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| Venue and reason for my murderous gathering... |
A gathering of assorted people intent on murder, in the spooky, beautiful old Lit and Phil library, on a wet snowy night - it could have been the start of a Golden Age crime novel, and who knows, several novels and stories may emerge from the twenty writers who attended my ‘Time for Crime’ Workshop as part of Newcastle Noir crime fiction festival. The old massively-carved tables had been arranged in a long line, as if some League of Assassins were expected. Some attendees had dabbled in crime fiction, and others were hesitating on the brink of villainy, as I assigned writing exercises to produce Chandleresque 'first lines' to grab the reader by the throat, then others to help create villains and to evolve detective protagonists who might become as famous as Vera, Lord Peter Wimsey or Jack Reacher. I was not slow to remind them of one of the joys of crime writing, revenge on school bullies, cheating exes and abusive bosses. 'Favourite tip tonight, "Murder them horribly"' posted one happy workshoppee on facebook later, one who may need to be silenced... mwahahahaha!
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| My most recent crime novel, sadistic surgeons get the scalpel |
My mob-handed turnout brings me to money. Money for murder, in the form of books and event tickets. The things people are willing to pay for, and not. The amount people are willing to pay, and unwilling. A short while before the workshop, the librarian in charge told me the bookings were high, up to 16, and should they stop there? I answered airily, 'Oh no, if it rains some of them will stay at home, so take a few more.' As it turned out, all 19 who’d booked and paid turned up, plus an extra one, despite the awful wet snow pelting down (yes, in April). Was this my famed brilliance as writer and tutor, or the fact they’d shelled out for their tickets in advance? Or both perhaps.
It’s a well-known phenomenon among
performers and poets and the like that if tickets are free, some people who’ve booked may change their minds if it’s raining, they’ve got home from work and settled down in front of a warm telly. If you charge say, £3 or even £2 each, that number goes down. Once the public have coughed up a tenner, they may well venture forth even if the flooded streets are teeming with escaped killer sharks.
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| Mmm, posh drinks... now to find a free ebook... |
Yes these are hard times dosh-wise, but it seems expensive cocktails, often the price of a paperback novel, and posh coffees in coffee shops, are happily paid for despite their ephemeral existence and ease of home-making, yet book prices cause a kind of tetanus of the wallet. There is much discussion among writers about how much to charge for books, especially ebooks. We as readers are so spoiled by ‘free!’ Kindle books, or 99p/99c offers, we rear like startled yearlings when we see a fiver or so. My local book group, when choosing next month’s book, always check that it’s available on Kindle as most of us prefer that – and if it’s expensive, there’s a shocked gasp and a chorus of ‘let’s not bother’. Anything over £4.99 has to look pretty damn good. And sometimes ebooks are overpriced. We looked up ‘Circling the Sun', a fictionalised account of the life of exotic aviatrix Beryl Markham, and found the Kindle version is £9.99, £2 dearer than the paperback – odd, since the overheads for each are so madly different. We then found and chose Beryl’s 1942 autobiography '
West With The Night' which is cheaper and in her actual voice, and though still a tad pricey, must have had to be scanned in page by page and converted to Word with much editing before being Kindled.
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| An amazing woman, who wouldn't worry about the price of a cocktail or indeed, a cockpit |
How about you, do you count the cost of Kindle books? How much are you willing to pay for a paperback or an ebook, compared with a coffee or cocktail? Not that I can hang about here chatting, I've just read that Lauren Henderson's first crime novel '
Dead White Female' is free this weekend, having gone newly into Kindle format, so I'm off to bag one, having loved her sexy, witty series when it first came out.
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Free this weekend on Kindle
Find out more about my doings on valerielaws.com (books, art installations etc)
Some of my thirteen books, including crime novels, are now on Kindle UK US, iBooks UK US, Kobo, Nook and more, on all platforms worldwide.
Follow me on Twitter @ValerieLaws or find me on facebook
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Comments
I can even imagine the unleashing of Killer Sharks upon those streets and alleys.
It's harder to imagine a scenario though, where readers (or perhaps any other "consumers") don't want to part with the least pennies possible...unless that is they've been successfully hooked and reeled in by some free or cheap content upfront. (Library books being the "first taste" a reader might try of a new author in Ye Olden Days...)
That £4.99 pricetag looks interesting, I've never priced anything that high...yet...
Thanks Val!