Cooking the Books

Photo used for Severe Discomfort's cover

Ever eager to make sure they do the right thing where tax is concerned (ahem!) Amazon have been in touch to let me know that I'll have to put the cost of my books up to comply with new EU VAT rules and regulations.  It'll only be by a few pennies and, as most readers seem to catch on to the freebie timetable quite well, I'm tempted to leave well alone - except that I do wince at the fact that when someone gets so hooked on the stories that they buy the next episode rather than waiting for its freebie day, Amazon snatch 65% of the payment and a mere 35% ends up in the Stoke-on-Trent CAB 'Beverage Fund'.

I need this nonsense to stop, so I have a cunning plan:

I will put all the book prices up to the threshold where I (ie the Bureau's biscuit tins) get 70% of sales and Amazon gets 30%, in the hope that it will either encourage patience in readers to wait for the freebies or that their impatience benefits advisers more than Amazon. 

As the Limited Capability episodes are only a couple of chapters long and that's too little content for a price of £1.50 - £2.00, I'll bundle them into 3 episode chunks (1 to 3, 4 to 6, 7 to 9, 10 to 12 and 13, 14 and the epilogue) which will still allow me to make maximum use of my freebie times, charge paying customers no more than now and yet get more for the Fund. 

The metamorphosis begins shortly...

Meanwhile, I'm also going to review the paperbacks to see if I can make a bargain version of Severe Discomfort/ Continual Supervision available in one cover (using a slightly smaller typeface to save pages) to coincide with the paperback launch of Limited Capability and concentrate on distributing both via Completely Novel and traditional Indie bookshops.  Ideally, I want all that in place before Grand Union is launched, as I have a funny feeling that Daphne's tale could be much more commercially successful than the others.

Meanwhile, back at the Solent Welfare Rights Project, there's another story waiting to be finished off ready for serialisation in the New Year if all goes to plan.

If...