Winners!!

Congratulations ...

to Shannon Myles and Peter Johnstone 

- you are both winners of some book booty. A very big thank you for entering the competition and helping me to celebrate the release of Demon's Revenge, I'll be in touch about your prizes later today.

Welcome to the party!!!

 Come in, come in, pull up a chair, grab a glass of punch and a cup cake - you can snap on one of those party hats too (don't worry, they look ridiculous on everyone!) - and join the party! There's even a game to play at the end!

Today is the official publication day of Demon's Revenge so it's a day to forget about marketing, social media, book reviews, grammar and spellings, where all the readers are and all those other billion and one little niggles so beautifully supplied by our old friends Fear and Doubt. Today is the day to feel a little bit of pride as another year of work gets its coat buttoned, a quick kiss on the cheek and then gets launched into the wonderful world of books.

To everyone who's chatted on Twitter, gabbed on Facebook, shared links and lives, given support when it was needed, cheered every word along and STILL wanted to read it at the end - big thank you!

I'm not going to post loads of links here - they're elsewhere on the blog and on the website. Instead, I'm going to invite you to play a game...and win some prizes! Yes, yes, don't get too excited...I'll reveal all as soon as you're sitting back down again. That's better - you're getting a bit unruly on that punch!

So here's the game...

It's called 'Famous First Words' and, as you might expect, it involves books!! If you click HERE you'll get the list of first lines from some well-known books. All you have to do is leave a comment on this blog to let me know that you're taking part, email the answers to me and I'll enter you into the competition. Simple!

So what are the prizes?

Since we're celebrating the launch of my new book, I'm giving away 5 bundles of the Emily story so far - books 1(Demon's Daughter) and 2 (Demon's Revenge) in the series in eBook form (via coupon on Smashwords). I'm also giving away some hand-made silver bookmarks with angel wing charms to 5 runners-up. All the names will go into a hat a week from now and I'll get my kids to pick out the winners. Your name goes into the hat once for leaving a comment here, once for emailing the correct answers and again if you 'Like' my Facebook page or follow me on Twitter within the next week.

Good luck and thank you so much for stopping by!

Demon's Revenge Tasty Morsel 5

Emily is taken to a safe house in Italy where she meets the rest of the Fallen Angels and another 'potential' called 'Adrian', a descendant of Joan of Arc.

'   Adrian was now sitting cross-legged on the ground. He had closed his eyes and folded his hands together in front of him. Armaros gestured to Samyaza who handed him a long, gleaming sword. The sense of anticipation in the circle of Angels rose a notch as Armaros began to circle Adrian, skimming the sword across the ground so that it made a low hissing sound. Adrian stayed motionless, his shoulders rising and falling with each breath he took. Armaros lifted the sword above his head with a graceful swing, gripping it with both hands. He kept circling. Adrian kept breathing. My heart was thudding hard all of a sudden. Armaros looked menacing now, dangerous. I could see a few beads of sweat on Adrian’s brow and a slight shake to his hands. The eyes of the other Angels glittered in the firelight. They looked enthralled and excited.

            It happened so fast that I wasn’t sure I’d actually seen it at first. Armaros brought the sword down towards Adrian’s head and, just as I drew in a breath to scream, certain that the blade would lodge in his skull, Adrian’s hands came up and caught the blade between his palms. Applause erupted and I buried my head in Sariel’s shoulder for a moment.

            I glanced at his face – as always he looked impassive although a small smile curved the corner of his lips. He was either impressed or amused by Armaros and Adrian’s theatrics. I couldn’t tell, although the urge to merge my mind with his and find out was more than tempting.

            Beside us Uriel sighed and I forced myself away from Sariel. She was shaking her head. “Smoke and mirrors,” she muttered, “Cheap parlour tricks.”

            Armaros swung around to face her. “You have something to say, sister?” he sneered.

            Uriel nodded. “You think that a boy magician is what we need?”

            Armaros’ eyes narrowed and his gaze flicked from Uriel to Samyaza and back again. He raised his voice. “You don’t believe that this boy has been blessed with these talents?”

            Uriel smiled dangerously. “I don’t believe that an Archangel gifted him with them. Otherwise we’d have an army of amateur magicians running around boring the Demons to death with card tricks.”  '

  Demon's Revenge will be out in paperback and eBook format on 16th August 2012. 

I'm no Peter Jackson....

After almost a year of wondering 'should I?' and getting frustrated by my lack of computer skills, I finally managed to get down to the nitty gritty of making a book trailer.

Well, okay - if I'm entirely honest, I had to end up following the step-by-step (and much eye-rolling) instructions of my 12 year-old to figure everything out! And to think I used to giggle when I was her age and my granny couldn't work the TV remote - tsk, tsk.

It took the best part of a day to produce 1 minute and 55 seconds worth of material, a few weeks to locate suitable royalty-free music and find photographs that conveyed the right message. (I've discovered that trying to convey the message of 'humour' in pictures is a nightmare so in the end I gave up on that plan and went with 'dark and mysterious'!) To be honest, once my daughter finally managed to give her instructions in language that I could understand (ie. NOT technospeak!), I had a lot of fun! 

Will it help me sell more books? Probably not. But part of this whole Indie Publishing experience is all about trying new things to find out what works so I can now hold my head high and say that I've had a go at making a book trailer. Obviously, in the hands of a complete novice such as myself it's not exactly Oscar-worthy material but I'm still rather proud of it!

What do you think?

Have you made a Book Trailer? I'd love to hear about your experiences and if you think it helped as a marketing tool.

Best wishes!

Demon's Revenge Tasty Morsel 4

Ooh, this is getting exciting! Only 2 weeks to go until publication and there are whispers of a proper launch party at my local bookshop. How amazing would that be?!!! Anyway, will keep my fingers crossed about that and share another wee snippet with you in the meantime. Best wishes :-)

Asmodeus forces Emily  & Seth to split from their mother. As they attempt to ditch her, Joanna turns back...

'   Mum turned back and her face had changed, she looked frantic. I gasped as she ran back to the car, reached in and took my hand. She reached for Seth’s too and he leaned right over Jude to get to her. I almost panicked, convinced that she was about to drag us both out of the car and into the depths of the hospital where Asmodeus’s goon squad was waiting to take us to hell. Instead she kissed my hand and then Seth’s looking up at me with tear filled eyes that most certainly belonged only to my mother. “Get out of here,” she said hoarsely. “Get away and keep driving. Don’t come back for me. He has me. I know it. I love you both.” She turned to Jude. “Put your foot down and look after my babies.”

            With that she gave Seth and I one last agonised glance and then, letting go of our grasping hands, turned back to the hospital. Jude shoved Seth away and sped out of the ambulance bay, across two lanes of oncoming traffic and drove like Satan himself was on our tail for almost three miles before pulling into a lay-by and shutting off the engine.

            I had begun crying as soon as mum had started to speak. I couldn’t seem to stop. I was a human sprinkler system for the back seat, my tears seemed to jet from my eyes as I gave into the anger, fear and loss, feeling despair in the very marrow of my bones. Seth sat with his hands braced against the battered dashboard and his head down. His shoulders shook with silent sobs and I wished I could go to him and put my arms around him but I knew that, at that moment, it would be the wrong thing to do.

            Jude turned to look at us both. “Would someone like to tell me what the hell just happened?”   '

Demon's Revenge will be out in paperback and eBook format on 16th August 2012.