New Book Coming Soon! And #CoverReveal

 

Publishing around the beginning of September :)

⛔

- Safe Zone -

⛔

Safe Zone is a stand-alone novel of around 75k words, though it's associated with my SFV-1 series { Infected, Darkness and Reset }.  

The blurb so far...

Ten years after the SFV-1 rage virus devastated the world, the population of the UK is confined to one corner of the South East.  The newly recognised state of the UK Safe Zone is protected by a vast wall around the entire landmass, and by patrol boats around the coast.

Within, the creation of a new, functioning society is a work in progress, hindered by the fact that not everyone has arrived of their own free will, and some have been irrevocably damaged by the trials of the past decade.

Then there's the dark cloud on the horizon - news of a greater threat in Europe, that's heading their way...

***

The Best #Book Trailers I've Found! #WritingCommunity #Writers

 

What a find!  

I saw a book trailer complete with music on a pinned tweet, commented on how much I liked it ... and discovered it was made by writer Kathleen Harryman.

I got in touch with Kathleen, told her what I was looking for - and was somewhat blown away by the results.  She was a delight to work with, keen to understand the mood of the books and what I wanted to convey, with masses of her own ideas. She is so creative, super-talented at what she does, so if you're looking for this sort of thing, do get in touch with her to discuss your requirements/pricing, etc.  She also does book covers and other digital artwork.

Here are the videos for my dystopian Operation Galton series - if you would like to look at the books themselves, just click the title.  Do put the sound on, because the music adds so much!  At the end are the videos that first caught my eye; a totally different genre that shows how versatile Kathleen is.  

HOPE

(short version)

WASTELAND

(short version)

MEGACITY

WHOLE SERIES

And here are two videos that Kathleen made for...

 THE WAITING HOUSE ~ A Novel in Stories 

by Lisette Brodey, that made me think, I want some of those!  

Again, click the title to see full details about the book.

I think the music for these is so haunting...beautiful

WWW Wednesday

WWW Wednesday is a meme hosted by Sam at Taking on a World of Words. It’s open for anyone to join in and is a great way to share what you’ve been reading :)

Currently Reading:

The Grifter by Sean Campbell & Ali Gunn

📚

Most Recently Read:

Creation by Bjorn Larssen

📚

Going to Read Next:

Cousin Calls by Zeb Haradon

Rosie's Review-A-Book Challenge #RRABC

Introducing Rosie's Review-A-Book Challenge #RRABC

 

 

Did you know that 99% of the reading public never post a review for a book?

At Rosie Amber's Book Review Team (six years and going strong!), we often look at ways to encourage more people to review.  This autumn, Rosie has planned a Review-A-Book Challenge, with a great list of books to choose from, all free of charge to anyone serious about writing a review for her blog - and possibly joining the review team, if you enjoy the process.

 

(In June this year, I wrote about why I love being a member of the team - it's HERE if you would like to take a look)

Each day for a week or so, she will feature articles on how to write simple reviews, on choosing a star rating, and many more.  The challenge is open to all, from experienced reviewers and book bloggers, to those who have never written a review.  If this has piqued your interest and you would like to take a look at the books on offer, please click here to read the full post and view the book list.

 

 

 

The Visitor is knocking on your door.....

 

New Book Time 😀

~*~

The Visitor is now live!  

Find it on Amazon HERE (universal link).

 

In 2024, a mystery virus ravages the entire world.  'Bat Fever' is highly contagious and a hundred per cent lethal. 

A cottage tucked away in an isolated Norfolk village seems like the ideal place to sit out a catastrophic pandemic, but some residents of Hincham resent the arrival of Jack, Sarah and their friends, while others want to know too much about them.

What the villagers don't know is that beneath Sarah's cottage is a fully-stocked, luxury survival bunker.  A post-apocalyptic 'des res'.   

Hincham isolates itself from the rest of the country, but the deaths continue―and not from the virus.  There's a killer on the loose, but is it a member of the much depleted community, or someone from outside?  As the body count rises, paranoia sets in; friend suspects friend, and everyone suspects the newcomers.

Most terrifying of all is that no one knows who's next on the list...

The Visitor is Terry Tyler's twenty-second Amazon publication, and is set in the same world as her Project Renova series, while being a completely separate, stand-alone novel.  

Six Years of Rosie Amber's Book Review Team

I have been a member of Rosie Amber's Book Review Team (#RBRT) for five and a half years, now.  I first 'met' Rosie online when looking for reviews for my own early books, and through her some of the other bloggers who later became part of the team.

I admit to being wary of making the commitment when I joined the review team, but I'm so glad I did; Rosie has created something so positive for the independently published world (the team deals mainly with the self-published or those published by independents), and I am proud to be a part of it.  When I joined, I decided to start my own book review blog - I don't profess to be a 'proper' book blogger as I'm primarily a writer; I don't take submissions and use it only for reviewing for Rosie and my own reading choices, but it's something I enjoy doing. 😀

If you are interested in joining us, Rosie has written an article about how her review team works, on BookerTalk blog - you can read it HERE.  Details of how to apply to join are HERE.  You don't need to have a book blog, and you don't need any credentials apart from a love of reading.

There are two main reasons why I'm so glad I joined the team, equally important.  The first is the discovery of some truly excellent books; now and again, you find a real gem, that you want to shout about; so often these are books that are hidden away on Amazon and you would have never discovered, had the author not submitted.  Here are a few that made me feel this way (link takes you to my review):

The Men by Fanny Calder
The Usurper King  by Zeb Haradon
The World Without Flags by Ben Lyle Bedard 
Singularity Syndrome by Susan Kuchinskas
The Unrivalled Transcendence of Willem J Gyle by James D Dixon
The Unravelling of Brendan Meeks by Brian Cohn
Back Home by Tom Williams

Other books I've loved are highlighted on Rosie's two part post:

#RBRT GOLD: My Review Team's Favourite Books (Part 1)

#RBRT Gold: My Review Team's Favourite Books (Part 2)

 

The second reason I love being a part of #RBRT is that some of us have become real life friends, too, enjoying several meet-ups.

Here are me, Rosie, Shelley, Cathy and Barb, in Matlock, April 2019 - a lovely weekend!

Leicester, December 2016

With Rosie, Cathy, Barb and Alison - Sheffield, October 2015

  
Here's to six more years of Rosie Amber's Book Review Team! 💃

What are you reading this week?

WWW Wednesday is a meme hosted by Sam at Taking on a World of Words. It’s open for anyone to join in and is a great way to share what you’ve been reading! All you have to do is answer three questions and share a link to your blog in the comments section of Sam’s blog.

The three Ws are:

What are you currently reading?

What did you recently finish reading?

What do you think you’ll read next?

Here are my answers :)

I'm currently reading Jonah by Carl Rackman (which is BRILLIANT, definitely one of the best books I've read this year!) 

I've recently finished reading All The Tomorrows by Nillu Nasser: a very well written, highly emotional family drama set in Bombay.

I think next I will read For the Love of a Child : a short story collection by Jenny Twist.

 

How do readers discover books?

If you're a self-published or independent/small press published author, you've probably read many blog posts about what makes a reader choose to buy a book.  Is it the eye-catching cover?  The favourite genre?  The catchy blurb?  The price?  The reviews?  Of course, it's a combination of some or all of those elements.  Before any of them, though, comes the greatest problem of all:

In a time when thousands of new books are published every week, how do you get the reader to discover the actual existence of your book in the first place?  

As well as being a writer, I am an avid reader.  I read 99% of books on the Kindle app on my tablet, and download between 1 and 10 a week.  I read, or start to read, between 6 and 15 books a month.  I'm sure you've seen all those graphs showing how most readers discover the books they buy, so I thought I'd do an assessment of the around 300 books I've reviewed on my book blog.  The categories differ slightly from those you see on standard graphs, but I think the results will be interesting for writers and book bloggers to see how an average Kindle user makes her choices ~ particularly for those writers who don't buy Kindle books themselves, but hope to sell their own.

Here goes:

Amazon: chanced upon during an Amazon browse (usually in 'also boughts'), 

or books that have come up as recommended for me by Amazon.

16

Book Blog: downloaded after reading a review on a book blog, 

or other article about the book/author.

36

Personal Friend Recommendation.

4

Twitter, after talking to the author/getting to know them.

34

Twitter, via a passing tweet.

16

Favourite author: 

When I've read one book by an author via one of the other discovery routes, 

and liked it enough to buy another of their books ~ sometimes just one other, but with some authors that initial discovery has resulted in multiple downloads.

92

Chosen to review from the list of submissions

on Rosie Amber's Review Team, of which I am a member.

90

Other Review Request: I don't take requests generally,

but on occasion a fellow writer has asked me to review a book, 

or I've read submissions for an award.

10

Paperback lent to me.

3

Won the book 
(incidentally, I've since bought and reviewed all of this author's work)

1

Bought after watching a TV programme or film.

8

Classic I always meant to read.

1

Facebook promotion or advert.

0

Goodreads recommendation.

0

Sometimes the categories merge, for instance, when I choose a book from Rosie's review team list that I would have bought anyway.  And do bear in mind that I don't use Facebook much, and when I do it's mostly in a non-book/writing fashion.  It's worth noting, too, that I am about 50% more likely to download a book if it is available on Kindle Unlimited.

I'd be most interested to hear how you make your choices 😃

RAPID FIRE #Book Tag #amreading #bookbloggers

I was tagged in this by Cathy 

from Between The Lines book blog 

eBooks or physical books?

I read everything on my tablet via Kindle app. 

Paperback or hardback?

Paperbacks seem cumbersome enough these days ~ definitely not hardback! 

Online or in-store shopping? 
I buy almost all my books online.  Times change....

Trilogies or series? 
Presumably this means one long story that covers three books, or lots of novels with one theme?  Impossible to answer.  Depends on the story/writer.

Heroes or villains? 
Villains (or maybe villeins; I like medieval history...)

A Book You Want Everyone to Read?

The Silent Kookaburra by Liza Perrat

Recommend an underrated book

Any Man Joe by Robert Leigh

Weirdest thing you used as a book mark? 
I don't use weird things, but I usually use old photos from a pile I have in a little basket on the floor of the living room.

Used books, yes or no? 
Yes, unless the previous owner died of the Black Death.

Top three favourite genres? 
Historical, post apocalyptic, adventure-thriller.

The last book you finished? 
Codename Lazarus by A P Martin

Characters or plot? 
Characters - a mediocre plot can be overcome with great characters, but the best plot in the world is only mediocre if the characters are one-dimensional.

Short or long book?
 Long-ish.

Long or short chapters? 
Whatever suits the book.

Name the first three books you think of? 
The Last Kingdom by Bernard Cornwell, because I've just been reading about the TV adaptation of the second book

The Lady's Slipper by Deborah Swift, because I was discussing it with a friend, earlier today.

The Utopia Experiment by Dylan Evans, because it's what I'm reading at the moment.

Books that make you laugh or cry? 
Neither.  I like books that fascinate, teach, thrill, or make me go 'Well, blow me down, I wasn't expecting that.'

Our world or fictional worlds? 
Our world - even if it's just been hit by disaster....

Do you ever judge a book by its cover? 
No.  Some of the best self-pub books I've read have homemade covers.  

And I've seen too many wonderful covers let down by what's inside.

Book to movie or book to TV adaptation? 
Either, if they're well done.  I only hate it when they don't stick to the book, or pick actors who don't look like the characters in my head.

Series or standalone? 
Series, if I love it - well, you just want more, don't you?

 As Cathy said, if you want to be tagged in this, please let me know in the comments!

Online Book Awards: the end of the year mentions that make the year's work so worthwhile

At the end of each year I look forward to putting together my 'Best of' list of the memorable books of the year.  I love to spread the word about my favourites, especially if they're self-published, just starting out, don't have a huge following, or whatever, because it's so damn hard to gain recognition in these days of total market saturation and goodness knows how many millions of books on Amazon already, with thousands more being released each month.   So here's my favourite books of 2016, if you aren't amongst the *large number* of people who've already looked at it on my book blog!

Another reason I like to put this list together each year is that there is nothing quite like discovering your book on someone else's 'best of the year' list.  Almost more than anything, these accolades make all the hard work and the 'oh God I've just written 30K words of total garbage' days worth it.  I was over the moon to see The Devil You Know on four book blogger 'best of the year' posts.  So a big huge enormous thank you to Lizanne: Lost in a good book, Between The Lines, Mrs Bloggs' Books and Alison Williams :).  

I was also delighted to see The House of York named in EmmabBooks' list of 5* rated books for 2016.  I'm so grateful for all the reviews for both books this year, and for my novella Best Seller which I released in March.  I was surprised and bowled over to see it named as 'Favourite Overall' for 2016 on Ellie Firestone's blog.  I got this book ready for publication whilst laid up in bed after a knee op.  Being immobile had its upside!  My husband got me one of those table things like they have in hospitals, for my laptop; through February, March and April my world was my bed, my crutches and my laptop on that table.

I think anyone who tries to sell something they've produced, be it a book, music, art, whatever, spends half the time assailed by self-doubt, and the validation of a reader considering your work good enough for a 'best of' post is such a confidence booster.

   
So, will I be calling myself 'award winning'???  I love what fellow writer Carl Rackman said.  He's going to call himself an award winning author, because he won awards for swimming in 1987, and he's an author.  My husband made the same suggestion to me a while back: "They don't know the award is for the backstroke" (and no, I won't be calling myself an 'award winning author'!).