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A warm hug of a book: Reviewing The Cozy Cauldron Cab Co.

Review: The Cozy Cauldron Cab Co.

The first thing you have to do when reviewing an ARC (advanced reader copy) is confirm that you have been given the book for free, meaning the author has not bribed you for a good review. I promise that is what happened here, but after reading the following review of Nathan C. Ashford’s The Cozy Cauldron Cab Co., I forgive you if you think he slipped me a wad of crisp £20 notes. The novel really is that good. Although that title is quite long, so for the rest of the review I’ve abbreviated it to Cozy Cauldron. I’m also spelling ‘cozy’ the American way when referring to the title, and the English way (cosy) otherwise.

Before we continue, here’s the blurb:

Mitsi Blunderlock graduated from Gloombubble Academy with one problem: she’s a witch who can’t fly. After a disastrous crash left her with a crooked nose and a healthy respect for gravity, Mitsi has resigned herself to keeping her feet firmly on the ground (much to the horror of proper witch and warlock society).

When tea leaves spell out “GO. NOW.” Mitsi leaves the comforts of home for the cozy town of Marivell, with nothing but a magical pumpkin carriage (courtesy of her inventor father) and a desperate need to find her purpose. After accidentally retiring the local postal phoenix and causing chaos with her horseless contraption, Mitsi stumbles upon an idea: why not become the town’s first cab driver?

With the help of a distinguished elder werewolf, two eccentric harpy neighbors, the local opossum baker, and a myriad of other fantastical friends, Mitsi discovers that serving others might be the strongest magic of all.

And now for the glowing review, which does contain mild spoilers about characters you will meet, but hopefully not too much about the plot. Cozy Cauldron is so cosy it could be described as the hot chocolate (or perhaps pumpkin spice latte) of books. There were times when I wondered if it wasn’t a bit too cutesy, Ashford is not an author who kills his darlings. Although that is understandable when you consider how darling they are. At one point the main character, Mitsi Blunderlock, moves into a mushroom. Her landlords are mice. And the Santa Claus figure is a capybara. I was charmed.

We start with proper chapter titles. I love that these are making a comeback, it takes me back to childhood. I think that’s part of what makes cosy fantasies so popular, they do feel like a novel you might have read as a young adult, without all the dystopian derring-do of actual YA novels. Another reason is that there is a strong theme of communities banding together, something which is often lacking in real life. Which isn’t to say that everything goes smoothly in Cozy Cauldron, but this is definitely a low stakes tale.

It’s fashionable to market a book by comparing it to other authors. A few pages into Cozy Cauldron and I made a note ‘we’re in Pratchett territory here’. Yes, I really did mean Sir Terry Pratchett. This is probably the highest praise I could give a fantasy novel. But Ashford’s clever way of introducing modern inventions into his fantasy world are distinctly Pratchett-like, and the instantly loveable cast of eccentric characters hints at many more books to come. The small Christmas subplot suggests a festive tale is in the offing.

The only other current author I’ve compared to Pratchett is Travis Baldree, and I think Baldree’s fans will feel at home here. The large number of animal characters given human traits is an instant reminder of Juneau Black, and while there is no murder in Cozy Cauldron, I’d encourage Black’s readers to give this a whirl too.

Without an evil villain, a complex crime to solve, or even a romance, I wasn’t sure where the plot of Cozy Cauldron was going to go. Without major spoilers, I can tell you that it’s a satisfying meander through life in a small town, with plenty of subplots to keep the pace going. This is truly a 10/10 read.

Purchase the Cozy Cauldron Cab Co. (Amazon store page)

Clients, HireWriters, Uncategorized

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All freelance writers have come across sites known as ‘content mills’. Most of them offer semi-regular work without endless pitching. Unfortunately, rates can be low. For this reason, content mills have gotten a bad rap. But there is one site, HireWriters, that provides plenty of work and there are decent incomes to be earned. Even better, they take on writers from across the globe, including the UK.

Entry to HireWriters.com is via a simple sample piece and a short grammar test. Once that is done, you will be taken on at the beginner tier. This is the lowest of four tiers and understandably has the smallest pay rate. It is very easy to quickly work your way up the tiers. Quality is determined by how many pieces of work you have submitted and how high a rating you got. 14 pieces averaging 4.6 stars plus 4 star plus earns you the top tier, Expert, which is where real money can be made. My first 12 pieces easily got a 5 star rating, a combination of my genius writing ability (of course) and how nice the clients are!

The clients also have ratings, and you can see how often they reject vs accept pieces. As a general rule, avoid clients with a less that 90% acceptance rate. Obviously this is a little hard to judge with brand new clients who have only ordered a couple of pieces of work. Check the quality of their instructions. You want a clear brief and defined keywords. You can privately message the clients if you have questions, but be aware that their response time does not affect the final deadline, and you can be penalised for late work.

If rewrites are necessary, the client can also contact you. I’ve been lucky in not needing to do extensive rewrites, but I did have one client who asked me to expand on a detail in an article I was writing for him. Try as I might, I could not find the information needed. I messaged the client, apologising and offering to withdraw from the piece. To my joy, he accepted the piece as was with no further rewrites required.

Some clients even go so far as to pay bonuses on top of the standard fee. The fees are clearly set out in each job advert. There is a percentage fine to pay if you cannot submit the piece by the deadline, but most deadlines are generous. Short 150-300 word pieces often come with a deadline of 12 hours, where long form 1000 words plus can be anything from 1 day to 5.

I have a private client, which is someone who contacts me directly via HireWriters as opposed to posting on the open jobs board. On average, I am paid $30 for a 1000 word piece. We thoroughly discuss the topic and direction beforehand and I am given a generous deadline for research and writing. This is far more than can be earned picking up beginner jobs, where a 150 word plus description can often be paid at $1.27. However, it is worth knocking out a few of these at the start to get your rating up so that you can attract the higher paying private clients. As a bonus, some of the shorter pieces are fun to write. I built my rating up writing short pieces of celebrity gossip. It felt more like break-time than work, and I earned a little bit of money.

All the work on Hirewriters.com is ghostwriting, so you do not get to see you finished work up on a website. But if you are a quick writer, it is an easy way to make money. HireWriters pay out every Friday, so long as you have $10 or more in your account. There are often over 700 jobs on the system, so hitting a $10 target each week isn’t difficult. If you are looking to see if freelance writing is for you, I thoroughly recommend signing up to Hirewriters.com.

Please note, this is an affiliate post for HireWriters.