Alana Woods   AUTHOR        

My books on Amazon.com   |   Amazon.co.uk

I'm in the UK at the moment, coincidentally at the time of the London Book Fair happening at Earls Court, and when the offer to attend yesterday on opening day as a guest of the event organiser was made how could I refuse!

It's the biggest and most important book fair in the English speaking world and I got to go! As you can see from the photo there was a bit of a blow. 

I wandered up and down aisles for a while trying to take it all in but after a bit decided to consult the map because I was looking for the author lounge. As they say, when all else fails look at the instructions. I found the lounge but it was packed as there were non-stop presentations.

So after hanging around the fringes outside for a couple I went exploring again to see who I could see.  No famous faces unfortunately, at least ones that I knew, unless you count those on posters.

The Amazon KDP and CreateSpace stand is large and impressive and was doing brisk business. As was the UK indie author stand, which was  even larger and more impressive. Digital publishing options are also being well covered, at least from my fairly limited knowledge of it.

As an Aussie I was interested to see who was representing the downunder industry but found only one small publisher and the self publishing group which was sharing a stand with others. I The big publishers in Australia are, of course, divisions of multi-nationals, so no big AUSTRALIA signs hanging anywhere.

I have to say a huge thank you to the event organiser for giving me the opportunity to attend. It's not every day you get to see such a concentration of players, big and little, in your chosen industry.

What can I say! 

Last week Amazon was recommending  IMBROGLIO  to its Mystery, Thriller & Suspense readers.

Today it's recommending  IMBROGLIO  and  AUTOMATON.

If Amazon thinks they're both worth recommending then let me help convince you -- you can't beat a bit of suspense as holiday reading, so make sure to buy them for yourself or as a gift for Christmas.

Imagine logging in to your email in the morning and finding one from Amazon recommending one of YOUR books to its customers.

That's what happened to me this morning.  IMBROGLIO is second from the bottom, but who's quibbling over placement.  Certainly not me!

So, I'm going to hang on to Amazon's skirt tails and do a bit of recommending of my own - IMBROGLIO would make a fabulous present to someone for Christmas. It's a big enough book for them to lose themselves in for quite a while. While there buy a copy for yourself too.

Amazon is promoting the paperback but it's available as an eBook too.

You can't beat giving a BOOK for

Christmas

- to yourself AND someone else

Here's two proven winners

from author

Alana Woods

Award winning AUTOMATON

- literary legal suspense

And its follow up IMBROGLIO

- literary suspense with an espionage twist

Don't delay and risk forgetting

Order now to ensure they arrive in time

Get the paperbacks NOW from Amazon.com

Also available from Amazon.co.uk

Automaton

Imbroglio

And Amazon.ca

Automaton

Imbroglio

Also available as eBooks from Amazon.com

Automaton

Imbroglio

And Amazon.co.uk

Automaton

Imbroglio

Following up on my Indie Authors Hangout post on Wednesday today I'm listing the links to all of the Amazon Author Central sites.

Coincidentally to posting the hangout I had emailed Amazon because I'd been trying to find the links to the foreign country pages. I was becoming very frustrated because I couldn't. Maybe I was suffering some form of domestic blindness, maybe they're so blindingly easy to find I was dazzled, but find them I could not. So I wrote to Amazon. And here's their reply.

I apologise for the faulty linkages to the sites; whatever I do I can't seem to get clean ones. But the URL's are complete so if you cut and paste you will end up at the appropriate site.

Hello Alana,

I understand you want to create Author Central accounts on all Amazon websites.

At this time, Author Central is only available for Amazon.com, Amazon.co.uk, Amazon.co.jp, Amazon.de, and Amazon.fr.

Author Central websites can be found at:

https://authorcentral.amazon.co.uk/" target="_blank">UK

https://authorcentral.amazon.fr/" target="_blank">France

https://authorcentral.amazon.de/" target="_blank">Germany

https://authorcentral.amazon.co.jp/" target="_blank">Japan

Amazon.co.uk, Amazon.fr, Amazon.de and Amazon.co.jp each has a unique Author Central website to set up an account, even if you've already joined AuthorCentral on Amazon.com.

Not all of the features in Amazon.com's Author Central will be available in Author Central on the international sites, though we look forward to adding all of them in the future.

Amazon.de and Amazon.co.jp also offers English-language Help pages and provides customer service in English via e-mail.

I hope this information helps. We look forward to seeing you again soon.

As does Amazon, I hope this information helps.

Cheers, Alana

My books on Amazon.com (includes India)

My books on Amazon.UK

My books on Amazon.ca

My books on Amazon.de

My books on Amazon.fr

My books on Amazon.it

My books on Amazon.es

My books  on Amazon.jp

It's the weekend and as I live in Canberra, Australia, the first thing I did after making myself presentable Saturday morning was go vote. Yes, it's time again here to choose who we want to mismanage us for the next four years. Voting is compulsory in Australia and I wholeheartedly agree with it being so. If you can't take an hour every three or four years to say who you want representing you, you deserve the mismanagement!

A good coffee was next as soon as I got back home, and then sipping it while going through my email and checking for messages on my social sites.

Goodreads was a nice surprise. I had a note from a friend with a link to a Jo Parfitt article that mentioned me!  You just never know where your name is going to pop up.

Jo writes about how Tom Barry used publishing and promoting a prequel to his newly-released novel When a siren calls to ramp up reader excitement and gain the interest of a top literary agent.

Where do I come in? Well, my review of the prequel is the one Jo chose to illustrate the points she's making because it does exactly that -- illustrates the points she's making.

Here's the link to Jo's full article.

The book of mine she very kindly mentions is my espionage suspense novel Imbroglio.

My books on Amazon.com (includes India)

My books on Amazon.UK

My books on Amazon.ca

My books on Amazon.de

My books on Amazon.fr

My books on Amazon.it

My books on Amazon.es

My books  on Amazon.jp

I was heading overseas for two months recently and didn't want the weight of my old laptop to lug around so I thought I'd buy an iPad. Truth is I was desperate to have one and the trip was just the excuse I needed.

I won't repeat the problems I had while becoming acquainted with the iPad as I've already blogged in detail about them; suffice to say that I had plenty.

It was my own fault - I didn't do any research, I just assumed that their functionality would replicate what I can do on a computer. I learned that that isn't the case.

They're great if you just want to keep up with mail and surf the net. But not so great if you want to do any in-depth word processing and updating of websites.

It was with a lot of relief when I returned home last week and fired up the trusty old laptop. But would you believe it took me days to stop tapping the screen and wondering why nothing was happening

So, would I have bought an iPad if I had known the drawbacks?

No. I would have gone for a small lightweight laptop.

I've said plenty in past weeks about the problems I've had with my new iPad so this week I thought I'd mention something I've discovered that really pleased me - apart from it's cartability, that is, which is absolutely wonderful. I love that it's small and reasonably lightweight.

I've also mentioned before that, not knowing anything about iPads, I wrongly assumed they would work like a computer.

I work a lot in the social media pages and some of them load different screen pages than when loading on a computer. Take Facebook for instance. If I load it directly it loads a page with much reduced functionality. But if I load via a link I've been sent in an email the normal pages appear. So that's the route I take now.

So what is it I've discovered that I like?

It's the document email options that Pages gives you. The iPad doesn't come with a word processing package so I bought Pages for the extremely reasonable price of just over Aust$10. A bargain.

But I did wonder about when I wanted to mail the documents to anyone because Pages isn't a format many people I know have.

I needn't have worried.

When emailing docs Pages asks what format you want to send them in: Pages, PDF or Word.

Brilliant!

My books on Amazon.

I thought this week I'd let you know what I've found out about sending feedback to Apple about products.

Those of you who have bought Apple products will know that you receive a short survey to fill in with your opinions about your in-store experience.

Because of the email and photo downloading glitches I've experienced you can I imagine how I filled mine in; definitely not with any 'extremely satisfied's.

If you give negative feedback you're asked if you'll accept a call from Apple and I said yes.

I thought I'd share with you the results of the call they made to me.

First of all let me say that it's the store you bought the product from that calls, not Apple itself.

Now for what I was told.

1. The phone call is to discuss the service you received, nothing else. They have no interest in discussing the products and your problems with them.

2. The complaints in survey feedbacks are NOT fed into Apple's complaint system. Apple therefore has no knowledge or record of the problems you are experiencing.

3. Apple will hold up its hand and acknowledge problems when it's on a massive scale and will fix them 'at no cost'. That's mighty nice of them, don't you think. And why only act once it's 'massive'?

4. If you have a complaint you need to log it through the official contact channels.

Here's the URL I was sent to their iPad feedback form: http://www.apple.com/feedback/ipad.html

If you want to give feedback about any other Apple product here's the URL to their contact page. The links to the forms are at the bottom of the right hand column: http://www.apple.com/contact/

My books on Amazon.

For those of you who have been following my learning curve with my new iPad you'll know I've been less than impressed with some functions.

One was email, but I finally got that sorted and it now works fine.

I thought this week I'd let you know about another glitch. Downloading photos.

When I bought the iPad it was not something I thought about; it was only afterwards I realised that downloading wasn't possible.

I know, it's something I should have considered but at that stage I was thinking iPads are substitutes for computers and it's only through use I've learned they aren't.

So imagine my delight when, by Googling, I discovered there's a camera conversion kit.

But as there were some negative comments among the good in the forums I made a point of asking about the kit's effectiveness when in the Brighton Apple store. The young chap who served me expressed complete surprise that anyone wasn't entirely satisfied then connected camera to iPad and downloaded my photos. As I saw the pics appearing on the iPad screen I thought 'Great, no problems there' and bought the kit.

Fast forward to getting home and not finding any of the photos on the iPad. Perplexed I connected everything up again and noticed you have to click on Import. Obviously the Apple chap hadn't done that.

But imagine my consternation when only some of the photos downloaded. I tried three times and the same few photos downloaded.

So I Googled again. Got to love Google.

Because I Googled about problems with the kit this time another discussion forum came up and guess what? Yep, you guessed right, there are a lot of unhappy people out there complaining about this kit and Apple's denial of anything being wrong.

I'm not a tech-head so got lost with a lot of what was being said but it does appear to be a 3rd generation iPad glitch. It's not the conversion kit that is the problem, it's the iPad itself.

If you have the same problem let me tell you how it fixed itself for me. It was simple and straightforward. I thought I'd delete a few photos to see if it was a capacity problem. I deleted a dozen photos - a mix of downloaded and ones I'd taken with the iPad itself. And then I tried again to download from the camera. Magically the rest of the photos downloaded from the camera. And new ones continue to download.

So if the glitch occurs for you, try deleting a few and downloading again.

My books on Amazon.

Before heading overseas I emailed my book files to myself so I would have them on my new iPad in case I wanted them for promotion purposes while away from home.

So imagine my alarm when after a week they disappeared from my In Box.

Turns out that the default delete setting on iPad - at least iPad 3, I don't know about earlier versions - is set for 1 week.

To save you the hassle of having to talk someone at home through your files to find the ones you want I thought I'd pass on that you can alter the delete time if you want to by going into:

Settings>Mail, Contacts, Calendars>Accounts

Click on your host (the second box down). This will open up another box.

Scroll down to Advanced and click on it.

Under Deleted messages choose the delay period you want. I've set mine to Never.

A friend has an iPad and I was envious. Yes, I'm admitting to the green-eyed monster.

So when a two-month overseas visit to my daughter in the UK presented itself it occurred to me that it was the ideal opportunity to buy one. I got the latest and greatest, no point going for something less than the best. If I hadn't bought it I would have had to take my trusty old laptop. I love my laptop but it's big, and it's heavy. So not taking it saved me several kg in luggage. The iPad, along with the Kindle -- which my husband said was now redundant, but that's another story -- went into my carry on bag. Love them both. I managed to read and review a book on the trip over.

But let me get to the point of this blog.

My email host is the Australian Telstra's Bigpond. Once in the UK I found I could receive emails but couldn't send them. Every attempt resulted in either of two messages saying the recipient's or my email address was rejected by the server.

Now, I get a lot of emails a day and one or two need replies, so I was anxious, to put it mildly. Being not far from the Brighton Apple store I made an appointment with their Genius Bar to get the problem sorted. At least, I thought they'd sort it. Uh-uhh. The young genius didn't even take a look. Just said he knew nothing about Bigpond.

In the end my daughter solved it for me. Did a Google search and said 'I think you need to delete your account and then set it up again.' So that's what we did. With gritted teeth when it came to hitting the big red 'Delete this account' button. But it worked and it took all of a minute. I know who I'm calling a genius now; certainly not the chap at Apple's Genius Bar.

So in case you encounter the same problem, deleting my account and setting it up again, with exactly the same information, worked for me.

Do you write reviews on your Kindle immediately after finishing a book?

Do you check that they have actually been posted?

The reason I'm asking is because I became aware of a rating and review for one of my novels that didn't make it from a reader's Kindle to Amazon. And as we authors really appreciate the reviews we receive it concerned me.

I queried it with Amazon, wondering if the links were broken but they checked and no, the links were fine.

The only answer they could proffer was that it had not passed the filters for either inappropriate language or spoilers.

I know the whole purpose of being able to rate and review on your Kindle is to sidestep the necessity of logging on to Amazon. But may I make a request: The next time you are on the Amazon site would you check to see if all of your reviews appear.

We authors will be eternally grateful.

My books on Amazon

Authors, did you know this?

Over Christmas I ran a promotion on my eBooks and noticed the Prime badge that indicates they are available in KDP Select had disappeared from them when searching under the ‘Books’ drop down menu. It continued to show if I searched under the ‘Kindle store’ menu.  I contacted Amazon and they replied to say that when they searched for ‘Alana Woods’ under ‘Books’ the badge was visible. After a bit of to-ing and fro-ing of emails I was asked to send a screen shot. I was then sent this message:

I looked into this and found that you are viewing the title from Australia. Since the borrowing of books are only available to US Prime customers, this feature will not always display on the website when publishers are viewing the content from a country outside the US.

I then went looking to see if this information is available and found this in the KDP Select option terms and conditions:

 2.2 Inclusion in Kindle Owners’ Lending Library Program. Digital Books included in KDP Select will be automatically included in the Kindle Owners’ Lending Library Program described in more detail here. The Kindle Owners’ Lending Library Program will be available on Amazon.com and may not be available on international Amazon websites or to customers outside the United States. Your Digital Book will not be available through the Kindle Owners’ Lending Library Program during any period when it is available for free in the Kindle store.

This would explain why, when I enrolled for the Prime free one month trial a while back, nothing happened.

I don’t know now, but I might have given a bit more thought to enrolling in KDP Select if I had known it was not available to anyone other than US customers.

Several years ago I was listening to the ABC’s Radio National book program. Being interviewed was the New York librarian who put together the 1000 books to read before you die list.  She was in Australia for the Sydney Writers Festival.

I’ve never forgotten her advice to readers. It went something like this:

‘You should read an entire book until you reach 50 years of age.  Once you reach 50 you should persevere for the first 50 pages.  After that deduct a page for each passing year. 

By the time you are 100 you can judge the book by its cover.’

I thought that was brilliant.

My new novel, Imbroglio, is now available at Amazon in print and eBook formats.

I have also just published the Family medical history—a journal for families to keep a record of everything of a medical nature that happens in the family. Never again will you scratch your head about such things as trying to remember the name of a doctor or if and when you had travel shots. This journal lets you keep a record of it all.

Author, editor, publisher, reader, wife, mother, grandmother, gardener, traveller, home builder and renovator—I wear all of these hats at various times.

The best advice I ever received was to just keep plodding.

This was when I went back to university in the ’80s as a mature age student and I was feeling the pressure of juggling study with a full-time job and raising three growing children.

Since then I’ve passed the advice on in turn and sometimes wonder if those I have passed it on to have been as affected by it as I have.

It kept me going through the disheartening times of trying to get published. It kept me going through the times of self publishing, marketing and selling my first novel, Automaton, a thriller, which went on to win the Australian 2003 Fast Books Prize for best fiction, and in 2004 was nominated for the Sisters-in-Crime Davitt Award.

I don’t profess to be an expert under any of my hats but for what it’s worth I thought that, here, I would pass on my experience to anyone who may be plodding similar roads to me, especially writing, editing and publishing.

I would be happy to hear from anyone treading that same road.  And if you have questions, I would be happy to try to answer them.