Romance Lovers for the Challenge-Impaired discussion

                           ~ Romance Lovers for the Challenge-Impaired ~


AUGUST NEWSLETTER
This newsletter is a recurring feature, making it easier to notify you of all the new, exciting things going on in our group for the month and a central place to keep track of any carry-over challenges and discussions. As always, this is a joint effort by your moderators, Lisa Kay, Gisela, Susan, and CaroB. (Heather is away for a while.)

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BOOK OF THE MONTH (BOM)
We have a winner!
      Silk Is For Seduction, by Loretta Chase Join in the discussion here!

BUDDY READS
     
Check out our monthly “Buddy Read” calendar here. Now with bookcovers.
        You’re welcome to lurk, answer questions, make predictions, volunteer, or just say,
        “Hi!” But please be warned: Expect Spoilers!
❂ A Rake's Vow, by Stephanie Laurens
        Start Date: August 3, 2012. Come join us in our first repeat “Buddy Read” here...
         as Leslie, Patrice, and Lisa Kay try to catch up.
❂Sweet Dreams, by Kristen Ashley
        Start Date: August 5, 2012. Come join us here.
❂ An Affair with Mr. Kennedy, by Jillian Stone
        Start Date: August 10, 2012. Come join us here.
❂ Scandal's Bride, by Stephanie Laurens
        Start Date: August 22, 2012. Come join us here.
         

SERIES READS
     
We were alternating one every other month, but it looks like we’ve increased the speed. It’s looking like the Cynsters series will be added soon!
Series Reads are similar to our “buddy reads,” but voted on via a poll &, like BOM, lasts all month, continues ‘till done. Notable: located in the ‘Group Reading’ Folder.
Pink Carnation, #6 continues this month.
❂ The Betrayal of the Blood Lily, by Lauren Willig
         Start Date: August 13 th. Come join us here.
Psy-Changeling, #8 continues this month.
❂ Bonds of Justice, by Nalini Singh
         Start Date: August 17th. Come join us here .
         

LATEST READING CHALLENGE
❂ Read Your Freebies - GO LIVE August 1st

CURRENT READING CHALLENGES
❂ Monthly: >August 2012 Challenge
        August 1, 2012 to August 31, 2012
❂ Quarterly Theme: >Astro Challenge
        July 1, 2012 to September 30, 2012

READING CHALLENGES 2012
          
❂ 2,012 in 2012 Book Count Challenge.
      This is a GROUP challenge. Join directly here , or join the thread here .
      We invited everyone to help us read 2,012 books this year. We met our goal - WooHoo!
      But are continuing on to 5,000! **gulp** For further help, check out this link
      to the "GoodReads How To..." folder.
❂ “A Look Back at Our Favorites Challenge: Gigi’s Thread”
❂ Z-A Cover Art Image Search (Yearly)
❂ Artists’ Color Wheel (Yearly)
❂ Reporter-Journalist-Blogger Challenge (Extended to a Yearly Challenge!)
❂Who’s Your Hero? Take the quiz & do the challenge.

NEW THREAD
❂ A work in progress: 1,001 Romance Books You MUST Read !

RECURRING THREADS
❂ Gigi’s “Favorite Read of the Month” for July .
❂ Mod Announcements > Free Reads!  Big Kudos to Jenny, Elishia, Carrie, Shosho, and Gisela
    for contributing to this thread and helping to feed our book/freebie addiction!
❂ Also check out the thread: e-Books On Sale!

GOODREADS HOW TO... New this month.
❂ Filter Feature - on a book’s Home Page.
❂ Using Sort - on a book’s Home Page.
❂ Book Links Under Your Profile
❂ Don’t forget! The Alphabetical Index is being kept up-to-date for your reference.

Please feel free to forward this newsletter to friends you think would be interested. We appreciate all your comments, this group wouldn't be as fun as it is without your participation! If you have any feedback / suggestions, feel free to let us know below :-)

Happy Reading!

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Reserved. Just in case. ☺

I want to read An Affair with Mr Kennedy, if only I can find the time.

Really, Rameau! You and me both.

You're welcome, Jenny! It's the least we can do since you help feed our addiction in getting those freebies :)

@Jenny - I ended up clearing all the freebies off my Kindle. 700+ and it took me a whole day to hard-delete them on Amazon. Now my Kindle is full of books I WANT to read. ;) But it's still cluttered. LOL

I download all books, freebies included into my computer. Then I load into my kindle as I go. 700+ freebies!! That's a humongous amount!

@CaroB - Yeah. It was insane. I was a total freebie addict. Meetings and medication were considered. LOL That's a good approach that you have, though. Wish I would've thought of that. :)

Kyra wrote: "@CaroB - Yeah. It was insane. I was a total freebie addict. Meetings and medication were considered. LOL That's a good approach that you have, though. Wish I would've thought of that. :)"

Meetings and medication?? You crack me up!! :-)

Did you find that your kindle starts up much quicker or has faster page turns now or does it not really affect it?

I need to clean up my Kindle. Mine turns slow. I have about 1400 books on it.

700 & 1400!! O.M.G.!

@CaroB - I didn't actually notice a difference in the speed, but it sure made it harder to find the books I wanted to read. LOL

@Susan - *sputters* 1400?? Good God, woman. Get reading! LOL

@Jenny - After the first 100, it gets easier to get rid of them. Haha!

Lisa Kay wrote: "700 & 1400!! O.M.G.!"

*snicker* I least I can say with total honesty that there's someone out there with a worse problem than me (and that makes me feel all warm and fuzzy inside). LOL

Kyra wrote: "Lisa Kay wrote: "700 & 1400!! O.M.G.!"

*snicker* I least I can say with total honesty that there's someone out there with a worse problem than me (and that makes me feel all warm and fuzzy inside..."

I'm so glad I can make you feel warm and fuzzy LOL It might be me that needs the meds and intervention :) In my defense, (don't all addicts say that?) not all of the books are freebies. Gosh, that sounds bad. Anyway, I've kept some of my favorites on there. Usually I delete a book after I read it; I just keep getting more than I delete ;)

Susan (susayq) wrote: "Kyra wrote: "Lisa Kay wrote: "700 & 1400!! O.M.G.!"

*snicker* I least I can say with total honesty that there's someone out there with a worse problem than me (and that makes me feel all warm and..."

I'll find a program for you, girl, and help you work the steps. You can do it! Stay strong! ;)

I have to say though, I can't delete a book off my Kindle once I'm done. It goes into a "read" folder where it stays. *anal* LOL

*says sheepishly*Well, actually, I don't *technically* delete them. I save them in my Calibre library first. You know, just in case I may want to re-read it later and I can't get that spiffy whispernet stuff to re-download LOL

Can't you put books - read or unread - in your Kindle Cloud for storage? That is what I do.

Susan (susayq) wrote: "*says sheepishly*Well, actually, I don't *technically* delete them. I save them in my Calibre library first. You know, just in case I may want to re-read it later and I can't get that spiffy whis..."

That's exactly what I do Susan!
I use calibre as my ebook library and at the end of every month I:
- "return"(delete from my kindle3) the books I've read, and update the status and rating of those books on calibre
- use the GoodReads plugin on calibre to make sure that all the details are the same on my GR shelves so I don't have to waste time double-entering the info (why does that hyphenated word sound so dirty in my mind???)
-then I "borrow" (upload onto my kindle3) all the books for the next month's challenges and new releases I want to get to.
Takes about half an hour but then I'm set for the month.

I never actually download any books directly from Amazon onto my old kindle. The only exception to that rule are the erotica reads I download onto my Kindle Touch *snicker*, which is kept far, far away from where the kids can reach.

CaroB wrote: "(why does that hyphenated word sound so dirty in my mind???)"

**snortsnort** You are Bad, CaroB! Now I know what the "B" stands for. LOL!

LOL!!

CaroB wrote: "Susan (susayq) wrote: "*says sheepishly*Well, actually, I don't *technically* delete them. I save them in my Calibre library first. You know, just in case I may want to re-read it later and I can..."

Whoa! That's quite a system. I use Calibre, but I'm sure not to the capacity it CAN be used. And...I didnt' know it had a GR plugin!! I need to check that out!

I've got the GR plug-in, but I haven't figured out how to work it yet LOL But let me tell you, that fanfiction downloader plug-in, I got that ALL figured out LOL

Lmao Susan! Where there's a will...

@Jenny & Kyra: if you need any help with it, let me know.

Jenny, if you have most of your books on Kindle for PC, how are you converting them?

You don't have to tie it to you kindle, but I would just upload all your files from your "My Kindle Content" folder into calibre.

Do you buy ebooks from any other online bookseller?

Kindle (Amazon) often adds it's own tags to books, which I hate, because I have my own way of tagging my books. You can set up your tags to reflect your GR shelves, if you like, and then batch them in... I'm doing up some screen dumps for you to make it easy-peasy.

My Kindle for PC won't open. I bought a cookbook yesterday and sent it to that rather than Braxton, and I can't get the darn thing to open :( I uninstalled and reinstalled and it's still not working.

That happened to me last week I did the same then restarted my computer and it worked.

Jenny wrote: "CaroB wrote: "Jenny, if you have most of your books on Kindle for PC, how are you converting them?

You don't have to tie it to you kindle, but I would just upload all your files from your "My Kin..."

I gave up trying to figure it all out.

I downloaded the new one and it won't install. A box pops up that says I have insufficient clearance...whatever that means. So, I reinstalled the old version, and it won't work. GRRR I'm so frustrated with it I want to scream.

Susan, I think there's something wrong with the new one too, mine's been buggy all week.

CaroB wrote: "Lmao Susan! Where there's a will...

@Jenny & Kyra: if you need any help with it, let me know."

Will do. Thanks!!! I'm going to play around with it this weekend. :)

CaroB, you are doing screens of how to use Calibre to download from GoodReads!?! Great! Can't wait.

Lisa Kay wrote: "CaroB, you are doing screens of how to use Calibre to download from GoodReads!?! Great! Can't wait."

@CaroB - You are???
@Lisa Kay - She is???

Yesssss!

CaroB wrote: "I'm doing up some screen dumps for you to make it easy-peasy."

Kyra wrote: "Lisa Kay wrote: "CaroB, you are doing screens of how to use Calibre to download from GoodReads!?! Great! Can't wait."

@CaroB - You are???
@Lisa Kay - She is???"

I think that is what she meant, isn't it?

Lisa Kay wrote: "I think that is what she meant, isn't it?"

Looking back, that's what I got out of it. *fingers crossed* *bouncing on toes* Oh please, oh please, oh please... ;)

OK, at work today, so can't stay on for long. I've been doing screen dumps on how to update tags to match your GR shelves so you can use the GRsync plugin in calibre.

Once I've finished that, I'll show you how to set up the Goodreads plugin itself and how to use it. Keep in mind, I have work and committee meetings today and 1 sick kid left at home, so might take me a few days, but I'm on it people :-)

@CaroB - Take your time! Beggers can't be choosers. LOL Thanks for doing this for us. :) It's much appreciated!

Kyra wrote: "Beggers can't be choosers."

Really! And "Yay!" CaroB, you are a sweetie for doing that. Take you time.

LMAO Ya'll crack me up LOL but I crack myself up....I have over 5000 freebies(a few that I bought) on my kindle right now and I haven't noticed my pages turning any slower than when I only had 100 books on it. I really need to start reading the books on my kindle and am so glad that we now have the freebies challenge to hopefully get me focused on reading some of them. I usually delete the books from my kindle and from my cloud when I am done, unless it is one that I bought or that I think my mom will read with the kindle app I put on her computer.

I have the GR app on my kindle and mainly just use that when I go to the library so I can look at my TBR. What is the GR plug-in? I have calibre on my computer (for several months) but have NO FREAKN clue how to use it, how to convert files or anything. It just sits there on my computer lookn cute LOLOL I don't have kindle for PC because I can't sit at the computer and read a book. Are there other uses for it besides reading LOLOL Can you tell I am clueless here. I let the books go straight to my kindle and be done with it.

Hang on, Robin! CaroB will save us eventually.

Lisa Kay wrote: "Hang on, Robin! CaroB will save us eventually."

Hangn on just like Sloopy!!

LOL!

Robin wrote: "I have over 5000 freebies."

Whoa! I'm pretty sure you're set for life. LOL

**snortsnort**