Furry Writers' Guild Forum

Trap Me! - a published furry book

Hi! Chris here, nice to meet you all! :smiley:

My co-author and I saw several posts here related to self-publishing and we thought that we should show you THIS.

Yep, it’s a furry book. We wrote it and actually managed to publish it.

Any questions? Feedback? Oh, we love feedback!
…this world needs more furry books, don’t you agree?

You can click on the pic. Sorry if it looks a bit… er… promotional, heh. I’m at work and don’t have a better one laying around.

Could you post a book blurb? There’s not one on the site the ad goes to, nor the Amazon page for the book. I think that would help give people an idea of what the book is about.

I may purchase it when I get some money in the bank but I would like a blurb as well.

Weird… Amazon should have it. I’ll copy/paste it from there. :3

"Oh wow! You’re looking at our book!
Yes, let’s see…

Unconventional music composer Aidan Prowl, a canine in his right mind (sometimes), wants to go in search of an ancient musical instrument. Yes, all well and good, but the journey is dangerous and he knows that he shouldn’t go alone.

When opportunity strikes, quite literally—through his window—he gleefully blackmails Zack, a down-to-earth feline, into going with him. Aidan and Zack may end up finding more than they were looking for, and not only in the romantic sense—if they can both stay alive long enough—trapped in this thrilling treasure hunt filled with bandits, puzzles, suspenseful chases and so much more.

Keep your paws crossed and hold on tight as this book will take you through the most incredible furry adventure you will ever read, with colorful characters and, yes, steampunk nuances."

  • Chris and Cooper

The book includes over 30 beautiful pieces of paw-drawn artwork and illustrations.

I’m not quite sure about this book but, I will give it a fair shakedown if I get it.

Can’t wait! :smiley: You’d be our first official reviewer.

The gummint doesn’t allow me any money to buy books, so I request free review copies. I’ll be glad to review “Trap Me!”






If you’d like my review posted on Flayrah, mail me a review copy to:

Fred Patten
c/o Sherrill Patten
11113 Moorpark Street, apt. 105
North Hollywood, CA 91602

If you have any questions, I’ll be glad to answer them. Thanks.

Hello there!
Sure thing, I’ll let you know via PM when I’ll send you the review copy.
Thank you for offering. Does your offer also include an Amazon review, please?

I don’t usually review on Amazon.com; but I can, surely.

Thank you, that sounds lovely!

As for other furries… Any questions? Anyfurry intrigued by something?
Ask away.

It’s January 6, and I haven’t received this yet. Is this normal?

Considering the requests for book blurbs, I thought that it may be worthwhile to reprint the original blurb, from 1907, here. This was for a book titled “Are You a Bromide?” A bromide is a sleeping powder, for going to sleep at night; here it means, are you a dull conversationalist, whose social conversation puts listeners to sleep? Social conversation was much more important in 1907. This first blurb was meant to wake people up.

Today is March 7, and since Chris Elkin and I have been corresponding since last November about his attempts to send me a review copy of his “Trap Me!”, I think that I should answer this publicly.

His first copy never reached me in Southern California. He later found it in a P.O. dead letter office in NYC.

His second copy was mailed in early February. (My address is c/o my sister, by the way.) I was visiting my sister today when the mailman delivered it in a Post Office plastic bag labelled “WE CARE. Dear Postal Customer; We sincerely regret the damage to your mail during handling by the Postal Service. […]” The envelope was badly torn, but fortunately the book is fine.

It was mailed in an ordinary (not padded) envelope. A guess as to why the first copy was never delivered is that its envelope may have also been badly damaged.

While my sister and I were looking at the envelope, the postage stamps (very pretty, by the way) flaked off and fell to the floor. Again guessing, if the postage stamps on the first package fell off while it was in the mail, the package may have become refused as apparently mailed without postage.

My sister’s address is 11113 Moorpark Street. The package’s address is handwritten in the European style where the 1’s look like 7’s and the 7’s have a crossbar. Again guessing, the address on the first package may have been misread as 77773 Moorpark street, which doesn’t exist.

My advice: use a padded or other reinforced envelope, and make sure that the address is clearly written in the American/British style.

Now about the book.

“Trap Me!” is one of the most anonymous books that I have ever seen as to the publisher. There is no publisher credit, and it does not look like an American-published book, printed by CreateSpace or any other American printer, except for the American-style publication bar code. There is no indication as to when it was published, except for Cooper Elkin’s © 2014 in his artwork. The type font is readable but more decorative than in the usual American or British book. (At least it is much easier to read than Adolf Hitler’s favorite type font, fraktur. Have you ever tried to read a newspaper or book printed in Nazi Germany?)

Most readers won’t care where the book was published, but the lack of a publisher’s name and the general non-American look will probably make readers wonder. Where was it printed Chris?

Now to read “Trap Me! Finally a Happy Gay Furry Adventure” and find out whether it is all worth it.

(Admin note: Post edited by request.)

I woke up this morning, March 7, and sleepily crawled to the computer. Turned it on to check my emails.

Then I saw it: Fred sent me a personal message. The book has arrived!

Ahhh, yes. We tried sending him this book for a couple of months now. You see, Europe is not exactly renowned for countries with lesser economical environments. In other words, sending something all the way to the USA is a pain (especially in the wallet).

In our case, sending a padded package would’ve cost us 10% of my monthly salary. I couldn’t afford it. A padded envelope would’ve been obviously the right choice, but as far as I understood the post office did not have any on that particular day. How silly is that?!

We had ordered a copy from CreateSpace (which has its headquarters in the USA), with the help of a friend and it arrived at his place. We did so in order to be able to leave a personal, nice message to Fred-to thank him for reading and reviewing our book. We went to our friend’s place, signed the book and that was that.

We then, with the help of this friend that had much more time on his paws, tried sending the book in the best affordable way for us. As Fred said, apparently the post office didn’t like the way we write our numbers. Perhaps with roman numerals we would’ve had luck. :))

Book came back to our friend. He let us know. I waited for another month to grab my salary, sent our friend the money so he could send it again.

Fred, we’re really sorry for the way the package arrived. We only went through this big ordeal to make sure we could write something nice to you on one of the first pages of the book.

“Trap Me!” was and is printed by CreateSpace. It even says “Made in USA” on the last page. The company’s policy did not specify that we should mention the publisher anywhere in the manuscript. ??? Awkward, huh?

Well, we’re just glad that was over with. Really sorry about the way the post offices treated the package. Next time, we’ll write “Caution: Contains Ponies!” on it, so they’ll be gentler. :))

Thank you for setting on the quest to review “Trap Me!” We hope you’ll like it!
As for the font… It was never compared to Hitler’s preferred font, I’ll give you that. Made us chuckle. :smiley: Don’t burn it after the review, please.

During World War II, my parents both had war jobs and I was raised by a grandmother who was very old-fashioned even for the 1940s. I learned the European style of footnoting (the *, †, §, etc. instead of numbers), and the European way of writing numbers where the 1 looks like a 7 and the 7 has a crossbar. When I started school in the late 1940s, I had to learn everything over again. My mother and all my teachers assured me that nobody used that old-fashioned style of penmanship since the 1920s.

I don’t know who addressed that package to me, but seeing those 1’s like 7’s in my sister’s address was a real Blast from the Past.

I suspect that the type font that you used in “Trap Me!” was intended for invitations, posters, and the like where decorative serifs like circus advertisements are wanted. For text in a book, something plainer is advised.

All I can say is I hope the average interested reader will have an easier time getting a hold of a copy than what Fred went through. Should that be less of an issue for someone who is buying a copy?

I am reminded of when Mike Regan ran Raccoon’s Bookshelf press, he sometimes had buyers who wanted an autographed copy and didn’t mind paying extra to get it shipped to the author to be signed. That worked fine if the author was American but proved to be problematic for one author who lived in Denmark.

If you order it directly from CreateSpace or Amazon, it should arrive in 3-5 days, even if you are in Europe. Even faster if you are in the USA. :wink:

At least that’s what other fans are telling us. Nofurry had to wait more than a week and they ship it in a very sturdy package.

We could’ve had the book delivered to Fred in two days, but we thought it would be nice of us to send it with a nice message. ^^

It’s been three months, but my review of “Trap Me!” is finally published.

Oh wow! Thank you thank you thank you!!!
:smiley:

This made our day… no, our MONTH! Haha! Thank you very much, Fred! Really happy that you liked it!