Month: January 2016

Authors Answer 8: The New Year is coming soon. What are your plans for 2016 in terms of writing?

Again, I’m out of sync here, although I suppose January still counts as New Year. This is going to be a very short post, since I already posted at some length about my plans for the year in both writing and marketing. So… I’m done. Footnote: Authors Answer is the brainchild of blogger Jay Dee Archer, of I Read Encyclopedias For Fun. You can read the answers to this question by his eclectic bunch of authors here. More recently, Erica Dakin, of the Theft And Sorcery blog, has been answering the questions independently. You can read her answer to this question here.

Posted January 19, 2016 by PaulineMRoss in AuthorsAnswer / 0 Comments

‘The Fire Mages’ Daughter’: now available!

Great news! The latest book set in the Brightmoon world,The Fire Mages’ Daughter, is now available for purchase from all Amazons at a special introductory price. If you pre-ordered – thank you! The book should already be available on your device. If not, you can: – Buy for Kindle or your phone, tablet or whatever for just $0.99 or equivalent, or – Buy the paperback for $10.99 or equivalent (and download the Kindle version free), or – Download for free if you have a subscription to Kindle Unlimited or Prime. Click the Buy! button for a link to take you direct to your local Amazon. This special low price will only be available for this weekend, and the price will rise to $2.99 or equivalent on Monday 18th, so be sure to tell all your friends about the deal. Although this book can be read independently, it is best enjoyed […]

Posted January 16, 2016 by PaulineMRoss in Publishing/marketing, The Fire Mages' Daughter / 0 Comments

Authors Answer 7: Christmas is coming! In your opinion, what would be the perfect gift for a writer?

{Yes, yes, I’m very out of sync here – but Christmas is always coming so…} Oooh, I can answer this, because I recently found the perfect gift for me. I added it to my wishlist, and… nobody bought it for me. Oh. Here it is: Isn’t that… erm, really, really naff? But cute and fun. If you don’t mind the idea of Jane Austen wearing a shocking pink spencer, that is. And look, she has her own quill pen and a copy of Pride and Prejudice. So, so cute. Serious answers? Do I have to? Oh, all right then. Scrivener, because it’s positively the best writing environment ever in the history of writing environments. There are plenty of word-processor wrappers which guide an author through the necessary steps to writing nirvana (or a completed manuscript, at least). Scrivener doesn’t do that, but what it does do is to allow the […]

Posted January 15, 2016 by PaulineMRoss in AuthorsAnswer, General / 0 Comments

Georgette Heyer Regency Romance #3: ‘The Corinthian’

After the history-fest of An Infamous Army, written in 1937, which I couldn’t even attempt, this one couldn’t be more different. It’s the most frivolous, silly, light-hearted confection imaginable, but then it was written in 1940, so perhaps frivolity was what was most needed.The plot begins with Sir Richard Wyndham, the Corinthian (dandy) of the title, accepting that at the age of twenty nine, he must make a loveless marriage to please his family. Neither the icily practical lady, nor her debt-riddled family, appeal much, but he feels he must do his duty. But on the evening before making the offer which will tie him, he gets very drunk and on his way home he spots someone climbing out of an upstairs window. This is seventeen-year-old Penelope (Pen) Creed, an heiress escaping the prospect of an unwanted marriage to a cousin, by dressing as a boy and running away. Richard […]

Posted January 9, 2016 by PaulineMRoss in Georgette Heyer, Regency romances, Review / 0 Comments

Georgette Heyer Regency Romance #2: ‘An Infamous Army’

I set out to read all of Georgette Heyer’s Regency romances in publication order, and here I am at the second book, written in 1937, and already I’m refusing to jump. The opening is a whole confusion of characters, so, naturally, I turned to the Goodreads reviews for advice. And find that this book is more of a historical treatise on the Battle of Waterloo than fiction. It is, apparently, still required reading for the officer training school at Sandhurst. Well, it may be picky of me, but I read for entertainment, not to be hit over the head with the author’s depth of research. I’ll take a raincheck on this one, and maybe come back to it later, when I feel stronger. Pass. Nice cover, though.

Posted January 9, 2016 by PaulineMRoss in Georgette Heyer, Regency romances, Review / 0 Comments

2016 strategy part 2: launches and promotions

I talked in part 1 about my writing and publishing career to date, and my writing plans for 2016. This time, I want to talk about the other half of the writing/publishing equation, which is launching and promotion, or telling the world your books exist. There’s a lot of talk about marketing strategies and building a platform and the value of blog tours or Facebook boosts or whatever. However, the only truly effective measure I’ve found has been paid promotion via mailing list sites. The most effective ones included Ereader News Today, One Hundred Free Books, Book Barbarian, Robin Reads, FreeBooksy/BargainBooksy, Booksends and Free Kindle Books and Tips. Both discounted books (setting the price to 99c) and free worked well. Having a mailing list is reputed to be a good way to boost a new book launch, by setting the book to a special low price for a day or […]

Posted January 7, 2016 by PaulineMRoss in General, Publishing/marketing, Writing musings / 0 Comments

Regency romance review: ‘The Impostor Debutante’ by May Burnett

I enjoyed this one a lot. Too many Regency romances these days have plots that are too silly for words, requiring hero or heroine or both to behave in quite incredible ways. This one felt quite sane, and both main characters behaved like sensible people. Very refreshing. The plot revolves around the neglected niece of a London socialite mother, who decides to do her duty by bringing the girl down from Yorkshire to be suitably introduced into society and married off. But the niece is almost blind, recently married and pregnant, and has no desire to enter London society. She does, however, want to recover her inheritance money, so she sends her half-sister to London in her place to find out why the solicitor isn’t responding to letters. All this is slightly pedestrian, but there is another, more interesting, sub-plot, focused on the half-sister’s background. The romance features the hitherto […]

Posted January 6, 2016 by PaulineMRoss in Review / 0 Comments

Authors Answer 6: Which mistake or bad habit in writing is the most difficult for you to stop doing?

Adverbs. I know they’re supposed to be a Very Bad Thing, but there are so many situations where a judiciously placed adverb can save a world of verbiage. I’m all for expressing myself briefly and succinctly and efficiently and all those other —ly words. And I’ll also hold my hand up for that other cardinal sin, the adverb used in a dialogue tag, she said shamefacedly. Yes, folks, my characters sometimes speak softly instead of whispering, and they sometimes speak coldly or bracingly or icily or gently as well. My bad. But here’s the thing. Part of the skill of an author is in not boring the reader, and that’s not just in the plot. It also means including plenty of variety in the writing, so that a long succession of ‘he said… she said…’ is broken up by an action beat, or, dare I say it, by tossing in […]

Posted January 6, 2016 by PaulineMRoss in AuthorsAnswer / 0 Comments

2016 strategy part 1: Writing

January 2016 sees me enter my seventeenth month as a self-publisher. To date, I have four books published, the fifth is imminent and the sixth is written in first draft form. The seventh is already taking shape in my head. All of these are part of the Brightmoon Annals world, a connected series of (mostly) stand-alone books. There is also a new project, tentatively entitled the Allamont Annals, a series of Regency romances. The first of these is almost finished. In 2015, I wrote 318,000 words. In terms of sales, the books have had some modest success. Total sales 4,000, borrows 2,000 and over a million pages read. This is nowhere near bestseller status, but it’s satisfying to know that there are complete strangers out there who read and enjoy the books. In addition, I’ve given away more than 20,000 copies for free. But now that I’ve worked out how […]

Posted January 5, 2016 by PaulineMRoss in Current writings, Regency romances, The Dragon's Egg, The Fire Mages' Daughter, Writing musings / 0 Comments

It’s awards nomination time!

It’s the time of year when blogs and forums all over the internet compile their best-of lists, and some of the bigger ones have proper awards, with nominations and voting and so on. This wouldn’t normally affect me much. I usually haven’t read most of the books nominated, haven’t even heard of a lot of them, so I vote for the one or two I’ve read and off I go. But sometimes an amazing thing happens – you scan the list of nominations, and find YOUR OWN BOOK! Yes, folks, The Fire Mages has received a nomination in Reddit’s r/Fantasy Stabby Awards, in the self-published and independent category. Which leaves me almost speechless with joy, even though I have zero chance of winning (there are some fantastic books in that category). So thank you, thank you, thank you, whoever nominated the book – you made a small-time author very happy. […]

Posted January 2, 2016 by PaulineMRoss in General, Publishing/marketing, The Fire Mages / 8 Comments