What Is Whispersync?

Whispersync is Amazon's technology that lets readers switch “back and forth between a Kindle book and Audible professional narration - without ever losing your place.” The way it works is that you first buy the Kindle book, and then for Whispersync enabled books you can add the Audible audiobook to the purchase.

I've actually noticed this even when listening to an audiobook at home and then I decide to download it at work. It opens up right to where I was at.

Why do I bring this up?

Because if someone owns that Kindle book, the Whispersynced audiobook is substantially reduced. For example, the audiobook for A Change of Plans has a list price of $19.95 (which Amazon will discount, of course, if you buy from them).

BUT if you own the ebook, you can purchase the Whispersynced audiobook for $1.99.

I don't know about you, but I think that's kind of a big savings.

I hear from a lot of people that they don't simply listen to the audiobook but prefer to follow along with the ebook.

Because this week has been a celebration of the release of Torn Canvas's audiobook, the ebook is on sale for $.99. That makes it easy to get the Whispersynced audiobook which is $1.99.

So, for $2.98 you can have both the ebook and the audiobook.

So, check out some of your favorite ebooks if you're even the least bit curious about giving the audiobook experience a try. 

Wow. All I can say is Wow.

I just finished Regina Sirois’ book On Little Wings. I’ve been hearing hype on this book for a long time now and had actually purchased the ebook months ago. It moved up high enough on my to-read list. I'm SO glad.

I’ll say right now that I don’t give many five-star reviews. I love a lot of books. A three-star review means I liked the book. Four stars mean I really liked a book and would own it and read it again. Giving a book five stars means it touched me in some way.

Sometimes a story struck a chord because of real-life experiences that made me relate to the characters (such as the I Am Not a Serial Killer series by Dan Wells—and no, I’m not serial killer material).

It might be that the five-star story captured my imagination with its world building, and I couldn’t stop thinking about the fabulous places and desperately wanted to go there and meet these characters.

It could be that the weaving of words and the story haunted my sleep and followed me around even when I wasn’t reading. Like a delectable dessert whose lingering taste keeps me wanting more.

On Little Wings is one of those books for me.

So, what’s it about?

Jennifer's mother is not an only child.
Jennifer's aunt has thirty seven freckles.
And life just stopped making sense for this sixteen-year-old girl from Nebraska.
It will take one forbidden journey, an octogenarian movie star, three old pirates, and one scarred genius to put all the pieces back together.
If that is even possible.

When Jennifer finds a dog-eared photograph of a freckled girl, she never dreams the innocent picture will tear open a gaping wound to her mother's secret past.

Jennifer must leave her home, parents, and best friend in the wheat fields of Nebraska and travel to the rocky shores of Maine to find the aunt she never knew she had. Her search for the truth is distracted by the strange and hilarious characters in the tight-knit town of Smithport. From the 88 year old movie star who likes to show off her tattoo, to the fishermen who have a passion for rockets, to the aunt who recites poetry in the long, Maine nights, Jennifer is intrigued by the lives swirling around her.

In the midst of madness she meets Nathan, the tight-lipped, reluctant prodigy who is surrounded by women who need him to be brother, father, protector, provider, and now, first love. With a restrained, mature, and uncertain voice, Jennifer shares her tale of family, love, loss, truth and beauty.

As Jennifer seeks to piece together her mother's shattered story, she inadvertently writes one for herself.


Sirois uses beautiful language to paint this tale. I’m not in to too much description and will skip over a lot of flowery language. That’s not what Sirois does as she crafts this story. But she made me feel like I was there. Made me want to go to Smithport so I can meet these quirky, fun people. There's a certain showdown that we anticipate, and I loved the circumstances when it finally happened.

On Little Wings is up for the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award for Young Adult Fiction. I’m not the least bit surprised.

You can download a sample of the first fourteen pages from Kindle here.

What do the star ratings mean to you? We often see books with extremes--5s or 1s. How come we see so few 3s?

Harry Potter Ebooks--a New Trend in Marketing?

I have a Nook Color and got it before the Kindle Fire came out. I love it. I have a huge library of books on my Nook. I either downloaded them from Barnes and Noble, or I downloaded them from Smashwords as epubs.

I believe in competition. I don't want Big A (either them) to be the only places we have to go to purchase.

But I digress.

Yesterday I bought an iPad. I've wanted one for a long time because I attend a lot of conferences (both for my day job and as a writer), and the iPad--with its little keyboard set that makes it a mini laptop--will be much easier to carry around and take notes on.

But I also want it to be my ereader of choice. I'm giving my Nook to my hubby to use for church books, so I need to move all the books I've downloaded from B&N and a handful of Kindle books I've downloaded to my laptop but haven't read yet.

I wish they didn't make it so hard!

If you haven't had a chance to read the article "What Book Publishers Should Learn from Harry Potter" by Matthew Ingram, you should check it out. He discusses the model that Jo Rowling and Pottermore have developed for the new release of the Harry Potter ebooks.

Imagine! You can download EIGHT digital copies of each book for the multiple digital places you want to read them or for lending. One of the reasons I've continued to buy paper books is because it's hard to lend digital books, especially if your friends have competing readers.

I love this quote from the article:

"Charlie Redmayne, who left HarperCollins to become the chief executive officer of Pottermore, said that all of these developments and enhancements for users stem from a single principle:

My view is that the one thing we should learn from the music industry, is that one of the best ways of fighting back against piracy is making content available to consumers at a platform they want to purchase it on, and at a price they are willing to pay, and if you do that most people will instinctively want to buy it.

Redmayne is right, and if book publishers could only learn one thing from the Pottermore launch, it should be this: that one of the biggest drivers of piracy is the inability to find or consume the content that a user wants in the format or on the platform or at a time they wish to consume it . . . ."

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Jo gets it.

Why don't the others?