This post is for all of you readers who have not yet been assimilated into the eBook culture.  (Resistance is futile.)

The paperback has finally appeared on Amazon UK (after a fashion) so I picked this day to announce the release because, hey, it’s Independence Day, and what better day to celebrate my book infiltrating the UK than the day we first read a proclamation that said we were very very uspset with them.  Also, for you movie buffs, it could relate to the movie, Independence Day, signifying your continued struggle to resist the juggernaut of eBooks and eBook readers, maybe fancying yourself as Will Smith, punching that ugly alien right in the kisser, or Bill Pullman, the dignified defender of all things American.  Or maybe that crazy guy who flew his airplane into the alien mother ship at the end of the movie?

But, for whatever reason (fear of change, love of books or the knowledge that, once we all have e-readers, then the government can really roll out their mind control experiments…where’s my tinfoil hat?) you have resisted.  Or at least you have been holding out for the paperback copy, which doesn’t necessarily mean you have resisted, just that you want a paper copy, too.  Maybe you are bi-literate, or a spy.  For Them.

Before I get too far off base, perhaps I should confess that I actually have an eReader myself, although most people call it a laptop.  I downloaded the Kindle for PC a while back on a whim and now have about a dozen books in it.  And I have to admit I see the appeal.

But for now, nothing takes the place of an actual book.  If you feel that way, you can order the real, honest to goodness paperback copy of my latest round-up of hysterical adventures in the UK from these locations:

And now a work about Amazon UK:

When the book was first published with Amazon’s Createspace, I was under the impression that the paperback would appear on Amazon.com within a day or so (it did) and on Amazon UK in a week or so (it did not).  I kept telling people to be patient, the book would appear sooner or later (it didn’t).  Further research confirmed that admission to Amazon UK is A) not automatic, and B) out of the hand of the author.  In short, it would appear on Amazon UK, or it would not, and there was nothing I could do about it.

So I republished the book in a desperate bid to fool it into appearing on Amazon UK.  This was based on the premise that, if another author had the book appear on Amazon UK only to have it disappear after she republished her book, the same thing might happen in reverse if I republished mine.  Crazy, stupid idea, right?  Well, it worked.

The prices are still a bit wonky and erratic, but I expect that to settle down over time.  In the mean time, if you are hesitant to use Amazon UK, you should:

Thank you for listening.  We will now return to our regular broadcasts.