Cat Connor

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)
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Now what?

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I left Perth a week ago – it’s been a busy week. Got to spend time with my youngest son while he was over from Sydney. That was a great distraction. Cryptobyte is now ready for editing. I heard back from my new beta readers and dealt with the raised points and enjoyed the fabulous feedback.

I just finished reformatting Databyte for kindle. It should be live soonish. Pain in the arse job but it’s done. Started the reformatting of Soundbyte but have given up for the moment. I’m going to have to strip the file and start again, and I’m not in the mood.

Not sure what I’m going to do now. I need something to look forward to because if there’s nothing on the horizon I tend to lose the fucking plot. So far this year it’s been busy. I was getting things organized for the Qubyte launch for the first 3 months of the year – there was a lot to make and do, plus I was leaving a few days later. So, that kept me occupied. And I had Cryptobyte to finish and beta readers to find and whatnot. Busy Busy.

At the moment I’m looking at a great big void and wondering how to fill it until the countdown to My Knight arriving happens – and that won’t be for awhile.

I’m not planning on releasing book 11 until December, so, that’s a little far into the future for me to worry about. I’ve not even started talking cover details with my cover designer (aka daughter #3).

Book 12 is underway but I need something on top of that. Something less isolating! Also something fun, creative, and productive.

youngest son/oldest daughter: Family

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.

Give me something for the pain

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*Title is a Bon Jovi song

Feels like it fits today. Not that it hasn’t been a good week or anything, it’s more a writing thing. If you don’t think writing can be painful then you’re living in fairyland.

Currently, I’m back at the beginning of #Cryptobyte because I know more now than I did before, as often happens. Something else cropped up and I need to make sure I address it. The fun thing is, I’m back at the beginning. 🙂 That implies I got to the end.

In other news the article I wrote last winter is in the: The Spin Off  

For all of you asking why I didn’t mention my books in the article … at the time of writing I didn’t have any in the shop. This was written before the PledgeMe campaign finished and before I could get the Byte Series printed here. Of course, they are in the bookshop now! If you order paperbacks of my books from us you can request signed copies. 🙂

Welcome to February.

Ten years …

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This year marks my tenth year in this industry. Obviously, my journey began long before 2009 because, well, you don’t write a book overnight. Nor do you learn your craft, overnight. My journey began in about 1992. It began because I wanted to read something with real women in it. I wrote a lot and then became serious about this storytelling lark. In 2001 my first short story was published. (Yes, back in the dark ages with gatekeepers and whatnot.)

Around about this time of the year in 2009, I approached Rebel ePublishers in South Africa. (Yay for the internet!)

This year is the tenth anniversary of Killerbyte (April 2009) and the tenth anniversary of Terrorbyte (Nov 2009). They are the original publishing dates. Even though, we tend to say terrorbyte was 2010. It wasn’t. The paperbacks came out in 2010.

The tenth year! That’s supposedly a magic time. Any second now and I’ll be an overnight success. I know, right? Exciting stuff.

Ten books, 1 novella, 3 boxed sets, 1 book of poetry, I don’t know how many related short stories, all in the Byte Series. [Never mind the earlier short stories, or the kiwi novel, or the long shorts, that are unrelated to the series.] The work is there and continues.

I’m as prepared as I can be for instant success. Bring it on. 🙂

Ten years with a main-character like Ellie – could be medal worthy!

Playing with Keynote

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This was the result of my messing around with Keynote this morning. Haven’t used it before and it was kinda fun exploring. There is no sound. Haven’t figured sound out yet or maybe that’s not a thing that Keynote does. I don’t know. 🙂

Good chance I’ll spend more time fiddling around inside Keynote at a later date, but right now, I should get back to work on #Cryptobyte.

Hope you’re all having a lovely weekend.