James S. Peet, Author, novelist, and all around good guy!

On Wednesday, December 6th, from 6 to 8 PM I’ll be signing books at A Good Book Bookstore in downtown Sumner, WA.  We will have a number of books available for purchasing and signing, and if we run out, not to worry.  Evelyn (the owner of A Good Book) will be happy to order a copy for you.  Remember, support local!

In the past I have lectured and written about pirates – ancient and modern sea pirates, that is.  Today, I’m writing about another type of pirate – intellectual property pirates.  Just like the pirates of old, these pirates are scum, stealing from those who work to benefit themselves (yes, I found a pirated copy of Surveyor).  Perhaps, if we were to resort to the old punishment to pirates (i.e., hang them from the yardarm), we would see less.  Perhaps not, but I’m willing to see the time and energy invested into it.

After a couple of e-mail exchanges, the local library (King County Library System) will be carrying Surveyor.  Yep, five copies.  Pretty cool.  I know it means less sales (as people prefer free stuff), but it also opens it up to more readers.  Besides, after borrowing books and movies from the library for over twenty years now, it’s payback time.

Here’s a special shout-out and thank you to Michael Z. Williamson for the Surveyor plug on his FaceBook page.  I’ve been a fan of Mad Mike for years, starting with The Weapon, and love the whole Freehold series (and looking forward to the release of his upcoming book, Angeleyes.

For those not in the Amazon territory (or no desire to use Amazon), Surveyor is now available in ePub format (i.e., an e-book) on Kobo.  Kobo is located in 29 countries, so to those 1 billion Rakutan Kobo customers, welcome to my website.

Forgot to mention, Surveyor is now available in paperback format.  If you’re a reader, get it on Amazon (but buy it from me, not one of the many resellers trying to hijack it) or request a copy from your local bookstore (they can get it from Ingram).

Please, please, please support your local bookstore.  For us, the two major ones are “A Good Book” in Sumner, WA and “The Sequel” in Enumclaw, WA.

Finally, success on the transition from Scrivener to ePub format.  This means I’ll be able to upload it into Kobo, Apple Store, etc.

To quote one of my favorite movie lines (from Office Space), “damn, it feels good to be a gangster.”

So far, no joy in Mudville when it comes to converting Surveyor into an ePub file.  Grrr. Hope to get this problem resolved in the next day or so, as I’m hoping to be on Kobo by the weekend.  In other news, the paperback edition will be available on Amazon in the next 3-5 days (just approved the proof).  Still waiting to hear back from IngramSpark on how that’s going (they’re a Print on Demand, or POD distributor that sells to resellers/retailers, like my friend Evelyn of “A Good Book and Cafe” in Sumner, WA.  Go visit her for some great books and even better deals.

Well, so far I’ve managed to make Surveyor available on Amazon Kindle, but am still awaiting them to mail my paperback version so I can proof and approve it.  They’ll notify me when they mail it, so until they do, it’s a waiting game.

CreateSpace found issues with my cover (not sure why, I think the cover artist did a great job).  I hope to resolve that today.

The big problem is converting the book to an ePub format (used extensively throughout the non-Amazon.com world).  I had installed the Nook reader app on my computer, so every time I tried to open ePub, it saved as a Nook format.  This did not translate well to other readers (such as Kobo in Canada, eh – special shout out to Pete Drewcock for working with me on this by reviewing all the versions I sent him).  I removed the Nook app, so the latest version worked fine.  Just need to tweak it (more html work) before it’s set to go (but I’ve got papers to grade – did I mention I’m a college “Affiliate Professor” or something like that?)

Back to the salt mines.

Well, that didn’t take too long.  The same day I submitted my Kindle formatted book to Amazon they approved it, so I’m now officially a “published novelist” (I’ve been a published author for years, nay, decades, but this is my first novel).

Check it out at Surveyor: Book 1 of the Corps of Discovery Series.