C. Litka's Blog, page 9

Missed Me by Just Sixty Feet and Six Years

 

Ever since watching The Wizard of Oz as a kid, I've wanted to see a real tornado. Tornados are such a (relatively) rare, deadly, yet whimsical phenomena, something larger than life, seemingly out of fantasy. They're vast, whirling Jinns, dancing destructively across the face of the earth, meteorological explanations be damned. They kill people, they level homes. Something you really don't want to meet. Nevertheless...
In July 2020 I did get to see a very small and brief tornado from the top of our hill, here in Eau Claire. Below is a photograph of the funnel cloud.

It lasted less than a minute, barely touching ground, and it could be viewed from  a nice safe distance. The place where you want to view one.

Fast forwarding to the present, or rather to 15 May of 2025. A line of storms swept across Wisconsin with a number of tornadoes embedded in it, fortunately they were fairly small ones that did not level towns like the ones elsewhere the following day. The sirens sounded here in Eau Claire twice. My son Jack was visiting us on his way to Nester Falls Canada for spring fishing with my brothers, brother-in-law and some other friends, guys who've been going up for opening week for the last 50 years. But I digress. Jack is also intrigued with tornados and follows all the storm trackers on YouTube as well as using the radar they use to identify tornados on his phone. So we stood in the parking lot and watched the sky and radar for the potential tornados that where heading our way. They missed Eau Claire, though the south side of town got battered with golf ball sized hail. And then, during the following weeks everyone in town was battered by calls from roofers who descend like locus where hail damaged roofs will need to be replaced. I digress yet again.

However, later that afternoon, a small F2 tornado with 120mph wind briefly touched down in Juneau Wisconsin, which is the town where we lived for over 30 years before we moved to Eau Claire six years ago. Below is the track of that tornado in relation to the little town. I have a couple of shots taken by the storm tracker's drone flying around where the "X" is on the map. All the little triangles are reports of various levels of damage. Most of the damage to the west (left) were trees down and windows broken. It was on the Main Street's north end where roofs were taken off and houses damaged. 

The photo below is the drone shot looking south. I have indicated where our old house is. It is hidden in the trees, but the street you can see turning towards the drone is Meadow Lane. On the left side of the photo you can get a glimpse of where the heaviest damage begins. If you want to see more pictures, the live stream on YouTube is still available HERE and  you will have to scroll to around the 5:15 hour section to find the footage.


Below is  map with a closer focus on the location of our house, the house in black, relative to the track of the tornado as determined by those who investigate such things. Meadow Lane is a bit off kilter to the houses, offset to the west (left).

The hardest hit area is just above this map along Main Street. I think the fact that those houses where on the ridge, and maybe 20 feet higher than our house meant that they were more exposed. I also think that because our house was tucked under the ridge, the wind hitting the ridge may've lifted the funnel just a little, as there don't seem to be trees down in our yard, and we had plenty of them.
And just to put the tornado track in scale, there is a photo of our house as it is today from Google Street View taken from the street in front of our house where the tornado is said to have traveled along. 


Below is a wider view (a screen shot, so the detail isn't very good) of the destruction along Main Street within half an hour of the tornado. There was a storm chaser following it and he sent up the drone. The big tan building is the nursing home. It lost a lot of windows. Beyond it was an ex-motel, now apartments which lost most of their roof, and the power line poles were down all along the road beyond.



I haven't run across any photos of the tornado itself. I gather that it was "rain-wrapped", i.e. the funnel was in the midst of the rain & hail, so it couldn't be seen. So I didn't actually miss much had we still been living there. The good think is that only one person was injured, and of course a number of people were left homeless and lost a lot of their property. Still it could've been far worse.
We have tornados in Wisconsin every year, though the ones that level large swaths of towns are a once in 30-40 year storms or so, unlike on the great plains and the deep south. But considering earthquakes, forest fires, flash floods, and hurricanes, I don't think we can kick too much about our tickets to Oz.

The Saturday Morning Post (No.109)

 

Having signed up for Kindle Unlimited, I have embarked on a quest to find something after Emma M Lion to make my $.99 worth it. Not that I need to do so, as Emma is worth far more than that. But well, I should see if there are any other treasures buried in Kindle Unlimited millions of books.

I picked out several, stepping out of my comfort zone a bit. One was You Are Here, by David Nicholls, billed as a funny love story. I read several pages and found the vibe not to my taste. Plus, it is set in the present day, which is a setting I have no interest in. What was I thinking? I'm not even going to count that as a DNF. I also picked up the book below, mostly on its title.

My reviewer criteria. I like light, entertaining novels. I like smaller scale stories rather than epics. I like character focused novels featuring pleasant characters, with a minimum number of unpleasant ones. I greatly value clever and witty writing. I like first person, or close third person narratives. I dislike a lot of "head jumping" between POVs and flashbacks. I want a story, not a puzzle. While I am not opposed to violence, I dislike gore for the sake of gore. I find long and elaborate fight, action, and battle sequences tedious. Plot holes and things that happen for the convenience of the author annoy me. And I fear I'm a born critic in that I don't mind pointing out what I don't like in a story. However, I lay no claim to be the final arbitrator of style and taste, you need to decide for yourself what you like or dislike in a book.

Your opinions are always welcome. Comment below. 

What comes of Attending the Commoners Ball by Elisabeth Aimee Brown  DNF 55%

From the title I thought it might be a cleverly written book, which is what I love in books. From the title, it appeared to be a light fantasy romance novel. Still, I thought it might be worth my time, of which I have plenty. However, as I started reading it, it became increasingly clear that not only was I not the target audience, which I knew going into it, but that it was far from clever. It became ever more simple and boring as the story went along. No stakes. The characters were pretty basic. The plot, rather silly. YA. 

Still, I suppose I should review it. 

The female protagonist, Hester, is a spunky hick from the sticks, who decides to attend, without an invitation, the "Commoners Ball" at the palace with an eye to getting a good meal. At the door she is told that without an invitation she can't get in. Commoners means non-royalty, not any old riff-raff subject.

Enter the two princes. Lucas, the elder and serious one who is expected to marry a princess, and Hugh, the carefree and mischievous one. Hugh, as a joke, saves Hester from being kicked out of the ball. They then run into Lucas at the ball. Lucas falls for Hester, and she for him... but of course, she's just a farm girl in the big city, and he's the crown prince whose duty is to marry the princess his father wants him to. 

Later, Hugh has fun taking Hester, against her will, around town and to the palace. However, he sees that his serious older brother is attracted to Hester, and seems to be trying to get them together, for some purpose of his own. Which I'll never find out, since I couldn't get to the end of the book.

While it isn't listed as an young adult book, it certainly is. If not a middle grade book. While I know a lot of adults read young adult books, I'm not one of them. So, as you can see, while I gave it a chance, the longer I read it (it's a fast read) the more juvenile and tedious the story becomes. And I simply decided that neither the characters. story, nor the writing had anything to offer to me, so I called it a day.

Now, if you discount the fact that I'm not its target audience, the author has succeeds in what she likely set out to do - in her debut book even! - which is to write a lighthearted retelling of Cinderella that has managed to find its audience. Which is very impressive. It was released this past September, (2024) and in March 2025 it has a 4.5 star rating with 1,800 ratings and is currently the 2,928th best selling book on Amazon, This ranking means that the book is selling over 1,200 copies a month. This is an impressive debut for a self-published author. Hats off to Mrs Brown.

Oh well, I had been only reading this to keep me from finishing the Unselected Journals of Emma M Lion, too fast. Nothing but a few hours lost. I can afford them.

The Darval-Mers Dossier in Paperback

 

The Darval-Mers Dossier is now available in paperback for $9.99 on Amazon. You can find it here. The ebook version is now available for preorder on Amazon here for $2.99. It will be released on 5 June 2025. With an audiobook version to follow shortly afterwards for $3.99.

The free ebook versions of the book will be available from Google, Apple, Smashwords, B & N, et al on or before 29 May 2025, with the free audiobook version on the Google Play Store following shortly, and from Apple whenever Apple gets around to releasing it. Stay tuned for the exact date!

The Yin and Yang of Writing

Isn't it rich? 

Isn't it queer?

Losing my timing this late

In my career?

-- Send in the Clowns

It's not my timing that I've lost. Indeed, it has nothing to do with losing anything. Rather it's discovering something, this late in my career, that gives me the same melancholy feeling as the words of that song does. At 75, I am late in my career, and I regret not realizing there is a yin and a yang in writing until now.

I am not pretending that I discovered something new. While I've not taken courses in writing, I have no doubt what I've discovered on my own is taught, in some form or another, in writing classes. I could've Googled it to find out. 

But I didn't.

Because I wanted to talk about how and what I discovered as a personal tale, rather than as a lesson.

What I realized is that there is a yin and a yang in writing - as there is in all things. This realization came to me while reading Beth Brower's The Uncollected Journals of Emma M. Lion. Or more precisely, in rereading them. 

Yin and yang, usually symbolized by the circle above, can be thought of as a combination of opposite, but interconnected forces, that interact to form a dynamic system with the whole greater than the two parts. These forces are fluid, each with the seed (the little circle) of its opposite within it. The white "yang" is considered active, expansive, bright, open, and male, while the black "yin" is reactive, passive, dark, mysterious, and female. Everything has elements of both within them, in varying degrees, at various times. 

Including writing.

Though in the case of writing stories, the  colors of yin and yang are usually reversed. Black, or the color of the ink, is the active force of yang in writing. It is the color of the letters, the words, and the sentences that drive the story forward, the active, expansive force of the story. The yin, in writing, is white, or the paper. This yin has two characteristics, the visual - the light space surrounding the dark lines and blocks of words. And the metaphorical, in the sense of making up all the parts of the story that are left out as unnecessary, implied, unsaid, and/or left a mystery. 

It is the importance of yin, the white space, in writing that only now has struck me. I came to realize this because the Emma M Lion books are written as journals. As such they are composed of a series of dated entries, sometimes just a line or two, and sometime brief paragraphs separated by time and subject, and at other times verbatim transcriptions of scenes and dialogs. The variety of these different types of entries, and the variety of the white spaces that enclose them, eventually struck me as intralegal to the story and the way it's told. But these books have a a lot of metaphorical white spaces as well, which are even more powerful. Beth Brower, in writing as if we are reading a journal, often leaves things unsaid, half said, implied, or simply mysterious. It is the brevity of words, descriptions, or events that opened my eyes to how one can use the yin of writing - the lack of writing - to enhance the story. What you don't write is every bit as important as what you do set down in words.

To take one example; she has one character who limps from a mysterious injury. Other than being tall, his character is described in terms of a looming storm. She  didn't need to do more than that for us to build our own image of a man, brooding, with contained, but pent up energy. In addition, he, like all the other characters, major and minor, have pasts, parts of which are slowly revealed in little episodes over the course of many books. This is the metaphorical "white space" of writing; the things not described in words, but implied. This yin of things not said serves to hold the interest of the reader every bit as much as what is said. And it implies that even the minor characters, which we know very little about, will, someday, step forward and play their part in the story as it goes on. This is the power of white space, of the mysterious yin.

I hope to give more mind on this type of white space going forward. What can I leave out, hint at, mention in passing, or suggest?  Is it important? Or is it busy work? Is an elaborate description essential? These, of course, are judgement calls, but considering that if not saying something works better than stating it, will probably make me a better writer. It can also regulate the rhythm and pace of the story - sometimes  saying less speeds things up, sometimes saying less pauses the story a beat or two as the reader considers the little mystery resulting from not saying everything, depending on what is said.

As someone who uses ten words were five would do, this realization has had a profound impact on me. Not that I was totally unaware of this on an instinctive level. Often those five extra words are there because the come from the character within the story who is narrating the story, and is used to build the character. But now, by putting a name of the art of saying less, it will make me more mindful of what needs to be said, and what needs not to be said, even by the character. 

But this yin, this white space, is more than mere word count. 

I also have come to appreciate restraint in making everything crystal clear. Everything doesn't have to be spelled out. I think you can trust readers to read between the lines. And sometimes it might be useful to keep them wondering, not quite sure what exactly is going on - that's life, after all. Readers find the mysteries fascinating. Why cheat them of the fun of wondering? There will always come a proper time to clear up mysteries, if they're important. Until then, I think you can use hints and little mysteries as story-strands, threads, that tie readers to the story and pull them along through it. 

In summery, seeing the story as both words said and unsaid will make me mindful of what I'm saying, how it needs to be said, and if it needs to be said.

I've also come to realize that there is the physical yin as well in books. The yin of what you see on the page. In how you use white space visually. The white space on the page is an important as the text. Ideally, a page contains an interesting play of dark text, words sentences and paragraph, and light white space giving a sense of solidness when required, as well as a lively fleetingness, a rhythm of fast passages and slow ones; yin and yang when it is appropriate in the story.

For example, long paragraphs of dialog can make for speeches instead of conversations. Massive paragraphs of description can make for slow reading. Or skimming. Visually they are large, square, solid blocks of text. And when you consider the text as the yang of writing - the driving force of the story, these large, square blocks of text are hardly an active and driving force in the story. They can bring the pace of the story to a crawl. The opposite of what the text should be doing.

Of course, there are many reasons, many moods, and variety of pacing necessary in stories. At the proper time, blocks of text can serve a proper purpose in a story. As does lines of text that run, dance, and play like a brook, in the "air" of white space, when such liveliness is needed. In considering the feeling one wants to create, I think that one needs to not only consider the words, but how they are arranged on the page. How they look, not just how they read.

English has all sorts of rules on how to construct sentences and paragraphs, which, if take literally, will make one's writing formal. Creative writing is a different beast altogether, which need not, or should not, be constrained by formality.  

The mindful use of white space on a page by they mindful use of lines of text and length of paragraphs, will, I think, make for better, more evocative writing. It is a matter of writing with a rhythm, rather than as a dull drone. 

So, my takeaway with my discovery of the yin and yang of writing is that visually and metaphorically I need to open my eyes to what I want to say, what I need to say, and what is just as important, what I don't need to say. And to say it with a pattern of light and darkness, lines and spaces, that dance.

The Saturday Morning Post (No. 108)

 

Well, I reached the last two of the  currently released books of Beth Brower's The Unselected Journals of Emma M Lion series. So it is time to sum the series up.

My reviewer criteria. I like light, entertaining novels. I like smaller scale stories rather than epics. I like character focused novels featuring pleasant characters, with a minimum number of unpleasant ones. I greatly value clever and witty writing. I like first person, or close third person narratives. I dislike a lot of "head jumping" between POVs and flashbacks. I want a story, not a puzzle. While I am not opposed to violence, I dislike gore for the sake of gore. I find long and elaborate fight, action, and battle sequences tedious. Plot holes and things that happen for the convenience of the author annoy me. And I fear I'm a born critic in that I don't mind pointing out what I don't like in a story. However, I lay no claim to be the final arbitrator of style and taste, you need to decide for yourself what you like or dislike in a book.

Your opinions are always welcome. Comment below. 

The Unselected Journals of Emma M. Lion Vol 7 & 8  by Beth Brower  A & A

This series is in the top five series of books I've ever read. I don't really know how to rank them in any sort of order; my mind doesn't work that way. But I will say this, the last time I can remember looking forward to the evening to read a book (I had to force myself to read them only in the evening.) was when I was reading  Islandia, 30 years ago. Back then, I'd pop myself a bowl of popcorn and go off to that continent in the South Atlantic, and the isolated nation of Islandia, that Austin Wright made so very real. It was just the same this time, but without the popcorn. Can't eat popcorn late at night, like I did in my youth. 
As I mentioned in my earlier reviews of the first books, each book covers 2 months of Emma's life, beginning in March of 1883 when she is 20 years old. The latest book released takes her story through June 1884. The first book is only 106 pages long, a novella, and the second grows to 144 pages. By the third we're up to 213 pages and by the last one they've grown to run 335 pages. This reflect not only how much more happens to Emma and her friends, but how much deeper we get to know Emma and her friends. One of the features of this ongoing story is that all of the characters have a backstory, all of them mysterious backstories, that we only get tantalizing glimpses of their secrets in each installment which only adds depth to the characters. As well as the depth of the storytelling and plots. Broker has said that she has an overarching plot in mind above all a great variety of smaller plots in this planned 18 to 24 volume series, i.e. one covering 3 to 4 years in the life of Emma. She hopes it will be fun for readers on reaching the end of her story to go back and see all the little hints that she has littered along the way.
There is a romance plot line in the later books, but it is tentative, and  much could change in the remaining 10 plus books, to keep everyone guessing who she might end up with in the end. I have my favorite, but I'll just have to see... or more likely, not. 
She's released 8 books in six years, but with each growing longer, I don't expect to be around to read the last one, and that's fine with me. I don't like happily ever after endings, and I'm quite comfortable with this series never reaching the end for me with everything tied up in a neat bow. That's not how life works.
Despite this series being set in the real world of London of the 1883-86, there is an slight element of fantasy, of magic, in this world. Just a touch of it, but it's there, taken as a matter of course in the London neighborhood of St Crispian's. This is not too surprising as Brower is the author of several other fantasy novels.
These books have had a strong impact on me - both in enjoyment, and in inspiration. I've almost always used an episodic structure to my books, a running journal-like structure, without being journal entries, but almost always with an end in sight. In these Emma books, there is seemingly no grand end in sight. They simply recount the days as they happen. They'll be an inspiration for me going forward.
Edit: Since I penned this piece way back in February, I must confess to having been slowly re-reading this series, a little each evening. In the previous post I mentioned the long shadow these books have cast, and they still do. Everything I read - or rather how I feel about what I read - gets compared to these books and none have quite compared to these books. Sometimes books just go "click" and it's just "it". This is a great, especially when you have the books on hand to reread.
In addition, in rereading these books I had an epiphany in how to write, or rather finding an element of writing that I never realized was as important. I will save that insight for my regular blog, this coming week.
Just as with the Brother Cadfael series, all I can do is sing their praise, and hope that  some of you will give them a try, and you'll enjoy them as much as I have. Just to show how much I loved them, I bought the paperback books so that I can reread them, perhaps before the next volume comes out. I'm looking forward to that. 
Edit: As I mentioned above, it only took about a month to start that reread... And I enjoy them just as much.

My Tenth Year in Publishing - The Numbers

 

The mission of Celanda House is to publish the fiction of C. Litka as widely as possible - without having to work at doing so. Celanda House has no mandate to make money - It just can't lose money. To accomplish its stated mission within the assigned parameters, Celanda House, whenever possible, prices ebooks and audiobooks at cost. In most instances this is free. 
After ten years in business, how successful has Celanda House been in its mission of getting the works of C. Litka into the hands of the eager reading public? Below are the numbers.

This year I have simplified the chart, combining all sales per book into one number. I have broken out the ebook to audiobook ratio per store.

Book Title/ Release Date

Year 10 Sales

Total to Date

SALES PERIOD

May 2024 – April 2025

Ebooks, Audiobooks &

Paperback combined

Ebooks, Audiobooks &

Paperback combined

A Summer in Amber

23 April 2015

926

11,029

Some Day Days

9 July 2015

692

7,267

The Bright Black Sea

17 Sept 2015

1,861

20,092

Castaways of the Lost Star (Initial Release -withdrawn)

4 Aug 2016

2,176(one year)

The Lost Star’s Sea

13 July 2017

1,009

11,651

Beneath the Lanterns

13 Sept 2018

717

6,139

Sailing to Redoubt

15 March 2019

838

5,824

Prisoner of Cimlye

2 April 2020

701

4,436

Lines in the Lawn (short story)

8 June 2020 Widthdrawn

174

Keiree

18 Sept 2020

709

4,032

The Secret of the Tzaritsa Moon

11 Nov 2020

1.036

5,519

The Secrets of Valsummer House

18 March 2021

984

4,623

Shadows of an Iron Kingdom

15 July 2021

1.502

5,837

The Aerie of a Pirate Prince

29 Sept 2022

950

3,018

The Girl on the Kerb

6 April 2023

1,296

7,000

A Night on Isvalar

15 July 2021

824

917

Passage to Jarpara

16 March 2024

795

972

Chateau Clare

17 Oct 2024

1,257

1,257

Glencrow Summer

Feb 21 2025

704

704

The Lost Star six book Series Aug-Sep 2024

149

149

Omnibus Editions (withdrawn)

30

TOTALS THIS PERIOD

16,950  Year Ten

102,835 Grand Total

Sales by Store ( ebook/audiobook, store sales, and store % of total sales)

Draft2Digital*   2,257 ebooks   1,403 Audio books (38%)   3,660 Total   21.5%

Kobo                   82 ebooks              n/a                                82 Total       .5%

Amazon              780 ebooks   26 Audiobooks  (3%) 21 Paper   827 Total     5%

Google            5,393 ebooks     6,954 Audiobooks (56%)     12,347 Total   73%

* D2D includes sales via Smashwords, B & N, Apple, & a few European stores. Audiobook sales from Apple.

(Note: the totals between the chart and these listings differ by 34, well within my margin of error.)

Revenue: $379.21  

Expenses: Books & Postage for Beta Readers $80 (est.)

A Table of Yearly Sales Results

6,537 Year One, 2015/16 (3 novels released)

6,137 Year Two, 2016/17 (1 novel released)

6,385 Year Three, 2017/18 (1 novel released)

8,225* Year Four, 2018/19: (2 novels released) * includes a strange 1950 books sold in one day on Amazon that they say is correct. It would be 6,275 without that strange day's sales.

8,530 Year Five, 2019/20 (1 novel released)

7,484 Year Six, 2020/21 (2 novels released, 1 novella, 1 children's short story)

8,853 Year Seven 2021/22 (1 novel, 1 novella)

19,524 Year Eight 2022/23 (1 short novel, 1 novel  Audiobooks)

14,468 Year Nine 2023/24 (1 sequel novel, 1 novella release wide in late April)

16,950 Year Ten 2024/2025 (2 novels)

The Complete Yearly Reports on this Blog

Year 1: https://clitkabooks.blogspot.com/2016/05/a-window-to-self-publishing.html

Year 2: https://clitkabooks.blogspot.com/2017/05/two-years-of-free-books.html

Year 3: https://clitkabooks.blogspot.com/2018/05/3-years-in-self-publishing.html

Year 4: https://clitkabooks.blogspot.com/2019/05/four-years-in-self-publishing.html

Year 5: https://clitkabooks.blogspot.com/2020/05/five-years-in-self-publishing.html

Year 6:https://clitkabooks.blogspot.com/2021/05/six-years-in-self-publishing.html

Year 7: https://clitkabooks.blogspot.com/2022/05/7-years-in-self-publishing-report.html

Year 8: https://clitkabooks.blogspot.com/2023/05/eight-years-as-authorpublisher-report.html

Year 9: https://clitkabooks.blogspot.com/2024/05/nine-years-as-authorpublisher-part-2.html

My Thoughts On the Data 

Surprisingly my tenth year proved to be my second best in sales. In last year's yearly report I said that I hoped this year would be like last year, and, as it turned out, my sales exceeded last year by almost 2,500 copies. Revenue up $200 as well. It was a very good year. There is likely no secret reason for this; new releases, like the tide, raise the sale of all books. So with two new novels released this year both of which sold well, likely explains the better than expected sales.

The most important reading of the data above is that across all of my books, my back catalog books continue to sell at roughly the same rate as my newest titles. This would seem to suggest that I am attracting new readers every year, who then go on to read the stories I published before they discovered my books. Also it is interesting how relatively close in numbers most books are, with my space opera continuing to be my best seller, followed by its direct sequel and the four adventure/mysteries set in that same locale. Why the third book in the series, Shadows of an Iron Kingdom outsells all the other titles in that series is a mystery. There is a role playing game by the name of Iron Kingdoms which might explain it. Or readers simply like Gothic themed stories.

As I said in an earlier post, I think these sales are earned by the number of words I've written and number of books I've published. As well as the frequency of releases. More books, more often, more sales. Econ. 101. 

Audiobooks accounted for 49.5% of my sales this year. I suspect that audio books account for close to half of my Apple sales as well, since that 38% includes Smashwords, B & N et. al. Clearly, by adopting audiobooks, even auto-narrated ones, I have doubled my sales. Best publishing decision I made. And it was a no-brainer.

Google continues to dominate my sales. I think the reason is simple; young people use their smart phones as their computer, social media platform, and entertainment center. Offering my entertainment on phones via the Play Store, Apple Books, or on the Kindle App, as both text and voice is a doorway to the younger readers. As is making my work affordable to anyone who has a smart phone, i.e. just about everyone.

Looking Ahead

My next novel, The Darval-Mers Dossier, a 53K word mystery novel set in the same world as Chateau Clare and Glencrow Summer, is set to be released on 5 June 2025. Ideally I would like to release a second novel early in 2026, even though my stated goal is one novel a year. We'll see.

Earlier this year, I had toyed with the idea of making big changes after reaching the 100,000 sales mark and my 10th year. I considered going all in on Amazon and Kindle Unlimited for a year or two, just to see what I could do to capture the paying market. However, I sobered up and decided not to pursue that avenue. First, the sales of my books on Amazon and Kobe have inspired little confidence that I could sell enough books to justify spending the money I'd have to spend to get them in front of enough readers to have a chance of success. Together with the likelihood of losing most of that money, since my books are out of the mainstream of bestsellers I sighed and thought, no. And perhaps more importantly, I feel good about simply sharing my stories with readers. It just seems to feel right. I lose nothing by doing so and gain a pleasant felling of satisfaction by doing it. Plus, I like looking at my sales figures each month. Why turn fun into work? 

So, going forward, there may be new sales venues opening up this summer. I've seen reports suggesting that bookstore.org will be adding self-published books to their offering, somehow, which, if true would bear looking into. And I believe Kobo is in the early stages of some sort of audiobook move as well. Currently invite only. Otherwise, I'm staying the course. We'll see what the next year brings. Fingers crossed, something good.

Stay tuned for it's other than Amazon release day!

The Saturday Morning Post (No. 107)

 

Well we're back to talking about Emma M. Lion. It is good to be back. I fear that my enjoyment of these books casts a long shadow over the other books I've read since reading these books. The reason is simple; these books so perfectly align with my taste in stories.

My reviewer criteria. I like light, entertaining novels. I like smaller scale stories rather than epics. I like character focused novels featuring pleasant characters, with a minimum number of unpleasant ones. I greatly value clever and witty writing. I like first person, or close third person narratives. I dislike a lot of "head jumping" between POVs and flashbacks. I want a story, not a puzzle. While I am not opposed to violence, I dislike gore for the sake of gore. I find long and elaborate fight, action, and battle sequences tedious. Plot holes and things that happen for the convenience of the author annoy me. And I fear I'm a born critic in that I don't mind pointing out what I don't like in a story. However, I lay no claim to be the final arbitrator of style and taste, you need to decide for yourself what you like or dislike in a book.

Your opinions are always welcome. Comment below. 

The Unselected Journals of Emma M Lion Volumes 5 & 6 by Beth Brower  A  &  A

Above are the covers you get with the paperback versions of the books, just to illustrate that you can't judge a book by its cover. Or maybe you can. Maybe these covers say exactly what you are getting - a journal of a fictional character by an author whose not afraid to trust her writing, and her Emma M. Lion to entertain you with everyday life in a fictional London of 1883.

These books just keep getting better. With every book we get a new character or two, and we get deeper into the lives and secrets of the characters we've come to know and care for. Emma has hinted at a tragic past, and in these books we get to know Emma and that past far better. In each, the growing cast of characters make their quirky appearances dragging Emma into all sorts of misadventures, and deepening friendships. The books begin to get a little thicker as the plot, such as it is, gets Emma more and more involved with life with in Str Crispin's and social duties imposed on her by her aunt.

My daughter compared these books to Anne of Green Gables, with a young woman constantly getting into and then out of trouble, with the help of her friends. It has been many years since I read Anne of Green Gables to my kids, though I have DVDs of the old PBS series, which I love, and rewatch every five or six years. While Emma has many things in common with Anne, heck, they're both orphans, and they both love books, but their lives and settings are very different. Still, if you love Anne, I think you'll fall in love with Emma as well. 

Next post, I will attempt to sum up the series as a whole.

Ten Years as a Publisher What (If Anything) I Have Learned? (Part Three)

 

I've saved the best to last.

I've learned that publishing your own work can be engaging, satisfying, and fun for a variety of reasons. For me it has been an entirely positive experience. And I think it can be for everyone as well, but only if you do the necessary homework to understand how the self-publishing market works. And after that, set out clear, obtainable goals in light of your research. 

There is no one best way to self-publish your work. There are different ways with different goals.

For example, if you want to sell a lot of books, you will need to write very specific books with very specific tropes and story beats in the bestselling genre you've identified in your research. And then expect to spend a great deal of time and money trying to attract readers.

On the other hand, if you want to just write that story that needs to be written, you probably should accept the fact it's not going to sell a lot of copies, and that the joy will come from the journey, the accomplishment, not some monetary reward. 

In my case, I set out modest, realistic goals, that I've met. And have had a great deal of fun not only meeting those goals, but in taking a hands-on approach the the entire process of writing and publishing a book.

For the last fifteen years or so, writing stories, and then publishing them, has given me something to get out of bed for. Dreaming up my stories has filled many an idle minute or two (about the length of my ability to focus) throughout every day and while I lay in bed waiting for sleep. They have been my bedtime stories. And though I dazzle no one I know with being an author, producing my books has given me a sense of accomplishment.

I've done something with my time.

My decision to approach publishing as an amateur, which is to say someone who does it for the love of doing it, rather than to make money, has contributed a great deal to my satisfaction. Knowing the market and my position in it, meant that I approached it with a chance of success, on my terms. And my modest terms have meant that I've had a great deal of fun, without stress. I've changed covers, I've tried new stores, new mediums, especially audiobooks, and seen my sales numbers grow. My approach has also spared me from having to do unpleasant and distasteful things, like promoting myself and my work, or simply doing any work at all. 

Writing this blog has also been a source of pleasure for me. I like writing, and this blog is an excuse to write.

Last, but far from least, there is one other aspect of self-publishing that I've not mentioned, but which has been a great source of enjoyment and satisfaction. That is engaging with readers of my books and blog, making online friends, and becoming a small part of the community of fellow authors.

I've made some wonderful online friends, as readers, beta readers, and fellow authors. Not being a social creature, I really appreciate the opportunity to meet with people in this way - through the written word, which is my medium of choice when it comes to communication. And so, I would like to take this opportunity to thank everyone who has reached out to me over the last ten years; every contact has been a pleasure.

I would also like to thank everyone who has taken the time to rate and/or reviewed my stories, no matter how you rated and reviewed them. I appreciate the effort you made to do so. I have enjoyed and valued every one. And though, thankfully, negative reviews have been rare, I have to confess that I enjoyed them as well. I have opinions, and you do too. Thank you for sharing them with me.

So to sum it all up; THANK YOU! You've made it great.

Next week, I will report on my year ten sales numbers.

Coming 5 June 2025 or sooner!

The Saturday Morning Post (No.106)

As I mentioned in a previous post, I signed up for two months of Kindle Unlimited, with the intention of exploring all the different books on offer. In this case, it was a book by an author featured in one of the blogs I follow (A Ruined Chapel by Moonlight), but not the book he highlighted. This one is the first book of this author's sweeping historical adventure series which sounded very appealing, since it covers my favorite historical period.

My reviewer criteria. I like light, entertaining novels. I like smaller scale stories rather than epics. I like character focused novels featuring pleasant characters, with a minimum number of unpleasant ones. I greatly value clever and witty writing. I like first person, or close third person narratives. I dislike a lot of "head jumping" between POVs and flashbacks. I want a story, not a puzzle. While I am not opposed to violence, I dislike gore for the sake of gore. I find long and elaborate fight, action, and battle sequences tedious. Plot holes and things that happen for the convenience of the author annoy me. And I fear I'm a born critic in that I don't mind pointing out what I don't like in a story. However, I lay no claim to be the final arbitrator of style and taste, you need to decide for yourself what you like or dislike in a book.

Your opinions are always welcome. Comment below. 

The Old World, Book One in the By the Hands of Men by Roy M Griffis  C

This is the first book in a six book historical drama that covers the period of 1917 through the inter-war era stretching across four continents. Once again, it is a very highly rated series of books, scoring 4.7 stars on Amazon and 4.6 on Goodreads. This book earned 4.5 stars on both Amazon and Goodreads. As such, I was looking forward to giving it a read as it covers, as I said in the lede, my favorite period of history. Alas, as you can see from my grade, I am once again in the small minority who was not entirely captivated by it. Though this time, I have some unique reasons for its C grade.

This this story, and I believe the entire saga, feature the lives of the two main protagonists in this first installment, Charlotte Braninov a young Russian woman who had been sent to an English boarding school by her parents concerned about the unrest in Russia prior to World War One, and Lt Robert Fitzgerald the son of an English nobleman. In this book, we meet Charlotte in 1917 as she is serving as a nurse on the Western Front during World War One. During her time spent close to the front lines, she meets Lt. Robert, and well, not to spoil too much of the story, they fall in love. The author goes into great detail about the horror of the war and its toll, spending a lot of word describing the conditions they find themselves in and developing his two main characters and side characters, as well as. It is a heartfelt story told well.

But not for me. 

Perhaps as a writer/reader I look on stories a little differently than readers. For example, take the structure of his story. Mr Griffis opens the story with Charlotte as the point of view character. It is from her viewpoint that we meet Lt Robert and we learn of one of his experiences in the war prior to their meeting. This section is then followed by a section with Lt Robert as the point of view character. It turns the clock back and we revisit the very harrowing experience we learn about in part one, but this time in great detail. This structure means that the reader already knows that Robert survives, lessening the tension the narration might otherwise had without that knowledge. As a writer, it seems a strange choice to make, since I think opening with Lt Robert's section would work just as well, or better, while maintaining tension within the situation. But I suppose, knowing there are six books in the series, one might suspect he would survive in any event. Yes, nitpicking. But still?

There are several more substantial reasons why this book did not for me, let's start with one that applies only to me. By chance, this is the third book I've read in the last year that has led me to the trenches of the Western Front. And indeed, the previous ones also featured a nurse, and thus, this book suffered for a certain feeling of familiarity. Indeed, I have this sense of deja vu for some reason when thinking about the events in this story, though I don't know why. It's as if I read similar scenes before. This experience, of course, is unique to me and has nothing at all to do with the book itself. But it left a been there, done that feeling in me.

A more important reason for my modest grade is yet another personal reason. I don't have a visual mind. Action scenes described with great detail do not create a "movie" in my mind, like they might for many readers. This book has many cinema graphic action sequences that are choreographed in great detail and play out over many pages. For people who can conjure up a scenes in their mind from words, they'll be in for a harrowing experience, since the author brings the horrors of battle and the human costs vividly to life. Alas, for me, these extended scenes just don't work. I find them tedious, and I usually skim through them, impatient to get on with what I see as the story. Likewise, I also don't care for extended and detailed medical scenes. Not my jam. I tend to skim read or skip over them as well, and this book has several of those as well. It is about nurses and war, after all. For many readers, however this is a plus.

The author is also a little too, well, present, in the telling of the story, for my taste. He has several passages where he says something to the effect that Charlotte will remember the experience just described in the story for all her life, which bumps me out of the story at hand, since that comment comes out of the future, as it where. In an essay I may've posted already by the time this one is, I mentioned that I don't care for stories that are told deliberately looking back. Just me again.

Griffis also inserts bits of pure history into the narrative, in part for background of the story, but they come off sounding like history lessons, separate from the narration. Indeed, I was left with the impression that it is the intent of the author to "teach" the reader lessons in his stories. Nothing wrong with that, but when the lesson becomes a lecture, it rips the curtains of the story's virtual reality aside. I see the little man in the corner manipulating the levers of the story, and can't ignore him and his manipulations. 

This intent to educate the reader came to the fore in what he has Charlotte do at the end of this book, likely to hook the reader into reading the next book. I won't spoil the story by saying what he has her do, but while I can see that there might be some emotional reasons to justify what she does, he has her do something that I find so very, very stupid, in light of various experiences related in this book that I simply can't believe she would do what he has her doing. It seems to be decision entirely driven by the desire of the author to tell a story he wishes to tell - one that is foreshadowed in this book - rather than by any believable motivation on part of the character. She's not an idiot. While many authors often have their characters do stupid things to drive the plot along, in this case, I found the choice he has her make simply unbelievable. It was the author's choice because, I believe he has something he wants to say... To be honest, I'm not looking for lectures in my fiction.

As I say my review criteria above, I like light, entertaining stories. Mr Griffis has written an intense, emotionally charged, historical drama, with, I believe an intent to bring his sweeping vision of this period of history to the reader. Not my jam, but if it sounds like yours, you need look no further. Perhaps the subtitle says it all. No doubt that if you continue on with his well written, sweeping saga it will take you from Russia to Africa and beyond, discovering the history of many things along the way. 

Ten Years as a Publisher: What (If Anything) Have I Learned? (Part Two)

This is the second of my posts reflecting on my ten years as a publisher of my own work.

As anyone in the author/publisher business will tell you, things have changed in the last ten years. A lot. Still, just as in Casablanca, the fundamental things still apply. And the most fundamental thing in publishing is that readers will not buy a book they never come across. If you want to sell a book, you have to, somehow, put it in front of readers. A lot of readers. And better yet, in front of a lot of readers who want to read the type of story you've written. How to get your book in front of those readers may be what has changed the most.

In 2015, when I released my first book, it was possible to release a book on Amazon and Smashwords, and expect people to see, and some to buy it, without doing anything more than releasing it  Maybe even gain enough of sales to get the ball rolling. But I believe that even then, it was still much harder than to sell a book than it had been in the gold rush ebook era, a few years prior. I can't say how much traction a book would receive without further efforts, since I used a free price to drive my sales upon the release of A Summer in Amber on Smashwords, and shortly after, Amazon matched that price as well. My records are a bit spotty early on, but it appears that I sold (for free) 127 copies in the first month, and by the end of August, I had sold 823 copies, along with 583 copies of Some Day Days, my second book which I'd released in July. Even with a free price, the books had to have been widely seen to have sold that many books without any other effort on my part.

Back in those days, more ambitious authors wanted, and paid, to land spots in the various book promoting email newsletters, in order to reach more readers. A few years later Amazon came along with ads you could buy, or bid on, and those became the new go-to method of getting your books seen on the home page of books similar to yours. While I am sure that these methods still apply, these days, social media seems to be all the rage, at least with the younger writers and readers. I've heard it said may times that today's authors spend half their time not writing, but commenting, liking, and posting within the author/reader communities one can find on various social media sites. If you have a personality, you can make videos on TikTok or even have a YouTube channel. I've discovered that may "BookTubers" are indeed authors who use their channels to promote their books, some more than others. 

The idea in social media promotion is to make on-line friends with other authors, potential readers, influencers, and gain as many followers in return as you can, in order to sell your book. The theory being that it is easier to sell to friends than strangers. Plus the cool kids now do Kickstarter book releases to get their money upfront, if they have the money and expertise to fund and run them. The key, however, is still numbers. I've seen it said by a YouTube booktuber, who did a Kickstarter for his books, that you can expect only 2% to 3% of our subscribers to buy a book on your Kickstarter, and I expect similar results for converting subscribers to customers for most types social media.

While I can not say for certain if what I did ten years ago would work today, I do know that without my free price, my books would likely have not gained any traction and that I would likely have lost money promoting them. However, free books might still work today, for one simple reason; there are an order of magnitude less free books available, making any one book at least 10x if not 100x easier to come across. Plus, I feel that the readers of free books are a distinct market, eager for books to read, making them more eager to find new books. But, who knows? I can, however, say that I wouldn't have done anything different then what I died, if I was just starting today. I'm still lazy.

My strategy of releasing my books for free has worked quite well for me, and still does. I often sell over a thousand books a month. It works in part because I have built a small following who will likely buy each new book, eventually. Which is to say, when they think to look up my books to see it I've released anything new. But more significantly, because I now have an 18 or 22 book back catalog of books, every new reader will, if they like the first book of mine, will have seventeen other books of mine to pick up and read. While they may not read them all, every sale of a book to a new reader is likely multiplied by all the other books of mine that appeal to them. I am certain that those add-on sales make up a significant share of my sales. These are sales I've earned by writing millions of words and publishing 18 books (or 22, on Amazon and Kobo) rather than via promotions and advertising. Luckily, I love to write.

Back in 2015 there were plenty of snake-oil merchants out on the web trying, and too often, succeeding, in selling aspiring authors dubious keys to success, with their books, seminars, and package publishing deals. They're still out there today in force. It's a good business apparently. Much more lucrative than writing books. And with the traditional publishing business laying off so many people, those refugees also out there trying to make a living as freelance editors, cover artists and promoters. Plus, as I may have mentioned before, there seems to be a trend to try to make self-publishing into mini-trad publishing by guilting author/publishers into thinking that they have to follow all the steps traditional publishers do in getting a book published, except that the authors have to pay for it themselves. So, as I said above, the fundamental things still apply here as well. There's a sucker born every minute, usually an aspiring author, and one should never give a sucker an even break. The hucksters never do.

So to sum up what I've seen in indie-publishing over the last ten years, the fundamental things are still applying. If you choose to get into freelance fiction, either in traditional or indie-publishing with the idea of making a long term career of it, you are going to be sadly disappointed. Indeed, if you get into indie-publishing expecting to make money, you will be sadly disappointed. But, if you expect to lose money doing it, you'll be pleasantly surprised by how much you can lose, especially if you follow all the advice floating out there about how to succeed in indie-publishing. Just about the only people who succeed in indie-publishing are the hucksters, a business many authors switch to as soon as they have a little success. They know where the money is in this business.

However, if you write and then publish your work as a creative endeavor first and foremost, and enjoy the creative endeavor, you will find it very rewarding. Though you might not see any reward in your bank account.

Some final thoughts in a week or two. In the meanwhile: 

The ebook version of The Darval-Mers Dossier is now available for pre-order on Amazon for $2.99 for a June 5th 2025 release.

The free versions from Google, Smashwords, Apple, B & N, Kobo and various other ebook stores will be released on that date, or before. Stay tuned for their release date. Audiobook versions will follow shortly after the ebook. A paperback version will also be released on June 5th or before as well. Price to be determined by final page count.