The Saturday Morning Post (No. 76) EXTRA! EXTRA!

I'm still 10 weeks behind on posting these reviews, and with nothing more brilliant to say in hand, here's the next review in the can.

Needed something to read, and with nothing in mind I reached over... So yes... Again.

My reviewer criteria. I like light, entertaining novels. I like smaller scale stories rather than epics. I like character focused novels featuring pleasant characters, with a minimum number of unpleasant ones. I greatly value clever and witty writing. I like first person, or close third person narratives. I dislike a lot of "head jumping" between POVs and flashbacks. I want a story, not a puzzle. While I am not opposed to violence, I dislike gore for the sake of gore. I find long and elaborate fight, action, and battle sequences tedious. Plot holes and things that happen for the convenience of the author annoy me. And I fear I'm a born critic in that I don't mind pointing out what I don't like in a story. However, I lay no claim to be the final arbitrator of style and taste, you need to decide for yourself what you like or dislike in a book.

Your opinions are always welcome. Comment below.

The Confession of Brother Haluin  by Ellis Peters   A

In this tale we have a brother of the order, Brother Haluin, who on death's doorstep from a fall, confesses that as a brother early in his vocation he did something that he felt caused the death of the woman he loved, but could not have, as well as her unborn child. He ends up living, and though maimed and lame from the fall, he asks leave to make a pilgrimage to ask for forgiveness from her mother, and to pray at her grave. The story recounts his pilgrimage, and reconstructs the events of the incident, 18 years in the past.

The murder in this story doesn't take place until after the halfway point in it. And yes, we haver our young lovers and assorted characters who we meet along the way. I don't think the story will surprise anyone, but I don't think that's Peters' intent. She writes stories that explore characters and the historical time they are set in. In my view, the mystery is simply a way to market her historical fiction stories.

I have yet to be disappointed in any of her Brother Cadfael stories. Some are slightly better than the others, but all are good. But if I haven't sold you on them by now, I ain't going to. So I won't try. 

The Saturday Morning Post (No. 75)

 

On an idle Saturday afternoon, YouTube in its infinite wisdom showed me the Jack Lemon movie The Wackiest Ship in the Army, and I decided to watch it, seeing that it was set in the South Pacific in WWII. Not a classic, but enjoyable enough, that I went on to watch half of In Harm's Way staring John Wayne and Kurt Douglas, also set that time period, but is a more sweeping and a little more serious movie, but John Wayne sort a annoys me, so I've not returned to it yet. Now I read James A Michener's Tales of the South Seas years ago, which our library doesn't have as an ebook, but they did have his Return to Paradise, so I downloaded it. 

My reviewer criteria. I like light, entertaining novels. I like smaller scale stories rather than epics. I like character focused novels featuring pleasant characters, with a minimum number of unpleasant ones. I greatly value clever and witty writing. I like first person, or close third person narratives. I dislike a lot of "head jumping" between POVs and flashbacks. I want a story, not a puzzle. While I am not opposed to violence, I dislike gore for the sake of gore. I find long and elaborate fight, action, and battle sequences tedious. Plot holes and things that happen for the convenience of the author annoy me. And I fear I'm a born critic in that I don't mind pointing out what I don't like in a story. However, I lay no claim to be the final arbitrator of style and taste, you need to decide for yourself what you like or dislike in a book.

Your opinions are always welcome. Comment below.

Return to Paradise by James A Michener  DNF  28%

James A Michener says in his introduction that he felt that "what happened in Asia was of sovereign importance to my country" and wanted to go back to study it. In that he was probably right. But he didn't want to "merely to grind out another batch of stories upon the old theme" and because it had been done before by Conrad, Melville Maugham and Hall, he simply refused to waste his time sailing after fresh Pacific yarns. What he did instead was to write ten essays on the islands, Australia, New Zealand, and New Guinea and then write ten stories based on those essays.

If this sounds like an exercise in a creative writing class - here's a description of an island, write a story using the setting - it is, or at least reads like one. Nothing wrong with it, except that 1.) the places he describes are now seventy four years in the past, as this book was first published in 1951 and much has changed. If you are interested in the history of the islands and what they were like in 1950, then you will enjoy this book - for Mr Michener is a very good writer. The short stories might, or might not interest you as well.

Unfortunately, I found the essays that I read to be rather tedious, and hopelessly out of date. I also found his attitude a bit out of date as well. And the two short stories were perhaps a little too literary for my taste, i.e. pointless, without any characters to make them interesting to me, giving me little hope that just skipping the essays would improve the reading experience for me. As a result by the time I got to Fiji, I decided that the south sea of the book wasn't going captivate me, so I called it quits and sailed away.

My Library Shelf - the Little Black Book

It's been a while since I talked about any book or books from my wall of books. So it's about time. The book I selected this time was not actually on my book shelves, but on one of the side shelves in my desk. I just happened to pick it up recently and was paging through it and as always, I'm delighted just doing so. So here it is.

The rather old and battered ring-bound little black book pictured above is one of my favorite books for a number of reasons - its authenticity, what it is, and what it says about a lost age - America about a hundred years ago. It brings to mind the bygone age of the Gasoline Alley comic strip, the Penrod stories of Booth Tarkington, and even more so those old movies based on the Penrod stories, On Moonlight Bay and By the Light of Silvery Moon, and the songs those movies were titled after. In short, a vision of an idyllic, it mostly imagined past. 

Its title is "Handy" and it is "A Manual for Leaders of Social Recreation." Edited by Lynn Rohrbough.  The first copyright date is 1924, so it is a hundred years old. My copy is the Ninth Edition, No. 33343, March 1928, originally priced at $2.50. It is published by the Social Recreation Union "Church Centered Recreation." And what it actually is is a collection of a dozen 20 to 40-some page how-to-do brochures on various subjects ranging from Leadership for Social Recreation, to program planning, along with lists and directions for all sorts of activities. It is designed to be used as resources for church social programs and their leaders in planning their programs. 

The first short brochure sets out its goals and that of the programs it envisions, the second practical advice on how to prepare these programs and what to offer in the way of food and such. And then there's a guide to leadership - who and how to do it. And finally how to fund and plan a year-long recreational program, before getting into the suggested activities.

On section describes activities to do out-of-doors, such as  Mystery Hikes, Progressive Supper Hikes, Hobo Hikes, or at night, a Flashlight Hunt, just to name a few. Other sections have lists of various types of games, Mixing Games, Active Games, Quiet Games, and Mental Games. Plus things like "Dramatic Stunts" and a collection of Group Songs, tunes and lyrics. 

I forget where and why I picked it up. I certainly didn't pau $5.00 for it. But I'm glad I did pick it up, if only because reading through it takes you back in time to a simpler, slower paced age - which is probably and illusion - but nevertheless you can't help thinking it was as you read through all the activities and games it describes in detail for all ages, from children to young adults. 

The best way to give you the flavor of this book is with a small selection of photos of the pages, which, if you click on, I think it will be large enough for you to be able to read the pages yourself. 

Some ideas on different types of outdoor activities, for day and night. Wieners roasted at the end.

Above and below are some games you can use for breaking the ice in social gatherings where everyone doesn't already know each other.

The how to do of races and relays for children and young people, are described above. And below are some ideas for some more quiet games. And some mentally challenging games and puzzles. 

 And finally we end up with a selections of songs and rounds.

I am far from an expert on church based social activity these days, or even if there is any, but I have a feeling that it, along with the the Model T and penny candy are pretty much the things of history and museums. I certainly can't see my grandchildren participating in the activities described in this book. And to be honest, I couldn't see myself when I was their age eagerly participating as well. Perhaps there were still programs like this in my youth, maybe Scouting comes close. Still, if they ever existed in real life, and I'd like to believe somewhere they did, some young people, a boy and a girl, attending a church social, were hand-cuffed together with two strings and had to figure out how to escape from each other. And that they fell in love, got married and lived happily ever. 

The Saturday Morning Post (No. 74)

Well last week I read and reviewed a book on a year in the American Revolution. I decided to stay with that theme, but look across the water for my next revolution.

My reviewer criteria. I like light, entertaining novels. I like smaller scale stories rather than epics. I like character focused novels featuring pleasant characters, with a minimum number of unpleasant ones. I greatly value clever and witty writing. I like first person, or close third person narratives. I dislike a lot of "head jumping" between POVs and flashbacks. I want a story, not a puzzle. While I am not opposed to violence, I dislike gore for the sake of gore. I find long and elaborate fight, action, and battle sequences tedious. Plot holes and things that happen for the convenience of the author annoy me. And I fear I'm a born critic in that I don't mind pointing out what I don't like in a story. However, I lay no claim to be the final arbitrator of style and taste, you need to decide for yourself what you like or dislike in a book.

Your opinions are always welcome. Comment below.

A New World Begins by Jeremy D Popkin  C+

I will say right from the beginning, the C+ grade is mine, not Mr Popkins, as this is a very comprehensive book on the French Revolution with a great deal of information within 561 pages of text, not counting footnotes & such, which is far too much information for me to fully grasp more than a C+'s worth of it.

This is not to say that I didn't learn a lot about the French Revolution, because I did. It is rather that there is so much to learn about it. It has many actors, many twists and turns, many crises, and many achievements. While this book, I believe does a wonderful job of telling a decade long story in a single book, it would require much more time and effort for me to claim that I know more than a general overview of the revolution. All the leading characters, all the various factions that rose and fell, are pretty much a muddle in my mind after reading it. But then, I was mostly going for a general overview and I got that. If a reader really wants to really get deep into the events, politics, policies, and personalities of the period, I believe this book would be a good place to start. Mr Popkins has been studying this period all his professional life, and sets out the history of this turbulent period with just enough details to make it come to life, without becoming too dry and academic. On the other hand, if you want just an overview of the events, there might be shorter, more concise books.

Once again, knowing next to nothing about the French Revolution, It was interesting to see how turbulently it unfolded. Seen through the lens of life in the 21st century, it seems clear that people will never all agree on anything, and that, as the Taoists noted, there is a cycle, a circle to everything. Ideas rise, the fall, perhaps to be replaces with something somewhat the opposite, which intern falls to be replaced by something similar to what it had itself replaced... rinse and repeat.

This has some application in these days as well.

It was also interesting to see the role of the environment in the French Revolution. Several bad harvest during that period drove up the price of bread that led to unrest and uprisings in Paris that had direct consequences during the revolutionary period. Everything is connected. 

And lastly, in my recent readings about the American Civil War, the American Revolution, and now the French Revolution, it is clear both how cruel people can be to each other, and how bad things can, and often do, get. We are very lucky today, here in America, and the developed world in general that however bad they may seem, they can be and have been far, far worse. That may the the lasting takeaway of all these books on wars and revolutions, long after the details fade.

A New Word Begins is a good book about the French Revolution, that will get you into the weeds, but not get you lost in them. Much.

Nine-and-a-half Years in Publishing - 6 Month Sales

 

My "2025" Novel

As is tradition around here, I'm posting my sales for the first half of my fiscal year, May thru October. The purpose is to chronical my experiment in publishing. I decided from the onset on three things. First to reach, and hopefully, entertain as many readers as possible. Second to do so without losing money, but also without any concern for making money. And thirdly, to only do the things I enjoyed - writing - and the things I found interesting, challenging, and didn't mind doing like making paperback books, tinkering with covers, and different formats, while avoiding doing all the things I hated, which is to say self-promotion. The key to these goals was, and is, producing my books in-house, with the help of volunteer beta readers, and to then sell the ebook versions at cost, which to say, for free. I let their free price and wide and easy access do my promoting for me. I've published 20 books over the course of the last 9 1/2 years. The sales numbers are below. And according to Amazon, I've made $1002.51 so far. I've spent less that that, mostly on paper books, some of which I send to my beta readers for their efforts. I'll leave it up to you to decide how successful I've been.

Cutting to the chase, the first half of my 10th year in publishing was solid, but not spectacular. Below are my monthly sales totals, including ebooks, print books, and audiobooks. Nearly half of my sales now come from audiobook sales.

May     June     July     August    September    October    Six Month total

1014    844     1637    1544       1356            1,406        7,801*

This total compares to 9,177 in the same period last year, a decline of 16%

Headlines For This First Half of My Fiscal Year

I released my "2025" novel, Chateau Clare, early - on October 17 and the 24th, so it's initial bump in sales is reflected in the October sales. It's 470 copies sold kept sales for October at September's level. I have muted expectations for this title. It represents a different direction in my writing. Still, I can't kick about either its sales or its initial reception. I'm hoping that it will find new readers, but that might take some time.

All but three of my titles have been finally released as Apple audiobooks. The Lost Star's Sea shows it was accepted, but it's not currently available for some reason. Who knowns with Apple? A possible explanation for the unreleased three is that they did not have a proper table of contents. That was fixed a month ago, but they've yet to make their appearance. That said, Apple's audiobook version of Chateau Clare appeared only a week after the ebook version. You just never know with Apple. As for audiobook sales on Apple - I'm happy with them - not Google level, but good enough. It was worth the hassle. 

In June I pulled my books on Smashwords and now sell them there via Draft2Digital. The move revitalized sales on Smashwords for several months, likely because the books appeared as new releases on Smashwords' home page, making them far easier to come across. Visibility, visibility, visibility is the key to sales. Sales have since settled down, but this move explains July's bump in sales.

My two bestselling books, The Bright Black Sea and The Lost Star's Sea were too long for Amazon's auto-narrated audiobook program, so I broke them up into a six book series; The Lost Star Stories -- The Captain, Enemies, Ghosts, Castaways, Islands. and Secrets of the Lost Star. While I've sold only a modest number of the new versions, I wasn't selling any of the two omnibus versions since they went full price on Amazon, so the move was a minor win. I've reformatted The Bright Black Sea and The Lost Star's Sea to reflect their omnibus status, and will continue to sell them via Google and D2D - since they are audiobooks on Google and Apple.

On the other hand, I pulled distributing  from Draft2Digital for my titles to Kobo in October because I could not find my titles, or my my name, when I searched the Kobo site.  It seems that Kobo doesn't want to sell free books. I hoped that by listing them myself with Kobo they would actually turn up in the search results. They now do, sometimes. Early sales are modest - 40 in the first month. I can't say if listing them directly made any difference, since Kobo never reported free sales to Smashwords or D2D. Now I'll know. I took the opportunity to list the six book Lost Star Stories series instead of The Bright Black Sea and The Lost Star's Sea when doing this. I will review my Kobo free sales before the end of the year and if they are fairly insignificant, I may raise their prices to match my Amazon prices in the hope that this might make them more visible and appealing to users of Kobo's version of the Kindle Unlimited lending library. 

The Numbers

Below is the complete breakdown of sales by book and format for the period May 2024 thru October 2024.  

Book Title/ Release Date	Ebook Sales	Audiobook Sales	Paper Back Sales	Total	Total to Date
SALES PERIOD May 2024 – October 2024
A Summer in Amber 23 April 2015	224	245	1	469	10,573
Some Day Days 9 July 2015	153	207		360	6,935
The Bright Black Sea 17 Sept 2015	358	502	2	860	19,093
Castaways of the Lost Star (Initial Release -withdrawn) 4 Aug 2016	----------	withdrawn	-------	----------	2,176 (one year)
The Lost Star’s Sea 13 July 2017	269	231	1	500	11,143
Beneath the Lanterns 13 Sept 2018	176	150		326	5,748
Sailing to Redoubt 15 March 2019	207	190	2	397	5,385
Prisoner of Cimlye 2 April 2020	155	156	2	311	4,048
Lines in the Lawn 8 June 2020     Withdrawn	----------	------------	-------	---------	174
Keiree 18 Sept 2020	150	186		336	3,659
The Secret of the Tzaritsa Moon 11 Nov 2020	230	296	2	526	5,011
The Secrets of Valsummer House 18 March 2021	230	265	1	495	4,130
Shadows of an Iron Kingdom 15 July 2021	271	418	1	689	5,019
The Aerie of a Pirate Prince 29 Sept 2022	207	228		435	2,503
The Girl on the Kerb 6 April 2023	480	174		654	6,358
A Night on Isvalar 15 July 2021	277	167		444	537
Passage to Jarpara 16 March 2024	217	183	6	400	583
Chateau Clare 17 Oct 2024	357	113		470	470
Captain of the Lost Star 22 July 2024	9		--------	9	9
Enemies of the Lost Star 22 July 2024	5		--------	5	5
Ghosts of the Lost Star 22 July 2024	5		-------	5	5
Castaways of the Lost Star (New Re-Release version) Oct 2024	4		--------	4	4
Islands of the Lost Star Oct 2024	3		-------	3	3
Secrets of the Lost Start Oct 2024	6		-------	6	6
Omnibus Editions (withdrawn)	----------	-------------	--------	----------	30
TOTALS THIS PERIOD	3,993	3,711	18 (yr)	7,671
1H 2023	6,049	3,130		9,177
1H 2022	4,480	4,574		9,054
LIFETIME TOTAL SALES					93, 607

1 H Revenue $139.59, Expenses Approx. $20.00 Profit Approx. $120

Paperback sales were for the entire year. I don't pay any attention to them. 

Almost all audiobook sales come from Google and Apple. Amazon's contribution is insignificant at this point.

Passage to Jarpara, as the third book in a series is doing about as I expected - so-so, but Chateau Clare is off to a promising start. We'll see. Otherwise, this chart serves to illustrate just how important an author's back catalog is. The more books you have to offer, the more you can sell, since new books won't keep you afloat.

Looking Ahead

Steady as she goes for now. I will do my big re-think this spring, if I feel one is necessary. Currently changing Kobo to full price sales if free books aren't contributing much is my only ongoing experiment. I think I've done all I can to promote sales without actually going out, spending money, and promoting them. Ain't doin' that.

*As I mentioned in a previous report, you would not want me as your bookkeeper. We'd find ourselves in jail. Attention to details is not my strong suite. While the two totals are based on the same raw numbers, for some mysterious reason they never quite agree when it comes to making out this report. The  7,801 six month total at the top comes from my monthly composite tally. This is based on counting book sales each month, month by month. The 7,671 at the bottom of the chart, while based on those same numbers, are generated by adding up the six months total for each title for ebooks and audio at the end of the six month period. Clearly errors occur. Somewhere. However, since all this is just for my amusement, I'm not going to try to reconcile them. Take the numbers as a range only, the actual number is likely somewhere in between the two of them. Indeed, my grand total on the monthly composite tally is 94,494. I like that number better than the one at the bottom of the chart above. I have, however introduced a new, simplified accounting system for myself, so I'm hoping to improve my accuracy going forward.