L is for Little Library

 

And the books are all by one author: me.

Before 2012 I spent a couple of years self-publishing. I don’t claim my books were potential mega-sellers, but I don’t believe they should have been lumped with the large quantity of dross which is out there. They are simply workmanlike novels which, because of the way system worked, never made it through the doors of the large publishing houses.

Early in 2012, when many people including writers published by the big six, were turning to self-publishing, I moved the other way and signed on with a small, independent press, Crooked Cat Publishing.

It turned out to one of the best moves I’ve ever made. It helped establish the popularity of the STAC Mysteries, the set of books I’m seen posing behind like a market trader.

Why did I make that choice? Well everyone think that when you’re self-publishing, all you do is type it out, drop it onto Amazon or Smashwords, and Bob’s your auntie’s other half. Not so. Certainly not so when you’re working on a series. Every time you produce a new book, you spend time going through all the others an updating the links/publishing history. I’m currently working on STAC #12. If had to self-publish, I would need to update all the information in the other eleven to include the new title. With that done, I would then have to upload not only the new book, but the other eleven too. It’s process which can take anything up to a few days.

Crooked Cat deal with all that on my behalf. All I have to do is keep on writing.

Crooked Cat also offer paperbacks. Now I did produce paperbacks, using first Lulu and later, Createspace, and it’s an even bigger pain in the posterior than formatting e-books. But the Cat offers better distribution for its hard copy than I could. My books can now be ordered in any bookshop in the world (theoretically) simply by entering the ISBN. Was that the case when I self-published? I don’t know because I never got that deeply into it because the T’s and C’s were so convoluted that I could never work out how much I would be working for, and it was simply not worth the hassle.

In short, Crooked Cat work to a quality threshold I could never have matched without spending weeks and weeks on each book, and frankly, I’d rather be writing.

Since signing up with them, the STAC Mysteries have grown to eleven books and they’ve also put out three more of my titles, all hard-bitten thrillers. As if that’s not enough, Spookies, a new series of supernatural whodunits, will debut on June 10th.

And of all these titles, only about four are republished from my SP list. The remainder have all been written for Crooked Cat.

So why am I telling you all about my publisher?

Obviously, I’m not the only author. From historical romance, to fantasy, gritty crime thrillers to modern espionage, roms-coms to 21st century observational humour, they have some wonderful writers on the books.

And they’re open to submissions again later this month.

It’s a narrow window from April 25th to April 27th. That is just three days. They’re choosy. Your work will have to match the best if you’re to stand a chance. But if you think you have the m/s they’re looking for, then go to http://crookedcatpublishing.com/submissions/ where you’ll find the guidelines for submission.

And good luck. I hope to meet you soon as a new Crooked Cat author.