The awesomeness that is The Secret

Since I've been suffering eye strain lately, I've been investigating e-readers. Only the el cheapo Chinese variety are readily available in SA, the one I want (Nook) is not available in SA& downloads from B&N are impossible, and the Sony has got quite a bit of bad press. So I sort of settled on a Kindle. I never really gave much thought to how I was going to pay for it, I just knew I wanted one.

Then this week I checked my royalty statement from TWRP and did a double take. I emailed them a query on why my Kindle royalties are calculated on $3, when the book is listed on Amazon as $5. I got a very nice reply from them yesterday explaining that they regularly get this complaint from Non-US authors. Apparently Amazon loads a surcharge for buyers outside the US. Neither the publisher nor author sees a cent of this!

 Grrr to the Amazon monopoly and the fact that they restrict you to buying from them (though I gather there are ways around this). So I fired back an email saying "thanks, but that just put the nail in the coffin. I won't buy a Kindle and support Amazon if they're going to charge me extra for every purchase".

Last night at dinner with my writing group, and again at work this morning, I spouted off about the evils of Amazon and how I plan to boycott them.

Then at lunch time, as I headed out to fetch the kids from school, I bumped into my director in the car park. He has just arrived back from a holiday in New York. I said "thanks for the gift" - meaning the miniature statue of the Empire State Building I found on my desk this morning - and he says "no, that's not your real gift" and hands me a Kindle.

I'm in love! Not with my director, of course, but with my shiny new e-reader. (Though Dean is definitely a super special person for being so generous).

And this is how The Secret works. You put out the intention, you don't think too much about it ... and voila.
One e-reader and one ecstatically happy Romy.