Tag Archives: free read

My free reading challenge: I bought a book

When I started my free reading challenge, I knew it was going to be difficult, so I gave myself some let-outs.

This week I used my joker to buy a book from an author I’ve read a free book from in order to help with their launch.

Like one – Love the next

A couple of weeks ago I read Kelly St Clare’s Fantasy of Frost (free in a giveaway). A high fantasy YA novel, I thoroughly enjoyed it. So when I discovered she had a sci-fi/dystopian novel due out 30th August, The Retreat, I wanted to support her launch. I asked for and got a review copy and loved The Retreat even more than I had Fantasy of Frost.

Cover of Kelly St Clare's The Retreat
Click for the preview

Pay with a review

So, all’s well so far, and I could just have stuck to my free reading challenge and “paid” with a review (which I have, check it out on the Paisley Piranha site).

Amazon are at it again

But I’ve also seen a lot this week about Amazon doing yet another purge of anything they consider less-than-ethical reviews, which always seems to mean removing reviews from legitimate independent authors, while leaving them to help spam-bot rip-off merchants.

Now, I know we authors get very exercised about vanishing reviews (they are – fortunately or unfortunately – very important), but as a reader I’m pretty cross about it, too. If I take the time to read a book, then further time and effort to arrange my thoughts about that book into a review, I don’t think it’s acceptable for Amazon to arbitrarily decide my review isn’t valid (especially since it’s evaluated by software, not a human being: way to wind up a human – make a machine more important than them!)

The value of ‘verified’

So, I bought a copy on the basis that a review from a “Verified Purchase” would be less liable to interference from the ‘Zon (and because I really wanted to support this 5-star read).

And now I’m scratching my head, wondering how come a dislike of Amazon’s practices means I’ve made an additional purchase with them…

Something for Nothing

Well, it’s blatant promo this week, so switch off now if that’s not your thing.

I was at YALC (Young Adult Literature Convention – an offshoot of ComicCon) this weekend, having a wonderful time talking about books and having the occasional fan girl moment. I also learned something pretty important for my writing career, which is that everyone loves a freebie.

People were only buying moderate numbers of books (well, I can understand that – I lugged a case of books around the Underground and couldn’t honestly recommend it as a terrific amount of fun), but they did like to pick up badges and bookmarks and sign-up for giveaways.

Gatekeeper BRAGSo here’s my giveaway: if you’d like to read The Last Gatekeeper for free, you can download a copy for your eReader. You will be asked to sign up to my Reader Group, but if The Last Gatekeeper isn’t your cup of tea you can opt out and we’ll say no more about it (promise).

If you don’t like YA or fantasy, maybe you could tell a friend – it’s open to all!