Howling winds, spatterings of rain and wicked thoughts about turning on the central heating this morning...

There is an interesting discussion on one of the forums about the importance of covers on e-novels. Many authors clearly spend more money on getting their covers done professionally than they do on having the work edited or proof-read. Do readers really take that much notice? Are we really now judging books by their covers? At this point, then, I will apologise for mine - no-one else is to blame for them.

The question of free books is also exercising the minds of more and more Kindle authors. Once a useful marketing ploy, is it now actually destroying the platform? As ever, a comment would be most welcome. How many Goodreads folk get most or even all of their e-books for free?