Saturday, October 4, 2014

What is the Best Horror Story You can Come up with in Two Sentences

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There is no denying that people are drawn to the things that they fear watching a horror movie or reading a good book is strangely compelling. According to Glenn Sparks, Ph.D, a professor and associate head of the Brian Lamb School of Communication at Purdue University, one reason for the appeal is how you feel after the movie. This is called the excitation transfer process. Sparks's research found that when people watch frightening films, their heart rate, blood pressure and respiration increases. After the film is over, this physiological arousal lingers. That means that any positive emotions you experience are intensified.

Why are the best horror premises that you have ever heard? If you are in the publishing industry you have often heard countless elevator pitches on the next great horror novel. Authors are always on the lookout for something that inspires them to pen a Kindle Single or a feature length novel. Reditt is riding to the rescue, in an excellent post that entitled “What is the best horror story you can come up with in two sentences“. Here are a few of my favorites.

There was a picture in my phone of me sleeping. I live alone.
I couldn’t tell if the noise was a cry of sorrow or cackle of laughter. Then I realized I was the one making the noise.
I always thought my cat had a staring problem, she always seemed fixated on my face. Until one day, when I realized that she was always looking just behind me.
My grandmother told me that it was a gift to see the angel of death in front of people’s houses, to know that he’d be collecting someone there soon. I thought it was a gift too, up until the day I began to see it in front of every house.
I begin tucking him into bed and he tells me, "Daddy check for monsters under my bed." I look underneath for his amusement and see him, another him, under the bed, staring back at me quivering and whispering, "Daddy there's somebody on my bed."
They celebrated the first successful cryogenic freezing. He had no way of letting them know he was still conscious.
“I can’t sleep” she whispered, crawling into bed with me. I woke up cold, clutching the dress she was buried in.
My sister says that mommy killed her. Mommy says that I don't have a sister.

What is the Best Horror Story You can Come up with in Two Sentences is a post from: Good e-Reader

HarperCollins Encourages Authors to Sell eBooks Directly

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HarperCollins is empowering their cadre of authors to sell eBooks directly with the advent of a new eCommerce platform.  They can add a HarperCollins "buy" button to their site, which will take consumers to www.hc.com to complete their purchase, or they can integrate the HarperCollins shopping cart directly into their website. Additionally, authors can use social media to direct consumers to purchase their products from HarperCollins.

HC is adding mad incentives to authors participating in this program.  They will earn an additional 10% net royalty on print, e-book, and physical audio products sold. As an example, authors earning a 25% net royalty will now receive a 35% net royalty on e-books sold through the HarperCollins platform.

"While our first priority is to sell books through as many different retail channels as possible, we are pleased to provide this platform for our authors who want to sell directly. Our authors can also be certain that their books will always be available to consumers through HarperCollins, even if they are difficult to find or experiencing shipping delays elsewhere," said Brian Murray, President and CEO of HarperCollins Publishers. "Since we view this program as both a service to our authors and a partnership with them, those who participate will receive additional earnings."

The e-commerce program will start in the U.S. and roll out to other HarperCollins divisions over the coming months. Royalties will be paid through the royalty system and will appear on an author's royalty statement.

It will be interesting to see how other publishing companies gives incentives to their authors to sell eBooks directly on their own websites. Lots of self-publishing services like Smashwords and LULU all give authors a higher royalty rate when eBooks are sold on their site, as opposed to being distributed.

HarperCollins Encourages Authors to Sell eBooks Directly is a post from: Good e-Reader

Inkcase Plus Ships This Month, turns iPhone into an e-Reader

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The Inkcase Plus is a new secondary screen for the iPhone 5, Samsung Galaxy S4, Samsung Note. It connects to the back and allows you to reap the benefits of dedicated e-readers like the Kindle. It has just passed FCC certification and will be available to purchase for $79.

The InkCase eReader features a 3.5 inch, 360 x 600 pixel grayscale ePaper display which is visible in direct sunlight without a backlight. The low-power screen also only uses electricity when you refresh the page, so it should get up to 5 days of battery life from the device's 400mAh battery. One of the cool things is you can attach it to your phone or read independently, which actually makes it a dedicated e-reader.

So how does this contraption actually work? You have to connect it up to your phone via Bluetooth. This allows you to download specific apps and use it on the secondary display. So if you want to read eBooks, you need EpiReader. In order to attach it to your phone, you need a pouch or Fitcase Plus.

Inkcase Plus Ships This Month, turns iPhone into an e-Reader is a post from: Good e-Reader