The Saturday Morning Post (No. 108)

 

Well, I reached the last two of the  currently released books of Beth Brower's The Unselected Journals of Emma M Lion series. So it is time to sum the series up.

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 Unselected Journals of Emma M. Lion Vol 7 & 8  by Beth Brower  A & A

This series is in the top five series of books I've ever read. I don't really know how to rank them in any sort of order; my mind doesn't work that way. But I will say this, the last time I can remember looking forward to the evening to read a book (I had to force myself to read them only in the evening.) was when I was reading  Islandia, 30 years ago. Back then, I'd pop myself a bowl of popcorn and go off to that continent in the South Atlantic, and the isolated nation of Islandia, that Austin Wright made so very real. It was just the same this time, but without the popcorn. Can't eat popcorn late at night, like I did in my youth. 

As I mentioned in my earlier reviews of the first books, each book covers 2 months of Emma's life, beginning in March of 1883 when she is 20 years old. The latest book released takes her story through June 1884. The first book is only 106 pages long, a novella, and the second grows to 144 pages. By the third we're up to 213 pages and by the last one they've grown to run 335 pages. This reflect not only how much more happens to Emma and her friends, but how much deeper we get to know Emma and her friends. One of the features of this ongoing story is that all of the characters have a backstory, all of them mysterious backstories, that we only get tantalizing glimpses of their secrets in each installment which only adds depth to the characters. As well as the depth of the storytelling and plots. Broker has said that she has an overarching plot in mind above all a great variety of smaller plots in this planned 18 to 24 volume series, i.e. one covering 3 to 4 years in the life of Emma. She hopes it will be fun for readers on reaching the end of her story to go back and see all the little hints that she has littered along the way.

There is a romance plot line in the later books, but it is tentative, and  much could change in the remaining 10 plus books, to keep everyone guessing who she might end up with in the end. I have my favorite, but I'll just have to see... or more likely, not. 

She's released 8 books in six years, but with each growing longer, I don't expect to be around to read the last one, and that's fine with me. I don't like happily ever after endings, and I'm quite comfortable with this series never reaching the end for me with everything tied up in a neat bow. That's not how life works.

Despite this series being set in the real world of London of the 1883-86, there is an slight element of fantasy, of magic, in this world. Just a touch of it, but it's there, taken as a matter of course in the London neighborhood of St Crispian's. This is not too surprising as Brower is the author of several other fantasy novels.

These books have had a strong impact on me - both in enjoyment, and in inspiration. I've almost always used an episodic structure to my books, a running journal-like structure, without being journal entries, but almost always with an end in sight. In these Emma books, there is seemingly no grand end in sight. They simply recount the days as they happen. They'll be an inspiration for me going forward.

Edit: Since I penned this piece way back in February, I must confess to having been slowly re-reading this series, a little each evening. In the previous post I mentioned the long shadow these books have cast, and they still do. Everything I read - or rather how I feel about what I read - gets compared to these books and none have quite compared to these books. Sometimes books just go "click" and it's just "it". This is a great, especially when you have the books on hand to reread.

In addition, in rereading these books I had an epiphany in how to write, or rather finding an element of writing that I never realized was as important. I will save that insight for my regular blog, this coming week.

Just as with the Brother Cadfael series, all I can do is sing their praise, and hope that  some of you will give them a try, and you'll enjoy them as much as I have. Just to show how much I loved them, I bought the paperback books so that I can reread them, perhaps before the next volume comes out. I'm looking forward to that. 

Edit: As I mentioned above, it only took about a month to start that reread... And I enjoy them just as much.

My Tenth Year in Publishing - The Numbers

 

The mission of Celanda House is to publish the fiction of C. Litka as widely as possible - without having to work at doing so. Celanda House has no mandate to make money - It just can't lose money. To accomplish its stated mission within the assigned parameters, Celanda House, whenever possible, prices ebooks and audiobooks at cost. In most instances this is free. 

After ten years in business, how successful has Celanda House been in its mission of getting the works of C. Litka into the hands of the eager reading public? Below are the numbers.

This year I have simplified the chart, combining all sales per book into one number. I have broken out the ebook to audiobook ratio per store.

Book Title/ Release Date	Year 10 Sales	Total to Date
SALES PERIOD May 2024 – April 2025	Ebooks, Audiobooks & Paperback combined	Ebooks, Audiobooks & Paperback combined
A Summer in Amber 23 April 2015	926	11,029
Some Day Days 9 July 2015	692	7,267
The Bright Black Sea 17 Sept 2015	1,861	20,092
Castaways of the Lost Star (Initial Release -withdrawn) 4 Aug 2016		2,176(one year)
The Lost Star’s Sea 13 July 2017	1,009	11,651
Beneath the Lanterns 13 Sept 2018	717	6,139
Sailing to Redoubt 15 March 2019	838	5,824
Prisoner of Cimlye 2 April 2020	701	4,436
Lines in the Lawn (short story) 8 June 2020 Widthdrawn		174
Keiree 18 Sept 2020	709	4,032
The Secret of the Tzaritsa Moon 11 Nov 2020	1.036	5,519
The Secrets of Valsummer House 18 March 2021	984	4,623
Shadows of an Iron Kingdom 15 July 2021	1.502	5,837
The Aerie of a Pirate Prince 29 Sept 2022	950	3,018
The Girl on the Kerb 6 April 2023	1,296	7,000
A Night on Isvalar 15 July 2021	824	917
Passage to Jarpara 16 March 2024	795	972
Chateau Clare 17 Oct 2024	1,257	1,257
Glencrow Summer Feb 21 2025	704	704
The Lost Star six book Series Aug-Sep 2024	149	149
Omnibus Editions (withdrawn)		30
TOTALS THIS PERIOD	16,950  Year Ten	102,835 Grand Total

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

Draft2Digital*   2,257 ebooks   1,403 Audio books (38%)   3,660 Total   21.5%

Kobo                   82 ebooks              n/a                                82 Total       .5%

Amazon              780 ebooks   26 Audiobooks  (3%) 21 Paper   827 Total     5%

Google            5,393 ebooks     6,954 Audiobooks (56%)     12,347 Total   73%

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

(Note: the totals between the chart and these listings differ by 34, well within my margin of error.)

Revenue: $379.21  

Expenses: Books & Postage for Beta Readers $80 (est.)

A Table of Yearly Sales Results

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

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

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

8,225* Year Four, 2018/19: (2 novels released) * 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)

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

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

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

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

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

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

My Thoughts On the Data 

Surprisingly my tenth year proved to be my second best in sales. In last year's yearly report I said that I hoped this year would be like last year, and, as it turned out, my sales exceeded last year by almost 2,500 copies. Revenue up $200 as well. It was a very good year. There is likely no secret reason for this; new releases, like the tide, raise the sale of all books. So with two new novels released this year both of which sold well, likely explains the better than expected sales.

The most important reading of the data above is that across all of my books, my back catalog books continue to sell at roughly the same rate as my newest titles. This would seem to suggest that I am attracting new readers every year, who then go on to read the stories I published before they discovered my books. Also it is interesting how relatively close in numbers most books are, with my space opera continuing to be my best seller, followed by its direct sequel and the four adventure/mysteries set in that same locale. Why the third book in the series, Shadows of an Iron Kingdom outsells all the other titles in that series is a mystery. There is a role playing game by the name of Iron Kingdoms which might explain it. Or readers simply like Gothic themed stories.

As I said in an earlier post, I think these sales are earned by the number of words I've written and number of books I've published. As well as the frequency of releases. More books, more often, more sales. Econ. 101. 

Audiobooks accounted for 49.5% of my sales this year. I suspect that audio books account for close to half of my Apple sales as well, since that 38% includes Smashwords, B & N et. al. Clearly, by adopting audiobooks, even auto-narrated ones, I have doubled my sales. Best publishing decision I made. And it was a no-brainer.

Google continues to dominate my sales. I think the reason is simple; young people use their smart phones as their computer, social media platform, and entertainment center. Offering my entertainment on phones via the Play Store, Apple Books, or on the Kindle App, as both text and voice is a doorway to the younger readers. As is making my work affordable to anyone who has a smart phone, i.e. just about everyone.

Looking Ahead

My next novel, The Darval-Mers Dossier, a 53K word mystery novel set in the same world as Chateau Clare and Glencrow Summer, is set to be released on 5 June 2025. Ideally I would like to release a second novel early in 2026, even though my stated goal is one novel a year. We'll see.

Earlier this year, I had toyed with the idea of making big changes after reaching the 100,000 sales mark and my 10th year. I considered going all in on Amazon and Kindle Unlimited for a year or two, just to see what I could do to capture the paying market. However, I sobered up and decided not to pursue that avenue. First, the sales of my books on Amazon and Kobe have inspired little confidence that I could sell enough books to justify spending the money I'd have to spend to get them in front of enough readers to have a chance of success. Together with the likelihood of losing most of that money, since my books are out of the mainstream of bestsellers I sighed and thought, no. And perhaps more importantly, I feel good about simply sharing my stories with readers. It just seems to feel right. I lose nothing by doing so and gain a pleasant felling of satisfaction by doing it. Plus, I like looking at my sales figures each month. Why turn fun into work? 

So, going forward, there may be new sales venues opening up this summer. I've seen reports suggesting that bookstore.org will be adding self-published books to their offering, somehow, which, if true would bear looking into. And I believe Kobo is in the early stages of some sort of audiobook move as well. Currently invite only. Otherwise, I'm staying the course. We'll see what the next year brings. Fingers crossed, something good.

Stay tuned for it's other than Amazon release day!

The Saturday Morning Post (No. 107)

 

Well we're back to talking about Emma M. Lion. It is good to be back. I fear that my enjoyment of these books casts a long shadow over the other books I've read since reading these books. The reason is simple; these books so perfectly align with my taste in stories.

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 Unselected Journals of Emma M Lion Volumes 5 & 6 by Beth Brower  A  &  A

Above are the covers you get with the paperback versions of the books, just to illustrate that you can't judge a book by its cover. Or maybe you can. Maybe these covers say exactly what you are getting - a journal of a fictional character by an author whose not afraid to trust her writing, and her Emma M. Lion to entertain you with everyday life in a fictional London of 1883.

These books just keep getting better. With every book we get a new character or two, and we get deeper into the lives and secrets of the characters we've come to know and care for. Emma has hinted at a tragic past, and in these books we get to know Emma and that past far better. In each, the growing cast of characters make their quirky appearances dragging Emma into all sorts of misadventures, and deepening friendships. The books begin to get a little thicker as the plot, such as it is, gets Emma more and more involved with life with in Str Crispin's and social duties imposed on her by her aunt.

My daughter compared these books to Anne of Green Gables, with a young woman constantly getting into and then out of trouble, with the help of her friends. It has been many years since I read Anne of Green Gables to my kids, though I have DVDs of the old PBS series, which I love, and rewatch every five or six years. While Emma has many things in common with Anne, heck, they're both orphans, and they both love books, but their lives and settings are very different. Still, if you love Anne, I think you'll fall in love with Emma as well. 

Next post, I will attempt to sum up the series as a whole.

Ten Years as a Publisher What (If Anything) I Have Learned? (Part Three)

 

I've saved the best to last.

I've learned that publishing your own work can be engaging, satisfying, and fun for a variety of reasons. For me it has been an entirely positive experience. And I think it can be for everyone as well, but only if you do the necessary homework to understand how the self-publishing market works. And after that, set out clear, obtainable goals in light of your research. 

There is no one best way to self-publish your work. There are different ways with different goals.

For example, if you want to sell a lot of books, you will need to write very specific books with very specific tropes and story beats in the bestselling genre you've identified in your research. And then expect to spend a great deal of time and money trying to attract readers.

On the other hand, if you want to just write that story that needs to be written, you probably should accept the fact it's not going to sell a lot of copies, and that the joy will come from the journey, the accomplishment, not some monetary reward. 

In my case, I set out modest, realistic goals, that I've met. And have had a great deal of fun not only meeting those goals, but in taking a hands-on approach the the entire process of writing and publishing a book.

For the last fifteen years or so, writing stories, and then publishing them, has given me something to get out of bed for. Dreaming up my stories has filled many an idle minute or two (about the length of my ability to focus) throughout every day and while I lay in bed waiting for sleep. They have been my bedtime stories. And though I dazzle no one I know with being an author, producing my books has given me a sense of accomplishment.

I've done something with my time.

My decision to approach publishing as an amateur, which is to say someone who does it for the love of doing it, rather than to make money, has contributed a great deal to my satisfaction. Knowing the market and my position in it, meant that I approached it with a chance of success, on my terms. And my modest terms have meant that I've had a great deal of fun, without stress. I've changed covers, I've tried new stores, new mediums, especially audiobooks, and seen my sales numbers grow. My approach has also spared me from having to do unpleasant and distasteful things, like promoting myself and my work, or simply doing any work at all. 

Writing this blog has also been a source of pleasure for me. I like writing, and this blog is an excuse to write.

Last, but far from least, there is one other aspect of self-publishing that I've not mentioned, but which has been a great source of enjoyment and satisfaction. That is engaging with readers of my books and blog, making online friends, and becoming a small part of the community of fellow authors.

I've made some wonderful online friends, as readers, beta readers, and fellow authors. Not being a social creature, I really appreciate the opportunity to meet with people in this way - through the written word, which is my medium of choice when it comes to communication. And so, I would like to take this opportunity to thank everyone who has reached out to me over the last ten years; every contact has been a pleasure.

I would also like to thank everyone who has taken the time to rate and/or reviewed my stories, no matter how you rated and reviewed them. I appreciate the effort you made to do so. I have enjoyed and valued every one. And though, thankfully, negative reviews have been rare, I have to confess that I enjoyed them as well. I have opinions, and you do too. Thank you for sharing them with me.

So to sum it all up; THANK YOU! You've made it great.

Next week, I will report on my year ten sales numbers.

Coming 5 June 2025 or sooner!

The Saturday Morning Post (No.106)

As I mentioned in a previous post, I signed up for two months of Kindle Unlimited, with the intention of exploring all the different books on offer. In this case, it was a book by an author featured in one of the blogs I follow (A Ruined Chapel by Moonlight), but not the book he highlighted. This one is the first book of this author's sweeping historical adventure series which sounded very appealing, since it covers my favorite historical period.

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 Old World, Book One in the By the Hands of Men by Roy M Griffis  C

This is the first book in a six book historical drama that covers the period of 1917 through the inter-war era stretching across four continents. Once again, it is a very highly rated series of books, scoring 4.7 stars on Amazon and 4.6 on Goodreads. This book earned 4.5 stars on both Amazon and Goodreads. As such, I was looking forward to giving it a read as it covers, as I said in the lede, my favorite period of history. Alas, as you can see from my grade, I am once again in the small minority who was not entirely captivated by it. Though this time, I have some unique reasons for its C grade.

This this story, and I believe the entire saga, feature the lives of the two main protagonists in this first installment, Charlotte Braninov a young Russian woman who had been sent to an English boarding school by her parents concerned about the unrest in Russia prior to World War One, and Lt Robert Fitzgerald the son of an English nobleman. In this book, we meet Charlotte in 1917 as she is serving as a nurse on the Western Front during World War One. During her time spent close to the front lines, she meets Lt. Robert, and well, not to spoil too much of the story, they fall in love. The author goes into great detail about the horror of the war and its toll, spending a lot of word describing the conditions they find themselves in and developing his two main characters and side characters, as well as. It is a heartfelt story told well.

But not for me. 

Perhaps as a writer/reader I look on stories a little differently than readers. For example, take the structure of his story. Mr Griffis opens the story with Charlotte as the point of view character. It is from her viewpoint that we meet Lt Robert and we learn of one of his experiences in the war prior to their meeting. This section is then followed by a section with Lt Robert as the point of view character. It turns the clock back and we revisit the very harrowing experience we learn about in part one, but this time in great detail. This structure means that the reader already knows that Robert survives, lessening the tension the narration might otherwise had without that knowledge. As a writer, it seems a strange choice to make, since I think opening with Lt Robert's section would work just as well, or better, while maintaining tension within the situation. But I suppose, knowing there are six books in the series, one might suspect he would survive in any event. Yes, nitpicking. But still?

There are several more substantial reasons why this book did not for me, let's start with one that applies only to me. By chance, this is the third book I've read in the last year that has led me to the trenches of the Western Front. And indeed, the previous ones also featured a nurse, and thus, this book suffered for a certain feeling of familiarity. Indeed, I have this sense of deja vu for some reason when thinking about the events in this story, though I don't know why. It's as if I read similar scenes before. This experience, of course, is unique to me and has nothing at all to do with the book itself. But it left a been there, done that feeling in me.

A more important reason for my modest grade is yet another personal reason. I don't have a visual mind. Action scenes described with great detail do not create a "movie" in my mind, like they might for many readers. This book has many cinema graphic action sequences that are choreographed in great detail and play out over many pages. For people who can conjure up a scenes in their mind from words, they'll be in for a harrowing experience, since the author brings the horrors of battle and the human costs vividly to life. Alas, for me, these extended scenes just don't work. I find them tedious, and I usually skim through them, impatient to get on with what I see as the story. Likewise, I also don't care for extended and detailed medical scenes. Not my jam. I tend to skim read or skip over them as well, and this book has several of those as well. It is about nurses and war, after all. For many readers, however this is a plus.

The author is also a little too, well, present, in the telling of the story, for my taste. He has several passages where he says something to the effect that Charlotte will remember the experience just described in the story for all her life, which bumps me out of the story at hand, since that comment comes out of the future, as it where. In an essay I may've posted already by the time this one is, I mentioned that I don't care for stories that are told deliberately looking back. Just me again.

Griffis also inserts bits of pure history into the narrative, in part for background of the story, but they come off sounding like history lessons, separate from the narration. Indeed, I was left with the impression that it is the intent of the author to "teach" the reader lessons in his stories. Nothing wrong with that, but when the lesson becomes a lecture, it rips the curtains of the story's virtual reality aside. I see the little man in the corner manipulating the levers of the story, and can't ignore him and his manipulations. 

This intent to educate the reader came to the fore in what he has Charlotte do at the end of this book, likely to hook the reader into reading the next book. I won't spoil the story by saying what he has her do, but while I can see that there might be some emotional reasons to justify what she does, he has her do something that I find so very, very stupid, in light of various experiences related in this book that I simply can't believe she would do what he has her doing. It seems to be decision entirely driven by the desire of the author to tell a story he wishes to tell - one that is foreshadowed in this book - rather than by any believable motivation on part of the character. She's not an idiot. While many authors often have their characters do stupid things to drive the plot along, in this case, I found the choice he has her make simply unbelievable. It was the author's choice because, I believe he has something he wants to say... To be honest, I'm not looking for lectures in my fiction.

As I say my review criteria above, I like light, entertaining stories. Mr Griffis has written an intense, emotionally charged, historical drama, with, I believe an intent to bring his sweeping vision of this period of history to the reader. Not my jam, but if it sounds like yours, you need look no further. Perhaps the subtitle says it all. No doubt that if you continue on with his well written, sweeping saga it will take you from Russia to Africa and beyond, discovering the history of many things along the way.