NobleDead.org - High/Dark Fantasy Fiction by Barb Hendee and J.C. Hendee

Site News: Spam, Closures, and Raffles, Oh My

Time for a general update on things present and future at NobleDead.org. We will save the best for last… you know which one that is.

Victimized by Spam… and Google

The Google Blogger system on which we currently run NobleDead.org has one of the worst, non-customizable anti-spam systems ever seen. Even now, we process up to a dozen spam comments per day on the site, though most of our real followers now use our social satellite pages to comment.

Turning on required logins for comments is also not an option. Google only recognizes its own system logins and those of blog systems it has absorbed. We will not do that to those who drop by. And so…

Reader’s Corner: Making a Virtual Household Library [Part 1]

Or How to Share (not Lend) eBooks with Your Household

One drawback to ebooks is that unlike with printed books they are not sitting on shelves for other household members to pick out for a cozy read. And no, “lending” or “gifting” ebooks is not the same, not even close. Hmm, well, one of those might serve for a new use.

Among other reasons, lack of sharing books in the household is why some people still prefer physical books, aside from that wonderful feel of an actual book in your hands. Then again, most of you who follow the non-promotional stuff out of NobleDead.org know that I [J.C.] am a tech-head and technophile. I now do most of my (limited) leisure reading on a device.

There is a way to regain the home library through ereaders. In fact, there is more than one way, but we will stick with something obvious for a start…

Writer’s Corner: You Don’t Have to Pick Your Poison

There was a time when several of my peers had story ideas rejected by pub­lishers for this marketing reason: “The bookstores will have too much dif­fi­culty deciding where to shelve this novel.”

In essence, the author submitted a fantasy cum la western, mystery, horror, etc. which the publisher feared might confuse the book­stores as to where to shelve it. There was a time when nothing drove fear into the hearts of publishers as much as confusing major book vendors. In more recent years, though, this problem appears to have vanished for the most part…

Tales Update: “The Game Piece” for the Sony Reader

HW1: The Game Piece by Barb, our past first release in T·N·D·S, is now available through the Sony ReaderStore. It is also available through Inktera, Versent Books, and Diesel, though the latter reroutes ebook purchases to the Kobo ebook store. New vendor links for this title have been added at NobleDead.org

If you have not tried some of these (pseudo) independent bookstores, have a peek at your leisure. It never hurts to browse, and the old joy of stumbling upon a new corner bookstore is something missing from the online world.

All of this was accomplished through the use of an aggregator; something we have been opposed to in the past for (among other reasons) the lack of a direct contract between vendor and publisher (namely, us). An ebook aggregator is the only way to achieve access to certain vendors lacking a direct epublishing portal. Whether we continue this experiment through Smashwords has yet to be determined, as there are problems — for us and our readers…