FREE/BARGAIN - Romance + Discussion - August 2014

[melmac]

Not sure how many of you read on an IPad but Atdrake has posted an extensive list of free Penguin books from iTunes these include a number of Romance authors who's names regularly pop up in this thread. Some are even bundles for example Catherine Counters FBI bundle, Nora Roberts bundles among others

*edit* forgot to mention this is in the CA and AU iTunes store

[apesmom]

Originally Posted by melmac

Not sure how many of you read on an IPad but Atdrake has posted an extensive list of free Penguin books from iTunes these include a number of Romance authors who's names regularly pop up in this thread. Some are even bundles for example Catherine Counters FBI bundle, Nora Roberts bundles among others

*edit* forgot to mention this is in the CA and AU iTunes store

Wow, nice day to be from CA or AU!

[apesmom]

Checking in.

My buying dry spell has came to an end with the many available 75% codes and my miss you 90%. My purchases would have been much worse if the contest codes worked on vacation destinations. Oh well.

I didn't report last week so my read list is a little long.

• Fatal Mistake (Fatal #6) by Marie Force - 4
• Fatal Jeopardy (Fatal #7) by Marie Force - 4
• Lady Luck (Colorado Mountain #3) by Kristen Ashley - 4.5
• Breathe (Colorado Mountain #4) by Kristen Ashley - 4.5
• Razor's Edge (Edge #2) by Shannon K Butcher - 2.5
• The Main Event (Pride Stories #1) by Shelly Laurenston - 4
• Reasonable Doubt 3 - Whitney G. (Gracia Williams) - 3.5
  (book 3 just didn't seem as emotionally strong as the first 2)
• Stealing Time (Time #1) by Elisa Paige - 2.5
• Dead Silent (Dylan Scott #2) by Shirley Wells - 3
• Love Drunk Cowboy (Spike & Spurs #1) by Caroyln Brown - 1.5
• Forbidden (WotO #10.6) by Kelley Armstrong - 4

I've now finished Breathe so I'll be returning to finish 7 & 8 from the Rock Chicks even though I'm not really ready to leave the Colorado Mountain series. But I've decided after RC I'll finish Dream Man (2-4) then Burg #1 then I'll finish the 2 remaining CM. I've read several books I've enjoyed in the past few weeks but nothing has kept me turning pages like KA over the past month.

[Blue2u]

Stayed under budget this week!
Bought:


Read:
American Honey – Heidi McLaughlin=3, Carey Heywood=3, Marissa Carmel=4
Pierced – Sydney Landon = 2,DNF
Decker’s Wood – Kirsty Dallas= 3.75
Be My Hero – Linda Kage = 4
Only One – Tammy Falkner = 2.5

[Terisa de morgan]

Here goes my report, with some rereading (I'm in the mood now):

* My purchases:



* My readings:

[Britomart]

To those who discussed dealing with over-large ebooks some days ago:

I've been on a book-shrinking BINGE. Who knew how much unnecessary or too large (I'm looking at you, cover images) stuff was hiding in a number of my ebooks? Have I said before that I adore Edit Ebook?

Anyway, thanks for pointing out the ways to cut down ebooks without substantial losses!

[Blue2u]

Originally Posted by Britomart

To those who discussed dealing with over-large ebooks some days ago:

I've been on a book-shrinking BINGE. Who knew how much unnecessary or too large (I'm looking at you, cover images) stuff was hiding in a number of my ebooks? Have I said before that I adore Edit Ebook?

Anyway, thanks for pointing out the ways to cut down ebooks without substantial losses!

I don't know how to do it. I have one book that has 34 imgaes, each approx. 250 kb png images, most of them just 'chapter' pictures. Do I use the 'trim' feature on them? With what settings? The book is 7.7 MB total.

[library addict]

Weekly Report:

Read:

• Harbor Island (Sharpe & Donovan #4) by Carla Neggers (A-/5 stars)
• The Hot Zone (Arcane Society #18/World of Harmony) by Jayne Castle (B+/4 stars)
• No Place to Hide (The Devlin Group #4) by Shannon Stacey (A-/5 stars)
• Across the Line (In the Zone #2) by Kate Willoughby (B/4 stars)

[Blossom]

Checking in,

I bought The Backwoods Brides Trilogy this week for 79 cents. Pretty funny when I opened it up it says Fayetteville, North Carolina, 1852 then my eyes went to this paragraph. Cursing his foolhardy decision to return to Fayetteville in the first place, he lifted his mud-smeared face and took stock of the situation Fayetteville is my hubby's hometown and about an hour and half from here. We were suppose to move there but I refused and choose Raleigh. If books talk to us I would thinking it was telling me something. This move has been foolhardy indeed.

It's been a really rough week with a sick cat who is all better now then I got sick and then hubby so I thought the weekend I get to relax but hubby came home from running errands yesterday sick as a dog. Fever, puking, profuse sweating, sensitivity to light and agitation. He was acting out of it. I almost called 911 because he left fine then came home throwing stuff and acting crazy. Stupid fever. This morning he told me he remembers none of it. It took me an hour for me to talk him into letting me take his vitals to confirm he had a fever. I'm not sure if it was food poisoning or a virus but it had some odd symptoms. He's back to him self today and I fed him jello and soup.

I started reading book 6 of the Cat & Bones series but haven't gotten far at all.

[BuyMore]

Originally Posted by Blossom

It's been a really rough week with a sick cat who is all better now then I got sick and then hubby so I thought the weekend I get to relax but hubby came home from running errands yesterday sick as a dog. Fever, puking, profuse sweating, sensitivity to light and agitation. He was acting out of it. I almost called 911 because he left fine then came home throwing stuff and acting crazy. Stupid fever. This morning he told me he remembers none of it. It took me an hour for me to talk him into letting me take his vitals to confirm he had a fever. I'm not sure if it was food poisoning or a virus but it had some odd symptoms. He's back to him self today and I fed him jello and soup.

I started reading book 6 of the Cat & Bones series but haven't gotten far at all.

Wow. That sounds a little scary. I hope your husband is getting much better. You take care too, Blossom.

Enjoy the book!

[Venus]

Read

Marliss Melton.....Forget Me Not.......4
Julie Garwood......Killjoy.......3.5
Cristin Harber......Winters Heat.....3
Julie Garwood......Honor's Splendour....3.5

Bought

Give Me Grace......Kate McCarthy
The Viper..........Kele Moon
Reasonable Doubt 1,2,3.....Whitney G
Redeeming Justice.......Suzanne Halliday
Into the Shadows.......Carolyn Crane
Stolen Heat.......Elizabeth Naughton

[library addict]

I started a new thread for September. Can a mod please sticky the new one and unsticky this one?

[basschick]

wow, that sounds scary. i hope the hubby is doing better!

Originally Posted by Blossom

Checking in,

I bought The Backwoods Brides Trilogy this week for 79 cents. Pretty funny when I opened it up it says Fayetteville, North Carolina, 1852 then my eyes went to this paragraph. Cursing his foolhardy decision to return to Fayetteville in the first place, he lifted his mud-smeared face and took stock of the situation Fayetteville is my hubby's hometown and about an hour and half from here. We were suppose to move there but I refused and choose Raleigh. If books talk to us I would thinking it was telling me something. This move has been foolhardy indeed.

It's been a really rough week with a sick cat who is all better now then I got sick and then hubby so I thought the weekend I get to relax but hubby came home from running errands yesterday sick as a dog. Fever, puking, profuse sweating, sensitivity to light and agitation. He was acting out of it. I almost called 911 because he left fine then came home throwing stuff and acting crazy. Stupid fever. This morning he told me he remembers none of it. It took me an hour for me to talk him into letting me take his vitals to confirm he had a fever. I'm not sure if it was food poisoning or a virus but it had some odd symptoms. He's back to him self today and I fed him jello and soup.

I started reading book 6 of the Cat & Bones series but haven't gotten far at all.

[Britomart]

Originally Posted by Blue2u

I don't know how to do it. I have one book that has 34 imgaes, each approx. 250 kb png images, most of them just 'chapter' pictures. Do I use the 'trim' feature on them? With what settings? The book is 7.7 MB total.

I do it mostly by hand. If the cover image is too large, I use the "Resize Cover" plug-in that I installed at some point in Calibre unter "Settings" and then "Plug-ins". Then I use the "Modify ePub" plug-in, which I have also installed, and click "Remove unused image files". After that I remove the ORIGINAL-ePUP format in "Edit Metadata", as it's not needed. This alone often shrinks a book to a third of its former size!

If the book is still to large for my taste, I open it by right-clicking on the title list and opening "edit book". I scroll through the various text files, looking especially at early and late chapters to see what kind of stuff - the book's back cover, other book covers, ads - is hiding there. Then I open all the image files too see what I've got there. I leave in illustrations and maps, obviously, but I mostly remove ads for other books that I find at the end, if they are in pictures anyway. I don't mind reading about the author's other books, but a description is enough, no cover image needed.

Some books use a pretty icon to separate chapters but then program the darn thing so that they name the same icon differently each time they use it and that means they include the same image file under 25 different names! If I had more time I could edit all the references in the various chapters and then remove the files except for one, but I haven't gone there yet.

Lastly, some books use loads of fonts, some of them gigantic in file size. Following Blossom's suggestion, I have removed some of the huge ones, apparently without harming the books.

So, getting back to your book, you'd have to see whether you want to retain the 34 images or not. Alternately you could export them on your PC (by right-clicking on them while in Edit Book), shrink them in size using some other program, and then use them to replace the original images. I haven't done this yet, but it should work.

There are most likely other ways of doing this, but this is what works for me.

Good luck with your own editing!

[pdurrant]

Thread closed. The new September thread is now available.