Book Hoarding

I’ve been busily watching videos from the IndieReCon2015. It was run by ALLI and there was so much information that it will take me a while to absorb it all.

One person in a Q&A asked the head of Bookbub about e-book hoarding.

And I confess to being kind of guilty of this. I subscribe to both bookbub and buckbooks. They are not publishers but are companies that have found a niche doing the searching for people and letting them know what books are reduced, or free this week, or offered in a bundle. Amazon is huge. You cannot possibly spend the hours on searching through it all yourself. So you let these guys know what genres you like and they will send you a message every day. As an author, a promo with either will catapult your book into the bestseller list. But if it is just downloaded and never read, how does that affect the author?

I reckon its good all round. As people have often said, you can’t tell people what to do with your book once you have published it. They will love it or hate it, or leave it in their kindle unread. They may recommend it to all their friends, or they may write a scathing review. Or carve it into mountains.

It’s out of your control. And getting upset about it isn’t doing you any favours. If they download it, and it shoots up in the charts then other people may find it and read it. And then it shows up in the ‘also bought’ tables and the search algorithms, and that’s where you really want to be; on the page as people shop for other stuff. That’s why people beg these companies to promote their books.

I saw a book that I was inclined to read and it was free. I didn’t download it. And the next time I saw it, it was back to full price. Dammit. So now I will hit that one click button. And I will hoard ALL the books. It’s so out of character *snorts sarcastically*

BUT, I also add it to my Goodreads list. And that means that everyone who follows me there sees that book scroll past on their timeline. And maybe they think about reading it and go click on it, too? How is this a bad thing?

So now I have two years’ worth of books in my to-read list.

How many do you have?

Links:

Orna Ross

ALLI

bookbub

buckbooks

Kid extra

I have to type quietly. I have acquired an extra kid. I know right, at my age? Who would have thought it? I had this pipe dream that as my children got older they would move out, but clearly it is not to be. But it does squish my muse quite a lot. Hard to write or research sex for my writing if I have an audience. (… what? Porn IS research.) 

He’s not really a kid; old enough (just) to be a legal adult in Australia, and he was thrown out of home. Kid 2 asked me to pick him up and he has been sleeping on our sofa since then. He has nowhere else to go. I didn’t hesitate to offer him a bed; even if it was only a sofa-bed. He’s a good kid. He attends uni, has found himself a job, or two, and he’s really trying not to be a burden on the house.

His mother is trying to charge him to ‘store’ his things at her house, but if we try to go and collect them, she threatens to call the police and have him charged with trespass as he is ‘no longer her son’. Sigh.

Kid 1 likes him because they have a lot of similar interests. This is important because kid 1 is autistic and any change to his routine or home life is a big issue for him - and thereby for all of us. Kid 3 likes him because he fixed her PC.

I was talking to a friend on twitter and I joked that this is the second time that something I wrote ended up happening in my life. Life imitating art, eh? I suggested that any minute now Paul ought to be showing up. I wrote him; he’s mine… where is he?

But if I see kid extra’s mother I know just the speech to say to her.

Chapter 38 of Best Friends share everything

“Where is he going to go?” Sam asked Quil.

“He can come with us,” stated Charlie.

“You collect strays now?” Tiffany snarked. “He sneaks out at night you know… he’s in a gang with them.” She waved a hand at Sam and Quil. Charlie looked at them. It wasn’t the first time he had heard about Sam’s ‘gang’ but as far as he could tell, they did good things; even chased off a drug dealer on the rez, he had heard. In his opinion, the world needed more gangs like Sam’s.

Charlie managed to look menacing without actually moving. “For the record, that hokwat your son is with would be MY daughter. If he has nowhere else to go, he is welcome in my home.”

“Don’t say I didn’t warn you,” she spat at him.

“And if he is a nice kid, I won’t be complimenting you either,” Charlie told her. “Doubt you had much to do with it.”

Lifeline book fairs

There was a flyer in my letter box for the Lifeline Book fair. Lifeline is an Aussie charity.

I emitted an excited squeal. I love books. And I still love actual physical paper books. I have embraced e-reading with a Kindle app on my PC but I still haven’t quite got to the e-reader stage. There is something about holding a book in my hand while I am reading that adds to the experience. Turning the pages, feeling the paper, smelling that new book smell, smelling that old book smell… I don’t know. Maybe it’s just that I move away from my PC to do it? It’s a kind of location break and feels like a real break. Curled up in a chair with a mug of coffee, or snuggled under my quilt in bed.

But others, who have whole heartedly embraced the e-reader revolution, are getting rid of their paper books. And they give them to charities like Lifeline.

Years ago a charity bookshop was full of bad Reader’s Digest expurgated editions or ten copies of whatever book was big that year and turned out to be rubbish. But these days that is not the case. I have picked up entire series for one dollar a book.

So on that date I’ll be there with my cash and my granny trolley - you know the pull along shopping carts. Voice of experience here… man, I can pack some books into that thing.

And if I have to pile them high on top of my already full bookshelves, I don’t mind. I might need a bigger house, though.

Links:

Lifeline book fairs

Pinterest secret boards

I am currently doing camp nanowrimo. I have set myself a total of 80k words for the month. It’s a big project and that is only part of it. It is also a very visual project. In scrivener (my writing program) I can load in pictures and I can have a split screen open. So that as I write, I can see the photo I have as inspiration for my lover, or a sexy image, or a travel photo of where they are, or whatever.

You get the idea.

I have been searching for a program that would allow me to make a kind of scrapbook of inspirational images that help me to write. Most of my photo websites didn't really do that and the last thing I needed when I am pushed for time was to start trying to learn Gimp again to make my own collages. Really… I've tried and it is too hard for me. *lip wobble*

I knew of Pinterest but I avoided it because I imagined that I would just get caught up in pretty images or feel guilty about all the fabulous house projects I would ‘pin’ and then never make. Also some of the images I need may not be final things. I might have three options for my love interest and change them as I write.

And then I read an article. (link below**)

And then I saw another article.***

And then I gave up and joined Pinterest.

And I think I am sold.

And the secret is… well, it’s a secret. Pinterest lets me keep a ‘board’ of images secret. I am the only person who can look at them unless I specifically invite other people to see them. I can make as many boards as I like. I can make them public, but obviously, can’t undo that action once I have done it.

If I can’t find things on the site, I can google search normally and pin them very easily with a tool added to my browser. Almost too easily.

If this project gets off the ground, I can share my board with a cover-maker and they can see exactly what inspired me, or where my characters visited. And maybe, one day, I can make my boards public and readers can see what inspired me.

As I write, I can open a pinned image, and the program keeps the link attached. If I want to check how tall my model is, I click on the picture and go to the original website. What do the bathrooms look like in this hotel? Click. And I'm there. It is very easy to remove pinned items from a board if I change my mind.

And it is really working for me.

Now all I need to do is stay away from the public boards and those craft projects.

Yeah right… that can’t be hard?

Ooh… quilts…

Links:

Scrivener

Pinterest

**Growing social biz

***Andrew Lownie literary agency