Funny (in an Ironic Way)

I knew it was too soon to check if Running From Herself had been added to any library apps, but I was bored, so I thought maybe there was a 5% chance it had already shown up. Of course, it hadn't.  

By the way, what are the library apps that D2D makes a book available to? My library uses Overdrive (aka Libby), so I needed to research the others that are out there.

• Overdrive (Libby)
• cloudLibrary
• Hoopla
• Baker & Taylor
• BorrowBox
• Odilo (which is apparently an educational resource)

I'm obviously not in the know regarding library apps, because I've never heard of any of these, except Overdrive. 

Anyway, I pulled up Overdrive and searched first by title (nope), then by genre (nope again), and finally I typed "April Tompkins" in the search box.

Gasp! Look what's available:

 

How embarrassing. And how did they even get into Overlook's collection? 

Radio Crazy does not exist anymore. This was my second novel that was so bad I unpublished it. (Not that anyone cares, but it's been reworked as a novella, titled Whispers in the Dark.) I clicked on the title and luckily, it does state, "no libraries found". Unfortunately, a preview is still available. Yikes. The saving grace is, I'm 99.9% certain no one has ever clicked on it but me.

As for The Apple, technically it does exist; however, it has a new title, What We Conceal, and a new cover. Again, Overdrive tells those non-existent browsers that the title doesn't exist in any libraries. The preview is still there--Chapter 20, which is just odd, not that it matters. (So...libraries want readers to know if it gets better or worse as the story progresses? How would they know how well or poorly it starts? And thanks, by the way, for revealing who the killer is.) The Apple was my third novel, and the preview suffers from the use of fancy words, when plain ones would have lessened the cringe factor. It's funny (not "ha ha funny", but more embarrassingly funny) that by the time I finished writing The Apple, I thought I was a pretty good writer. (spoiler alert: I wasn't.) The plot is still good, though.

If I could somehow get these books removed, I would, but that's outside my control. The only issue is, if Running From Herself ever does get added, it's going to nest beside these two. That's known as bad publicity. 

Am I the only author who's ever unpublished books? That can't possibly be, can it? Does every other writer think their every word is amazing? Man, I must have really low self-esteem.    

It's my own fault. Note to self: Stop researching stuff.