The “Bruno, Chief of Police” series is set in deepest rural France, and Martin Walker’s love and knowledge of the area shine through. He describes a France populated by real people, trying to maintain their way of life despite a constant battle with the bureaucrats from Brussels attempting to enforce their rules of homogeneity. It’s beautifully written with insights into the changing way of life, the politics, the history, the people.

You’re in charge of the ebook metadata for your ebook store or publisher. I run Luzme, the ebook search site. Why don’t you make it easy for me to put your ebooks in front of readers who want to buy them? Here’s 10 ways you make it hard! (I won’t share the names to protect the guilty, but these are all true examples of metadata mistakes from major-name stores)

I’m going to CrimeFest at the end of May, really looking forward to it. I love reading good international crime fiction and this has a great lineup. I’m going to feature a few of the attending authors, and say just why I like them. So here goes with the first… Quentin Bates is a new discovery for me. I’ve just finished “Frozen Out”, a series set in Iceland. I visited Iceland once and found it a fascinating country.

I’ve just uploaded a new release to the Luzme website (v4.3.0). What’s New? Watch Author for new books If you want to know when your favourite author is releasing a new book, just add them to your AuthorAlert list. We'll tell you about their new releases. Add next book in series to your Watchlist Now, when you remove a book from your Watchlist, you can choose to add the next one in the series.

I’ve been invited to take part in the next Digital Publishing Forum organised by the Publishers Association in London, 30th January 2013. I’m on the “New business models for the supply of ebooks” panel, and will be sharing the stage with notables such as Charlie Redmayne from Pottermore. http://www.publishers.org.uk

I’ve just uploaded a new release to the Luzme website (v4.1.0). New: Much faster login time (hopefully you’ve seen the dreaded “Gateway Timeout” for the last time!) Sorting and filtering in watchlist Order by author, title or date you started watching the book Filter by author or title Better support for phones and tablets In the New Year, I’ll be working on speed improvements.

Last week, I looked at the UK Kindle Top 50 chart, and saw some evidence that unless you’re willing to cut your price to just about free, then you’re unlikely at present to get your ebook into the UK Kindle Top 50. So if the Kindle chart is little more than a vanity metric, what can we learn from the more mainstream bestseller charts in the UK? I decided to look at the Bookseller Top 50.

I’m delighted to announce that I’ve been invited to take part in the Futurebook Conference in London, 3rd December 2012. I’m on the panel for the “Pricing strategies and experiments” session, and will be sharing the stage with notables such as Mike Tamblyn from Kobo and Orna Ross from the Alliance of Independent Authors. As part of my preparation for this, I’ll be producing a series of blogs about various aspects of ebook pricing, so please look out for them!

Here’s a graph of yesterday’s Top 30 Kindle bestsellers in the UK. A spread of prices as you’d expect, mostly below £5, with just one with a £9.99 price (the new Ian Rankin book, “Standing in Another Man’s Grave” by Ian Rankin). Then I wondered, “that’s what the prices are now but I wonder what they were previously”. Here’s the same books, but instead using the lowest price they’ve had over the previous week.

I’ve just uploaded a new release to the Luzme website (v4.0.1). The main new feature is the addition of support for Amazon India; the other major changes are all ‘behind-the-scenes’ so you shouldn’t notice them. Please keep the good ideas coming at https://luzme.uservoice.com (or just mail me directly). cheers Rachel