Christina Engela’s Monthly Newsletter: #65 May 2022

ChristinaEngela

2 years ago

Hello, friends and fans!

Welcome to my 65th monthly newsletter! Pull up a chair, let’s chat! Let’s take a look at this months’ news!

Some Publishing Progress & Good News

Over the last few months I’ve been dealing with the recent implosion of the publishing side of my life. It’s not easy to have to deal with the loss of a friend, but when that friend was also your publisher, it’s a double tragedy! As I’ve said before, it’s not easy sometimes, to not lose hope!

Last month (WOW a whole month has gone by already!) I told you how I had started to bounce back after a few weeks of feeling really low about an absence of royalty payments, and lack of control over my books where they are currently.

In the past month, I began to take back control. I did this by publishing some of my non-fiction books on my KDP account (which has recently added South Africa to their list of banking clients, so I’m able to register for tax and payments direct to my bank account here in South Africa). In the past month, I was also overjoyed to notice a few sales already, but the main problem remains.

Not only are the bulk of my fiction titles which are listed on Amazon, published from Brandon’s KDP account, but because they remain there, I’ve been faced with a dilemma of how to proceed. At this point I’ve been waiting since December for my last royalty payment from sales of books and audiobooks to be paid out, and so far, Elizabeth, Brandon’s widow at Moon Books Publishing, has yet to take down my paperbacks and eBooks from Amazon as she agreed the last time she replied to my messages. In the meantime, my books are still available via Smashwords, and my audiobooks remain on Audible under Moon Books’ curatorship. Elizabeth has in the meantime also taken to not reading or replying to my messages.

As I’ve said previously, working with Brandon as my publisher was a wonderful, enriching experience, and now, four months after his death, my doubts whether anyone else could ever fill that place in future are set in stone. The lack of control over my publishing process I’ve experienced since Brandon’s death – not to even come to control over receiving the outstanding payment for sales of my work – has reminded me AGAIN why I undertook to stay indie before Moon Books – after the last time I burned my fingers with a small press traditional publisher. This current situation has renewed my commitment to maintaining my writing and publishing independence.

People can say what they like to me about the benefits of being with a big publisher, or even compare them to a small press, but honestly nothing can beat the creative freedom and control that being indie brings to my life as a writer!

Bearing this in mind, I’ve this morning contacted KDPs help-desk (gods help me, I’ll probably burst a blood vessel this time if they give me more uphill!!) about how to proceed to replace the existing books published via Brandon with my own updated versions.

In the meantime, my local South African publisher, Hally Park (also a small press), has given their blessing to my request to continue publishing new titles on my own, which were to have been exclusive to them. I suspect the economic state formed part of their decision, for which I am nevertheless grateful.

That said, regardless of what happens with Moon Books or KDP (or Hally Park), there will be a new title appearing in Galaxii shortly!

I will, as always, keep you updated.

Lecture For The Desmond Tutu Centre For Religion & Social Justice

Last Wednesday evening I delivered my lecture to University of the Western Cape Phd students and staff as an invited guest academic for the Desmond Tutu Centre for Religion and Social Justice. The topic of the lecture was the academic paper I wrote for the Alternative Religions Forum in 2013, “Satanism: The Acid Test“, and was performed remotely via GoogleMeets. It was the first time I’d ever used this platform for video conferencing, and believe me it was a bit stressful! The lecture itself went off very pleasantly and it was a very friendly, interesting group of peeps! Above is the poster for the lecture FYI.

Publishing

Currently Available Titles:

My books are available as eBooks, Paperbacks, and Audiobooks, and you can find them everywhere. Click the links in the slideshow below to view titles available in these formats.

If you’re still wondering where to find them in the format of your choice, you should read “Where To Get My Books – Specially For My South African Readers!“.

New Titles:

These are recent titles (re)published in 2022 via my new KDP account:

In addition, “African Assignment” and “A Way Of Life“, two books written by my father, Theo Engela, have recently been released in South Africa by Hally Park Publishers.

Coming Soon!

It’s been some time since I’ve had a “coming soon” section in my newsletter, and I’m happy to tell you that “Sentinel”, the long-awaited fourth book in the Galaxii Series will be coming out soon!

Sentinel – Book 4 in the Galaxii Series:

The starship I.S.S. Munray is a ship crewed by a lot of ill-disciplined misfits barely one step away from another court-martial – and the Captain’s the worst of the lot! When the opportunity presents itself for Vice-Admiral Beens to rid himself of the troublesome, malingering Wynne Polluk, he jumps at the chance to introduce a new broom, in the form of one Sonia La Belle.

In order to meet the deadline, she must deal with all the obstacles in her path; an old rundown ship whose engines lie disassembled, an uncooperative senior staff, and negative hopeless crewmembers who’d probably be more at home in the stockade than running a starship! The Munray and her crew resume their life of routine space patrol – which is soon interrupted when the ship is diverted to pursue a pair of dangerous fugitives who’ve escaped from a max-security facility – one that was supposed to be escape-proof! This turns out to be an exercise which will push ship and crew – and its new Captain – to their limits!

Can they overcome all the obstacles they face, track down the Corsair fugitives, and do so in time to prevent the destruction of Earth?

As always, I’ll keep you posted about any further developments.

Audiobooks:

I have 15 audiobooks available on Audible and Amazon! Click the links in the slideshow below to view titles available as audiobooks.

New Audiobooks:

Sadly, I have nothing new to show you here this time.

Coming Soon!

Under the sub-heading of “Coming Soon!” – er, perhaps I should add “hopefully” considering that it will be delayed for some time, here is the cover for the upcoming release of the audiobook for “High Steaks“. I did manage to convince Elizabeth to undertake to log in to the Moon Books account at Audible to click “approve” for this book, but as yet, nothing has happened in that department yet (how difficult is it to click a mouse button? ).

Stay tuned for more new releases and updates!

Feedback & Communication

Reviews:

I have no new reviews to show you this time! You can see all my previous reviews here.

Interviews:

I have no new interviews to show you this time, but all my interviews are linked to from this page.

What The Readers Say:

I have the following reader comments to show you this time! All my reader comments are linked to from this page.

Lisa left a great review for Blachart on Amazon on April 07, 2022:
AWESOME and unbelievably real

“I haven’t given a book review, although I have read more than a hundred, maybe two hundred. But this [“Blachart”] is the first sci fi action book that made me feel like I was there with these characters. It was AWESOME and unbelievably real to me. Thank you and keep up the good work! Dave” – Dave Duran, fan mail, 22 April 2022.

Videos:

You’re welcome to browse through the videos on my YouTube video channel! I’m not really the performing seal type, but I do my best! There’s also a 13 minute movie on there, called “Bang, Splat!“, based on characters and settings from “The Time Saving Agency“.

Incidentally, Nigel Peever, the narrator of two of my Galaxii series audiobooks, just recently uploaded a new book trailer video for “Blachart“! I think it looks amazing!

https://christinaengela.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/Blachart-trailer-2022-nigel-peever.mp4?_=1