In the Touch thread, Hanneke asked a question which I’d like to answer here:
I’ve been looking for it on Kobo every few days, and it hasn’t shown up yet, two-and-a-half weeks after publication day. Should I practise my patience a bit longer, or is this long enough to guess that someone at the publisher forgot to tick the ‘available to buy in the rest of the world’-box at distribution, or forgot to send it to Kobo, and send them an e‑mail?
If so, do you happen to have a name or an e‑mail address for the publisher, where I could send my question?
The short answer is: No. If you picked up Silence from Kobo, and you do not live in North America, or have a North America-based account, it shouldn’t have happened, because I have World Rights to the titles in any other market. (This holds true for House War books as well).
The longer answer is: I’m very, very sorry =/. Because: I have World Rights and I have not yet made those books available in other markets. I am working very slowly through House War because someone asked me about the availability of Battle in the UK in ebook, and I was determined to have UK editions available for Oracle and subsequent books at the same time as the North American versions.
The reason it’s taking so long is I’ve had to extract text from the .pdfs, and then change spelling, etc. The spelling is actually easy. HOWEVER… the text extraction was not perhaps exact. Or close. So, many of the dialogue lines or the short lines were collapsed together in the extraction. It’s obvious when two short dialogue lines are missing a carriage return.
It is not obvious when those dialogue lines bracket a dialogue tag.
Example:
“See what?” Carver asked. “Something shiny.”
This looks — on scanning — correct. Unfortunately, it’s not. It should be:
“See what?” Carver asked.
“Something shiny.”
(The second speaker is Jewel). This means I am reading each of the first three books, page by page, looking for exactly this type of error. And sadly, there are a lot of them.
After House Name, I began to keep track of everything in one file. I transcribed all of the page proof corrections & the revisions & etc., in one place. So once I reach Skirmish, it becomes, in theory, much, much faster.
This is also true of Silence and Touch; I only need to do the formatting & ISBN assignments, and uploads, etc. Which doesn’t take zero time, but is not as time intensive.
But at the moment, I have revisions on Cast in Flame due at the end of the month, and of course, I’m trying to finish Oracle (it’s not finished yet), and Grave.
But: The lack of UK/International English editions is entirely my fault. I’ve changed my workflow so in future I should be much, much more efficient — but I am from the days of dinosaurs, and so much of my workflow is based on Other People publishing my books.
***
This is how the rights fall out for my various books.
The Sacred Hunt: (Hunter’s Oath, Hunter’s Death). DAW has World Rights. Anyone, anywhere, should be able to buy these in ebook format. If you can’t, let me know.
The Sun Sword: (Broken Crown, Uncrowned King, Shining Court, Sea of Sorrows, Riven Shield, Sun Sword). DAW has World Rights. Anyone, anywhere, should be able to buy these in ebook format. If you can’t, let me know.
The House War: (Hidden City, City of Night, House Name, Skirmish, Battle). DAW has North American rights. Anyone who is buying these books in the US/Canada should be able to buy the ebooks anywhere. I have World Rights. So far, I have formatted & corrected only Hidden City, and uploaded that to various sites. I haven’t uploaded to Kobo yet; I have to do the paperwork — w8bens, etc. I’m 3/4s of the way through City of Night, and that should be up in about two weeks. I will, come hell or high water, have Oracle done and ready at the same time as the NA version.
Queen of the Dead: (Silence, Touch, Grave) DAW has North American rights. Anyone who is buying these books in the US/Canada should be able to buy the ebooks anywhere. I have World Rights. I fully intend to have Grave up at the same time as the North American edition is available — but while I will make sure Silence and Touch do get out there, I’m behind on those. I have every intention of making them available — they’ll be the next thing I do, after the 5 House War books.
Cast: This is more complicated. Harlequin owns World Rights for all of these books. But each HLQ subsidiary is responsible for what is published in its own territory. If you cannot buy these books in, say, the UK or etc., I can’t actually do anything about that; it means the subsidiary in your territory hasn’t chosen to pick up the Cast novels.
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