Kindle Ups and Downs

Oh Santa!, my latest kids’ ebook, is up on Smashwords here. I’ve also published it on Kindle Direct Publishing, so you can get it from Amazon.com here, from Amazon.co.uk here, and from Amazon.fr here. It’s on Amazon.de too. It’s priced very reasonably so go on, treat yourselves!

I actually priced it at 99 cents on the French site, but I see it’s selling for €1,14 which is puzzling. I’m assuming some kind of tax has been shoved on. This brings me on to my pet grumble about Kindle book pricing. I switched my Kindle account from .com to .fr with Amazon, as they recommended I should since it would be better for me, bla bla, but all that’s happened is that I now have to pay more for my ebooks. Ones that are advertised at 99 US cents on the Net are priced for me at more than two euros. They don’t cost me that since I don’t buy them from Amazon – I track them down on Smashwords (the vast majority are there), buy them for the 99 cents there and then email the file to my Kindle from my computer. And books advertised as free on Kindle end up costing money too.

I’ve downloaded the Barnes and Noble Nook app as another way of getting free and 99 cents books for the proper price. There was one freebie in particular that I wanted, intriguingly entiled The Wee Christmas Homicide. However, I got a bit muddled up with the app and ended up lending that book – I have no idea where it’s gone or if I’ll ever get it back!  I then tried to buy a book but was told my credit card was invalid, which is nonsense, so maybe I won’t be doing that much business with B&N after all!

On the bright side I’ve won three ebooks this week. I’m still waiting for two of them to come, and have been for several days, but The Grimoire Lichgates by S M Boyce is sitting on my Kindle awaiting my attention.

So it’s not all bad in the Kindle kingdom.