Black Friday Blog Hop-So You Want to Buy an eReader

Welcome to our Black Friday blog hop! See below for the huge list of prizes!

One random commenter (can be on any of the blogs) will win a Kindle Fire! Other prizes will also be awarded (listed below). That’s the easiest kind of shopping I can think of…

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eReaders are no longer in the realm of a techie gadget. They’ve gone mainstream. Even my mother has an eReader. This year, with the launch of the Kindle Fire and the Nook Tablet from Barnes & Noble, there are more choices than ever.

I personally have a Kindle, an iPod touch and an iPad.  I read on all of them. I will admit though to being quite partial to the iPod touch because it fits in my pocket. I find the iPad a little heavy and now that I’m used to a touch screen, I keep trying to touch my Kindle to make it do things and well, that doesn’t work on my model.

If you haven’t gotten an eReader yet and are in the market, what do you do? How do you choose with so many?  There are many factors to consider. Do you want a unitasker? That is to say, do you want to be able to do something besides read books? Do you want to listen to music, watch movies or use applications? Maybe you already have those bases covered.

Cost is also another consideration. You would never buy an iPad for just reading books. That is serious overkill not to mention expensive. You can get a budget Kindle for $79 while the least powerful iPad is hitting $500. This doesn’t even consider the Sony eReader or the Kobo Vox, which while good choices, could be a bit more limiting in content than a Kindle or Nook. However, if you are outside the United States, the Kobo might be a choice worth considering as they are bigger in foreign markets and set to continue expanding.

Dedicated eReaders hold a great deal of material. They also tend to be the best suited for reading with special screens made just for that purpose. They also hold a charge for a very long time. These are all good reasons to consider a no-frills eReader if it meets your needs.

This holiday season, buyers have been presented with even more choices. We now have something between the dedicated eReader and a higher end device like an iPad. We have the Kindle Fire from Amazon and the Barnes & Noble Nook Tablet. The Kindle Fire retails for $199 with a seven inch color touchscreen. The new Nook Tablet is a bit more at $249. Both run Android OS. The Nook Tablet has a longer battery life and advertises more memory at 16GB. The Kindle Fire has 8GB. The Nook can be expanded with an SD card.

However, though the Nook seems to have more space, it only allows 1GB to be used for non-purchased content. That would mean if you want to transfer more than one movie or quite a bit of music, you would need the SD card.

The Kindle Fire allows utilization of Amazon’s cloud service for music, movies etc. Barnes & Noble went another way, partnering with Netflix and others to provide content.

So, if you are buying and eReader for yourself or someone else this holiday season, you have a lot of choices at a variety of price points. The time has never been better to pick up that long-wanted eReader.

Prizes:

– Cassandra Carr: copy of either of my two current releases, Talk to Me or Head Games

– Kristabel Reed: back list copy of one of her stories and then on her own blog a $10 GC plus a copy of her newest release, Risque, a Regency Menage Tale

– Lucy Felthouse: back list copy of any of her single-title books

– Cari Quinn: back list copy of one of her books

– Leigh Elwood: two back list copies of her books

– Natasha Blackthorne: copies of her two Regency era novellas: Grey’s Lady and Waltz of Seduction

– Amber Kallyn: e-copy of Dragos 1

– Camryn Rhys: Kindle copies of The Barn Dance and Off the Record – Foodie Erotic Romances

– Lissa Matthews: two of her back list books

– Misa Buckley: an e-copy of Ironhaven and To Reach the Dawn

– Lacey Wolfe: a copy of Ambers Muse

– Courtney Sheets: a $25 GC to Ravenous Romance and a copy of Kona Warrior – PDF

– Sara Brookes: an e-copy of one of my back list books

– Cynthia Arsuaga: a copy of an e-book, and on her own blog five book charm book tethers

– Louisa Bacio: .pdf copy of my first book in The Vampire, The Witch & The Werewolf series, and on her own blog a $10 certificate to Ravenous Romance, and each commenter will also be entered to win a Goody Bag of new Orleans treats

– Malia Mallory: one copy each of The ABC’s of Erotica and Santa’s Back Door Baby

– Cynthia Eden: a copy of Angel of Darkness (either print or digital)

– Carrie Ann Ryan: an e-copy of The Alpha’s Path

– Jacquie Rogers: a Smashwords coupon for Faery Merry Christmas, plus on her own blog, a free copy of Much Ado About Marshals

– KT Grant: a print copy of Sweet and Sinful and an ebook copy of her next release, Xavier’s Loving Arms

So what are the rules? Simple: visit as many of the blogs as you can and leave a comment for the blog owner. For every comment, you’ll get one entry into the grand-prize drawing. Be sure to leave your e-mail address with every comment so we can find you if you win! And don’t forget that several blog owners are giving away prizes specific to their blog, too!

Here is the next blog – http://booksbycassandracarr.com/wordpress/