Has anyone from the US or other countries bought books from blackwells? And if so, how did your order go? I'm curious what the customer service, shipping time, and packaging are like. I'm interested in buying the uk covers for T. Kingfishers "Saint of Steel" series but I can't find many people talking about their experience with the company more recently. Their prices seem really really good and they dont apply tarrifs on orders to the US on top of them already having free shipping. I can't tell if this would be a to good to be true scenario or if its just a really good site for alternate covers. And if anyone has any suggestions on other places to get uk books I'm all ears!

Before you come at me, I know this isn’t exactly the best place to ask this but I really don’t know where else to. I know that a lot of readers are also writers/authors. I’ve been wanting to actually get back into writing for a while now but I don’t want to use Google Docs. I’ve seen too many posts saying that they use the data to train ai so I’d rather be safe than sorry. So if there’s any writers reading this: what website/app do you use? (Preferably only free sites/apps)

Edit: Thank you so much for all the suggestions 🙏

One thing which annoys me greatly with some e-books is that they add previews, recommendations and other stuff to the end of it, which around me is known as adding a rat tail.

The reason this annoys me is that it falsifies the percentage read in the books. Sometimes more than a third of the book is a rat tail. I prefer to finish books by percentage read in times I have a hard time reading (so I can stick with one book a day at least).

Is this a common thing in e-books, or am I just unlucky with the Star Wars and RPG related books? Right now I have a Star Wars books which supposedly has 439 pages but in reality it will probably be a little more than 250.

I feel like every reader I talk to has a different definition of “cozy”! 😂 I think about the discussion of The Spellshop and how some people got stressed out because the stakes went up… or how since it included political and societal collapse it’s NOT cozy at all. I’ve even heard it to describe books like The Adventures of Amina al-Sirafi and others I would NOT define as cozy at all.

I wonder if some people mean “whimsical,” or others mean “low-stakes,” and still others mean “fun.”

At this point I’m not sure how I would define “cozy” 😂 Help me out here! What is “cozy?”

I’m really trying to get into romance but I’m having so much trouble. I want something serious, not too tragic but a little tragic wouldn’t hurt! The romance doesn’t even have to be the main point of the book really, I do enjoy a slow burn. I’m okay with series and stand alones. Thanks so much in advance 🥲

How far ahead do you plan your next reads?

I didn’t use to do this and choose my next book only when I’m done with my current one. But bc of readalongs here and buddy reads and BOTMs in some Discord servers, I have March planned in advance even before it was February.

Before now it didn’t quite click that I already had my next five reads planned and… I’m not sure I like it.

What about you? And bonus question: How many books in advance do you think is reasonable to plan ahead?

I am doing a project for a creative writing class and I'm looking for recommendations for craft books, specifically on fiction (preferably speculative fiction if possible). I checked some of the lists on here, but I didn't see any that really caught my attention. I've read Bird by Bird, On Writing, and Refuse to be Done, but I kind of want a craft book more genre-specific (although I am open to other suggestions as well). So if anyone has any craft book recommendations, please let me know!