Giving it Away

I confess--I do go to Amazon to check my book stats, leaving me either elated or depressed each day. I know. Pathetic, isn't it, but I can't help it.
But if you click on my name the first book that appears is The Amersham Rubies. It's a short story that my publisher had me write to entice new readers to Molly Murphy. It says clearly A Molly Murphy Story on the cover, and it also contains a teaser for the next book. Oh, and it's free.

And it was also the first time in my life that I got one star reviews. Why, you may wonder. It's actually a good, fun story but the one star reviewers were bitching that it wasn't a full length book. "I feel cheated" some of them wrote. Did I mention that it was free? That they were getting a free Rhys Bowen short story to entertain them?

The problem is that there are now plenty of authors out there so desperate to have their work read that they are ready to give it away. Amazon readers have become used to finding whole books given away free. I find this a dangerous and scary trend. I am a writer by profession. It takes me half a year to complete a book. This means essentially that these Amazon readers expect me to live on air for six months. The government doesn't fund me. There is no generous charitable foundation slipping me money. I write for a living. It's like calling in the plumber to fix a leaky sink and then expecting him to complete the job out of the goodness of his heart.

But because so many writers are now willing to put up their work for free, readers are feeling entitled. So what is the answer?

  Another worrying element is that many of these books are what we in UK would call UTTER RUBBISH. They are poorly written, poorly constructed and are crying out for good editing. I'm not saying that all free books are like this, but a good number are. They haven't sold elsewhere with good reason. 

This should be good news for me and fellow writers who write good books, you would think. But I'm worried that someone who decides he might like to read a mystery and tries one of these give-away books will decide that mysteries are not worth reading because they are poorly written. He will then trash all mysteries.

I'm not sure if there is a solution to this. One can hope that good literature will always find a market. But I'm waiting for the entitlement to spread to other industries. The day they start handing out free designer fashions, I expect I'll be first in line.

So let's hear what you think--are free books a good way to discover new authors? Do you think writers should give their work away for nothing?

Never Enough

Yesterday Apple unveiled the latest version of the iPhone and guess what? Apple shares dropped significantly because..... it wasn't the iPhone 5 that people hoped for and expected. It was only a faster, more efficient version of the IPhone 4 with added brighteners.

I am alarmed by this trend of wanting and expecting more and more. We have become a people of entitlement. I found this out as a writer when I was asked by my publisher to write a Molly Murphy story, a prequel to the series, to be offered free on Kindle so that people who hadn't read the books would have a chance to get to know Molly, and hopefully buy the books.

There was a good side to this. It rose to number 2 on Free Kindle, which was quite amazing. However I started getting all these one star reviews which alarmed and upset me, until I realized that people were not judging the quality of the storytelling. They were punishing me because it was only a short story and not a whole book. Reviews said "I feel cheated. I was expecting a whole book."

Let me reiterate that this was free. They were getting a whole,complete and good story. Did they really think I was going to devote six months of my life to writing a book for which I would receive no payment? Don't they realize that writers have to live and eat?

I'm reminded of that song in Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory:
I want the world. I want the whole world.
I want to lock it all up in my pocket. It's my bar of chocolate.
Give it to me now!

Violet came to a bad end for singing that, but it's now the prevailing attidude. It starts with kids who have their own phones, TVs, iPods, computers etc etc by the time they are 8. Then there is nothing left to look foiward to. They want to be excited, entertained but they've been given all there is and they've lost the ability to entertain themselves. I can remember how proud I felt when I saved up for several years for a real new bike instead of the clunky old thing we'd bought at a jumble sale. I earned that bike. It was mine. It felt good every time I rode it to school.

So I'm sorry for this generation becasue there simply aren't enough technological innovations to keep them excited and happy. And I'm sorry for those people for whom a free story wasn't enough. Obviously they've never tried to do anything creative like write a story, so how would they know what goes into it?  Too bad.

How Long is Too Long?

Yesterday I posted on Facebook that I had finished the first draft of my new Lady Georgie book and felt it was a little long, so the next step was to bring out the axe.

I was surprised this morning to see a whole lot of replies saying "please don't cut it. We want your books to be as long as possible." Some were kind enough to add, 'we don't want them to end." but others added, "We love long books."

So now I'm curious--do you love long books? Do you select books based on length? Are you turned off by big fat books or do you look forward to staying with them for a while? Is there a certain length that mysteries should be? (mine are usually around 300 pages. The Molly Murphy series goes a little longer, closer to 400 sometimes).

I'm actually re-reading the last Harry Potter book at the moment--as a sort of wind-down after all the frantic activity in my life this month and I have to say I am not finding the 700 pages to be a chore. it's nice to see, when I pick it up, that there are still a few hundred pages to go.

And of course with my new Kindle the question of the weight of a 700 page book is removed from the equation, isn't it? I can read War and Peace, holding it in one hand!! And speaking of weight--the thinness and lightness of Kindle was one of the factors in deciding to go with it over the iPad or even the Nook. But now I think I should get a case for it and you know what? The cases are heavy. Does that make sense? Can anyone suggest a light little sleeve that keeps out dust but doesn't turn my Kindle into a clunky object?