My Recent Comments

This is coming up as a blog entry and not a book review. In order for the automatic counter to count it toward the 100,000 goal, it needs to be a book review. (Don't worry -- a lot of us have made the same mistake.) You'll have to click on "Book Review" under the "Create Content" bullet and then copy your text over there. A couple of ways to double check that your books are going in as "book reviews" is to read the small info line under the title of your entry.  See up where it says, "JacMar5362 . . ."? On a book review, it will say, "Book review created by . . .". Another way is to go to your "Profile Page" and on there it will say how many books you've read off in the right-hand banner. It will say "100,000 Book Challenge JacMar5362 has already read 2 books" Right now, yours says, "100,000 Book Challenge Join the Challenge!"

Again, welcome and have fun with the challenge!

Penn 

and not a book review, which means that the "auto counter" hasn't counted it toward our 100,000 goal. Lot's of us have made the same mistake -- you need to click on "Book Review" under the "Create Content" bullet. You can copy the post over into a book review and then delete the blog post if you want.

Penn 

You've made these committments but no doubt -- esp at church -- they don't want you burned out. Let people there know how overwhelmed you are and see if someone can cover for you on even one or two things til school is out. And then plan for next year: if these are ongoing activities, let others know next February or March that May is a really bad month for you with everything wrapping up and ask them to step up for specific tasks for May 09. You might be surprised at who's willing and able to step in for a bit. I'm a good example -- I don't volunteer regularly at church or school b/c we have no social support outside our church family (our own family is 1000 miles away) and I don't want to commit when the family must always come first. But I CAN commit to helping with specific projects (esp. stupid little ones like stuffing envelopes that I can do in front of the tv or with an audiobook going). The point is, I just need to be asked/told of the need.

Anyway, hang in there. It's only a bit longer. And do let people at church know that you need help til the school year's over.

Penn 

I still leave it on my hard drive. I delete most of my ebooks from the PDA as I read them. Some people buy multiple memory cards and have their libraries stored on them . . . I haven't needed to do that (yet). Several of the places that I buy my ebooks from have a place to rate a book (by clicking on # of stars or a drop-down menu with 4 or 5 word choices like "excellent" or "okay") and I try to rate all my reads, so a bad read for me would get a bad rating. Those ratings are compiled so you would see the little bars with the total number of people who rated the book (like a Nora Roberts will probably have several hundred people who rated her book and you'll see graph bars for each possible rating).

Penn

and I have . . . there's just something nice about curling up in bed and turning to the passage that gave me warm fuzzies the first time. Trick is, I have to remember a unique phrase. :) But I've used the search to find a character that was mentioned in passing in one book who is the main character of a later book. Cheating, I know, but it's fun! :)

Penn 

You'll find lots of helpful people around here. Lurk for a bit to get a feel for things. As Christa said, you'll find a lot of your questions answered if you click on "Forums" (near the top AND the bottom of your screen) and then "Book Challenge". Within the Book Challenge forum are several discussion threads . . . "The Lobby" is our socializing thread; the others' names are pretty self-explanatory.

Remember that all your books read count. My numbers are 10 higher than they would otherwise be b/c I count my kids' books. That said, shorter reads (like Spice Briefs, Nocturne Bytes, Harlequin Minis) need to be combined. Every time you click on "Book Review" under "Add Content" (in the right banner here), the automatic counter adds one book to the total read. (A sidenote to be careful to click on "Book Review" and not "Blog Entry" if you're doing a book review toward the 100,000 goal -- a lot of us have made that mistake at least once . . . )  Back to the topic -- if you're combining shorter reads, you can do a note that says something like, "Combining x number of shorts/novellas/Harl Minis to equal one full-length book." That's gone over in more detail in either the "Intro and Rules" thread or the "How to Add a Book Review . . ." thread in the "Book Challenge" forum.

The most important thing is to have fun!!

Penn 

I'm active in the Medical Romance and Harlequin Romance threads, so I'll remind the gangs over there. That still leaves most of the forums untouched. Who's going to remind their friends in the other threads/forums?

Also, how 'bout adding a reminder in our signature lines? So the reminder stays around? Maybe even change it every month or so, so that it looks different enough for people to read it again?

Penn, off to the MedRom and HarlRom threads

at least your "series" backlist -- The Taylor Clan and the first Precinct Series books that aren't available as eBooks. I imagine that other readers have, too. Yeah, the Backlist Books thread is for us readers to request, well, backlist books that we'd like to see in eBook format (if they won't re-do it in print and I'm assuming that it's much less expensive and more likely to generate a profit quickly in eFormat). Anyway, I even went so far as to suggest that they release your backlist at the same time you have new books set in the KCPD coming out. Don't know if they just didn't think that was a good idea or if they didn't have the staffing to do it since it obviously isn't happening with your June release (shrugs).

After I poked around a bit at your WEB site and here, I decided that the series-special-releases aren't yet being released in eFormat. I kind of wonder why but maybe they want the print books to no longer be available?

Anyway, congrats on your son's graduation!! I was telling a friend yesterday that my niece just finished her first year of college and her brother graduates HS next year and where does the time go? Before I know it, my own kids will be there! And then I'll really wonder!

Penn 

• I've tried to get the few readers in our local romance reading group who are not already part of the challenge (at the May meeting, 3 of the 5 present are already participating, so not a lot of newbies there) to sign up. I made a little one page sheet about it and gave it to them. Hopefully they'll come by. One said she would, I'm leaving the other to Debkc3.
• I'm also going to try and get our little group that started out as a local DFW-eHQ group (we've grown and given ourselves a name LOL) to participate. There are two teachers in the group, so here's hoping they'll do their summer reads, at least. PLUS, there are two AVID readers who are not (yet) participating.
• I also went begging at Catherine Mann's board late last week and noticed that Cathy has now posted two books. (There's a hint for those of you who hang out in other reader forums -- you could beg at those places.)
• I'm also going to try to get something in the final PTA newsletter at my kids' school and/or the final PTA meeting of the year.
• Not to mention when I'm home this summer getting my family involved. If they won't blog, I'll give them an ID and blog their books for them. I'm from a family of readers, although a lot of their reading is newspapers and magazines, which unfortunately don't count. Now, on the upside, I bo't my b-i-l an MP3 player so he can download audio books from his library and my mom and sister have both mentioned how much he loves that (he as a 1-1.5 hour commute each way, 5x/week). So just getting his list of what he's read will help.

Okay, any other ideas on where we can recruit? Oh, church, for those of us who go to church. And what about those of you who are part of RWA? Has it been bro't up at any of your meetings?

Penn, waiting for ideas from the rest of y'all

Other than I will say that I love me a good cover. Anyway, this is your most recent blog post so I figured it was the best place to find you.

Re: One Good Man -- did you tell us it was going to be re-released? (I will say that the re-release has a much better cover than the first time around) And are they going to add it to the eBook section? It's available in print but not eBook. When I saw the print version (which lucky for me, I already have), I thought, "Oh, good, now everyone can get it and the eBook version will be available for people looking for it a year from now." But it's not in the eBoutique. Will it be there eventually?

TIA.

Penn

PS -- Oh, wait, I've been to your WEB site and see it's part of a 50 book collection?! Whew! I guess that means that the other Taylor Clan books won't be coming out again any time soon? Do you know anything about the eBooks? Will they do the collection in eBook? (sign me hopeful)