Book Trailer News

An incredible 115 views of the Marvin's Curse book trailer have been registered on Youtube.  I've been asked a lot about the images used, mostly the man's head that pops up. I've been told it's a bit scary! Good! That's what I wanted. Thanks to everyone who clicked on it and special thanks to those who have shared it with their friends & followers! Best played loud with head/earphones!

Trailer figures

Pleased that the book trailer for Marvin's Curse has had over 70 views so far. Not gone viral by any means, but still means that the word is getting out about the book which is the whole point of producing the trailer. I will be going into detail about how it was made next week, but for now, let me leave you with it.

Turn the sound up! It needs loud!

FIRST MARVIN REVIEW!!

First review for Marvin's Curse is in and it's 5 stars!! 

'I decided to not read this book until after I finished my exams, because after having a free preview of the first 5 chapters, (Wattpad) I knew that I wouldn't be able to stop reading it. I felt in the mood to read a good book however, as a break from revision, so I went for it. Having read other books by the author I knew I was in for a treat.

I was unable to put it down. It was so gripping I read all of it in one sitting. The book is such an original story. Though there are thousands of books in the same sort of genre, I have never heard of anything like this book. It was so unpredictable the whole time, and I love that in a book. Every time I turned a page, I found something new which allowed me to piece more of the story together.

I really connected with the main characters, and actually sobbed at some points. The book was just so good I cannot describe to you how pleased I am that I read it.

I would thoroughly recommend this book to any one. I think it would be impossible to read the book and not be extremely pleased that you did so! It's quite rare to find a book that grips you so much that you can't put it down until you finish it but that is what this book did to me!

It was incredible'

Emily 27

Marvin's Curse out now!

SO... Marvin's Curse is now available on Amazon for £1.99 or on Smashwords for $2.99. YEAY!!
It's taken a while to get there as they need different formats in order to reach all the different e-readers. I do hope you'll pick up a copy and more importantly. let me know what you think - good or bad!

Book trailer at last!!

Book trailer so far!

It has been an exciting few days, sorting out the book trailer and I feel I'm almost there. This is the first screen that will show and it comes across as quite eerie which it was I was after. Still have some bits to tidy up and all in all it has been a steep learning curve, but really good fun.

Wattpad

This site is proving really useful for trying out Marvin's Curse on readers before launching the whole book. Here, readers can scan through different genres of sample chapters or whole books to see what they like. Marvin's curse has been read by 169 people so far which is very pleasing.

http://www.wattpad.com/story/3921672-marvin%27s-curse

Judging a book by its cover!

At last I've decided on a book cover for Marvin's Curse and thought I'd blog about the process.

When I finished my first book, Aggie Lichen; Pilp Collector, I was desperate to 'get it out there' and paid very little attention to the cover. Why would it matter? What was inside was more important! Oh, so wrong. I messed about in Word using a background of purple and then added basic shape stars to it. The stars were filled with silver and spread all over the front and back covers. I found a nifty font for the title and my name and bingo! Well, in school, where I was at the time teaching, it went down well, but after a while I decided that the cover wasn't saying anything about the book. It didn't give the reader any kind of insight as to what was inside and when compared to other books of this genre it was just plain dull. I found an illustrator, one of my daughter's graduate friends, and a new cover was designed for all three books in the series as they emerged.

Now you think I might have learnt a lesson with my new YA book, MARVIN'S CURSE, but things have changed considerably tech wise in the last ten years. I've used a photo/draw package to develop the cover. I looked more into it, paid more attention to what other books looked like in this genre and this time found advice on the web to guide me through it. The most difficult part was finding an image I really liked and that was somehow connected to the story. Images, while possibly royalty free, are not usually free and have licences to be purchased. Surpisingly, there are millions of images to choose from and they need not be too expensive. I did find one, but after waiting for the owner of the image to come back to me with a price I gave up and started again. The image I have used, The Angel of Grief by Meletios Verras, has an extended licence for resale ebook and printed book use and cost 50 credits, around £35, from the site 123RF. After payment, the image was immediately ready for download and I can go back and download again if needed. Personally I think that's a good buy, but remember I don't own that image. It's copyrighted and I just have a licence to use it for my book.
For the rest of the cover, I have played around with different fonts, colours and shadows. I've added flowery bits from art on the internet which didn't require licencing. If I print the book, I'd like to pick out the flowery bit in relief, with the stem possibly in silver. At the moment though, I'm just going to release it as an ebook and see how things go. I'd possibly go for POD instead of using my own printer, but that's a blog post of the future!

Chap 5 Marvin's Curse

Chapter 5 of Marvin's Curse now on Wattpad.

http://www.wattpad.com/17813349-marvin%27s-curse-chapter-5#.Ua21T5wQOrg

Another giveaway! 5 signed copies up for grabs. Please review if you win!

Goodreads Book Giveaway

Aggie Lichen

by Debra J. Edwards

Giveaway ends June 24, 2013.

See the giveaway details at Goodreads.

Enter to win

Second book Kindle freebie!

The second book, Arty's Revenge, will be available on Kindle for free over the next five days starting 16th May.

Here's the Amazon link for the download. Grab it while you can!

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Aggie-Lichen-Pilp-Collector-ebook/dp/B007SXTOXQ/ref=sr_1_5?ie=UTF8&qid=1368641609&sr=8-5&keywords=aggie+lichen

Giveaway!!

With the Goodreads giveaway now closed, I was pleased to see that 845 readers entered to win one of five signed copies of the first book! Congratulations to the winners who have all been notified! Your books are winging their way to you! Enjoy!

KINDLE PRICE CUT!

Aggie Lichen; Pilp Collector - the first 'Aggie' book - is now on Amazon for £1.02 for the Kindle edition. Won't be for long so snap it up!!

Cornerstones WOW Comp 2013

Although 'Marvin's Curse' didn't make the longlist... 'We thought that you may be pleased to know that you did in fact make the First Round of 32 entrants selected out of over 400, which I hope you will agree, is quite an achievement.'

GIVEAWAY

Goodreads Book Giveaway

Aggie Lichen; Pilp Collector

by Debra J. Edwards

Giveaway ends May 15, 2013.

See the giveaway details at Goodreads.

Enter to win

I have been trying out various sites etc to promote the now finished Marvin's Curse. I joined one, Wattpad, last October, but really didn't quite know how it worked - to be honest, I'm still not sure. Uploaded four newly edited chapters of Marvin and received a lovely comment.

Absolutely the best story I have read on WattPad, and believe me

I have read a lot of writing on this site, I loved it.

This came after an agent rejection so cheered me up no end and

now it has been read 34 times by viewers. It's free to join. 

Have a look!

SCBWI conference - Winchester

Wow! Another amazing conference. How do they do it, I wonder? Celia Rees!! Celies Rees for goodness sake AND Debi Gliori!!! Yes, Debi Gliori!! Then I have a breakout session with Justin Somper, author of 'Vampirates'! I have been left feeling more than a little inspired, I can tell you! (God, I love exclamation marks!)

And... then there were all my wonderful scoobie friends - old and new. We shared the ups and downs of our writing, celebrated the highs and lows of publishing, ate lots of cake and drank lots of coffee. Bliss!

Had a lovely time at Ewell Castle Junior School this week. What great kids! I spent about 50 minutes with Years 3/4 and then Years 5/6 and they were so receptive. They laughed at my silly anecdotes from my younger years and were astounded to find out that one of my books was around 50, 000 words long. And to cap it all, I sold 40 books which was fabulous!! I should also mention that the staff offered coffee and somewhere to sit quietly before hand. Very important!
I also had to call in to High View Primary School as they had an order of 14 books for me. All in all, a good week, bookwise!

I send out around 300 emails a week to schools offering free author talks and receive perhaps one or two replies. Now, very much like closing the door after the horse has bolted, I have an idea for reeling in some more schools. When I take part in book signings I often talk to pupils from schools I haven't yet visited. Now, if I had a card ready for them to hand to their teacher, something on the lines of:

(name) met a real author today at Waterstone's Sutton. (He/She) thought that your school (School name) might like a free author talk from the author, Debra J Edwards. (followed by a little bit about me and the books).

After the horse has bolted - well, I have probably given around 50 talks already! Still some ideas are slow to form...

Other ideas gratefully received!

I love signing in Waterstone's Sutton, as you probably know. I get a table and chair and am left to get on with it, which suits me just fine. Other authors might like to be 'attended' to, but I find it makes me work even harder to secure a sale, especially in Sutton which is my home town. Outside of Sutton, though, I do liked to be looked after with the occasional coffee or 'How's it going?'. I think that's down to the unsureness of where you are if the town is alien to you.
Friday's Sutton signing was not a great success in terms of book sales, but it did enable me to chat with people who were on the same planet as me. I had great fun exchanging book reads with a lovely lady called Natalie. We'd read very similar books and had similar favourite authors. I think I made her late back to work from her lunch break. Sorry, Natalie!
Also, the signing gave me a chance to talk to some local primary school pupils, some of whom I had met on author visits to their schools. Others were kind enough to want me to visit their schools and will be talking to their teachers about having a free author talk. I had a great chat with Siobhan of St Mary's, Carshalton, who bought a book and was eager to get me to come in and talk to her fellow pupils.
And finally, a lady from Egmont Publishing, Linda, was drawn to my table by my book covers. Now that especially pleases me as I am self-published and self-published covers are usually criticised heavily. I rattled on relentlessly about what I do as a self-published author and my book sales. Also tried to pitch my latest book, Marvin's Curse, but failed miserably although she did go away with my card!
I think what I'm trying to get across with this post is that it's not all about book sales when doing a signing event. I'm the first to get hung up on how many books were sold, but there are so many other opportunities at events like this. I just need to keep reminding myself!!