Since I've been writing nearly all my life, I thought it about time to have my own Author Fan Page on Facebook. This way I can do more things with FB than with a regular FB page.
So please, pop over and say hello, and like me.

Barbara Phinney page

Be Careful!!

This is just a warning. Today I received a Google alert saying that my book, The Catch, was mentioned on a Yahoo blog that offers downloads of mostly Christian articles. 
Well, it turned out that they are offering my book, The Catch as a free download. It's free anyway, so I'm hardly losing any money, but when I clicked on the link, my anti virus program refused to open it, saying that there was a virus imbedded into the file.
This in itself isn't unusual. You see, some people offer free books this way in order to slip a virus into your computer that may steal valuable information from it. Sometimes the virus is benign, too, but if my ESET program says no, I usually defer to its wisdom.
But the fact that my book is associated with this suspicious download and blog is disconcerting. So please, fellow readers, protect yourselves and your favourite authors. Download your books from reputable sites, and if the deal (ie free ebook) seems too good to be true, it probably is.
Besides, there are loads of free ebooks available everyday. Take BookBlast for instance. They offer loads of great and free ebooks, downloaded through reputable sites like Amazon. All you have to do is sign up for it and each day in your inbox is a nice list to choose from. And with  Bookbub, you can choose your genres. So protect your computer. 
And if you want The Catch, try downloading it from Amazon or from Barnes and Noble. Just stay safe.

Got a Kindle? Take advantage of free ebooks!!!

Got a Kindle? Take advantage of free ebooks!!!

Smashwords often has free titles. Authors give Smashwords coupons. Gifts of ebooks are given through Smashwords.  But you own a Kindle and hate to manually upload ebooks.

I have a solution. Set your Kindle account to receive emailed attachments from your computer. Treat the new ebook like a personal document. First, when you download the mobi formatted ebook from Smashwords, save it to your desktop. (This is for ease of finding the ebook. If your computer is anything like mine, it likes to hide documents and let me scream at it all day until I find the thing. Computers are evil like that.)

Then, you must register your email account. Do it here.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html?nodeId=200140600&#send


You must make sure that Kindle knows your personal email address. It's like not answering the phone when you see it's someone you don't know. Kindle likes to know who is sending it stuff.
Once you have a kindle address, using your name and either the @ sign before "free.kindle" or "kindle.com" simply open your email program, and attach your free ebook to your email to the above address. For example, if your name is Jane Doe, you may have an email addie like this "janedoe@kindle.com".

It will take a few minutes, but after that, all you need to do is is turn on your Kindle, turn on your wireless, and your book will download automatically.

I often download whole group digests, or large files that I want to read. It's easy, and I read them wherever I am relaxing. Try it. You'll love this feature.

Now, buy my book and try it. (Just kidding)

 

The Catch 

But, do try out some of Smashwords' other books. There are  excellent indie authors out there who offer excellent reads.And sometimes they're free!

Taking advantage of free ebooks

Smashwords often has free titles. Authors give Smashwords coupons. Gifts of ebooks are given through Smashwords.  But you own a Kindle and hate to manually upload ebooks.

I have a solution. Set your Kindle account to receive emailed attachments from your computer. Treat the new ebook like a personal document. First, when you download the ebook from Smashwords, save it to your desktop. (This is for ease of finding the ebook. If your computer is anything like mine, it likes to hide documents and let me scream at it all day until I find the thing. They're evil like that.)

Then, you must register your email account. Do it here.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html?nodeId=200140600&#send

Once you have a kindle address, using your name and either "free.kindle" or "kindle.com"
simply open your email program, and attach your free ebook to your email to the above address. You must make sure that Kindle knows your personal email address. It's like not answering the phone when you see it's someone you don't know. Kindle likes to know who is sending it stuff.
Then all you have to do is turn on your Kindle, turn on your wireless, and it will download automatically.

I often download whole group digests, or large files that I want to read. It's easy, and I read them wherever I am relaxing. Try it. You'll love this feature.
Now, buy my book and try it. (Just kidding)

But, do try out some of Smashwords' other books. There are  excellent indie authors out there who offer excellent reads.And sometimes they're free!