My own bag zipped up and ready to go and with a pocket to remind me that I can actually embroider things at a freeform level when I try.
Survival… embroidery glasses with magnifier clipped on, camomile tea, Panadol for inevitable neck pain.
Today, I received this email:
“Dear Prue Batten,
Because your book, A Thousand Glass Flowers, received the high review rating of a 4 star or better, it has continued to the second, public voting phase for the 2012, RONE Awards. In this phase the readers will be narrowing down the contestants to 4 – 6 finalists in each genre by choosing the books they love best.
I would like to announce that A Thousand Glass Flowers (US purchase link, UK below) has just won a silver medallion in the 2012 Readers’ Favourite Book Awards.
Initially, to gauge finalists, the submitted novels are read by volunteer reviewers. If a novel is fortunate enough to reach the finalist stage, professionals within the industry then take over and the novels are read by judges drawn from the fields of publishing, agencies, editors, professors of english literature and/or creative writing and so on. So the books are very heavily marked for their quality.
This Friday, 10th August, and Saturday, 11th August, one of the five fantasy finalists from the 2012 Readers’ Favourite Book Awards (announced in September) will be offered free for Kindles as part of the KDP Select promotion on Amazon.
Those of you who know me will know that Gisborne: Book of Pawns had its first ever free promotion last weekend.
So what, you might say?
Indeed, so what?
It was an enormous thing for me to do as an independent author. The KDP Select programme is a scheme devised by Amazon to potentially give a book high visibility – a chance to advance in the ratings. For the writer, (more so for me because I am essentially an anxious individual) it is quite nerve-wracking because one worries if anybody will download the book to their Kindle. Or if one will have any sort of ranking. Or if any sales will follow-on to other books.
We left House (our miniscule cottage by the sea) to live the split life of city/country, about 6 weeks ago. Since taking up the urban lifestyle (the farm is only 30 minutes from the city and 30 mins from House) we have rushed.
For quite a long while readers have asked about the fantasy world of Eirie, and finally, after prompting from my digital publisher MWiDP, I am creating a page and sub-pages to illustrate the world as I know it. I hope it will help any reader who may want to get to know the world more.
A Thousand Glass Flowers is giving me the time of my life. Initially it took off like a rocket on Kindle on Amazon.com and then I signed with a digital publishing group called MWiDP for Amazon.co.uk. Last week I was rattling away on Facebook that I was excited ATGF had managed a .co.uk #ranking at least once a week for the four weeks that I had been on MWiDP’s lists. Anything from #15 onward!
Today I heard a radio interview with popular Australian bush-fiction writer, Rachael Treasure. In the course of the interview she mentioned writing lyrics for a proposed album by a country music band. And I thought on the variation she has introduced into her writing life. To me it sounded quite unique for a traditionally published writer.
