Communicator's Toolbox review: Belkin's Ultimate Keyboard and Case for iPad

The Communicator's Toolbox

One of the original goals of this blog was to review technology developed for professional communicators. While I have reviewed digital cameras, laser and inkjet printers, software and even the iPad 2, it's been a long time since I've focused on the writer's tools.

I've been using the Belkin cover/keyboard combination for about a month, now, since the company sent me a demo at my request for a review model. Overall, I have to say I'm thrilled with it.

I got my iPad2 about two years ago, just before a trip to Austria and Switzerland. With it, I bought a Kensington KeyFolio case with an integrated Bluetooth keyboard for two reasons: first, I wanted a sturdy protective carrying case for the iPad; and second, I wanted a real keyboard, as opposed to a virtual one.

Compared to Kensington case

The Kensington KeyFolio fulfilled its purposes well. Its tough synthetic leather construction has protected the iPad well. However, Kensington made some compromises with the keyboard to get it to fit in a space the same width as the iPad itself. There is only one Shift key, for example, and the apostrophe/foot mark key is one row lower than on the standard QWERTY keyboard.

Those don't seem like huge issues, but it took me a while to get used to it. Only after I started using that keyboard did I realize that I use both Shift keys, depending on which letter I'm trying to capitalize. Also, getting a semi-colon every time I expected an apostrophe was annoying.

The other drawback to the KeyFolio was its size. The synthetic leather is pretty thick. I thought at first that would be a better protector for the fragile-looking iPad. But the KeyFolio makes the iPad a bulky device, hard to put into an already overstuffed briefcase.

It's also heavier. At 567 grams (1.25 pounds), the KeyFolio is almost as heavy as the iPad2's 601 grams (1.33 pounds). Suddenly, I was toting over a kilogram of tablet computer — heavier than a MacBook Air laptop computer.

The new protector

I heard about the Belkin Ultimate Keyboard Case for the iPad through a press release in my Mailbox (I get a LOT of press releases). When the item itself arrived, I was instantly delighted. Belkin designed the case to preserve the iPad's thin profile and form factor — two of its main selling points.
The base is made of aluminum alloy, and it's so thin, it's almost not there. Belkin says the keyboard is only 6.4 mm thick. The top is a textured rubber-like substance that provides adequate protection, at least in my experience so far. It has holes for the iPad's switches, camera, and earbud and power ports.


One of my greatest fears since getting
my iPad2.
Image source: laptoprepairleyland.co.uk 


Open it up and that same rubbery material is the hinge that attaches the two halves of the case: the rubber-backed shell that holds the iPad itself, and the aluminum-backed keyboard half. This is the only part that worries me — the rubber is very flexible and I always imagine it tearing.

But this flexibility is one of the great features of the case. On the keyboard side, above the keyboard itself, are three magnetic strips that hold the iPad up at your choice of three angles.
Belkin also uses the magnetism to power off and on the iPad when you close the case, just like with Apple's own tri-fold iPad cover.

A fully functional keyboard

The keyboard is smaller than the standard for a desktop computer, of course, to match the width of the iPad itself (or height, depending on how you hold it: 24.1 cm or 9.5 inches), but the layout is the QWERTY standard. It has two Shift keys, as well as Command, Option/Alt, and Fn keys. Overall, the typing experience on it is not much different from typing on a desktop computer's keyboard, except that the keys are a little closer together. The keys click satisfyingly when you depress them — unlike the standard Apple keyboard.

Drawbacks

The aluminum back is prone to scratching, like all aluminum. After a month, there are several noticeable scratches and scuff marks on mine, and I don't consider myself a rough user. The hardest surfaces my iPad has touched are desks and tables, and the inside of my briefcase or pannier saddlebags.
Getting my iPad into the case was tricky, and getting it out again almost as hard. However, I can't imagine when that would be necessary.

Bottom line

Belkin's Ultimate Keyboard Case for the iPad is a great accessory for the professional communicator who wants to use the iPad — or for anyone who uses the iPad, travels or commutes with it, prefers a physical keyboard and is as worried about dropping or damaging the iPad itself. It's very lightweight, almost unnoticeable in my hands. It doesn't interfere with the operation of the iPad at all. In fact, I typed this review on my Belkin Keyboard Case. Plus, it provides peace of mind about damaging the tablet.
While it is prone to scuffs, it has protected my iPad. For a hundred bucks, no iPad owner should be without one.

Find out more on Belkin's site: www.belkin.com/us/p/P-F5L149

Progress report: One Shade of Red



Image: Creative Commons

 I have learned a few things in the year since I published my first novel, The Bones of the Earth — even some things about publishing books. I tried to apply them when publishing my second book, One Shade of Red.

I’ve known the importance of promotion and advertising any product for a long time. Even as a kid, I saw ads promoting the power of advertising. I knew that if I wanted my book to sell well, I’d have to figure out some way to promote it.

The problem, however, is that advertising costs money. Money I don’t necessarily have, money that I need for my other indulgences, like food and heat and gas. And taxes.

In the past year, though, I have also learned about some promotion and advertising I could afford.

And I learned is that results of promotion are not always what you expect.

What I did

After I released The Bones of the Earth at the end of 2011, sales were not what I had hoped. So I read, I researched, I spoke and corresponded with a lot of people who know, or who said they knew, about how to promote a book. I listened and I planned to take as much of their advice as I could for the release of my second novel.

I ramped up my participation on Twitter and joined some great, fun groups on Facebook. I was invited into the Guild of Dreams fantasy authors’ group and corresponded more frequently with other writers. And as you faithful readers have noticed (thanks, by the way, for coming back here every day!), I increased the amount of blogging I do, and wrote guest blog posts for others.

Even before I was finished with the first draft of One Shade of Red, I started talking about the book in person and on the Net. I put little teasers on my blog and tweeted things like “Coming soon: a sexy spoof of 50 Shades of Grey.”

I put samples on my blog for Six Sentence Sunday, too, until that fun site closed.

I solicited and received some excellent and very encouraging advice from an excellent writer, one known for both erotica and other writing, too: Charity Parkerson. Thanks, Charity!

One of my most important decisions was involving the amazing members of Independent Authors International. As I’ve blogged before, Gary Henry and Cinta Garcia de la Rosa were invaluable editors and reviewers. Ben Wretlind and Bruce Blake contributed excellent copy-editing and proofreading. Thanks, all — I really could not have produced as good a book without you.

Another iAi member, David C. Cassidy, designed a fantastic cover. I can’t say how happy I am with it! Thank you again, David.

Once I had a fully edited version, I sent advance review copies to some good friends who are known for good book reviews. Their response was very positive — and I made sure to tell them I wanted honest reviews, and not to spare my feelings. I am very gratified to read their responses, which you can find on Goodreads and Amazon.

Blog tours

By February, I knew I was getting close. I set a deadline of the end of March to launch One Shade of Red as an e-book. When I realized that was the Easter long weekend, and the April Fools Day followed immediately, I chose April 2 as the official publishing date.

Taking a cue from Bruce Blake, I organized two blog tours. First was a cover reveal a couple of weeks before my launch day. Thanks to everyone who posted that stunning cover:

- CR Hiatt

- Rachel Thompson

- Christine Nolfi

- Bruce A. Blake

- Wodke Hawkinson

- Doug Dorow

- Linze Brandon

- Lisa Jey Davis

- David C. Cassidy

- Jesi Lea Ryan



Next, I set up advertising on Wodke Hawkinson’s Find a Good Book to Read and on Rachel Thompson’s two book promotional sites, the Indie Book Promo and the related but more specific Romance Promo Central and the Erotic Promo. [

The launch

Launch day was April 2, as I said. For one week before and one week after, I organized a blog tour. (I did not realize until it started that the blog tour coincided with Passover.) Ten generous bloggers agreed to post an excerpt from the book; each person got a different excerpt. Thanks to everyone who participated:

- Alan McDermott

- Siggy Buckley

- Charity Parkerson

- CR Hiatt

- Dawn Torrens

- Bruce Blake

- Cinta Garcia de la Rosa

- Doug Dorow

- Frederick Lee Brooke

- and Shannon Mayer.

Also, Joyce Strand agreed to feature the my guest post about why I wrote a book like One Shade of Red, which is such a departure from my earlier work.
It’s amazing how many people will say “yes” when you ask a favour.

For launch day, I set the price at 99 cents, and for my first book, too. Opening special!

The results

Sales that first day were gratifying — not huge, but it seemed that the market at least noticed that my new book was available.

After that, sales dropped off.

However, starting that day, sales of The Bones of the Earth started to surge on Amazon’s UK site. I don’t know why, but sales have been steady there ever since, and now the full edition and Part 1: Initiation Rites, a stand-alone novella which is also available as an e-book, are in the top 100 of the Historical Fantasy category — depending on the day, sometimes ahead of some major titles like Marion Zimmer Bradley’s Mists of Avalon and Guy Gavriel Kay’s Tigana.

I had heard of this phenomenon before: the best way to sell more books is to publish more books. But this is the first time it has happened to me.

It’s curious that this sales spike is restricted to the UK. Come on, Americans — are you going to let the Brits outdo you in buying The Bones of the Earth?

You can still beat them in buying One Shade of Red!

The countdown begins

My second novel, One Shade of Red, launches TOMORROW, April 2, on Amazon, Smashwords and other e-book retailers.

I’m very excited about this. As you can see in the previous posts, I have done much more publicity in advance this time around: I posted excerpts over the past few months on this blog; I’ve been interviewed on other sites; and over the past week and continuing for another week following the official release, I’ve posted excerpts from the final version on 12different blogs.

I have to take another moment to thank the writing, blogging and reading community for all the enthusiastic support. And I have to say a special thank you to Independent Authors International for making the iAi cooperative publishing model work so well, especially Gary Henry, Roxanne Bury, Cinta Garcia de la Rosa, Bruce Blake and Benjamin Wretlind. Also, a big shout-out to the inimitable David C. Cassidy for such a great cover!

A different direction

Some people who read my first novel, The Bones of the Earth,were surprised to learn that my second novel is a frankly sexual parody of a mildly erotic bestseller. I have to admit, One Shade of Red is pretty graphic.

My readers know that description is my thing. I like to make a scene real, describing what things look, sound, feel and taste like. A number of the reviews of The Bones of the Earth mentioned the description and detail.

What prompted this particular parody was that it was just irresistible.

About a year ago, the only book you ever heard about was Fifty Shades of Grey. Serious radio stations had phone-in programs about it. Reviews were inescapable in newspapers, magazines and the Web.

Only after I bought a copy as a gift for my wife did I start to notice how many reviews were negative. I am sure some of that reaction was sour grapes: Fifty Shades is not the only book about spanking and sex, but it is the best-selling book of the decade, if not longer. I heard once that it was outselling the Bible!

Then I got the most important review: my wife did not like it. She had no patience with the emails or the long contracts. (How long would the book be without that filler?)

She did not like the hero, Christian Grey. She found him completely unbelievable. “He’s a creep,” she says. “If he weren’t so rich and so good looking, everyone would think he’s just a pervert.”

The heroine and narrator, Anastasia, is also unbelievable — as well as annoying, Roxanne says.

I read the book last fall, and I decided to have some fun with the idea of a book that’s about nothing but sex.

I turned Fifty Shades on its head. I decided to make the protagonist/narrator of One Shade of Red a young man; a virgin, like Anastasia Steel. Now, how could I explain a 20-year-old healthy virgin in North American society in the 21^st century? Right — give him an uptight girlfriend, the girl next door. He faces the expectation from his family and hers to be her boyfriend, but she won’t have sex before marriage.

The mentor figure: where Christian Grey is the ideal man — young, beautiful, rich and powerful with a deep flaw that only the heroine can fix — Alexis Rosse is the idea woman (to a 20-year-old man): beautiful (come on, I can get away with a beautiful female character in a novel and still make it believable!), independently wealthy, smart, vivacious and unabashedly horny. In fact, sexually voracious.

Now, to make her believable: she’s rich because she’s the widow of a wealthy man. It doesn’t matter exactly how Charles Rosse made his money, but I decided it was the old-fashioned way: he inherited it.

At 30, Alexis is young, but she’s now confident in her talents, her body, her beauty and her sexuality.

She’s smart, because the sexiest part of any woman is her brain. I made her a bit of a financial prodigy, someone who excelled in business school and turned that talent into reality when she got her hands on some capital.

In other words, she’s perfect — nothing to fix! I think that I’m like most men in that I have enough stuff to fix in my life without having to fix my partner. When you find perfection, why would you change it?

It comes down to a story

This is primarily a coming-of-age story, a rite of passage: learning how to make love to someone. Alexis teaches Damian the language of love. He matures a lot. His relationship with Alexis gives him the confidence to deal like an adult with his parents, his girlfriend, his friends, his work colleagues. Damian is not the same at the end as he was at the beginning of the story.

In writing the story, though, I found it easy to get carried away. My first couple of drafts had much more graphic, detailed and long descriptions of the sex scenes. I did some research into erotic writing (boy, research can be tough) by “serious” writers. Saul Bellow, Philip Roth, EL Doctorow, John Updike, Pearl Buck and many others have written about sex and not been lumped into the “porn” category.

And then I thought about all the action books I’ve read. In the past year, I’ve read at least three descriptions by three different authors about what a bullet does after it enters a human brain. Why is that considered appropriate for serious literature, but not descriptions of what people have always done and always will as soon as they can?

Okay, enough ranting. Enough rationalizing. The only legitimate judges are you, dear readers.

Did I succeed? Crash and burn? Let me know. You can read excerpts for free on the blogs that are participating in the blog tour. Or you can go to Amazon or Smashwords tomorrow and read the whole book.

Let me know what you think.

Get One Shade of Red at:

Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/One-Shade-of-Red-ebook/dp/B00C28NLJA/

Smashwords: http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/300085

Writing Tips: Smashwords allows direct uploading of EPUB files

This is big news for indie authors: Smashwords is now supporting the direct uploading of EPUB-formatted books for sale through its e-retail network.

According to the Smashwords Official Blog, the new Smashwords Direct “allows our authors and publishers to upload their own professionally formatted EPUB files for sale at the Smashwords store, and for distribution to the Smashwords retail distribution network.”

Until now, listing your book on the Smashwords e-catalog meant starting with a .doc file, formatted exactly according to Smashwords’ specifications, and uploading it into their proprietary Meatgrinder software. If you do everything just right (which isn’t that hard), Smashwords will give you back an e-book in whatever format you wanted, and list it on their e-bookstore.
If you follow all of Smashwords’ recommendations, it will also list your book in other e-bookstores: Barnes & Noble, Apple’s iBookstore, Diesel, Kobo and all the others — except for Amazon. And that’s because of Amazon, not because of Smashwords.

The Meatgrinder system is fully automatic. If you feel proficient with a word processor that can save a .doc format, you don’t have to learn another software application. Meatgrinder takes care of the formatting, program codes and everything else.

However, it is a little limiting. As someone who learned desktop publishing way back when, I like the ability to choose my typeface and format my pages the way I want them to look. Learning to use an EPUB creation program like Caliber is no sweat to someone who learned, successively, PageMaker, QuarkXPress, InDesign and then HTML.

To quote Smashwords itself:

EPUB files uploaded through this new Smashwords Direction option must still adhere to the formatting best practices listed in the Smashwords Style Guide. Books will still be reviewed by our vetting team before shipping out to our retailers.

The company points out some limitations to the new option. First, Meatgrinder converts a .doc file into nine different formats for just about every e-reader there is, including PDF and .MOBI for the Kindle. If you upload an EPUB file, that won’t happen. “Nor will you get the downloadable samples,” Smashwords says, although it promises to improve sampling and add the ability to upload PDF and .MOBI files directly, as well.

You can upload your book as a Word .doc file first, formatted to the Style Guide, and then replace our EPUB with your own (assuming your EPUB is higher quality). This way, you'll have the major formats covered.

The author’s best friend

While Amazon is by far the biggest e-bookstore (although I have not found any reliable market statistics), I think that Smashwords is the indie author’s best friend. Amazon’s Kindle Publishing System works in much the same way as Smashwords’, but the output is restricted to Amazon’s e-retailing system. What’s more, Amazon takes 30% of the selling price of the book, while Smashwords takes only 15%. (That commission rises, of course, for books sold through other bookstores like B&N, as each player gets a cut.)

Smashwords head honcho Mark Coker’s Secrets to EBook Publishing Success is the clearest and most useful explanation of how to create e-books that I have ever read, and the Style Guide is an indispensible tool. Amazon just doesn’t have anything like it.

Smashwords also has an easy-t0-use coupon system, which allows the author or publisher to offer discounts, even free books, to individuals.

You can also set your price to zero. Amazon only allows you to do that for five days out of ninety, and only if your book is exclusive to Amazon. I have tried it with some success, but overall, I prefer having my books on more than one retailer.

In short, Smashwords, the little guy, gives authors a whole lot more.

Check out the documentation for Smashwords Direct at https://www.smashwords.com/swdirect. And tell Written Words if you’ll try it.

Win free books from top indie authors!

Update—June 7th, 2012

As of today, the contest is over. But check out these great books from these great indie authors, anyway!

One-day BOOK PUSH—June 6th 2012

Four authors determined to bring their books to the world and to see them climb high in Amazon’s Ranks are holding a contest, and they've hijacked I've graciously offered my blog to help.

So don't miss out! There's a Zombie-ish apocalypse with a splash of romance, a romantic suspense with a dash of humour, a thriller with a huge helping of action and a YA-paranormal with a mystery blended in.

Something for everyone!

Sundered, A Zombie-ish Apocalypse

 

 

 

 

Red is an Attitude

—romantic suspense

Allegiance

— thriller/action-adventure

Cassidy Jones and Vulcan’s Gift

—YA/paranormal mystery

And you, dear readers, not only can help, you can WIN BIG while you’re at it.

The run-down

Purchase any ONE (1) of the books, and send your receipt to us and you’ll be entered in for a grand prize of $50.00 in Amazon Gift Cards! PLUS if you purchase all FOUR (4) books, not only will you have four entries, you’ll also be in for an additional SECRET DRAW.

Now, we can’t tell you what the draw is, because that would ruin the whole SECRET thing. But we will give you a hint. IT’S FABULOUS!

Okay, you want another hint? Hmm. How about doubling the gift cards?! Oh, right. Secret’s out.

What are you waiting for?

More stuff?

Well, If you insist.

Four randomly drawn entrants will win back their purchases. FREE BOOKS. Crickey!

Send all purchase receipts to shannonjmayer@yahoo.ca Winners will be drawn randomly, announced on June 8 at http://shannonmayer.blogspot.com

For additional information regarding this contest contact shannonjmayer@yahoo.ca.