What is Read an E-Book Week?

Well, it's Read an E-Book Week again. In case you didn't know, this is an annual week-long event, spearheaded by Smashwords. It aims to encourage people who mostly read print books to embrace e-books, and to encourage people who don't read at all to read books in general.

The event has a long history, having been started twelve years ago (yip, way back in 2005; bet you didn't know e-books existed back then!), although Smashwords' own participation only started in 2010.

During this week, Smashwords invites their authors and publishers to offer their books at promotional prices ranging from 100% off (i.e. free) to 75% off.

Most authors (including myself) participate every year, and this year is no exception. It's a great opportunity for readers to discover new books really cheaply, and a great way for authors to get noticed.

You can view their full catalogue of books on promotion at https://www.smashwords.com/books/category/1/newest/1.

This year, two of my books are on promotion. Click these links to get either A Petition to Magic or Stingers at 25% off.

Borrowing Books from the Gauteng E-Library

On the fourth of February, I set foot in the Alberton public library, the first time I'd been in a library since I was in Primary School.

"But Graham," I hear you say, "I thought you only read e-books these days."

True, but I needed a library card. You see, I'd heard of this new initiative by the Gauteng Public Libraries department. In partnership with OverDrive, they allow members to borrow e-books and audiobooks from their collection.

Since I hadn't had a library card since I was a kid, I thought it was high time I applied for one.

The process was very smooth, with no waiting period. I walked out of there on the same day, with a shiny new library card.

Although I got my card immediately, it took a good three weeks for it to become active on the e-library website, but eventually it worked. I only signed in for the first time last Thursday, but it's super cool!

If you'd like to give it a try (it's free), follow these steps:

1. Visit the Gauteng E-Library website at https://gauteng.overdrive.com/
2. If you see a red bar at the bottom, asking if you want to try the new OverDrive library, click it. You'll see something similar to the screenshot above.
3. Scroll down to the bottom of the page, and under "My Account", click "Sign in"
4. Enter your library card number, and click "Sign In"

A couple of caveats:

• If you have an old library card (obtained more than about a year ago), it may not work. You'll have to go into your library, and apply for a new one.
• Also, if you've only recently acquired your card, be patient. Mine was active on the site after about three weeks, but they say it can take up to a month.

If you're not in Gauteng, or even in South Africa, it's still worth doing some research to find out if your local library has a similar offering. Chances are, it does.

Please Help by Recommending My Books

When you search the site for books, you get two sets of search results. The first set are books that are in the library's collection. If they're available to borrow, click "Borrow" to check them out. If they're already out, you can place a "Hold" on them, and the library will let you know when they're back.

The second set of results are books that aren't in your library's collection, but are available for the library to order from OverDrive. At the time of this writing, my books fall into that category, so if you search for "Graham Downs", you'll see the following:

Click the "See All" link on the right, above my covers.

You'll be taken to the full list of my books available on OverDrive. Hover over each one in turn and click "Recommend". Then enter your e-mail address and click "Recommend this Title", and the library will send you an e-mail when that book is available.

I'd really like to persuade the library to buy copies of my e-books, and I have a feeling the more people who recommend it, the better the chances are of that happening. So please help.

Happy Readers

About a month ago, I posted on my Facebook page about a Free International Shipping deal on my print books.

One of my fans took me up on that offer and bought a couple of my books. As it happens, she bought two of each of my colouring books, and two of my fiction books. She also promised to send me pictures when she received them.

Well, yesterday was the day, and these pics arrived in my e-mail Inbox:

She said her girls loved their colouring books... and aren't they the cutest little girls you've ever seen? (Mom's not bad looking either, but dad might have a thing or two to say if he knows I said that.)

I must admit, I was having a bit of a bad day at work, but receiving these pics put a smile on my face that nothing's been able to wipe off.

If you've read any of my books, please let me know - pics are appreciated, but not necessary. Make an author's day; you have no idea how much seeing feedback from readers means to me!

Igloos in the Summer by Kieran Jamie Lee (Book Review)

About the Book

The blurb, the blurb is not to be mistaken in the lack of informative souls. What was the once famous saying? ‘Never judge a book by its cover’ what are you doing right now? Why did you divert your eyes to the swannings of the River Tyne, was it something different, something unique, or something more powerful than ever with a touch of home?

My Review (3 / 5 Stars)

First impression? The author is very brave. This story just has that deeply authentic feel to it: I'm sure there's more than an element of truth in here!

It's billed as a romance, but it's properly a modern day tragedy, in the vein of some of Shakespeare's greatest works.

The story follows our hero, Rupert. Nothing ever seems to go right for poor Rupert. He loses his best friend, everybody around him keeps dying, and he struggles with self-harm. Okay, I made that sound quite comedic... although there's some humour in this book, it's not really meant to be a funny story at all. It's meant to be a gut-wrenching, depressing journey, and it certainly succeeds in that. Even me, a big strong man, felt tears welling up in my eyes more than once.

It's written in a very (very) contemporary British style, and there's lots of slang that I had to read a few times to figure out. That in itself is not a problem - it's actually quite charming, but overall the writing's in serious need of some copy-editing. There are lots of incorrectly used words, missing words, duplicate words, and punctuation problems.

I'm not sure I'd recommend this book, as such, because it is so depressing and out of the ordinary for modern readers, but it will definitely touch you deeply. If you've been looking for something different, and love Shakespeare's tragedies, give it a go.

Click here to find out all the places where you can buy the book.

What Does the Big Mac Index Have to do with E-Books?

If you don't know, the Big Mac Index is an attempt by some pretty smart economists to come up with a realistic estimate of purchasing parity, that you can't get by looking at official currency exchange rates.

In a nutshell, it compares the average price of a McDonald's Big Mac burger (which is available in pretty much every country in the world) in different countries, and uses that to try and figure out how much each currency is worth. If you know how many Big Macs you can buy with $1 in the United States, and how many Big Macs you can buy with R1 in South Africa, you in theory know how much your Rand is really worth in America.

According to official currency exchange rates, the dollar is worth just less than R14 in South Africa, but I recently read an article, saying that according the Big Mac Index, it should be worth more like R5.

That got me thinking: because of the nature of indie publishing, the base price of all my books tends to be in US Dollars, but when you convert that to Rands, it makes those books very expensive. And since I am, in fact, a South African author, that's not fair. So I decided to do something about that.

Out of all the stores where my books are available, only two of them allow me to directly set the price in South African Rands. I went and worked out what the Dollar price would be in Rands, if I used the Big Mac Index, and of course it's significantly lower than it would be if you used the official exchange rate.

Take a look for yourself, if you're in South Africa. Click each link below, then scroll down and click "See Stores" to see the list of stores where each book is available. Then click either Kobo or Google Play (the only two stores which allow me to directly set the price in Rands). Pretty cheap, huh?

• A Petition to Magic
• Heritage of Deceit
• Stingers
• Heaven and Earth: Paranormal Flash Fiction
• Tales from Virdura

I didn't just do it for South Africa, of course, so if you're in any other country besides the United States, you should notice the lower prices too. You just need to click on a store that has an official presence in your country.

So what this means in practice is that, on Kobo or Google Play, all books except Stingers cost only R9.99 (Stingers costs R10.59).

Stingers Will Be a High School Set Work

I have some news that I've been bursting to share. I've been holding back for a few months now, because it hasn't been confirmed yet.

Now, I can finally talk about it.

I am ecstatic to announce that my book, Stingers, is going to be a set work for the Grade 9 English class at Bracken High School in Alberton, South Africa, next term!

To have something I wrote studied, interpreted, and picked apart by students is the most exciting thing that's ever happened to my writing career. It's scary too, to be honest, and I hope I get to hear what the kids thought.

Let me explain briefly how this came about. My brother's girlfriend is a teacher at the school, and she read Stingers as an e-book around the end of 2015. She absolutely loved it, and immediately ordered a print copy for their school library.

Since then, she's strong-armed most of the faculty at the school into reading it, and they've all been very impressed. So last year, when it came time for them to choose set works for 2017, one of their choices was Stingers.

Apparently, the education department has a requirement that all South African schools focus more on books by South African authors and, well, I'm a South African author, and I was top of mind.

Besides, Stingers is about what happens when High School bullying goes too far, and what could be more relevant? In fact, it fits well with the subjects of both English and Life Orientation (both of which are required subjects in Grade 9).

I'll definitely post more when they start next term, and I hopefully get to find out how it's going.

Book Review: What Fears Become (An Anthology from The Horror Zine)

About the Book

From classic horror and pure suspense to Twilight-Zone-style dark fantasy, WHAT FEARS BECOME relentlessly explores our basic fears and leaves you with twisted endings that will make your skin crawl…

This spine-tingling, international anthology contains contributions from the critically acclaimed online horror magazine, The Horror Zine, and features bestselling authors such as Bentley Little, Graham Masterton, Ramsey Campbell, Joe R. Lansdale, Elizabeth Massie, Ronald Malfi, Cheryl Kaye Tardif, Melanie Tem, Scott Nicholson, Piers Anthony, Conrad Williams, and many more.

Edited by Jeani Rector of The Horror Zine and featuring a foreword by award-winning, bestselling author Simon Clark, it also contains deliciously dark delights from morbidly creative writers, poets and artists who have not yet made it big―but will very soon.

Come and discover…

WHAT FEARS BECOME

My Review (3 / 5 stars)

Like most anthologies, this one's a bit of a mixed bag.

Some of the stories were scary as hell (I especially remember the one about the Ouija board). Others, I didn't find particularly scary, but I thought the stories were excellent, just the same. I think they weren't scary for me because I'm so desensitised to horror; I'm sure many of them would give other readers nightmares.

Still other stories - there are LOTS to choose from in this collection - were kind of... "meh". I remember commenting to my wife that, strangely, most of the stories I didn't quite like were from highly prolific, multi-award winning authors. That made me think that the big dinosaurs have had their day, and it's time for young blood in horror fiction.

The artwork is both scattered throughout the stories themselves, and contained in an entire section all of their own. And some of it is spectacular!

On to the poetry. Hmm.... Well, let me say, that I just don't "get" poetry. I read a few of them, but I only really enjoyed the ones that rhymed. And not all of those, either. After that, I skipped to the end of that section. I DID try, but I don't think I'm equipped to appreciate all the nuances, and I don't understand the rules. So my impression of the poems in this anthology hasn't factored into my rating; it just wouldn't be fair. Still, if you love the art form, you'll probably appreciate at least some of them.

The stories, though, are all well edited, and lovingly collected. If you like horror, and you like short stories, I'd say pick it up. The stories you do enjoy will probably outweigh the ones you don't.

Click here for a list of places you can buy the book.