She is the key to everything. Until a few months ago, Cat’s only worries were about her foster parents and whether she’ll be shipped off to another boarding school over the summer. Dealing with a painful past and a friendless existence were at the top of her priority list. All of that is about to change. Shortly after she finds out that she’ll be remaining home for the summer, the visions, headaches, and terrible pains start. Then a new guy shows up in her quiet neighborhood, and, suddenly, her visions are showing events surrounding him and other strange beings. Nothing is as it seems. In this new world, nothing is the way it was, and everything requires her to become more than a frightened foster kid trying to make it through the day. She’s determined to get answers, but the more she sees in her visions, the less certain she is that she wants those answers. But answers are coming. Like it or not.
My Review of On Twilight’s Wings (The Eclesian Chronicles Book 1)
4/5 stars
This is a well written, enjoyable YA fantasy, with strong characters and an interesting storyline. I love stories about Angels and really enjoyed the love story between Cat and Gabe.
The reason for 4 stars instead of 5 is purely because of my past I struggle with stories of abuse and prefer more upbeat books so I can hide away from reality. There is also no ending which was disappointing, but glad to see this is book one and more will follow as I’d like to know what happens next.
Definitely a story young adult females will love.
Find out more about Ariel Paiement and check up on her reviews of other fantasy books on her wonderful blog.
Okay, for the first time, Tracy Traynor owes me a box of tissues! Wow, she just ripped out my heart, stomped all over it, and I didn’t even see it coming! Keep the tissues close by as you are reading FAITH IN ABERTILLERY . She will have your emotions all over the place. I have never read any other books by Tracy Traynor before but I know FAITH IN ABERTILLERY won’t be the last! Wow! What an awesome story. Once I started reading, it was very hard to stop! Tracy makes her readers feel every emotion her characters are feeling to the point where you feel as if you are right there, struggling along with them.
Faith needs to find a job and quickly. Her mother relies on her as well as Bertie. She begins working for Lord Geoffrey Driscoll as a maid. Before that, she was a…
With ‘An Officer & A Gentleman’ feel, and a Christmas Day ending, this is a perfect festive season, feel-good book. She’s given up on love. He’s marrying for money. But God has other plans…
South Wales, 1905. Faith only believes in the certainty of pain and suffering. Born with a club foot and harboring a dark secret, the barmaid can’t escape her sinful past. But after the country’s religious revival puts her out of a job, hope sparks when a handsome aristocrat gallantly offers her a second chance.
Lord Geoffrey Driscoll fears his estate will run out of money before he can find a suitable bride. However, the devout nobleman can’t keep his mind off the stunning redhead despite her lowly status. As the attraction between them grows, Lord Driscoll is torn between his need for a wife of means and his heart.
I thought I might share how I recently got to be a Amazon UK BestSeller. Below is a graph showing the dates, who I used to promote, how much I was charged and how many sales I received. Hopefully, from the below you will be able to ascertain whether running consecutive promotions is something you might consider.
Promoter
Cost
UK
USA
CA
AUS
Total
Weds 11th
Book Raid
$2.16
2
4
6
Thurs 12th
Reading Deals
$29.00
&
Books Go Social
$39.50
1
7
1
9
Fri 13th
Fussy Librarian
$24.00
&
Book Cave
$25.00
1
34
1
36
Sat 14th
BookBub (not on in USA)
$188.00
78
6
18
21
123
Sun 15th
Books Go Social
$39.50
7
4
3
2
16
All 5 days
Amazon Ads
$25.00
2
2
Total promotion cost
$370.00
89
57
21
25
Total Sales
192
I reduced the price of ‘Idi & the Oracle’s Quest’ from $2.99 to $0.99 on Tues 10th Sep. On the 10th I received 3 sales and this can confidentally be accounted for by friends on FB sharing my post and also tweeting. Throughout the entire 6 days I tweeted numberous times and it is hard to know if any sales came from these tweets. I use Bitly to monitor link clicks on Twitter and in total I had 122 clicks, whether a few of these resulted in sales is hard to determine. I also can’t be 100% sure if the sales on the lines match the promoter as there would of course been a merging of promotions at certain times. This time round what was dissappointing for me where the two Amazon Ads I ran, normally these bring a much higher amount of sales.
Although I didn’t break-even during this promotion, let alone make a profit, that wasn’t the object of the exercise. The point of this campaign was exposure, to which end I am very confident to having received a measure of success.
The biggest success, of course, comes from the BookBub sales in the UK which took me to #1 and awarded me the Best Seller badge, which I can assure you I was over the moon about and opened the champagne to celebrate!
With a book only earning $0.34 per sale you can see I only received back a 5th of output. However, besides the books sales I received 6 audio sales, at a far better rate of return, and had many downloads with KDP Select, some days hitting over 3500 pages read, which in turn generates a fair income.
The last thing that upped my return were sales on my other books in the series, both book 2 and 3 sold 8 copies each at full price of $2.99.
Do I think the promotion was successful, and would I do it again – yes and in a heartbeat. It’s only been a couple of days since the promotion stopped and I’ve already had a review, just can’t beat that.
IDI &The Oracle’s Quest (Born To Be-Book 1) by TN Traynor
IDI & The Oracle’s Quest is a magical story with many different and wonderful characters. This is the perfect book to read when you have a free day and a long evening. I felt that this book expresses that everyone is special through the character IDI an Orphan living a life where he doesn’t feel loved or understood and doesn’t feel special at all. But life and growth can make all the difference.
The story itself follows Marcus and the band of brothers as they prepare to meet the chosen one. However, Marcus is sent by a magic oracle to help IDI discover he is magical and special and hopes he will help him discover the chosen one. However, will Marcus convince IDI of his hidden powers? Will they go on a journey to find the…
Magical, enchanting, romantic, heartwarming… just a few words to describe this lovely book. Ever since I was little I have loved fairy tales. The magic, the mystery, the happy-ever-after. In For A Spell is definitely an adult (quite adult in one particular section!) fairy tale – and I loved it!
Finn, the interfering Elf, reminded me so much of Rumpelstiltskin it just made me smile every time he turned up on a page. This book is, however, much more than a fairy tale. For a start it’s a time-travelling romance, and a really good one at that. Maisie Armstrong is a wonderful character. I loved reading about the virtues that we nowadays would consider ‘old-fashioned.’ And who wouldn’t want to travel back in time to a place where honour was held in high regard? Especially if there was a tall, handsome, complicated laird Thane McKendrick waiting to sweeep you off your feet? This story is told really well, it flows smoothly and held my attention on every page. The theme takes you on a debate as to what really defines love and it’s importance in society in general, rather than just in your own life. Quite thought provoking. If you’re an adult, who like me, still loves a bit of magic, then this is a book you should read.
Sharon Clare has written other books and I really look forward to reading them. She is also an artist and offers book cover designs for authors. Sharon’s web page
I need to start by saying thank you for narrating my books. I think you do a wonderful job of portraying my characters and bringing the stories to life. I never could have afforded to pay up front the recommended thousands of dollars for the narration of my books. Without royalty share, I can honestly say I would have no audiobooks. It really was a good day when you popped a comment onto Facebook saying you would narrate my books for me.
I have been looking into how you promote audiobooks and
during that process I came across some facts about narrating which I didn’t
know. This instantly made me appreciate
you, and Stevie Zimmerman (who narrated Grace in Mombasa) so much more. I say more, because in all honesty I did
already appreciate both of you already, today just increased it.
This got me to thinking about why you might choose profit
share and so I decided to invite you to this short interview, so that I and
others, can learn what motivates narrators.
So here we go…
What first drew you into narrating as a possible
way of making a living?
Narrating was an
idea initially for my good friend Harriet, more of a hobby than a living
really.
What do you most enjoy about narrating?
The challenge of
different accents, the chance to read great stories and have the characters
come to life,
I understand that it can take a narrator up to
5 or 6 hours to produce 1 hour of audio, so for example, Idi & the Oracle’s
Quest is 7.15 hours long, meaning this could have taken you 40 hours – a full
weeks work, to narrate and produce. With
this in mind why were you happy to accept royalty share when there is no
guarantee of making your weeks pay up?
I enjoy narrating –
it’s a good hobby. I make a penny or two here and there but in the end it’s a
good hobby. I also get to practice voices – which I can then use if in a stage
production.
How do you select the books you want to
narrate?
Reading the blurb
can do it, reading the author’s bio can do it. There are some stories that I
always wanted to have a go at such as Sherlock Holmes – one audiobook would
have been good – so far it’s about 90!
What attracted you to the ‘Born to Be’
series?
The story sounded
full of life and didn’t disappoint.
How did you decided on what kind of accents
my characters would have?
They seemed to come
to mind as soon as I started reading. I tried to group the witch clans with a
certain region and as new characters are introduced, pick what seemed to be
appropriate based on their speech.
With book 1 & 2 narrated on Audible, what
has inspired you to carry on and narrate the last in the series, Idi & the
Sirocco Witch, when we really haven’t had many sales for the other two books
yet?
Can’t do book 1 and
2 and leave 3 out. The sales will come to this series once people start to get
the word.
Are you enjoying book 3, and if so, what is
it that you like?
Very much – all the
characters are great, even the naughty. As
the build from book 1 and 2 has gone, Idi is indeed becoming what we expect.
The story continues as though you had never stopped writing, sometimes sequels
can have you wondering what is going on.
What acting choices do you make when you’re
going to narrate a book? When you narrate
are you expressive with your hands and face, do you feel like you become the
characters or are you simply reading?
I do fling the arms
and thankfully don’t have a mirror to hand so see the faces I pull.
What advice would you offer to people who
want to become narrators?
Pick a few small
(30-60min) projects first. This will allow you to gauge the time required to
produce a 7+ hour book. I use a spreadsheet with each chapter listed – the
start, end and total pages and current progress, a 1 for record, edit, listen
and upload. This allows you to gauge the time required a chapter – so perhaps 5
pages will take you 15 minutes or so – 15 pages 45 etc. this could allow you to
record out of sequence based on time spare on a given session. Depending on the
pagination, 5 pages can seem like a lifetime to record.
Also, if producing
older material, it will be good to have a lookup for words that have fallen out
of use.
Do you think the ACX royalty share scheme is
good?
(NO)
It allows for
authors to get an audiobook published without an upfront payment.
It allows the
narrator to want to do a good a job as possible to ensure that the book sells
What other books have you narrated?
Many – up to 150
now. Lots of Sherlock Holmes stories – published by MX Publishing and Belanger
Books. Quite a number of Horror titles, and so far 13 Hotdog Man books which
are fun to do.
Where can authors find you if they would like
to approach you to consider their books?
Via email or my Facebook profile, look for “Steevin White” – this spelling
is also due to my friend Harriet – it’s how she spells my name.
Thanks Steve! It was really interesting to get the POV of the narrator and to learn a little more about the hard work they put into producing an audio. I think I have been very lucky to get my books out there via royalty-share, so thank you very much for picking up my books.
When you’re someone like me, who struggles so much with grammar and the rules of good writing, then this tool is a lifesaver!
The above is my score for Faith in Abertillery before sending it to the professional editor. This is amazing for me.
If you score over 85 and apply for a Quality Mark from BooksGoSocial you could get a gold badge! This is a good thing to have to show people that the quality of your book is to a certain standard.
My score used to be appalling, however, using AutoCrit is teaching me what to look out for and how to improve my writing. It is like having a teacher as far as I am concerned.
Just the Grammar section alone, is worth every penny, but there is so much more to this tool that I just can’t recommend it more highly. The very first time I ran my first book through summary I discovered I had used the word ‘lovely’ 138 times!
The pacing tool is also fab, showing you where your chapters run slow or too fast. There is also a comparrison tool to compare your books to well known authors. I have been using it for a year now and don’t know how I managed without it. I am learning more and more every day.
You can get a 10-day trial for $1 and for anyone thinking about it I think this is a fab service, if you play around for 10 days and decide it’s not for you all it’s cost you is $1!
Anyway, I’m just that happy with it I wanted to share it with you. 🙂
Whatever tool you use to help your writing I hope it works for you, good luck everyone, knock some cracking stories out!
Ok, I admit it, I’m a fantasy fan through and through. What I’m an even bigger fan of is, fantasy books that are both gripping and easy to read. This means that, Darkspire Reaches has to go onto my list of really enjoyable fantasy books.
Raven is a wonderful heroine, a witch, who from the first page, brings the story to life and makes you want to know what happens to her. The author carries Raven’s story from start to end in a smooth, page-turning way. Poor Raven has it tough, her life seems to take her from the frying pan to the fire, over and over. Someone weaker might have been destroyed, but Raven uses it to mature her character. Diamonds are formed by heat and pressure, right? She isn’t the only main character though, and one of my favorites is Kryling, the endearing Firedrake who just simply has a great personality!
Oh how I enjoyed this well-written book! I can’t wait to read more books by CN Lesley.
I loved how the author took her time in explaining everything, while at the same time never once writing anything not necessary or boring.
The story line is unique – something quite hard to do when just about every story line possible to write has already been done in some way or another. Darkspire Reaches is filled with a rich tapestry of characters that just make this a really great fantasy read.
Do you think the Akakies will visit us soon? I do love a good joke.
Well wow, you would not believe that this was Sean Robins first book! At the end when I read his short bio and discovered he’s a teacher, that made sense – because the book, especially for a first novel, is beautifully edited, easy to read and well-structured.
If you’re a SciFi fan then you’re going to love this big book. It’s meaty (long and detailed) bringing all the characters to life, making you like and care for them. They’re real people, in hopefully, not so real circumstances. Normally long books lose me, but not so this one. Each chapter kept bringing everything to life, definitely could see it as a mini TV series. Loved the alien humour – who’d of guessed that four legs and antenna could host a joke prankster? I really enjoyed that you saw the ‘bad guys’ (aliens) through their own eyes so you could see each aspect of the story as it came together. Well I could go on and on, because as you can see, I thoroughly enjoyed this story – highly recommend. ps also loved the GOT references, nice touch 🙂
During my
research on the Welsh revival of 1904/1905 I came across two novels.
Queen
of the Rushes by Allen Raine &
The
Withered Root by Rhys Davies
How
I enjoyed reading these books and if I wasn’t a Christian I would quite happily
have read them and put them down and thought no more of it. However, as a Christian it was with heavy
heart that I read stories about revival that were both written from a non-Christian
POV. Davies openly declared himself an
atheist whilst Raine states that although not against the chapel itself she was
very suspicious of the revival.
So
here are my reviews…
The Withered Root by Rhys Davies
This book caused mixed emotions for me. On the one hand I think it deserves five stars and on the other hand only one star, so I went for three. The beginning of the book had me chuckling out loud quite a few times, especially over the conversations between Reuben’s parents. I loved how the writing reflected the way the Welsh talk and I loved the detail in which you can practically ‘see’ the old valleys in and around 1904/1905. It is also superbly written with beautiful flowing, almost poetical language. The downside for me was twofold. One was the author’s obvious dislike of women made blatantly obvious by his lack of even a single woman having any virtue or a good character, every woman doing nothing but flaunting her femininity in a derogative way. The other was in his portrayal of fanatical and shallow Christians. I found the second half of the book dark and depressing and was quite frankly glad to turn the last page. For research into the Welsh revival this is worth a read. For the beauty of the writing this is definitely worth a read. For its portrayal of women or Christians if you’re easily offended I would give this a miss.
I loved this book by this not so well remembered lady Anne
Evans, pseudonym Allen Raine. Her
characterisation is vivid and authentic, her settings skilful and poetic and
her portrayal of women so much more realistic than Davies. Writing about a time in which she lived she
is able to capture the rift in status between men and women beautifully without
labouring it or making it obvious.
She does, however, portray the people caught up in revival as
fanatics and one of her main characters is ‘touched’ as in loses her mind
because of it. Not a good light on the
outpouring of the Holy Spirit. Still
this book has many hidden lessons in it if you care to look and I really do
recommend it.
Anne didn’t start writing until she was 60 and received crushing reviews when first published… by men. Born in 1836 Anne was a Victorian through-and-through and I love that this emerges in her story. I wish I could have met Anne and sat down and discussed this book with her, arr well hopefully when I get to heaven!
In contrast to the two books above I will be writing about the Welsh revival from a Christian POV, I didn’t live in those times so I have done a massive amount of research to ensure my story is as authentic as possible. I wonder if anyone will read my book in a hundred years and look me up to see who I was and why I wrote the book!
I’m so excited to say that I will probably have the kindle of Grace in Mombasa up by Friday 23rd November – a whole week early!
I’d like to share with you the two endorsements that I have had for the book.
Tracy Traynor’s writing transports you from World War 1 and 2 England to the courts of heaven, via Mombasa. With characters which pop off the page and straight into your heart, this is a book you will remember for a long time. Wendy H Jones, author and member/webmaster of Association of Christian Writers.
The story of Grace captures the experience of many others who, though quite ordinary by themselves, find that the love of God propels them towards quite extraordinary endeavours. Tracy is the author of Grace’s story but the inspiration was Moira Smith and the author of her story was none other than God himself, described in the Bible as the ‘author and finisher of our faith’. I commend Tracy’s book Grace in Mombasa to you in the hope that, inspired by the story of Grace and Moira, you will become hungry for a story of your own and that you will turn to the great author of all our lives. He already has a story prepared for you” Sean McIntyre, missionary with Barnabas and now minister to the Assembly of God Church in Colchester.
T N Traynor
CreateSpace (2014)
ISBN 9781496043931
Reviewed by Autumn (age 14) for Reader Views Kids (7/18)
If you like mysterious rendezvous, witches, castles, demons, dragons and a quest to save the world then “Idi & The Oracle’s Quest,” book one in the Born to Be series, by T N Traynor, is a story you definitely should read.
A spell of forbidden love is cast, only to leave a princess grieving over her love after he is killed, and she is banished from her kingdom for the child she is carrying. Little does she know that the elements or earth witches have taken a solemn vow to protect her and her unborn child from an evil wizard by the name of Norvora. If he gets control of the child, he will unleash unimaginable horrors from the depths of Astaroth.
Love my latest review, which is by Autumn aged 14. Nearly all my reviews are by adults and I was really happy to receive this one through the website Reviews by kids, for kids.
Idi & The Oracle’s Quest by T N Traynor
ISBN 9781496043931
Reviewed by Autumn (age 14) for Reader Views Kids (7/18)
If you like mysterious rendezvous, witches, castles, demons, dragons and a quest to save the world then “Idi & The Oracle’s Quest,” book one in the Born to Be series, by T N Traynor, is a story you definitely should read.
A spell of forbidden love is cast, only to leave a princess grieving over her love after he is killed, and she is banished from her kingdom for the child she is carrying. Little does she know that the elements or earth witches have taken a solemn vow to protect her and her unborn child from an evil wizard by the name of Norvora. If he gets control of the child, he will unleash unimaginable horrors from the depths of Astaroth.
A plan is made by the fairies to intercept Princess Cassandra and her unborn child before Norvora can reach them. Their journey takes them through a forbidden forest to reach the mountains to a town called Tamarind.
A great and kind wizard named Marcus is called upon by the oracle Oleanna to find a boy named Idi who will become the greatest wizard of all time. Idi is an orphaned boy who has been pick on his entire life and felt like he would never amount to anything, until Marcus finds him and asks that he accompanies him on an important quest to save the kingdoms. Together they will set out on a journey to find the child who is meant to be king.
I really enjoyed reading “Idi & The Oracle’s Quest.” The story line was fast paced with hint of suspense. I liked how the author combined characters such as wizards, elemental witches, dwarfs and a dragon in a not-so-fairy-tale-like setting. The chase through the forest kept you on the edge of your seat, not knowing if Cassandra and the fairies would make it to safety before the evil wizard Norvora and his henchmen caught up with them. Every chapter had a twist in the story that was exciting and unexpected. My favorite character would be Idi. He felt like no one cared for him, but he would not give up on others and was always there for them.
“Idi & The Oracle’s Quest”, book one of the Born to Be series, by T N Traynor is a magical story that will leave you wanting more. I would recommend this story for 9th graders and up, and I look forward to the next book in the “Born to Be series.”
As a Christian, I love it when I find a book full of morals. One of my all-time favorites is the Narnia series by C S Lewis. Clive Staples Lewis (1898–1963) was one of the intellectual giants of the twentieth century and arguably one of the most influential writers of his day.
I love that Clive went through changes in his life, which include losing his Christian faith and then finding it again later in life. A true prodigal son story. He wrote quite a few books but I think the world’s favorite must be The Lion, The Witch & The Wardrobe.
I adore when a story has hidden beliefs and principles for life behind the writing. My own series Born to Be, is exactly that. I was once told that my story was too innocent to get anywhere, says a lot about the world we live in doesn’t it?
I was, therefore, over the moon to read The Innkeeper’s Son by K C Herbal, and discover a beautifully written, traditional fantasy packed with caring and sensitive characters. Woven together in a magical story of dragons and fairies and magic. I loved it and highly recommend it. Very pleased to find there is already four in the series and I look forward to reading the rest.
Over time, many authors have painted a different image of angels and demons. I loved the film Michael with John Travolta drinking, smoking and smelling of cookies… ingenious. Also, really enjoyed Constantine with Keanu Reeves, which was intriguing and spellbinding. And City of Angels with Nicolas Cage, which was lovely and moving. These are just to name a few, there is a plethora out there.
So with so many books and films to choose from, do we really need another?
Well, I’m happy to say that yes, there is still more space for unique and interesting stories. That’s what I found Ruin’s Lot by ID Johnson to be.
The story is well written and flows, making it an easy page-turner. I won’t say too much about the story itself as I don’t want to ruin it (sorry no pun intended) for you.
I decided to pay to advertise my book with Onlinebookclub.org.
I paid $598.00 for their Book of the Day deal.
In the days running up, I began watching the rankings of other books that were the ‘book of the day’. I was quite excited to see a few of them rise quite high in their category sections. For example: ‘The Buried Secrets of Peonies’ by Mernegar Dorgoly rose to #7 in kindle short stories, and, ‘A second, less Capable, Head’ by James Hanna rose to #14 in kindle anthologies.
I was quite excited then and anticipated a number of sales that would also help my rankings.
I was to be hugely disappointed when I only sold 14 books. My books normally sell for $2.99 and for this deal I’d reduced the book to $0.99 to encourage sales. Total income $4.90, a loss of $593.10.
If like me, you’re an indie-author who works a full time ‘day’ job and writes like crazy in-between life’s normal activities, you will understand how crushing this was for me. That, on top of the fact that, I received some rather stringent criticism almost had me jacking it all in and calling it a day…
I do feel I’m like a typical sensitive-author, I think I should nickname myself Sea-Saw-Tracy, because I am constantly up and down. Harsh remarks though cut deep, this book is after all ‘my baby’ and I have been working on it for 25 years. I confess I haven’t yet managed to grow a thick skin.
It took my youngest (always positive) son, Daniel, to put things in perspective. I received 170 comments, of which nearly all of them were positive and encouraging. Lots of people said they added the book to their ‘want to read’ list. Time will tell if they actually read it. If you want, please feel free to check out the comments below.
So maybe young adult fantasy isn’t a genre that’s really popular? Or maybe my book just isn’t up to scratch? Perhaps if you have a romance, thriller or short stories, then you’ll do loads better than I did.
Will I be booking another deal? Definitely not.
Should you book a deal? I think it depends on a few things: Is your book in a popular genre? Do you have a gripping first three chapters? Does your book cover jump up and grab people’s attention? Do you have an intriguing blurb? …and most importantly, do you have $598.00 to spare? If the answer to all these questions is yes, then go for it, because obviously some books do really well on these deals.
Wow, I am so enjoying the Elementals MC series and I just had to stop and blog about it!
The cover may slightly giveaway the fact that these books are about drop-dead gorgeous hunks. Oh yes, girls, these are fab escapism books that are hot, hot, hot.
I find these books easy to read with a quick, keep you interested pace. I would say a perfect holiday read.
I gave the books 4/5 stars because there are some minor editing issues, but really they don’t distract from the story. Well worth a read.
We are sensitive people us indie-authors. I know I for one, practically fall apart when Amazon ‘hit me’ with another veto, whether removing reviews I received or those I have given.
I do feel that Amazon has taken an underlying – almost sub-conscience, decision to get rid of us, well the ones not selling thousands of books a month of course. Woe betide that they should lose someone who makes them money. Profit is their goal after all.
And therein lies the problem. Although let’s be honest, we would like to make some money, actually, our inner-drive is usually to share our stories with people. The joy I receive when someone leaves me a positive review is, in fact, a far greater reward than the pennies I earnt from the book sale. Because positive reviews make me so happy I always want to reach out to people who left them and add them to my friend’s list, I actually invite people in the back of my books to come and find me on facebook so that I can build a relationship with the readers of my books. Unfortunately, Amazon doesn’t correspond with me and ask me about it, they just see that I have become friends with someone who left a review, and bam, they take away the review and 5 others for good merit. Gosh but Amazon has made me cry on numerous occasions.
We are highly emotive, creative people, and Amazon is a money-making machine. I wouldn’t say they hate us indie-authors, but I would say they’d like to get rid of quite a few of us. We have infiltrated the world of books and if book publishers are not careful we will one day rule the world of publishing, from behind our computers in the comfort of our homes, an army of like-minded, self-driven, revolutionary writers.
Having lost several lovely reviews from people on Amazon, I have to say in hindsight, that I wish I had read Amazon’s T&C’s before blindly clicking ‘accept’. Their policy clearly states that ‘friends’ are not allowed to leave reviews. My distress comes when they removed reviews from people I have never met, who in fact were not friends, but that I foolishly clicked ‘Add friend’ to on Goodreads after they left me a review – big mistake.
Amazon owns Goodreads, what a dreadful thing that is. I always thought Goodreads was an independent place where people who loved books could leave their thoughts and share with other like-minded people, all totally nothing to do with profit and suchlike. I was, therefore, most upset to discover that the money-making machine that is Amazon actually own this previously unbiased platform. So be warned, DO NOT ADD PEOPLE AS FRIENDS JUST BECAUSE THEY LEFT YOU A REVIEW, or like me, you risk the chance of losing reviews that you have worked long and hard to receive.
I loved this book. About a third of the way through it I realized the writer had created a beautiful tapestry, and that he was telling the story like a Grand Maestro conducting the flow of life through his intricate characters. I fell in love with Charity and Straken and watched in gripped fascination the undertakings of the other people in the story.
This book is gutsy and deep in its revelations of the main characters raw personas. It is also extremely erotic.
Extremely clever high fantasy at it’s best!
This is intricate and beautifully woven together.
The characters are built in depth and multi-layered.
I love the reintroduction of my favorite characters from book 1 and can see now how their lives are all inter-linked.
Fab read, highly recommend. Get book 2
This book appealed to me straight away, due to its aspirations to help people.
Blacksheep, outcast, dunce, unwanted, loner and weirdo. Name tags that hurt and prevent us from growing into strong, beautiful people. I called myself dunce for a long time, nearly 40 years, actually. It is liberating to come out from underneath the labels that either we put on ourselves, or others heap on us.
Kristina’s book addresses people who find themselves on the outside, not part of the in-crowd. She shows examples and gives extremely helpful, and thoughtful advice. Her desire to help other people shines through on every page.
This is a short novella/advice book, and is, therefore, a quick and easy read. However, English is not Kristina’s first language so please be lenient with the grammar.
Looking for inspiration to move forward in your life? Then give this book a quick read, you won’t regret it.
I seem to be reading such a lot at the moment, I thought I would start putting my reviews on here.
So here we go… first one. Treatments that Sell by Ken Atchity & Chi-Li Wong
This is is a very thorough book, guiding you through the heartache of trying to write a treatment that will simply jump up and grab the reader.
Wanting to pitch to Hollywood myself, and in preparation for my meeting with Ken Atchity this coming June, I purchased two of Ken’s books. This one, plus How to Pitch to Hollywood. Both books are good, but this one is definitely the most helpful.
Step by step guidance on what to do, and probably more importantly, what not to do, this book is invaluable. Maybe, slightly more geared to scriptwriters (if you are a scriptwriter I highly recommend this book), still extremely helpful to us budding authors.
One thing I didn’t know was about submitting your book to the copyright office at the Library of Congress, this is definitely now on my to-do-soon list.
Besides helpful tips like that, the book gives a real, refreshing, definitely honest view on getting your book made into a movie. Unfortunately, Ken, I don’t hob-nob with millionaires nor rub shoulders with high flyers in Hollywood, so the only thing left for me is to a) wish for loads of luck, and b) work damn hard and hope that one day I am in the right place at the right time for my dream to come true.
Whenever I get down at all the hard work, I keep in mind my most favorite dream of all time. That is walking down the red-carpet in New York, with my husband and my four sons, to attend the premiere of Idi & the Oracle’s Quest. It is this dream that drives me forward, keeps me working hard… and makes me purchase books like Treatments that sell.
To all you budding indie-authors with the same dream, I advise you get the book asap!
MY REVIEW:
Extremely clever high fantasy at it’s best!