cheap books

[julesjones]

I'm doing website updates in lieu of actual, you know, *wordage*. Which is how I discovered that Fictionwise is doing the thing with massive storewide discounts again -- 40% off until the end of Sunday, after that 25% for a bit. This does not do me any good as a reader, as I refuse point blank to buy anything with DRM, and the open format titles I'm interested in are the ones I don't really want to be reading on the public omnibus. However, it might do me some good as a writer if anyone wants to buy one or two of my books cheaply. [*]

I think I forgot to mention that a few more of my books are now available on All Romance eBooks, including Spindrift and Pulling Strings. They have also been uploaded to Fictionwise, but it will probably take a couple of weeks before they show up on the public site.


[*] Obviously I like sales direct from my publisher's website best, because I get the most money that way. However, I strongly prefer sales through distributors to no sales at all. :-)

Comments

Re: Damned by faint praise

[lakeaustin.livejournal.com]

What review sites do you read yourself? I like RR because I can usually tell from their reviews if it's a book I want to read. And they don't trash books. If a reviewer there really doesn't like a book, they give it to another reviewer.

Re: Damned by faint praise

[julesjones]

In romance, mostly Dear Author and Azteclady's reviews on Karen's blog at the moment, with reasonably regular wanderings further afield. (And Elisa Rolle's LJ is on my default view, but what's she's reviewing is mostly ebooks, and until I got the Cybook earlier this year I Did Not Do Ebooks as a reader.) I used to read Smart Bitches a lot, but I've found it's not currently offering what I'm really looking for.

The reason I read DA in particular is that they have reviews that give me an idea of whether or not I might like to read the book. The thing for me is that I'm primarily an sf and fantasy fan, not a romance fan. I love a good romance when it works for me, but so very many books explicitly marketed as romance are utter wallbangers for me for reasons that have nothing to do with the writing quality [*] that I'm not willing to read one without a recommendation from someone whose opinion I trust.

Now, that recommendation can be in the form of a review by someone who didn't actually like the book herself, but who can set out why she didn't like it in a way that lets me see whether what she disliked is something I'd actually like. When I first stumbled across Smart Bitches, and the Dear Author, they thing that struck me was that the sort of reviews they wrote didn't pull any punches when they didn't like a book, but they had insight into why they didn't like it, and were well aware that other people might feel differently about the book, and thus their reviews were useful guides as to books that would be worth my while checking out.


[* A book goes on about how big cities are Teh Evil and a real romance heroine will eventually come to her senses and run back to the wonderful small country town that is the only place anyone can be truly happy? *Wallbanger*. I have lived in that small country town, and while I'm very happy to go back and visit, and I understand why some of my family love living there, I'm also very very happy to be living in the big city myself.]