Author: karennacolcroft

This coming week marks the release of Take Some Tahini (Real Werewolves Don’t Eat Meat 6), the first never-before-published Real Werewolves Don’t Eat Meat novel since 2014!

I’m both nervous and excited to see what readers think of the book. I first wrote it back in fall 2022, then in 2023 almost completely rewrote it because it wasn’t what I wanted it to be. I’m quite happy with the finished product, but how *I* feel about it doesn’t matter as much as what *readers* think.

The book has been up for Kindle preorder for a little over a week now, and will be released on July 11 in Kindle, including Kindle Unlimited, and paperback. This is the longest Real Werewolves book by far, clocking in at well over 300 pages not counting the sample chapter of Ebb and Flow that’s included at the end (because Ebb will be released in October). You can preorder, and purchase the Kindle edition once it’s released, on Amazon.

 

As for the updates:

First, I have finally finished the first draft of Bring On the Broccoli (Real Werewolves Don’t Eat Meat 7)… but, like Take Some Tahini, it isn’t quite what I want it to be. I’m hoping I’ll be able to fix it on edits, but if not, I’ll end up doing a complete rewrite, as I did with Take Some Tahini. That would result in this book’s release being pushed back to July 2025, instead of January 2025 as currently planned. Stay tuned for further updates.

Second, I’ve heard from a couple of readers asking when/if I’ll be releasing my books through retailers in addition to Amazon. My original plan was to have all books available through multiple retailers by… well, before now. I ran into a couple of snags with that, one due to content in most books that I hadn’t been able to remove due to the formatting, and one due to my accidental deletion of my Amazon books. Fortunately(?), the second snag gave me a solution to the first one; I have now been able to remove the problematic content and so have versions of the books that other retailers will be willing to carry.

However, I am still debating and crunching numbers. Authors like me, who release exclusively through Amazon, do so for multiple reasons. In my case, it’s partly because of the Kindle Unlimited program, which allows readers to subscribe for a small amount per month and read as many books as they like. Authors who enroll their books in the program are required to have their books available *only* on Amazon, and are paid by number of pages read of their books. This is somewhat problematic, because Amazon keeps changing the per-page amount, which means some months authors earn far less than they would like, and also because Amazon doesn’t consider that sometimes an author hasn’t *chosen* not to be exclusive, such as when books are pirated, and just goes and kills the accounts of any author whose books are found anywhere else, even on known pirate sites that the author clearly didn’t put their own books on. A number of authors I know have chosen to pull out of the Kindle Unlimited program because of these issues. The retailer Kobo has introduced a program called Kobo Plus, which is a subscription service similar to Kindle Unlimited but without the exclusivity requirement, and I’m keeping an eye on how other authors are doing in that program, but for the moment most readers who sign up for a subscription-based service still seem to be going for Kindle Unlimited. (Understandable, since Amazon is probably  the best-known book retail site.)

Currently, despite the issues with per-page payment, over half of my writing income comes from Kindle Unlimited. All of my full-length novels are enrolled in KU. By comparison, my novella Hooch and Howls is *not* in KU and is available for sale through multiple retailers. In March, the month I released Hooch, I earned less than a quarter of what I earned in January, the month I released Tempeh for Two, which *is* in KU.  (For transparency, in January I earned $175; in March, I earned $25.) While I obviously want readers to be able to read and enjoy my books, to some extent I do have to make decisions about my writing and publishing from a business standpoint. I’m not doing this only for the love of writing, though that is my primary reason; I also have bills I need to pay. On the flip side, when I accidentally deleted my Amazon account in May, the only books I had available were Hooch and Howls and my Christmas short story Snow on Christmas Eve, since both of those were available through other retailers.

I have not made a definite decision yet, and I continue looking at the numbers and considering what is best for me and my books. For the moment, all of my novels are in Kindle Unlimited, which has a 90-day term that auto-renews unless the renewal is manually canceled. When I republished after the Great Deletion of May 2024, I chose to put all books back into KU for the first 90 days and then reassess and decide whether I’m ready and able to release them through other retailers (in which case I would cancel the KU renewal), or want to continue with Kindle Unlimited for another 90 days. Likewise, Take Some Tahini will be an Amazon exclusive for the first 90 days, at which time I will reassess. While I have heard from a couple of readers who prefer not buying from Amazon, I have also heard from several who can only afford books because of Kindle Unlimited, and therefore won’t read books that aren’t available through that service, so there are factors to consider in addition to whether it makes financial sense *for me* to remove the books from KU. I will keep my readers informed.

In late summer/early fall 2022, I decided there needed to be a continuation of my Real Werewolves Don’t Eat Meat series. At the time, I was envisioning only writing about my werewolves, alternating releases between the male/male Real Werewolves Don’t Eat Meat series and the male/female Real Werewolves True Mates series, which paralleled Real Werewolves Don’t Eat Meat. I had recently re-released Salad on the Side, book 1 of Real Werewolves Don’t Eat Meat, and Alpha Receptor, book 1 of Real Werewolves True Mates, and I was gearing up for the release of Veggie Burgers to Go (RWDEM 2).

In revisiting my werewolf universe, I realized that the story of Kyle Slidell, the vegan werewolf, and Tobias Rogan, Kyle’s mate and a reluctant leader, didn’t end where it originally had, after book 5 of RWDEM. So I started planning a book 6. I decided, because my family is from Nova Scotia and, at the time, my kid was in school in Prince Edward Island, that the book should include Tobias and Kyle traveling to the Canadian Maritimes to meet with the Anax (ultimate werewolf ruler) of Canada, given that conflict between American and Canadian werewolves was established in the fourth and fifth books of RWDEM. And I decided that travel should be a road trip during which they rekindle the romance that has been suffering since Tobias started his rise from being Alpha of the smallest pack in the country.

The original version of Take Some Tahini (RWDEM 6) was basically just a road trip story, with little conflict beyond a couple of attempts on Tobias’s life (which, if you’ve read previous books of the series, you know aren’t exactly uncommon). And when I started looking at it for revisions a few months after writing it, I realized it wasn’t really a book people would want to read.

So I started over in summer 2023.

I’m not sure where the character of Quinn Boucher, a young wolf changed under violent circumstances that remind Tobias of his own change, came from, but I’m very glad the youngster showed up. The traumatic loss of nearly half of Quinn’s pack, and Quinn subsequently joining Tobias’s staff as one of his guards and accompanying him and Kyle to Nova Scotia, completely changed the book’s trajectory. This clocks in as the longest RWDEM book to date,  well over 300 pages, and in the process gave rise to a spin-off featuring Quinn and his mate Malachi, Ebb and Flow, which will be releasing in October of this year.

I’m very pleased with how Take Some Tahini turned out, and I hope readers enjoy seeing Tobias and Kyle’s adventure continue as well. Take Some Tahini is now available for Kindle preorder, with the official release of Kindle and paperback versions coming July 11.

Tobias Rogan never wanted to be a leader. But here he is, the Anax of the United States, ruler of all werewolves in the country. Only two weeks after winning the rank, Tobias and his mate Kyle are still adjusting to their new reality when a frantic call alerts Tobias to the massacre of nearly half the wolves in a pack in North Dakota–including the pack’s Alpha and Beta.

An investigation reveals that the wolves responsible are from Canada. Tobias reaches out to Silas Creighton, Anax of Canada, and finds someone like-minded in wanting peace between the wolves of the two countries. At Silas’s invitation, Tobias and his mate Kyle, along with their new guard Quinn Boucher, sole survivor of the North Dakota massacre, travel to Nova Scotia to put an end to the conflict. But not all wolves are interested in peace–and not all want Tobias to survive the trip.

This book includes discussions of past sexual assault and physical child abuse, homophobia including a French Canadian homophobic slur, a child character living with cancer, and depictions of grief and mourning. 

As I posted a couple of weeks ago, I accidentally deleted my Amazon account–which resulted in my Kindle Direct Publishing account and all books disappearing from Amazon. (Two stories, Snow on Christmas Eve and Hooch and Howls, are available through other retailers, but the rest were Amazon exclusive.)

As of yesterday, I’ve created a new KDP account, as advised by their support team, and have republished books 1-5 of the Real Werewolves Don’t Eat Meat series. All five are available through Kindle Unlimited until August or September, but at that time I *might* be pulling them from KU so I can publish them through other retailers as well. (So if something like this ever happens again, at least my books will still be out there somewhere!) Next up will be Hooch and Howls, which is part of the Real Werewolves universe but not a direct part of the series and which has a connection to RWDEM 6, Take Some Tahini, which will be released in a few weeks.

Previously, I’d thought that in October, I would rerelease Dawn Over Dayfield, a previously-published suspense with romantic elements novel originally released in 2016. After thinking about it and looking at the in-universe timeline of Real Werewolves Don’t Eat Meat, I’ve decided to move Dawn Over Dayfield to April 2025. In October, I will be releasing Ebb and Flow, a new novel that connects to Real Werewolves Don’t Eat Meat and also to Hooch and Howls.

Meanwhile, I’ve been working on RWDEM 7, Bring On the Broccoli… but it isn’t going quite as well as I’d hoped. I keep running into roadblocks with the story, and having to go back and change things I’ve already written. I’m hoping to finish it within the next week or so and have it ready to release in January 2025, but those plans might change if Kyle (who is the narrator of this one) doesn’t start cooperating a little better with me.

As I posted previously, on May 19, due to a combination of factors I won’t get into again, my Kindle Direct Publishing account and all books I’d published (22, across my three pen names) were deleted. KDP support was unable to restore the account or books, so I was told to set up a new account and republish everything.

I’ve been working on it. I republished Salad on the Side (Real Werewolves Don’t Eat Meat 1), which went live on May 25 after being uploaded on May 22. I spent a few days trying to get the formatting right on Veggie Burgers to Go (RWDEM 2) and uploaded that on May 27, figuring it would take a couple-few days to publish the way Salad had… only to have it go live three hours later. (I had to do some tweaking to the paperback format, though; the final paperback version went live on May 31.)

I’ve spent a few days formatting Hummus on Rye (RWDEM 3), and uploaded that for publishing today, June 1. We’ll see how long it takes Amazon to let this one go through.

Today, I’ll be checking the formatting on Try the Tofu (RWDEM 4). The good thing is that because Veggie Burgers published faster than I thought it would, I’m ahead on republishing the books that were lost, and *might* have all of them live again before I release Take Some Tahini (RWDEM 6), which will be available for preorder on June 27 and will release July 11. Though now that I think about it, I might hold back on A Fighting Chance, which was only out for 10 days before I lost the account; that book didn’t get much promotion or attention because there simply wasn’t time, so I might hold off on it and do a rerelease in August or September. I’ll ponder that…

I’ve also been working on Bring On the Broccoli (RWDEM 7). That book has lagged a bit, partly because of the traveling I’ve done (two trips to Canada in the space of two weeks, one to see my kid graduate veterinary school and help them get things underway to move back to the US, the other for the actual move because the planned moving assistance wasn’t available) and partly because I got stuck and had to go back to the beginning to do some tweaking and editing so I could unstick myself. I hope to have the first draft of this book finished within the next week or two, and it’s planned for publication in January 2025.

Meanwhile, my kid has now moved back to the US and is living with me and my husband, so we’re in the process of unpacking, fitting kid’s household stuff into our house, and figuring out how to coexist since they (the kid) haven’t lived with us full time since they were in high school–8 years ago. So things are a bit jumbled, but progress is being made.

Since Veggie Burgers to Go is available now, here’s the cover as a refresher. Fun fact: The background of this cover is a photo taken by my aforementioned kid.

I spent the week of May 12-18 in Canada, watching my younger kid graduate from veterinary school and be officially granted the title of Doctor! This was exciting, and I’m very thankful to have been able to not only witness it, but be a part of the ceremony presenting my kid with their white coat, the symbol that they have moved from student to professional. We also did some packing and planning for their move back to the US, which will be happening within the next few days.

On May 19, I sat down and said to myself, “I should close my Canadian Amazon Prime account, There’s no point in paying for it when I only had it so I could send things to my kid in Canada.”

What wound up happening, through a combination of unclear instructions and me not taking enough time to think things through (I own *most* of the responsibility here, but don’t take *all* of it since some was due to Amazon’s phrasing), was that I completely deleted my Canadian Amazon account, not just the Prime part. Which would have been fine… except that it ALSO deleted my US Amazon account. Which was connected to my Kindle Direct Publishing account. Which meant *that* account also vanished–along with all of my books. (As of today, some of the *paperbacks* still show up on Amazon if you search, but they’re listed as “out of print.” The Kindle versions are gone completely.)

I spent May 19 and 20 calling and emailing Amazon customer service and KDP Support. The final answer was “You deleted the account, and when the customer deletes it, we can’t restore it.” KDP Support tried everything they were able to do but couldn’t bring back the books, so a higher-up told me to create a new KDP account and republish the books. This unfortunately means the ratings and reviews are gone entirely, which I am sad about, but at least the books can exist again.

In order to avoid tripping Amazon’s “scammer/bot” button, I am republishing the books week-by-week. I discovered with Salad on the Side that it can take longer than I thought for the books to appear, so the dates below are Thursdays but the books might take until Friday or Saturday of that week to actually go live on Amazon. (I uploaded Salad on the Side on Wednesday evening; the paperback was available Friday evening, and the Kindle showed up sometime during Friday night. I’ll be uploading the rest of the books earlier in the week to try to actually hit the Thursdays listed below.)

My planned schedule for the Karenna Colcroft books:

Real Werewolves Don’t Eat Meat series:

Salad on the Side                       May 23

Veggie Burgers to Go             May 27

Hummus on Rye                       June 3

Try the Tofu                                June 7

Tempeh for Two                      June 10

TAKE SOME TAHINI        Preorder June 27; release July 11

Since Take Some Tahini is a new release, and is the first brand-new Real Werewolves Don’t Eat Meat novel since 2014, I will be focusing on releasing and promoting that book from June 27 until the end of July.

Non RWDEM books:

Fill the Empty Spaces        June 14

Hooch and Howls               June 17 (NOTE: This book was published “wide,” which means it is still available through retailers other than Amazon. The date here is *only* for Amazon; you can still buy this book elsewhere before this)

Chance Met                          June 21

A Fighting Chance           June 24

 

Currently, I do not plan to republish Alpha Receptor and Beta Test, the two heterosexual werewolf romances connected to Real Werewolves Don’t Eat Meat. Under the Karenna Colcroft name, at this point I’m focusing on male/male romance, and those books were not selling. (Also, Beta Test was heavily pirated as soon as it was released, which to be honest pisses me off.) If any readers would like copies of those two books, please feel free to email me at karennacolcroft @ karennacolcroft .com (remove the spaces) to request either an EPUB or PDF of them. I also have a very few paperback versions, which I would be happy to sign and send for the cost of postage (we can discuss it via email).

Salad on the Side is now available again! And since I had to republish it anyway, I chose to give it a new cover.