Well of Love

I've intended for some time to make my first "volume" of poems (sounds a bit grand, that, but I don't know what else to call it) free, and sure enough it's easy to do that on my e-publisher's site (Smashwords). You just choose the option "make my book free" and there it is - $0.00. Perfect. And I guess it's true that no-one can resist a freebie, because since I published it at noon yesterday I've had over a hundred page views and 8 downloads.

Unfortunately Smashwords and Amazon still haven't sorted out their integration, so I had to publish separately for Kindle in the same way I did for War of Nutrition.  Kindle however, as I soon discovered, doesn't allow "small" publishers (ie, people like me) to release anything for free on their platform. Their  absolute minimum price is $0.99 (or 77p in English money once you've added the VAT), so I've had to belatedly change the blurb that used to happily shout about how FREE it all was to, well, not shout about that. Because it isn't. At the moment.

There is allegedly a post-hoc way to make it free, which relies on Amazon's policy not to charge more for something on a Kindle than is being charged for other ereader platforms. Since I published free through Smashwords, Well of Love will eventually turn up on the iBookstore, and Kobo, and Nook, and Sony Reader for zero pounds and zero pence. At that point, if someone were to complain to Amazon (using their handy-dandy "tell us about a lower price" link) that it was free for other readers, then they would price match it. At least, that's what they do at the moment. Whether that will carry on is anyone's guess. So for now, if you want Well of Love for your Kindle, it'll cost you 77p. I mean, it's still worth it OBVIOUSLY, but it's not free yet.

Now that all my free poems are available in this beautifully adorned package, I've removed them from my website. I have another 16 or so coming soon in a second volume. That won't be free. Just sayin'.