Sunday, November 28, 2010

My writing week 3 (47)

Hi all,

I wasted a bit of time last week on a pointless ebook debate with a writer who just wanted to argue semantics and not facts. His original blog post said that he was against changing the parallel importation book laws in Australian, and had recently launched a book in a bookstore, but felt guilty because he purchased most of his books on Amazon.

I had a look at his website which had icons to buy his books directly from him or from Amazon. At Amazon, one of his books was half the price he charged directly, but I am sure he would earn more from a direct sale. If he, as an author, is not prepared to pay extra to support Australian authors and bookstores, why should other consumers?

He also had an ebook of the first book in a series for 99cents. The consumer in me keeps on warning that if ebooks are ridiculously cheap than, like many cheap DVDs, they are probably crap.

I have had a lot more enlightening debates about ebooks with other writers, like Graham Storrs. I am enjoying his e-novel Timesplash.

Divine magazine paid my second invoice, so I now have been paid for all four stories published. I talked to the editor this morning and my fifth article should be up this week. It is about my father’s time in a high care ward of a nursing home. He had dementia. I will probably start writing another article this week, its idea I will keep secret for the moment.

I ordered and received a leather cover for my Kindle, something I should have done when I originally ordered it to save the $20 postal charge. The cover makes it much easier to read when lying in bed as it opens like a book, allowing me to balance it on my chest. It will also protect the screen from scratches. The ease of reading the Kindle’s bigger print has me reading a lot more.

Along with the above, I worked at the Victorian elections on Saturday and spent a bit of time reading the training manual, so I did not make time to finish writing the first draft of my novella as hoped. Maybe this week.


Graham.

2 comments:

graywave said...

Thanks, Graham! There should be more gratuitous flattery in this world :-)

As for plle importation, I saw Keith Richard's new autobiography for sale on an Aussie online book site a couple of days ago for over AU$41 and for US$16 on Amazon. Someone's making a lot of money out of Australian readers. The really important thing though, is that Australians should buy more books by Australian writers. That's the opportunity we will all lose if the plle importation rules change.

Graham Clements said...

Yep buy more Aussie authored books, I couldn't agree more. I tend to spend most of my new book money on Aussie authors. I want to read Australian stories and I want to read the thoughts and ideas of Australian authors. It's so hard to be published in Australia that those books that are published are usually very good.