Sunday, November 24, 2013

Self-Published Kindling: Memoirs of a Homeless Bookstore Owner / Mik Everett


Reviewed by: BigAl

Genre: Memoir

Approximate word count: 45-50,000 words

Availability    
Kindle  US: YES  UK: YES  Nook: NO  Smashwords: NO  Paper: YES
Click on a YES above to go to appropriate page in Amazon, Barnes & Noble, or Smashwords store

Author:

A native of Wichita, Kansas, Everett currently splits her time between Kansas and Colorado. She has two other books available, both novels.

Description:

“A young family opens a unique bookstore to help independently-published authors tell their story. But as the traditional publishing industry begins to fall, e-books dominate the book market, and the economy slows, the family winds up homeless-- a big secret to keep, as business owners. While some authors struggle with addiction and others struggle to tell their story, a young family struggles simply to survive.”

Appraisal:

Self-Published Kindling … exceeded my threshold for proofing and copy editing issues, which significantly impacted its rating. However, for readers who aren’t bothered by such things, it has a lot going for it.

I enjoyed the glimpse at the challenges of running a bookstore, a job made even tougher given the author’s focus on self-published books. However, the part that I got the most out of was the insights into what it is like to be homeless. This was a family who didn’t fit the preconceived notions many people have about those who find themselves on the streets. Since it is a story about specific people and their situation it is much harder to write others off as either an anomaly or a situation they deserved.

FYI:

Some adult language.

Format/Typo Issues:

Too many copy editing and proofing issues.

The Kindle version I read had an issue where what appeared to be compound words were missing the hyphen. I verified that this was the issue using look inside on Amazon. It is not a problem with the print version.


Rating: *** Three stars

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