Note about new covers and Kindle for iPad/iPhone (and maybe others)

Something I’ve noticed for a while is that Amazon doesn’t automatically update your already-owned books if a small change is made (like typo fixes).  The same is true of cover updates.  You can get the covers to update inside the books themselves if you tap and hold the book cover in the library to get the menu, then “Remove Download”, then tap and hold again for the menu and hit “Download”.  This shouldn’t break your notes or set you back to the beginning of the book, but it will pull down the latest version of the book, which should have the new cover at the beginning.

Unfortunately this does not update the cover shown in your library.

The only way to update the library listing covers is apparently to clear the Kindle app’s cache.  This can’t be done by simply terminating the application and restarting it.  And at least in current (16.x) iPadOS or iPhoneOS, there is no method provided in the Kindle app’s settings to clear the app’s cache, neither in the app itself or in the iOS settings app (Settings/General/i(Pad or Phone) Storage).  (Couldn’t tell you about Android.  Don’t use Android.  Google is evil.)

No, to get the new covers to appear in the app’s library listings, you must remove the app from the phone or pad (which deletes all of its cached data) and then reinstall it.  Which works and doesn’t seem to break anything since most of the data concerning which books you read last and where you were in those books is kept in the Whispersync cloud.

But it’s a pain in the ass to have to delete the app and reinstall it to do something that ought to be handled with a button in the app’s settings to clear the cache on demand.

I did find, at least for the Kindle Oasis (which I own), you can get the library covers to update by removing the download, re-downloading the book, and then opening the book.  This apparently convinces the Kindle device to re-cache the cover.  Which begs the question of why the same isn’t true of the iThing Kindle apps.

New covers for the Timelines Universe shorts

I have been busy with Midjourney and have updated covers for the four Timelines Universe shorts:

All of them should be reflected on Amazon at this point, though The Reason may take a little longer since I just uploaded it about an hour ago.  There are also 5″x8″ paperbacks available for anyone interested in a complete set to go along with the novels.

At some point, I’ll update the thumbnails on the sidebar and elsewhere on the site.

Working on: The Dragon’s Sister

The Dragon’s Sister will be a little story about the Chinese “direct action” agent rescued from a failing stasis chamber in my previous short novel in the Timelines Universe series, A Dragon In The Foie Gras. It’s got a way to go yet, so look for it sometime in May-ish.

New Cover Project

I’m in the process of re-releasing the Timelines books with new covers that aren’t Daz3D creations.  For instance, the first novel, The Lion of God, is going to look like this:

I think we can all agree that’s a much better cover 🙂

New Release: The Tale of the Crane Princess (Updated!)

This took far too long but finally the sequel (sort of) to The Cross-Time Kamaitachi has been posted to Amazon for your reading pleasure.

Ordinary, everyday shopkeeper Horiuchi Tsurue is running a little general store and mini-café on a small island in Japan’s inland sea, two centuries after mankind was nearly wiped out by a virus.

One day, Yamaguchi Yukiko, the kamaitachi of legend (The Cross-Time Kamaitachi), and her daughter Mikoko, appear in front of Tsurue’s shop, and she invites them in for tea.

That’s when Tsurue discovers she is anything but ordinary. And in the end, the island she is sworn to protect will depend upon it.


E-book only for the moment; $2.99 to purchase, or read for free on Kindle Unlimited.

UPDATE, 31 Jan 2023: Amazon KDP Paperback is now available, $14.97. Also, The Tale of the Crane Princess was featured on Instapundit this morning — Thank you, Sarah Hoyt!

Writer’s block conquered

…not that it means I’m writing in the main Timelines track, more like I’m writing a sort-of sequel to The Cross-Time Kamaitachi.

It started as a short story that was intended as a submission for an anthology that’s being kicked around by people I know.  It very quickly went past 6,000 words and is now north of 20,000.  So — probably a novel, though I might be able to rework part of it into a short story for the anthology yet.  (Sorry, the anthology isn’t official, so far it’s just an idea being kicked around as noted, so I can’t really say much about it.)

What happens when enough people believe strongly in an almost-entirely mythical person, she actually comes to life among them as an ordinary citizen of their town?  Despite the “myth” being an entirely-fictional depiction of a (probably) real person, whose life and actions are celebrated every year by a festival held in the town?

If you’re Horiuchi Tsurue, a plain, meek, unassuming Japanese woman from Ōmishima Island in Ehime Prefecture, in the post-Plague Japan of the year 2215, you hide in your work and never make any waves.  Even though you’ve “lived” for 250 years since the novelist wrote his book about you.  And even though you know you can’t leave the island, or you’ll fade away and die.  But you’ve lived so long that way, you don’t really remember the why of any of it…so you just work, and “yesterday, today, tomorrow” is the whole of your world.  You have no friends.  You have no boyfriend or husband.  You just have your shop and your work…and the odd stack of manga you’ve managed to collect over the years, to read at night.

But one rainy day in July, a certain warrior woman and her sidekick daughter show up to donate their weapons to the local shrine…and nothing is really the same after that.

Like I say — working on it.  The working title is The Tale of the Crane Princess (鶴姫物語) — and you can probably figure out who Tsurue’s character is loosely based upon if you search that 🙂  Though for what it’s worth, the movie of that name is even more BS than the original Japanese novel that came out in 1965 and prompted the legend to begin with.

The Cross-Time Kamaitachi is now in hardback

The Cross-Time Kamaitachi is now available in a hardback edition, via Amazon Print on Demand.  I’m working on putting the other Timelines novels into hardback as well, but The Cross-Time Kamaitachi took the most work due to the fact that Amazon PoD is limited to books of 550 pages or less.

Since the paperback edition was 622 pages, that meant I had to make some layout changes.  The hardback font is slightly smaller (10.5 point rather than 12 point) and of course the book had to be repaginated.  If you are a fan of larger type, I’d be inclined to say, save money and buy the paperback instead.

The hardback is $23.00 vs. the paperback at $15.99.  That’s just how PoD works; I do all the hard work, hardback printing cost is around $10.00, and out of that $23.00 I get a whopping two bucks, because of course Amazon needs to make its money, too.  But if you really must have a hardback for your collection, there is one available.

Also — you can get a paperback in a couple of days.  Hardback, nah, 2-3 weeks.

Anyway.  There it is, and like I say, the other books will be available in hardback soon.