The Epic Indie Sale

For the next seven days Dragons of Dunmoray will be part of the Epic Indie sale. You can grab yourself a copy for only 99c/99p.

So waste no more time - head over to the Epic Indie Website and check out all the amazing fantasy and Science Fiction which is either free or on sale.

Dark Mode Stuff Your Kindle

For one day only - the 27th December 2024 - you can grab a whole load of free books from Dark Mode - including Dragons of Dunmoray!

So what are you waiting for? Go now and fill up your kindle with free books!

You can find the full listing of books that are taking part in this event HERE

Stuff Your Kindle Day! Dark Mode

Dark Mode have announced this Winter’s Stuff Your Kindle Day. And One of the books that you will be able to grab for free on kindle is Dragons of Dunmoray.

The master list will be revealed on November the 20th! And the books will be free on December 27th. So take this opportunity to stuff your kindle with some amazing books!

Here is the listing for Dragons of Dunmoray.

Dragons of Dunmoray is published!

 Dragons of Dunmoray is now available on Amazon in both kindle and print formats.

Amazon UK

Amazon US

Self Publishing promotion update: (August 2024)

Here is my latest update on the various promotional activities I have undertaken to try to spread the word about my self-published books, and how successful or otherwise these activities have been.

1. Social Media

I joined a number of reader and author groups on facebook and did my best to contribute as far as possible. Most have very strict ‘no promotion’ rules but some do offer opportunities such a monthly post where people can post kindle sales or new releases. Apparently the way authors game these groups is to team up and then talk about each other’s books. Unfortunately I don’t have a team of author friends willing to big me up, so I just have to play by the rules. Where I was allowed to I advertised the kindle countdown sale for The Arid Lands and my ARC signups for Dragons of Dunmoray. The main benefit from joining these groups was the helpful advice on offer.

Other social media activities continued as normal.

2. ARC Readers

In the run up to self publishing my new book, Dragons of Dunmoray, decided that, rather than approaching review blogs, I would reach out for ARC (Advance Review Copies) readers. I set up an ARC signup form on google forms and included one important question – Why do you want to read Dragons of Dunmoray? This deterred non humans very effectively. I only had one signup who was clearly a bot.

So far I have sent out 20 review copies. Hopefully this will prove to be a better approach than my previous efforts of approaching review blogs directly.

3. Readers Book Club

The Arid Lands was chosen as book club read for April/May and the organiser sent out six free copies to the participants. There was lively discussion but then one of the participants warned everyone than Amazon frowns on authors leaving reviews for other authors’ books and will cancel your KDP account if they catch you. So this immediately killed off anyone leaving reviews for anyone else, which was a shame.

I did ask the participating authors if anyone would be happy to let me have quotes that I could use in my promotion, but nobody responded.

As of now this group appears to have fizzled out.

4. Indieverse awards

This has come to nothing and I won’t be pursuing it any further.

5. SPSFC4

I plan to enter The Arid Lands into SPSFC4. I thoroughly enjoyed taking part in SPSFC3 and although Red Rock didn’t make it past the first round I feel it raised my profile plus I discovered some fantastic new authors and books.

6. Kindle Sale

I ran a two day kindle countdown deal for The Arid Lands in June. Sales had tailed off over the preceding couple of months so I hoped that this would give it a boost. I did my best to promote it wherever I could but only picked up a handful of sales.

So in conclusion the approach I took to find ARC readers has been significantly better than pitching to review sites. Final tallies for how many ARCS I will send out at the proportion that translate into reviews are yet to be determined.

 

 

Building my ARC team

When I was building up to the release of The Arid Lands I looked into how best to obtain reviews. At the time I decided I would try to approach book bloggers directly. I researched (I found a useful list on Reedsy) to identify bloggers who would accept self published books (many don’t) and who were interested in the SF and dystopia genres (again, this whittled them down). I ended up with a shortlist of 20 to approach.

I pitched The Arid Lands to these blog sites but only one requested a review copy and I’m not aware of them ever leaving a review. A couple of others came back to me asking for money which they hadn’t made clear on their websites which was annoying.

All in all this wasn’t a particularly satisfactory approach.

Now that I’m building up to the release of Dragons of Dunmoray in September I’ve decided that I will try a different tactic. I’m trying to build an ARC team (Advance Review Copies).

If you like dragons, Scotland, volcanos and danger, all topped off with a bit of spice, then you can find the link to my ARC signup sheet below. I will send you a free electronic copy in the hope that you will like it enough to leave a review, although there is no obligation to do so.

Dragons of Dunmoray ARC signup form

Cover Reveal: Dragons of Dunmoray

 Today I am delighted to share with you - the cover of Dragons of Dunmoray!

And I am now officially open to ARC (Advanced Review Copy) signups - so if you are interested in joining my review team please signup below.

Dragons of Dunmoray ARC signup form

The Dragons are Coming

 

I have a new novel in the pipeline, a dark fantasy set in Scotland. I'll be telling you more in the coming weeks, so watch out for my cover reveal! Not long to go now!