Saturday 20 October 2012

Facebook Cover

Using fotoflexer.com, just now, I made myself a cool new cover for Facebook... Check it out. I like it, but my profile picture blocks some of it.
Check out my facebook and friend me!! :)

Friday 12 October 2012

It's been a while

Wow, I have not been on this blog in a while!! Since June, apparently... I don't keep track of those types of things but apparently the blog does. A lot has happened lately. I have released two new books. Blood Lust, a vampire/ paranormal and Kidnapped, a regency romance, written under the pen name. Annabelle Lake. I STILL haven't gotten March of the Undead out... UGH! But I really want too, if that makes anything about my slothfulness better lol. I am currently trying to market my books more, signed up for twitter. I don't really understand it, but I am sure I will get there. SLLLOOOOOWWWWLLLLY I already have 2 followers! It is so sad that I am excited about that, haha. Um.. other things coming up is (drum roll please) my website. It is in the works and I seriously hope it will be awesome. I am serious about this marketing thing. I am in the middle of probably the BEST book I have ever written, I am calling it Demon from above. It is a paranormal based on angels and demons. I have the cover rough drafted, so I will post it right now. Anyways, back to the grindstone for me. Good Night World.

Sunday 3 June 2012

Book 2 Cover Sneak Peek.

Not sure if I have mentioned in this blog yet, but I have set the release date for the sequel to Duke of the Un-Dead, for June 15th. The book is called March of the Un-Dead and I have included a sneak peek of the cover. Feel free to give me input(I am not 100% sure if I like the red dots on the bodice of the gown.)

Thursday 31 May 2012

Revision.

Here is the new blurb as promised. When the Duke of Sussex awakens from a night of drinking and excess; it is to find himself in the bed of a harlot, with all hell breaking loose around him. Everywhere there is carnage and death, with some sort of creature like "people" eating the flesh of the living. A harrowing journey ensues to find relative safety with a handful of servants, who it is now his duty to protect. This is a zombie book that takes place in a historical setting. Sword play and single shot duelling pistols replace automatic weapons, a horse and carriage replace the modern day safety and speed of cars, bringing with it, its own set of challenges. I feel like it is a wayyyy better hook. I was going to post the old one for a comparison but I dumbly erased it before making a copy. So finger's crossed this will help!

Wednesday 30 May 2012

Book Review

As I mentioned in my last blog, I submitted my book for a review... well the review is in. Here it is, I will copy and paste it. 4/5 Stars.

"""In this zombie tale, the Duke of Sussex is trying to get his household & a few extra survivors to his country estate when London is overwhelmed by the undead. There is no explanation of where the "beasts" came from; the Duke simply woke up one morning in a brothel, and discovered some of the working girls had become the undead. When he looks out one of the windows, Grayson sees London breaking down into total bedlam, and wastes no time getting out of the city.

I liked reading an outbreak story from a different time in history, but it was never made clear exactly what year or decade this was happening. The Duke does make a few references to the Napoleon Wars, so I'm thinking this takes place sometime after 1815. It's not like I was expecting a zombie story to be historically accurate, but it seems like the author took quite a lot of liberties with historical figures. I also thought the characters' behavior was a little unrealistic for that particular time period, but who knows how fighting zombies would change their social norms?

The fact is, I read zombie stories to be entertained, and I was so engrossed in the action that I was shocked to suddenly find myself faced with a cliffhanger. I'm absolutely looking forward to continuing with this series.""""



I am VERY happy with this review, so THANK YOU!!!!!

This is not the first review I have gotten that commented on the lack of explanation for the outbreak. So I am going to fix that right now and do a quick edit. I am also going to post a date at the beginning... (you know how some say things like June 2007) Of course mine wont say that lol... 
I am not going to give a reason per say, for the zombies but I am going to address the problem people have with no explanation and have my characters dialoug show more clearly that they have no idea how it happened.  
That is one aspect I like about doing a historical, they do not have high tec labs and things like we do now. 


Ooh, another issue I am going to fix is my blurb. The part that tells the potential reader what the book is about....well, I have been thinking and I think the reason my book isnt selling awesomely is because in trying to appeal to everyone, I have appealed to almost no one. I described it as a zombie historical romance and while that is true, I can see the zombie fans being turned off by the idea of romance (when really it isnt mushy at all) and the romance fans turned off by the idea of zombies LOL. This realization came to me just a few days ago. I was like, I have been getting AWESOME reviews but no sales (I seriously sold 1 this month! in the USA and 2 in the UK) so whats wrong??? And that is what I came up with. So I will post the different blurb when I come up with it and post the old one for a comparison and let you all know if it helps my sale. :)

Monday 28 May 2012

It's a crazy world we live in.

 This afternoon as I was about to take my daughter to playschool (we were in the car in our driveway)  I received two text messages that Playschool was cancelled because of a lock down that also affected the big school.
As it turns out a man from a neighboring town, shot a woman and then escaped the police and wound up in/ around our small community 1 hour away.
The highway was closed by the RCMP and traffic was being diverted down alternate routes, (gravel roads).
This really freaked me out, because the town we live in is so small; that if a criminal was on the loose he could just as easily be on my street as main street.
I don't know if I over reacted or not, but I grabbed my daughter and my two Pugs, locked my doors and headed to my best friends remote farm 15 minutes out of town. (It is also where I would probably head if the zombies ever attack lol)
So that is where I am now, waiting this out. Perhaps all my mother's warnings of unseen dangers have made me an alarmist, but I feel it is always better to be safe than sorry.
Sadly, I have heard now that the suspect is "contained" by police in a location outside of town, but not "caught" and also has a hostage.
I find this so sad, that one person can so selfishly and completely impact another person's life on an apparent whim. I am hoping that whoever it is, is going to be okay.

   I brought my computer out here with me, so I am going to try and work on my book a little bit. (Don't you love having the type of friends that you can sit in complete comfortable silence with, each one doing their own thing) I know I do. Right now, I am blogging and she is bra shopping online haha. (true story)

On a lighter note, and a change of subject... I received another review on my book Duke of the Undead today giving me a total of 4 now. it was 4/5 Stars and said ""A Regency Romance with Zombies! What's a duke to do? This was a surprisingly great story, romance with a twist of gore, lots of action, good character interaction! A great evening's read!"" I am pretty proud of this.

I have also submitted my book to be reviewed by Ursula K Raphael, a writer/ reviewer for Zombiephiles.com. I am VERY nervous but am hoping for a good review as it could boost my sales IMMENSELY.
Anyways, ttyl cyber space.

Wednesday 23 May 2012

First Blog Ever!!

I feel like since this is my first post it should be something epic...but the sad fact is that at this moment I really am not quite sure what to say. There are only two blogs that I read,1) Amanda Hockings... because she is the first person I found out about having success @ Kindle publishing and it intrigued me and 2.) I look in on Joseph Talluto's blog for his zombie series, White Flag of the Dead. 
I like zombie books,which is strange because I am probably one of the biggest chickens out there.


Anyways... I am writing this blog with absolutely no one out there to read it, but who knows- maybe one day thousands of people will look at my blog. (LOL)


Amanda Hocking's blog seems to be filled with a bunch of random thoughts, where Joseph Talluto's blog is more strictly about his book.. (note to self, I think I need to look at other blogs to try and get a feeling about what they are about.) I feel kind of weird just writing random things and sending it off into cyber space, but I am going to do it and hope that it helps to promote my books. 


Speaking of my books, Duke of the Undead is AMAZING me. Not that its selling a ton of books, because its not :( but that the reviews I have gotten are SO good. None of my other books have even gotten a reviews, except one and Duke of the Undead has gotten 3!! Yes, 3 and I am proud of it because they are all good. 3/5, 4/5 and 5/5 Stars!. 

The worst thing that someone had to say about my book (aside from it was GORY, but hey its a zombie book) was that I did not give a reason for the zombie outbreak. Which was because of 2 reasons.1) It is based in Historical England (think the times of Dukes, and Kings, Earls etc...) I just honestly do not think that they would have the technology to know what in the heck is going on. No one is studying it, (at least so far) they are just running for their lives on horses and in carriages.Which I think gives the book a totally fresh view of zombies... getting away from the modern day, lets pull out our automatic weapons and blast the zombies, thing... It's a completely different style of fighting and surviving. They have guns but they are only single shot duelling pistols, most of the fighting is done with swords. They are not safe inside a car driving 100 km/hr they are on horseback and exposed, carriages can be easily tipped over. I find the situation really interesting. But I am getting away from my original thought which is 2) the book is part of a series and it may not have gotten mentioned in the first  book but there are at least 3 more books to follow... I have to leave a little mystery. 

 Anyways, I am having a little difficulty getting myself working on the second book in the Un Dead series, titled March of the Undead. Which is crazy, because I am really excited about the book... I feel like I have finally found a style of writing in the first book, that is as close to the professional style of writing. I hate to admit it, but before I wasnt really using dialoug to tell my story, which I feel like I am doing more of now. So that makes me excited!!!

Anyways, now that I have broken the ice on my blog writing I am going to go and try to write a bit on my book.I am up to about 15 000 words so far.

Night.