Wednesday 25 May 2022

FREE ebooks - Haldred Chronicles

A very quick advertising post

For the next 4 days, these 3 books are absolutely #FREE on #Amazon #Kindle. Grab them whilst you can!

Kalla, Shade and Anna

Haldred Chronicles

A fantasy detective series set in a post war world

https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0753GF78T?binding=kindle_edition&ref=dbs_dp_awt_sb_pc_tukn

#KindleUnlimited #freeebook #ebook #fantasy #crime #urbanfantasy

Oh and this is a small thing, probably shouldn't even mention it, probably best not to even but...

I'm in the process of writing book 5...



Tuesday 25 January 2022

Happy New Year

 


Bit late with this, but it’s still the first month of the new year.  Happy New Year all!

As usual, remember, Alyssa can be purchased at Amazon.co.uk HERE and at Amazon.com HERE

So, a lot has been happening in the last few months.

With book 1 out and launched, I spent most of the last few months of 2021 pitching Alyssa and hoping for sales.  I did indeed get sales but not as many as I had hoped.  Still, I learned a lot.

All of January I ran a series of Amazon free book deals for all 3 of my other books. I likewise advertised on Facebook and A LOT on Twitter.

The results were mixed.

On the one hand, I sold over 200 ebooks (as in they were picked up free.) And also a few people downloaded my books on kindle unlimited, reading well over 500 pages.  Additionally, my work on Twitter raised my follower count to nearly 4400.  And this time, not all of them were other authors!

But so far I’ve only seen 1 ebook purchased and no copies of Alyssa seem to have sold yet. I had hoped that purchases of the other books would in turn make people curious about book 1.  Still learning experience.

I intend to use February to concentrate solely on pitching Alyssa, but also, I hope to write book 5.

Yes, book 5 is officially being written!  I have a new idea on an old story plan and am now modifying and improving it.  A couple of thousand words already.

If I can maintain momentum, I hope to release it sometime toward the end of 2022 but I will see how things go.

Anyway, that’s my brief blog update.

Take care all of you.

Tuesday 30 November 2021

Haldred Chronicles: the series expands!


For those who have been following my social media accounts, you’ll have noticed I’ve been busy.


So yeah, all my books are now available in both eBook and paperback

What happened back in the day is that I did have Alyssa, Kalla and Shade (my first 3 books) in paperback via Amazons ‘CreateSpace' platform. This worked for a spell, but there were 2 big problems.


First was that whilst the first 3 books were in paperback, my fourth book ‘Anna' was not. In addition, due to the way I formatted the books, they came out very big and expensive to produce. Hence, not a lot of them sold.

However, now all that has changed.

I have been able to use Amazon KDP to reformat the original paperbacks and also set up a paperback version of Anna.


As a result, all 4 books are now available alongside the recently republished Alyssa in a similarly size format.  And better priced.

 

You can now buy all 4 books in paperback and they will look pretty good on your book shelf!

Link to Amazon.co.uk HERE and link to Amazon.com HERE

Enjoy! 

Saturday 23 October 2021

Haldred Chronciles: two months on






Haldred Chronicles: Alyssa UK editions are HERE and US Editions HERE

In this blog I thought i'd talk about what worked and what didn’t in my efforts to get the word out about my book.




First to purchase were my wonderful friends and family, who bought a whole raft of electronic and paper copies. And also told people about it on Social media!




I then gave ‘Facebook advertising' a go with a few test posts that were promoted for short periods. The posts had a ‘buy it now' option which according to analytics was clicked a good few times. However, as to just how effective this was I won’t know until December when the first sales report comes through.




I also became highly active on Twitter and a few book advertising sites. I’ve now around 3700 followers on twitter but I’ve found that particularly social media avenue better for ‘writers encouragement' as apposed to selling books; the majority of my followers are other writers!




Finally, throughout the month of October I ran a series of ‘Free’ ebook promotions for my original books. The idea was to generate some renewed interest in the series. Certainly this seems to have worked as my Amazon ranking for all 4 books have improved a lot.




The question now is what to do next. I really want to have an official ‘book launch' but I’m also hoping to contact a few newspapers with press releases. I have a nice big list of additional advertising ideas, but the issue will be getting the time and resources to implement them!




Overall, I’m happy with how things have started off. The book is out, people are buying it and most importantly, people like it!




On to the next phase!

Tuesday 21 September 2021

The world of Haldred Chronicles


So, what do you think?

The newly rewritten Haldred Chronicles: Alyssa has been out a few weeks, people have been buying it and reviews have been positive.

UK editions are HERE and US Editions HERE

So, time to write a little about the world and history.

Basically, Haldred Chronicles is set in a post war fantasy world. A vast all encompassing war called the Six Nations War had been raging for 50 years. Then, quiet suddenly, the six war weary nations (Magra, Tornar, Trima, Darnhun, Halnas and Argon) declared peace and their civilisations attempted to ‘get back to normal.’

Into this scenario the various Haldred Chronicles stories play out.  The over arching theme, and over riding concern for most of the characters, is maintaining this fragile peace. As might be expected, there are many individuals and factions interested and intent on restarting the war. They serve as the primary antagonists.

As for the protagonists, most of them belong or are associated with the ‘Council of Peace', an international organisation setup to monitor and maintain the peace by ‘any and all means necessary'. So whilst they might maintain the peace, they aren’t shy from doing so using violence themselves.

This setting also means that the series as a whole manages to cross multiple writing genres. It’s definitely ‘fantasy’ based, many of the stories taking place in an ‘urban fantasy' setting. Additionally, the stories have ‘Crime fiction' and ‘mystery’ aspects as the stories often involve crimes and their investigations in the pursuit of maintaining peace. Plus because it’s me, there is quiet a bit of humour thrown in.

Hope this is of interest to some of you.

Enjoy!

 

Monday 30 August 2021

Haldred Chronicles Alyssa released!

It’s here at last

Well I’ve already been extensively advertising on social media, but thought I’d blog about this as well.

 

It’s out ladies and gentlemen. After 3 years of recruiting, editing, proof reading and production, my first book ‘Haldred Chronicles: Alyssa' is now out!

 

Get it HERE

 

Also, for those in America HERE

 

I hope over the next few months I’ll be posting a little more regularly, talking about the writing and design of Alyssa, what I’ve learnt about writing, the world the book is set in amongst other things.

 

But for now, please enjoy my book.

 

Take care

 

 

Thursday 27 August 2020

Still Alive, Still Writing

Writing in the COVID Era

My last update was in Christmas 2019.  How things have changed.

We’ve weathered the storm here, and it has been a storm.  We’ve been locked down and cut off for long periods of time due to sickness, and as the months have rolled by time has been hard to come by for us at least. 

Work has been exceedingly busy, which has meant between work and family, very little time for writing.

However, I’ve not been idle.

I’ve managed to keep a custom written D&D Role play game going with 4 friends of mine.  This has let me at least flex my creative muscles and do a bit of scenario and back story writing.  To keep me in the game so to speak.

Likewise, I’ve been in touch with my publisher and despite everything, progress is being made.  Sadly they have been affected by COVID more so than me; based in America, their immediate area has been badly hit like the rest of the country.

What happens next?  Hopefully in the next few months if things calm down there will be some progress on the novel and I will get a bit more time to write.  This all depends on things continuing to improve here in Northern Ireland, and at last improving in America.   We will see.

Stay safe everyone