Category: Advertising & Marketing
Join Me on Instagram
I’ve been on Instagram for several years now, sharing pictures of fluffy felines, walks in the forest, diving cuisine and my latest passions. However, I thought it was time to start a separate account for writing. Now, I know what you’re thinking; writing doesn’t really lend itself to pictures. And you’re right in many ways. We use our imagination to create the characters we read about, to conjure the settings and the scenes. I can’t readily draw words from my books and change them into images.
But…what I can do is share my writing process; updates of WIP’s, new covers, funny editor’s notes etc. With that in mind, I’ve started my GWakeling Instagram profile. It’ll have news on what I’m working on, as well as insights into life, such as the drooling cat that’s on my lap right now. I love sharing images; they do convey a thousands words after all. So come over to Instagram, connect and share. 😀
Urban Fantasy Giveaway and Sale
We all love a good sale right?! Inside Evil is currently soaring in the charts as it was picked up by Pixel of Ink! Huzzah. You know, getting noticed by them is a good idea; I went from 100 US downloads a month to over 4,000 in just a week. As you may know, it’s FREE and works as a funnel to allow readers to try my work before moving onto later books in the series.
I’ve now teamed up with a number of other urban fantasy authors, all who have now reduced their work to either free or 99cents! Great, right? Have a browse of the books and make sure you don’t miss the Rafflecopter Giveaway below.
Claire Wiche is an ordinary woman, running her Wicca shop in an ordinary California beach town. But Claire wasn’t always ordinary, and she isn’t quite human. She hides a secret, and a past she thought she had put behind her.
A past that is about to explode into her present.
When it does, and everyone she loves is in danger, Claire must face up to her past – and become what she left behind in order to save them.
Cade Williams was just an ordinary cop until the night a fallen angel nearly slaughtered him. Now he commands the Echo Team, a special ops squad of modern Templar knights, and the things they hunt are far darker and much more deadly than the criminals that he used to face.
When Templar bases are attacked by unknown forces, Cade and his team are called in to investigate. They discover a cabal of necromancers allied with the Adversary, the same fallen angel that murdered Cade’s wife, Gabrielle, and left Cade himself on the verge of death several years before.
In order to keep the power of an ancient relic from falling into the Adversary’s hands, the Templars must take the battle directly to the enemy and in the process they give Cade a shot at the one thing he’s been longing for since the night his wife was killed.
Vengeance is mine, sayeth the Lord, but Cade’s got a score of his own to settle and he’s not going to let the rules get in his way…
Knight, the sheriff of a local magical government known as “the Gambit,” is called to recover a mutilated body, tainted with magic and dumped at a popular haunt. When the corpse is identified as a close associate of the Gambit, it threatens the safety of the community he protects, and those he cares about most. As the fragile peace amongst the city’s magic-wielding factions disintegrates, Knight must track down a cadre of murderers before his friends are picked off, one by one- with each death used to strengthen the spells cast against the Gambit.
To some, death is the end; to others, a beginning. To Icarus Fell, it should have been a relief from a life gone seriously awry.
But death had other plans.
Icarus doesn’t believe that the man awaiting him when he wakes up in a cheap motel room is really the archangel Michael, or that God’s right hand wants him to help souls on their way to Heaven. Icarus doesn’t believe there’s a Heaven, so why should they want his help?
But the man claiming to be the archangel tempts him with an offer he can’t ignore–harvest enough souls and get back the life he wished he’d had.
It seems Icarus has nothing to lose, until he botches a harvest and the soul that went to Hell instead of Heaven comes back to make him pay by threatening to take away the life he hoped to win back.
To save the wife and son he already lost once, Icarus will have to become the man he never was. Somehow, he will have to learn to believe.
Long retired from her life as an assassin, Anjasa amuses herself with seducing handsome, rich men in bars and living life one night at a time.
She’s a rare woman, an elf among humans, a beauty among commoners, and she has no trouble getting the attention of those around her, but it’s only a matter of time before she attracts the wrong kind of men. When she agrees to seduce one noble’s cousin to steal his family fortune, she finds herself witness to mob violence and worse.
Yet she likes her men rough, doesn’t she?
But quickly it gets out of hand, even for her. When he forces her to fulfil his sick needs, and then blackmails her to kill his cousin, she realizes her life hangs in the balance between the affairs of murderous men.
When she reaches her breaking point, Anjasa turns to someone even worse, someone more dangerous than she could imagine, in order to make it through the night. Someone strong, mysterious and deliciously inhuman.
Tybalt Jones is not your typical creature of the night. He prefers Havana shirts to capes and his “sidekick” is a curvy faerie girl. Not a hunchback in sight. He’s been out of the vampire “scene” for years, and he’d be happy to stay out for the rest of his unlife.
But vampires connected to Tybalt are disappearing from St. Sebastian’s streets. To make matters worse, he’s on a literal deadline to clean up the city.
With a little gypsy know-how, a dab of faerie luck and a crash course in using his unusual gifts, he might just survive to restore peace.
For now.
Don’t Forget the Rafflecopter
Due to the complexities of this website, I can’t work how to get the actual script to work on this page. Please follow the link.
There’s a $100 Amazon Gift Card up for grabs so don’t miss out!!
Halloween zombie ebook sale
I love a good zombie read, and with The Walking Dead back on our screens and Halloween on the way, what better time than to bag a bargain! I’m currently running a little offer, and you can get FOUR zombie ebooks for under $3.
1. Sometimes We Ran
First up, this novel by Stephen Drivick follows two zombie apocalypse survivors who meet randomly and form a strong bond which helps them survive. For the duration of the promo, Sometimes we ran can be bought on Amazon for just $0.99 or, in the UK, 77p.
*****
2. Pacifier 6, The Shadows Within
Meanwhile, Pacifier 6, The Shadows Within is slashed from $2.99 to just 99p/cents. After the zombie apocalypse has happened, the human race is trying to create a new world. But with rogue zombies still on the loose and a new creature in the darkness, society is in greater danger than ever.
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Alternatively, buy at Smashwords using the TP27B discount code here – https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/280851
*****
3. The Soul Ripper, Twisted Souls (Twisted Souls series 1 AND 2)
Finally, Cege Smith has very kindly included two thirds of her Twister Souls series in the offer. With the first book FREE and the second slashed from $2.99 to just 99p/cents, you get to enjoy this fantastic new angle on the zombie genre.
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Twisted Souls series at Smashwords
Download The Soul Ripper for FREE and use the GG95M discount code for Twisted Souls
You can also get The Soul Ripper for FREE at Amazon.com | Amazon.co.uk
So there you go. FOUR zombie books for less than $3, and just in time for Halloween. 😀
Find me on Google+
I’ll start this off with a warning – I really don’t know what I’m doing on Google+. However, you will now find me there. I know that Google+ wasn’t well received when it first launched, but it does seem to have grown over the past few years, and continues to attract people. In addition, their ‘Communities‘ pages are awesome for connecting people. I find Goodreads extremely difficult to use as I’m normally too busy writing to be reading much. As such, actually conversing about books in a reader based community is hard. However, Google+ throws the door open and allows me to join any community I want, whether it’s a writers group or a fan forum for Mass Effect. The huge positive about this is that I can;
a) Actually get to know people by talking about the things I love without having to expend a lot of time, and
b) I can passively promote my work by giving a ‘+1‘ or commenting on posts. This can stir up interest in people, who’ll follow my link through to my profile page.
In addition to my own profile page (find me here), I’ve created a G. Wakeling community. One of my personal annoyances with having a FB fan page is that only I can post on it. Whilst readers and friends can post, any content gets shrunk into a tiny side box. It doesn’t really facilitate conversation. The Google+ communities really make the process of chatting and discussing my work, characters etc, far easier. And, one day, if I’m brave enough, I might even hold a ‘Hangout‘.
So, if you’re on Google+, add me! 🙂
Other News
Aside from starting out on Google+, I’m also well into the fourth instalment of Inside Evil. With only two books to go, there’s a lot to tie up in this latest novel. There’s also some new questions that have to be raised, and the cast, Susan in particular, are throwing me some curve balls.
AND, Inside Evil is now (and should stay that way) FREE on Amazon. I’ve had success in the past getting people into reading the sequel by offering IE for free, so if you want to read The Tower of Souls and Spirits of the Middlelands, then you can grab the first for free now.
Cheap ebooks and a short story contest!
Marketing your books when there’s a huge amount of competition can be hard, especially if you’re an indie. That’s why it’s a good idea to take advantage of some avenues other than Facebook, Twitter and general blog advertising. This week I’ve teamed together with some other fantasy authors to promote our books as a package. In addition, Michael Brookes (of the The Cult of Me 
Cheap eBooks
It’s never a bad idea to offer stories for sale now and then, and by teaming together with other authors, you can really get that sense of camaraderie. This week, Vera Nazarian is celebrating her birthday by offering a page full of epic fantasy books for sale. You’ll find Inside Evil
Short Story Contest
Meanwhile, Michael Brookes has unveiled a new short story contest with a winning prize of a £50 Amazon gift card. To enter, all you have to do is write a short story using the picture on his blog for inspiration. The winner gets £50, and the runners up in 2nd and 3rd get £20 and £10 respectively.
If you’re a budding writer and want some new money for books, then this is a great opportunity to take advantage of. It’s also a nice little expose for current writers because if you win there’s yet another chance to get your name and some of your work published in yet another place on the web. More places equals more exposure, which is rarely a bad thing! If short stories are your thing, then head on over and check out all the details.
Putting together a blog tour – Michael Brookes (Guest Post)
One of the great things about being an indie author is that you have absolute control over every stage of the publishing process. One of the downsides is that you have to do everything yourself. Marketing a new book release is a difficult job, especially without the budget being with a publisher brings.
Don’t worry; this isn’t an article about how unfair the world is for Indies. For starters I don’t think that is true. E-books have brought about a democratisation for publishing; this is a huge opportunity for writers such as myself. But we have a duty to take the opportunity seriously. This means not only writing a good story, but making sure the book we sell is of the same quality as the books published by the publishers.
As an indie author I have a limited budget. That budget was better spent making sure that the book was of a quality worth publishing. So I invested in having the book edited, leaving me with a small fund for promotion. I looked into various options for promotion; one popular method is to take the book on a blog tour. My investigations discovered that this can also be an expensive option.
But it doesn’t need to be.
One of the other great aspects to being an indie author is the other authors. They are a friendly bunch and after releasing my first novel I quickly discovered how helpful they are as well. It occurred to me that I wouldn’t need to pay to put together a blog tour, I could organise it myself.
I participate in various online communities, two in particular helped me with the task. The Kindle Users Forum and Goodreads are both excellent places to connect with readers and other writers. So these are where I started. I asked if anyone wanted to take part in the blog tour.
I’ve also been conducting guest author interviews on my blog for some time, so this provided another avenue I pursued.
The response on all fronts was incredible. The book was due to come out in February. I estimated it would take a month to arrange the tour so I planned the dates for March. As it turned out I filled all the dates well before then.
The tricky part wasn’t finding blogs to take part, but making sure I had enough content to provide something different. For most of the blogs this was determined by their regular content. So reviewers received review copies. Some asked for interviews and others wanted a guest post like this one.
It’s taken quite a bit of time, and as yet I won’t know what effect it will have on sales, but I’ve met some wonderful and discovered some excellent blogs. So I’d like to thank everyone who has helped to make the tour happen. And I hope everyone enjoys the new book as well.
*****
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Michael Brookes is an Executive Producer with a leading UK games developer. Working in games and writing are two of his life passions and considers himself fortunate to be able to indulge them both. He lives in the east of England, enjoying starry skies in the flattest part of the country. When not working or writing he can sometimes be found sleeping. Which is good as that is where many good ideas come from.
‘Conversations in the Abyss’ is the sequel to the 5 star rated supernatural thriller ‘The Cult of Me’
Stealing Lazarus’s miracle gifted him immortality. Combined with his natural ability of invading and controlling people’s minds this made him one of the most dangerous people on Earth.
But the miracle came with a price. His punishment was to be imprisoned within the walls of an ancient monastery and tormented by an invisible fire that burned his body perpetually. To escape the pain he retreated deep into his own mind.
There he discovers the truth of the universe and that only he can stop the coming Apocalypse.
Buy now from Amazon:
UK: http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B00BCP08JU/
US: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00BCP08JU/
Indie Scene – a new magazine for short stories, indie fiction and readers of independently published books
It’s hard enough getting your name out as an author, let alone if you choose to go down the route of becoming an indie author. There’s A LOT of us out there, and whilst we compete for shelf space, we rarely spare a thought for readers. As much as we’re trying to promote our books, readers are desperately trying to sift through the self-published masses and find great reads that really grab their attention. This is why Indie Scene has launched; a new place for readers to find free short stories, interesting articles and some of the best indie books around.
You might think this magazine is just another chance for us indie authors to be seen, and, in many ways, it is. But the real emphasis here has been put on readers, and giving our fans something back. There are articles on writers and the craft of telling a story, but there are also six free short stories in the debut edition. In addition, there’s an article on the many ways to read Kindle ebooks even if you don’t have a Kindle yourself, a selection of new releases and all manner of other goodies for people to enjoy.
Indie Scene is completely free to download as a PDF (or read in your browser if you choose), so feel free to take a look. If you love the magazine, then let us know, give us your feedback. We’d love to keep creating a publication that has a reader focus and offers something new to the community, so download, have a read and if you like it, tell us!
Geoff Wakeling 