For a while now, I’ve had the rights back to my first five books (The J McNee series), and have been self publishing these on various platforms. Sales have been… interesting. Certainly I noted that the Amazon sales far outweighed other platforms, and so after a discussion with a bestselling Scottish author who part self-publishes at a recent festival, I have decided to experiment with putting the full series digitally on Amazon (the paperbacks should be in wider distribution, although I am checking that is the actually the case).
I wanted the books to be available more widely as a general principle, but since I have next to no sales on other platforms, it made sense to see if this author was right and putting them exclusive to Kindle and on the Kindle Unlimited program would make any difference in readership (Mine is, admittedly, small, but hopefully growing). This means if you are a KU member you can download and read them as part of the program and I’ll get paid for each page you read (to put it in simple terms).
At the moment, the delisting from other sites is a little slow, and so only The Lost Sister, Father Confessor and Cry Uncle are in the program. Hopefully The Good Son and Mothers of the Disappeared will join them soon. These books were all written between 2008 and 2015, and you know I’m still massively proud of them even if I was clearly learning my craft as I went along! And if you have enjoyed The Friday Girl, you may even find a few easter eggs that connect the Dundee of Elizabeth Burnet’s era to the more contemporary J McNee timeline. I will update things when the other books are on KU but in the meantime you can go to Amazon’s J McNee series page here (that’s an affiliate link — meaning I may get a small payment if you follow it and buy something) to check ’em out.
In other news, I realised when I was talking about my recent travels, I completely forgot one of the best new-to-me festivals I’ve attended in a while — the magnificent Bute Noir!
This takes place each year on the Isle of Bute, and while it is a smaller festival, my word it is brilliantly attended and such a huge amount of fun! Lesley and I were both there to speak about our books on different panels, and both events had a great reception from packed audiences. And Bute itself is a fascinating wee island — we took a little trip out to Mount Stuart, which is a mad monstrosity of a mansion with a brilliantly storied history and amazing grounds.
If you get a chance to go to Bute Noir, you absolutely should — it’s a superb festival, brilliantly run, and in a spectacular location!
Until next time —
Russel
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