When I set up the new Crow Bar shop website a few weeks ago, the only online payment system that was available to me was PayPal – which just about everybody knows about these days.
Today I added a local South African online payment system called PayFast, which works in very much the same way, but without all the niggling problems I have with getting funds out of my PayPal account into my South African bank account!
Despite my best efforts so far, my dealings with First National Bank (FNB) which is the only bank in South Africa which deals with PayPal, have been completely fruitless. Money goes into my PayPal account, but I can’t get any of that into my South African bank account – and FNB, despite claiming that “it works”, won’t assist me in person or even respond to my emails – but that’s a matter for another post some other time.
PayFast has been around for quite some time apparently, and has a good reputation – several of my friends and acquaintances use it on their business websites (which is how I got to hear of it) – and it will accept local and international payments, EFT, Bitcoin (!), as well as credit and debit card payments. The only thing I had to change on the shop site in order to use PayFast was the site’s currency – from USD to ZAR, which was reflected on each book sales page, which is why the prices are now in Rands instead of Dollars.
Unlike PayPal, buyers don’t have to register or have an account with PayFast to buy at the Crow Bar! All they need to do at the checkout is select the appropriate buttons to tell PayFast which bank they’re with, and then fill in the blanks in the secure spaces provided to execute an EFT – and it’s done, no mess, no fuss!
Come on over to the Crow Bar and have a look around!
Of all the starships in the elite Terran Space Fleet, the I.S.S. Mercury is probably the unluckiest ship in history. Not once, not twice, but many times over, the same hapless crew – give or take a few dozen casualties – on a supposed voyage of deep space exploration, stumble into the weird, wake the creepy and trip over the downright terrifying and possibly even supernatural…
Troubled times have come to the small backwater Terran Colony planet of Deanna – and having amusing names for its sun (Ramalama) and two moons (Ding and Dong) have not made this quaint little world immune to bad things – not even having a small moon famous for falling down occasionally… and bad things are indeed afoot. 
“Blachart” tells the story of a former Space Fleet officer trying to make a living as a private loderunner owner and skipper. Mykl d’Angelo has fallen on hard times – and has just had the worst day of his life in that field. Due a minor misunderstanding, his crew has mutinied and left him and two others behind to crew the ailing loderunner Pegasus – which just happened to literally lose its stardrive in the middle of the middle of nowhere! His two remaining crewmen are killed when the ship’s engine explode, and Mykl d’Angelo is marooned and awaits rescue in deep space. 
Want to know more about Christina Engela? Who is she? Where is she from? Who were her parents? What has she done in life besides writing? What does she write about? How many books has she written? Where can you find and buy them? What’s her favorite genre and target audience? How many series has she created? Look deeper into her stories, plots and characters, see diagrams, sketches, illustrations and even photos of models specially built for illustrations and book trailer videos! You can find it all at The Crow Bar – where you can find everything about Christina Engela in one place!