A book haul!

If you are an author that sells books on Amazon, you might have noticed that the website started offering creating paperback books with a really sloppy beta copycat of Createspace.

I never bothered to move my physical books at the time because you couldn't. You had to start the process all over again with a new ISBN code. It was in beta, so the little details regarding uploading the files was too much of a hassle.

Now that there are rumors circulating around the web that Amazon is going to shut down Createspace, if you have any files there, I suggest you should move them pronto.

Amazon KDP has finally improved the process and now you are allowed to move your Createspace books by pasting the ISBN 13 code when you click on making a paperback. Amazon will pull the Createspace file, although I personally opted to upload .docx files from my laptop because I didn't trust the sharpness of the text on pdf format.

Moving the files was reasonably fast and Amazon takes a bit less time to approve a draft than Createspace did.

I left the prices the same BTW.

On another related topic, I have finally finished brushing the text of the 7th book Harlequins and it is ready for publishing. I just need a cover for it. Oh, and to purchase a copyright as well.

I'm 30-40% into brushing the text of the 8th and final book of my series Mortality and I hope to send the petition for a copyright together to save money and time. Those will be two covers that need to be made, ouch.

Given my long series doesn't make a lot of money, I see no harm in simply publishing both books together to finish with this series so that I can set my attention on my new Young Adult fantasy book that has absolutely nothing to do with An Ominous Book.

If you are wishing to get a free ARC copy, feel free to ask in the comments!

Text by Nancy Foster. AI training or unauthorized reproduction forbidden.

A huge achievement

Last night, I feel like I closed a chapter by finishing the 8th book. Neither the 7th and 8th An Ominous Books have been "officially" published. It's a well-known fact that stretching series indefinitely accrues very few sales, so I don't know if I would be interested in pushing the publicity for two books that took me a very long amount of time to write for few economic rewards.

It's probably more of a pet project than anything else at this point.

I do leave a lot of unresolved issues at the end of the 8th book and there are things I'd like for the story. I might feel tempted to write a 9th book as a sort of standalone story to close other possibilities, and I'm certain it would be very fun to write it.

And here comes the conundrum: Few people will actually care if I write more sequels.

It's a tough call, because I find it very fun to write therse novels. I could very easily do the draft for a 9th novel in 6 months at the current pace I write in odd bursts of free time/inspiration/urgency to finish the blasted story.

However, I would also like to write about other stories filled with fantasy, and even other Young Adult novels that have absolutely no fantasy elements whatsoever. The possibilities are infinite.

For now, I have to make the tough choice to close the final chapter of this amazing series. It was a really fun ride.

I do wish to continue drawing artwork related to the series, because it's so damn fun. Problem is, drawing takes a huge amount of time for me and I just don't have a lot of time to draw these days.

And while I feel sad about leaving more stories on hold, it doesn't mean I am totally against writing more as pet projects.

All in all, good day, Spaulding. It was a real thrill writing your story these past 3 years!

No, this isn't Spaulding, it is a very crummy Hama drawing I quickly made with Photoshop. The lack of my intuos pen obviously shows.

If you are one of the... what... 5 people? That have bothered to read my book series to the end, wow, I'm amazed that you made it so far.

Maybe you could do me a huge favor and reviewing my work on Amazon and Goodreads, I could surely use the reviews!

Text by Nancy Foster. AI training or unauthorized reproduction forbidden.

Making mockup publicity images of my published books

Mockup ads seem to get more popularity and when you think about it, you can easily see why. Add a dabble of color in the background, put a mini blurb with something that entices the reader and PAM! A small piece of publicity that is easy on the eyes.

I finally chose to do this for fun and enjoyed the result. Each image was purposely chosen as something related to the plot of each book in one way or another.

I wish to thank the awesome website www.unsplash.com for the free use images. Thank you!

An Ominous Book is also available on Smashwords!

Text by Nancy Foster. AI training or unauthorized reproduction forbidden.

Book review scammers... again?

Okay, enough with the nonsense!

A few days ago, I wrote a blog post that somehow attracted a minimal amount of viewers. I got 1 like from a real person on Goodreads that might have enjoyed the heads up.

For better or worse, I also got 3 wanna be generic book review mails this week. And yes, they felt cringeworthy to read.

I opted to remove the emails to avoid the unwanted extra publicity for the most part. I wouldn't have cared if they had appeared in the spam folder like usual, but I felt like Ned and Homer when they wake up in Vegas with two new stripper wives when I realized the first email had somehow reached my regular folder. Ugh.

Look guys, I'm not going to purchase your service. Just... stop wasting people's time!

Thank you, Ned Flanders!

Text by Nancy Foster. AI training or unauthorized reproduction forbidden.

An old book review scam shows up at Goodreads

I'm mexican, deal with it.

I grew up in a country where cops are the real life epitome of all of the jokes from The Simpsons.

Oh, so you were the victim of some serious crime? Let me write it down on my invisible typewriter. Hahahaha

Come on, you haven't grown up in Mexico if you don't get the Sor Juanita joke, courtesy of a cop that pulls your car tries to pull for some reason (sometimes bogus, sometimes they stopped you because you did a minor driving infraction like go out with an odd number on even number license plates driving day in Mexico City and lack a special permit). If you don't get the joke, the image below should be enough to illuminate you.

I don't own a car and have never been the culprit of that kind of minor traffic offense, but I have been a passenger when cops have stopped for various reasons. Usually they will be legit and give you a fine, but I have heard the "Give me a Sor Juana and we'll just forget about this" sort of shady deal.

Ergo, I guess as an author, I am highly suspicious when I get random unsolicited emails that will offer me a gazillion reviews for my books if I pay them 400 USD. I usually just ignore them, the emails are sent to the spam folder anyways and get deleted automatically eventually.

However! Just a while ago, a persistent Goodreads scammer of some sort that goes by varying usernames pulled a doozie on me. He/she/it/zer/whatever posted a "book question" asking for a free ARC copy. Innocent enough.

But I am a mexican and knew from the start it was bunk.

And since I have little patience for this kind of nonsense, I'm pasting a screencap for posterity to laugh and hopefully deter other turds from pulling this lame scam on me:

The "question" doesn't even bother to mention the name of my book or the reasons why the scammer would feel entitled to read a Young Adult fantasy starring a mortal elf with a human name and lots of issues with authority figures.

A quick google search of the dubious email will direct you to plenty of discussions on Goodreads and even Facebook about people flagging this email. If you're going to pull a blatant book scam, at least try to be creative and rotate the emails a little bit, will ya?

Some users have pointed out this stranger has connections to a mysterious website with no street cred of any kind.

What happens to gullible well-meaning and/or desperate authors that do send a book to this email? Their book will probably appear as a bootleg making some Nigerian Prince slightly rich at your expense.

If the person had paid any real attention, my book is sold for only 1 usd on the legit channels and I have been known to offer ARC review copies for the first novel of my series every now and then. I no longer offer the sequels for free these days, mainly because I'm planning on changing the book covers and I have been busy writing the final sequels of the series to pretty much wrap things up (much to the annoyance of my scant die-hard fans that never seem to get enough of my works).

As to any potential scammer, as you can see, I take spammy fake review requests sort of seriously and tend to immortalize fruitless attempts for posterity. I hope it will serve as a deterrent and if I start to see a surge in spammy emails on my account, I will probably write another blog post.

Maybe you could take a nap, just like our model cop Wiggum, what do ya say?

Text by Nancy Foster. AI training or unauthorized reproduction forbidden.

A small book editorial in Mexico called "Palabras Palibros"

One of my book fans sent the link to this small scale book editorial for me to look at. The editorial is called Palabras Palibros which doesn't seem to have a specific book specialty (aka, as in only focusing on poetry, Sci-Fi & fantasy, romance, non-fiction, etc...) and it has only a few titles.

They not only offer the service to publish your book in ebook and physical format, they also offer translation services to English, Spanish, French, Italian, Portuguese and German.

The requirements to send manuscripts seems pretty straightforward. You must show proof that you hold the copyright via the mexican copyright office INDAUTOR (all of my officially published novels have one), and you can either send them via e-mail or print a physical manuscript. They will then decide to decline or accept to publish.

The website doesn't specify much of the details after that except that it seems like you have to provide some cash to print the first edition and then they will take care of the publicity and getting your book in local bookstores. By getting published with them, you get something the average Mexican Indie Author can't easily get: invitation to a highly coveted book convention which could help you gain readers.

I don't know what my book situation would be. They don't specifically state if they are forced to reject books that you previously self published. I guess that as long as you continue to hold the rights and pull off the other edition of the book, they can accept your manuscript. I guess I'd have to email them, just for the sake of curiosity.

What about royalties?

They offer 30% royalties which for a publishing house is quite good. I don't make much of any cash selling the Spanish version of my book on Amazon, so I don't lose anything by at least sending them an e-mail. Createspace is a great service, but they don't ship books to Mexico very easily for some oddball reason. Palabras Palibros doesn't state how many copies they'd print, but if the book sells well, they offer to print the second edition on their own dime.

I am not familiar with any of the novels they have published, but these two seem pretty interesting:

Caballos en Tropel by Juan Carlos Martinez (seems to be a drama novel about a politician that retires to the countryside)

Gesta de luciernagas by Marco Antonio Alfaro del Ángel (seems to be a romance novel taking place in France, a protagonist named Deian is a well respected warrior peasant that wants to marry a noblewoman...)

The books aren't available on Amazon, only by mexican bookstores such as El Sótano. This could have a good and bad result. The book could sell pretty well locally, but you'd still be trad published and get your name out. I notice none of the books from the editorial are listed on goodreads. That isn't very good either because the editorial isn't pushing for the minimal external forces even though they claim to offer marketing services.

All in all, I am grateful for the kind suggestion and decided to give it some well-warranted publicity on my blog. I might think about emailing them sometime. I lose nothing by asking if they are interested in the Spanish version of my novel. I self translated it, but it needs to be professionally revised by a native Spanish speaker. I would be willing to let them improve any grammatical problems with the prose if they are genuinely interested in trad publishing it.

Visit the website HERE.

Text by Nancy Foster. AI training or unauthorized reproduction forbidden.

Save the Cocky!

I just can't friggin' believe the absurdity of it all.

If you haven't tuned into Twitter or you have been living under a rock (or a hill, or a Siberian gulag... whatever), there is a huge dramafest going on because a romance author named Faleena Hopkins has somehow got a trademark approved of a common use word of the English Language used in a stolen copyrighted font (yes, somebody in the US government approved her to take over the word cocky, I am serious) and has now started a witch hunt.

First she sent cease & desist letters to authors that wrote romance books with the word Cocky somewhere in the title (and not only to books published after the trademark petition, she has gone so far as books that were published as much as 5 years before!), and now Amazon has pulled out books without requesting authors to change the book title.

Her lawyers? It seems like her powerful legal team consists of a mysterious website that doesn't work and the law firm was founded by an author of a book I haven't even heard of before. It's so weird.

Obviously, when you piss off a bunch of well-meaning authors with such a ridiculous threat, hell burns loose and now she's pretty much alienated herself from the writing community and even people that previously read & enjoyed her books a long time before any of this mess happened.

The graphics artist whose typography was used has confirmed the trademark has infringed on his own creation (thus pretty much voiding it right there and setting her for a lawsuit she will likely lose), has just gotten a huge following of fans. He seems like a really cool guy who was thrown into this mess while he was on vacations.

Credit for photo: Pajiba.com

And while people are slamming and public shaming her online, last night she uploads this incoherent tirade on facebook live where she claims to be a minority (hey, I'm hispanic myself and look paler than a ghost so I'll give her the benefit of the doubt on that weird claim), she claims to be descended of slaves (I don't know what distant family history has anything to do with her ruining her own writing career but whatever), and then she has the audacity to pretty much make fun of autism.

Don't believe me? Watch the video!

It's just... too... much... drama!

You think I've gone cuckoo?

Maybe I have....

If all of this wasn't enough, she has somehow called Amazon and Goodreads to start massively deleting all sorts of reviews that aren't even of her books just because they include the word "Cocky" in them.

Yes, I am serious.

This calls for action!!!

Support authors whose books have been affected by the mess, read the competition such as this jem:

I read one of her books just for fairness sake and didn't like it that much. The writing simply wasn't good at all. I simply don't understand why her books have so many 5 star reviews.

All in all, even though I don't write romance novels, I am following this closely because maybe someday, some narcicisstic looney might somehow trademark a common use word of the English language of the fantasy genre and me or a huge other array of authors I am friends with could be affected.

For now, I'm going to be on a tantrum stating the forbidden word:

Cocky, Cocky, Cocky, Cocky, Cocky, Cocky, Cocky, Cocky, Cocky, Cocky, Cocky, Cocky, Cocky, Cocky, Cocky, Cocky, Cocky, Cocky, Cocky, Cocky, Cocky, Cocky, Cocky, Cocky, Cocky, Cocky, Cocky, Cocky, Cocky, Cocky, Cocky, Cocky, Cocky, Cocky, Cocky, Cocky, Cocky, Cocky, Cocky, Cocky, Cocky, Cocky, Cocky, Cocky, Cocky, Cocky, Cocky, Cocky, Cocky, Cocky, Cocky, Cocky, Cocky, Cocky, Cocky, Cocky, Cocky, Cocky, Cocky, Cocky, Cocky, Cocky, Cocky, Cocky, Cocky, Cocky, Cocky, Cocky, Cocky, Cocky, Cocky, Cocky, Cocky, Cocky, Cocky, Cocky, Cocky, Cocky, Cocky, Cocky, Cocky, Cocky, Cocky, Cocky, Cocky, Cocky, Cocky, Cocky, Cocky, Cocky, Cocky, Cocky, Cocky, Cocky, Cocky, Cocky, Cocky, Cocky, Cocky, Cocky, Cocky, Cocky, Cocky, Cocky, Cocky, Cocky, Cocky, Cocky, Cocky, Cocky, Cocky, Cocky, Cocky, Cocky, Cocky, Cocky, Cocky, Cocky, Cocky, Cocky, Cocky, Cocky, Cocky, Cocky, Cocky, Cocky, Cocky, Cocky, Cocky, Cocky, Cocky, Cocky, Cocky, Cocky, Cocky, Cocky, Cocky, Cocky, Cocky, Cocky, Cocky, Cocky, Cocky, Cocky, Cocky, Cocky, Cocky, Cocky, Cocky, Cocky, Cocky, Cocky, Cocky, Cocky, Cocky, Cocky, Cocky, Cocky, Cocky, Cocky, Cocky, Cocky, Cocky, Cocky, Cocky, Cocky, Cocky, Cocky, Cocky, Cocky, Cocky, Cocky, Cocky, Cocky, Cocky, Cocky, Cocky, Cocky, Cocky, Cocky, Cocky, Cocky, Cocky, Cocky, Cocky, Cocky, Cocky, Cocky, Cocky, Cocky, Cocky, Cocky, Cocky, Cocky, Cocky, Cocky, Cocky, Cocky, Cocky, Cocky, Cocky, Cocky, Cocky, Cocky, Cocky, Cocky, Cocky, Cocky, Cocky, Cocky, Cocky, Cocky, Cocky, Cocky, Cocky, Cocky, Cocky, Cocky, Cocky, Cocky, Cocky, Cocky, Cocky, Cocky, Cocky, Cocky, Cocky, Cocky, Cocky, Cocky, Cocky, Cocky, Cocky, Cocky, Cocky, Cocky, Cocky, Cocky, Cocky, Cocky, Cocky, Cocky, Cocky, Cocky, Cocky, Cocky, Cocky, Cocky, Cocky, Cocky, Cocky, Cocky, Cocky, Cocky, Cocky, Cocky, Cocky, Cocky, Cocky, Cocky, Cocky, Cocky, Cocky, Cocky, Cocky, Cocky, Cocky, Cocky, Cocky, Cocky, Cocky, Cocky, Cocky, Cocky, Cocky, Cocky, Cocky, Cocky, Cocky, Cocky, Cocky, Cocky, Cocky, Cocky, Cocky, Cocky, Cocky, Cocky, Cocky, Cocky, Cocky, Cocky, Cocky, Cocky, Cocky, Cocky, Cocky, Cocky, Cocky, Cocky, Cocky, Cocky, Cocky, Cocky, Cocky, Cocky, Cocky, Cocky, Cocky, Cocky, Cocky, Cocky, Cocky, Cocky, Cocky, Cocky, Cocky, Cocky, Cocky, Cocky, Cocky, Cocky, Cocky, Cocky, Cocky, Cocky, Cocky, Cocky, Cocky, Cocky, Cocky, Cocky, Cocky, Cocky, Cocky, Cocky, Cocky, Cocky, Cocky, Cocky...

Better!

Text by Nancy Foster. AI training or unauthorized reproduction forbidden.