My Thank You To A Very Generous Author:

– By Kazza K

Just recently I had a lovely gift turn up from overseas. The gift was a bunch of books. Is that even the right term for books hanging out together, a bunch? Anyway, I was so pleased to get this delivery, as in teary-eyed pleased. You might think Kazza K is a sentimental old fool for getting teary-eyed over some books turning up. You could be right, but I’d like to say why I felt that way before you judge me as mushy 🙂

I recently approached a favourite author of mine and asked them if I bought a bunch (there’s that word again) of their books on Amazon, and shipped them to the author would they autograph them for me and then send them on to me at my expense? So I would buy the books myself and I would pay for the postage for all legs of the books’ journey to me in Australia. Postage is not cheap, especially from overseas to Oz, and I’m talking about a few books here that were/are heavy. This particular author is not on social networking sites, I don’t even know if they read their reviews, but they are always very pleasant. I was so happy when they said that it would be their pleasure to organise the books for me, asked for my address and thanked me for my interest in their books and my enquiry. I wouldn’t give my address because I wanted to make sure I knew the costings and I paid a fair price for the books that I wanted and the postage. I received another email telling me that the books were organised and it was their pleasure to send the books to me at their own expense. No charge for the books or postage. I did not know what to say. For once I was speechless. I’m not good at getting something for nothing. I don’t expect something for nothing. I’m not always good at thanks either, especially when I can’t begin to say how thankful I am. I’m truly not a gushy person and I’ve been told I can come off as abrupt. So I had no choice but to graciously accept their generous offer, and let me tell you it was a generous offer, the postage alone was a fortune. The books are worth a bit as well. I want to put it into perspective, it often costs me around $25.00 upwards to buy a book from Amazon, then there is postage, which is always expensive. For example, I just bought a J H Trumble book for my son and it cost me around the $30.00 mark for the book and mid-range postage delivery time to Australia. That was a cheaper buying experience. I received more than one book from this author. They are all beautifully autographed with something different in each book. Just lovely, thoughtful, and kind.

Living in Australia is a wonderful thing except when it comes time to travel, egads it’s a long journey to the rest of the world from here. It’s also a problem when it comes to getting your books autographed. We don’t have erotic or LGBT reading conferences here like GRL, or the one Kimberly Hunter is organising at Bent-Con, or the ones run in England. I don’t get to pop-off and have my favourite authors sign my books. And because of the time, expense, and effort I rarely ask someone to sign a book for me. I have had some other terrific authors recently sign copies of special books for me, and they take pride of place in my tree’d bookshelf. I can’t thank them enough. Everyone who visits gets to be told about who the author is, what the book is about and why I love it so much. People don’t want to visit me anymore, I think they’re scared of my, er, enthusiasm. My family get glazed expressions in their eyes when I receive a ‘special’ book. Luckily for them it doesn’t happen often

So, bottom line here is that I’m not going to name the author, give away gender, or anything about them. I don’t believe they would want that and I don’t want people to think that they did it for my reviews. I honestly don’t think they read them. I don’t want anyone expecting the same thing. I truly didn’t expect this. I don’t expect something for nothing and I cannot believe they were so generous. The author will more than likely never see this blog. But I want to say thank you, thank you, thank you from the bottom of my heart. You have made this Aussie book reading crazy very happy. It was a lovely, kind, ridiculously generous gesture from someone I don’t know, other than I absolutely adore their books.

By the way, we have some good erotic and LGBT writers in Australia so it’s about time we organised a conference here. I’m over the fact that nothing happens in Australia. If you are an Aussie LGBT or  erotic writer or reader I’m happy to help or be involved in getting something together. Who knows it might just take off and that has to be a good thing, right?