Tracy Cooper-Posey's Blog, page 13

Another couple Kickstarter’s you might like to back!

Another couple Kickstarter’s you might like to back!

If you loved Under the Tuscan Sun, starring  Diane Lane, then you might like this special edition, because the story that goes with it reminds me a lot of this movie — even though one is set in Italy and the book is set in France.  It seems to have the same sensibilities — she speaks of the scent of lavender, and a villa soaking up the sun.

Very evocative.

There’s only a few days to go on this project so check it out soon.  https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/lisemcclendon/blackbird-fly-a-deluxe-edition-hardcover

On a rather different note; this is an intriguing sounding, female-lead epic fantasy book one of three up on kickstarter: The Quill and the Vial.

Author Bree Moore doesn’t use the word Druid in her description, but just the first line of the blurb “Plants lie, and Jayce can hear them.” has me wanting to take a look at this book myself!

Moore is also rather generously letting you read the first three chapters for free! So go and try before you buy, I know it’s on my list now.

Only 6 days left on this over 1,000% funded project: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/innateinkpublishing/the-quill-and-the-vial-a-cozy-epic-fantasy-book

Enjoy.

Kobo have released their Kobo Plus service for USA and UK readers

Kobo have released their Kobo Plus service for USA and UK readers

Kobo announced the release of Kobo Plus in the USA and UK on April 4th, but this was the soonest I could squeeze it into the post schedule, so you may be aware of this already.

However, following up on my post “Other Places to Find Good Books: Kobo” last month, I’m letting you know that Kobo Plus is now available in the US. 

In case you’re wondering, all my titles are available via Kobo Plus except for the handful that are only available on my site. 

You can check the program out here if you’re in the US:  https://www.kobo.com/us/en/plus and here: https://www.kobo.com/gb/en/plus if you’re in the UK.

KISS ACROSS TIME Tenth Anniversary (very) Limited Edition now on Kickstarter!

KISS ACROSS TIME Tenth Anniversary (very) Limited Edition now on Kickstarter!

The Kiss Across Time Tenth Anniversary Limited Editions series Kickstarter Campaign has just gone live this morning. 

We’ve worked on this since the beginning of the year and now we’re up and running.  Finally! 

We’ve got fabulous new covers, new interiors and I wrote introductory essays for every single book.

When you read the Story on the project page, you’ll be able to see samples of the interior and the new covers.

Plus there are two unique stretch goals attached to this project. 

But the most important thing about this Kickstarter is that once it closes, you will not be able to get the Limited Edition series anywhere else.  We will not be putting it up for retail sale later.   Not even on our SRP site. 

This is absolutely a one-time opportunity.

Check out the campaign here:  https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/storiesrulepress/kiss-across-time-10th-anniversary-exclusive-special-editions

Cheers,

I’m Pretty Sure the Pandemic is Over. In that case…

I’m Pretty Sure the Pandemic is Over. In that case…

In March 2020, when the COVID lockdowns kicked in, we discounted a half dozen series of mine, to give everyone stuck at home with no income a chance to buy some fiction to keep themselves occupied while the world had a meltdown.

I’m pretty sure the pandemic is over, even though the hospitals and medical centers are still handing out masks.

It’s time to return those series to their normal retail prices.  We won’t do all the series at once, but will change them over the next few weeks.

Today I wanted to let you know that the entire Belvoed Bloody Time futuristic vampire menage time travel romance series is the first to head back to retail.  All the books and short stories in the series will switch next Saturday.

That gives you a week to buy the books at these Pandemic prices.

These are the current and retail prices for the series:

TitleCurrent PriceRetail PriceBannockburn BindingFreeFreeWait$0.99$2.99Byzantine Heartbreak$2.99$4.99Viennese Agreement$0.99$2.99Romani Armada$2.99$4.99Spartan Resistance$2.99$4.99Celtic Crossing$2.99$4.99Beloved Bloody Time Boxed Set$19.99$19.99

Note that Book 1, Bannockburn Binding, will remain free, and the series boxed set will remain at the current price.

Here’s the links to each of the books on Stories Rule Press:

1.0: Bannockburn Binding
1.1: Wait
2.0: Byzantine Heartbreak
2.1: Viennese Agreement
3.0: Romani Armada
4.0: Spartan Resistance
5.0: Celtic Crossing
5.5: Beloved Bloody Time Boxed Set

Again, prices will remain at the Pandemic discount until next Saturday, April 22nd.

If you’ve never bought directly from me on the SRP store, browse the front page to find the 10% off coupon code for first time customers.

And if you’re a returning reader (thank you!), you’ll have reward points you can use for a discount.

Enjoy.

Printable, Pretty Checklist of All My Books

Printable, Pretty Checklist of All My Books

If you backed my first Kickstarter campaign, then you already have a copy of my new, printable checklist.

But if you didn’t sign up for His Outrageous Proposal, now you can get the bonus that everyone in the campaign received.

If you’ve downloaded my Reading Order Perpetual, then you’ll have a good idea of what is in the printable.  The Reading Order Perpetual is an ebook which you could print if you really wanted to, but I imagine the printout would look pretty messy.  Also, it doesn’t allow easy editing or checking off.

The printable checklist is a 26 page PDF that lists every single book or story I’ve ever published, with a check box beside each book.  The list is broken up into series, but there is a full alphabetical list at the back of the booklet, too.

As I suggest at the front of the booklet, once you’ve printed it, trim it down to 8 x 5.5 and bind the pages in a way that lets you add and remove pages.  The little disk binders would be ideal.  So would an old personal planner binder, if you still have one lying around.  (I used to love those planners!)

As I release books in the future, I’ll also update the series pages for that book.  Then you just have to print out the series pages, rather than the whole book.

Or you can print out the entire book, if you want, replace all the pages and check everything off again.  

The printable checklist will give you an easy way to keep track of which of my books you already have, and which ones you still have to acquire. 

I built it in response to direct requests from readers. 

I hope you find it useful.

Check out and download the checklist here.

Enjoy.

A new look for The Royal Talisman

A new look for The Royal Talisman

The Royal Talisman is part of the Go Get ’em Women collection, which features strong women characters and their adventures (and romances!).  This one is pretty steamy, as well as being an historical spy story. 

Bet you didn’t realize I was writing historical espionage long before Adelaide Becket!

Anyway, the old cover for The Royal Talisman was not one of my favourites and I”ve itched to change it for a few years now.

Finally, it has a new cover, for both ebook and print editions.

If she reveals herself, she will lose him. If she doesn’t, he will be hanged.

It is 1884 and France is at war with China.  Stuart Sutherland-Bruce returns to England after a posting in China as a member of the English diplomatic corps.  He meets the astonishingly beautiful Bian, an exotic woman who turns his life upside down with the power of his desire for her.  As she continues to astonish him at every turn with the unexpectedness of her life and her responses to him, he falls deeply in love with her.

But Bian did not wander into Stuart’s life accidentally.  She has orders to become intimate with him and prove he has been giving English secrets to the Chinese.  Yet as she works her spell on Stuart, she learns he does not seem to be the traitor her British superiors assure her he is.

Bian is caught in a trap:  If she reveals to Stuart her real — and shocking — identity, she will lose the man she loves.  If she honours Stuart’s highest values and does her duty, then Stuart will be tried for espionage and hanged.

This book is part of the Go Get ‘Em Women collection:
1.0 Delly’s Last Night
2.0 The Royal Talisman
3.0 Vivian’s Return
4.0 Ningaloo Nights
A Sexy Romantic Suspense Novella

If you already have this book, then head for the store where you bought it and download a new copy from your purchases.  It should have the new cover.  If it doesn’t, contact the retailer and ask that your copy be updated with the new cover. 

And if that doesn’t work, contact me with a copy of your receipt for the book (you should be able to find it in your account on the retail site), and I’ll put a copy of The Royal Talisman into your Bookfunnel library.

If you don’t have a copy yet, you can get one here:

Buy from me at SRP!

Enjoy.

Last Chance for Romantic Suspense at These Prices

Last Chance for Romantic Suspense at These Prices

Unfortunately, with the ongoing inflation and general trend in prices in publishing, we’ve had to revise some of our pricing, and reluctantly raise it.

I’ll be going through those changes over the next few weeks, starting with today.

For years now, the Romantic Thrillers collection has been priced at $3.99 per book, except Dead Again, which was $2.99.  This is despite most of the books being solid, long novels (especially Terror Stash, which comes in at well over 100,000 words).

So, next Saturday, all the full novels in the collection will be raised to their new retail price of $4.99.  This doesn’t include the new shorts and flash fiction stories that are prequels and sequels to Dead Again.   (See Deadweight, if you’re curious.)

It does include:

Dead Again
Dead Double
Fatal Wild Child
Terror Stash

This price change will take place on all retailers, everywhere.  This is your last chance to buy the novels at their old price.  And if you buy from me at Stories Rule Press, and you’re a new customer, you can grab the 10% off coupon from the front page of the store. 

If you’re a returning customer, you can use your reward points for a discount.

Buy your books from me here:

Dead Again
Dead Double
Fatal Wild Child
Terror Stash

Enjoy.

The Blood Stone boxed set is on sale at Kobo this month

The Blood Stone boxed set is on sale at Kobo this month

Flesh + Blood, the boxed set of the Blood Stone series, has been selected by Kobo for their Romance Boxset Buy More Save More promotion from April 01, 2023 to May 01, 2023.

As I write this post, I don’t have a link to the promotion page, which won’t go live until April 1st, but you can start on Kobo’s Deals & More page, and look for the Romance Boxset Buy More Save More promo there.

Enjoy.

The Monthly SRP 20% Off Everything Sale has Started

The Monthly SRP 20% Off Everything Sale has Started

The subject line says just about everything. 

The monthly 20% off everything sale started this morning and runs until midnight MDT on April 2nd.

To start browsing the catalogue of books, click here.  This will take you to the bookstore page, where you can browse, sort and filter to narrow down your selection.

You can use the coupon code for any book available on Stories Rule Press.This includes pre-orders, boxed sets, series sets and books already discounted.You can use the coupon code as many times as you like until it expires.You can share the coupon code with other book lovers.You will also add to your reward points anything you buy with the coupon.The coupon is only valid until midnight MDT April 2.The coupon is only valid for purchases made at Stories Rule Press.

To use the code, add all the books you want to your shopping basket, then checkout.  As you check out, there is a box where you can paste the coupon code.  Once you’ve pasted the code, the basket total will be updated to show the 20% discount.

The coupon code is:

AJYQ7V6H

Head to https://storiesrulepress.com/shop/ to start shopping.

Tracy

Other Places to Find Good Books: Kobo

Other Places to Find Good Books: Kobo

I have a truly international readership.  The map, above, shows all the places in the world where I sell books….and this is just the places I sell books through Kobo.  I sell books to other countries via other retailers and my own site, but don’t have a fancy-dancy map for those.   

(And one day I’ll sell to Greenland, Iceland and Madagascar, among others, which will help my completionist soul settle down!)

For many readers in North America, the Big River is the first and possibly the only online location where they buy books. It is certainly the largest online bookstore in the world, but it isn’t the only place you can buy books.

And for many people, it is not their first choice, or they simply can’t buy from there.

The benefits of roaming widely to buy books

By not restricting yourself to a single store to buy your books, you’re reaping a dozen great benefits. 

No matter which stores you’re on, that store does not have every book ever published available there.  But by browsing a dozen different stores and sites, apps and other sources, you can come pretty close to seeing every story available in your preferred genre.
 You can price match, coupon clip, and compare pricing….or get it free elsewhere.

Depending on where you’re acquiring the book, the price will vary.  Some bookstores price match (which is nice), but by being flexible about where you acquire books, you can save a lot of money.
 You can take advantage of loyalty programs that other stores don’t offer.
 You can pick the payment system you prefer (credit cards, or debit cards, or PayPal, or more).
 You can shop locally, if you prefer.
 You can dodge retail sites laden with advertisements, or that filter your search results to show you what they want you to see.
 You can support favourite authors directly.
 

I frequently get emails from readers thanking me for making my books available as widely as possible, including my own site (which for some readers, is the only place they can acquire my books).  .   

There are dozens of places where you can acquire ebooks.  And none of them are illegal bootleg sites.

My first stop for books is Kobo.com, for a number of reasons

1. Kobo is Canadian.  And so am I.

This comes under the “shop locally” banner. 

2. Kobo caters to a lot of international markets.

Check the range of countries that Kobo serves here.  Is your country there?

3. Kobo has a reward points program.

This was a biggie for me.  Do you remember Fictionwise?  It was one of the first online ebook stores to ever pop up.  They had a reward points program, and I loved it.  Build up enough points and you get free books.  Wooo! 

This is also the reason why I made sure that my retail store on Stories Rule Press also has a rewards point program.  Fictionwise trained me to like that little bonus payoff.

4. Kobo has a read-all-you-want subscription program

I don’t personally use Kobo Plus, the subscription program, but millions of people do.  My monthly payments for Kobo Plus are frequently much higher than my monthly sales on Kobo.  

BTW, nearly all my books are available for download through Kobo Plus.  The only titles not in the program are those that are only available on my site (which is only three or so books).  Everything else is there in Kobo Plus to binge on…including the other SRP authors’ books.

The Kobo Plus program is not yet available to USA or UK residents.  I asked Kobo if they had a date when they would launch Kobo Plus in these countries, but they did not respond.  I’ll keep you updated on this, if I do hear back from them.

Kobo Plus also includes audiobooks.

5. Kobo doesn’t insist you use their reader, or their software.

You can download just the book file and sideload it to your preferred reader.  As the retail sites’ inhouse reading apps all have major flaws of one kind or another, or drench you in advertisements while giving you an inferior reading experience, being able to choose which reading software you use is a huge relief. 

[Note:  sideloading only works if the book you bought does not have DRM protection…or if you remove the DRM protection. Stripping DRM is usually against the terms in the user agreement that you agreed to or actually signed when you set up your retail account.  Luckily, many publishers are starting to understand that offering DRM free ebooks is actually a positive thing for both readers and publishers and are removing the DRM from their titles as a reader service. And nearly all indie authors offer DRM free reading.]

[And another note:  The Kobo Plus subscription books you download MUST be read in Kobo’s ereading app or on one of their Kobo reading devices, and you are not given the option of downloading the book’s file.  This is so they know how long you’ve spent reading the book and can pay authors accordingly.]

On the other hand, if you use Kobo’s reading software or one of their reading devices, then you don’t have to load/sideload anything.  Books you buy automatically appear on your device or in the app.

6. Kobo will price match if you find the book cheaper elsewhere.

They’ll even refund the difference.  ’nuff said. 

7. Kobo lets you use PayPal to pay for your books.

Some stores don’t allow you to use PayPal, which is a pain if you have a lot of funds sitting in your PayPal account.   

Kobo also accepts all major credit cards and a range of other payment options.

8. There is no advertising on the Kobo site.

That means any search you do for specific books will give you the specific book (if it is on Kobo), and it won’t be buried under half a page of “recommended” or “sponsored” titles.

9. The free books are listed with the pay-for books.

This is a personal preference for me.  I don’t want to get a book just because it’s free, so I don’t browse through exclusively free lists.  At the same time, if a book I might like to read is hidden on a free page somewhere else, I won’t see it.  So having both free and pay-for books in one list means I’m not missing any good reads.

But if you do acquire only free books, then Kobo has a whole page dedicated to free listings, broken up into genres and categories.

10. They only sell books.

When you search, your search results are JUST books, instead of every product that might mention your search terms in their descriptions, or that the retailer thinks you might want to see, or that someone has paid the retailer to show anyone who uses those keywords.

11. Also, Kobo doesn’t bury some books in a graveyard

This is another biggie for me.

Amazon has a “graveyard” — an electronically walled-off collection of books where search results don’t go, and you can only find them if you know the exact title and the author name.

Amazon includes in the graveyard any book they consider “inappropriate” — and they decide what is inappropriate.  The author cannot appeal to Amazon to reconsider, or to explain that the book has no inappropriate content. 

For many romance authors, their titles are dumped into the graveyard because Amazon thinks the sexual content is either too much, too steamy, or for other reasons they’re not obliged to share.  A handful of my steamy romances have ended up in Amazon’s graveyard, over the years.  Carson’s Night is one of them.  You can’t search in the Kindle store for “steamy paranormal romance” and have it come up.

However, you can find Carson’s Night on Kobo just by searching on my name, or just the title, or “steamy paranormal romance” (but for this last, general search, you’ll have to click through a few search result pages to see it). 

That is proof that you can discover a great many other books on Kobo that other retailers will never show you.

Kobo is a very small company, staff-wise, yet they have over 5 million books for sale, and provide those books to most of the globe.  They have some great advantages that make them my preferred retail store.  I’ll look on Kobo first for a title, and buy it there if I can. 

If you’re learning to acquire your books from anywhere, which is a great mindset to adopt, because it opens up a world of books you won’t find if you stick with just one bookstore, Kobo is a good place to start.  Check them out at https://Kobo.com.

Then there is a long list of other places where I acquire books, and even more places to get books that I have not yet explored.  I’ll talk about them over the coming weeks.