If Santa put a new Kindle...

...in your stocking, best get downloading your favourite authors quickly, because from 1st January Amazon UK will be charging UK sales tax based on where the buyer lives, not on the tax haven where it's based - which is absolutely fair and right.

VAT on ebooks will be going from 3% to 20%.

Authors and publishers, who have been discounting the books heavily for their readers - and still are -  will not be able to suck up that extra cost so it will be passed onto the buyer.

The big question is not how much we're paying, but why are we paying VAT on ebooks when we don't pay it on paper books. A timely question to ask your MP in the run up to the general election.

Backlist Books Fest!

Harlequin are continuing their re-release of my backlist with three new books in July and August.

In the UK they've started using pretty new covers to give the books a fresh new look and I'm absolutely delighted with what they've done with The Three Year Itch and All She Wants for Christmas  Don't be fooled by the title, which marketing changed from Trouble in Paradise when a December slot opened up. This book is set on a Caribbean island made for two and has nothing to with Christmas. At all.

In the US, Harlequin have taken the opposite tack and are using the original covers and Dating Her Boss happily is one of my favourite covers. A real classic.

Interestingly, catching up on these books, I've realised how much the Romance line has changed since I started writing for Harlequin Mills & Boon.

The heroes in these books are much more like Presents/Modern heroes - alpha, arrogant, tortured men.

For me, the men changed when I began writing scenes from their point of view. My first dual vp book was Eloping With Emmy (which is, incidentally available at the moemnt as an ebook for 99c) in which the hero took the lead vp role and we saw him falling in love - and knowing that it was all going to end in tears

Diabetes...

It's May, the month when the romance community and many fabulously generous companies come together to support the Brenda Novak Online Auction for Diabetes Research.

Everyone knows someone who suffers from diabetes. Maybe not the desperate Type 1 which, since last year's auction, has hit the  daughter of an acquaintance. She's six years old and each day she has to inject herself with insulin. Think about that when you check out the absolutely amazing items on offer in this year's auction.

Brenda - whose son has the disease  -  has so far raised a total of $1.6 million through the power of love. This year she's hoping to surpass the $2 million mark.

It doesn't have to cost each of us very much. There are signed books by favourite authors as well as the high cost items.

This year I've donated a Kindle Paperwhite loaded with some of my eBooks - you can bid HERE

And a group of KISS authors have put together a bundle of signed books which you can bid for
HERE  

Back to Front

There was a time when a romance author’s backlist was something that gathered dust in the publishers attic. Occasionally, a favourite would be dusted off and reissued in an anthology, but after the first round of publication in the US, UK, Australia and around the world, most of the books only saw the light of day in three-in-one reissues in places like Lithuania unless an author moved into mainstream and hit the New York Times bestseller list.

Authors like Tess Gerritsen, Nora Roberts and Jennifer Crusie then found their romances dusted off and published in fancy new covers, annoying the heck out of their new readers who thought they were buying a mainstream Tess, or Nora, or Jennifer, but making everyone a lot of money. Including the authors.

Suddenly, however, the backlist is no longer in the back room.

With the wild success of the eBook — something everyone said would never happen — they are hot property. Many of my earlier books were digitised a couple of years ago by Harlequin when eBooks were just beginning to take off and they were testing the waters. And then the Kindle and Nook arrived and my reading life changed forever. A book at the press of a button, any size print I want. It’s an obsessive reader’s (one with dodgy eyesight) dream. But… but… While it’s great that those books are out there for the readers who missed them the first time around, how I would have loved to give them a make-over, bring them up to date, freshen the writing to reflect twenty years of experience.

Then Amazon gave us KDP and the world changed again. Now I’m not just an author, but a publisher, too.

Last year I dug out the Beaumont Brides trilogy, longer romances written for a British publisher in 1996/7 and gave them a new lease of life. It was a steep learning experience and earlier this year, after re-editing them and giving them to a new “clever clogs” to format them for me, I republished them all, along with a three-in-one volume containing all three books. The first of the individual volumes, Wild Justice, is free, so it will cost you about the same whether you prefer individual downloads or the big one — 300,000 words for $4.99.

Out of the sixty books I have written for Harlequin, just four titles have reverted to me and those are getting that lovely makeover. New covers — oh, the joys and frustration of hunting for the perfect image! — an update, if appropriate, to take note of modern technology, changes in currency in Europe, the fact that the Eurostar no longer leaves London from Waterloo, but St Pancras (I’ve been on it, and it’s fabulous!)

The first of these, Eloping With Emmy, was published this month and will cost you less to download now, at $2.99, than it would have done to buy it as a paperback in 1998 ($3.50). That is a serious bargain.

I’ll be following it with Old Desires in a month or two. The cover is done (here’s a peek), but I can’t get stuck into the serious editing until I have the book I’m writing off my desk. And moved house.

And of course, the icing on the cake, was the chance to put together everything I’ve learned in my twenty year career and pass it on to a new generation of authors in Liz Fielding’s Little Book of Writing Romance.

It’s a new world out there and I am embracing it with both arms.

THE MOVING CHRONICLES IV

See Liz. See Liz smiling…

Today contracts were exchanged with our buyers. Our house is officially sold and we’ll be moving in a little over a month.

Now it’s all about contacting the utilities and insurance companies. Changing addresses on driving licenses – which will mean a photograph for me, since I haven’t got one of the newer photo licences. Letting the removal firm know what’s happening. Arranging broadband.

There is an awful lot to do. It will require a list, but one of those really satisfying ones where you can tick things off. Even as I write this, I’m thinking of new things to add to it.

And, while I’m saying a fond farewell to this garden, there is a new garden to plan. It’s small (perfect), with very little in it apart from grass (again, perfect). We’re moving in the middle of summer which gives us time to get to know our plot, put a design together prepare the ground for the shrubs and trees that will arrive, bare root, in November.

The best beloved has his heart set on fruit. Apples, plums, cherries and soft fruit. Those big red gooseberries, raspberries, strawberries.

We have a stone wall which I see covered with David Austin’s heavenly scented old English rambling roses at the back where it’s high. And maybe a clematis or two. We’re thinking of lavender along the wall at the side of the house in the front, where the wall is lower. Not sure about what to do with the tree. I can’t imagine why anyone would plant what appears to be some kind of dwarfed eucalyptus in front of a house. No blossom, no lovely autumn foliage. With only its bark to commend it, I fear it may be a tree without much of a future.

For now though, I’m only planning a celebratory dinner at our favourite Chinese restaurant.

SECRETS UNCOVERED

Here's something special from Mills and Boon for writers entering the New Voices competition, or just wanting to write for them.

It's a little eBook to download for free containing advice, tips and the inside scoop from editors. You don't need a Kindle - you can download it to your PC. You can also download for your eReader here

You'll find advice from editors, fabulous author Donna Alward and I'm in there, too, talking about using humour and emotion in your romance. What? Are you still here? Go download!

cafe du jour

Today I'm celebrating the Kindle publication of CAFE DU JOUR, a book that I featured on my blog a couple of years ago. It was originally published by Mira's Australian office and the paper version didn't make it to the US or UK, which considering Lillian hasn't written more than 100 books and has a world-wide fan base, seems a little short-sighted. (I had my copy sent from Australia!)

Now, however, thanks to the wonders of the digital age, Cafe Du Jour is an eBook and you can read wherever you are.

The is from my original blog...




I can't actually remember the first time I met Lilian Darcy.

It was certainly in America. Washington or Denver, at one of those terrific Mills & Boon pizza parties that have become a legendary part of the Wednesday night of the RWA conferences when, after the literacy book signing, colleagues from all over the world gather, usually in Sandra Marton's room, for pizza and gossip.

I do remember her in Denver, though. Harlequin threw a rock n' party with an "Elvis" singer and Lilian grabbed me and said "let's dance" and golly, did we dance!

Today, in Australia, Lilian is launching her "book of the heart", a single title called CAFE DU JOUR, published by MIRA, and I wish, more than anything, that I could be there with her to celebrate its publication, but since that isn't possible, I'm doing the next best thing and having my own personal launch here on my blog.

Here's Lilian herself to tell you about her book: -

There's a lot of good writing in popular women's fiction, actually, which is why it frustrates me that we get so little positive attention in the media. If you're just a regular reader who reads whatever she wants to and browses a whole variety of racks in the bookstore you may not realise this, but there's a huge gulf between literary fiction writers and popular fiction writers, and I really wish it wasn't there. I think there's a fertile middle ground where the two groups could connect and learn from each other and in the process produce books that give the warm, powerful and pacy stories that romance readers love as well as the richness of some deeper themes and observations that we sometimes don't have space for in romance.

In celebration of this middle ground, and of bridging the gap between literary and popular fiction, I'm thrilled that my upcoming novel "Café du Jour" is going to be launched by one of Australia's best-known literary fiction writers, Roger McDonald. He won the Miles Franklin Award in 2006 for his novel "The Ballad of Desmond Kale" which is full of his usual rich, tumbling language and cavalcade of characters that somehow manage to be exotic yet quintessenetially Australian at the same time. (Hm. I suppose Australian *is* exotic to many people!)

"Café du Jour" itself falls into the middle ground between popular and literary fiction, I think, with its mix of sadness and quirkiness, happy endings and unfinished journeys. It was originally slated for publication by another publisher and was given to Roger for editing. His valuable insights provided the basis for the next draft, but then the publisher closed up the imprint and the book went homeless for years. Several more major drafts later, it is finally coming out, and because of its long incubation it is a book that remains particularly close to my heart, and is different in many ways from anything I've published before.

On that note - being different - I'd like to challenge all of Liz's blog readers to try something different in your reading this month. Yes, we all love to turn to our favourite authors for time out or stress relief or guilty pleasure or inspiration, but there are so many writers out there whom we don't take the time to discover. If you're up for a reading adventure, go into a bookstore and try something new. Choose a book on the strength of a cover that grabs you by the collar as soon as you look at it, or on the strength of the author's unusual name. Choose a book because you've never bought one from that rack before, or pick a random colour and buy the first book of that colour that you see. Close your eyes and just reach out to the shelf. Okay, I'll let you have a few trial runs at this. You're allowed to read the back cover blurb or the first page and put it back if it sounds really awful!

Yes, there are some really awful books out there. They're scattered all over the bookstore, masquerading behind great covers, famous names, rave reviews. And the books that I might think are awful, you might think are great. Ultimately, the thing I most want to celebrate is that, whether we're writers or readers, there is room for all of us.

...

Amen to that, Lillian!

BLOG PARTY - THE RECOVERY!

Good morning!  How are you all feeling!

I don't know about you but I need a long glass of orange juice to pick me up after a week of partying.

There's still some fun to be had - and the butlers are all still on hand to cater to your every whim, so do keep them busy!

Meanwhile, I'll say a huge thank to all the friends who dropped by to help me celebrate this week.  You have all been stars.

And here is a round up of all books winners - including the last two days, so if you haven't got in touch with addresses and so forth, well, call up one of the butlers and get them to send an email now.  (They all take dictation very well!)

Here's the list -

Nicola Marsh - Morton
Jessica Hart - Roz and Sheree
Anna Campbell - Nell, Jenny Swartz and Jane O'Reilly
Kate Walker - Tammy and Raven
Lesley Cookman - Tammy and Nas
Ally Blake - Helen
Sophie Page - Alexandra
Christine Stovell - Teresa Morgan
Nell Dixon - ChrisCross
Donna Alward - Stevie
Jan Jones - Michele L
Phillipa - Wendy McD
Kate Hardy - Stevie
Soraya Lane - Helen

You can send your details to me at liz at lizfielding dot com and I'll pass them on to the lovely authors who donated these door prizes.

Now, a party to celebrate my career wouldn't be a party without a prize from the host.  So, what will it be?

One of my books, I think for everyone who visited me this week, including the authors.  (Tough on Kate Hardy, who has read them all, but I will think of something...)

leave a note in the comment column saying which one you'd like (and whether paper or eBook) and I'll try and sort you out a copy  I don't have spares of some of the early books, although quite a few are available now as eBooks - with more on the way very shortly.

In the meantime, while you tuck into breakfast, I'll introduce the hero of my 60th book, FLIRTING WITH ITALIAN - Matteo di Serrone, who is discovering that a cool English rose can be more of a handful than he bargained for.

Here's a little taster...

‘Out.  Now,’ he said.

     Sarah looked back helplessly at the mess, but he headed for the door and she barely had time to scoop up her bag and cardigan before they were through it and heading down the stairs.    

     ‘Where are we going?’ she gasped, as they burst into the warm evening and, as if coming to his senses, he finally let her go.  Pushed his hands deep into his pockets.

     ‘Anywhere.  Nowhere.  Just out.’  He glanced at her as they headed down the cobbled hill.  ‘Did I hurt you?’

     ‘No.’

     He stopped, looked at her.

     ‘No,’ she repeated, with a gesture that was pure Roman.  ‘I’m not being “nice”, Matteo,’ she said, walking on, leaving him to follow.                                

    ‘I believe you,’ he said, falling in beside her.  ‘Nice girls don’t kiss like that.’  He rubbed at his lower lip.  Smiled a touch ruefully.  ‘You bit me.’

     She’d bitten him?

    He was right.  She didn’t kiss like that.  At least she hadn’t until now.  But then she’d never felt like that.  Been so completely out of control.  

     ‘Do you expect me to apologise?’ she asked.

     ‘I wasn’t complaining.’  He glanced at her.  ‘Do you want me to?’

     ‘Complain?’ she said, choosing to misunderstand. 

     ‘Apologise.’

     Her turn to stop.  ‘No, Matteo.’  She was free, unencumbered by any responsibilities except to herself.  ‘I don’t want anything from you that you can’t give me naked.’

     ‘Let’s go back…’

     ‘I want a lover,’ she said.  ‘A man who will make memories to keep me warm when I’m old.  Memories that will shock my grandchildren.  Make me smile when I’m dying.’

     ‘We should definitely go back…’

     She was trying to be cool, but he had this way of getting beneath her skin and she was fighting a losing battle against a smile.  Who wouldn’t want a man who couldn’t trust himself alone in a room with her? 

     Any woman would smile.

     ‘No, you’re fine,’ she said.  ‘You’ve already passed the physical-’

     He practically choked.                                   

     ‘You are outrageous.’

     ‘Am I?’  He was right, she was.  Tom would not have recognised her.  She scarcely recognised herself.  ‘It’s your bad influence.  You are turning me into a diva.’

     ‘I admit only to liberating the diva within.  A role you appear to have taken to with genuine enthusiasm.’

     She looked at him sideways from beneath her lashes.  ‘If I’m shocking you, you can withdraw at any time.’ 

     ‘That, amore mio, is an offer you may live to regret,’ he said, not bothering to hide his amusement as she blushed.

     A woman, a diva, interviewing a potential lover did not blush.

Does November seem a long way off?  It'll be here before we know it and I have book # 61 to write before then.  

In the meantime, if you haven't yet downloaded a copy of WILD JUSTICE, it's free, for a very short while, at Amazon.  There's a link on the sidebar.

Thanks, all of you for being such fun this week.  It's been a blast.  And before you go - don't forget to tell me what book you'd like!

THE TEMP & THE TYCOON

"Bestselling romance titles include a number from British publishers such as Mills & Boon whose 'The Temp and the Tycoon' is one of the most downloaded Romance novels to date."  Daily Telegraph, 5 March 2011

Writing in the DAILY TELEGRAPH on Saturday, Richard Alleyne reported a boom for Mills and Boon in the eReader market. Clearly, Mr Alleyne isn't a romance reader since he suggests that this is because women are less embarrassed to read romance in public when they can do it undetected.

Actually, it's because romance readers (and publishers) have been ahead of this game from day one.  These are women who read A Lot. Who are not embarrassed by the covers.  Who don't feel the need to apologise for their taste.

The rush to buy eReaders was not from geeky lads and ladettes wanting the latest kit. It was led by women - many of them well past the ladette stage of life - who like the fact that they can buy books without having to leave the house.  Their computer.  They talk to one another on line, on twitter, on facebook and buy the books their friends recommend.  Instantly.

The alternative for me these days is a thirty mile round trip to my nearest proper bookshop and bookshops are not a romance friendly zone.

My nearest bookshop does not stock my books.  In fact I was once told by a "friendly independent bookseller" to whom I had just been introduced as an romance writer that she only sold "real books".  She was actually smiling as she said it.  As if I should somehow think she was clever, when in fact she was being about as rude as it was possible to be.  I was a very newly published author, too stunned to say anything, but I did better than that.  I took my friendly bookbuying ass online where, as well as romance, I buy an awful lot of "real books".  Her loss.

Mr Alleyne also mentioned that The Temp & the Tycoon, a book published in the Mills & Boon Centenary Collection, is one of the most downloaded books in the romance genre at Amazon UK

You can read the first chapter HERE

THE TEMP & THE TYCOON was published in the US in a two-in-one called STRICTLY BUSINESS.

eBOOK BACKLIST

I've finally run down a link my eBook backlist on eHarlequin. Lots and lots of older books that haven't been in print for a while, including Upper Haughton favourites like THE BACHELOR'S BABY, the appearance of Hector, the Trojan Hamster, in THE BILLIONAIRE TAKES A BRIDE and the chocolate addicted Dodie, in THE BRIDESMAID'S REWARD.

Here's a link I'm keeping my fingers crossed that it works - it's being temperamental. If it doesn't work, go to the eBook store, type Liz Fielding in the search box and that should do it. Fingers crossed.

The link for Mobi and hand held computer versions is here

And for Sony here

DO YOU DOWNLOAD?

People have been doing it for years with music, even with films, but in the last twelve months there has been a huge increase in downloading books to read straight from the computer, or one of the new eBooks on the market.

How do I know this – apart from Jeff Bezos telling me so?

I’ve just received my half yearly royalty statement which lays out in black and white not just how many copies of my books have been sold, but where and how. Anthologies (that’s when there is more than one book in a volume); reprints; manga cartoon strip editions and “chunking” – downloading a chapter at time to your phone -- in Japan; translations everywhere from Indonesia to Finland.

The newest way to buy a book is straight off the internet and while a year ago the downloads were a matter of hundreds, now they are in their thousands. Mirroring the way internet sales of books took off a few years back.

Okay, words on a screen can never replace the joy of bookshop browsing – where you discover and buy authors you’ve never heard of.

It mystifies me why some independent book stores are so snooty about stocking romance. Romance readers have to be the biggest book buyers on the planet and while they’re getting their fix of their favourite series romance they pick up books for their kids, cookery and craft books, books for presents for friends and family – because when you love to read, you want to share the joy, right?

But there are moments when you just can’t wait for the latest book by your favourite author. Now you don’t have to. You just go to the Harlequin or Mills and Boon websites, or any of the on-line bookstores, download it and you can be reading it within minutes. No trip to the store, no postage. The pure joy of instant gratification.

The really terrific thing about eBooks for Harlequin/Mills & Boon authors – and readers – is that the books don’t disappear after a couple of weeks. The online book stores have done a great job lengthening the time that series books are available – but the postage is a killer unless you’re multiple buying and once their stocks have gone that’s it. With a download, however, it’s there forever and even if you want to buy just one book, there’s no postage.

So there it is. Instant gratification, no postage, saving the planet – it takes a lot of trees, power and water to make paper – and for those of us (that’s all of us, right ) who haven’t got an inch left to spare on their bookshelves, no storage problems.

And there’s one last great bonus if you’ve missed a book by one of your favourite authors. You can actually go here, click on Enjoy Effortless Entertainment 2 and put in a request for a backlist book by a favourite author to be re-issued as an eBook. Or simply email ebookrequests @ harlequin.ca -- without the gaps, natch. How great is that!

In the meantime, since you're here and presumably interested in my books, here are all the Liz Fielding titles presently available as eBook downloads –

At eHarlequin --

The Valentine Bride
The Secret Life of Lady Gabriella
Reunited: Marriage in a Million
The Sheikh’s Unsuitable Bride
The Bride’s Baby (free at http://www.harlequincelebrates.com as well as Amazon for the Kindle and Sony for the Sony eReader)
Wedded in a Whirlwind
Secret Baby, Surprise Parents
The Secret Wedding

At Mills & Boon --

Wedded in a Whirlwind
Secret Baby, Surprise Parents
The Temp & the Tycoon