Available now: A. B. Carolan’s Origins…
In my post “Changes to My Website” (4/23) and a few previous posts, as well as my website’s pages, I’ve explained why no new books of mine will appear on Amazon in the future. For this reason, A, B. Carolan’s new novel Origins: The Denisovan Trilogy, Book One is now available in all ebook formats at Smashwords and its affiliated retailers (iBooks, B&N, Kobo, etc.) and library and lending services (Overdrive, Scribd, Gardners, etc.), and not on Amazon.
Also in previous posts, you’ve seen a preview and some background material for this new sci-fi mystery/thriller for young adults and adults who are young-at-heart. It’s A.B.’s fourth book, and Origins is just as exciting as the previous three. It answers physicist Fermi’s famous question about ETs, “Where are they?”, by “They’re right here among us!” (Of course, you’ll have to read the novel to find out how that came to pass!)
Not being available on Amazon doe not mean you can’t download it to read on your Kindle or Kindle app. Those .mobi files that Amazon likes to pretend as proprietary and exclusive for Kindle use are the only ebook files you can download from Amazon, but Smashwords offers you the option to download any ebook format, including .mobi, when you purchase an ebook from them. Its affiliated retailers only offer their own formats, of course, (.epub is the most common not .mobi) but Smashwords offers them all.
To buy and download your .mobi ebooks from Smashwords, please do the following: (1) Open a Smashwords account if you don’t already have one, and choose .mobi as your download option. The account is free, and it will allow you to explore a brand new world of ebooks that are there for your entertainment, including Origins. (2) Get your Kindles’s email address from Amazon (you probably created it when you bought your Kindle) and put it on file at Smashwords. (3) Also on Amazon, list edelivery@smashwords.com as a trusted content provider for your Kindle. This process is less complicated than it seems. Amazon likes to hide these details and make them seem complicated, of course, because they want you to buy ebooks exclusively on Amazon. Please don’t play their game!
I bought and downloaded a .mobi-formatted copy of Origins from Smashwords exactly the way described, although I had already done steps 1-3 long ago to purchase other ebooks (many not on Amazon, by the way!). It always feels good to put one over on Amazon, of course. And, as an author, it also feels good to “go wide” and offer A.B.’s and my ebooks at multiple e-retail sites (as well as Walmart—have you seen the Kobo kiosk there?). This follows the marketing advice: The more retail sites where a product is available, the greater the sales figures for that product!
By the way, keep your Amazon account active if you feel the need. Smashwords and its affiliated retailers only sell ebooks! Amazon started out that way, but we all know what a greedy monster it has become. We use Amazon only for some other things now, not books. In any case, we prefer local merchants and suppliers to Amazon—no waiting and no shipping fees! Some will say, “But I have Prime!” Don’t kid yourself. Your Prime membership fee has prepaid your shipping fees. Amazon makes tons of money off that big swindle! (Of course, you might be a reseller with a garage full of products bought from Amazon—a Prime account might work for you in that case! Some activity like that was going on during the pandemic where people made a killing by reselling PPE and even toilet paper.)
Our local merchants include local booksellers, which we use primarily for non-fiction doorstoppers—again, who wants to wait and pay those onerous shipping costs? And that way we stay involved in our local community by supporting local vendors. We’re coming out of the Covid pandemic now, so we’re increasingly doing that!
Many tech giants have become monopolistic—Amazon, Facebook, Google, LinkedIn, Twitter, and so forth. But they don’t need to be broken up. They just need some serious competition. That’s what it takes to make free enterprise work.
Do your part to break Amazon’s ebook monopoly if you’re not already doing so. A.B. and I are doing ours. Please download your .mobi copy (or any other format) of Origins now. A.B. and I will appreciate it…and happily welcome you to our book boycott of Amazon.
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Comments are always welcome!
Origins: The Denisovan Trilogy, Book One, by A. B. Carolan. Kayla Jones has dreams she can’t understand. Her future seems determined as the brilliant STEM student who looks forward to a research career, but her past gets in the way. As if the chaos afflicting the world and leading to her adopted father’s death wasn’t enough, killers begin to pursue her. With some friends who come to her aid, she’s on her way to discover a conspiracy that can be traced to prehistoric battles waged by hominins bent on conquest of a primitive Earth. Available at Smashwords and all its affiliated retailers (iBooks, B&N, Kobo, etc.) and library and lending services (Scribd, Overdrive, Gardners, etc.).
Around the world and to the stars! In libris libertas!
