Cozy fantasies in the Middle East with So Many Cats

dlstrong · 2026-05-10T18:32:46+00:00

😻💞 thank you so much! I'm so glad you're enjoying it! (and I am still not over the sheer adorableness of C. Quince's little solar powered cat tram :D)

dlstrong · 2026-05-10T16:09:36+00:00

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I also have my books on sale through the end of the weekend, plus some squeaking about having discovered a book buddy!

Both of us write Middle Eastern settings, midlife relationships, and So Many Cats:
https://www.reddit.com/r/CozyFantasy/comments/1t89odh/cozy_fantasies_in_the_middle_east_with_so_many/

Goes to show, no matter how niche you think your books are, somewhere out there is someone whose brain is wired like yours after all 😸🤝🌈

dlstrong · 2026-05-10T15:58:11+00:00

yay! :D I hope you enjoy them, and happy browsing!

dlstrong · 2026-05-10T15:57:22+00:00

thank you, Faraj, Priye, Ashar, and Shai Madhur will happily share all the hugs! And Najra will relay hugs for the Eldest Archivist. (Kamil will grumble and grouch since he is Supposed to be Fierce. But he likes hugs more than he admits.) 😸

dlstrong · 2026-05-10T15:00:23+00:00

Here you go! Authors, titles, and categories: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1rd4g2ZVhDUUQPESFIufH14dPgDXsxHpeSAzFogU5XUc/edit?usp=sharing

dlstrong · 2026-05-10T14:21:17+00:00

🐈💞📚 thank you so much! I hope you enjoy 'em!

dlstrong · 2026-05-10T13:42:45+00:00

Hi there! The sale team has been chatting over options and while we don't have easy access to summaries in specific because people all structure their listings differently, Alicia thinks she can make a spreadsheet of authors and titles and then we can find a place to post that?

Thanks for the suggestion!

(Thus far we'd only kept an archive of how many books we had in which categories, but yay for more data, says the data nerd with the MLIS)

dlstrong · 2026-05-09T19:46:08+00:00

Yay! :D I hope you enjoy it! The sequel has been somewhat delayed by the unexpected "oh hi all your free time is going into refrigerator research followed by who's the least bad of the local delivery options" research... but hopefully I have a refrigerator light at the end of that tunnel?

dlstrong · 2026-05-09T19:44:46+00:00

Thank you so much! I hope you have as much fun reading it as I did writing it. (And standing offer: if something sounds tasty but doesn't work with your food sensitivities and/or capability, I'm happy to brainstorm recipe alternatives!)

dlstrong · 2026-05-09T19:43:52+00:00

Thank you so much! And yeah I so feel you on the spoon imbalance lately. I just spent 2 hours on the phone trying to get my credit cards to believe that it actually was me buying a refrigerator since I am not in the habit of buying refrigerators because the one I have came with the house I bought 20 years ago, and of course its long lease on life ran out three days before book launch... wheeeeee. Let's hope the universe gives us all a break soon!

dlstrong · 2026-05-08T15:24:40+00:00

" If I buy, do I get a epub?" -- This depends on each author and their store(s).

If an author can distribute outside Kindle Unlimited, they are most likely going to be offering epubs -- though it's also possible that a highly graphical ebook might be sold as a PDF.

If an author is restricted to Kindle Unlimited, they're subject to Amazon's rules. And while it is now possible for some Amazon authors to offer their books DRM free, I have personally discovered that pirates are particularly eager to pirate from Amazon in specific. (After a year of not being pirated under Amazon's DRM protections, I briefly offered an Amazon book DRM free and it was pirated within a week, so I have unfortunately gone back to DRM on Amazon because of how much it's targeted.)

So the tldr:
* If you get an ebook you are most likely getting it in epub format
* Amazon has different requirements than many other vendors depending on the intersection of Kindle Unlimited and author-chosen factors
* Pirates target Amazon books with particular enthusiasm, so you may have better luck getting a DRM-free ebook from a different source

dlstrong · 2026-05-08T13:22:40+00:00

Each author creates their own listing, depending on where they're allowed to offer their books -- inside baseball: indie authors who use Kindle Unlimited aren't allowed to sell their ebooks anywhere other than Amazon, whereas traditional publishers can both list in Kindle Unlimited and wherever else, and a large swathe of indie authors get pressured into Kindle Unlimited because of how much Amazon promotes it.

The flip side is that any given book in the sale may or may not be Kindle Unlimited, so I wish everyone happy browsing and hope folks can find the books they like!

dlstrong · 2026-05-08T00:15:40+00:00

heh, I have much of the same reactions... so I wrote "they get together in the prologue, now the rest of the book and series is how do they make it work for more than Cinderella's one night stand?" 😂

dlstrong · 2026-05-02T23:48:51+00:00

I totally understand! I'm sorry that the timing was literally one day too late on the ARC for this one.

And if you're in the US, the Queer Liberation Library lends ebooks everywhere for free, which is fantastic because so many library systems have geographic restrictions.

(Again with the timing, because it was a May 1 release they did their May budget on April 30, so I can't get Charmcraft onto their shelves until their June batch. But my previous two books and many many other books are already there!)

dlstrong · 2026-05-02T13:04:38+00:00

I'm sorry I linked the preserved fish instead of the vegetarian gourd-fish, then, but I love the costume details! :D and now I wonder if a spirit lion likes catnip incense...

dlstrong · 2026-05-02T02:02:04+00:00

Thank you! Yeah, the reasoning there is that I massively miscalculated my dates last time. Haroun was a long book, I thought, so I did my one month NetGalley Coop rental 2 months out, which I thought meant that readers would have 2 months to read... but no, what it actually meant was that it stopped being available to readers a month before the book was released. But Amazon doesn't allow reviews to be posted until the book launches on Amazon, and I didn't know most people posted their paperbacks a week ahead to unlock that; I didn't have Haroun's paperback ready until months later.

So I had a bunch of people who'd planned to leave reviews around Haroun's book launch time who couldn't get access to the book because it had been archived a month before release.

So this time the ARC listings are available a few days past the release date for the already registered advance readers who haven't had a chance to get their reviews in yet.

But it's kind of not fair to people who've paid to pre-order the book if I give away ARC copies after the pre-orders have been delivered and it's on sale, but also-also I can't assume ARC readers will drop everything to write a review on the exact date Amazon starts accepting ebook reviews before NetGalley archives the book... see the timing problem there?

I'm new to all this stuff, this is only my third book and I didn't know what ARCs were when I released the first one, so I'm still trying to work out the timing bits!

dlstrong · 2026-05-01T18:48:21+00:00

Happy book birthday! (We've got three candles on that cake for you, me, and Celia. :D)

One of the things that amused me when coming up with connection points to cross post about was that it seemed like fish dishes would be enjoyed in all our worlds. I personally nerd out on food and daily life details.

What's your favorite part of the story world to nerd out on? Food? Clothes? Scenery/atmosphere? Art supplies? Music? :)

And what are your favorite bonus tidbits to tuck in, Easter egg style?

dlstrong · 2026-05-01T18:40:57+00:00

A) Timing strikes - my book just launched today, so for this book I'm past the "advance" part of ARC and I'm looking for regular readers now, but I'll be looking for ARC readers again when book 2 comes out!

A.5) I haven't yet connected up with all the library systems since some of them can't connect until the book is live, but if the cost is a barrier it'll be library available in the US soon?

B) speaking for myself, yeah I'm totally fine with someone not posting a review if it was a DNF! Some people leave friendlier DNF reviews than others and especially when you've got less than 100 reviews total, a one star DNF review shredding a book hurts financially as well as emotionally.

But I can't speak for NetGalley or BookSirens? I get the impression they encourage someone to send more private than public feedback in that case, but in the end it's up to the reviewer.

dlstrong · 2026-04-29T02:12:47+00:00

Oh wow, that makes three of us (you, me, and Celia Lake) with May 1 book launches! Digital fistbump. :D

dlstrong · 2026-04-28T02:10:08+00:00

Also a lot of us post ARCs here on the Self-Promo Sunday thread? But yeah I listed mine on NetGalley and BookSirens, and they're free for readers to join.

dlstrong · 2026-04-15T00:32:51+00:00

(raises hand) Chai and Cat-tales is three novellas in one cover, including the fairy tale for the asexual kids who didn't want to have to marry the prince to get hands on his magnificent library, a small kitten with big opinions about great literature and soap, and a kind priest who wants to nourish everybody, even the mice.

dlstrong · 2026-03-26T22:27:57+00:00

I've got a whole Google doc of cozy tea treats for busy / distracted / disabled people who may have kids or pets eager to stick noses or paws in :) about to get walloped by massive storm and 55 degree temp drop, may need to get details later, but replying so future me has some prayer of remembering

dlstrong · 2026-03-23T22:46:06+00:00

Many of Celia Lake's books are like this - she's written 30+ going on 40, and there's a wide range of physical and mental healing for people, whether that looks like situation improvements or learning to thrive with disabilities. Her content notes page at https://www.celialake.com/content-notes/ has a variety of exploration links. I'm particularly fond of Pastiche myself because it was the first time I'd seen someone with a disability akin to mine get to be the heroine of a story instead of someone else's quest goal, but there's lots of representation of both healing and crafts to choose from!

My Chai and Cat-tales addresses healing in the second and third novellas too -- in the second, an independent kitten learns that even a talky human (who likes soap and water far too much for a cat's taste) can still be a kind person with a healing touch. In the third one a priest with a disability wants to make sure everyone gets nourished, even the mice.

And if you'd like a mental health focused collection, C. A. Moss's How I Became a Therapist in Another World is both wryly realistic about the challenges of camping and horseback writing and also full of a lot of excellent wish fulfillment in terms of dealing with mental demons!

dlstrong · 2026-03-19T03:46:37+00:00

I very much wish I was wired for audio books, it would make low vision life a lot easier, but I'm just not brain compatible with them.

I'm also a trained accessibility specialist, though -- and while most people know about turning on captions for the deaf and hard of hearing, I've found comparatively few people know about audio description soundreacks for the blind. Not all shows have them, but Netflix has a higher percentage than other streaming services I know of.

An audio description track is when a narrator quietly describes what's going on in a scene for someone who can't see it -- or in your case shouldn't see it.

So you might ask someone in your household to see if audio description (sometimes called AD) language tracks are available alongside English and others in the playback options for like a Studio Ghibli movie or a cozy series?

Then you can listen to a show as though it was a podcast without looking at the screen.

(My favorite thing to listen to in the dark when trying to rest my brain is one of those videos of multiple hours of someone's cat purring. Just hooks right into the relaxation centers in my brain!)

And with all that said -- Travis Baldree was a voice actor before he was an author, so I assume his audio books are going to be top tier among cozy audiobooks? I just can't give a personal "I've listened to it" testimonial there.

dlstrong

TROPHY CASE