Get out the black tie and get ready to check out the red carpet, it’s the first annual Book Trailer Awards, aka, The Moby Awards. This show is presented by Melville House and will feature the following categories:

Best Big Budget Book Trailer; Best Low Budget Book Trailer; Best Cameo in a Book Trailer, Best Author Appearance in a Book Trailer and Least Likely to Actually Sell the Book.

The awards are tonight, so it’s too late to enter, but I’m sure they’ll give it a go next year too, so be sure and get your trailers ready!

Which brings up an interesting point, I’ve started to see more and more of these trailers, but I’m curious if authors are seeing success with them. Do you have a trailer for your book? Do you feel as though it’s brought attention to your book and helped generate sales? Basically, how has a book trailer enhanced your book or marketing?

You can read all about the Mobys by clicking here. Good luck to all the finalists!!

And I feel fine? Hmmm…not sure.

Michael Hyatt, CEO of Thomas Nelson Publishers recently posted a blog article entitled “The End of Book Publishing As We Know It” in which he discusses how the publishing industry is going to have to completely rethink how it does business. He was prompted to write the article after seeing a demo for the “SI Tablet.” (The demo is posted in his article.)

He brings up some fascinating points including that standard “books” as we know them will go away, just like 8 tracks and the like. I believe at some point, that’s probably true. They may not go away completely, but just like iPods replaced Walkman’s and CD players, so will the E-Reader replace standard books. That’s just the way of things, and in a lot of ways, it’s very exciting.

There was one point that bothered me though. Mr. Hyatt states that, “These new technologies promise to create reading experiences (if we can call them that) that are more sensual, more imaginative, and more compelling than simple text alone can provide.”

Ok, I have to admit, I like a lot of the new technology. I love my Netbook, my iPod, and I enter every Kindle contest I can find, but the above statement disturbed me because what are books, if not a way to expand our OWN imaginations and sensory images?

I have a hard time getting through a book where an author tries to think for me, example: “He turned his eyes to the floor, because he was ashamed.”  What’s the fun in a device that will spoon serve the book to me, sensory images and all? The E-Readers that are out now, you still have to READ them, so I don’t feel like the traditional ‘book’ is as threatened by them as they are by something that promises to turn a reading experience into something more.

Granted, his statement is a little vague. He doesn’t state specifically that these new devices will eventually have crazy things like sound effects and smell effects that will trigger at certain points and “enhance” the reading experience, but it does make me wonder what DOES he mean? At what point is this technology too much?

What are your thoughts?

If I’ve ever spoken to you in person, you probably know I want a Kindle. I have a very good friend who also wants one and so we send each other links to different contests to win them.

There’s one particular contest from the Bibliofreakblog, that is doing their contest a little differently. You can do different things to get more entries. These ‘things’ range from following the Bibliofreak on Twitter to making a YouTube video.

I have no talent for film making, but it turns out that my friend, Nancy, does. (This is addition to her MULTITUDES of other talents.)

Here is a link to her YouTube video.

And a link to her Icelandic sheep website.

It’s great, and it gives a little glimpse into her life as a shepherd of Icelandic Sheep…as told by her stunning ram, Nicholai.

Please check out her video. It’s a nice fun way to slide in to this post-holiday work week. Except for Nancy, because on the farm, the work never ends!

We all need tools to do our jobs. For a writer, that could mean paper and pen, typewriter (yes, there are still some out there) or a computer of some kind.

I do my writing primarily on random slips of paper and my Netbook. It’s an Acer Inspire One, which my husband introduced me to and I love it. It’s portable, has all the power I need, and it’s blue! Um, er, not that the color was any kind of factor in my purchasing decision.

Really though, it’s great. My only ‘complaint,’ (not that you can really call it that) is the screen size. It’s fine for word processor applications or web browsing, but I’m a multi-tasker, so if you try to have more than one thing open at at time it can get a little crowded. No worries though, it easily plugs into a monitor so I can have the benefit of a larger screen, or dual screen.

So, what tools do you use for your writing? What do you think are the pros and cons?

If you’re interested in a netbook, check out this website –> Netbooked.com