Drabble Cascade #31 - Alone (gen, g)

Greetings, this is one of my drabbles for this week's drabble cascade. Our word of the week is 'independent' in support of all indie writers hit by the Kobo/WHSmith's mess.

Alone

by Natasha Duncan-Drake

To be independent, to stand alone relying on no one but yourself is a dream for some people. To be perfectly equipped to deal with life all by yourself is the goal. But in our modern world of gadgets and internet and text messages and Twitter it is possible to go through life without touching anyone at all. A friend is someone on the other side of social media who may turn out to be someone you don't know at all.

Being independent gets mixed up with being alone and it all goes wrong.

Sometimes 'independent' just feels like 'lonely'.

FB3X Drabble Cascade #31 - word of the week is 'independent'

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Gay Halloween Book Giveaway!!! 14-29th of October!!

So, Halloween is on its way and in honour of that spooky night with a side of gay main characters, we have

THE GAY HALLOWEEN GIVEAWAY!

For a chance to win any of the books listed below, enter the giveaway using the Rafflecopter form - the more options you complete, the more chances you will have to win! (Please note, the giveaway is only open to those over 18)

You can check out each title by clicking on the front covers below.



a Rafflecopter giveaway

Disclaimer:
The Gay Halloween Giveaway ends midnight GMT on the 29th of October. Open internationally. Warning: some content not suitable for people under the age of 18. Prizes will be sent electronically via mail. Winners will be chosen on the 29th of October by randomiser and will receive an email. Facebook, Twitter and any other social media websites are in no way associated with this giveaway. By providing your information in this form, you are providing your information to me and me alone. I do not share or sell information and will use any information only for the purpose of contacting the winner.

So nice of Kobo to hit every self-pub because of a few problem titles...

How to overreact in a big way - Kobo sent out this email this morning, after they have removed all the books, BTW, no warning at all they were going to do it:

To our Kobo Writing Life and self-publishing partners:

As you may be aware, there has been a significant amount of negative media attention in the UK regarding offensive material that became available across a number of eBook platforms. Kobo was included in the reports from media and we are taking immediate action to resolve an issue that is the direct result of a select few authors and publishers violating Kobo’s content policies.

In order to address the situation Kobo is taking the following steps:
1.       We are removing titles in question from the Kobo platform.
2.       We are quarantining and reviewing titles to ensure that compliance to our policies is met by all authors and publishers. We will ensure that content meeting the policy is made available online as soon as possible.
3.       We are reviewing our policies and procedures to implement safeguards that will ensure this situation does not happen in the future.

We are working hard to get back to business as usual, as quickly as possible. We appreciate your patience and understanding in this matter.

Our goal at Kobo is not to censor material; we support freedom of expression. Further, we want to protect the reputation of self-publishing as a whole. You have our promise that we will do all we can to ensure the exceptions that have caused this current situation will not have a lasting effect on what is an exciting new channel that connects Readers to a wealth of books.

Sincerely,

Mark Lefebvre
Director, Kobo Writing Life

I barely sell anything on Kobo, but it's the principle of the thing that annoys me. They have removed all my books. All my books are not erotica, in fact all the ones that weren't erotica went first! All my books that contain adult content are marked as such and they are redistributed by Smashwords so they already adhere to those content guidelines. If Kobo objected to Smashwords' guidelines, why on earth did they let Smashwords distribute to them? Surely they can tell where the books came from when they were uploaded into their system.

If it's "a few authors and publishers" that have broken the rules why have they punished every self-pub? All I can say is that if they didn't want the content on their site they should have checked better when it was submitted!

I believe complaints in the Daily Mail (I won't go to their website because I don't want to feed their advertising revenue) were about incest and rape porn and bestiality, all of which are against Smashwords content guidelines and hence cannot get into the premium catalogue which is what is redistributed to other providers. I also believe there may have been some trouble with tagging where porn titles were coming up along side children's books, but then I'm not sure how you can stop that unless you have to be logged in for adult books to show up in a search or something (that would make sense because you'd have to show your age when having an account), or add a safe search option as default like Google that you have to turn off. This action by Kobo is completely OTT.

They are saying a week to vet every title, but I'll believe that when I see it. Are they suddenly going to decide certain erotica isn't okay because it's only the self-pub they're looking at?

On our website we have a very simple system - we have a flag in the back end, if it's checked the book listing states it has adult content and we make sure our listings are suitable for all ages. I am all for making sure kids don't stumble across content they shouldn't, but removing all self-pub is just wrong.

How to change a B&N url into a Nook UK url to find your books...

I distribute my books via Smashwords and I thought several of them must have been simply refused by Nook UK because they didn't show up when I searched for my name. It turns out they are there, they just don't show up in searches.

It mostly seems to be my adult titles, but there are a couple of others that are simply not there. I have no idea why, but the only way I found them was by translating the B&N url into the Nook UK format. We link to Nook UK from Wittegen Press when we can so that Nook users can easily find our books. For my reference and for anyone else having the same trouble I thought I'd document how to do it.

Here is a B&N url for my latest book Cat's Confidence (it's on both sites which is what made it easy to use).:
http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/cats-confidence-natasha-duncan-drake/1116968975?ean=2940045280310

here is the Nook UK URL:
http://uk.nook.com/ebooks/cats-confidence-by-natasha-duncan-drake/2940045280310

So to translate one to the other you have to do the following three things:

• Replace www.barnesandnoble.com/w/ from the B&N URL with uk.nook.com/ebooks/
• Add a by- before the author's name
• remove the first number and ?ean= (e.g 1116968975?ean=) from the last part of the URL

That then gives you the correct URL on Nook UK for your ebook that is on Barnes and Noble. It doesn't seem to work with big name books because they have different ref numbers, but they'll show up in searches anyway.

Amber's new favourite place...

So, as of this morning, Amber has a new favourite place.

Last night for the first time we didn't shut her away in her room for the night and let her wander, including our bedroom if she wanted to. Well, this morning, after we vacated the bed, she took up residence and has only left to eat lunch. It seems the bed is pleasing ;).

Well I sincerely hope that never happens again.

Last Sunday (6th) our internet and phone went off without any warning. It has only just been restored (Friday afternoon), even though our provider has been saying it'll be fixed in four hours since Tuesday!

I never realise how useful and how much I use the internet until it isn't there. Every time I wanted to look something up I had to just wait! So glad to have it back.

Hope you are all well *hugs*

Day 3 with Amber :)

So I promised better piccies of Amber and here she is :). She likes sitting in her bed and looking out of the window.

She’s also started exploring the rest of the house (well the parts where we have the doors open - don’t want to overwhelm her). She seems to like it in the old dining room because she can nip under the table if we come down the stairs. She also talks a lot :). It’s lovely.

Haven’t managed to get her to play yet, but she definitely likes the cat teaser because we left it out for her last night and this morning it was broken :).

Amber piccies :)

So this is Amber, our new kitty. Sorry, this isn't very high res - it's from the web cam we've set up so we can keep an eye on her without disturbing her all the time. There will be some actual camera piccies once she has settled more and is happier with us being around.

She's begun talking to us now, so we hope it won't be too long, but we don't want to stress her out.



[Edit - Here is another piccie a bit higher res (yes that is a bribe on the counter in front of her bed - she does like cat treats)]



originally posted on LJ

New kitty, Amber, is now at home

We picked up Amber yesterday and the poor baby is still nervous and not very sure of everything. She did, however, very much seem to enjoy the head scratch I gave her this morning :). She's happy to be petted when she's in her bed, but not outside it yet.

She's eating and moving around the utility room and seems to like her new bed, so all seems to be going well. She also very much likes the kitty treats ;).

We just bought her a scratching post as well, so she has something to exercise her claws.

I think with a little love and time she's going to settle down very nicely.

No piccies yet, but soon, promise :).

Fic: Awkward Moment, (PG, Charlie Waterman Flashfic)

As I am sure you have noticed me mention, I have a new book out this week. It is called Cat's Confidence and it is book 3 in The Chronicles of Charlie Waterman. In honour of the release I have written a little flashfic for this week's Drabble Cascade. It is a tag scene to the book, but has no spoilers, so it can be enjoyed by all.

Awkward Moment

by Natasha Duncan-Drake

Charlie opened the door from his bedroom and stepped out into his living room, where Alexander was waiting for him. They were still on their break after the last Task and they'd decided to take a trip to a world neither of them had visited before. Thanks to losing himself in the library all morning, Charlie was running late.

"Sorry," he apologised and then stopped, because he saw what Alexander was doing.

His friend had one of his many books in hand and was scanning through it. When Alexander looked up and lifted one perfectly shaped eyebrow, Charlie wasn't sure what to say.

"A stake through the heart would kill anything," Alexander said, "not just vampires."

"So would beheading," Charlie agreed, "and fire," at which point he realised, that possibly wasn't the most tactful thing to say.

Of course Alexander had to have picked up the book about evil vampires. The only vampire he knew couldn't have gone for one of the ones about dragons, because he wasn't that lucky.

"Now you know why everyone on Earth thinks vampires are fictional," he added with an awkward shrug; "none of the vampire lore actually makes sense."

Alexander stood up and placed the book back on the shelf without another comment and Charlie really hoped the book hadn't offended his friend. Books about evil white guys didn't offend him, but then half the universe didn't have the wrong idea about his race, so he wasn't sure he could judge.

"Shall we go?" Alexander asked and didn't sound overly bothered, but sometimes it was hard to tell.

"Yeah," Charlie agreed and plastered on a smile.

"That book did get one thing right," Alexander added as he lifted his arm to create a portal.

"Really?" Charlie asked, honestly surprised.

"Yes," Alexander said and paused in a way that wasn't overly dramatic at all, well not for a vampire anyway, "we are all devilishly handsome and good in bed."

The whole speech was delivered with a perfectly serious demeanour, so it took Charlie a moment to catch up.

"Oh you bastard," he said and laughed, "I was really worried there for a second."

Alexander merely gave him a superior smirk as the portal flared into life.

~*~

Drabble Cascade #30 COMPETITION - word of the week is 'stake'

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