ABOUT CATHERINE
CATHERINE RYAN HOWARD is a 29-year-old writer, blogger and coffee enthusiast from Cork, Ireland.
In other lives she has administrated things in the Netherlands and cleaned things on a French campsite, and she was a front desk agent in a Walt Disney World hotel in Orlando, Florida.
Catherine self-published her first book – a travel memoir called Mousetrapped: A Year and A Bit in Orlando, Florida – in March 2010 after being told by several agents and editors that while it was a good read, there was near to no market for a book about Space Shuttle launches, humidity-challenged hair, Bruce Willis, the Ebola virus and an Irish girl working in Walt Disney World. Using only free promotional tools like this blog, Twitter and Facebook, Catherine has managed to shift over 10,000 copies of Mousetrapped to date. Her success story has been featured in the Irish Independent, the Sunday Times (Ireland) and Woman’s Way magazine, and Catherine has been interviewed about it on Newstalk, BBC Radio Ulster and The Marian Finucane Show on RTÉ Radio 1. She also delivered Faber Academy’s first self-publishing course at Faber & Faber in London in February 2012. Trashionista called Mousetrapped “a unique book by a brilliantly witty, instantly loveable author” and named it one of their Top 10 Reads of 2010.
And Catherine didn’t even have to, like, bribe them with chocolate or anything.
Here are the names of Catherine’s other books and some nice things some nice people have said about them:
- Backpacked: A Reluctant Trip Across Central America. ”Catherine takes [her] dry wit and self-deprecating humor along for the ride [on her] travels in Central America. [It] made me feel like I’d gone on the journey myself. Highly recommended for anyone who loves reading about the extremes of exploration without actually having to endure the discomfort.” - Talli Roland, bestselling author of The Hating Game, Watching Willow Watts and Build a Man
- Self-Printed: The Sane Person’s Guide to Self-Publishing. “An exceptional breath of realism, real knowledge and hard experience – don’t dream of self-publishing your book without it. This is the self-publishing guide to read if you actually care about the quality of your writing and your readers.” –Nicola Morgan, award-winning author of 90 books including Write to be Published, Tweet Right and the Carnegie-nominated Wasted , and blog Help! I Need a Publisher!
- Results Not Typical: A Novel. “It’s so nice to read something that’s different … Catherine has a natural flair for story-telling. [Results Not Typical] was such an enjoyable read—I highly recommend it.” - Leah of ChickLitNewsandReviews.com
You can find out more about Catherine’s books here. If you’ve never read any of her work, she has a combination Kindle title (priced just $4.99) that includes both Mousetrapped and Backpacked, thereby reducing your potential for buyer’s remorse.
Despite her self-publishing success, Catherine is still pursuing traditional publication. This is why.
Catherine daydreams about becoming a NASA astronaut when she grows up, and wonders what the 2012 Formula 1 season would’ve been like if the BBC had been allowed to keep coverage of it all to themselves. (She suspects the answer is magical. Thanks to Sky Sports F1 it’s expensive and painful to watch.) She also has an unnatural fondness for Oreo Cakesters.
To be instantly alerted should her situation change, click here to sign up for her newsletter. To find out what you’ve missed so far, check out her News page.
To keep her in coffee—and so, the world free from a Decaffeinated Catherine (dear god, nooooooo!)—considering buying one of her books.
To stop reading any more irrelevant information because, hey, you’re only here because someone told you there was lots of self-publishing stuff, go here for all her “self-printing” category blog posts.
It is so pretty here, great job with the reorganisation!
Catherine, Your blogs on self publishing and setting up a blog with wordpress were invaluable to me. Thank you. You write with clarity and wit – fun to read. I’d had two books traditionally published, and recently decided with the third to go the self publishing route. Loved it and it’s selling very well – as it accompanies a workshop! … Your help and on-line encouragement through the process made it do-able. At one point I thought I remembered you stating that you do e-conversions. Was I imagining this or is this something you do as a side business? If so, please let me know. Thanks again. Keep up the great writing. Jeanie
jeaniesjourneys.com
whilst red is more my colour of choice, i’m loving your pink site! i have self-printed (did I get that right?!?) a couple of health and diet books and am about to venture into the eBook thing – it’s a minefield! thanks so much for all your straightforward and down-to-earth advice AND thanks for the link to Lets Get Digital by David Gaughran, another sane voice in the self-printing world. you have a really engaging style of writing – i’m sure like me you never get to bed before 2am but keep it up!
Nice looking blog. Best of luck to you!
Just found your blog and the articles here at a quick glance appear to be just the inspiration I’ve been looking for. Will definitely be taking a closer read over the coming days.
Just logged out and I see your blog is on the Freshly Pressed page
Congratulations 
Hi Catherine,
Great stuff – answered quite a few questions we were thinkging too about self-printing. Congrats on the “Freshly Pressed” coup, well deserved.
Congratulations on hitting the “Freshly Pressed” page! It made me curious, I read, I loved, I am following. Thanks for your fine, clear voice amidst the muddle out there. Continued success in all you do! Cheers!
Love your blog! I too am a Catherine with 1. A passion for great coffee (Guatemala Antigua) and 2. Humidity-challenged hair. I am also a writer (newspaper features not books.) thanks for the inspiration.
I love Guatemala-Antigua coffee too! (Except when I was there, the coffee wasn’t great. Apparently it’s because they export all the good stuff to us!) Big into Kenyan at the moment though.
Hi Catherine (chalk up another follower to being “freshly pressed”…and having a cute pic…U not me… LOL). You have offered excellent advice here and in your guest blogs. I recently self published and even after doing “all the research” I still did a few things that I would do differently…and will on book two. I would add only one more bit of advice to “would-be” published authors. Write because you have a passion to write. Publish because you want to share your story with the world. Don’t write a book – tell a story. If somewhere in between that and the marketing you can make a living, well that’s good too
My ears pricked up when I read the ‘ah, go on’ in your comment line and now I know that was on the right lines! Hehe.
You practice what you preach —- cudos!
Why can’t I follow you? I enter my email and click “My inbox is lonely”. I get a message saying i must enter a valid email. I DID. But then I tried my other email – same result. I tried another one of your pages. Same non – thing.
Superb job! I’ve combed WordPress for a couple months, and yet to find a engaging blog such as yours. Bravo! Not only do you write about substance, your personality really shines through. If you don’t mind, I’m taking notes. Te-he!
I’ll definitely be back for more. ~Josh
I’m very happy and thankful that you were freshly pressed (congrats again!) I downloaded Backpacked on Monday and finished last nice. Very well written, engaging, and as you can see I couldn’t put it down. I look forward to checking out your other works and seeing more posts from you.
Have a wonderful day!
Thank you so much!! Glad you enjoyed it. It’s my favourite book of mine, actually.
Congratulations! I’ve nominated you for the Beautiful Blogger Award!
http://bitsnbooks.wordpress.com/2012/05/18/the-beautiful-blogger-award/
I’m sure you have alerady been nominated for this kind of thing, but I didn’t want to leave you out of the list, so if it’s a duplicate, forgive me! I nominated you for the Versatile Blogger Award. Post is here, if you are interested. http://imeldaevans.wordpress.com/2012/05/20/id-like-to-thank-the-academy/
I’m new to your blog, but enjoy reading it a lot. I’ve nominated Catherine,Caffeinated for the One Lovely Blog award at http://procrastinationdiaries.wordpress.com/2012/05/26/first-blog-award-ever/ Have a great weekend~
I thoroughly enjoy reading your blog. That’s why I’ve nominated you for the Versatile Blogging Award. http://www.30waysofwalking.wordpress.com Thanks for all of the great content.