I’ve spent much of this year creating an online store with Shopify called Deborah Cooke’s Books, but this month, I’m shutting it down.
I had an online store years ago with Selz and found that readers preferred to buy ebooks at their portal of choice. Print books didn’t sell that well because of the high cost of postage from Canada. I had thought that things might have changed in the intervening years, but not so much. Not enough to keep mucking with the store. As with my previous store, the developers roll out new features and themes and updates all the time, and maintaining the store has been more time-consuming than I’d like.
I’m trying to clear my desk so I spend less time on admin and have more time to write.
So, the store is going away this month.
You will still be able to buy ebooks directly from me, using buy links here on the website. These will be PayPal buy links, and once you pay, you’ll get an email from BookFunnel to download your book. I have to rebuild these, so will start with the digital boxed sets.
Print books will be available directly from me at in-person events and booksignings. You’ll find a schedule of those on the Booksignings page on my Deborah Cooke website. There will be a pre-order form 60 days before each event, so you can be sure to get whatever books you want.
Also, the exclusive editions created at Kickstarter will be available in future Kickstarter campaigns for that subgenre. You can follow me at Kickstarter here to see what’s in the works.
You can also, of course, send me an email anytime you’d like to buy a signed book. We’ll work out the postage, I’ll send you a Paypal invoice, and your books will be sent on their merry way to you.
As you probably have guessed, I’ve been working on a new medieval romance series and now I have a tentative schedule and release plan. It’ll be a trilogy of medieval Scottish fantasy romances, which will launch next year.
Each book will be available first via a Kickstarter campaign, in ebook and trade paperback. I plan for the KS campaign for book one to be next winter, maybe March or April, because I want to have the book written first. There will also be some campaign goodies, and you’ll be able to order the print editions from previous KS campaigns (for Blood Brothers and the Bride Quest), as well. The first book will be on pre-order at the retailers at that time, to deliver at least six months after the KS campaign ends. I’m thinking it will be a December release.
So, at KS, you’ll be able to get the book early, get your print copy signed and get campaign goodies exclusive to the campaign.
I’ll plan for the second book’s Kickstarter campaign to be later next year, possibly not with delivery of print books available for the holidays. (Things get very slow at the printers due to volume from October onward.) In that campaign, you’ll be able to get an early copy of book two in ebook or trade paperback, and also add book one if you missed it, and snag some campaign goodies for your hoard.
The Kickstarter campaign for the third book will be in 2026. I haven’t decided yet whether the hardcover editions of all three books will be part of that campaign or a separate campaign. I always want to read and love a book before I commit to having it in a collectible hardcover on my shelf, but your view may be different. We have time to work that out!
The Crusader’s Bride
In between, there may be a Kickstarter campaign for new print editions of The Champions of St. Euphemia series in trade paperback with duplex covers and in hard cover with a dust jacket. Like the Blood Brothers‘ Kickstarter editions, these will have the illustration of the couple on the inside of the trade paperback cover and on the case laminate of the hardcover. The outside of the trade paperback and the dust jacket on the hardcover will have the type.
These illustrations are already done as they’re on the current editions. I love them to pieces and want to celebrate them with the new editions. I’m also still on the hunt for someone to draw a map. The timing of that campaign depends upon my workload and how things go.
So, my tentative 2024 schedule looks like this:
October – The Bluestocking’s Bargain (Pre-order available now) March – Kickstarter for book one of the new series April – The Duke’s Desire June – Kickstarter for The Champions of St. Euphemia October – Kickstarter for book two of the new series December – publication date at the portals for book one of the new series
In 2026, book two of the new series will release at the portals, and there will be a Kickstarter for book three of the new series.
Clearly, there should be some additional hist-rom releases next summer and fall, but we’ll keep things a little loose as yet. Those Kickstarters can chew up a lot of time, but I’m hoping they get easier. I worked out my writing schedule and things were tight at the end of 2024. To keep The Duke’s Desire from sliding to May, I made it book #6 of that series and put the planned book 6 (which had been slated for January) on the back burner. I think we’re all more interested in the duke and Esmeralda’s story, so that one has to be finished up.
On the other side of my office, I have a new contemporary romance series launching in February. My current plan is for The Carpe Diem Café to have three releases next year: Just Trouble in February, book two probably in June and book three probably in October. I have a lot of writing on my schedule and I’m excited about all of these stories.
I’ll tell you more about the new medieval fantasy romance trilogy when the Kickstarter campaign is in preview and can be followed.
A bit belatedly, I realized that I hadn’t shown you the hard cover special editions of the Blood Brothers books. We’ll fix that today. 🙂
These editions have the new illustrations by Dar Albert. I showed off the trade paperbacks with their duplex covers (which have the illustrations on the inside of the cover) in this post. For the hard cover, there’s a dust jacket with the type and the illustration appears on the case laminate, like this digital mock-up to the right. Both have a matte finish that feels really luxe to me.
Let’s look at the actual books now that I have a few on my shelf. Here are the four books with their dust jackets:
Here are the fronts of the case laminates:
And the backs of the case laminates:
These special edition interiors include some different typographic elements, but also include the Blood Brothers map and family trees. The family tree for Jean Le Beau is in all four books, then each book has a family tree for the hero and for the heroine. Those elements are included in all of the special editions – ebook, trade paperback and hardcover.
The Blood Brothers map is included in these editions, too, and we split it so details wouldn’t vanish into the gutter.
Finally, there’s a list of acknowledgements in these editions to thank all the Kickstarter backers who helped bring these editions to life. There are more on the other side of the page.
The spiral notebooks that are left are also available in the store now. They won’t be restocked, so once they’re gone, that’s that. You’ll find them in New Arrivals there, as well as the discounted sample copies of The Hunter & the Heiress that I ordered in advance of the campaign. Those two sample books have the illustration on the cover, but don’t have the map or family trees inside.
One of the fun things about running a Kickstarter campaign for new editions is when all the goodies come in. Let’s have a look at most of the goodies and books for the Blood Brothers special editions campaign.
Last week, the first lot of books arrived. These were the trade paperbacks, and I’m so pleased with them. The matte finish is so velvety!
These editions have the new illustrations by Dar Albert. For the trade paperback, the covers are duplexed, which means the illustration is printed on the inside of the cover, like this:
The part of the illustration with the sword is on the inside back cover but I didn’t take pix ot it.
These special edition interiors include some different typographic elements, but also include the Blood Brothers map and family trees. The family tree for Jean Le Beau is in all four books, then each book has a family tree for the hero and for the heroine. Those elements are included in all of the special editions – ebook, trade paperback and hardcover.
The spiral notebooks featuring the new illustrations have also arrived.
And there are postcards. There’s a set of four of the new illustrations, and a set of four of the original cover art (with the guys alone). They all have the same reverse side which is shown at the bottom right.
Plus those big bookmarks have arrived. There’s a set of four of these: they all have the same reverse side with the original covers.
I’ve been packing boxes for the fulfillment of the Kickstarter. The hardcover editions have shipped to me, so I’ll show them to you once they arrive. I’ll pack the rest of the Kickstarter pledges then and the campaign will be done. I’ve also been making book charms with these new covers and will show you those with the hardcovers.
The spiral notebooks that are left are available in the store now. They won’t be restocked, so once they’re gone, that’s that. You’ll find them in New Arrivals there, as well as the discounted sample copies of The Hunter & the Heiress that I ordered in advance of the campaign. Those books have the illustration on the cover, but don’t have the map or family trees inside.
The Wolf & the Witch special hardcover edition dust jacket
The Kickstarter campaign for the new special editions of my Blood Brothers series ended on Saturday night. It not only funded but we reached stretch goals to add the Blood Brothers map and nine family trees into the new editions, as well as two sets of postcards and one set of bookmarks, printed for backers of signed books and as digital downloads for all backers. I also added some pretty spiral bound notebooks this time and will be doing that in future campaigns, too.
What happens next is the fulfillment, which will be all behind the scenes (pretty much in my dining room.)
Two other things are happening now that the campaign is completed. First, there’s a pre-order available in my online store for these new print editions. The Kickstarter fulfillment will be completed first, then the books ordered through this pre-order. If you pre-order before June 1, your books will be ordered in June and ship to you in July. These editions are signed, so they will ship from Canada.
The Dragon & the Damsel special hardcover edition dust jacket
You might notice that the special edition e-books aren’t listed there. That’s because Blood Brothers will be enrolled for a 90-day term in Kindle Unlimited. The first two books have been in KU before, but not the last two, so you’ll be able to binge the series there. The plan is for the books to be enrolled by the beginning of April, which will take their 90-day term through the end of June, but that will depend upon how promptly the other portals remove the books from sale. They have to be available exclusively at Amazon for their KU term.
Yesterday, I began to unpublish the four books from portals with long distribution chains, so depending where you shop, they may be vanishing. The last place I’ll unpublish them is my own online store, since it updates immediately.
Claire Delacroix 