Sarah Ettritch

Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Mystery Writer

Another Type of Move

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I mentioned in my last post that we’re moving house. I did another type of move over the past couple of weeks. I moved all my websites to another host.

Skip down to the next section if you don’t care about technical stuff and hosting

There are two parts to having a website. First, the domain. The domain of this website is sarahettritch.com. The second part is where to keep your website files. They have to be stored on a computer that acts as a server. The server is often referred to as a host.

If you know how to do it, you can use your own computer as a server, but some ISPs don’t allow it, and it’s more convenient to use a hosting company.

I was with the same hosting company for quite a while. I loved the support, and the hosting was reliable. I wrote the last two sentences in the past tense because over the past few months, the support hasn’t been as good. Also, my sites have experienced problems and been down a few times, sometimes for hours.

Two things changed at the hosting company. It hired a bunch of support people and split support into level 1 and level 2 support. I haven’t had a great experience with the level 1 support.

The second thing that changed is that the hosting company has automated a bunch of things, which is great when the automation works. But when it doesn’t, it breaks sites. And that’s what’s been happening to my sites. That’s also the reason I’ve had to deal with support more than usual over the past few months.

The straw that broke the camel’s back was when I woke up one morning and found a few automated emails in my Inbox from the hosting company, saying that my SSL certificates had been renewed. There were two problems with this. The SSL certificates weren’t due to be renewed. Also, one of my sites was now down.

I contacted support and the first answer I got didn’t make sense, and frankly if the support person had taken the time to do a simple check, he would have known it couldn’t be causing the problem. So when I replied to that effect (politely and diplomatically!), they fixed it, but I never got a good explanation as to why it happened, and it was the sort of thing that shouldn’t have happened out of the blue to a site that was working.

So, support wasn’t as good, and my trust in the robustness of the hosting decreased. It didn’t help that I was receiving daily emails from Google telling me that there was something wrong with my RSS feeds, and then another email saying, “It’s okay, they’re working now,” followed by another email saying they weren’t working again.

I decided it was time to look for another host. I’ve moved all my sites to Siteground (affiliate link), and I’m no longer getting daily emails from Google. My sites are up 99.9% of the time once again. Also, I’ve used Siteground’s support twice and they’ve fixed both problems within 10 minutes. It helps that they have live chat (at the other host, it was email support only).

Decluttering websites

Just as when you move house, moving websites is a good time to declutter. I looked at every website I had and decided which to keep and which to let go.

This site obviously made the cut! So did Self-Publishing Adventure, though I haven’t updated it in a long time and only moved it because it’s still a good source of information for people thinking about self-publishing. But I’m not sure I’ll keep it. I didn’t want to get hung up on making a decision about it, so I’ve moved it for now.

I moved a couple of other sites, but it’s the two sites I didn’t move that I want to let you know about.

I didn’t move Canadian Lesfic. In 2014, six of us started the site with a lot of enthusiasm. But then, as often happens, life got busy. We stopped blogging, and we hadn’t updated the site in a while. I contacted the other admins and explained that I was changing hosts and I’d be happy to move the site, but did it make sense? We agreed that it didn’t, so I quietly turned off the lights. If you go to the domain, you’ll see a parked page.

I also let go of Online Lesbian Fiction. I started the site back when I was posting Rymellan stories to rymellanstories.com. I linked to (legally) free lesbian fiction. In the early years, authors would contact me quite frequently to link to their sites. But then the eBook revolution happened, and most authors upload free fiction to Amazon and other bookstores. I hadn’t posted to the site since May 2017. I was receiving only 1-2 requests a year, and some of them were for links that weren’t lesbian fiction. So once again, it was time to let the site go. For now, the domain onlinelesbianfiction.com redirects to the lesbian fiction page on this site. I’m thinking about what else I could do with the domain.

As for rymellanstories.com, it will soon redirect to the Rymellan Series page on this site. I’ve wanted to do that for years, but it was the main domain on my hosting account. That’s no longer true at Siteground.

Moves always bring change. I wish moving house was as fast and simple as moving web hosts!

Have a great weekend!

Mixed Bag: Their Last Hope, Reader News, And More

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Their Last Hope

Their Last Hope is on its way. It’s already available at Amazon (print and ebook), Smashwords, and Google Play, but I’m waiting for it to show up at Kobo, Apple, and Barnes & Noble before I send out the new releases email. If you want to grab the book now, buy links are here.

I almost didn’t upload the files this week. I had planned to do it on Wednesday, but instead I was in a dentist’s chair for an hour and forty-five minutes having the first stage of a root canal done. I wasn’t sure how I’d feel yesterday. I felt fine, so I went ahead and uploaded everything. If I hadn’t felt great, I would have pushed publication to Monday.

I’ve mentioned before (I think in a new releases email, but maybe here) that Amazon always sets the publication date to the day before the files were uploaded, so the Amazon page says the book was published on January 24th.

When I checked the Google Play page this morning, it says the book was published on December 17, 2017. Considering that I hadn’t generated any ebook files at that point, it certainly wasn’t published on that date. I assigned an ISBN to the book on December 15th, so I’m wondering if the book record made it into Bowker’s database on December 17th, and that’s the date Google Play is using.

Anyway, if you’re on my new releases list, expect an email sometime within the next few days.

Bookstore News

Here’s some bookstore news, in case you haven’t heard. You can now buy audiobooks at Google Play. I’m not sure where they’re sourcing the books from, so the selection probably isn’t as good as Audible’s. But it’s early days.

Microsoft opened an ebookstore not too long ago, and without much fanfare. It’s not open to indie authors at the moment, but that could change. (BTW, Microsoft Edge is a pretty good EPUB reader. I used to check the EPUB versions of my books with Adobe Digital Editions, but now I use Edge).

Apple is no longer going to call its bookstore iBooks. It’ll just be Books. Some publishing pundits have taken this as a sign that Apple will be paying more attention to its bookstore and perhaps making more of an effort to take on Amazon, but it’s crystal ball talk right now.

Smashwords is planning to revamp its store this year. It did a cosmetic facelift to the site a few years back. I think the changes will be more substantial this time, but we’ll have to wait and see.

Goodreads Giveaway Changes

And here’s news about Goodreads giveaways. If you regularly use Goodreads, you might already know that the giveaway program has changed.

In the beginning, an author or publisher could only give away print books on Goodreads. Giveaways were free. They no longer are, and they’re quite expensive. There are two tiers. A standard giveaway will cost $119, and a premium giveaway will cost $599. As part of this, indie authors can now give away Kindle books (previously only traditional publishers could do so).

A premium giveaway provides featured placement on the giveaway page. Not sure that’s worth an extra $400+.

There are changes for readers, too. Entering a giveaway will automatically add the book to your want-to-read list.

I used to do Goodreads giveaways, but I stopped. It’s expensive for me to give away print books (due to Canadian postal costs), and I saw little benefit from doing them. The idea is to get exposure for your book and maybe a couple of reviews. But that’s only effective if the book gets into a target reader’s hands.

Many readers enter every giveaway without considering whether the book is right for them, so there’s a high probability that someone will win who isn’t in your target audience. That can be especially true for books that have LGBT main characters. Also, many winners don’t review the books (I suspect many turn around and sell them).

I would definitely NOT pay to give away books to an untargeted audience. I might as well throw my money out the window.

I’m guessing that this will reduce the number of giveaways at Goodreads, especially from indie authors.

Also, giveaways will now be open to US residents only (at least initially).

From what I’ve read, readers don’t like the book being automatically added to their want-to-read lists. So nobody is really all that happy about these changes, but we’ll see how it plays out.

If you’re interested in reading the official announcement, it’s here.

Other Giveaway Ideas

I would like to do a giveaway here, but with something other than a book. Why? Because doing a giveaway of a book does nothing for readers who already have the book. That means people who support me by buying my books are left out. So I’m thinking about what I can give away instead. If you have any ideas, I’d love to hear them (leave a comment or contact me here).

Have a great weekend! 🙂

Their Last Hope Cover Reveal

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I’m in the middle of preparing Their Last Hope for publication. Every book needs a cover, and for Their Last Hope, I used a new cover designer. She came up with a fantastic cover.

Their Last Hope is a standalone science fiction novel about an AI specialist and sentient androids. When I started writing it, I thought that maybe it would fall into the cyberpunk genre. It doesn’t. It’s more a visionary/dystopian novel.

Here’s the blurb:

AI specialist Liz Price is determined to see sentient androids in her lifetime, but then she’s diagnosed with terminal cancer. Hoping that her dream will be realized in the future, she arranges to be cryogenically frozen upon her death.

When Liz is revived years later, she expects to be cured. But sentient androids are taking humans and killing them for some unknown reason. They control the medical system, and they don’t treat serious illnesses.

A resistance group wants Liz to turn the androids back into mindless machines. They tell her that’s the only way to stop the androids, and the only way she’ll be cured.

Liz wants to live, so she agrees to work with the resistance. She secretly hopes she can reason with the androids, but then she finds out why they’re taking humans.

The story has received an enthusiastic response from everyone who has read it. My usual editor said that out of everything I’ve written, it’s her favourite story, and she has read everything, from the Rymellan Series to the Daros Chronicles.

Their Last Hope has the dubious distinction of spending the most time on my hard drive between completion of the first draft and publication. I put it aside several times to finish the Daros Chronicles. I’m pleased that it’ll finally go out into the world.

Instead of publishing the eBook and then doing print, I’m doing what I used to do and publishing both versions at around the same time. Once I’ve approved the print proof, I’ll upload the eBook to the bookstores. The proof is on its way, so it’s just a matter of when it will arrive and whether it passes muster.

Enjoy your weekend!

Writing Plans for 2018

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Happy 2018! Long time no talk. I just checked, and I last posted to the blog on September 1. I’ve been busy, but that was 2017.

So what’s happened since then, and what’s coming down the pipe?

Facing a Crossroads

In May, I started to work on a programming course for an online course platform. After completing it, I created another course. All told, I spent May to November working on the two courses.

It was a great experience, and when the instructor I worked with contacted me about doing another course, I agreed to discuss it in early January.

But here’s the thing: when I was working on the courses, I had to put everything else aside, including writing. I didn’t write at all, and I missed it. I also couldn’t spend any time promoting my books. To get the courses done, I had to focus on them exclusively.

In December, I realized that if I created more courses, everything else would continue to take a backseat.

I wouldn’t say the courses are easy money. Creating a course is a ton of work, hence having to put everything else aside. But a programming course is guaranteed income. Coding is hot these days, and many people are turning to online courses, rather than going to university.

Writing, on the other hand, is about as risky as you can get when it comes to income. You can spend months, even years, writing a book, and then make peanuts when it’s released.

I had a decision to make: go for something I don’t mind doing that’s guaranteed to make me money, or go for something I love doing that might end up making me only enough money to buy a cup of tea and a pastry at the local coffee shop. So it came down to creating courses or writing.

I’ve chosen writing.

If I were younger, I’d go for the courses and squeeze in writing and publishing when I can. But at this stage in my life, I’m not interested in working 12 hour days. My partner is retired. Spending time with family and friends is important to me. And as you get older, it’s important to mind your health. You also want to spend your time doing stuff you really enjoy, because you’re aware that time is slipping through your fingers.

So I contacted the instructor and told him I’d decided not to do any more courses.

Does that mean I’ll be releasing more books than usual this year? Maybe, but it’s going to be a bit of a crazy year. We’re leaving Toronto. We have to declutter our house, do a major renovation and lots of touch-ups, stage the house, and sell it. Assuming it sells, we’ll then have to find somewhere to live in the destination city, pack, and move. So it’ll be busy.

2018 Releases

I’m only committing to releasing one book in 2018. I’ll release the standalone science fiction novel I’ve mentioned previously. It’s called THEIR LAST HOPE, and it’s almost ready to go. The book should be available by the end of this month.

The Deiform Fellowship Five is on hold for now. Before I’d put it aside for the courses, I’d written about 30,000 words, but I wasn’t happy with the way the story was going. I’d decided to throw a lot of it away and take it in a different direction. Now that I’m back to writing, I want to give the story more time to percolate in my subconscious before I try again.

I’ve started a new story…actually, I’ve started three. When I looked over my ideas file, three ideas jumped out at me. I couldn’t decide between them, so I started writing all three, figuring that one or two would fizzle out, or one would really take off. But so far, I’m happily writing all three! However, it’s early days. One or two will probably fall to the wayside.

So…THEIR LAST HOPE will definitely be released. I expect more to come out from me this year, but because of how busy we’ll be with the move, I don’t want to make any promises.

That’s it for now. I’m going to try to post to the blog a little more this year, but with everything else going on, I’ll see how it goes.

Wishing you a wonderful 2018 and a great weekend!  ?

Fate or Folly is Out

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Fate or Folly, the second book in the Daros Chronicles, is out. You can pick it up from your favourite online bookstore. Here’s the info:

Fate or Folly

Fate or Folly

Author:
Series: The Daros Chronicles, Book 2
Genre: Epic Fantasy

At the end of Pawns and Puzzles, Erryn comes face to face with a goddess, and Fi faces a life of humiliation and servitude. In Fate or Folly, both women must find a way to fulfill their destinies, but with Fi shackled and Erryn a hunted criminal, the fate of Daros and its people appears grim.

More info →
Buy from Amazon
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Buy from Smashwords
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This book concludes the story that began in Pawns and Puzzles.

My next release will most likely be in February, 2018. It’ll be the standalone sci-fi novel I’ve mentioned. If you’re on my mailing list, I offered a few more details in the Fate or Folly announcement email.

I was hoping to write another holiday story, but I’m not going to have the time. I’m busy preparing Their Last Hope (the sci-fi novel) for my editor, I’m creating another programming course, and I’m sifting through the story ideas I’ve saved (so far) and deciding which ones I’d like to move forward with at some point. Related to the latter, I’m doing a couple of writing workshops.

I’ll continue to add story ideas to my file. I just want to sort out the ones I already have. There are so many that it’s difficult for me to see at a glance what’s there. Some have been in the file for 5, 6, 7 years. If I haven’t written them yet, I’m not likely to, though there may be a couple that survive the cut.

The author Jae posted on Facebook that a reader had contacted her at some point to say that s/he (the reader) had a story idea, and if Jae wrote her idea, the reader would split the book royalties with her.

But here’s the thing: the idea is the easy part when it comes to writing a book. Ideas come easily to fiction writers. I can take a walk around the block and come home with 20 story ideas. It’s the research, the preparation, the sitting down at the desk and spending months, sometimes years, to write the first draft, the editing, the re-editing, reviewing feedback from beta readers and an editor, and then revising and editing again…that’s the tough part.

Of course, Jae declined the offer.

Have a great weekend. For those who celebrate Labour Day, enjoy your long weekend!

Books about Lesbians in the 1960s

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I was the guest poster on Women and Words yesterday. I talked about what books said about lesbians in the 1960s. We’ve come incredibly far in the past fifty years, but as one comment said, we still have a ways to go. You can read the post here:

When Others Spoke for Us

In other news, I’m busy reading the Kindle version of Fate or Folly (Daros Chronicles Volume Two). I expect to release the book by the end of August. Print versions of Volumes One and Two should be available by the end of September.

After that, I’ll turn my attention to the standalone sci-fi novel that I’ll release early next year.

Just a quick update for this holiday Monday in Ontario.

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