Jennifer Becton's Blog, page 20

Happy Turkey Day!

This holiday season, BN is offering for sale 500,000 signed copies of books by 100 different authors  (George W. Bush, Hillary Clinton, Malcolm Gladwell, Neil Patrick Harris, and Amy Poehler). The catch is that you must go to a retail store to get one.

Then, I thought it would be fun to offer signed copies of my books too. But unlike BN, you can order my books online and get free domestic shipping. You can even have your book personalized.

Signed Copies Available of These Titles

Place Your Order Here






Signed Paperback Book Options


Charlotte Collins $16.99 USDCaroline Bingley $16.99 USDThe Personages of P&P Collection $24.99 USDMary Bennet (novella) $14.99 USDAbsolute Liability $16.99 USDDeath Benefits $16.99 USDAt Fault $16.99 USDMoral Hazard $16.99 USD


Personalized? Your Name Here

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Many authors freak out about ebook piracy. They seem to have learned nothing from the digital music world. Nope, these authors spend time scouring the web for pirated copies of their books and demand that they be removed from these evil websites. Then, they see the download count, whip out their calculators, and figure out how much money they have “lost.”

The main problem with this logic is that a simple fact about human nature is ignored:

People will take for free something they would never pay for.

That’s why Kindle giveaways work so well. People will take for free something they wouldn’t pay for, and this exposes them to a book that they wouldn’t ever have tried. A giveaway is not necessarily a “lost sale.” It is, however, free marketing.

Another problem is that there have been no scientific studies to prove that piracy is evil. Most anecdotal evidence supports the idea that piracy either

Has no effect on sales
Improves sales

JA Korath actually experimented by pirating his own books. According to that article, his Amazon sales of the same book (at the original price) improved by 600 percent over the same time period. Here are another his articles about the subject.

A new study, which should be taken with a grain of salt because of the source–says that those who pirate digital materials actually buy more digital materials than those who do not pirate.

“BitTorrent users are 170% more likely to have paid for digital music in the past six months and are 8x more likely to have a music streaming account when compared to the average Internet user.” And there is no reason to assume that figures for ebooks would look any different – meaning that what is reputedly one of the world’s foremost platforms for online piracy is apparently facilitating legitimate paid-for consumption of creative works.” Read more here.

While these studies are not scientific, they merit consideration.

Do you freak out over piracy? Or do you appreciate the free marketing?

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Holidays with Jane Ugly Sweater Party
Join me to watch Christmas Vacation

Saturday, November 22, 5:30 PM EST

Tweet, Instagram, etc. with #HolidayswithJane

Don’t forget to enter the 12 Days of Christmas Giveaway

a Rafflecopter giveaway

And pick up a copy of Holidays with Jane: Christmas Cheer and/or The Personages of Pride & Prejudice Collection, which is on sale starting on Saturday.

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Yes, that’s the title of this post because the writers of Holidays with Jane cordially invite you to an

Ugly Sweater and Christmas Movie Party!

Who among us doesn’t secretly–or not so secretly–love those cheesy, adorable, super-sacchrine Christmas movies on ABC Family, Hallmark Channel, Netflix, etc? They are somewhat predictable but we really do love them! And…there are some of us who believe that “Die Hard” is a Christmas movie, so it will be included on the list. We have a plan to have a movie fest between all of us (even though we are separated by many miles!)

Join our online Christmas Party!

Saturday, November 22

We’ll wear tacky Christmas sweaters, eat yummy treats, make cute ornaments, and watch sappy movies. Instagram or tweet a pic of yourself wearing your fanciest/tackiest Christmas sweater and you’ll be entering into our “12 Days of Christmas Cheer” giveaway! (See Rafflecopter entry form below.) I’ll be donning my best Grinch-wear and sporting a some blingy Christmas nail polish.

Join us as we live tweet the movies we are watching on the 22nd. (We’ll give a countdown on our Facebook page as to when we’ll each start a movie. Use #holidayswithjane on your tweets/Instagram so we can see what you’re saying.)

Watch your DVDs, TV, DVR, Netflix, Amazon Prime…whatever!

Who can forget this heartwarming Christmas scene?

On Netflix:

The Mistle-tones
Christmas Crush
A Christmas Kiss
Desperately Seeking Santa
Christmas Bounty
Christmas Cupid
12 Dates of Christmas
All I Want For Christmas
A Princess For Christmas

Mr. Darcy sports this sexy sweater in Bridget Jones’s Diary.

Hallmark Channel:

One Starry Christmas
The Nine Lives of Christmas
A Cookie Cutter Christmas
Northpole

Amazon Prime Instant Video

Christmas Crush
Elf
Under the Mistletoe
Miracle on 34th Street
The Winter Stallion (horse-related)

This Christmas Story gem is available on Etsy: https://www.etsy.com/listing/16381760...

Or pull out your favorite DVDs

Die Hard
If You Believe
White Christmas
Christmas Vacation
A Christmas Story
The Holiday
Bridget Jones’s Diary (Bonus: Mr. Darcy action!)
The Santa Clause

It doesn’t matter what you watch. Just Tweet, Instagram, or Facebook along with us.

And, of course, you can purchase a copy of HOLIDAYS WITH JANE: Christmas Cheer and snuggle up with a cup of hot cider (or cocoa or coffee) and visions of Mr. Darcy/Wentworth/Henry Tilney/your fav Austen hero will dance in your head.

Also, the Kindle edition of The Personages of Pride & Prejudice Collection (Charlotte Collins, “Maria Lucas,” and Caroline Bingley) will be on sale starting November 22.

We will be picking winners for the Rafflecopter giveaway below. There will be 12 winners (though possibly more if we have more prizes!). We tried to go with the 12 Days of Christmas song for our theme and threw in some Austenesque fun. If you have a preferred prize, include that in your blog post comment.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

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Southern Fraud Thrillers, Box Set (Books 1-3) (Kindle Edition) is now on sale for only $2.99.
The Southern Fraud series blends suspense, humor, and Southern charm with just a touch of romance. If you enjoy reading humorous mysteries or watching TV crime dramedies like Castle or The Mentalist, you should like the Southern Fraud series.

Includes:

Absolute Liability (SF 1)

Meet Julia Jackson. Apparently, she’s been abducted….

A woman is taken at gunpoint from the downtown office of Southeastern Insurance, and the police believe the victim is Special Agent Julia Jackson. Only it isn’t true.

Now, with the help of her new partner Mark Vincent, state fraud investigator Julia Jackson must find justice for the woman who was taken in her place.

As Vincent and Julia begin to unravel the multimillion-dollar frauds that led to the abduction, they encounter a cast of quirky characters, one of whom will go to desperate lengths to hide a deadly secret.

Things only become more dangerous as bodies begin accumulating around town, and Julia must discover the truth before the abductor comes to rectify his mistake.

Death Benefits (SF 2)

Fraud investigator Julia Jackson is back in action, and her next assignment throws her straight into the crosshairs of a bevy of desperate people…and one man who will do anything to keep his secret safe.

Late one night, a car burns on a lonely rural road, and the discovery of a body–charred beyond recognition–in the driver’s seat sets in motion a series of deadly events. And when the wife of the supposedly deceased driver demands her husband’s million-dollar life insurance policy payout before the autopsy can be completed, fraud investigators Julia Jackson and Mark Vincent must determine exactly how the victim died and at whose hands.

As Julia and Vincent interview witnesses and tangle with a host of angry suspects, another man is working behind the scenes to sever his mysterious connection to the body by any means necessary.

Soon Julia and Vincent realize they are not dealing with an average death benefits scam, but with a potential serial killer instead.

At Fault (SF 3)

Operating on an insider’s tip, Julia and Vincent must go undercover to infiltrate an organized fraud ring led by a cruel, manipulative boss. But the closer they come to identifying the size and scope of the organization, the more they realize that their source has withheld vital information, causing them to make errors in their investigation–errors that may have grave consequences for an innocent victim.

Meanwhile, Vincent and Julia must both confront mistakes from the past that could rise up to destroy their hopes for the future. Vincent’s tenuous relationship with his son is tested once again. And now that Julia’s search for her sister’s rapist has finally paid off, how will Tricia and the rest of the family react to the news that she has been hiding her investigation from them all?

Will Julia and Vincent unravel the fraud ring before someone innocent gets hurt? Will they be able to keep their families together? Will they cling to the belief that they have done right, or will they begin to see themselves as people At Fault?

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Hachette won an important victory on Thursday in its battle with Amazon: the ability to set its own prices for e-books, which it sees as critical to its survival. Read more here.

This leaves me to wonder how long Hachette will survive if it continues to price its books so high.

Its sales were hit by the dispute, analysts said.

Hachette, too, revealed its vulnerability. Read more here.

Interesting, how the article reveals the figures behind Amazon’s sales hit, but does not do the same for Hachette. Where are their numbers?

The multiyear agreement, which includes both e-books and print books, broadly follows a deal Amazon recently worked out with Simon & Schuster. A source with knowledge of that deal said it was negotiated relatively quickly and gave the publisher control over most of its pricing but offered incentives to sell at lower prices. Read more here.

This huge victory for Hachette was essentially the same as the easy deal Amazon negotiated with S&S. Just pointing that out.

The change for consumers might be slight.

“What does this mean for the publishing world? Not much,” J. A. Konrath, a fierce critic of traditional publishing houses, wrote on his blog. The big New York publishers, he added, “are no doubt going to continue to price e-books as high as they can to protect their paper sales.” Read more here.

So the bottom line to the reader after this big brouhaha? You’ll still be able to buy your favorite authors at prices far higher than the value of the product.

Full article at the NYT.

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A few weeks ago, I posted my opinion about Mr. Darcy’s pond scene in the 1995 version of Pride and Prejudice. Spoiler alert: I really don’t like it.

It does not follow that I dislike all randomly inserted water-related scenes. For example, I highly approve of the following scene from Chuck.

In case you are unfamiliar with Chuck, it’s a spy dramedy. The premise of the show is that average guy/computer nerd Chuck (Zachary Levi) accidentally downloads governments secret into his brain. Now he’s involved in international espionage (all suspiciously centered around Burbank, CA) with NSA agent Casey (Adam Baldwin) and CIA operative Sarah (Yvonne Strahovski).

Though this scene is played for comic effect and there is absolutely no reason that Chuck and Casey are suddenly dressed in formal wear, I still like it better than the one in P&P. Plus, the stunt is pretty dang cool.

Unlike Mr. Darcy’s pond scene, Casey’s cement pond scene totally fits the context of the show. But sorry ladies, no nip slips here. Just a good stunt that gives Casey’s character another dimension.

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