Someone commented on Angela's kind post about buying Cats in the Bible from outlets other than Amazon. The short answer is that I'm working on it. The longer answer is rather more long-winded than I thought was good in a comment, so I thought that instead of doing something productive, I'd share what I know about it on here. Please don't take the information blindly, as I'm far from an expert, but I think it's a good start. And there's kind of a big thing at the bottom, which I've headed up with bold type so you can scroll down if you get bored of the cats.
First, here's a pic of a cat, as I can't bring myself to put the cover up again.
Which is a pose that Smudge often had as he checked up on us between spells of surveying the terrain outside the window.
Self-publishing has always been around, but it used to be expensive, back in the days when you used to have to pay for a bulk run of books on a physical press. With the rise of ebooks and what is known as 'print on demand,' it's a lot easier. Now anyone can hop onto Amazon and publish anything for free. Amazon will help the author create a cover, assign an ISBN (the official identification that places like proper bookshops and libraries use to identify a book), and these days there is even a box that says 'there may be spelling and grammar mistakes, do you want to check?' Because Amazon got there early, it got a strong control of the self-publishing market. This can make it hard if you love books but aren't so keen on Amazon.
The biggest pull that Amazon has is Kindle Unlimited. For readers, you pay a monthly fee, it's £9.49 in the UK, and you can read any of the ebooks enrolled on Kindle Unlimited for no further charge. And there are literally millions of books enrolled on there. There are similar schemes on Everand and Kobo, and no doubt others, plus many libraries lend ebooks, but Amazon is the big one. Authors get access to a big, dedicated readership, and in return get a slice of the income from Kindle Unlimited. For example, at the time of typing, someone read 9 page of Cats in the Bible today through Kindle Unlimited, and I will get a royalty payment of 3p. However, if I want my ebook to be in Kindle Unlimited, it can't be listed anywhere else. It's okay for paperbacks to be published in other places, but not ebooks.
This isn't exciting, so I'm putting in another pic of a cat.
I made the decision that I would enroll Cats in the Bible in Kindle Unlimited as it's a short, undemanding read, and a reader who didn't know me may not be willing to buy it, but may be willing to dip in if they subscribed to Kindle Unlimited. This means that the ebook is only available there. I also published it as a paperback on Amazon and on another site called Draft2Digital. You can't buy directly from Draft2Digital but they distribute to places like Waterstones, Barnes & Noble, and Gardners - places where people who buy books from somewhere not Amazon can go and order a book.
Draft2Digital is a great site, but I found parts of it confusing, including where the fluff I needed to look to see where the book was available. I'm still working on it, but you can buy a paperback copy of Cats in the Bible online at Walmart (here), Bokus (a Swedish company here) and Saxo (a Danish company here).
I'm finding it somewhat bewildering, so I need another cat pic.
I'll get in touch with Draft2Digital and see if I can work out where else the dratted thing may have ended up. I know that other shops have got Out of the London Mist from there, so Cats in the Bible should end up with a wider distribution at some point - I hope!
ARC Readers - ARC readers are people who get a free copy of a book and in return leave an honest review in places like their blog or sites like Amazon. I approached a few people from here for Cats in the Bible, and I was so grateful for their kind response.
In the next month, I will be publishing Tales of the White Hart. It's the second edition, but it's been dusted down, spruced up and rigorously edited. It's been removed from blogs and websites, is ready to be unleashed once more on Amazon and the wider web, and I'm looking for ARC Readers for it. I've written about ARC Readers and what can be involved on my writing blog here. If you've not come across it so far, it's a full length urban fantasy/paranormal romance, with plenty of vampires and werewolves. and a little dash of magic. It's set in York, England, and if you're interested, please leave a comment (which I won't publish) with a way of contacting you online and I'll be in touch. This is the provisional blurb:
When Fiona Greene saved the life of an ancient elfen, Kadogan, he asked her heart's desire. Exactly 100 days later Fiona found herself opening up 'The White Hart,' a shop in a converted pub that sold handcrafted cards, exquisite gift wrap and a range of merchandise aimed at werewolves, vampires and the rest of the non-normal community. What could go wrong? Lots could go wrong. They had a Tarot reader that didn't believe in Tarot cards, a werewolf who had been thrown out of his pack as their warehouse manager and the redoubtable Mrs Tuesday coming to stay. Fiona could deal with all that, but she wasn't happy about the attempts to pair her up with Steve Adderson, salesperson to the non-normal domains and magician. Then the staff at the White Hart found themselves in the middle of a dark power struggle and suddenly her romance had to take a back seat. A Paranormal Romance set in the beautiful and ancient city of York
And if you've made it all the way down the page, you deserve a medal!
Hugs and good health to all.
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