12/07/2014 Your Money

devices, your mobile phone, your tablet and Europe travel iron if

that is what you are packing in your hand luggage. It will affect your

travel plans and we will find out how on this week's Your Money.

Hello and welcome to Your Money, your weekly guide to making

the most of your cash here every weekend on BBC News television,

available without edit or correction on the BBC iPlayer.

How to make sure we're not caught out by the new security screens

on mobile phones and tablets at the airport.

How to publish your own book, what it costs

And another crackdown on copycat websites that charge more

We'll see how we can avoid paying higher fees.

If you're taking the kids or the grandchildren on a plane for their

summer hols, they'll want to take a tablet or a computer game on board

Well, you'll need to make sure they've charged it up first.

On some flights if you don't have enough charge to

switch it on, you can't take it on board in your hand luggage.

The extra security checks cover a range of electronic devices

from phones, laptops and tablets to hairdryers, hair`straighteners,

electric shavers, travel irons and cameras and camera equipment.

Caroline Lloyd is a travel insurance expert at GoCompare.com.

Welcome to Your Money. Just recap the new rules, what they cover and

which flights are affected. It is a range of flights, starting with

flights to and from the USA, but the Department for Transport says it can

cover any flight from the UK. Anything with a battery. You might

need to prove that you can turn it on so they can see the device is

working and check it before you go through security. It is just enough

charge so that it will switch on at check`in? It does not need to be

fully charged? No, just though they can check it turns on. People taking

connecting flights might be asked to turn it on at every point and for

your return flight you will have to show you can power it on as well. So

you might have to turn it on more than once depending on your travel

plans? And if it will not switch on? The options depend on the

airline you are travelling with. It is worth checking with the airport

you are travelling from to check that you can charge things there.

You might need to have your charger with you so you can do that. Some

airlines are giving customers the options of taking a later flight and

even leaving the item with the airline. Will they sent it to you or

do you need to come back to the airport afterwards? There is a range

of options available. Some are offering a career service, and you

can sometimes collect it when you come back to the airport. ``

delivery service. And once you get to the check`in and try to turn it

on and it doesn't, you probably can't put it in your main luggage

because that has been checked in. Yes. Make sure you have also charged

it enough or how you are going to use it on the way to the airport and

at the airport so you are appropriately charged at the

security check. I am sure people are shouting at the television just

saying charge it up overnight. Surely nobody is that stupid? But it

is the use of the device on the way to the airport that might catch you

out. Yes. And if you are using your phone around the airport, make sure

it is still charged when you get to security. Is there anything in

travel insurance about this? If it is confiscated, you are travelling

to a wedding and you want to have those Kodak moments, can you buy a

new camera at the other end and ask your insurance company to pay for

it? I don't know. It would depend on your individual policy and insurer.

Ring them and check before you do anything. If your device was taken

off you and you did not get it back, you typically would not be

covered by travel insurance but because of the publicity around it

you would be expected to knows that you have to be able to turn it on.

Thank you. Think you're the next

Barbara Cartland? Got a blockbuster book inside you

that's going to make your fortune? More people are writing

their own books It costs you money to do it and the

odds are you won't earn very much. Research this week shows

the typical full`time writer earns Once upon a time there was a

communications officer for Hampshire police who wanted to write romantic

comedies. That particular chapter of mixed Spaulding's life only began

when he found out about do`it`yourself publishing on e`book.

It was not like I sold thousands of books immediately. It was a few here

and there. I had to earn enough money to go out for a meal with my

partner. Because it was so easy to do and because I started to earn a

bit more money and build up a small following, that prompted me to write

another and then another. It was the fourth book that really broke me out

and sold a quarter of a million copies in a year and put me on the

map. The emergence of e`reader is like this does not mean the end of

these. But it does allow writers to become their own publishers and yet

to get their word on the street may cost time and money. That means

paying for a professional editor, for a designer to create an

eye`catching cover, and for marketing. The average total cost of

a book including editorial design and everything you might want to do

to put a really good book together is somewhere between ?2500 and

?5,000. Take your time. There is no hurry. This is a long game. Secondly

get a good editor. That is your most important investment. Thirdly, do

talk to other authors who have done what you want to do. A quarter of

writers told a recent survey they had tried self publishing. This

still represents a fraction of the overall market but many more self

published works are being sold. Writers reported decent return on

investment they make to get work published. Upfront costs for a

lesser return can be mitigated by winning the support of a publisher.

Some specialise in digital books. We are publishers so our job is to give

authors money and not to take it. We pay for the cost of production and

we take care of that. And we pay them a royalty according to how well

the book sells. If people want to do a little book about a local area or

a family history, that is probably not a commercial proposition. It is

very nice, but don't expect to get the money back. Mr Spalding now has

a 6`figure book deal that has allowed him to buy a house, to write

for a living and to give his story a happy ending.

The trade body for insurance companies says they

should make it more obvious if they're putting their prices up.

The ABI says the price we paid last year should be listed alongside any

new prices when the insurance company offers to renew the policy.

That way we can see at a glance if they've put their prices up.

It could be the end of next year before this becomes common practice.

Between now and then you can ask your insurance company to tell

you what you paid last year before you make a decision or before the

The Bank of England is expected to increase its key interest

Protecting yourself against that is already costing more.

The average cost of fixing the interest rate

on your mortgage for five years was around 3.9 percent last year.

This weekend, the website Moneyfacts shows just two or three deals

Most of the five`year fixed deals it shows now charge interest

The lenders will also charge fees of between ?195 and ?1,499.

Back in February we got some advice about how to avoid copycat websites,

websites that charge a fee to renew a passport, get a driving licence,

fill up our tax forms, all services we could get free or for a much

cheaper fee on the official websites. Many

of these websites are legal but they don't always make it obvious

that they're not an official site or that we're paying more to use it.

How can you spot them and avoid them?

Laura Whitcombe is deputy editor at the magazine Moneywise.

Welcome to Your Money. These copycat websites come up near the top of the

internet searches. They look very polished and professional. How can

you tell they are not the real deal? Some are as blatant as to say they

are not. Sometimes that is hidden away in the small print so always

look at the small print. Take a thorough read of the home page. If

anything seems out of kilter, it probably is. You should always

Google search the name of the company or website to check. You

might be able to see somebody else's negative review which would

be a great tip. Is it a rough rule of thumb that if it is a Government

website, somewhere in the web address in the browser it will say

gov.uk. That is right. But avoid things with gov somewhere else in

the website title. So things that you think are only from the

Government can turn up in the copycat address? Yes, so be

vigilant. It is not against the law to do this, to offer a service and

charge a higher fee. It is legal but you just need to be aware as a

consumer that they exist and how to spot them. Yes, and they make money

by overcharging you for something that could be provided for free or

at a much reduced cost elsewhere. If you have used one by mistake, it is

a slip and you thought it was the real thing, and you end up paying

more, can you get your money back? It all depends where the fraud was

involved. If a website lead you to believe you were buying from the

official Government site, then you can argue it is fraud and contact

your bank and the fraud team will investigate. However if you were

just unlucky and you ended up overpaying for a service that you

subsequently received, you did get the passport was a driving licence,

then you have overpaid and it is much harder to make a case. So buyer

beware. The things you mention, passports and driving licences, they

are most common? Yes, also European health cards that people will be

looking for in the run`up to the holidays. And sometimes

self`assessment returns for your tax. Thank you very much for joining

us on Your Money. That is all from us this week. You can keep up to

date all week long with the money pages on the BBC News website. And

also updates on social media by following our feed on Twitter for

example. More again next week and we hope to see you then. Thank you for

your company today. The former Archbishop of Canterbury,

Lord Carey, drops his long`standing opposition

to legalising assisted dying. Israel vows to continue

its military campaign against Gaza until Hamas stops firing hundreds

of rockets into Israeli territory. Dozens of Palestinians have died

in four days of air strikes. The Parole Board says it's being

forced to treble the number