Here:

Isn’t she beautiful? She is the Queen Mary 2 and on May 16th, 2014 she will be sailing from New York to Southampton with me on board. Better start planning what to wear.

I’m taking today off (it’s a bank holiday in the UK and it’s sunny, which is a combination that almost never happens), and then I need to decide what to work on next. Tom and Hattie are a priority, but I also need to get together a couple of proposals to send to my editor.

Here, have some peonies while I think about it.

Have bought a second hand Kindle keyboard from a twitter/ravelry contact. Works perfectly and I am very happy with this. Hope it lasts!

Have found what I thought did not exist: a netbook with better memory and more up to date OS than my constantly-crashing one. It’s very pretty, in peacock blue, has 4GB RAM and full Windows 7. It came from Amazon warehouse, meaning it has been returned/refurbished, though there is no sign of any damage or previous use. Also meaning, it was a bargainous price. It’s basically this but Windows 7 and just over half the price. I am extremely pleased with it and I plan to take very good care of it to make it last FOREVER.

So, I started looking at options to replace the dead one. It’s a Kindle Keyboard that I’ve had for about 15 months after my previous one died at about 9 months and was replaced because it was within warranty. Kindles do not have a good reputation for longevity. On the other hand, when it’s working, it does exactly what I want it to do and I love it. The problem is that Amazon no longer sell the Kindle Keyboard. My options are: Kindle 6″ (no keyboard, much reduced storage, £69); Kindle Paperwhite (ditto, but with a different kind of screen which I’m not sure I like the look of, £109); Kindle Fire (not e-ink, a tablet rather than an e-reader, which is not what I want); get the screen replaced (£59); get a second hand Kindle Keyboard on ebay (about £40). I went for the latter and actually I’m going to buy a second hand one from a twitter/knitting friend. I hope it lasts for a while.

My netbook is also on the way out. It’s got a missing ‘o’ (I can type it, but there’s no key), and more importantly, limited memory, which is not really working any more. Firefox crashes regularly, it’s slow and unreliable. I’d hoped I might be able to add extra memory, but it’s not obvious how to do it (I have done this on other laptops but when I found the tutorial for how to do it on this one, it looked way scarier.) I might be able to pay someone to do that. I’ve looked around and yet again, what I want is basically discontinued. Manufacturers are not putting out new, up to date, netbooks. So my options are: a cheap netbook with the same spec as my current one for around £180; a tablet (DO NOT WANT, choose your own price); or an ultrabook (CAN’T AFFORD). The problem with the netbooks that are out there is that they are essentially 2-year-old models. They will have the same problems as my current netbook, i.e. lack of memory. I can’t see that it’s worth spending any money on one, unless I can find one with more memory, a more up to date operating system, and so on. Ultrabooks are lovely, I’m sure, but I don’t want to be spending £500 or more for something that isn’t my main computer. I use my netbook when I’m travelling and when I’m in bed/watching TV etc. I mostly use it for writing and internet. I would like to be able to watch TV without it crashing. I would like to be able to use some other software occasionally when I’m not at home with access to my main laptop. I don’t need it to be glossy or sleek; I do need it to be solid and sturdy. I don’t want a tablet. I need to be able to write. A lot.

So I don’t know what to do. I suppose I could consolidate my main laptop (which I basically use as a slightly more portable desktop) with my netbook and get something inbetween. With a big screen for a second monitor at my desk. I hate second monitors. I could get a tablet and a USB keyboard. Ugh, ugh, ugh. I could save up and get an ultrabook.

I just don’t understand why technology keeps getting less functional and more expensive. I thought it was supposed to be the other way around?

It’s in the top ten Kindle free books (at Amazon UK. It’s only #41 at Amazon US.). That means I have given away more copies of this book than all but six other books on the site. That’s a lot of books. It’s about 35,000 books, actually. If I had sold 35,000 copies of that book at full price that would be about £70,000 in royalties due to me. £70,000 would be a HUGE sum of money for me (FIRST CLASS CABINS).

So why would I just give that away?

1. 35,000 downloads of a free book is not the same as 35,000 lost sales. The book was previously averaging sales of about 10/month at Amazon (it was selling quite a lot more at Barnes & Noble). It’s been free for about a month. So I’ve actually lost about £20 (in Amazon sales. I haven’t got the figures yet for B&N and elsewhere).

2. But what about future sales? All those 35,000 people might have bought the book one day. Now they won’t have to. Well they might have done, I suppose. But I think it’s unlikely because people download free books for a lot of different reasons than they buy books. Some people only read free books. A lot of people use free books as a way of trying an unknown author. It’s easier to take risks on a book that’s not your normal genre or style if it’s free. I can’t quantify how many future sales I’ve lost by giving it away, but I’m very sure it’s not 35,000 or anything like that amount.

3. Also, there is a very odd thing about my kindle royalties which I do not understand. They seem to be paying me a (very small) amount for the freebies. Less than a cent per book, but at 35,000 copies, even that adds up to more than I would have anticipated if the book had been on sale at full price. I honestly have no idea what’s going on with this. It is a price-matched freebie, not a Kindle Select one, which may make a difference. Dunno.

4. Sales of my other books have increased while this one has been available for free. Not dramatically. Not £70,000 worth. But a bit. I am selling more of my other two self-published works than I would have expected at the moment, and I think I’m selling a few more of my Entangled books, too. Again, it’s hard to quantify how much is because of the freebie, and it’s also impossible to know how long this effect will last, even beyond the free promotion.

5. Barnes and Noble ranking. This is a big one and was the main reason I decided to do the promotion. I’d had one of my other books free for a month or so in December. It never took off like this one has at Amazon, but it did sell well at B&N. It reached an overall ranking of just under 2000. And, crucially, at B&N it maintains that ranking once it goes back to full price. At Amazon, the free and paid books are ranked separately. As soon as the book stops being free, its rank drops right back to the beginning. But at B&N it doesn’t. That’s meant that the sales of the book after the free promo has ended have continued at a steady pace. Not as many as when it was free, but a LOT more than before the promo. I’m hoping the same will be true for this second promo book.

6. Reviews. This was the other motivation for the free promotion. In the first 18 months of having Reckless Runaway on sale, it got 3 reviews at B&N. It now has 56. Similarly, when I began the promotion on Tycoon’s Convenient Wife, it had 2 reviews at B&N. It now has 13 and more are being added every day. I plan to leave the book on the promo until it hits 50 reviews. Reckless Runaway didn’t get many extra reviews at Amazon, but Tycoon’s Convenient Wife is beginning to get some more there too. Of course, when a book is free, it is more likely to be read by people who aren’t huge fans of the genre, and so there are maybe more negative reviews than you’d expect. But as long as there are good reviews too (which there are), I’m pretty happy with more reviews of any kind. I’m also getting a handful of new Goodreads reviews. The reviews will be there after the promotion ends and though it’s unquantifiable, more reviews do help sales.

7. Brand awareness. I’ve no idea how much this helps, but I think it can’t hurt. 35,000 people have downloaded a book with my name on it. Next time they see a book with my name on it, they are more likely to take a second look.

I’ve seen authors lamenting the idea that anyone would give away their work for free. I’ve seen some who even resent the idea that people can read library books for free, or pick up books second hand without paying a royalty to the author. I am not in any way suggesting that my work is worthless by giving it away. I do think I deserve to be paid. But the reality is that this is a business. It’s about the bottom line. And giving away my book is better for my bottom line. I have earned more in the last month by having a book available for free than I would have done if it had been on sale at full price. I fully anticipate that I will continue to earn more when it reverts to full price than I would have done had it not been on the promotion. It’s worked for me before (with Reckless Runaway) and it’s working for me now (with Tycoon’s Convenient Wife). I am not advocating this as a method for all books and all authors. I am just pointing out that for me, with these books, free has been worth a lot.

Sparkly loo seat! Also, a thing for holding all the bits and pieces over the bath. And a basket for spare loo rolls. I still have a plan to line this and then it needs hanging from the hooks. At the moment, the flush is hidden underneath it. It’s not very easy to see, but the corner of wall on the far right has now been painted silver.

New wall art! Four postcards of Puffin book covers in some cheap IKEA frames I had lying around. I painted the frames silver, bought a sheet of acetate because the glass inserts of the frames had long since disappeared, and made this little display. The others are wallpaper samples, cut into shapes and mounted on silver-painted foam core board. I used mod podge to stick and glaze them, so hopefully they will survive the steamy bathroom.

From the other side. The glass on the bottom shelf is also new, but the silk painting is not. The postcards are Worzel Gummidge, Paddington at Large, Professor Branestawm, and Alice in Wonderland.

And this is my favourite thing:

Based on an idea from How About Orange, I stuck more postcards on foam core board. Then I sprayed with glitter varnish, because I had some and it seemed like a good idea. It was.

I am very pleased with the whole thing. It is less shabby, though not exactly chic. But it is bright and fun. And I have even cleaned it thoroughly as well.

Feel free to share yours in the comments or on twitter (#bodenmeme)

Readers: like or dislike books.
Fans: defend an author and her books to the death.

Readers: sometimes review books if they want to.
Fans: squee incoherently and give five stars indiscriminately.

Readers: sometimes talk about books with their friends.
Fans: stalk the internet looking for comments that are anything short of over-the-top praise, to rally the troops and harass the reviewer.

Readers: buy books to read.
Fans: do anything they can to get an early copy or a review copy, so they can laud it over their fellow fans.

Readers: are interested in books, not authors.
Fans: think they are in the author’s inner circle.

Readers: do not become stalkers, go on pilgrimages, harass authors for autographs.
Fans: sometimes do.

Readers: can distinguish an author from her books.
Fans: are not so clear about the difference.

I would like people to read my books. I am always happy when they like them, but completely understand when not everyone does. I’m happy when anyone wants to talk about my books and I don’t ever want someone to feel threatened if they have something negative to say. I don’t really need an army of new friends and I definitely don’t need crowds of fans intruding into my life. I would much prefer to be gathering new readers than making fans.

The Tycoon’s Convenient Wife is currently FREE at B&N and Smashwords, and possibly other places, though not at Amazon. Links are in the sidebar. Enjoy!

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