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Divine News I have a new article on the Divine website , a review of Me and Her , a memoir by Karen Tyrrell. It is about her life with Bipolar Disorder. The review is very different from the personal review I had previously posted on my blog . This is the first paid book review I have done so I was determined to keep references to myself and my opinion out of the review. I think I succeeded.    I originally submitted an image of the cover of the memoir to Divine in the body of the email with the article.   Unfortunately the image did not show up in the email when the Divine editor viewed it. So the story did not go up with the book cover as its image. I am trying to rectify this.  The editor at Divine told me I needed permission from the publisher to use an image of the cover of the book. If that damned image in the original email had revealed itself to her I would have known about this proviso before the story went up on the site. Anyway, I i...

Those Communist French. I read recently that the French government fixes the price of books so that French bookshops, including those online, cannot discount books by more than 5% of the RRP.  On further investigation I found this article in the New York Times.    French legislators even dictated to Amazon that its publishers can charge whatever they like on Amazon. It seems this law has helped bookshops prosper in France. It also seems to have affected the uptake of ebooks in France with them being only a lowly 1.8% of the market. The fixing of prices by the French has benefited French Bookshops and probably French authors with higher royalties.  I have been trying to find out the actual price of the average just released paperback in France. The price would probably still be cheaper in France than here in Australia due to their much larger market where the cost of producing a book can be spread over more sales. My Expenses Were how Much?  I h...

  T he Passage by Justin Cronin has been a bloody good read so far. It’s apocalyptic horror/science fiction that takes vampires back to being monsters and not the insipid morally confused fashion plates they have become. The vampires in The Passage are genetically engineered mutants that have reverted to a primeval state whose only goal is survival. They are the result of an experiment by the US military to create super soldiers, but instead of defending the US they destroy it.  These vampires are not demons either, so anyone brandishing a crucifix or holy water will quickly have their arm ripped off. A shot to the brain or heart will kill them, but it has to be the first shot as there is no time for a second.  I am really enjoying this reinvention of the vampire. It was about time that the sophisticated womanising vampire was torn to pieces and splattered with gore.   Flashbacks Within Flashbacks. Justin Cronin’s writing style surprises too. I ...

Price of Top-selling ebooks Continues to Rise. It has been seven weeks since I last checked the prices of Amazon’s 100 best-selling ebooks. Some trends seem to be continuing while others are faltering. Overall, the price of a best-selling ebook seems to be going up. The trends that continue include a drop in the number of ebooks on the list selling at 99 cents. This time there were seven ebooks at 99 cents, compared to three last time which was massive drop from 34 in February. The number at the ebook guru price of $2.99 continues to drop. This time there were 15, last time 22, which was down from 32 in February. $3.99 has been confirmed as a hot price with seventeen ebooks at that price, compared to 13 last time and four in February. $4.99 might be a new hot price too, with eleven at that price this time.   Thirty-two ebooks were priced over $7 compared to 47 last time. But overall the price of the 100 best-selling ebooks is increasing. I think part of this in...