The Red Wine Dossiers is Now Available

 

The exclusive paperback edition of The Red Wine Dossiers is now available only on Amazon for the price of $12.99! HERE 

The Blurb:

The Red Wine Dossiers collects three novellas and two short stories in the Red Wine Agency prequel series that began with the novel The Darval-Mers Dossier.

In The Founders’ Tribunal Redinal Hu finds himself playing a small, but perhaps dangerous, role in the “Great Game” amongst the contending Great Houses of Lorria. Carleesa Trilae is the private secretary of their great grandmother, Penlane Trilae, the First Minister of the Commonwealth of Lorria. The First Minister has received a summons to appear before something called the Founders’ Tribunal in order to defend her administration against charges that she is not following the founding principles of Lorrian society. What this Founders’ Tribunal is, and who’s behind it, is a mystery. Nevertheless Penlane is determined, even eager, to face this secret tribunal to let them know exactly what she thinks they need to do if they want to maintain the founding principles. Carlessa does not think this is a wise idea. Failing to persuade her great grandmother to accept Red Hu as her legal counsel, she hires Red to secretly attend the tribunal to act as her secret bodyguard.

In The Isle House Ghost, Red is hired by Mr Colmara, an industrialist, being plagued by messages from “Compliance Agent Nine.” This agent is entering his country home to leave notes urging Mr Colmara to sign a petition for changes in government policy. Which, on the surface, seems innocent enough, except that they’re being delivered at night despite the fact that the house is locked up tight. Colmara fears that these visits may soon become more sinister, since these are the days when the old order is slowly dying and the new order has yet to be determined. This struggle is becoming increasingly cutthroat. Mr Colmara wants the intruder captured and brought to justice, but Red is at a loss to discover just how the notes are being delivered since no one is entering the house. Mr Colmara’s son suggests, jokingly, that Agent Nine is a ghost. Red doesn’t believe in ghosts, but then, who and how are the messages delivered? a classic locked room mystery to solve.

In Nine Again, Red discovers that no good deed goes unpunished. A powerful and ruthless old nemesis returns to demand that Red somehow “fix” what he did in order to solve The Isle House Ghost mystery.

In The Poison-Pill Will, Constance Darma, the new Head of the House of Darma has ruthless enemies within the family. Mz Darma’s grandfather died under unlikely circumstances, and now she’s now being pressured by a pair of ambitious uncles and an equally ambitious aunt to cede her inheritance to each of them. Great Houses have dark secrets, and murder may not be out of the question. A friend of Mz Darma fears for her life and she convinces her to hire Red to draft a “poison-pill will,” that would put an end to the House of Darma should she die - hopefully making her murder counter-productive. In addition, Red is to guard her while he drafts and files this will. Red discovers Mz Darma’s friend’s fears were well founded.

And finally, in The Pawns’ Game, Red must decide what his role, if any, he will play in the Great Game going forward. In it he learns how that game is played by the disposable pawns of that game.

Honestly, this book exists because I want all my stories on my book shelves, and to give to my kindly beta readers who went over these stories as a way of thanking them. I don't expect to sell any copies, and if I do, it's cause for celebration...  I did sell one!, another book out in the wild that might survive for, who knows? A century or more? 

The Poison-Pill Will & The Pawns' Game  are up for Preorder 

The ebook version of The Poison-Pill Will and The Pawns' Game, my latest novella and short story effort, is now available for pre-order on Amazon with a June 18th 2026 release date for the low, low price of $2.99.  HERE It will, of course, be released on all the usual suspects for free around that date as well.

And as long as I had it up for pre-order, I swapped out the ebook cover for The Founders' Tribunal as well, which is currently FREE on Amazon. And I see that The Darval-Mers Dossier is  FREE as well. Who knows what those crazy kids at Amazon are up to?

But if you just can't wait... The Red Wine Dossiers is now available as a real book.

I just want to add that though I envisioned these stories to be the last Red Hu/Wine stories, I rather painted myself into a corner in The Pawns' Game, and the only way out might be through the window of another story. However, if that should happen, it will be the first true Red Wine Agency novel. I ain't promising one. I'm just saying if I should just happen to find a plot... We'll see...

The Saturday Morning Post (No. 184)

 

This book is a little out of reading order. I had written it down in my list for No. 180, but then neglected to write the review. Or at least I can't find where I did, if I did. Now I just have to remember 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

The Friendly Sea by Andrew Wareham  C+

As I said in the lede, I have to try to remember this book. The fact that I have to work at it, that I forgot to write a review of it right after I finished it, says something. I did, however finish the book, and while I have no intention on continuing on with the series; he seems to crank them out, it wasn't a bad book. It just didn't compare to Patrick O'Brian's work. None of these naval writers for that period do. It's just that high of a bar to clear.

This story starts with a naval engagement where in our hero Fredrick Harris, a masters mate, distinguishes himself leading a boarding party, and is promoted to lieutenant upon his return to England. He is then assigned a ship bound for the West Indies, as a competent second mate, and then gets promoted  to first mate, followed by another promotion to master and commander of his own vessel during his two years sailing in the Caribbean. Things go pretty smoothly for Captain Harris in the Caribbean, earning him prize money, along with some sea battles. 

The author knows his subject, and finds a way to explain the various aspects of service in the Royal Navy of the period and how ships are manned and run in the course of the narrative. The story flows and the main character is likeable enough, though, at least in this first outing, not all that deep. Serviceable, but I found him not all that engaging, not enough to follow his career for another 13 volumes. All in all, a petty simple, but pleasant story, though not particularly memorable. 

I'll just mention here that I also sampled An Officer's Geneses by Anthony Morland, a story about a British soldier in the Napoleonic wars, but decided after just a couple of pages that it wasn't for me. Can't really say I started it to say, just sampled it, so I'll not count it as a DNF.

Eleven Years as a Publisher

 

It was a good year, my best year for sales, with total sales with 24,774 books sold, handily beating 2022-2023's 19,524 books sold. Revenue came in at $221.75, down from $379.21 for my 10th year in publishing. Heads will roll at Celanda Publishing for that result! Still, I have nothing to complain about.

It hasn't gotten any easier over the years to sell books, even free books. In fact, it's a lot harder in 2026 than it was in 2015. If I was only selling my books in the stores I was in 2015, when I launched my publishing business, i.e. Amazon and the stores Smashwords distributed to, and only selling ebooks, my sales-per-title-per-year would be down 93%. Though to be fair, Amazon listed my books for free until a couple of years ago, which explains perhaps half of that drop. Luckily I added Google in 2018, and then auto-narrated audiobooks from Google in 2021, so my sales-per-title-per-year is now down only 50% from 2015. Because I am now offering seven times as many titles as I did in 2015,  I can ignore that sad statistic and just gaze with great satisfaction at the total sales numbers per year.

Sales by book for 2025-2026 Fiscal Year

Book Title/ Release Date	Year 2025-2026 Sales #11	Total Sales to Date
SALES PERIOD May 2025 – April 2026	Ebooks, Audiobooks & Paperback combined	Ebooks, Audiobooks & Paperback combined
A Summer in Amber 23 April 2015	961	11,990
Some Day Days 9 July 2015	801	8,068
The Bright Black Sea 17 Sept 2015	1,971	22,063
Castaways of the Lost Star (initial Release – withdrawn) 4 Aug 2016	0	2,176
The Lost Star’s Sea 13 July 2017	1,247	12,898
Beneath the Lanterns 13 Sept 2018	1,006	7,145
Sailing to Redoubt 15 March 2019	1,110	9,934
The Prisoner of Cimlye 2 April 2020	956	5,392
Lines in the Lawn (Short story) 8 June 2020 (withdrawn)	0	174
Keiree 18 Sept 2020	888	4,920
The Secret of the Tzarista Moon 11 Nov 2020	1,162	6,681
The Secrets of Valsummer House 18 March 2021	1,054	5,677
Shadows of an Iron Kingdom 15 July 2021	1,650	7,487
A Night on Isvalar 11 Aug 2021	929	1,846
The Aerie of a Pirate Prince 29 Sept 2022	1,114	4,132
The Girl on the Kerb 6 April 2023	1,618	8,618
Passage to Jarpara 6 March 2024	1,032	2,004
Chateau Clare 17 Oct 2024	1,030	2,287
Glencrow Summer 21 Feb 2025	1,987	2,691
Lost Star 6-book series Aug- Sept 2024	73	222
Omnibus Editions (Withdrawn)	0	30
The Darval-Mers Dossier 6 June 2025	1,811	1,811
The Founders’ Tribunal Oct 2025	1,087	1,087
The Isle House Ghost 5 Feb 2026	925	925
The Red Wine Dossiers (paper back only) May 2026
The Poison-Pill Will June 2026
Total Sales Year 11 (According to retailer figures*)	24,774	128,490
Revenue  $221.75

*I'm using sales figures from the retailers. I've not bothered adding up all the books from my individual sales figures taken from my monthly sales records. I would only end up pulling out whatever hair I have. So, they may add up slightly differently. I'm too careless to be an accountant.

Sales by Store ( ebook/audiobook, store sales, and store % of total sales)

Draft2Digital*   2,475 ebooks   1,091 Audio books (11.7%)   3,566 Total    14.4%

Kobo                    229 ebooks              n/a                              229 Total    .9%  

Amazon               550 ebooks   0 Audiobooks (0%)   7 Paper     557 Total     2.3%

Google           12,203 ebooks   8,226 Audiobooks (88.3%)   20,429 Total     82.4%

Ebooks 62.4%  Audiobooks 37.6% of total sales

* D2D includes sales via Smashwords, B & N, Apple, & a few European stores. Audiobook sales from Apple.

A Table of Yearly Sales Results

6,537 Year One, 2015/16 (3 novels released, 3 total) 

6,137 Year Two, 2016/17 (1 novel released, 4 total)

6,385 Year Three, 2017/18 (1 novel released 1 withdrawn, 4 total )

8,225* Year Four, 2018/19: (2 novels released 6 total) * includes a strange 1950 books sold in one day on Amazon that they say is correct. It would be 6,275 without that strange day's sales.

8,530 Year Five, 2019/20 (1 novel released 7 total)

7,484 Year Six, 2020/21 (2 novels released, 1 novella, 1 children's short story 10 total)

8,853 Year Seven 2021/22 (1 novel, 1 novella 12 total )

19,524 Year Eight 2022/23 (1 short novel, 1 novel  Audiobooks 14 total)

14,468 Year Nine 2023/24 (1 sequel novel, 1 novella re-release wide in late April 15 total)

16,950 Year Ten 2024/2025 (2 novels 17 total )

24,774 Year Eleven 2025/2026 (2 novels, 2 Novellas 21 total)

The Complete Yearly Reports on this Blog

Year 1: https://clitkabooks.blogspot.com/2016/05/a-window-to-self-publishing.html

Year 2: https://clitkabooks.blogspot.com/2017/05/two-years-of-free-books.html

Year 3: https://clitkabooks.blogspot.com/2018/05/3-years-in-self-publishing.html

Year 4: https://clitkabooks.blogspot.com/2019/05/four-years-in-self-publishing.html

Year 5: https://clitkabooks.blogspot.com/2020/05/five-years-in-self-publishing.html

Year 6:https://clitkabooks.blogspot.com/2021/05/six-years-in-self-publishing.html

Year 7: https://clitkabooks.blogspot.com/2022/05/7-years-in-self-publishing-report.html

Year 8: https://clitkabooks.blogspot.com/2023/05/eight-years-as-authorpublisher-report.html

Year 9: https://clitkabooks.blogspot.com/2024/05/nine-years-as-authorpublisher-part-2.html

Year 10 https://clitkabooks.blogspot.com/2025/05/my-tenth-year-in-publishing-numbers.html

The Takeaway

First, offering 20 titles in three formats makes a vast difference. Especially since sales for even for my early releases continue to hold up. All titles come in at an average of 1000 books sold per year.

Next: new releases drive sales of both new releases and my back catalog, and with four releases in this fiscal year, they drove sales to new heights. The fact that two of the releases were just novellas, and one of the novels, was a short novel by my standard, did not seem to matter. Novellas take less time to write, and so can written and released more often while delivering the same boost to sales that a new novel brings. That said, I wasn't writing novellas to goose sales. I write the story as long as it needs to be, well, usually longer.. and I just had little stories to tell.

Otherwise, the numbers above speak for themselves. My books, both ebooks and audiobooks, do extremely well on the Google Play store. I think this may be due to the fact that affordable everywhere and reaching the entire English reading world on a device that billions use everyday, the smart phone. Though my books are also free world wide on the iPhone, I think that's a more an upscale, US-centered platform where free has less appeal. Still, while my sales don't approach Google's, it's my second largest market. Selling books at any price other than free, as I do on Amazon, with out promoting them, simply doesn't work in 2026. Finally, audiobooks continue to do well, even if they are vanilla-plain auto-narrated audiobooks. They may not work for hard-core, deep pocket audiobook fans, but they offer the experience to readers who aren't that fussy or can't afford the fancy-pants audiobook experience.

And let us not forget, every book doesn't have to be a hit with every reader. When you have a back catalog of twenty-some books for readers to explore, if you can capture a reader, at even a 5% success rate, they may go on to read all your books - you've sold 19 more books. Scale counts. As does genre, as you can see above with my space opera The Bright Black Sea. It has always been my best seller. It sequel sells less, though these days not 50% less, as it would appear by total sales column. But then, it's not a space opera, despite having the same characters. It's a planetary romance. You just never know. Take, Shadows of an Iron Kingdom. It out sells all the other books in that series, even though it's the third book in the series. What gives? It probably isn't its cover. And why is Glencrow Summer outselling Chateau Clare these days? I have no idea.

Looking Ahead

I just released. on 4 May 2026,  The Red Wine Dossier as a paperback omnibus that includes all the Red Hu/Red Wine novellas and short stories. I create paper books for my shelves and for those of my beta readers who want a paper copy. I sell one or two every-so-often, as you can see from the table above.

More significantly, I'm planning to release one more novella-and-short story ebook/audiobook in the Red Wine prequel series. The Poison-Pill Will & The Pawns' Game in the June. It's completed, cover and all and ready to go.  I'll upload it to Amazon for pre-sale shortly.

Looking further ahead, I'm hoping to complete and release a full novel this fiscal year, likely in the Feb-March time frame. I have one "on the stocks", as it were, that, if it is ever completed, will be my most boring story yet. But then again, it's been in the works for more than a year already, and I'm maybe half way done with it, but the going is slow, so don't hold your breath. Instead, I'm hoping to dream up and start on a new novel this fall, possibly writing it alongside the boring story. But again, that's just a bird in the bush, which could fly away at any moment. 

With new releases driving sales, and only two releases likely, at best, I don't expect year 12 to match or exceed year 11 sales. But anything is possible. 

And once again, I'd like to thank all of you, dear readers, who make not only these numbers possible, but make me happy and content. And motivated to write another story or two.