Wednesday, 20 September 2023

Pre-order The Arid Lands

The Arid Lands is now available for pre-order from Amazon UK and US for only 99p/99c.

Can one girl hold back the flood?

The Tyrhennians struggle to survive in the dried out basin of an ancient ocean. Inez knows no other world than this endless cycle of heat and brine, but listens to the stories of a distant land of great cities and endless seas.

She never believed them, until the day her brother is injured by a strange craft crossing the desolate plains. So she discovers that the stories are true. But as she tries to find her brother in a strange city she realises that she is not the only person from the salt plains here. Others from the Arid Lands have infiltrated the city - and they have a plan.


Amazon UK

Amazon US

Tuesday, 12 September 2023

Ten Years of RED ROCK

 It is now ten years since Red Rock was first published.

Red Rock remained in print for nine years until my rights reverted and I self published it so that it would still be available. I’ve enjoyed the process. It’s good having control although I do now realise how much my publisher did with marketing and promotion. They fixed me up as a speaker at conferences and placed Red Rock into libraries (from which I still get a modest income in PLR).

My main market was through those travelling book fairs that do the rounds of schools in the UK, and through these Red Rock sold quite well. It’s a book I am very proud of. I hope my readers, past, present and future, enjoy it as much as I enjoyed writing it.

So to celebrate Red Rock’s ten year anniversary I am making it free on kindle for three days only – 12th, 13th and 14th September.

If you would like to grab yourself a copy, now is your chance.

Tuesday, 5 September 2023

The Arid Lands Cover reveal

Today I am delighted to share with you all, the cover for my next novel The Arid Lands, a dystopian Sci Fi thriller set in the Mediterranean 600 years from now.



Wednesday, 23 August 2023

The Arid Lands

This blog has been quiet recently for a number of reasons. Firstly I never have much spare time during the summer months, life takes over and there are so many places to see and things to do. I’m very much an outdoor person and can think of nothing worse than sitting indoors at my computer when the sun is shining inviting me out to play.

But in between all this sunshine and frolics things have been happening and progress has been made. The new thriller is coming on well, and I have decided to self publish my next Sci Fi book, just because I can.

Originally I felt it was important to have a proper release schedule for my self published books in order to increase visibility, but the sorts of schedules that people advise are well beyond my reach, and even if I did save up my books to release in rapid succession, there would still be a cliff edge when I stop.

So I have decided to release them as I am ready, not worry too much about schedules and simply enjoy the process.

So I am delighted to announce that my next book, THE ARID LANDS, a Sci Fi Thriller with a dystopian feel to it, will be released on the 19th October.

I will be telling you more about it over the coming weeks, starting with a cover reveal – watch this space!

Monday, 12 June 2023

Sale of Two Drabbles

In case you are wondering, a drabble is a short story of exactly 100 words. And I'm delighted to share with you that two of my drabbles, 'Afterwards' and 'Oak and Ash' will be appearing at Wyldeblood Press in the not too distant future. I will let you know when they go live.

Thursday, 1 June 2023

The Red Rock Promotion Experiment and where I go next.

The results of the Red Rock publicity and promotion experiment are in, and I’ve been analysing the results. Hmmm.

Red Rock was originally published in September 2013 through a traditional publisher and I had all the advantages of having a marketing team and a designated publicist helping me. I have spoken elsewhere on this blog about the promotional activities which we did.

For the re-release I avoided repeating those, although with future books there are definitely options I can pursue. But I did take the opportunity to try out a few other publicity activities largely geared towards the e-book, and focussing on what I could achieve online. This was mainly through the medium of social media. For example:

1. I set up an author Instagram account and make regular posts about my writing

2. I promoted Red Rock on twitter with a cover reveal and in general increased my interactions on that platform

3. I increased my activity in the various writing/author groups to which I belong and talked about Red Rock and what I was doing about re-releasing it

4. I revived my author facebook page

5. I enrolled in a Kindle countdown deal setting the price at 99p for one week

6. I timed the countdown deal to coincide with Earth Day

7. I participated actively in #IndieApril on Twitter 

Of course, there is the disadvantage that most of my immediate network have already read the book (if it is to their taste) so I was really trying here to extend my reach outwards to find new potential readers. I certainly learned what doesn’t work, (pretty much everything listed above) and I found the whole exercise an interesting if rather depressing experiment.

What is clear is that producing a quality product, editing, formatting, cover art, is the easy bit. Finding readers is a lot more difficult without the backing of a publisher. Even those who expect the author to do a lot of legwork can still make a huge difference to sales through their review networks etc.

So where do I go moving forwards?  Well I still intend to self publish my Science Fiction novels, but I’m going to keep aiming at the mainstream market with my thrillers and I will be giving them priority. I have a new novel on the go, but you will be seeing one of my SciFi novels hitting the virtual shelves in the not too distant future. But more on that later. For now I have some writing to do.




Tuesday, 11 April 2023

Countdown Deal for Earth Day

April the 22nd is Earth Day. A perfect opportunity to promote Red Rock. And also to test out Kindle countdown deals.

So for one week in the run up to Earth day, from the 15th - 22nd April, Red Rock will be available for the reduced price of 99p (UK) and 99c (US).

I will do my best to promote it on social media during this time. Let's see if I get an uptick in sales.