Pre-order Fanning Flames

If you live in the Gloucestershire area, now is your chance to pre-order Fanning Flames! I will be putting in a bulk order on the 5th December and you have the opportunity to buy a copy of any of my books at a reduced price – £3.49 off the usual RRP + postage (Lulu postage is £2.99 for paperbacks & £4.99 for hardbacks).

Just fill in the form below before the 5th December and you are guaranteed to receive it before Christmas. I will contact you to arrange pickup or drop-off once I have a firm arrival date.

Pre-order has now ended.

Advertisement

Release date!

The day is here! Kindling Ashes has been available for a little while now but it’s officially release day!

Sixteen years have passed since dragons were supposedly wiped out – but their hibernation is over. For a teenage gold smuggler with a voice in her head and the youngest son of a dragonslayer, life will never be the same again.

“A highly imaginative fantasy of remarkable vision and premise.”

“Made me want to slip into the book as one of the characters.”

– Goodreads reviews

Buy a copy now! Click forward to your preferred retailer (note the hardback is only available from Lulu.com to keep the price down).

            

Or, purchase a signed copy directly!

For anyone arriving at this page hearing about Kindling Ashes for the first time, it is a fantasy novel that won Lulu.com’s Wrimo Accelerator competition run in conjunction with NaNoWriMo 2013. It is the first of a 2-book series, ‘Firesouls’, following the lives of Giselle and Corran in a world where dragons are struggling to escape extinction. You can read the first two chapters for free here, or explore this website to find out more about the book or author.

Updates

A few updates here – I got back from Book Expo America on Sunday and had an amazing time there. I shall be posting about my experience with pictures and all soon, but I am so glad I went. I got to meet two of my favourite authors (Garth Nix & Sarah J Maas), got a load of free books, met several of the other Wrimo Accelerator winners and had my first signing experience!

I’ve also recently got an update on what’s been happening with Kindling Ashes. Turns out the reason it hasn’t appeared on Amazon/Barnes & Noble yet is because there was a problem with the batch it was sent over with. This has now been resolved and it should be there within a week… keep a look out!

Somewhat related to this, I am moving house this weekend and I will have no internet access except at work from Saturday until Wednesday. Therefore the earliest official release date will be next Thursday 12th June because I want to be online enough to promote it – however if you’re watching you might spot it before I make the announcement.

That’s pretty much it, but here’s a couple of links where Kindling Ashes/I have been featured:

Kindling Ashes is on TV Tropes! I believe this is thanks to Brian Wilkerson who wrote a review for Kindling Ashes a little while ago.

I talk about writing on Lulu’s blog Including a video of me… that I pretend doesn’t exist…

Book Expo America!

This time next week I’ll have just landed in New York City! It’s been three years since I was last there and it’s one of my favourite places, but I’m most excited about the reason I’m going there – BEA 2014!

I’m attending on Friday 30th and Saturday 31st and although most of the time I’ll just be exploring for myself, you can also find me at Lulu’s booth:

4-5pm Friday 30th: Lulu’s main booth at BEA – #1457. I’ll have plenty of free bookmarks to hand out that I can sign if you want, and I’ll be very happy to talk about Kindling Ashes as well as my experiences with self-publishing so far.

11.30am-12pm Saturday 31st: Lulu’s booth in UPublishU, the self-publishing conference taking place alongside BEA. There I’ll be signing copies of Kindling Ashes, but since I have to bring them all myself there will be limited copies – get there early to make sure you get one!

I believe you’ll also be able to find details of Kindling Ashes at Lulu’s booth throughout the event but I don’t know any details of that.

For the rest of the time I’ll be wandering and attending panels. I’d love to hear from anyone else who’s attending BEA, UPublishU or BookCon!

Waiting game

I haven’t posted anything for a while, but that’s because there’s not much going on. The book is on its way to Amazon/B&N etc. and has been for about 3 and a half weeks now, and it can take anything from 2-8 weeks for it to show up. I google the ISBNs every day but no luck yet.

In the meantime, I’ve been working a bit on a possible prequel novella I’m considering serialising on Wattpad as well as a brand new story idea. I’ve written snippets of it but still in the process of planning. There’s also a giveaway running on Goodreads this week that’s going pretty well – find it here for a chance to win a signed hardcover, themed magnet and a bookmark. Should be getting some reviews coming through soon so look out for those for a sneak preview of what others thought.

BEA is fast approaching. I’ll have more details on specific times soon but I know I will be at Lulu’s booth in the main hall on Friday 30th, and signing a limited number of copies at their booth in the UPublishU conference on Saturday 31st. 

That’s all for now. Hopefully the next time I post it will be with links to buy!

Giveaways, release plans & book trailer

Lots of things going on at the moment. Last weekend the 2nd paperback proof arrived and I approved it, so that’s currently on its way to Amazon, Barnes & Noble etc. for processing. That normally takes 4-8 weeks but lately it’s apparently been moving faster so it could be as little as 2-4 weeks. The hardback has also been done although it will be available exclusively through Lulu to keep the price down. Ebook is in progress. I won’t announce the release date until all formats are available to buy so it’s possible you might be able to hunt down a buy link before I’ve actually announced anything.

Three teaser trailers have now been released and can be found on my youtube channel – the final book trailer will be finished and posted up later today.

And finally, I’ve started doing giveaways. The one running right now is on Tumblr and can be found here (deadline 3rd May 2014, 7pm BST). I will also be running giveaways on Twitter, Facebook and Goodreads in the coming weeks, all of which will give you the chance to win a signed hardback as well as a bookmark and magnet, so keep an eye out for those. I will probably also run smaller giveaways for signed paperbacks in a few other places, most likely after the release date.

All these release plans shall culminate in the last weekend of May at Book Expo America where I will be signing copies of my book as well as giving out free bookmarks. More details on when & where to find me at BEA will be posted closer to the time.

Sample chapter #2 and book trailers!

The second sample chapter is now available to read here.

This chapter is from the point of view of Corran Dunslade, the youngest son of Lord Huwcyn Dunslade who led the fight against dragons sixteen years ago.

In other news, I’ve been working on book trailers! I have 4 planned which will all be released over the coming week or two. There will be three teasers, one general and the other two for Corran and Giselle, followed by the full trailer. Here is the first, please let me know what you think:

Sample chapter and proof copy

The first sample chapter of Kindling Ashes is now available to read! This is the very first chapter of the book from Giselle’s point of view. She is an orphan who has grown up with a voice in her head, and survives on the streets of the capital city by smuggling gold.

Read it here: CHAPTER 1

The second chapter introducing you to the other main character, Corran Dunslade, will be available next weekend so keep an eye out.

In other news, the proof copy for Kindling Ashes arrived yesterday! There are a few small issues so I’ll need to fix those and order another proof, but after that it’ll be ready to send off to Amazon and other stores for listing! This process can take several weeks so I’m expecting a release date of early May – please note this is provisional.

Cover (& website) reveal

The cover for Kindling Ashes has been finalised and here it is, all over my new website! It was designed by Jessica Norman and the burning heart is a representation of the “Firesouls” the series is named after – humans with dragon souls inside them. The dragons escaped extinction sixteen years ago but human bodies are not equipped for two souls. The extra soul has kept the Firesouls weaker and smaller but now there is a bigger threat as their bodies start to break down under the pressure. The dragons’ hibernation is over.

Kindling Ashes has just been added to Goodreads and is planned for a May 2014 release. Take a look around the website for more information (sample chapters coming soon) and sign up on the right to be alerted once it is available to buy.