boxed set

A possessed MacBook

/ catconnor / Leave a comment

This weekend I discovered my MacBook is possessed. Yep. Or at least something has possessed the cursor and it does whatever the fuck it wants whenever it wants.

It moves around so much and moves my screens so much that it makes me feel ill. I have zero control over it when it does that. None of the ‘fixes’ from the Apple Community worked. The usual turn it off and back on. Did nothing. Using an external mouse seemed to work, but in reality it did not. Stopping the ‘shake to find’ thingy on the cursor – seemed to work, but it did not.

Resetting the PRAM … didn’t even try to work.

Which leaves me with a possessed MacBook. It can freak out for a few minutes and then be perfectly fine and behave as normal. Or, it can freak out on and off for an hour or so – each little meltdown lasting five-ten minutes, then be perfectly fine. WTF?

I can use it – but I cannot trust it. And that there is the problem. I have a book to format – and I don’t know when my lovely Mac will decide to flip control and a/ not allow me to save my work b/run a muck all over my screen until I feel sick or c/refuse to let me do anything. I’m also six chapters into book 12. I’d like to be able to write without fear!

It’s headache inducing and frustrating as all hell.

Ramon and Jonni – you can both piss off and leave my Mac alone … thanks.

It was Crashbyte …

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This morning I opened a file called ‘Crashbyte’ – that’s what Vaporbyte was always supposed to be called. Book 12: Crashbyte. Somewhere as I was following the story, (and it happened pretty fast – two chapters in) I realized Crashbyte wasn’t going to be book 12. It may not ever be an anything. That’s okay, it happens. I left the file and a few days later I saw an entire scene – nothing at all to do with the two chapters I’d written.

I started writing. I knew straightway it the beginning of something. By the third chapter I knew it was something called ‘Vaporbyte’. Great.

This morning I opened that other file, the Crashbyte one. As I read, a slow dawning occurred. By the time I’d finished I knew what I was looking at. It’s not a nothing at all. It’s part of Vaporbyte. It’s the other story thread.

Apparently I’m writing again. Need to catch up? Then, here …

Life versus writing

/ catconnor / 2 Comments

Funny how things change. Used to be writing that was my happy place. Now it’s Perth. I have little time for writing and am struggling to find a reason to carve that time out. Finding writing time has been increasingly difficult for the last four years. The only real writing time I get is when I’m in Perth.

I’m too tired to go back to writing late at night and way too tired to get up earlier than I already do.

My days are spent helping other writers, that can be fun and rewarding, I guess. BUT I cannot write in the bookshop – not effectively. Some days I can, but mostly I cannot. Interruptions are rife. Now if they were interruptions because people were buying books, it’d be okay and worth it! But generally, they are not. They’re time consuming phone calls or people coming in asking for directions or browsing (but not buying) or in people calling in for help. Days like yesterday when it was probably a perfect writing day – our internet and phone were out. So, no writing. Hard to work when you work in the cloud and the internet is shitty. And it’s often shitty. Thanks for that Spark.

Smashwords store wide sale is on this month. Fantastic, right? Usually, yes. This time around. 12 days without a sale. I have no idea why or what is going on. The only thing that changed is Facebook pretty well suppressing all links to the outside world and not letting anyone ask for posts to be shared. But I don’t know if that is what made a difference.

I am tired of hearing how great my books are. If they were THAT great then sales would reflect that, right? And people would take two minutes and write a review on a platform that actually helps other people make a choice (and NOT post it on GOODREADS or AMAZON).

Or is it that everyone just tells me but not other people, because I’m accessible?

Sometimes it feels like Ellie is still a fucking secret? This is my 10th as a published author, for almost all of the 10 I was with the same publisher.

I don’t know what it is. I do know that it’s hard to generate sales without money and without sales there is no money (that goes for me personally and the bookshop). Catch 22.

If you have any ideas that do not involve ANY money, because neither the shop nor I have any. In fact, my stupid positive thinking means I have less now than I did before. Yeah, I had more 2 more titles printed for the shop – thinking they’d sell. AND I’ve got an editor to pay for a book that I’m wondering if I should even release. It’s a fabulous story but who will read it?

The same five people?

Well, hey, that’ll pay for the cost of printing! 🙂

July!!

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Hey, come here! Gotta tell you something.

It’s July.

That’s right, July, and that means the Smashwords Summer/Winter Sale is on now. There are some serious bargains to be had.

FYI the ENTIRE Byte Series is on sale – if you hop through the link you will notice that there are 11 books listed in the series (so far) that is because Snakebyte has now taken its rightful place as 5.0 BUT the site only accepts integers so it had to be 6 which has a flow on effect. We also have sale prices on the boxed sets. Remember the Boxed Sets have additional content. You get an extra story in each boxed set. In in-between Bytes category Dead Flowers is free, the others are already very very reasonable. [The in-between byte are stories for series fans who already know the characters.] Just a little note: Snakebyte was missed out of the boxed sets so it still needs to be purchased separately. Despite being a novella it is an important story and a vital part of the series. 🙂

Don’t daly! Now’s the perfect chance to get in there and meet Ellie or pick up the next book in the series. (You could probably get the whole series for two cups of coffee, not even joking.)

If you follow me on Facebook or Twitter you may have seen the 15 second videos created for each book in the series. There are more to come so keep an eye out!

xxx

My life is a book …

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Seriously! Saw a text from TBH when I woke this morning about strange noises and something/one outside our house – in the front yard. She also said it sounded like something ‘heavier than a bird’ landed in the tree.

The tree in question is a huge camellia tree, right outside my bedroom window. Yeah, I was asleep.

It’s still dark – I have yet to open the curtains to discover what may or may not be in my tree. Of course last night I read a passage in KILLERBYTE about something in a tree (while looking for a few sentences for a graphic). I can assure you that I am in NO hurry to check out the camellia tree this morning. No hurry whatsoever.

As a special treat The Byte Series Boxed Sets are 50% off via smashwords. Until June 1st. Don’t daly. Get in there are enjoy. The Boxed Sets have additional stories – they’re not just three books sandwiched inside a glorious umbrella cover. 🙂 So if you fancy 9 books for well under $10, grab them now.

A lot of you know that Romeo (my faithful greyhound companion) crossed the rainbow bridge on May 5th. He was involved in the writing process of flashbyte, soundbyte, snakebyte, databyte, eraserbyte, psychobyte, metabyte (he was the rock that helped me write that ending), qubyte, cryptobyte … and all the Byte shorts that go along with the series, including the poetry book. Ro was my sounding board. He very much approved of readers reading the Byte Series.

Here he is rocking his killerbyte bandana (original cover)

Read an eBook week!

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Smsahwords Read an eBook week is on now!

Here are the links you’ll need for the Byte Series books:

In-between bytes are mostly free this week.

Byte novels (including Qubyte) are 50% off.

Boxed sets are 50% off.  

That is exceptional value for money right there! Remember the Boxed Sets have an extra story each that you cannot get anywhere else, and those stories give a bit of insight into other things that have happened in the SSA Conway/Delta A timeline.

Get amongst this folks. These are some great deals!

Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes …

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Remember when I said my publisher changed? Yeah? Of course, you do. Due to this change, my books are NOT available in a paperback version from any overseas site. Waiting for it to happen is futile. There are NO plans to make The Byte Series paperbacks available overseas. Remember I am a kiwi. Overseas is EVERYWHERE that is not New Zealand. 🙂

If you like reading paperbacks you can purchase them from Writers Plot Bookshop. 

Writers Plot website has a gorgeous shopping cart and Paypal.

When I say they are ONLY available from Writers Plot Bookshop, I mean it. The decision was made to stay away from Amazon with my paperbacks. Why? A few reasons but the biggest is that they allow 3rd Party Sellers to flog off authors books at whatever price they see fit … but (for mine at least) I can find nothing that says those books were purchased from Amazon (or anywhere else) via my former publisher. That means there was no royalty payment. So how exactly are these 3rd Party Sellers getting the books they’re selling? I have no idea! How are they allowed to sell books and cut the author out completely? Again no fucking clue. But I will not be part of this shitty scheme. So, my books are available from New Zealand. And ONLY NEW ZEALAND. For absolute clarity, they are ONLY available from Writers Plot bookshop. Should you see them anywhere else, please do not purchase them. They are not authorized copies, I have not and do not receive any royalty when they’re sold.

Digital versions of my books are available from all good digital retailers. But not all of my books are available from Amazon. Some have been reformatted and are available, for example: Eraserbyte, Psychobyte, Metabyte. Qubyte is available on Amazon. The first six novels are not yet available. Mostly because I don’t have the files for Flashbyte, Soundbyte or Databyte. I didn’t have the files for Eraserbyte, Psychobyte or Metabyte either, so had to find the last edit I did have for those files, cross my fingers and format those. It’s a little bit frustrating and annoying.

On the plus side, you can buy them all in ePub from ePub distributors everywhere. Why? Because Smashwords allows publishers to revert rights to the author and Amazon does not.