Christmas Audio Book

I"m excited to say, Yuletide Slaying, book 7 in the Shandra Higheagle Mystery series is now in audio!

I am enjoying working with Ann Thompson as my narrator for the Shandra Higheagle series. Fatal Fall has been narrated and is going through all the processing. I should have that one available after the first of the year along with book 12, Homicide Hideaway. And the first book of the new Gabriel Hawke series, Murder of Ravens.

I'm excited about my new series and looking forward to taking Ryan and Shandra on more sleuthing journeys as a married couple.

Yuletide Slaying

Book 7 of the Shandra Higheagle mystery series

Family, Revenge, Murder

When Shandra Higheagle’s dog brings her a dead body in a sleigh full of presents, her world is turned upside down. The man is a John Doe and within twenty-four hours another body is found.

Detective Ryan Greer receives a call that has them both looking over their shoulders. A vengeful brother of a gang member who died in a gang war is out for Ryan’s blood. Shandra’s dreams and Ryan’s fellow officers may not be enough to keep them alive to share Christmas. 

Places to download an audio copy of Yuletide Slaying:

iTunes: https://itunes.apple.com/us/audiobook/yuletide-slaying-shandra-higheagle-mystery-book-7-unabridged/id1441592155?mt=11&ign-mpt=uo%3D4 

Nook: https://www.nookaudiobooks.com/audiobook/251575/yuletide-slaying

Audiobooks.com: https://www.audiobooks.com/audiobook/yuletide-slaying/356808 

Scribd: https://www.scribd.com/audiobook/389993251/Yuletide-Slaying 

Playster: https://play.playster.com/audiobooks/1001800000000251575/yuletide-slaying-paty-jager

Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Yuletide-Slaying-Shandra-Higheagle-Mystery/dp/B07JP1L8QD 

Audible: https://www.audible.com/pd/Yuletide-Slaying-Audiobook/B07JNKQNPC

2018 Has Arrived!

Happy New Year! Are you as excited about 2018 as I am?  I'm pushing forward with my Shandra Higheagle Mystery series, putting out more audio books in that series, and starting another mystery series. 

I've set a stringent set of goals for the year and will only be posting here once a week with updates to my writing life, conferences I'll attend and the like. To put out as many words as if set for this year, I have to put most of my writing time into the books.

Along with the mysteries, I'll have another Silver Dollar Saloon book and hopefully three more Tumbling Creek Ranch novellas.

I'm happy to start the new year with Murderous Secrets, book 4 of the Shandra Higheagle Mystery series to have released in audio.

And both the story and my narrator received high praise from an audio book reviewer, FanGirlNation.
I have enjoyed this series since the first book, Double Duplicity, came to audio. I really like the setting on the mountain with Shandra’s trying to find the missing side of her heritage. So I was happy to get to see Shandra finally meet her Native family. I see great promise for future books as Shandra goes through a further path of personal discovery. I also appreciate seeing the growing relationship between Shandra and Ryan. I like seeing them take their time to heal from past personal injuries before rushing into a serious relationship. Further, I like the way that without even knowing each other’s secret, the pair are able to help each other gain a degree of healing.
Ann M. Thompson narrates the audio edition of this book. In my review of the previous book, Deadly Aim, I indicated that I was not very impressed by the narration and its pacing, but this time I was happy with the narration. So maybe I just had a bad day in my listening to that book. The pacing seemed fine to me this time.
The mystery plots of the series continue to improve with each new entry. This mystery was very well written with plenty of intrigue and drama. I am impressed with the way this series continues to get better as it continues. I give it five stars. 

You can get this audio book at these locations or through many of the subscription ebook sites.

Audible - https://www.audible.com/pd/Mysteries-Thrillers/Murderous-Secrets-Audiobook/B078129B8F

Amazon  https://www.amazon.com/Murderous-Secrets-Shandra-Higheagle-Mystery/dp/B07818FBJW

Apple Murderous Secrets: A Shandra Higheagle Mystery (Volume 4) (Unabridged)

Nook - https://www.nookaudiobooks.com/audiobook/198309/murderous-secrets

Making my books truly my own, by Paty Jager

This will be a post about moving my print books from Creastespace (Amazon) to Ingram Spark and making my books truly my own.

When I started this Indie Publishing journey, there were not as many resources for an indie author to use. The name that came up over and over to get books put in different venues than just Amazon was Smashwords. I used them, but after a few years it was easier for me to upload to Kobo and Barnes and Nobles myself. I've yet to go straight to Apple because I don't own a Mac computer. 

Then other aggregators started popping up, and I found Draft 2 Digital (D2D) much more user friendly. It has many more places that sell my books than Smashwords offered. It is also easy to upload to and pick the venues. It also has a universal link that also includes the Amazon link. This Books2Read universal link has made updating my website and information in the backs of my books much simpler.  I've also begun using Findaway Voices, D2D's audio book side which gives me more options for sales of my audio books and more royalties than Amazon's ACX.

All this time I had used Createspace, the most user friendly and free place, to upload my print books. But I had bookstores balking at ordering books from Createspace because they are an entity of Amazon. Which was putting the little bookstores out of business.  But with whispered rumors of Amazon using their printing house to say you can only sell your print books through them, I've hopped over to Ingram Spark while they are having an upload for free period and started my new series with them and moved over my mystery series.

I will have to say Createspace was more on the ball when I contacted them to send my Shandra Higheagle print book files to Ingram Spark. They had it all ready to go before Ingram Spark had finished my side of things with them. I'm happy to say all of my Shandra Higheagle Mystery books are now being printed by Ingram Sparks. I received one of each book that I ordered to check out the printing. The books are a bit thinner than the Createspace books but the inside print is bolder/darker.  Otherwise they appear to be the same.

Now I'm waiting for the recent releases: Savannah: Silver Dollar Saloon and Haunting Corpse, the latest Shandra Higheagle Mystery to arrive to see how well I formatted the interior and my cover designer (Covered by CLKeerins) did on the cover.

Ingrams requested some different dimensions on margins and details on the interior and the cover has to go on a template. 

The first book we turned in neither my cover designer had encountered some of the Ingram Sparks wording before and after a fail on our first uploaded interior and cover, learned that all we had to do was go deeper into our PDF formatting options. 

For the interior I had to select I wanted a PDF from my formatted word document, then in the screen where I'd clicked PDF there is an options button. I then clicked PDF/A compliant. This version worked for Ingram Spark.

My cover designer discovered when she saved in a Photoshop PDF under save options there was one for color. The dialog box said ICCprofile:sRGB IED61966-2.1  When she unclicked that, the format worked for Ingrams.

 I have purchased the ISBNs for the ebook, print, and audio versions of my books and have more control over where they can be found by readers.  Going forward all my books will be in print from Ingrams, my audio books will be at Findaway Voices, and my ebooks (unless I'm in a group product) will be found at all ebook venues.

I've always been an independent person by nature and letting one entity have a hold on my writing just didn't feel right.

If you are an indie author, who prints your books and do you go with Kindle Unlimited or spread your books around?