Un-publishing with Smashwords

A handful of readers have found my work via Barnes and Noble, apple, and other venues. Those numbers are very small. I distributed through Smashwords to put both My Boyfriend’s Back and Heart of Gold into those markets.

I’m unpublishing on Smashwords because I have not been satisfied with the process. While MBB went through their “grinder” seamlessly, HOG failed twice in spite of the fact that the alleged error was the copyright page, which is IDENTICAL to MBB (I used the same template.) I even unpubbed and repubbed the other title; it failed, then went through in less than 24 hours with absolutely no changes before resubmission. (Note: that means they rejected, then accepted, the same manuscript.)

Barnes and Noble has been showing discrepancies they refuse to explain.  I have contacted them numerous times over a 6 month period without ever hearing back with so much as a form letter. I am further very troubled that BN has refused to carry certain books in what I view as a hissy fit over consequences of their own bad business practices.

Almost all of my sales are via Amazon. Every email I have sent to Amazon got me a response within 24 hours. Amazon allows me to select “NO DRM.” As such, for the moment, I am going Amazon-only.  This is not a “select” related decision, as I have not opted for KDP Select and am not yet sure if I ever will.

For anyone interested, Calibre is a free program that will convert any book downloaded from Amazon to a format you can use on other devices, including Nook.  Get it HERE: http://calibre-ebook.com/

Coming to Your Kindle for Saint Patrick’s Day!

Coming from Amazon just for Saint Patrick’s Day—a short, fun, fantasy romance by Chrissy Olinger.

MORE ABOUT HEART OF GOLD:

Finn Mór is a leprechaun prince, but he has no interest in his clan's throne. All he has ever wanted was to be BIG. By the sacred laws of the leprechaun clans, any of the wee folk who can keep every last coin in their pot for two hundred years earns that very boon... or is it a curse?

Two hundred years have finally passed and Finn's wish is granted. He's 6'6" and drop-dead gorgeous. No longer immortal, he still keeps his magic as long as he keeps his gold.

Happy to sample the sins of the mortal world, enhancing his luck as he goes with the source of his power— the pot of his people— Finn runs into trouble when a sexy little thief snatches his pot. He's got to snatch it back or kiss his luck goodbye. But it's more than luck he's thinking of kissing, and she may have stolen more than his gold.

EXCERPT:

In a quiet glade, a few miles from Lackanaloy Creek, Finn shucked off his clothes, hooked a feedbag onto the nose of his only companion, and crawled beneath the pony cart to sleep. He slumbered without dreams, never waking when the moon found its zenith. The beams of wild magic that lit the small glade in that last hour of his weeness were seen by none, for the pony had fallen into a mindless doze.

The sun rose on a very different Finn Mór. Banging his dark head on the cart, he sat up with a yelp, came to full waking with a gasp, and stared down at his lap with a broad, cheeky grin.

“Woop! I’m big! Well and truly BIG!” Gaze fixed between his new long legs, his grin grew wider still. “Every bleedin’ bit o’ me!” *

*from Heart of Gold by Chrissy Olinger

Welcome My Friends at Kindle Kandy!

Just a quick hello and a recommendation for Kindle owners/readers… my friends Maria Alvarez, Odette Flannagan, and Sarah Levy are launching a Kindle blog with lots of fun stuff. 

Full disclosure: they have pimped me in their opening salvo, and I designed the site and helped them set it up. But it’s ALL them, and I am now just a fan.  Maria, Dette, and Sarah are planning to recommend books that have a minimum of 10 reviews, with an overall rating of 4 stars or higher.  They will list mostly free titles, but others, as well.  And they’ll be doing reviews and short articles, too.

Visit them and follow on twitter or FB to keep up!  Kindle Kandy

Old School

Lately I have been on an old-school reading bender. This week I am falling in lust, once again, with the work of Ellen Kushner. Last month I re-read her Swords of Riverside books. I find myself lamenting a loss of this kind of richness in the newer titles I often have to force myself to finish. Kushner was one of the first authors I found completely, dazzlingly, achingly DIFFERENT. It was like discovering that Jane Austen wrote fantasy novels and nobody knew it. Or like Tolkien had a daughter and she followed in her father's footsteps. This week I am going to force myself to SLOWLY re-devour Thomas the Rhymer. In so doing I am suddenly aware of what I found familiar in Patrick Rothfuss' wonderful King Killer Chronicles. It had eluded me... aha! Here it is! Kushner also led me to authors like Sharon Green, Tanith Lee, Elizabeth Moon, and Sharon Shinn.

I loved fantasy, but in those days there was no amazon.com with all-the-books-in-the-world at hand. In fact there were only small places-- no Borders or BN. Men dominated the shelves. I remember that even the owners and cashiers at Royal books were hesitant to even discuss sci-fi or fantasy with a quiet, nerdy girl. When I asked about women writing in the genre I got shrugs. Andre Norton was "ok," but most of what fantasy lovers could find was written by and for men. But I did have the benefit of THE BOOK STALL, a USB I miss to this very day. You could bring in two paper shopping bags full of paperback novels and swap it for one. There was a basement full of older, more worn-out titles. I found an aged, worn, yellowing copy of Green's Far Side of Forever there, falling in love with Laciel and Inthig immediately. She, and Kushner, and later the recently departed (and much beloved) Anne McCaffery were cherished jewels discovered in the basement rubble.

And so, joyously discovering SO MANY of these titles are finding new, and much less likely-to-crumble life, on Kindle-- I'm going to kick it old school. I can't tell you how happy it makes me to use a new technology to preserve these cherished titles.