Sunday 7 August 2011

Huge Ebook Giveaway - 24 Titles - 48 Winners!

All you have to do is shoot over to one of these blogs to enter:

After The Book  

OR  

JeanzBookReadNReview




As soon as each blog reaches 100 followers, the first winners on that blog will be drawn. First winner drawn gets first pick of the ebooks on the list.

 
The eBooks:
  1 The Bringer - Samantha Towle Twitter
  2 Raven - Suzy Turner Twitter
  3 Hidden (Marchwood Vampire Series) - Shalini Boland Twitter
  4 Beautiful Evil – Robbi Sommers Bryant Twitter
  5 Bloodletter - Angel Haze
  6 Piercing Through the Darkness - Emerald Barnes Twitter
  8 Black Wood - Jayde Scott  9 A Job From Hell - Jayde Scott Twitter
10 Coexist (Keegan’s Chronicles) – Julia Crane Twitter
11 Legacies of Talimura (War of the Witch) - Angel Haze Twitter

12 Scorpio Rising (The Scorpio Series) - Monique Domovitch Twitter
13 Ruby and the Mix Games (Hue Series -Vol 1) - Joseph Seegitz Twitter
14 Paranormal Doorway to the Triquetra - Lenore Wolfe Twitter
15 Dark Warrior - Lenore Wolfe
16
Salt Bowl Death – Cypher Lx Twitter
17 Nalia and the Potion Maker (Nalia, Book 1) - Queenbe Monyei Twitter
18 Chasing Destiny - Linda Eble Swain Twitter

19 Darkest Before Dawn – Cypher Lx
20 Caged In Darkness - J.D. Stroube Twitter
21 Crossroads - Mary Ting Twitter
22 Forever Sunshine - Collette Scott Twitter
23 Outside - Shalini Boland Twitter
24 Fairy Circle - Johanna Frappier Twitter

Saturday 6 August 2011

Vampires In The Cotswolds

I just did my very first book signing for Hidden (Marchwood Vampire Series)! It took place in Gloucestershire (the setting for most of the book) at That New Shop, a gorgeous little gift boutique that sells all sorts of beautiful things.  

Owners, Amara and Sue, put a great sign in the window 'Vampires In The Cotswolds' and set me up with a chair and table right in the centre of the shop.


I was nervous before we started, but everyone was so lovely and friendly that I ended up having a great time. Special thanks to Paulette and Tracie for chat, coffees and that deliciously decadent cupcake!

We sold out halfway through the morning and had to take orders, so apologies to those people who didn't get a copy straightaway. But there's another box of books winging its way to the shop as I type. It should be there next week.

I hope to do plenty more book signings in the future. My aim is to arrange them at all the locations in the novel. So next stop Paris, then Cappadocia...

Thursday 4 August 2011

Raven by Suzy Turner

Lilly's life is strange. She has odd parents and only one friend. But when Lilly’s parents disappear, things get even stranger. Everything she knows is taken away from her and she begins to realise that she isn’t who she thought she was. The story had me flipping the pages to discover Lilly’s family secrets and I wasn’t disappointed.

Suzy Turner’s writing flows and the story pulls you in with its intrigue and mystery. The characters are compelling and the plot unfolds into an exciting and dangerous adventure.

I can’t wait for book 2 and I’m really glad it’s going to be about Lilly’s friend, December Moon. She’s a character I wished we’d seen more of in Raven, so it’s brilliant we’ll get to find out who she is. All in all this was a fantastic read!

Raven is a refreshingly different novel suitable for children, teens and adults alike. You can find it in the following places:

Amazon for Kindle
Barnes & Noble for the Nook
Smashwords

Suzy's website: http://www.suzyturner.com/

Thursday 28 July 2011

The Books In My Life - Suzy Turner

The gorgeous and super-talented author, Suzy Turner, has very kindly agreed to write a guest post for Someone Wot Writes! I'll be following it up later with a review of her amazing YA novel Raven.



The Books in my Life

Books have always been incredibly important to me. I remember reading so many different kinds as a child, anything from Arthur C Clarke's Islands in the Sky, Robert O'Brien's Z for Zachariah, some of the Nancy Drew series, a whole load of Mills and Boon and many others before I eventually moved on to Jilly Cooper, Danielle Steel and Jackie Collins. I tell you, I learned a lot from those women!

There are some books that were so powerful to me when I first read them as a young teenager. At that age I guess I was easily blown away. Probably because I needed to be taken away into other people's worlds after I lost my mother when I was just 13.

Some that I remember with fondness are Queenie by Michael Korda, Lace by Shirley Conran and Destiny by Sally Beaumont. I also loved the Lucky Santangelo series by Jackie Collins. There was something about all of those books that really touched me at the time. I ought to read them again and see how I am affected now, as a grown woman.

A little later, I remember my dad recommending Ken Follett's Pillars of the Earth. A huge book, I know, but boy... what a story! It was fantastic. The TV series, although good, just didn't do it justice. Jean M Auel's Clan of the Cave Bear was another book I read soon after,and it certainly wowed me!

Since those days, I've become a true Harry Potter and Twilight fan. I know I will read these books over and over. The only other book that I've ever read twice is Memoirs of a Geisha by Arthur Golden and that is an amazing tale - much better than the movie.

But now, since the advent of ebooks and the kindle, I am thoroughly enjoying reading books written by authors in the same situation as me. Self-published authors who have decided to go it alone. And here I am, being blown away yet again by the sheer talent out there. Some firm favourites include Shalini's Hidden, Johanna Frappier's Fairy Circle, Patti Roberts' Paradox... there are so many, I could easily list tons more!

I haven't given up on traditionally published books, of course. I would never do that, although I do prefer to read on my kindle these days as it's so much more convenient than lugging around books around in my handbag!


Thanks so much, Suzy. I loved reading about your book history. I think we must have almost identical reading tastes!

Wednesday 27 July 2011

Guest Blog by Tore Sinding Bekkeval, NORWAY SURVIVOR - Linked from Hannah Warren's Blog

My thoughts are with the survivors of this truly awful event. I can't begin to imagine what they must have gone through and are yet to endure.



Norway survivor, Tore Sinding Bekkeval, has written a guest post for Hannah Warren's blog:

"I wrote a Norwegian post explaining my experience at Utøya. I had taken this blog for dead, and had entirely forgotten that it was syndicated on Planet Debian. I don’t want to let Google Translate make this disaster any worse than it is – the translation of “bullets” into “balls” being particularly bad – so the international attention the massacre has garnered in consideration, I am writing an English translation of my experiences. I feel somehow duty-bound to make people aware of what happened, but I don’t want to get into anything else but a sober description of the events and some very brief reflections. There are many details I have chosen to omit.

"Others have written their experiences of the events at Utøya. I wanted to write mine down as well, and “get it out there”. Partly, I want to write this down because I’m unsure if I will remember all the details at a later point in time, although I think I’d prefer it if I couldn’t. I’m also writing this because people are asking about my experiences and it’s much better to have an URL to give them, lest I have to keep going through the same spiel over and over again ..."

Read more

Tuesday 26 July 2011

Selling Ebooks for the Nook from Barnes & Noble

Yesterday I discovered that my young adult novel, Hidden(Marchwood Vampire Series), was in the Barnes & Noble Nook Top 100 list. And not just in the top 100, but it’s reached the vertiginous heights of number 27!
How did it happen? And what does it mean?

I published to B&N via Smashwords, which is great, but unfortunately it means I have to wait until next month to find out what this chart position represents in terms of sales – NO-O-O-O-O!!! How can I wait that long? My mind is on overdrive wondering how many people have bought my book.

Nearly all my previous sales have been through Amazon. In fact, in June I only sold 6 copies of Hidden via B&N and it was ranked in the thousands. So how has it managed to leap from that, to number 27? I’ve been featured on a few blogs and had some great reviews, but apart from that … I’m stumped.



I’m not complaining, just curious and itching to find out how many I’ve sold. Anybody care to take a wild guess???