Category: The Plains of Kallanash

‘The Plains of Kallanash’: first promotion results

When ‘The Plains of Kallanash’ was published in September, I took the decision not to do any serious promotion. There were several reasons for that, not least the fact that I hadn’t got a clue what I was doing, so very likely I would be wasting both time and money. But the main reason was the received wisdom that promotion is pointless until you have at least three books out. Why promote a single book, the thinking goes, when you can’t offer an enthusiastic reader anything else? Once you have three, preferably in a series, then promoting book 1 leads to increased sales on books 2 and 3. But I’d decided to enroll with KDP Select (it seemed easier to stick to Amazon until I had a better grasp on this publishing lark), so I had free days to use. And I’ve been active on Goodreads for years, so a […]

Posted October 29, 2014 by PaulineMRoss in Publishing/marketing, The Plains of Kallanash / 4 Comments

FREE this weekend: ‘The Plains of Kallanash’

Yes, folks, for the 25th and 26th October you can download a copy of ‘The Plains of Kallanash’ completely free from any Amazon store. If you already have a copy (thanks!), tell your friends about it. It’s an epic fantasy adventure with a strong romantic theme, and at 564 pages, it’s a traditionally sized fantasy, so plenty of story to get your teeth into. Magic, mystery, a barbarian war and an unconventional marriage – plus a dragon (sort of!). Link to your local Amazon to download a free copy from the side bar. Here’s the blurb: Thousands of years after a magical catastrophe reshaped the world and pulled the moons out of alignment, the secret of magic has seemingly been lost. At the centre of the vast, forbidding Plains of Kallanash lies a land ruled by a secretive religion, whose people fight a never-ending war against the barbarians in the […]

Posted October 25, 2014 by PaulineMRoss in Publishing/marketing, The Plains of Kallanash / 3 Comments

‘The Plains of Kallanash’: the first month

A month ago, my first fantasy novel went live on Amazon. This is a status report of what’s happened to it since. Marketing strategy Erm… what marketing strategy? Experienced authors publishing their umpteenth book plan the launch with meticulous attention to detail, organising street teams to post reviews and spread the word, scheduling promotional campaigns with military precision and adjusting on a daily or even hourly basis if sales and rankings underperform. I didn’t do any of that. The received wisdom is that sales can’t be expected to take off until the third book at least, and even then only in popular, high-turnover genres like romance and YA, and when the books are arranged into a neat series. I write stand-alones, loosely linked but not in a series, in epic fantasy with added romance (sort of). So a big promotional push would almost certainly be a waste of money. My […]

Posted October 16, 2014 by PaulineMRoss in Publishing/marketing, The Plains of Kallanash / 2 Comments

‘The Plains of Kallanash’ now available for pre-order

The book is written, the final edits are done, the cover artwork is finished, formatting is complete and the files are uploaded to KDP. So now I just have to wait until the publication date I’ve decided on before pushing the button. But hang on a minute – Amazon now has a cool new toy for self-publishers. We can set a book up for pre-orders, just like the big boys. Even a complete newbie like me. I dithered a bit about it – once the date gets close, I can’t change anything! And what if I’ve made a mistake! It’s a bit like those did-I-leave-the-gas-on moments when you’re on the way to the airport. But my daughter assured me it would be cool to have pre-ordering available, so I went for it. And – hey presto! ‘Tis done. ‘The Plains of Kallanash’ is now available for pre-ordering, at special introductory […]

Posted August 30, 2014 by PaulineMRoss in Publishing/marketing, The Plains of Kallanash / 5 Comments

Writing progress report: third book finished

So another one bites the dust. Today I typed ‘The End’ on ‘The Mages of Bennamore’, the third epic fantasy set in the Brightmoon world. Because I like statistics, here are some numbers for the three books for comparison: Book 1: ‘The Plains of Kallanash’ Elapsed writing time: 1 year Total days of writing: 190 Total words: 220,000 Average words per writing day: 1,100 Chapters: 58 Book 2: ‘The Fire Mages’ Elapsed writing time: 5 months Total days of writing: 90 Total words: 151,000 Average words per writing day: 1,700 Chapters: 44 Book 3: ‘The Mages of Bennamore’ Elapsed writing time: 7 months Total days of writing: 119 Total words: 157,000 Average words per writing day: 1,300 Chapters: 44 This third book is much the same size as the second, but it took 7 months overall instead of 5 months, largely because I was also working on revising ‘The Plains […]

Posted July 27, 2014 by PaulineMRoss in Current writings, The Fire Mages, The Mages of Bennamore, The Plains of Kallanash, Writing musings / 4 Comments

First books and second books

Writing a book is no different from any other craft: it takes practice. Nobody is able to paint or to make model aeroplanes or to write phone apps or drive a car straight out of the box. Well, growing potatoes, maybe; stick them in the ground, then dig them up three months later and enjoy delicious new potatoes with butter and a sprig of mint. Yummy. But I digress. Everyone needs to learn and hone their skills, and (except for potatoes) that takes practice. A lot of practice. For driving a car, they say it takes one lesson for every year of your life. For writing, the received wisdom is that it takes a million words. So the first effort is always a bit wonky. It’s like those clay models kids bring home from school – they’re always a bit lop-sided. ‘The Plains of Kallanash’ is my first, wonky effort. […]

Posted July 25, 2014 by PaulineMRoss in The Fire Mages, The Plains of Kallanash, Writing musings / 4 Comments

Kallanash update: final edits done

I’ve spent the last few weeks feverishly revising ‘The Plains of Kallanash’ in light of the comments received from my beta readers. And when I say ‘feverishly’, sometimes it almost felt as if I were literally feverish – I’d go to bed thinking about edits, I’d wake up thinking about them, and sometimes I even dreamt about them. It was hard work, and a great deal of it was spent, not pecking away at the keyboard, but just mulling over ideas. Not much else got done, although I’ve found that mindless occupations like ironing or gardening are excellent pondering opportunities. After the pondering and the final rewriting, I read through the whole book one final time to tighten up excessive wordiness, and looking out for last minute gotchas resulting from the revisions. No use removing that unwanted chunk of text if a different part of the book refers to the […]

Posted July 6, 2014 by PaulineMRoss in The Plains of Kallanash, Writing musings / 12 Comments

Final editing and beta reports

I’ve had a number of beta readers report back to me, and I’m now running through ‘The Plains of Kallanash’ one more time, incorporating final edits. I had a weekend away recently, which allowed me to read the whole book through from beginning to end, so I have my own notes on changes I want to make, as well. Some of them are easy: typos, repetition, adding in a little foreshadowing, tightening descriptions. But some are less easy. Here are a few problems that have come up: 1) Your main character is too passive. Well, yes, she is a timid, meek character, who does what she’s told and doesn’t exhibit much agency initially. That is very much in her nature, and, to be honest, if she had even an ounce of assertiveness in her, she’d have put her foot down in chapter 3 or 4, told her two men how […]

Posted June 15, 2014 by PaulineMRoss in The Plains of Kallanash, Writing musings / 4 Comments

Cover reveal for ‘The Plains of Kallanash’

If you read my previous post on cover art, you’ll know that I decided to pay the professionals to design something for me, since my artistic skills are non-existent. I found some pre-made artwork that captured something of the feel I was hoping for, so I was able to pass that along to the designer as a starting point. The beauty of custom cover art is that you can ask for whatever imagery or symbolism you want. I knew I wanted to capture the vastness of the plains – that big sky effect. I also suggested using pampas grass heads to represent the sort of grasses growing there. I asked for a fantasy-style font, and maybe some glowing letters, since that plays a part in the plot.

Posted June 4, 2014 by PaulineMRoss in Publishing/marketing, The Plains of Kallanash / 4 Comments

‘The Plains of Kallanash’: bonus scene (Jonnor’s interview)

‘The Plains of Kallanash’ is written with just two point-of-view characters, Mia and Hurst, so everything that happens is seen through the eyes of one or the other of those two. Nevertheless, there are other characters who have a significant impact on the story, whose actions and feelings and ideas resonate throughout the book. Some of them, like Tella, will always remain mysterious. Some, like Hurst’s Companions and family, are fairly transparent, so don’t need elaboration. And then there’s Jonnor. As the lead husband in the marriage, Jonnor has a very big impact on both Mia and Hurst, and sometimes his actions seem contradictory or unusually volatile. One such occasion is after his first interview at the Ring. Before this, he is openly hostile towards Hurst, but afterwards he makes some effort to reach out to him. This scene explains some of this. It is also written from Jonnor’s point-of-view, […]

Posted June 2, 2014 by PaulineMRoss in Character profile, The Plains of Kallanash / 0 Comments