about ebooks, publishing, writing or books/literature. Links that are overly ’sales-ish’ won’t be included. I look forward to seeing what you send.

That said, have a happy and safe weekend.

Continue Reading

I’m going to keep this short and sweet because it’s the 4th of July weekend here in the US.

Amazon is making the news again after releasing a newer, upgraded version of their Kindle DX (aff link) which is priced at $379 (down from $489). I’m predicting we’re going to see a lot of e-reader upgrades between now and Christmas – most of which will be released around the holiday season.

That’s it. I hope everyone has a happy and safe weekend. Be careful with those fireworks!

Continue Reading

Barnes & Noble shook up the ebook world this week by lowering the price of their WiFi + 3G device to $199 and introducing a WiFi-only device at $149. To further stir the pot, Amazon reacted swiftly by lowering the price of their Kindle to $189.

I imagine much of this has to do with the perceived threat of Apple’s iPad. But as I have maintained, B&N and Amazon cannot compete with the iPad on features, they can only compete on price.

Hopefully these lower prices will entice people to embrace ebooks who otherwise would not because of the high cost of the e-readers. I know that once they buy a Nook or Kindle, they’ll be hooked.

That’s all I have for today. As always, have a happy and safe weekend.

Continue Reading