Darlene's Book Nook: Guest Post and Giveaway with Leona Bodie, author of Shadow Cay

Wednesday, January 18, 2012

Guest Post and Giveaway with Leona Bodie, author of Shadow Cay

Hi, everyone!

I am pleased to participate in Leona Bodie's Shadow Cay Virtual Book Publicity Tour hosted by Pump Up Your Book.

About Leona:

Can you imagine a thriller author married to a CSI star? Leona Bodie currently lives on the Treasure Coast of Florida with her husband Walter, a Miami-Dade Police Department forensic specialist for 21 years, who actually appeared in the pilot episode of the long-running TV series, CSI. She and he often collaborate. Originally from NJ, Leona’s career took her from high school English teacher to a biotechnology corporate executive and president of the Greater Miami Society of Human Resource Management before she shifted to writing books. Leona’s the author of COCOONED IN DARKNESS, the upcoming book FEAR THE WHISPERS, and her debut thriller SHADOW CAY, is the recipient of 4 literary awards.

For more details about Leona Bodie and her books, please visit: www.leonabodie.com.

Welcome to Darlene's Book Nook, Leona!

Leona has written a guest post, so I will now turn the floor over to her.

Stirapalooza 2012:
How Amazon and technology are shaking up the publishing industry

By Leona DeRosa Bodie

Although the publishing industry is dramatically changing, how is technology rewriting the rules?

1. E-Book Versus Print Book Sales

My predictions are . . . e-book sales in the not-so-distant future will outpace their print counterparts. Yet, I don’t see the printed book format disappearing in the next 20 years. My perspective though is different from my son’s. He advocates we ditch printed books in favor of digital alternatives. I still want the option to have both or at least the right to choose between print and e-book versions. However, when 2084 rolls around, I’d wager it’ll boil down to no choice at all.

2. Mass Market Exposure For Less

Recently, a 90-year-old fan surprised me when she flashed out her Kindle and downloaded my title with the flair of a twenty-something. For sure, the e-book revolution is cross generational, here to stay and its launch has upended the publishing industry. For way too long, just a few guided what came to market. Now everyone has equal access to publishing. New devices and the means of consuming content are changing the industry. Today’s technologies mean mass market exposure is easier and faster with less investment for readers, authors and publishers. Another upside is more royalties.

3. A New Generation Of Listeners

Now that a Kindle can read to you, audio books will be the rage. Currently, audio book sales are rising 5% per year. The trend will mushroom, proliferating a new generation of tech-savvy listeners. The industry will nurture their voracity and cater to their wants.

4. The Only E-Reader Contender

There are 20 other dedicated e-readers, but only two real contenders. Between the Kindle and Nook, I see Barnes and Noble’s product eventually lagging in the doldrums with Kindle surging ahead in popularity. The latter will capture the market share. Thanks to Amazon’s continuous improvement and technology advances, their e-reader capabilities will evolve. Enhanced e-books are coming. That innovation will be the key to growth, competition and sustainability.

5. Portability As The Ultimate Convenience Factor

We are also moving into a visual culture. Who would have thought 20 years ago that people would read a book on the phone? However, consumers want portability of titles from one device to another, a.k.a. convenience. So all future book content must be adaptable and accessible, no matter whether the public’s choice of delivery is via tablets or smart phones, e-readers, iPads or any other gadgets out there. For example, Kindle also works on the iPad, iPhone, and computers.

6. Better E-Books are Coming

Most e-books today are the same as print, just in digital form. The e-book of the-near-future will be interactive. As digital publishers race toward multimedia content, they will capitalize on tomorrow’s bleeding edge technologies. For this reason, more traditional publishers and individual authors will partner with integrated media companies to release digital editions that are more akin to software than anything we seen thus far. Yesterday’s VCR in today’s living room is just as prehistoric as today’s Kindle with digitized text a decade from now.

7. Amazon Takes On P.O.D and Traditional Publishers

Ever since the creation of this tagline, “CreateSpace makes publishing fast and easy with no setup fees,” Amazon now competes with print on demand companies. But Amazon is poised to become an even bigger player fueled by their Kindle sales and their intrusion into what’s always been traditional publisher territory. Amazon.com has already taught readers that they don’t need bookstores. Now it’s encouraging writers to cast aside their publishers.

Is Amazon signing up authors, writing publishers out of the deal? New York Times journalist David Streitfeld says, “Amazon will publish 122 books this fall in an array of genres, in both physical and e-book form. It is a striking acceleration of the retailer’s fledging publishing program that will place Amazon squarely in competition with the New York houses that are also its most prominent suppliers.”

With all the hype about self-publishing, will traditional publishers go the way of the dinosaurs and just disappear? My best guess is no! Rather like the transformations in the banking industry, I see publishing house consolidations, stabilization and the emergence of behemoths, producing high-quality vetted, edited content —the premium stuff that only a paid staff of experts can provide.

8. Mainstream Publishers Face Primary Threats

Technology will drive Amazon and continue to revolutionize the book industry! But as author Charles Stross argues in a recent blog post, “Piracy isn’t the only threat the mainstream publishers face as their industry gets disrupted, and it may not even be the primary threat. The most significant threat,” he argues, “is that Amazon is eating their lunch in a variety of ways, and it shows every sign of continuing to do so.”

Thanks so much for joining us today, Leona!

Giveaway:

One lucky winner will win a paperback copy of Shadow Cay.

This giveaway is open to entrants from Canada and the United States only at the author's request.

SYNOPSIS:

Madeleine Nesbitt lives a privileged, sheltered life on a pristine tropical island paradise until the young girl is hauled off the deck of a capsizing ferry. Sixty-two passengers drown, trapped under the hull. Madeleine survives but her innocence dies that day. Despite the odds, she’s resilient enough to put her life together. However, nine years later she realizes too late that catastrophe is only the beginning of the dangers that lurk ahead when another maritime disaster hits closer to home. Someone wants to make sure the Nesbitt family never makes it out of paradise alive.

One peaceful night in a moonlit Bahamian cove, her parents are violently murdered on their boat, shattering the only security Madeleine’s ever known. Now that she’s uncovered a global link to her parent’s death and a terrorist conspiracy, she’s suddenly thrust into a world of international intrigue. Will a psychopath determine her fate or will she find justice before the killers return for the next of kin?

Read the excerpt here!

To enter the giveaway, please fill out the Rafflecopter entry form below.

This giveaway is open to entrants from Canada and the United States only until 12:01 AM EST on January 25, 2012.

a Rafflecopter giveaway