Marcel & Oswald

The original idea for writing this post was to say thanks and reflect with a few figures on the launch and the journey of my book A World Without Color in 2017. That I will do as planned, but first I must let you know about something that happened on the last day of 2017.

With deep regret and sadness in my heart I have to tell you that Oswald, the beautiful cat from the cover of my book, has passed away. I learned that in the early afternoon hours of December 31st, 2017 and spilled many tears that day.

Zach Singh, a New York-based photographer, and his cat Oswald brought the story of my beloved cat Marcel to life. Marcel had passed away on April 19, 2006 and left me heartbroken. Last year I brought him back to life again by publishing his story in English so I could share it with all of you.

Oswald and Zach are the two great guys on the photo of my book cover who gave the prettiest face and character to my book. I am eternally grateful to Zach for letting me use it. My joy was honest, true and profound as much as is my sadness now at losing Oswald. Oswald is no longer with his beloved family. Instead, together with Marcel, while he keeps on living in my book and in the hearts of those who loved and still love him.

Thanks to Oswald, Marcel and my love for him are alive for you too, and thanks to Marcel and his story, Oswald will live as long as my book lives. And that, my dear readers, depends on you and me.

Thanks to you and only you, A World Without Color had a good start last year.

I published it as e-book on July 1 and as paperback on September 13, 2017.

Its two awesome trailers (B/W and the blue edition) produced by Mario Kožar MKM Media, who also designed the great book cover, were released on October 29, 2017.

A World Without Color was one of the nominees in the TCK Publishing 2017 Readers Choice Awards in the Memoir category for the book of the year and also took part in four book cover contests.

My book cover was reviewed by The Book Designer in the e-Book Cover Design Awards for July 2017 while thanks to you it won the 3rd place in Cover Wars in Author Shout one-week contest, the 2nd place in the AllAuthor Cover of the month August contest and gold or the 1st place in the Literary Fiction category of AUTHORSdb contest! Thank you all for your votes!

You supported it in the Anniversary Giveaway on the Animal Bliss blog when two lucky winners out of 320 entries got my e-book!

Those of you who bought it or read it for free with Kindle Unlimited rewarded A World Without Color with great and touching reviews: 24 reviews on Amazon, 6 reviews on Amazon UK and 27 reviews and 36 ratings on Goodreads!

For that I am thankful to you, my fellow readers, authors and dear supporters! Thank you for accepting my book so well, thank you for reading and reviewing it and for spreading the message all over the Internet and your social network platforms!

There is one thing I learned from the past and my first six months as an indie author. Indie authors are not competitors, they are friends and supporters (at least those I know). We are encouragement to each other and that's  the nicest thing about self-publishing and being an indie. Together with our faithful readers and honest reviewers, we are one body that lives and breathes for good books. And that is fantastic!

My sincere gratitude goes to each and every one of you for giving a chance to my true story of the last three days I spent with my cat Marcel. Thank you for accepting and loving it, thank you for shedding tears with me.

If they were alive, both Marcel and Oswald would purr their gratitude to you, dancing with their tails up around your legs or jumping into your lap for a cuddle or the feels-so-good scratching behind their ears and under their chins.

Although they are gone and no longer with us, you can still try to do that with the power of your imagination and with cuddles through the lines and pages of A World Without Color.

I thank you for your continuous support to A World Without Color in the new year and hopefully years to come and to my new books and other projects.

Have a fantastic year full of great books, love each other and love and care for your and other animals!

Bernard Jan
www.bernardjan.com

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Cover photo by Zach Singh; Cover design by Mario Kožar MKM Media