The Book Depository (dot com)

EReaders are growing in popularity around the world. The big question might be, is this because people prefer to read on them, or because they live out of Amazon.com's delivery area? I'm sure the answer is: some of both.

If you live outside of the USA and prefer to read paper books in the English language, I'd like to introduce you to The Book Depository, a company in the United Kingdom with over 8,000,000 titles available. The best part? Even one book qualifies for free shipping to over 100 countries.

How does The Book Depository work?

1. They deal in physical books only, leaving ebooks to other retailers.

2. Founded in 2004, their motto is to make "All Books available to All."

3. They are Europe's fastest growing bookseller with over 1,000,000 customers and an impeccable reputation.

4. They provide an affiliate program.

I emailed Andy at TBD and asked him how big their warehouse is!

Andy: We don’t physically hold that many books but we have a fantastic supplier network with fast delivery times from them to our warehouse, so we can get books from many different suppliers into our warehouse and then out to the customer very quickly.

I also asked him if they carried selfpublished books.

Andy: We work via distributors and wholesalers so provided the book is held in stock by one of our existing supply partners then we can list and sell those books on our website. We do list POD titles produced by Ingram POD and Lightning Source International.

That clarified a couple of points!

A fellow ICFW member, Grace Bridges, who hails from New Zealand, first told me of this site. I began to use it when Rainbow's End released in May, 2012. Many bloggers and reviewers have come to expect book giveaways, and I know I enjoy them, too. But living in Canada, I don't have access to the same cheap media rates experienced by authors in the USA, mailing books to American addresses.

I have two choices. I can take a book from my stash (one I've paid for, albeit at a discount, or from the limited number provided by my publisher) and pay the postage, or I can buy a book at retail from TBD and NOT pay postage. (Bonus? When Rainbow's End released, TBD had it listed for $6.39 CDN instead of the $8.39 on amazon.ca!)The cost to me, then, is roughly the same, except that going through TBD means I still have that book copy in my stash, available for someone local where postage isn't necessary at all. No longer do I need to limit giveaways to the USA and/or Canada. The cost is the same no matter where.

Win/win? I say "yes!"

Just for fun, let's give it a test drive. If you live in any one of the 100 countries TBD ships to free of charge, comment for a chance to win a copy of Rainbow's End. Share a frustration or story about book shipment, or just toss your email address in the hat before Tuesday, February 12, replacing @ with (at) and .com with (dot) com.

"Void where prohibited; the odds of winning depend on the number of entrants. Entering the giveaway is considered a confirmation of eligibility on behalf of the enterer in accord with these rules and any pertaining local/federal/international laws."

About Rainbow's End: Join a geocaching adventure in the spectacular Lake of the Ozarks wilderness, with Lyssa, the reluctant volunteer whose former nemesis is now her chief sponsor; Madison, a city girl paired with an outdoorsy guy who gets on her very last nerve; Hadley, who doesn’t know enough about guys to realize she’s met a womanizer; and cautious Reagan, who meets an equally cautious guy. Will they find the treasure they’re looking for … or something else entirely?

Valerie Comer's life on a small farm in western Canada provides the seed for stories of contemporary inspirational romance. Like many of her characters, Valerie and her family grow much of their own food and are active in the local food movement as well as their creation-care-centric church. She only hopes her creations enjoy their happily ever afters as much as she does hers, shared with her husband, adult kids, and adorable granddaughters.

Her first published work, a novella, was released in the collection Rainbow's End from Barbour Books in May 2012. Visit her website and blog to glimpse inside her world.

Hidden Treasure

50 000 words into my novel, I ran out of ideas. How was I ever going to find a way for my heroine and hero to get out of their dilemma? Was there even a resolution to the situation? My novel languished in my laptop files as I wondered what would happen next in the storyline.

Then I read a blog post by Laurie Schnebly about Plotting via Motivation. I signed up for her next workshop and planned to take Gina and Riaan, my lead characters, with me. Perhaps I could find a way to finish my story.

Laurie suggested that I use a new "just for practice" story idea to learn her plotting method. Afterwards I could go back to Gina and Riaan’s story and apply the tools I learnt during the workshop. So my characters headed back to the laptop and I cast round for new ideas.

The new "just for practice" story idea was easy to find. My friend Amy and I had discovered a new hobby—geocaching. This a quest to hide and seek treasure outdoors in weatherproof containers called geocaches. The geographical co-ordinates of the geocaches are posted on www.geocaching.com and treasure seekers download them onto a GPS (global positioning systems) device to find the treasure. However the co-ordinates do not always lead to the exact spot so once you are in the area you have to search and find the geocache. Often it is camouflaged to blend with the environment eg a nut on a pole may actually be a little magnetic container. Another friend circled the area of a geocache for quite a while before she found it—it was fashioned to look like doggie poop! The owner of a geocache will often include a clue on the website to help seekers find the container.

Geocaches may contain little trinkets or other items which can be taken if replaced with an item of similar value.

So I decided to name my new character Abigail and to send her geocaching. It was great fun to use settings Amy and I experienced as we learned how to find geocaches. Our first attempt was unsuccessful as a high wall interfered with our GPS reading, but a second attempt uncovered the geocache in the photo below.

One of our first finds

We laughed in amazement as Amy’s GPS found hundreds of satellites to navigate by, until we realized it was actually recording the number of seconds that it had searched for satellites!

In a busy parking lot I didn’t want passers-by to see me retrieve a geocache, so I pretended to have a long conversation on my cell phone as an excuse to loiter without attacting attention. Several car thefts had occurred in the vicinity and we realized we looked somewhat suspicious as we hunted among the cars. Immediately a scene sprang to mind in which Abigail was taken in for questioning by a security guard in a parking area and had a hard time convincing him that she was not planning to commit a crime.

One of my favorite finds was in a nature reserve when Amy and I took a detour from a bird walk. This is where the hero came into being—he was a bird photographer and none too happy to find Abigail in the way as he tried to capture a shot of a rare bird. Abigail of course was frustrated as she couldn’t retrieve the geocache until the photographer left.

On another occasion Amy’s sandal strap broke. We ended up in a shoe-shop so that she could buy a new pair of sandals. Aha, Abigail's strap could also break, but she could injure her foot and the only person nearby to come to the rescue would, of course, be the photographer.

With further real-life geocaching adventures and Laurie’s enthusiastic comments and encouragement, my “just-for-practice” story grew. A twist developed when Abigail inadvertently left a small family heirloom in a geocache. When she realized what had happened, she went back to recover it, only to find it was no longer there. As she searched for her lost trinket, she discovered a more important and unexpected treasure in her relationship with God.

Today my geocaching skills are much improved, my “just-for-practice” story is an outline for a new novel, and I have the tools to rescue Riaan and Gina and complete their story.

If the idea of geocaching interests you, you’ll enjoy this post by fellow ICFW blogger Valerie Comer and her novella in the Rainbow’s End anthology.

And if you have any interesting or funny geocaching experiences, I would love to read about them in the comments section below.