The Smashwords sales are a great way to catch up on ebooks for all types of eReaders.
July’s Bargains – Free or Half Price eBooks
To make a start on the Princelings series, you can get book 1, The Princelings of the East, FREE, here.
If you need to catch up with the Princelings series, then you’ll find the later books in the series available at HALF PRICE OR LESS
For just 99c:
The Princelings and the Pirates
The Princelings and the Lost City
For just $1.99: All the rest of the Princelings series (seven titles)
How to Buy
Go to my Smashwords page, click the cover or title of the book that you want, and click BUY – the promotion code is listed above the BUY button.
Or, go to Smashwords, click the Summer/Winter Sales link, and search for Jemima Pett. That should bring up all of my books in the sale, including the new flash fiction collections.
Is it really three months since my last bit of news? Apparently so.
It’s been a very busy period, and information has sometimes been hard to find, mainly from ACX/Audible about ‘live’ dates and locations.
So, this is what’s happened, in book order. It seems to make more sense than chronological.
The Princelings of the East (#1)
Princelings 1 is now available as an audiobook. It went on sale on Feb 19th, but that only became apparent in March! There is also an updated Kindle file available if you like to read along, or use Whispersynch. A file for iPad, Kobo & Nook will follow.
Pirates is currently being developed as an audiobook. Chris Preece has narrated a dozen or more chapters, and I’ve reviewed the first ten in sequence. He’s doing a great job of it.
He’s had a bit of trouble settling on a pronunciation for the name Nerys, Kira’s sister. I wonder how important it is? I always pronounce it the same way as Nerys in Deep Space 9. I suppose it isn’t as common a name as it might have been when I was small.
As with the first book, I’ll be uploading a revised Kindle edition before the audiobook comes out.
Princelings and the Lost City (#3)
Dani has drafted a revised cover to fit the audiobook format, but I’ve yet to edit it for Chris to narrate. I hope we get started on this before the summer, though.
Princelings Revolution (#10)
This is only a draft cover, but the good news is, I’m sending Dani the detailed brief this week.
I’ve now completed the beta version of the final book in the series, and it’s out for reading with several people.
I’ve already had feedback from Tori, who has not only made several useful comments, but she’s a whizz at finding typos, especially when I’ve typed the wrong word. Actually, it’s to do with accessibility software. I think my iPad, if not my Mac, has the capacity to read something to me. Maybe I should add that to the editing process.
Princelings Revolution is currently targeted for October 1st on Smashwords, but that’s a reference to a date in book 4. I expect it will be later, although I don’t want it to disappear in the Christmas rush.
It seems that many traditional publishers are postponing book launches till after the pandemic passes. That means there’ll be a huge rush of new books later in the year (hopefully this year). So I’ll keep my options open, as I have no wish to get caught in the Christmas market. Late January will be just as good.
Although the tenth anniversary of the publishing of the first book will be at the end of November next year. I must put a special celebration together for that.
eBooks on Sale
Smashwords has been running a sale since March, and I’ve had most of the Princelings books at special prices, including the Box Sets.
Audiobooks – the coming thing. With the growing popularity of smart speakers, it seemed the time to get the Princelings books onto audio. I mean, if someone is going to ask the admittedly unlikely question “Alexa, find me a fantasy book where guinea pigs are kings” I want them to find mine!
The procedure for indie publishing audiobooks is well documented elsewhere. The two main sources I’ve found for uploading audio files for publication are ACX (Amazon’s connection with Audible), and Findaway Voices, which recently made arrangements with Smashwords. Both have very good and helpful instructions for asking for auditions, and choosing your narrator. There are also the business things like payment and contracts, and technical aspect of quality, length and uploads.
Naturally I started from a different position.
Princelings audiobook cover
I was lazing on the sofa one Saturday, watching the auditions for The Voice UK. The next one up was a guy from Norfolk (where I live) who did audiobooks as one of his activities. When I heard him reading, I sat up and said “that’s Fred!” I had found my Fred and George, as far as I was concerned.
Scroll forward to this year, and I decided I’d better get these audiobooks started, with the Princelings of the East as priority. I tracked down my Voice, first through the tv show website, then to his Facebook page. He did some audition tapes – a five minutes extract and a fifteen minute one, and after some more discussions, he got going on them.
Christopher Preece is delightful to work with, comes up with just want I want (sometimes without guidance) for the voices, and surprises me with some of the side characters sometimes. Who knew that Baden has a Sheffield accent? Fred, George, Hugo, Victor, Lupin and Nimrod are just as I hoped. I’ll hear his Lord Smallweed for the first time later today, as that chapter just went up on our working site. The brief: a nasty piece of work, who will become more evil as the series progresses.
The words need to match the kindle ebook exactly, in order to comply with Amazon’s specifications for Whispersynch. So, having given Chris a slightly updated version of book 1, I’m now tweaking bits where word flow is better in the audio version than the reading one.
There’ll be a new edition of Book 1 published before the audio is released. You can update your Kindle, iPad, Nook or Kobo from your purchase site, or get it free from Smashwords as usual, if Amazon isn’t pricematching.
I expect to get the audiobook online in January or February. You’ll probably be the first to know.
And after we finish The Princelings of the East, Chris will be starting on Princelings and the Pirates, followed by Princelings and the Lost City. It’ll depend on sales of those whether we do any more. Chris is excellent value for money, but it gets pricey when you have a ten book series!
And a quick ‘thank you’ to Dani English, who rustled up a revised Princelings cover even though she was packed with pre-Christmas commissions.
Note: I’ve set up a page for the audiobooks, but be warned – there’s a link to Chris’s stupendous rendition of Prince Ali on it!
Princelings Revolution (book 10) is now listed on Smashwords. This is the final book of the series, so I thought I’d give it a long lead-in.
The target publication date is 1st October 2020.
That’s a long way off, but there is a huge amount to do before then. The first step is rewriting, which I’ve started, and immediately hit some problems to rework, both of continuity and plot.
After I’m happy with the story, there’ll be editing to get the phrasing and word usage right, and to improve it in general. Then editing to make sure it’s got all the right words and punctuation in the right places.
Then I’ll send it to my beta readers for their opinions and comments.
I’ll make corrections and improvements based on their feedback.
Then it’ll go to the editor. That will undoubtedly lead to more corrections and edits. And I probably need to be at this stage by early May.
So I’d better get going.
But if you want to see the listing on Smashwords, it’s here.
Watch out for a new thing Smashwords is now offering – pre-sales. These are different from pre-orders, it’s more like an advance copy. I’m not sure how different it will be from offering you an ARC direct, but we’ll see.
