Fire Season out on Kindle

Fire Season is now out on Kindle. It is £2.97 from Amazon UK (view Amazon.co.uk).

It is also available from Amazon.com for international buyers.

A press release is to follow from the publisher. Meanwhile, I am very glad to see it is up, and hope it is well received. I am also extremely happy with the price - while not the minimum of 99p, it seems a reasonable and affordable level. After the stories of ebooks that cost more than paperbacks, I was somewhat nervous.

• Fire Season on Amazon.co.uk
• Fire Season on Amazon.com

Fire Season e-book announced

Well, with one week to go I can announce that Fire Season will be available on Kindle from the 2nd April. It is being released through Amazon, and will be available directly from their website. I'll put a link up the moment I have one.

Hopefully, this will also mean it will be available on the 16th for the launch.

More details will be available soon, and I will add them as I find out more.

Pennies for Japan

Before getting on to the main body of this post, I'd like to say thanks to Kristie Cook for organising the Indie Authors Relief Fund, and to the winner of the Fire Season auction. Your book is on its way. There are still lots available for auction and all proceeds go to the Red Cross. For more details and ongoing auctions, please see the:

• Indie Authors Relief Fund

That said, I would like to move on to mention a rather unique fundraiser by an author of my acquaintance.

Pennies for Japan

Pennies for Japan is a set of elongated pennies, ideal for collectors or as unique gifts. The entire purchase price is donated to disaster relief in Japan through Direct Relief.

There are three pennies in the set, with designs depicting Hamsa, Lady Usume and the Tree of Life, and a storycard about the designs. Since any new ones would be made from a new set of dies, the artwork would vary, making the originals for sale here extremely collectible.

The set is available from etsy, but if you don't have an account the seller will also accept Paypal directly. For details on drect sales please contact them or, if you prefer, leave a comment here and I will ask them to get in touch with details.

• Pennies for Japan

Meet an Author Monday

First a quick update. There are now 66 items up for auction at the Indie Author Relief Fund, all raising funds for the Red Cross. The auction closes tomorrow, so please get your bids in.

More importantly if you can't donate, you can still fundraise. If you use this link,

• Lens about the Indie Authors Relief Fund

and then click on an ad or through to the Relief Funds page, you are fundraising for rescue.org's Japanese appeal, supplying goods and funds to Japanese charities on the front line.

If anyone would be interested I will set up a chain of the other lenses donating 100% to Japan - simply by clicking thorough, visiting an ad, buying something from the lens or donating directly, each of these lenses raises funds for Japan.


The other thing to report is my first attempt at taking part in a blog hop.

Cali Cheer Mom is currently hosting a blog hop, where visitors move from lense to lens, signing up to participate. I've never tried this before, but here's the link, and the authors already taking part.

This has given me yet more reading material, at a time when I really should be writing. I can't say I mind though.

Indie Authors Relief Fund Pt II.

The Indie Authors auctions are now underway, with 43 lots currently offered. To bid, just visit their blog and comment under the item you want to buy.

All this is for the Red Cross, raising funds for Japan disaster relief.

And to deal with people who said this was off-topic for the blog:

• Lot #24 - Fire Season Signed Copy Auction

Even if you can't donate, you can still help. If you can promote the campaign, tweeting it or mentioning it on messageboards/forums please do. There are a full range of banners on the blog, and an RSS feed is available for syndication.

And finally there's this Lens. If you can't afford to donate, visit that page and click an ad, or even just through to the Indie Authors Relief Fund main site and you will be raising funds for the International Rescue Commitee.

Indie authors relief fund

I just saw this online, and as they are asking for promotion and spreading the word, blogging it is the least I can do. Please have a look and donate an item or bid, for a very good cause.

If you are an author or small publisher some of the things up for offer include a manuscript critique and membership in the small publishers association.

For readers and booklovers, there are signed copies, collectibles and more.

As well as the Indie Authors Relief Fund, there are other campaigns underway. Please take a look.

• Authors for Japan - Donating all funds raised to the Red Cross, this campaign is no longer accepting donated items after they were flooded with offers.
• Write Hope for Japan - A Collection of authors all with a connection to Japan offering childrens and kidlit items to raise funds for Japan

Publisher v. Indie v. Small press

Fire Season has been out for two months, and in some ways I am beginning to wonder if it would have been easier to go self-published rather than indie press. The reasons aren't obvious until you run into them, but almost certainly would affect other authors with small press, or startup publishers.

If you self-publish, there are a whole range of awards, dedicated book blogs and a resurgence of interviewers dedicated to the field of self-publishing.

If you are published by a publisher, there are a range of formal awards, dedicated blogs and media dedicated to mainstream publishing.

It seems that everyone should fall into one of the two, surely.

The problem is with the definition of "publisher". Some locations define it as a publishing house with five authors, others as one with at least twenty mainstream books. For Ragged Angel, mine is their first mainstream book. This means it is neatly disqualified from most awards/reviewers. However, saying it was self-published and entering it into that category seems disingenious: I don't own the ISBN, didn't pay for publishing, and the book was worked on and released by a publisher which has released several previous niche books and already has distribution. It falls neatly in the gap.

The space in between the two for small press seems to be very small indeed.

Coming Soon on Kindle

A very quick announcement: I have just seen the first draft of Fire Season on Kindle. It should be on general release soon.

Unfortunately I have also suffered a severe PC crash, of the type that requires a new computer. I've probably been overusing it over the last few weeks, but while I get things set up and working again, releases and work on a new title will be slowed right down.

Another Twitter story is also under discussion, so I'll update on that once I have it set up again.