Boxed Set Preview

Hi all,

I have been very busy on the second draft of Ice and Fyre over the last few weeks. It's slow going, but hopefully, I'm still on track for a spring release.

As this book marks the completion of the Trilogy I will also be releasing a boxed set and I thought you may like a sneak peek at the artwork - so here it is - Enjoy!  Oh, and don't forget to enter my competition to receive a free signed copy of The Last Girl Guide - only 7 days left to enter.

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New Book Release

I am happy to announce the release of my first Children's Chapter book - Molly Midnight and the Little People. Published under the pen name Tessa Thompson and available now on Amazon.

Molly Midnight is descended from a long line of witches, but their magic is long forgotten. Until the day Molly inherits her Grandfathers doll’s house.

The Midnight family doll’s House holds a secret. Inside, live all of her long-lost ancestors. Now, the lives of these tiny people are under threat - a Witch Hunter has arrived in the village.

Can Molly learn how to use magic in time to save her family and the house full of little people?

"A magical adventure story."

"An enchanting new series, children everywhere will be certain to fall under Molly Midnight's spell!"

A Writers Life - Disasters

Okay, so this week has been a busy week, I planned the complete outlines of the five books that I intended to work on over the next twelve months and even got their cover designs drafted.

Cover Design for my new
Thriller Series - Hoyle & Son

I downloaded a new scrivener app so that I could sync my work onto my iPad for when I had a flash of inspiration and no laptop handy. I was feeling pretty happy with myself, smug even. 

Then, just like there really was some Amish-like God up there waving his divine finger at me and tut-tutting at my shameful display of pride - KERPOW! Everything fell apart. 

Cover design for the third
in the Afterland Chronicles
Series - Ice & Fyre

Maybe I did worship at the feet of that false God of 'Technology' a little too enthusiastically - recklessly even, but the punishment was harsh. My new syncing app synced all of my work into oblivion, including the first five chapters of Ice and Fyre. I am not ashamed to tell you I cried like a beauty queen only not so prettily. 

So, instead of spending the day busily writing as originally planned, I spent the next eight hours trying to recover my work. After googling thousands of 'solutions' to my problem, trawling through hundreds of backup files and performing various geeky technological gymnastics, I got most of it back. Though it appears that the first Chapter of Ice and Fyre sadly, is lost forever. 

Trying to remember a couple of thousand words that you wrote a few weeks ago seems an impossible task especially when those words were painstakingly crafted to resolved the cliffhanger left at the end of Ryte of Passage, So now I have to rewrite it....

Looks like this week is going to be another busy week - doubly so because I'm going to backup the hell out of everything!

Karen

Fantastic Weekend at Latitude Music and Arts Festival!

Last weekend I attended Latitude Festival with my youngest daughter Anna. It is the eighth Latitude Festival that I have attended and in terms of weather, it was certainly one of the best. Though I attend mainly for the music, the Literary and Arts components are second only perhaps to Glastonbury. This year's literary offer included Author Naomi Alderman, comedian, and writer Sara Pascoe, award-winning campaigner Leyla Hussein and  Amy Annette (editor of I call myself a Feminist) discussing the new feminism and issues around women and power.

The Baileys Women’s Prize for Fiction winner was attending the festival for the first time. She presented three exciting events hosted by novelist and BWPFF co-founder Kate Mosse. Now in its twenty-first year, the Baileys Women’s Prize for Fiction is the UK’s most prestigious annual book award for fiction written by a woman. 

Set up in 1996 to celebrate and promote international fiction by women throughout the world to the widest range of readers possible, the Prize is awarded for the best novel of the year written by a woman. I can only dream of honors such of these, but who knows one day...

Indie Publishing Sweeps The Top Ten Board!

They said it could never happen. They said that if you wanted to make it big as a writer then you would have to be published by one of the big five traditional publishing houses.

They were wrong.

Today, some of the highest earning authors are Indie (self-published) authors. Many of them have chosen this route, not simply because they could not interest a mainstream publisher in their work, but because Indie publishing pays.

A book published traditionally earns the writer something like 17% of the retail price of the book, whereas an Indie author earns, on average, around 70%

As a consequence, the Amazon.com Kindle top 10 on Friday this week is:

1: The Moonlit Garden by Cynthia Bomann (AmazonCrossing — Amazon Publishing imprint)

2: The Throwaway Children by Diney Costeloe (Head of Zeus — indie publisher)

3: Yours Completely by Krista Lakes (Zirconia Publishing — indie/self-published)

4: Harmony Black by Craig Schaefer (47North — Amazon imprint)

5: Just One Damned Thing After Another by Jodie Taylor (Accent Press — indie publisher)

6: A Shade of Vampire by Bella Forrest (Self-published)

7: January: Calendar Girl Book by Audrey Carlan (Accent Press — indie publisher)

8: Fields of Wrath by Mark Wheaton (Thomas & Mercer — Amazon imprint)

9: The Good Neighbor by A J Banner (Lake Union — Amazon imprint)

10: The Short Drop by Matthew FitzSimmons (Thomas & Mercer — Amazon imprint)

So, how do these books compare for quality with their more traditionally published counterparts?

I intend to find out.

Each week, beginning next week I shall review a top rated indie book in a new series of posts - The 'Best of Indie' series.

If you have any suggestions, or you would like to put a book forward for review, feel free to contact me.  Remember, though, I intend to be scrupulously honest.

My first review will be of Jodie Taylor's time travel adventure, 'Just One Damned Thing After Another' (Published by Accent Press - Indie Publisher)

Time travel meets history in this explosive, bestselling adventure series. 

At St Mary’s Institute of Historical Research, the historians don’t just study the past, they revisit it. 

Behind the strait-laced façade of a conventional academic institution, the secret of time travel is being used for ground-breaking and daring historical research taking the historians on a rollercoaster ride through history: from the destruction of Pompeii to the Normandy trenches; from the Great Fire of London to Bronze Age Troy and even to the time of the dinosaurs… 

Meanwhile, within at St Mary’s itself, there are power struggles and intrigues worthy of a book in themselves. 

In Book One, we follow new recruit Max as she rides the catastrophe curve from eleventh-century London to the First World War, and from the Cretaceous Period to the destruction of the Great Library at Alexandria. For wherever Historians go, chaos is sure to follow in their wake ... 

Check back here next week to find out what I think...

The Story Continues...

Last weekend I began book two of the Atfterland Chronicles and managed to complete the first draft of Chapter one of the book which has the working title 'Ryte of Passage'. It is my intention to develop some of the newer characters as well as delve more deeply into the relationships between each of the main protagonists and of course the antagonists. 

The book is to begin where Ascension of the Whyte ended,  so nothing important will be missed out. Twists and turns in the plot are already in the scheme of things. It really is great fun and an exciting challenge to try to surprise my readers and keep them interested and engaged in the story. I love it!

 

Take a look at the image that is to be used for the cover design for Ryte of Passage... There will be dragons too!

Karen 

Proof Copies of Ascension of the Whyte Arrive!

Well here they are, the proof copies of Ascension of the Whyte, ready for the final proofing.

So far I have discovered a few errors including one major omission ... The page numbers!  Hopefully I have now addressed all the issues and can approve the publication of the novel in paperback by the end of the month.

So if you are one of the "I like the feel of a real paper book" people, then you should be able to get your hands on a copy shortly. Until then the book is available on Amazon for Kindle, check out the links on the sidebar. 

Karen