yes, I'm ranting about book prices again

Some days Amazon’s different sites save me from myself.

I subscribe to a lot of bookish websites, some of which let you know when one of their favourites is on sale. Often, I run off - all eager to purchase - to get hit by the usual Australia problem.

Oh, you live in Australia… nope. It’s not on special for YOU. The price is not 99c it’s $8.

And I don’t buy it.

This must be how Hawaiians feel with the ‘continental US’ limitation on postage.

*Shrugs*

I will admit this week I had a few real life smacks and to cheer myself up I fully intended to buy a book. [Like I don’t somehow get books every day. Shush, brain.]

Ilona Andrews has recently finished their Kate Daniels series. I desperately want to read it but I have all the series in the same format; mass market paperback. I check my local library and they don’t have any of the books. So off I dash to check the price of the ebook.

I rationalise that I will get a physical copy at some point, but the ebook will get me through until then.

$18.99

What? For an ebook? [I have raged about Australian book prices before…]

That is just too much for me, so I go to check when the paperback will be released. I may get a short dose of happy book buying feelings if I can buy a pre-order.

No release date, yet. This seems like a deliberate decision by the publishers to milk fans of the series. Previously I’ve pre-ordered the paperback no problem. You can’t tell me they don’t know when it will be released. In fact, I just got a notice that a pre-order for their Hidden Legacy series is on its way.

*grits teeth*

What if I just got a hardback? [Let’s ignore, for the moment, the way it will make me crazy for decades to have ONE book a significantly different size in a series of ten. I neeeeds it, precious…]

$45 at my local bookshop.

Are you freaking kidding me?

Now this isn’t a swipe at Ilona Andrews. This is a traditionally published book and the author doesn’t set the price, but man… I live in a country where most of the wildlife can kill, don’t add book prices to the list of things that can wound me.

Counting books

I like counting. I always have. ##

So I like keeping track of my books. But that’s kind of hard when buying ebooks is so easy and you don’t have a physical cover to remind you that the book exists, and yes, you have a copy in your ebook library reader of choice but it’s kind of not the same. I hate accidentally buying a book I already own in a different format. I had a Book database but the software went cloud based and started charging monthly fees so I started looking for some other way to record my titles.

I messed about with Calibre this year and it works well to load in titles IF you have a file copy in your computer. I hear, also that it’s good for making and editing ebooks. I haven’t got to that stage yet. But so far, it’s working.

But… a lot of my books are on Amazon. I like the one click buy thing. My bank account really doesn’t. I have avoided Kobo for a long time because I have endless issues with getting their Windows app reader to function. It just… doesn’t. And their phone app is buggy, too.** I do not yet own a Kobo reader and maybe those problems are less obvious with one? Idk.

And the app cannot synch across all platforms so my phone doesn’t know what I’m reading and I have to download and upload titles into the PC app. It’s annoying.

Compared to Amazon? Where the app and the PC ereader synch up, AND it also synchs audiobooks with ebooks via a trademarked process, whispersynch; Kobo looks pretty bad. But it does have a wishlist. Take that, Amazon.

Plus, when you buy a title on Kobo it takes six steps to buy it, not one. Amazon actually copyrighted the one button buy thingie. And in Australia, Kobo is often way more expensive. Up to double the price. Wails… why?!

Amazon works on a Mobi file format and I own a few of those, too. I’ve downloaded them as giveaways from Author websites, or purchased them in Kickstarters or Humble Bundles or things like that. Calibre can load those files as well… but.

And it’s here we come to the eternal problem of Digital Rights Management or DRM. I don’t like it. I find it truly annoying that I do not actually OWN a title I bought on Amazon. What I own is a license to read that title in, and on, their format. [That’s probably how whispersynch works, right?] So 2,656 of my purchased books are not really mine. *jaw clenches* what if it all goes wrong? ^^

I also hate the idea that I don’t know what that DRM does. I’ve given the example before but imagine you buy a chair that lets you sit on it … say 25 times and then it breaks into pieces and cannot be reassembled and used as a chair. That chair has DRM.

I am also pretty law abiding. Yes, I could load some software and strip the DRM from those files… but that would be illegal. *cue hand flapping panic*

So I am attempting to match my Kobo and Kindle libraries using a spreadsheet and then going to check if the amazon title is still available on Kobo and replicating it there. So my Kobo library is mushrooming.

This makes me happy. &&

## how did I NOT know I had ADHD?

**it keeps incorrectly saving my last read position. No, god dammit, I am NOT at ch 3. I’m up to ch18! For the third time… you get the idea. I want to read a book, not search for the last bit I read.

^^ I’m a writer; my entire existence is asking ‘what if’…

&& You didn’t really think any of solution I came up with was going to involve LESS books, did you? *grins*

Oh my god… I broke Kindle again. While I was downloading and making a list of all my Amazon titles, I noticed there were a few updates listed. Somehow when I’ve clicked that upload box, it has given me TWO copies. But which ONE do I delete? Aaagh

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

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

Censorship of e-books

It’s happening again.

Yet again, fanfiction.net is having a purge of offensive fics. As before, without warning to the authors.

And in the wider world, self-published e-books are getting slapped.

This is a quote from the digital reader.

Many authors have reported that their titles had been pulled from the Kindle Store with little explanation beyond the statement that the titles in question violated Amazon’s policies on “Description, Cover Image”. Many don’t have a clue what that is supposed to mean, including the author who forwarded one of the emails to me.

All of the titles are erotica. All of these books are legal.

Like these purges, it is pandering to the opinion of a few. And do I have to point out that just because something is self-published does not make it worse (or better) than a print book? This is censorship… AGAIN. Are they deleting offending print books? No. There is incest in Game of Thrones - has that been deleted? Flowers in the attic? Lolita? Nope.

I don’t want to read dinosaur porn. It doesn’t even make sense to me, but if you want to read that? Fine.

The real problem is that someone else’s ideas may be further away from mine. I like to read gay sex, heck I have even written some. So if someone finds my liking for gay sex offensive, can they delete all the books that I want to read? No - that’s censorship.

The news reports of this use words like, ‘barely legal’, ‘offensive’, ‘filth’, ‘vile trade’ or ‘sick’.

http://www.mailonsunday.co.uk/news/article-2456651/WHSmiths-vile-trade-online-rape-porn-Bookseller-apologises-sales-sick-ebooks-revealed.html

Emotive words.

Words that assume that you believe the same thing they do.

And I don’t.

I think a world where the few can tell the many what to read and what not to read is the start of something much worse.

Book sales

I was reading an article from Bubble cow about book sales. It is a great site, full of useful information for writers/editors and has a cute cow image that is instantly recognisable in all media forms.

See? (So that’s what a cow lick looks like? Boom boom)

They were talking about book sales for the entrants in the Man Booker prize for 2010. Personally, I gave up on the Booker prize years ago. Honestly, if you write a book that makes your readers want to hang themselves or slash their wrists, you are a shoe-in for a nomination. I read a whole pile of seriously depressing novels when my book club decided we needed to read all the Booker prize books one year. Maybe it was the ‘thing’ for that time. Who knows? I got scarred by the experience and now drop the book hurriedly if there is a sticker on the cover that mentions the word ‘Booker’.

http://bubblecow.co/who-else-wants-to-know-how-many-copies-novels-actually-sell/

But at any rate, I would assume that if you were nominated for such a prize, then you must sell a few copies. They must be best sellers by definition, right?

WRONG.

According to Bubble cow:

“Four of the six books on the Man Booker prize list stand out as selling less than 6000 copies prior to the announcement.

Parrot and Olivier in America by Peter Carey sold 5987 in seven months,

In a Strange Room by Damon Galgut sold 1210 in five months,

The Finkler Question by Howard Jacobson sold 3505 in one month,

C by Tom McCarthy sold 2649 in one month, and

the other two titles on the short list Room by Emma Donoghue and The Long Song by Andrea Levy, sold 33923 and 15251 books respectively.

A few of us in the fanfiction world have expressed dumbfounded amazement at the massive sales figures for ‘50 shades of Grey’ the notorious EL James rewrite of a fanfic story. I had hoped many months ago that she might increase awareness of both fanfic and fanfic writers… http://amgray.blogspot.com.au/2012/03/fanfic-and-real-writers.html but, alas I was wrong. James and her publisher seem to have spent an inordinate amount of time both denying that it was a fanfic and trying to remove all traces of it from the internet. Are they insane? As if you can remove something from the Internet once it is out there?

The books has sold millions and even the new box set is selling in the high hundred thousands. Compared to the Booker entrants list, that’s very sad.

But back to Bubble Cow. When I first signed up for their website I got a lovely personal email from Gary Smailes, the head of Bubble cow. He asked me a couple of questions and I fired off a long response detailing my writing process, history and current hit rate for fanfic and ebooks.

Facepalm. It wasn’t a personal email. Silly, silly AMG. Picture me embarrassed.

But Gary (bless him) sent me a response. He told me that I was doing well. He actually said “doing better than most of the writers I come into contact with”. Wow. Now picture me amazed. A positive comment from someone in the ‘real’ fic world? Wow.

I just checked my sales figures and downloads on Smashwords, and I now have 13 sales and 2910 downloads. So I could argue that I am halfway to Peter Carey (or not).

Sometimes I think I am crazy to even be attempting this writer thing. But each time I get some positive reinforcement like the comment from Gary, or a writing prize like the one from Biting duck press, or an award from a popular vote like the non-canon award for Best Friends, it tells me that I am doing okay.

So I will keep trying. Wish me luck.

Proud of Smashwords

I’m really proud of Smashwords.

Recently they have been out there making some ground breaking things happen.

They fought Paypal on censorship and won.

They have negotiated with Califa, a consortium 220 Californian libraries, to form a partnership to distribute Smashwords eBooks in libraries and to give member libraries the ability to let patrons publish eBooks through Smashwords.

http://www.mediabistro.com/galleycat/smashwords-califa-to-let-library-patrons-self-publish-books_b53675

And today they announced a distribution agreement with Page Foundry, a developer of mobile ebook store apps for Android tablets and smart phones.

http://blog.smashwords.com/2012/06/smashwords-adds-page-foundry-as-new.html

This agreement will mean that all Premium Catalog books will automatically go to Page Foundry unless the writer opts out, or unless the title is unpublished. ‘Premium catalog’ is their term for ebooks that have no errors, good cover images, are properly set out, have a proper copyright notice and an ISBN number. As I understand it, Apple won’t take you unless you have all those boxes ticked. Apple also insists that the price end in 99cents. See the hoops I have to jump through these days? No, I'm joking. All readers deserve well set out, professional looking books, surely?

Good on you Smashwords. Keep up the good fight.

Reviews

I am often asked for help and advice by new writers. I answer them. I am a big believer in karma; it only takes me a couple of minutes to answer their questions, or to send them a document that I have previously prepared on how to post stories on fanfic or whatever. Who knows? They could be the next JK Rowling and my kind words might have set them on that path. At least I’d like to think so.

I have made it a point to reply to every review in my stories on fanfiction and I kind of miss that connection with my readers on other sites.

I don’t mind if they are polite; it’s the ones who tell me what to do that I dislike. For example: “I’m writing a story and you can beta it for me.” Excuse me? Or one of my favourites. “I really like the ‘Lord of the Rings’ and I noticed you do too. I’m kind of busy right now, so you can write a LOTR Twilight Legolas Bella crossover fic for me.” What the? There is just so much wrong with that sentence, I don’t even know where to start.

One of the big issues for people posting their first story is holding yourself out there; putting your words out in the real world to be read and criticised by others is a nerve wracking experience. It takes a leap of faith that some people are terrified of making. I know I was. Words and stories are personal experiences. Each one has some small part of you in it, or has taken hours of your time. Even if it was just a phrase or an emotional experience that you recall. I remember when I first posted on fanfic, I sat there manically checking my statistics and seeing how many hits my story had recorded and who had reviewed it. I laughed when a new writer I had encouraged, confessed to doing the same thing this week.

I kind of do the same now with my e-books. I found them on the Barnes and Noble website the other day and was stoked to see that ‘Alejandro & Maela’ was Sales rank: 8,681 and had two anonymous reviews. My erotic encounter on a train, ‘The man in the white linen suit’ was sales rank: 8,672 and had three stars from four anonymous reviews. ‘KissingCousins’ has passed one thousand downloads on Smashwords and is ranked 510 at diesel ebooks. All positive reinforcement for me.

I suppose, at least the anonymous reviewers didn’t say anything truly horrible. I think writers have to develop very tough skins to cope with some downright awful reviews. I got one this week that just said, ‘you suck’. Charming. I guess it is human nature that you remember the awful reviews. As I have said before, I got a zero star review because someone objected to the romance tag on Kissing Cousins.

I read a lot of blogs about writing. One, Catherine, caffeinated posted about looking up book reviews on Amazon. In this post she looked up books she loved on Amazon, and read their one-star reviews. As she pointed out, even a book loved by most people will have some people who hate it. Personally I disliked one of her favourites, ‘Eat, pray love,’ so there you go. What tickled her fancy was the reasons people gave for disliking it.

She’s right, it is truly amusing. And as a new writer it gives you some comfort. If the big, grown up writers still get such awful reviews, then it makes me feel better about my own.

I really liked Sunshine by Robin McKinley; a book that Neil Gaiman described as ‘practically perfect’ and I adore his books. I borrowed it from the library, and then ordered my own copy. It just landed on my doorstep from the online book shop today. I will admit that it is crying out for a sequel and is unfortunately on the fanfiction ‘no’ list, so I can’t write it myself, but it is one of those stories that stays with you after you have read it. So, in Catherine’s vein, I looked up its Amazon reviews. One reviewer said “I thought Sunshine was going to be fun and very romantic but it turns out to be a joke. Sunshine is the worst heroine I ever read about. She complains and talks too much! I hate having to read several long pages about Sunshine's personal life and blah blah stuff.” Gosh! Imagine filling a book with the main character’s story? Another complains that the heroine jumps in and out of bed with multiple lovers. What the? By my reading she had one; her boyfriend, but I haven’t reread it yet to confirm. Another accuses the author of having sex with Neil Gaiman to get her good review from him. The question of why women choose to attack other women like this, might have to wait for another blog post, but honestly, would they have said that if she was a man?

A review that is a critique is fine, but a personal attack on the author is unkind and unnecessary. Karma? Remember? It’ll get you. Ilona Andrews said today on her blog that she was very saddened by the back lash from other reviewers when an author posted a review to another author’s story on goodreads. Surely authors are entitled to an opinion, too? One that they should be able to express without people threatening to never buy their books again.

I know there are lots of blogs and websites out there where bloggers spend hours of their valuable time reading and then reviewing books. Let me know if you review my works and I will say thank you, same as I do for other reviews.

The next time you are reviewing, remember those hurtful words hurt. And bullying is bullying whether it’s done in real life or online. Tell the author something useful about why you disliked the story. Did they screw up their tense in chapter five? (I am always slipping in and out of tense... makes me nuts.) The author spent hours writing it and you spent hours reading it. It’s understandable that you might resent the waste of your time, if you really disliked it. But also remember that these days, e-books are editable. If I’ve mixed up a name or made an obvious mistake, for goodness’s sake tell me and I can fix it. If it annoyed you, chances are it annoyed somebody else, too. Probably me, if I knew it was there.

But either way, you keep reading, and I’ll keep writing. Deal?

PayPal backs down

March 13, 2012

I received this email last night and I was very pleased to see it. I have expressed previously, my grave concerns about banks and credit card companies holding themselves out as censors. I have also thought that this attack seemed to be on e-books only. Other works out in the printed domain do not attract the same attention.

A win for indie publishers and for us all!

Smashwords author/publisher update:  PayPal Reverses Proposed Censorship

Great news.  Yesterday afternoon I met with PayPal at their office in San Jose, where they informed me of their decision to modify their policies to allow legal fiction.

Effective last night, we rolled back the Smashwords Terms of Service to its pre-February 24 state.

It's been a tumultuous, nerve-wracking few weeks as we worked to protect the right of writers to write and publish legal fiction. 

I would like to express my sincere thanks to Smashwords authors, publishers and customers.  You stood up and made your voice known.  Thank you to every Smashwords author and publisher who wrote me to express opinions, even if we disagreed, and even if you were angry with me. You inspired me to carry your cause forward.  

Smashwords authors, publishers and customers mobilized. You made telephone calls, wrote emails and letters, started and signed petitions, blogged, tweeted, Facebooked and drove the conversation. You made the difference.  Without you, no one would have paid attention. I would also like to thank the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), The American Booksellers Foundation for Free Expression (ABFFE) and the National Coalition Against Censorship (NCAC). These three advocacy groups were the first to stand up for our authors, publishers and customers. Their contribution cannot be overstated.  We collaborated with them to build a coalition of like-minded organizations to support our mutual cause. Special kudos to Rainey Reitman of EFF for her energy, enthusiasm and leadership.

I would also like to thank all the bloggers and journalists out there who helped carry our story forward by lending their platforms to get the story out.  Special thanks to TechCrunch, Slashdot, TechDirt, The Independent (UK), Reuters, Publishers Weekly, Dow Jones, The Digital Reader, CNET, Forbes, GalleyCat & EbookNewser and dozens of others too numerous to mention. 

I would like to thank our friends at PayPal.  They worked with us in good faith as they promised, engaged us in dialogue, made the effort to understand Smashwords and our mission, went to bat for our authors with the credit card companies and banks, and showed the courage to revise their policies. 

This is a big, bold move by PayPal.  It represents a watershed decision that protects the rights of writers to write, publish and distribute legal fiction.  It also protects the rights of readers to purchase and enjoy all fiction in the privacy of their own imagination. It clarifies and rationalizes the role of financial services providers and pulls them out of the business of censoring legal fiction. 

Following implementation of their new policies, PayPal will have the most liberal, pro-First-Amendment policies of the major payment processors.  Will Google Checkout and Checkout by Amazon be next now that the credit card companies have clarified their positions, and have essentially given payment providers the permission to adopt more enlightened policies?   Finally, thanks to Selena Kitt of Excessica and Remittance Girl for helping me to understand and respect all fiction more than I ever have before.

This is a bright day for indie publishing.  In the old world, traditional publishers were the arbiters of literary merit.  Today, thanks to the rise of indie ebooks, the world is moving toward a broader, more inclusive definition of literary merit. Smashwords gives writers the power and freedom to publish.  Merit is decided by your readers.  Just as it should be.

Thanks,

Mark Coker

Founder

Smashwords

Fanfic and ‘real’ writers.

There has been a lot of publicity recently about EL James scoring a three book, seven figure deal for ‘50 shades of grey’; a previously published work of fan fiction. I don’t think the fact that it used to be Twilight fanfic is a secret. I have certainly read a few articles about it recently. It was originally posted as an Edward/Bella story called ‘Master of the universe’.

http://dearauthor.com/features/beyond-the-book/50-shades-of-grey-by-e-l-james-primer-and-books-you-might-like-if-you-liked-fifty-shades

I am glad for EL James although I suspect that she has unwittingly tapped into a BDSM for newbies style of thing. In any case, evidently the sale of grey ties has gone through the roof in New York; an unexpected by product of her story’s success.

I did an awful lot of reading about writing, if that makes sense, and publishing, before I decided that I needed to try this. In the publishing world of even the last ten years, if a work had been ‘pre-published’ it was the wordy equivalent of untouchable. Even a published short story that had been extended into a full novel could make the entirety of the new, longer, work defined as ‘pre-published’. I think one of the great things about e-books and e-readers is that there seems to be a resurgence of reading.

And hopefully, they will need more writers to fill those e-readers.

I really hope that publishers look to the fanfic world. I hope that EL James’ success will be a positive thing for other fanfic writers.

I have seen a few people discuss their fanfic writing in terms of a dirty secret. I saw one person say today that her friends would cope better if she was having an affair than writing fanfic. And when you add in the smutty, sexy style of writing, you have a whole new issue. My friends get the writing part, but not the non-income side of things. ‘You get how many hits a day and you don’t get paid?’ one keeps asking me.

I don’t have a significant other right now (that pretty much explains the smut writer -lmao), but I can understand how a fanfic writer’s significant other might be offended, or even jealous of their writing. If you are writing about a person who is hopeless in bed, will your lover think you are talking about them?

I know I shamelessly plunder my own history for the right reaction or insight into how a character might react or behave. I think all writers do it. I’ve often wondered how it would feel to be the person who inspired a particularly bitter or heartbreaking song. Imagine how the guy that dumped Adele feels right now?

Writers and songs reach people because their experiences resonate and good fanfic writers do that. They make their readers cry or sit at the edge of their seats, too. I have read some wonderful and brilliantly written fanfics. And quite a lot that were awful; but that’s the nature of the beast. Some, are so awful that they have become legends of their own. ‘My immortal’ for example.

I guess fanfiction works for people who want to write, but for whatever reason, cannot publish a whole completed novel. It allows you to experiment with writing; to try using visual prompts, gender swaps, to write in another style or to merge together two different genres into a whole (the crossover, as it is termed). Fanfiction allows you to post a chapter as frequently as you can produce them, a source of much frustration for readers, when that is once every four to six months, I will admit. I try to write the whole story before I post the first chapter. I have a morbid fear of having to rewrite the first chapter, because the story has veered off so wildly from where it first started, but I am a rare creature.

But writing fanfiction shouldn’t be a dirty secret; it’s the writing equivalent of a furnace. Do it properly and it will make you a stronger, better writer.

I see no difference between the writing process for fanfic or original fiction. Of course, for a fanfic you start with a premade set of characters where, in an original story, you make up your own. I write a lot of Twilight wolf fanfic, and the characters owned by Stephenie Meyer are so vaguely sketched out, that in some cases they have no surname and one or two distinguishing features… and that is it. But, by the time I have written a hundred thousand words around that character; they are more mine than hers. Unfortunately they still legally belong to her.

So I hope that EL James drags us all along with her. We’re ready, we’re writing and we’re stronger for it. We are tempered steel.

Romance and kissing cousins

Kissing cousins

I wrote this story after being inspired by a photo. If you haven’t read it, I will warn that spoilers follow. 

*SPOLIER ALERT*

It is a quick insight into a girl’s inability to resist the wrong guy. She knows he is wrong for her, she knows that he turns up and has sex with her when it suits him, and he will never acknowledge her as a lover or a partner. She knows this and she still can’t say ‘no’. She describes him as her ‘Achilles thong’; her intimate weakness, I suppose. By the end of the short story, she has said ‘no’, she has realised that the guy she is currently dating is a better, healthier choice and a nice guy. She tells him everything and he forgives her and still loves her.

It’s a circle of sorts. And I love circles in stories.

But one thing I had never anticipated was the reviews from Smashwords readers. I wrote that they were cousins. I didn’t say first cousins, but they are family. This was an issue for her in the story, because she can never quite get away from him. They keep meeting at family functions.

Wow! I had no idea that I had inadvertently stepped into the American version of incest. Which is oddly ironic, given the current battle that Smashwords and PayPal are having over the publication of incest.  I have no idea if my little story will cause my entire account to be deleted for breaching site rules on incest.

I am Australian. We have no such taboo about dating your cousin. You can even marry them if you want.

The Marriage Act prohibits people marrying:

an ancestor or descendant; or their brother or sister (whether whole blood or half-blood siblings). These restrictions also apply to adoptive relationships even if these have been annulled, cancelled, discharged or cease to be effective for any reason (for example, a subsequent adoption order being made).

This means, for example, that a person cannot marry their parent, grandparent, child, grandchild, brother or sister. However, (depending of course on the gender of the party) a person may marry their aunt or uncle, niece or nephew or ‘first’ cousin.

[copied from the Australian government attorney general information website.]

As far as I understand, it is not an issue for most countries in the world. Maybe it is a Puritan hangover for the US? I certainly had no idea that marrying your first cousin is illegal in more American States, than not. I guess if Americans are confused about it, too, then my little story might be safe. Oddly, it has the most downloads too. Way more than any of my other stories so far.

Most reviewers also seem to miss the point, that by the end, she has made the correct choice. I can only assume that they didn’t read to the end. I also keep getting told that it isn’t a romance. In Smashwords, I have to choose existing tags (at least, I think so - still new at this ‘n all) I looked up romance. It says it is a noun for a novel of a love affair. It’s certainly not Mills & Boon style romance, but it finishes on what I would categorise as happy for now.

Yeah… *picture me confused*.

My e-books

Until I work out how to link this to the home page - or Smashwords makes an app…

This will have to do:

Sea Change

A woman and her kids try to start again. They buy a house in small town America and hope to be hidden, but life is never that easy.

The Man in the White linen Suit

Strangers on a train. A young girl travels across Europe. She hopes to experience more of life. And in a way, she does.

Dream Man

Angela has had the same dream lover since she was a teen. One day he unlocks her door and walks right into her apartment.

Alejandro & Maela

Young lovers in Old Havana. But the girl catches the eye of an older man.

Kissing cousins

 Weddings. They stir up the emotions and sometimes they reignite old flames.

Hello

Well, not sure where to start.

At the beginning. Right?

This is my first post on my new blog site. I’ve popped my own cherry so far as blogging goes. Lol.

You may know me as mrstrentreznor from my fanfic writing. 

http://www.fanfiction.net/u/2154210/Mrstrentreznor

I now have more stories up there than I can sometimes keep a track of. Thirty nine as of this morning, but that is likely to change. They cover a range of genres from Twilight to Van Helsing. A long time ago, I decided, out of sheer politeness, to answer every review that anyone ever left for me. Initially it was that ‘omg someone liked my story’ thing, but over the years it has become a joy. Yes, hard work, but still joy. I spend many hours a day answering each review.

Reviewers sometimes inspire me. Give me a line or an idea that inspires a whole fic of its own. You point out mistakes, correct my own inconsistencies and I love you for it. I see it as a two way street; you look after me and I’ll look after you. Okay? Deal?

I have recently attempted a dip in the world of ebook publishing. I now have five titles listed at Smashwords.com. 

https://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/AMGray

They are short stories, really. Some a little longer and three are free. I keep checking my download stats like a loony and can proudly say that over 1300 people have downloaded them already. They have just been approved by Smashwords for what they call premium distribution; that is, to be sent to all the big book sellers like Apple and amazon.

Once I am happy that I understand how it all works, I will dust off the longer stories.

I feel a lot like a mother bird pushing her babies out of the nest. I’ve prepared them and prettied them up as well as I know how, and now they have to fly (or fall) on their own. Maybe a kite is a better metaphor, because if they fall, I will pick them up and dust them off, clean them up a little and encourage them to fly again; running along with them.

I just totally did a squee when I saw one of them on the e-shelves at Barnes and Noble.

I will try to keep this blog for information about me and my books.

Sadly, the main issue with all this self-promotion stuff is that it takes me so much time to do; leaving me less time to actually write. One of these days I will get that Tardis or learn how to get more hours in a day. I’ve already given up on the housework. Pity my poor children… lol.

So many words… and so little time to say them in.