Just saw this in the Baen newsletter and thought it might be of interest to some.
ATTENTION: EBOOK RELEASE DATES ARE CHANGING
Dear Baen Readers,
I am writing to let you know that we are reconciling the release dates of ebooks and paper books. From the publication month of April 2016 onward, the release dates will be the same (that is, the ebooks will not be available two weeks earlier than the paper books).
We will not be changing the time the Monthly Bundles are initially offered for sale, we will continue to offer eARCs as usual, and all other policies regarding ebook bundles will remain in place. We will not be making the period you can buy Monthly Bundles shorter, but longer.
The April 2016 bundle contains the ebooks that will be available in print on April 5th. The final versions of these ebooks would have been scheduled to go live as ebooks on all retail venues on March 16, 2015, and will now be available in their entirety April 5, 2016. At that point, the Monthly Bundle will become unavailable for sale.
We will continue to publish two newsletters per month to help you keep track of our offerings, one highlighting the print books which will come out two weeks in advance of the release date, the other highlighting ebook and website offerings on (or very close to) the release date itself.
Please don’t hesitate to contact me with any questions or concerns, and our whole team will be happy to help.
I'm not sure where this post should go so mods please feel free to move it. Samhain Publishing has announced it is winding down its operations and will be closing.
Apparently they will be having a 40% off sale on Monday.
Help us select the book that the MobileRead Book Club will read for March, 2016.
The nominations will run through midnight EST February 26 or until 10 books have made the list. The poll will then be posted and will remain open for five days.
Book selection category for March is: Patricia Clarke Memorial Library.
In order for a book to be included in the poll it needs THREE NOMINATIONS (original nomination, a second and a third).
How Does This Work?
The Mobile Read Book Club (MRBC) is an informal club that requires nothing of you. Each month a book is selected by polling. On the last week of that month a discussion thread is started for the book. If you want to participate feel free. There is no need to "join" or sign up. All are welcome.
How Does a Book Get Selected?
Each book that is nominated will be listed in a poll at the end of the nomination period. The book that polls the most votes will be the official selection.
How Many Nominations Can I Make?
Each participant has 3 nominations. You can nominate a new book for consideration or nominate (second, third) one that has already been nominated by another person.
How Do I Nominate a Book?
Please just post a message with your nomination. If you are the FIRST to nominate a book, please try to provide an abstract to the book so others may consider their level of interest.
How Do I Know What Has Been Nominated?
Just follow the thread. This message will be updated with the status of the nominations as often as I can. If one is missed, please just post a message with a multi-quote of the 3 nominations and it will be added to the list ASAP.
When is the Poll?
The poll thread will open at the end of the nomination period, or once there have been 10 books with 3 nominations each. At that time a link to the initial poll thread will be posted here and this thread will be closed.
The floor is open to nominations. Please comment if you discover a nomination is not available as an ebook in your area.
Official choices with three nominations each:
(X) The Crock of Gold by James Stephens Patricia Clark Memorial Library: ePub | Kindle |LRF
Spoiler:
From the MR upload description:
When their hidden gold is stolen, the leprechauns of Gort na Cloca seek revenge from local villagers. Captivating, unique fantasy, written by one of modern Ireland’s best-loved authors, abounds with bizarre adventures, curious characters, and weird sights. A wise and beautiful fairy tale for grown–ups, "full of sympathy and tenderness and sly satire, of merriment and of poetry."—The New York Times.
From Goodreads:
Truly unique, it is a mixture of philosophy, Irish folklore and the battle of the sexes all with charm, humour and good grace.
(1) Starfish by Peter Watts Patricia Clark Memorial Library:ePub | Kindle
Spoiler:
From Jon's description on the upload page:
Welcome to Beebe Station.
You're three kilometers below the surface of the Pacific Ocean. You're perched on the shoulder of an active volcano. The local fauna is very large and very nasty. If it doesn't kill you, a mudslide or an erupting smoker probably will.
Your fellow employees are rapists, pedophiles, borderline psychotics, and victims of same.
You feel very lucky to be here.
This is a damn sight better than the life you left behind.
(2) Under the Red Robe by Stanley Weyman Patricia Clark Memorial Library:ePub | Kindle
Spoiler:
From Goodreads:
"If you have never robbed a man - or a woman - of honour! If you have never ruined boy or girl, Monsieur de Berault! If you have never pushed another into the pit and gone by it yourself! If - but, for murder?"... Thus the lovely Mademoiselle de Cocheforêt seeks to reach the heart of the ill-famed Gil de Berault, known throughout Paris as "The Black Death." And the hardened duellist sent to spy out and arrest her brother feels the first stirrings of shame. "Her gentleness, her pity, her humility softened me, while they convicted me. My God, how, after this, could I do that which I had come to do?"
This swashbuckling story of love and hate, intrigue and adventure, in the reign of Cardinal Richelieu and Louis XIII of France, has been a best-seller ever since its first appearance in 1894.
(3) The Phantom of the Opera by Gaston Leroux Patricia Clark Memorial Library:ePub | Kindle | LRF
Spoiler:
From Goodreads:
First published in French as a serial in 1909, "The Phantom of the Opera" is a riveting story that revolves around the young, Swedish Christine Daaé. Her father, a famous musician, dies, and she is raised in the Paris Opera House with his dying promise of a protective angel of music to guide her. After a time at the opera house, she begins hearing a voice, who eventually teaches her how to sing beautifully. All goes well until Christine's childhood friend Raoul comes to visit his parents, who are patrons of the opera, and he sees Christine when she begins successfully singing on the stage. The voice, who is the deformed, murderous 'ghost' of the opera house named Erik, however, grows violent in his terrible jealousy, until Christine suddenly disappears. The phantom is in love, but it can only spell disaster. Leroux's work, with characters ranging from the spoiled prima donna Carlotta to the mysterious Persian from Erik's past, has been immortalized by memorable adaptations. Despite this, it remains a remarkable piece of Gothic horror literature in and of itself, deeper and darker than any version that follows.
(4) The Night Life of the Gods by Thorne Smith Patricia Clark Memorial Library:ePub | Kindle
Spoiler:
Thorne Smith's rapid-fire dialogue, brilliant sense of the absurd, and literary aplomb put him in the same category as the beloved P. G. Wodehouse. The Night Life of the Gods--the madcap story of a scientist who instigates a nocturnal spree with the Greek gods--is arguably his most sparkling comedic achievement.
Hunter Hawk has a knack for annoying his ultrarespectable relatives. He likes to experiment and he particularly likes to experiment with explosives. His garage-cum-laboratory is a veritable minefield, replete with evil-smelling clouds of vapor through which various bits of wreckage and mysteriously bubbling test tubes are occasionally visible.
With the help of Megaera, a fetching nine-hundred-year-old lady leprechaun he meets one night in the woods, he masters the art (if not the timing) of transforming statues into people. And when he practices his new witchery in the stately halls of the Metropolitan Museum of Art - setting Bacchus, Mercury, Neptune, Diana, Hebe, Apollo, and Perseus loose on the unsuspecting citizenry of Prohibition-era New York - the stage is set for Thorne Smith at his most devilish and delightful.
Born in Annapolis, Maryland, in 1892, educated at Dartmouth, THORNE SMITH was an early cohort of Dorothy Parker's. He achieved literary success in 1926 with the publication of Topper and went on to publish nine novels in the next eight years. He earned a passionate following among both critics and readers before his death, at the age of forty-two, in 1934.
(5) A Drama in Muslin by George Moore Patricia Clark Memorial Library:ePub | Kindle
Spoiler:
Set in Ireland in the 1880s against a backdrop of Land League troubles in Co. Mayo, and in Dublin, where the social life revolves around the Vice-Regal court in Dublin Castle, this depicts the efforts of a mother trying to catch socially suitable husbands for her daughters, and chronicles the results.
(6) Music of the Spheres by Wander Bonanno Patricia Clark Memorial Library:ePub | Kindle
Margaret Wander Bonanno (born 7 February 1950; age 66) is a science fiction author from New York, with over twenty novels to her credit, including several set in the Star Trek universe. These include Dwellers in the Crucible, Strangers from the Sky, and Catalyst of Sorrows.
She rose to the spotlight of Star Trek apocrypha when her novel Strangers from the Sky made the Time bestsellers list in 1985. But the story that gave her more fame in Trek circles was what would follow.
She is also credited with writing Probe, though in her words it is "not her novel." She was contracted by Paramount to write a novel she called Music of the Spheres, based on the Whale Probe of Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home. However, due to the undesired intervention of an editor at Paramount, the story was nearly completely re-written without her consent, and they refused to remove her name from the project.
After the unpleasant experience, she focused on projects other than Star Trek novels, such as the science fiction book Saturn's Child co-written with Nichelle Nichols.
She was interviewed for the Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home (Special Edition) DVD, hosting the special features section entitled "Vulcan Primer," in which she explains a brief history of the Vulcans and why they are so popular among fans.
Music of the Spheres is something of a legend in Star Trek circles. It’s not quite a ghost story, spoken of in hushed whispers. Indeed, author Margaret Wander Bonanno has made the manuscript available to interested fans via her website, and has used it to raise money for a variety of worth causes. She’s documented the difficult story of how her original novel warped in Probe in a wonderfully wry and insightful essay, offering a glimpse at the inner workings of Pocket Book and Paramount towards the end of the eighties.
[...] Finally, the folks in Washington are starting to listen. On December 29th, 2015, the United States Copyright Office put out a Notice and Request for Public Comment on the anti-circumvention provisions of the DMCA. Congress asked them to study the effects of the anti-circumvention rules and the process of granting exemptions. This call for comment presents us with a rare opportunity to have our voice heard when they are finally paying attention.
But if they just hear from us, they might go on ignoring our pleas. That is why we need your voice added to the chorus. We have prepared a comment to be submitted that we want you to co-sign. Each co-signer represents another person who is fed up and wants a return of control to the user. As we make clear in our comment, a band-aid won't fix the gaping wounds caused by this broken system: we have to stop this attack on user freedom once and for all by repealing the DMCA's anti-circumvention provisions.
I can't say that I had even realized the Copyright Office was interested in caring. Possibly I wasn't the only one.
We know, you're busy. You'd like nothing more than to keep up with the witty kids at MobileRead live and in real-time but, it's tough. We understand. Here is our weekly round-up:
Baen changing eBook release dates to match print
Just saw this in the Baen newsletter and thought it might be of interest to some.
Barnes & Noble are closing down the Nook UK store, and transferring customers to the 
Help us select the book that the MobileRead Book Club will read for March, 2016.
Possibly I wasn't the only one.
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