I’ve admitted defeat. I’ve now spent too long trying to find a platform for my print on demand books that doesn’t use Amazon and I just don’t have the time to faff around with it for any longer. Consequently I’ve put them back up on there.
Tag: Print on demand
Publishing Platforms – 2
My thanks to those who commented on my last post. I have now unpublished both books from Amazon, although Amazon won’t delist them on the grounds someone might want to sell them second-hand through their platform. I can’t do anything about that.
I will shortly re-publish The Night Bus, probably on Lulu, although I haven’t definitely decided on that platform, yet. I’ll do a little more research, first.
As for Making Friends with the Crocodile, I am persuaded to have a go at finding a publisher for it. We’ll see how that goes.
And in the meantime? Writing…
The Night Bus Has Arrived!
We’ve been away for a couple of days, and in that time the proof copy of The Night Bus arrived.
I’ve read it through to check for any errors, and am relieved to report I found none, so the paperback copy is good to go!
Both it and the e-book version are available on Amazon, and can be found on my author page here.
Just time to order a few dozen (or more) for Christmas!
Early Release of the Paperback Edition of The Night Bus
Oh, I knew I’d get something wrong.
I wanted both the e-book and the Print On Demand paperback to be released on the 30th November. All went smoothly as far as the e-book was concerned, but Amazon have just emailed me to say the paperback is live now.
I blame the change from their old system to the new one. Before, the author had to approve a proof copy before the paperback would go live. Despite my ordering a proof copy that will not arrive for a few days yet, it’s already gone live.
Oh, well.
‘Roll up, roll up! The Paperback edition of The Night Bus is available now on Amazon! Roll up, roll up!’
Nice To Meet You!
It’s been a difficult time. There’s been stuff. And we all know what stuff does, don’t we? Well? Don’t we? Yes, you at the back, boy! Tompkins Minor! Well, what does it do?
‘Gets in the way, Sir.’
Louder, boy!
‘GETS IN THE WAY, SIR!’
That’s right, Tompkins. It gets in the way.
Stuff getting in the way.
Stuff not getting in the way.
And with all this stuff flying around, stuff I’m finding it rather difficult to deal with, sometimes it’s as much as I can do just to leave a ‘like’ on a post. Even posting a comment seems too much like hard work, although I want to. So I press ‘like’ to simply show my appreciation of the post.
But I’m working on it. I haven’t gone away, I’m just a little snowed under with…stuff.
And because it’s a new year (oh yes, Happy New Year to you all. Have you broken all your resolutions, yet? I have.), I’m thinking it might be a good time to re-introduce myself to the blogging world. So, this is me:
I have published one novel, Making Friends With the Crocodile, which is set in rural Northern India and is about the way society treats women there (and, by extension, in most places still). This has had good reviews, and I’m especially pleased with the ones from Indian women, who obviously know a thing or two about the subject! It is available as e-book as well as Print On Demand paperback.
The first draft of my second novel, provisionally titled A Good Place, is completed and I shall begin to edit it at the end of February. This story is set in a fictitious hill station in Northern India populated by a mixture of the English who remained in India after Partition, a few English travellers, and, naturally, the indigenous Indians there. In the meantime I am also working on another novel, the first in a series of 3 or 4, provisionally titled The Assassins Garden and set in both Persia and India in the 1600’s. This one I like to think of as being a mixture of ‘The Arabian Nights’ and Neil Gaiman. It starts innocuously enough, but rapidly becomes darker. The later books will also have elements of Gothic fiction and Victorian Detective stories in them. Possibly rather ambitious, I admit, but I have already written quite a large proportion of several of them.
I also write short stories and occasional poetry. At least, I call it occasional, but I do seem to be writing more of it than I used to.
And then I paint. I try to sell some of these through my shop on Etsy, although in the past I used to exhibit regularly at exhibitions and in various galleries (and sold quite well!). Perhaps I should investigate that route again.
There are links to Etsy and to my books on the sidebar, if you wish to go and have a gander.
And, when I can, I travel. Preferably with my wife. India and Nepal are favourite destinations, but so too are places closer to home in the UK, especially long-distance walks.
But, that’s enough about me for the moment. Possibly a little more next time.
Who’s That Trip-Trapping Over My Bridge?
It’s a troll!
Okay, I know. The troll was under the bridge and it was the Billy Goats Gruff doing the trip-trapping.
Whatever.
Where was I last post? Oh yes, poor quality self-published books.
A little while ago a blogging friend of mine reviewed a self-published book on Goodreads, and gave it three stars out of five, on the basis that the book was full of editing errors. For this, she was then trolled by another member – not the author in question, but I suspect she was a friend of the author, although it is not impossible it was just someone out to cause trouble.
This troll was furious that anyone would mark down a book for being poorly edited and poorly formatted. She then went on to personally attack the reviewer. I don’t know the outcome, but I certainly hope a complaint was made and the troll blocked from Goodreads.
I wonder, have we really got to a point where it is considered perfectly acceptable to publish something of poor quality and no one is allowed to point out this fact? Is this another consequence of the self-publishing phenomenon coupled with many people’s unwillingness to tolerate any views other than their own?
Stories From Anywhere
I am proud to announce…Tah…Rah!! A book of short stories from Tunbridge Wells Writers.
My regular reader may be interested to learn that the collection includes a fairly long short story of mine, World’s End, and I’m reasonably proud to point out that the cover is also designed by me.
A dozen stories in total, this is available at the moment as a paperback on Amazon (the link is here), and it will be published as an e-book on Kindle fairly soon. Once it is, I’ll put up a new post.
From the blurb on Amazon…Twelve writers, twelve stories. From intrigue in Colombia to bizarre adventures in Italy, from an unusual protest to a prison break in Chile. Get ready for an exciting journey with this collection from Tunbridge Wells Writers…
Bloody Weather
Yesterday I sat down to work on a section of my novel which is set in a hot, dry place. Outside, however, the skies were grey and the wind was blowing. It was becoming cooler. Autumn leaves drifted down. Everywhere was damp. Everywhere was muddy. Unsurprisingly, the writing refused to happen.
Fortunately, I have an unfinished short story set in a leaden, windy, wet and muddy environment – Britain – so I wrote a few hundred words on that. My hero was a bit wet and cold and windswept, but what the heck!
I know a few hundred words isn’t much, but it’s more than I’ve managed for a while. Partly, because I’ve been unusually busy, and partly because I’ve felt a bit down.
But as a bit of a progress report on my forthcoming short story collection, A Dozen Destinies, a few more of the stories went out to beta readers yesterday, so I haven’t yet given up on the possibility of having it ready for the beginning of December. I’ve settled on a cover picture (big reveal to come!) and decided to release it as an Amazon Print on Demand and Kindle ebook only.
Last year, I spent a lot of time looking at other outlets for Making Friends with the Crocodile, as well as releasing it on Amazon, and I eventually used Kobo (ebook) and Pothi (POD in India), but neither of them justified the effort. So this time I’ll keep it simple.
Goodness me, I don’t know how any of you manage to contain your excitement.
And today it’s grey and windy and wet. And there is a real bite to the wind.
Oh well. ‘It was a dark and soggy night…’
A Bit of a Hiatus…
Well, blimey. Another of those passages of time when I’ve been just so stupidly busy, that I’ve hardly had time to take breath, never mind look at blogs or think about doing any writing myself. And…it’s going to be quite busy for another couple of weeks.
Yet, here I am grabbing an hour to write something and, hopefully, catch up with one or two other blogs. And I have no idea what to write about! I usually have a few ideas mulling over before I sit down at the keyboard, and one or two half-finished posts on the computer that I can draw on. Today, though, zilch. I have one finished post that is on a somewhat contentious subject, which I’m going to leave a few weeks so I have time to properly respond to any comments it generates (who knows, though, perhaps there won’t be any?), and a couple of partly begun travel posts. I need more time than I can spare at the moment to sort out photos for those.
Random and totally irrelevant photo of the week.
Yet…a blog is a personal thing. We’re not journalists, with deadlines to meet and news stories to tackle before they go cold. We’re not being paid to produce highly detailed technical notes on a particular subject. So my personal blog, today, is simply about my progress, or lack of, with my writing.
So, yes, nothing for the last couple of days. But I promised that I would produce an Author’s page on Facebook by the middle of the month – I will! – and that I had a bawdy, riotous, Elizabethan short story to post in a couple of instalments at the same time. That one is a bit more interesting! Having promised I would do that (primarily to give me the impetus to write it), I got stuck in and by the end of last week I already had over 8,000 words done.
Far too long for a couple of posts, which I feel should be limited to around a thousand words. Certainly, I almost never read posts that are much longer than that. I don’t have the time, unfortunately. So I have a bit of an editing job to do on that.
When that is out of the way, I am going to collate some of my longer short stories together to publish as an e-book and, perhaps, a POD paperback. I won’t have the novel ready this year, so the short stories will be this year’s publishing project. I hope I have enough decent ones to be able to produce a themed collection.
And then? Back to the novel!
Tally ho!
The Indian edition of my book is published!
Well, it’s taken me long enough, as I’m sure everyone will agree, but I have finally managed to publish Making Friends with the Crocodile as a Print on demand paperback in India! Hurrah!
It is published by Pothi, and is available on their site, here, and on Amazon.in and Flipkart.
It is still available as a Kindle e-book from Amazon, and is also available as an e-book from Kobo, worldwide, for those who do not favour Kindle.
I have been told plenty of times that I need to be more proactive promoting the book, but I’m not terribly good at that. However, this is me having another pathetic stab at it:
Buy it now! It’s great! Please…pretty please…
Oh well, I’m working on it.
Should you be kind enough to buy it, or, indeed, if you have already done so, please consider leaving a review. Reviews encourage others to buy the book, and, on Amazon, once a book has garnered a certain number, then Amazon list it a little more prominently – which is a tremendous help to the author!
And I have been lucky enough to garner some very complimentary and generous reviews, so far. A few excerpts:
‘This beautifully written story, set in a village in Bihar, draws you in from its first page.’
‘Making Friends with the Crocodile is a very fine book. And it takes us into the harsh reality of the life of women in rural India, much more effectively than any official report.’
‘The characters are depicted with obvious respect for a culture that is both beautiful and at times shocking. By the novels finale, though tragic, we are left with a very thought provoking and memorable story.’
‘This is a novel with depth and real emotional involvement. Told simply and with an honesty that defies disbelief at events and attitudes, it packs some serious punches. It’s a story that will live with me for a long time, and one that has materially altered my opinions about certain cultural norms. Researched in real depth and related in language that fits the narrator so well, it’s a very good read.’
‘Mick has delved into the mind of a middle- aged woman living in rural Bihar and has beautifully sketched the love – hate relationship she shares with her daughter in law. The book gives a lot of perspective on the mind-set and predispositions that prevail in the rural north Indian society (which apply, at large to many other parts as well).’
The blurb: ‘Siddiqa was only just into her teens when she was forced to leave her home to live with her new husband and his family in another village. The years have passed, and now Siddiqa has three children of her own. Her grown up son has brought his new wife, Naira, to live with them, so Siddiqa is no longer the lowliest in the household, for she has a daughter-in-law.
Life in rural India is particularly harsh for women. This novel explores themes of female oppression and tradition and asks whether the next generation will find life any easier.‘
I suppose that at least when I publish my next book, I should have a much better idea of how to go about it.
Mick Canning 