First, the reason why many of you are probably reading this: the eReader experience. The iPad is the single best looking and feeling electronic book reading device I have ever encountered. This includes using PCs to read books, the Kindle (which I finally got to play with last month!), and the Nook. There’s a button on the device that lets you lock the screen orientation so you can read in single-page mode even while lying down on a couch, etc. The screen is positively brilliant and the page-turning experience is great too. The buying experience is seamless and even faster than the Kindle for downloads. I love how full-color book covers show up in a screen that literally looks like a bookshelf. My only complaint about the book reading experience is you need to avoid high-glare situations because unlike e-Ink, you have trouble seeing the iPad screen in high intensity sunlight.

The battery life on this device is insanely good. I have played high-resolution fast-paced driving games for hours, read books, read e-mails, taken notes in meetings, and watched Netflix movies and then forgot to charge the device for two days and still picked it up to find it at 40%. In fact, I’ve never even seen my iPad go below 20% and I am really, really bad about plugging it in at night.

Netflix. If you have an iPad, you absolutely, positively need a Netflix subscription. Being able to kick back and watch episodes of the A-Team on my incredibly bright 10″ screen with the headphones on – priceless.

Evernote. Evernote for the iPad is an incredible piece of software. I have actually started taking the iPad to my meetings at work. It’s roughly the same size and only a pinch heavier than the notebook I normally take to my meetings. I flip the case into “angled typing” mode, open a new note in Evernote and take notes during the meeting. By the time I get back to my desk, Evernote has already synchronized my note via the cloud and it’s sitting on my work desktop and will be available the next time I turn on my home PC or Mac.

Games and Education. I’ve discovered some educational games that I plan on having my daughter play. I picked up a Modern Warfare game that is ridiculous in the level of enjoyment and only has minor touch-related annoyances. I’ve got a racing game for the pad that is SO much fun because the added weight and size of the pad gives me far better accelerometer-based steering accuracy than phone-based driving games.

As I mentioned before, the new interface for reading and composing e-mails is outstanding. The book reading experience is incredible. I’ve actually integrated this device into my daily routine at work as well as at home and, having it by my side has actually caused me to turn on my laptop MUCH less in the last month. In fact, my small laptop has only been turned on twice, both of those times just to get to local files.

If you are considering getting an iPad, don’t listen to people who have only used it once or twice. It felt strange and awkward when I first got it. After two weeks, I was truly loving it. After four weeks, I absolutely, positively cannot live without this device. It is as much a part of my life now as eating and breathing. It is also the invaluable device for capturing writing ideas while on the go – far easier than doing it using the phone or a laptop.

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Also when I was young, I was really into writing stories. I wrote stories on my mother’s old blue Smith Corona type writer until she couldn’t stand the sound of the hammers smashing anymore and had to confiscate the thing. I went to summer school just so I could take the creative writing classes. When I got to college, my first year there I took creative writing, introduction to science fiction, greek mythology, and philosophy. Doesn’t sound like the kind of stuff a computer science major would be taking, does it? Sure, I also took Physics and Calculus and Linear Algebra and Discrete Math and a bunch of computer programming classes. I even ended up as a TA/exam proctor for a lower level computer science class.

As far back as I can remember, everyone expected me to go into computers. They certainly had good reason, I can say without ego that I’m incredibly good at what I do, among the best. I have presented at programming conferences, user groups, and written and co-written 14+ books on computer programming, some of which have ended up as dog-eared bibles on the desks of developers. Over the past 10 years, I have made it my goal to be among the top computer programmers in the world. So what’s the problem then? Why blog about this? The problem is that I have never been truly satisfied at any “day job” that I have ever had. Sure, there have been really great jobs, but even then those began to seem unsatisfying. I used to think it was because the job was getting boring (and sometimes it was).  But now I realize that there was a deeper cause to my unhappiness at work.

I didn’t want to work in a cubicle building stuffy, boring computer software all day long. Especially when it felt like there wasn’t a single creative step in the process of building this software. I wanted-needed- to build, create, let my mind free and imagine worlds and people and events that stimulated my imagination. The most fun I’ve ever had programming was when I was building MUDs (Multi User Dungeons/Dimensions) – big, expansive, text-based worlds that let players roam around and solve puzzles, complete quests, and kill things in classic “infocom” style. I got to use the creative and analytical sides of my brain at the same time.

This past October, I decided that I’d had enough. I was done being a computer programmer. I made the mental switch to believe in the old adage that I am not my job. I forced myself to admit that I was a writer and that I was merely paying the bills with my job as a computer programmer. I was no longer a programmer, but instead a writer who knows how to write computer software. It was amazing what a difference that simple change in perspective made on my life. I have been “present” more in my life in the past few months than I have in the past few years. Not only that, but I’ve got a short story coming out in a published anthology soon, I’m writing a few more stories for other anthologies, and I’m finally moving forward on my fantasy novel with real, measurable progress. It’s amazing what a difference a little change in perspective and priority can make.

Part of me mourns the loss of my previous identity. Part of me feels guilty every time I choose to ignore some blog post about a new piece of software. Part of me feels the tug of stress and anxiety when a new development tool or platform comes out. The old me, the one obsessed with being one of the best coders on the planet, would rush off and absorb this new technology to the exclusion of all else – family, friends, responsibilities, hygiene. Now, I feel the tug and am aware of the call but I don’t answer it. I have decided that I don’t need to obsess about my career as a software architect. I have decided that because I just don’t obsess anymore. I will still bust my ass for my employer and give them 100%, I just won’t spend my nights and weekends obsessing about every new thing that comes along.

I now know what makes me happy. I know what I need. I know who I am.

I am a writer, for all the good and bad that entails.

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On the surface this looks like a nice deal, and it probably is, but you know that Amazon is in it to make money and dominate market share. Their M.O. has always been to make it financially irresponsible for anyone to compete with them in a market segment that they intend to dominate. If you’re  a Trek fan, think of Amazon like the Borg. Little shops are either assimilated (become Amazon partners and give a cut of their business in exchange for not being disintegrated) or they fail. There are obviously exceptions but overall this is how it works.

Amazon’s plan here looks a lot like a plan to cut Apple off at the pass.  Apple has been in talks with Harper that we know of, which means they’ve probably been in talks with other publishers as well. The iTunes store is currently the largest media distribution hub on the planet, and certainly the most profitable. Apple is about to unleash a Tablet on the world, a 10″ piece of technocandy that will have geeks fauning and eReader lovers drooling. If Apple is allowed to create eReader buzz with their tablet, hook it up to the iTunes store so that downloading books from the tablet is as easy as downloading stuff for an iPhone, and Apple gets a bunch of publishers on board with eBook distribution through the iTunes store – you can see where this might end: with Apple dominating the eBook market the same way they dominate legal music downloads. If this happens, then the Kindle will become 2nd fiddle in a market that is rapidly expanding and gaining in popularity. Amazon doesn’t want that.

So what do they do? They offer a 70% royalty deal that includes a clause to prevent you from offering digital copies of your book anywhere outside the Kindle store to intice people into their camp. Lowered eBook prices could generate a huge increase in sales volume for eBooks, which will make publishers see more profit potential in eBooks and the entire thing becomes a self-feeding, beneficial cycle, the “network effect” as it were.

A lot of people in the publishing industry might not know this, but 70% is what application developers get as royalty from sales in the iTunes store. What this really means is that for an indie developer, the entire production chain is taken care of for them – the only thing they need to concern themselves with is building the software. There is no distribution cost to them, and Apple only taking 30% is actually a bargain considering what the independent developer might have to pay otherwise to get their application out in the world.

The conspiracy theorist in me figures that since the developer royalty rate on the App Store for the iPhone is 70%, and Apple is about to unleash a Tablet, and Apple has been talking to publishers, and Apple is currently sitting on the biggest media hub on the planet, that Amazon figures Apple’s going to offer a 70% royalty rate as well. This is why I think they’re trying to cut Apple off at the pass. They get people to start coming up with plans to adopt Amazon’s DTP, Amazon gets their hooks in, and by the time people get ahold of the Apple Tablet, they’ve sold their souls to the Kindle.

This whole business reminds me of the HD-DVD/BluRay format wars. Do I get a Kindle and read only Kindle books? Do I get a Nook and read only Nook books? Do I get an Apple Tablet and read only iTunes eBooks? At some point the house of cards will fall and there will be one winner. Only time will tell if any of this is good for the consumer and how it will change the publishing industry as we know it. As I’ve said before, the bottom line is that if authors and publishers do not embrace change, adapt, and move forward they will be left in the dust.

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Are our bookshelves going the way of the CD case?

Regardless of the answer to that question, that’s still the wrong question to be asking. Lots of people are worried that printed books are going to disappear the way CDs have “disappeared” (I use quotes here because you can still buy CDs in stores, they are just losing popularity). What happens to writers if printed books go away? Are we all just going to go extinct like the dinosaurs? From talking to some people and listening to their fear, one would think that one day all writers on the planet are simply going to sink into a tar pit and disappear, to be replaced by the proverbial “thousand monkeys” sitting in a room typing out Shakespeare (eventually).

We’re not looking at an extinction here. Everything evolves, including the art of storytelling. Writers can either put themselves on or ahead of this evolutionary change or they can be left behind. There will never cease to be a market for storytelling, the only thing that changes is the medium through which the story is told. Primitive cultures that had no written language told stories, including oral histories, to each other. Once people figured out how to paint on cave walls, stories depicting great hunts were painted on those walls. When people figured out how to write on papyrus, great stories were told on papyrus. When man invented the printing press, great stories were told to larger numbers of people. When man invented the eReader, great stories were told to people riding buses, sitting on trains, or wiling away the hours on a beach.

Writers will always write, and people will always crave a great story. The medium through which people crave those stories is going to evolve as technology evolves and people’s lifestyles change. It is my opinion that writers need to embrace these new mediums and be part of the evolution of those mediums, helping bring about fantastic new ways to tell stories. Historically, artists who cling to the “old ways” and refuse to accept new mediums are left behind.

So, in conclusion, I don’t think that our books are all going to disappear. I don’t think that we’re going to lose the pleasure in visiting a library that smells like books or visiting a big book store and spending hours just browsing. We are, however, going to have more options available to us that are tailored to our specific needs and lifestyle and that represents great new opportunities for writers, not a death knell.

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First and foremost the thing I noticed was that the device was terribly slow. I usually have a pretty high tolerance for low speed devices and I know that eReaders are not PDAs and are not meant to be treated like the iPhone (where you yell at the device when it takes more than .0005 seconds to come up with a Google Map). That said, the device still felt really sluggish. Searching through the book catalog felt slow, even skimming through search results felt slow. Additionally, I was actually confused at times trying to navigate through search results and local catalogs. If the device can confuse and confound me, I can’t imagine what the device would do to my father, a self-professed luddite but one who might actually like an eReader.

The other thing that really bothered me was that while reading, the device would do what I can only imagine is some kind of e-ink refresh. The entire screen reversed itself into the negative and then back again, but it did so at a snail’s pace. I sat down and tried to read a few pages this way and I found that I was continually drawn out of the reading experience by this refresh as well as the lack of responsiveness. If I have to sit around and tap my shoe waiting for the page to turn, then the eReader certainly offers me nothing over the traditional piece of printed paper where I typically have little to no trouble turning the page.

The bottom line here is that I was so upset by my use of the Nook that I decided I’m not getting my wife one for Christmas and I’m not getting myself one. I will seek out some friends who might have a Kindle. If the Kindle’s reading experience is even marginally better than the Nook then that’s the device I’ll be buying. If it’s on par, then I’m just going to have to stick with printed paper for another year or so until the technology gets better.

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Have you ever been in the middle of the line at the grocery store and all of a sudden that plot device that gets your characters from point A to point B that’s been eluding you for weeks hits you like a ton of bricks? You promise that you’ll remember it but by the time you negotiate traffic to get all the way home, the magic cure-all solution to all your plot problems has vanished as quickly as it arrived.

Have you ever been at work and had this fantastic idea for a scene for your book and you wrote it down in a Word document at the office but forgot to put it on a flash drive to bring it home? Or worse, you resorted to emailing yourself ideas from your work email to your home email and your home mailbox is positively littered with subjects like “Dude, you need to remember this” or “IDEA!” ?

If this describes your life, then EverNote can fix your problems. When you’re done with this blog post, head to this link for a complete set of videos showing you the incredible power of this tool. EverNote has a web interface for viewing and creating notes, but its true power lies in its ability to synchronize notes you create from anywhere. You can create new notes from your iPhone, from your Windows machine, from your Mac, from the web, from a mobile phone that has web access. Every time you create a note it synchronizes that note and the next time you connect any of your EverNote devices, they’ll get the notes you created. This makes it so that you will never lose an inspiring thought ever again. EverNote lets you record a voice note which is great for dictating some narrative that is just too painful to write on an iPhone or mobile phone keyboard. You can also take snapshots and upload existing pictures from iPhones or any of your computers.

Based on the volume of notes that I create, most writers can probably get by using the free EverNote account. If you want to allow other people to share your notebooks, edit/contribute to shared notes, or you want to be able to upload larger attachments then you can pay $4/month or $45/year.

Bottom line is that ever since I started using EverNote, I haven’t lost a single middle-of-the-night inspiration or awesome location inspiration picture or great new grocery-store-express-lane book idea. I highly recommend that any writer take a look at this tool. It is absolutely, hands-down, the most important writing tool I have after my brain and my computer.

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Realizing that not everyone has the ability to write their own writing management software, I went looking for something that would suit my needs without requiring me to spend a huge pile of cash or write my own software.

What I found was Microsoft Office OneNote. You can either buy this separately or it comes as part of one of the Office 2007 bundles. Additionally, if your day job involves working in an office, you can probably get a copy from your office IT people. Amazon.com sells this software for $68.49 so it’s only a few bucks more than an Xbox game.

When I write, I typically have a bunch of different types of documents. I have actual drafts, which I always keep in Word documents. But then I’ve got my daily conversations with myself (see David Morrell’s fantastic book about writing for this technique), Research, Scenes, info on Characters, Places, cultures (when doing Fantasy), additional thoughts on Plots (cause and effect plots, not chronological lists of events). Finally, I have a dump bin for random stuff that will get organized later. The huge problem is that all of this is scattered across my hard drive and it is very hard to search through it and find something useful without opening 500 Word windows and bringing my poor computer to its knees.

Here’s a screenshot showing the top navigation strip in OneNote that I have set up for my “Writing” notebook:

The great thing about OneNote is that everything you enter is in the same application. You can do full formatting like Word, but it’s optimized for doing notes, comments, highlighting, bulleted lists, and other shorthand things to truly help keep you organized. Here’s a link to Microsoft’s OneNote site, and there are plenty of books available on OneNote.

Some of the features that truly make OneNote stand out in my mind are:

• Ink support and handwriting recognition : if you’re using one of those HP touch monitors or a tablet PC, OneNote lets you hand-write your notes and it will convert them to text after
• Dictation – just click the Microphone button and you can create a little VCR playback style control right in the middle of your notes. This way, even if you want to dictate a scene, you can mix the dictation right in with all your other typed notes for the scene.
• Searching – everything is right where you need it and so organized that you often don’t need to search what what you need.
• Easy backup – Just copy the top-level folder of your “Writing” notebook to a flash drive and you’re backed up. You do back up everything you write to multiple locations, don’t you?

I’m not a salesman and I’m not trying to get people to buy Microsoft products. However, OneNote has changed the way I organize my digital information and in this day and age, writer’s don’t spend too much time in front of a ribbon-and-hammer typewriter so I thought this tip might be helpful.

In the next blog post I’m going to talk about a tool that can keep you from losing that fleeting moment of inspiration no matter where you are or when you have it.

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Call me crazy, but I love the smudged thumbs I get from a 3-hour reading session where the real world ceased to exist and it was just me and my alternate reality, lovingly prepared for me by my favorite authors. I love the smell of books and the feel of curling up with a book in a comfortable chair with a ridiculously strong coffee.

Lately, however, after having moved a few thousand pounds of books from an apartment into a house, I’m considering a less analog solution. The big bonus to the eReaders is instant gratification – the shipping time on an eBook is roughly 60 seconds and there is no shipping cost.

The Amazon Kindle 2 is a great device. You can download any book from their roughly 350,000 book large collection. It comes with the ability to get magazines, newspapers, and you can even hit Wikipedia from the device.

Personally, I think the device looks decent, but it doesn’t draw me in. It doesn’t feel like something that could substitute for my need to curl up in my favorite chair with a good eBook.

Book prices are reasonable and it comes with the usual pile of acoutrements that you would expect from an eReader. The new offering from Barnes and Noble also seems to have the usual amount of goodies that you get with standard eReaders. Of course it uses “e ink”. If you’re not familiar with this, it isn’t the same thing as a computer monitor. You can read eInk in full-on glare and sunlight without a problem, just like a regular printed page. The thing that I find really appealing about the B&N Nook is that they’re trying some new innovative stuff. First and foremost is the ability to lend books to your friends. That’s right, if you buy a book from your Nook, you can send a lent copy of that book to a friend of yours with any eReader (Nook, iPhone, Windows, Mac, Blackberry, and more) for 14 days of free unlimited reading. This is a really cool feature because I hate how DRM (Digital Rights Management, the encryption technology that protects media) normally inconveniences legitimate owners more than it does pirates.

Another thing the Nook does is when you go into a Barnes and Noble, you can use the Nook to preview the contents of virtually any book in the store over the free in-store WiFi. This is really appealing to me because even if I do take the plunge and get an eReader, I still love the feeling of being in a book store and making my eReader give me bonuses for physically being in a book store is really nice.

Technically speaking, there are very few differences. The Nook has a second touch-screen that is full color that lets you browse content by book cover whereas the Kindle has nothing like that. The Nook weighs a couple ounces more and has 10 days of battery life whereas the Kindle has 14. Kindle is $279 and the Nook is $259.

From a writer’s standpoint, there are intriguing possibilities for eReaders of all kinds. I would like to see this technology used to shorten the life cycle between when the final manuscript is finished and when readers get a copy of the book. Safari, a website for computer programming books, does this already – you can see the contents of a book well before it is published and then purchase the print copy for a discount. I’d also like to be able to bring my eReader (say, my Nook) into a public library and be able to take out library books by putting them on my eReader and then the book just disappears after the 2-week take-out period.

To make a long story short, I’m leaning toward the Nook this holiday season both as a gift for my wife and possibly to get one for myself. It just looks cooler than the Kindle, B&N is offering 1,000,000 books to Kindle’s 350,000, and anything that gives me more reason to hang out in the in-store Starbucks and browse book catalogs is a huge bonus.

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