How to Use Freegal from your library

OK, one of my friends was having trouble figuring out how to use Freegal so I thought I'd put up some visuals. Your library may work slightly differently, but this should be the basic method.

1. Go to your library's website and find Freegal.

2. At my library, you go to the "My Library" menu, and then choose "Freegal."

Click to enlarge

3. Enter your library card number and library PIN.

4. Enter in the artist (or other search criteria) of your choice. You can download 3 free songs each week.

Click to enlarge

When you've downloaded your 3 songs you will see a message "Limit Exceeded." That just means you have to come back next week (Monday at 12:01 AM Eastern time) for more music.

I have a list of some of the Christian artists on Freegal here.

Look! I saved you $3/week! You know what you can do with $3/week? Buy my book. Or more seriously, pocket it or give a couple extra bucks to charity/your church. Enjoy!

Forgot to mention...giveaway!

If you would like to win a paper copy of "The Healer and the Pirate" we are doing a giveaway on Goodreads. And of course if you want it quicker than in a month, you can still buy it for Kindle, Nook, Smashwords, and in print!

Goodreads Book Giveaway

The Healer and the Pirate

by Julie Bihn

Giveaway ends February 05, 2012.

See the giveaway details
at Goodreads.

Enter to win

Get a spectacular Christmas album FREE!

Our Heart's Hero is giving away their Christmas album on Noisetrade for FREE. Buy it! Leave them a tip if you like.

http://noisetrade.com/ourheartshero

I paid $8.99 for the album a week or two ago and it was well worth it. You should definitely download it for free! I reviewed the album on this page if you want to read it.

Tons o' free (to you) music

First, A Rotterdam November could really use your help...if you have $5 or more to spare, please hop over to their Kickstarter and preorder their upcoming EP. I have no doubt it will be excellent. $5 for the EP or you can put up more money and get some really cool stuff.

I was surprised to find my library subscribes to a service called Freegal...you can log in with your library card info and then download up to 3 MP3s a week at no cost to you. The count resets Sunday; I understand some libraries may run through their allotment by the end of the day Sunday or Monday.

When I investigated further, I found it may not be the best use of the library's money, as the library is often paying Freegal (who appears to work through Sony?) about $1 per MP3. But on the other hand, it also appears it's kind of a prepaid thing, so if your library has it, it's paid for and you might as well take advantage.

Christian artists include Switchfoot, Relient K, Fireflight, Nevertheless, Skillet, The Fray, and Red (you'll have to do Advanced Search for those last two). Certainly a ton more, but their browse option is absolutely abysmal so you have to search for a particular artist to find them!

Assuming you actually would've bought all these MP3s for $1 each, that's a free $156 a year...not too bad!

Now that I've saved you all that money, don't you want to go support a band who needs you? :)

DIY Free Kindle Sleeve (and a homely unicorn)

So I wanted a way to transport my new Kindle safely. I had the box it came in, but given the tiny size of the device, that sure is a big box! I could have gone out and bought a sleeve or a case, but have you priced those? There's a nice case at Target for $30, for instance, but $30 seems to me to be a lot of money to protect a $114+tax investment. (Especially when I read a story about a woman whose son accidentally stepped on his sister's Kindle, and they contacted Amazon and got a replacement device for under $70...).

So the cheapest solution in the world (per my own experience and the Internet) is a padded bubble envelope. I had just ordered a book or DVD set that came in a suitable envelope. I wanted something hard to protect the screen (bubbles aren't quite hard enough) so I taped some foam board that I had lying around to one side. But I wanted something more interesting, and figured I could do a collage or something on the envelope. Excellent idea, but I didn't have much around to collage with. What I DID have was a super-cute gift bag my former office-mate/current friend (though she's too far away now!) put a sweet Christmas present in. So I brought out the packing tape and the scissors and got to work! It added a lot of bulk and weight to the "case" but I think it was totally worth it.



Even though when I carry my Kindle I now feel like I'm going to a child's birthday party. "Sail ho! me squiffy men" indeed!

And while we're being crafty, here's a homely unicorn I made for her going-away. She likes unicorns more than I do (I prefer winged horses/pegasii only because they are, oddly, rarer!). I am pretty sure I like drawing homely unicorns more than she likes receiving them, but she does like homely unicorns, so yeah. Felt, yarn, buttons, and stuffing. Did not take long.

Free Music! The Almost, Manafest, The Letter Black

OK, I quickly found that I am in fact terrible at writing music reviews. But, I'm not too bad at linking to free stuff.

Manafest from RAGE 2011.

At least 15 free songs at Tooth and Nail's site. Ones you may already know include "Hands" by The Almost, "Hanging On By a Thread" by The Letter Black, and "No Plan B" from Manafest. (I have "The Chase" by Manafest and if you like their radio songs, I think you'll probably like the album overall, by the way.)

You might find something else you like, too. My favorite of the songs I had never heard before was "The Hope That Lies in You" by The Glorious Unseen. I'm always partial to church bells, though.

Check it out!

(Edited to fix headline typo. I mean, I meant to put in that typo to grab search engine traffic when people mistype.... Yeees... ::shifty eyes::)

Thursday Bonus - Music (free music by A Rotterdam November!)

Scroll down most of the way for a great video and all of the way for free music!

So I've been listening to the news on my drive to and from work lately. Between all the turmoil in Japan and also Libya, I've found the news interesting. But it's not always good for the spirit.

This morning I felt like singing...but I only like some of the music on Air1, not much on KLove, and still miss when The Effect was in Arizona. So I ended up listening to the news again.

But this evening, I finally put on my music and got to sing along to a band I like. I believe they've broken up, and the songs I cite here are actually from their album "These Words Become Us," which is out of print; Amazon.com has one used copy for over $60 (!) And I wouldn't sell my copy of that album for that price!

I was blessed to listen to the late (?) great Ever Stays Red on my whole drive home. I love encouraging songs, I love rock songs, and I love Christian songs. I love this song! (And most of their others.)

You can listen to it here. The fan video is kind of appropriate because a commenter noted, the band used to play a video of the old animated Superman while playing this song live (with lyrics!).

The lyrics listed below are a combination of the liner notes (which are artistic but have typos and missing lines) and my ear, which is horrible at helping me transcribe. (I'd argue it's "break of day" but the liner notes say "light" twice.)

You say you're ready to fall, you say you're down on your luck
You say you've given it all but now you're giving up
'Cause everything's your fault, you're so ready to fall
You've got nothing to lose

Is there anyone there, is there anyone that
Could take a second to care about the place where you're at
When everything goes wrong you can't see to your heart
What are you going to do?

Is there anyone who hears me talking tonight?
We're so ready to fall, we're all ready to fall, what are we going to do?

You've grown tired of a life
Where there's no one left alive
Hold on if only for this one last time.

Look to the sky to make it through the night
This all won't last forever
These times can't last forever
One beat in time could bring the break of light
This all won't last forever
These times can't last forever

You say you're ready to fall, you say you gave up the fight
You say you tried to be strong, but you forgot how to try
You love to say it's your fault, you're so ready to fall
You've got no place to turn

Now I say there's a chance, I always said there was fight
Trying to hard to breathe just to prove you're alive
When nothing seems to work and now that you're all alone
Who will help heal the hurt?

Hold on if only for tonight
I swear it'll be all right
Take your hand in mine and we'll be fine

Look to the sky to make it through the night
This all won't last forever
These times can't last forever
One beat in time could bring the break of light
This all won't last forever
These times can't last forever

So tell me, can this carry us through the night
And keep us still 'til the first sign of light?

Look to the sky to make it through the night
This all won't last forever
These times can't last forever
One beat in time could bring the break of light
This all won't last forever
These times can't last forever

Anyway, songs like that really lift me up, and Ever Stays Red also has excellent outright worship songs to sing along to. Probably the best concert imaginable, which I was blessed enough to go to several years ago, was Delirious? with Ever Stays Red opening. Love them!

And also, I DARE you to watch this video and not at least smile.



OK! The free music (for a limited time only, I'm sure) is 3 songs from another band I like, A Rotterdam November. It is on their fan page on Facebook, but I don't think you need an account to download it. Just scroll through the songs; three say "download." If you like them, go ahead and "like" the band's page too. It's the least you can do; those songs are like a $2.97 value.

Media Monday - Tucson Festival of Books

If you live within a 3-hour drive of Tucson and you like books or writing at ALL, then you really need to go to the Tucson Festival of Books, taking place March 11-12, 2011!

It's FREE and is one of the largest book festivals in the country, taking place on the University of Arizona campus. Last year they estimated 70,000-80,000 attendees, and I know there were literally hundreds of authors as well, with dozens, maybe over 100, panels/workshops/presentations on Saturday, and maybe just a few less on Sunday, all scheduled in blocks (like classes!) with 30 minute intervals in-between. It's so big, the GUIDEBOOK they hand out for free (which is the size of one of those large insert booklets they put in newspapers) is 64 pages long.

The panels themselves are inside (air-conditioned) buildings on campus--many underground in the "Integrated Learning Center," an area they built after I graduated, that takes up a good portion of the formerly-all-grass central mall... There are "panels" where a group of authors discuss things, and then "workshops" which for the most part seem to be one author...discussing things that are usually somewhat more directly related to writing. There were a TON of "workshops" last year, and they were almost all packed, but I don't see as many this year, or at least not as many that are relevant to me.

Then above-ground are tents with exhibitors, many (but not all) book-related. Even The Jane Austen Society of North America was there.

And in the center, they had a kind of food court.

There is a McDonalds on campus and they handed out McCafe mocha samples last year (there was quite a line sometimes!). I think this year they'll have real fruit smoothies. Since I don't like strawberries, I reckon I'd better just bring a lot of water.

They also sold lots of umbrellas last year--the sun was hot!

Well worth the $5. The parasol and food were my only expenses.

This year, I found at least 9 different panels/workshops I'm interested in attending! Well, actually 11, but 2 timeslots are double-booked.....

Which should I choose? "Self-Editing for Fiction Writers" or "Electronic Publishing - More Than an Alternative"? Both sound useful. The self-editing is categorized under "literature/fiction" and I don't really write literature, plus I've heard tons of things about editing. (The challenge is putting them into practice.) But on the other hand, I've heard a lot about eBooks/etc. already, too, even though that's probably how Maggie and I are going to end up publishing The Pirate and the Healer. (You can make good money publishing eBooks, and I only saw one remotely reputable publisher that looked willing to even consider an unagented Christian fantasy romance with pirates.)

OK. Electronic publishing it is!

I'd also like to attend "Creating Biography from Diaries and Letters" but as far as I know, I'm not actually going to WRITE a biography, and "How to Write and Publish a Book in the Next Three Months!" sounds infinitely more tempting.

Anyway, it's definitely worth attending, whether to learn, get motivated, or just hear some free talking and maybe pick up a smoothie.

Tucson Festival of Books--one more reason why Arizona is awesome (from January-March)!

6 songs FREE - High Flight Society!

Your life is more than what you've done.
You can't hold on forever.
I hope you know it's time to let this go.
You gotta run from yesterday,
Turn away from past mistakes
And leave them all behind
You're holding on too tight...
--"Run From Yesterday", High Flight Society

First thing's first: Go to this page before January 31, 2011, so High Flight Society can make another EP. Got it? Free songs closer to the bottom.

A new year and I figured I could work on my blog! Still haven't hashed out everything I'll write about, true enough, but one thing I do have quite a bit of interest in is Christian rock. It helped me emotionally around and following college, and it's been interesting to trace which songs were meaningful to me then, versus now.

Most the Christian bands I know of--and some you even hear on Air1--are pretty small outfits. Many of them tour the country with their van and their trailer, and then they set up and sound check their own equipment. Since I like harder music with good (and not filthy) lyrics, I tend to like the more independent bands. I actually came to love Christian rock from Effect Radio back in the day when it was in town (Air1, no relation, now has its 89.9 frequency).

High Flight Society is one of those smaller bands, and their story is one of the common ones. Put out a record on a small label; signed by a larger label; label has a shake-up and drops them before they even get a record out.

The whole world of business can be especially heartbreaking to be any sort of artist--musician, artist, writer. The one point of hope that any Christian artist has that others don't is knowing that if we're doing what God has led us to do, we can know that God's purpose has been accomplished. I find it comforting to know that no matter what your sales numbers are, perhaps God used your work to touch just one life. Given that I love to create, to me that potential is enough.

Back to music. After their first album, High Flight Society put out a short digital EP, "Par Avion," which has good songs and kind of hidden Christian messages (as most Christian rock does nowadays). The first track is a hard rock song, "Give It Up," which starts out with what I consider almost discordant beats, but it ends up working. "Inhaling a Bullet" has heavy guitars, not surprisingly. The "Whoa-oh, oh-oh"s kind of remind me of a 1980s song, in the best way. "Run from Yesterday" is both very catchy and works nicely on a Christian level, though I'm sure non-Christians could listen to it and not be overwhelmed. Definitely one of my favorites on the album. The closer on the general release of the EP is "Come on Sister," which is pretty low-key.

On top of that, there are two bonus tracks that you originally could only get by buying the download card at their concerts. (I may or may not have ducked out of my only sibling's wedding rehearsal dinner maybe an hour earlier than most in order to get to their concert and procure said card...) "Sanctuary" may be my favorite song on the EP; it's another of those songs that is Christian if you want it to be. It makes me want to write a spaceship/war story. Download it and maybe you'll get some ideas too! The final song is "Indecision" which is another hard-rock song.

Something else I'm generally interested in is FREE stuff! [b]You can get ALL SIX SONGS FREE from High Flight Society if you just give them your email address![/b] I would give my email address for "Sanctuary" alone, actually. (In fact, on 1/1/11 them my email myself to make sure it works. The whole process from submission to download took about 90 seconds. The download page might say it has 4 songs, but when I downloaded I got all 6!)

[b]And if you like the music, you can help them out by throwing them a few bucks via this page before January 31, 2011, so they can make another EP. You can even get their new EP free if you pledge! Your credit card will only be charged if they reach their goal, so go help them out![/b]

(FTC disclosure - I DID pay regular price for this EP in June 2009, and reviewed the copy I paid for. But you can get it for free as above.)