undiscovered countries
The Sunless World series wraps up with the release of FLARE. Follow Rafe and Isabella as they seek to thwart Karzov’s sinister and audacious plot and put aright a world on the brink of destruction.
Get it now from Amazon, or read free with Kindle Unlimited.
Over a dozen blogs have already shared this awesome cover today. Many thanks to the hosts who kindly offered to do so. Now it’s my turn!
Without further ado, here’s the cover for Flare, Book Two of The Sunless World, an epic fantasy series with a steampunk flavor.
Isn’t she awesome?
Rafe and Isabella are back
The mages of old saved their world, but left it in eternal darkness. Now it’s time to bring back the light.
After two years of training his magical gifts, Rafe returns home to a land wracked by war. Desperate states struggle to protect their resources of luminous quartz. Magic pulses and earthquakes devastate a world on the brink of extinction.
Rafe’s old enemy Karzov has gathered a band of prodigies obedient to his will. He seeks the power of the ancient mages for an audacious and sinister purpose. It’s up to Rafe and his ally, Isabella, to stop him—and undo the mistakes of the past to put their world right again.
Flare will be out in September 2016, for sure! (But I’m really hoping to make it August *crosses fingers*).
It’s been a while since I did a State of the Writing update.
So.
Flare, Book 2 of The Sunless World series, has been handed over for proofreading and formatting. This is the last planned book in the series, though I have left a smidgen of an opening in case there is demand for more.
I’m planning a cover reveal for July 20th–but it won’t be on this blog. A number of other authors and readers have kindly offered to host a cover reveal on their blogs, so I’ll direct you to theirs on that day. It’s a fabulous cover featuring Isabella, and I can’t WAIT to share it with the wider world!
(My mailing list has already gotten an exclusive first look at it. So, if you want to be in the loop for the future, go ahead and sign up now!)
Now I’m in the middle of editing Ghostlight, Book One of a completely different project. Whereas The Sunless World is a steampunk-flavored epic fantasy series, Ghostlight is a paranormal fantasy set in a Regency-inspired world. Think magic in a Jane Austen or Georgette Heyer setting and you won’t be too far off!
Allow me to share a snippet:
Arabella gave a merry laugh as she glided in behind him. “I should dearly love to see it. Perhaps I can breathe down his neck till he relents. That sort of thing always unnerves people in books.”
“I shouldn’t encourage you to haunt people, but I’ll make an exception this time.” Trey peered into an interior so gloomy, it looked like the place sunlight went to die.
It was also spectacularly cluttered, rather like the drawing room of an aristocratic emigree goblin family. He knocked against a table with slender gilt legs. The china on it rattled alarmingly and a cloud of dust flew up. Trey sneezed.
“Bless you,” said Arabella. She was already halfway across the room, examining a display cabinet entirely full of cross china cats.
Trey turned his head and found himself staring at a bedraggled stuffed owl with glass eyes. “I know how you feel,” he told it. “I’m the same way in the mornings.” The owl didn’t respond.
Fellow writers, what are you working on now? Any upcoming or recent releases? Please share!
Before I scampered off on an Alaskan cruise at the beginning of June (yes! I was in Alaska! It was cold! But awesome!), I ran a 5-day free promotion on Quartz.
And along the way I learned some things (as I always do).
I decided to run this promotion on a whim. Quartz’s term in Kindle Select was coming to an end, and I hadn’t used any of my promotional days. I decided on the free days over the Kindle Countdown Deal because I’ve never done a free promo before. I figured, eh, why not?
So I picked my five days to end just before I left on vacation. Since I was throwing this together quickly, I opted not to put any money into paid advertising. Instead I relied on a combination of my social media reach, Facebook groups, and free services to get the word out.
It worked pretty well. Quartz was able to get to #2 on the Free Steampunk list on Amazon and as high as #22 on the Free Epic Fantasy list. That meant it stayed on the first page of one sub-category and the second of another for most of the promotion.
Partial proof below:
So, what did I learn from this?
A promotion does not have a natural downward trend like I assumed. I had booked the majority of the promotional sites for the first three days (though some ran for all five). The first day had a lot of downloads, the next day fewer, the third fewer still. I expected Days 4 and 5 to drop even lower, but to my surprise both exceeded Day 2’s downloads.
Takeaway is to expect the middle of the promotion will have the biggest slump. The sooner a deal is going away, the more likely people are to jump on it.
Facebook is actually a pretty good promotional tool. Yes, I know Facebook ads are a big thing, but since I was doing this with a budget of $0, all I did was post about the deal to relevant FB book groups. I’ll be upfront and say that I was skeptical that this would have any effect whatsoever, but tracking my links showed that many more clicks originated from FB than Twitter.
I should really look into FB ads some day.
The more I market, the easier it gets. You don’t get good at marketing unless you actually get out there and do it. The more I post about my books, the easier it gets to come up with taglines and catchy blurbs. After running a promotion, I feel like I have a better handle on what makes my book appealing and how to convey it succinctly.
And that, to me, is just as valuable as ranking high on an Amazon list, because it’s something I can put to use again.
What are the best no-cost promotional tools and strategies you’ve found?
