The piece I wrote in the novel-writing competition – NaNoWriMo - needs a LOT of work...and I have done a bit of thinking about it, but haven’t seriously ripped it apart to attempt a re-write, yet.
I decided to send a brief version of my story into the BBC ‘My Story’ competition, why not? Just keep on practising. So you can see “Amusing and Amazing Myself” posted up, under Achievement (see link above). I didn’t feel entirely happy with the category, but I didn’t really fit into any of the others available. I feel a bit sheepish, aligning myself with dyslexics who wrote books, paraplegic athletes, and the currently very-popular-with-publishers “survivors of traumatic childhoods”...but hey.
Another strange thing.
I always like ‘learning by doing’, so have experimented with Lulu Print-On-Demand, knowing full well that I wouldn’t expect to sell any books (I don’t kid myself about having any kind of profile in the internet) except for the ones I buy myself, to get hard copies in my hands, or to give to friends or family.
I say all that because I discovered something strange yesterday. I had put a price on the various books I have published, as a series of experiments in formats (spiral bound, large paperback, small paperback, etc) – and the price mostly just covered the actual cost to Lulu. As I wasn’t expecting to sell any, there didn’t seem much point in marking it up. And I made downloading PDF copies FREE.
I buy my own copies at cost, of course.
But then I went onto the site, and rummaged around in the account, to find to my amazement that three of the books have been downloaded (free) more than a hundred times. Astonishing! Would that have happened if I had charged a quid? I doubt it. Free downloads are so easy that there is no guarantee that anyone who downloaded stuff has actually read the things.
Still, it’s surprising to me.
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