Infostack Review

Hi all! 

I'm not sure about how many authors are aware of Infostack and the deals they offer, so I thought I would give my thoughts here. I've purchased their Write, Publish, Profit bundle three times and I'm happy with what I got. 

Infostack offer cheap bundles with certain themes and businesses in mind. The one that I'll be talking about is Write, Publish, Profit. They do other bundles as well, such as wellness, healthy eating and marketing. I've never tried any of them as they haven't been of any interest to me, but from what I've seen they look quite good too. 

They contact a variety of writers, marketers and course owners and bundle it all into one for $49. They have several ebooks, courses and worksheets that you can work through. Some are discounts on software or services, such as cover design or editing. There is a cheatsheet you can buy to help navigate your way through the bundle if you're confused too. 

My favourite part of these bundles are some of the courses you can take. I've always struggled with marketing and a few of the courses are really good and have helped with that. 

Anyone can purchase the bundle at any point in their writing journey. It covers starting your story to marketing it when it's published. Even though I've published books previously, I still find some of the writing and editing courses useful. 

I'm a huge fan of Infostack because of Write, Publish, Profit. I've just purchased 6.0 and I'm getting through everything in there slowly but surely! It's only offered once a year for a week, which means you have to sign up to their newsletter or risk missing out on the deal. For $49 you get a bundle worth thousands of everything was purchased individually. I was cautious when I first heard about it as I thought it was too good to be true. I'm so glad it wasn't! 

So, if you've never heard of Infostack before or you've been on the fence about purchasing from them, I'd say do it. The deals are amazing and have helped me so much with various aspects of being an author. 

That's it for this week, don't forget to check Infostack out! See you next week. 

Paperback Price Increase

Hi all,

Amazon have recently announced that they are increasing the price of their paperback production due to rising costs. I will be raising my prices slightly to align with this, but you can still order paperbacks at the current price before the middle of June. The current prices for my paperback books range from £9.99-£10.99, depending on the book and series. The price will only go up by a small amount, but I still wanted to give you a heads up just in case you were thinking about buying one.

I do have some plans for my paperback books, some long-term and some short-term. Seeing as this post is about paperbacks, I thought this would be a great place to discuss it!

Signed paperbacks.

Some authors use their own websites or sites like Etsy to sell signed paperback books. I've thought about this a lot and it is definitely something that I would like to do in the future. I would like to do bundles where you can buy a signed paperback, bookmark and some stickers as well. This would be exclusive to that site and I think it would be a great way to also sell some of the merchandise that I've had created. 

Distribution.

IngramSpark have recently scrapped the fee that they used to charge authors to upload their books to their database. I'm looking into this one, but it is definitely something that I have been interested in for a while. On Ingram, you can list your books at a discounted price and retailers/libraries may purchase them. I've looked into this before, but the £50 upload fee for each book is what always put me off. Now that it's gone, I'm thinking of uploading all of my books on there at some point. This will only be the paperback version, the ebook and hardcovers will still be available on Amazon.

Rewards.

I've discussed creating a Patreon several times before on my blog. For Camp NaNoWriMo July 2023 I will be writing the first draft of Missing Constellations, the book that would be a Patreon exclusive. My plan is to have a tier where patrons would get the option of receiving a signed paperback twice a year. They would also eventually get a signed copy of Missing Constellations, when that book has been completely published on Patreon and is ready for publication in ebook, paperback and hardcover on Amazon.

Giveaways.

I would love to get back into the habit of doing regular giveaways for paperbacks whenever a new book is published. I just love the feeling of readers receiving a signed copy.

If you want to order one of my paperbacks at the current price, make sure you do this before mid-June, as that is when the prices will be raised. That's it for this week, see you next Sunday!

PS; check out this Fantasy/Sci-Fi book bundle!

Summer Sci-Fi and Fantasy Books in Kindle Unlimited!

Purgatory Cover Design

Hi all!

This week is the cover reveal for Celestial Plague #3: Purgatory. This is the third book in the Celestial Plague series and as with previous covers, it has been designed by Deranged Doctor Design. They will be designing the last cover in the series later on this year and I love working with them. My banners and newsletter will get updated in August 2023, when I’m hoping to have the book available for pre-order. The cover is…

• The character on the cover of this book is Raya. As with previous books, each of the MCs will get their own cover. The last one will be Jenna.

• DDD came up with the colour scheme for this one and I love it! It fits nicely with the previous covers and is eye-catching.

• The typography remains the same as the other books.

• The background for this cover is the mall, which the characters have used several times in the previous books to hide and escape Sarjs.

• The panther, Damisa, is represented on the cover as Raya’s power. She’s a panther shifter and I wanted to include her on the cover too. I adore the pose that DDD picked for her.

• I decided to continue with the hoodie theme that the previous characters wore. Jenna will probably have one too.

• The sky in this one is my favourite. The colours are beautiful.

Purgatory will be available in October 2023 and will be available for pre-order in August. Celestial Plague #4: Hell, will have it’s cover designed around November.

That’s it for this week, I hope you enjoyed reading! See you next week.

PS; don’t forget to check out this bundle before it expires:

Great Books Giveaway!

Heaven is now Available on Amazon

Hi all,

If you haven’t been keeping an eye on my social media, the second book in the Celestial Plague series has now been published. It’s available in ebook, paperback and hardcover. This is the second series I’ve published and I loved writing it, I hope you love reading it too! Check it out below:

The survivors seek Heaven, but sanctuary comes with a price, one that could cost them everything.

Ashleigh has now been infected in an effort to save her life. Feeling betrayed and distraught over being Bitten causes friction among her and the other survivors which threatens to tear them apart. And when she starts having visions that show her the only way to Heaven is to infect more people, will it be the end of them all?

Danger is around every turn for Raya who discovers a mysterious man wielding multiple strange powers while escaping Warren. Who is this man? Why does he have her sister’s tail?

To escape the control of Warren, Cindy and Jenna decide to do the unthinkable… Head into The Rot. Will they find the secret truths about the infection there, or will they only become victims of The Rot?

That’s it for this week, if you check out the Celestial Plague series I hope you enjoy it! See you next week.

PS; don’t forget to take a look at these book bundles before they go!

From Your Worst Nightmares…

Great Books Giveaway!

A Flight of Dragons

Hi all,

A story from the Elemental Dragons universe, Orange to Blue, has found a home in an anthology. I always love submitting to anthologies and adding new books to my bookshelf and an anthology about dragons was just perfect! You can check it out below:

A collection of short stories and poems, all about dragons.

Dragons, dragons, and even more dragons. Get your fix of dreamy, dragon-based fiction and enjoy a tantalising mix of humour, emotion and intrigue.

Contributing authors:
Heather C Page, Linda M Crate, Jessica Turnbull, Stephen S Power, Sean Britten, Andrew Murphy, Jason P Burnham, Matias F Travieso, Alex Souza, Mark Mills, Alex Evans, Jibril Stevenson, Joachim Heijndermans, Ismail Ahmed, Dibyasree Nandy, Ben Sawyer, J D Byrne, Mary Jo Rabe, Kathryn Reilly, Rohan Magerman, Oliver Smith, L N Hunter, Marisca Pichette.

Orange to Blue contains no spoilers for the Elemental Dragon series and is instead a fun little side story set during Blood and Water. It features Hazel, Aqueous, Marco and Draca as they try to help an Amphiptere Dragon who is going to be used as entertainment during the summer solstice. I originally wrote it for a different anthology but it didn’t make it through. I’m glad it has managed to find a home now though!

I’m hoping to get published in more anthologies throughout the year and maybe get some of my older short stories published. I still occasionally look up ones that I think I might be interested in.

That’s it for this week, I hope you check out A Flight of Dragons! See you next week.

PS; if you’re looking for some more fantasy reads, check out these book bundles:

Time to Thaw Out with a Free Short Story!

Soar Through the Sky

My 2023 Writing Goals

Hi all!

Seeing as I posted my year in review last week, I’m now going to post my writing goals for 2023! There are a lot of big ones this year and I’d like to push myself to get them done.

Write five books.

Of course my first goal is how many books I want to write. This year I’m planning on hitting five. One of those will be Street Rats, which I want to finish by the end of the year. The others will be:

Original Elementals #6: Sunrise

Missing Constellations

Original Elementals #7: Stormburst

Original Elementals #8: Turf

Publish two books.

Celestial Plague #2: Heaven and Celestial Plague #3: Purgatory will both be published this year! Heaven in April and Purgatory in October. I would love to publish more often once my books start earning more profit.

This book will be published in April this year!

Edit three books.

Like last year, I’m going to stick with three books to edit. One will be Celestial Plague #4: Hell while the others will be in the Curse of Anubis series.

Get covers designed for the final books in Celestial Plague.

The cover designs have been booked for both Purgatory and Hell, which will both have covers by the end of the year! I’ll also be booking in covers for the first two books in the Curse of Anubis series. As always, I’ll be going to Deranged Doctor Design to have these covers made.

Write the Curse of Anubis Short Story Collection.

I’ve decided that I want this reader magnet to be like the Elemental Dragons Short Story Collection, a bunch of short stories written from that universe. So far I have stories planned for: the fight between Bastet and Sekhmet, how Sekhmet got her mane, why Mafdet ran away, how Set created the sha and Ra fleeing before the events of Curse of Anubis. I want to get all the stories done by the end of the year, even though Curse of Anubis won’t be published until late 2024.

Write more short stories.

I had so much fun with this last year and I love expanding my publishing portfolio. I want to add more anthologies to my publishing shelf so I will be writing more short stories to submit next year. Now that I have an easy way of finding ones to submit to, it shouldn’t take too long for me to submit them.

Design more merchandise.

So far I have had a lot of stickers designed for Elemental Dragons and also a bookmark (to be shown at a later date!). I want to get merch designed for my other books as well as finding a way to get it out there for you. I’m looking into setting up an online shop so you all can order what you like from me. I would love to add signed books into the mix as well, as I think that’s what you would be interested in as well. So for this year, I’ll focus on getting more merch designed with the possibility of a shop popping up as well.

I’d love to get stickers designed for Mute and Years - they will probably be cats!

Set up a Patreon.

I have been wanting to do this for ages. I’ve asked my newsletter subscribers what they would like to see most from me and also what rewards they would be interested in. I have a simple plan for content at the moment, which would be:

Mishie Mondays - weekly updates written in Mishka’s perspective, complete with pictures.

100 Word Drabbles - once a week publication of a 100 word story from one of my books. Although my main focus is to start with will be Elemental Dragons, I want to write drabbles from my other books as well.

Chapter of Missing Constellations - once a week I will post a chapter from the Patreon exclusive, Missing Constellations. It will be a YA Fantasy book focusing on Laelaps and the Teumessian Fox. Every few hundreds years they are allowed to return to Earth for a day in their human forms, but are then sent back to the sky. However, one day they aren’t sent back, and are instead turned back into their canine forms when night falls. They need to find out what’s stopping the gods from sending them back to their constellation, and why other creatures like them are also suffering the same fate.

Weekly polls - once a week a poll will be posted so my supporters can vote on what I write next, character design, 100 word drabbles and even what merch they want designed next.

Build up my mailing list.

My aim is to do more newsletter swaps and participate in more book bundles in 2023. I would love to spread the word of my books and my newsletter seems like the best way to do that!

Continue learning Spanish.

This is a more personal goal than a writing one, though I suppose it will help me if I decide to add a different language to my books. I want to continue learning the language anyway, even if it’s just five minutes a day!

Read 50 books.

I’m cutting my goal in half this year so I can focus on all of my goals above. The first book that I read will of course be a Warriors one! I have many books on my to be read pile that I need to get through so I can make room for more.

Participate in both Camp NaNoWriMo and NaNoWriMo.

As with past years, I will be participating in all the events. I love filling up the word counter on their website and I’ve found that I work so much better with a deadline. Plus, I made a lot more buddies this year and it’s so fun to see everyone’s progress!

That’s it for this week! If you have any goals for 2023, I wish you the best of luck! Next week I will be posting an excerpt of the first chapter of Celestial Plague #2: Heaven, so make sure you keep an eye out for it, see you next week.

PS; don’t forget to check out these book bundles!

Mid-Christmas Horror Giveaway

New Year, New Monsters 3: From the Darkness

2022 Year in Review

Hi all,

Next week I’ll be writing about my goals for 2023. As always, I want to look back at my goals for 2022 and see how well I did. My mental health has been far better this year, allowing me to do more than last year. Still, I thought it would be fun to look back!

Write four books.

I’ve managed to complete the first drafts of five books this year, they are:

Original Elementals #2: Maelstrom.

Original Elementals #3: Shadowhunter.

Celestial Plague #4: Hell.

Original Elementals #4: Devouring.

Original Elementals #5: Tempest.

Publish two books.

Years was published in April and Celestial Plague #1: Nirvana was published in October.

Get three covers designed.

The first two books in the Celestial Plague series both have covers now. The reader magnet, Celestial Plague #0: Seashine, also has a pretty cover.

Self-edit all of the Celestial Plague series.

Unfortunately, I haven’t quite managed to reach this one. Seeing as I decided to write a fourth book in April, it messed up my editing plans a bit. The first three books have been self-edited, the first two have been with my editor. But the fourth one will be edited by myself next year.

Write the Years reader magnet.

Solar Child has been written and sent out to my newsletter subscribers! Although I struggled writing it before, I came up with an idea that clicked. I’m glad that I managed to write it and send it out before Years was published.

Make two reader magnets available to my newsletter subscribers.

Solar Child and Seashine have both been sent out to my newsletter subscribers. That brings the total up to four free enovellas that are available to those who sign up to my mailing list.

Submit more short stories.

I’ve written a lot more short stories this year, which is great! Quite a few have been submitted to anthologies that I’m just waiting to hear back from. One has been accepted into an anthology that should hopefully be out in January.

Read 100 books.

The year had a rocky start because I didn’t start reading again until early February. Still, I found a lot of good books that I devoured pretty quickly which helped me catch up. I managed to hit my goal of 100 with only a few days to spare!

Grow my mailing list.

Unfortunately I didn’t manage to hit my goal of 500 newsletter subscribers. I’ve had to trim my list a few times this year which has brought the total down. Still, I’m incredibly happy for the subscribers that I have and I’m glad that they’re enjoying my content!

Focus on Amazon ads more.

I set up a few automatic ads and left them. Around June, one started getting loads of clicks. This really surprised me, especially as that momentum continued into July and August. Although I definitely still have a lot to learn, I’m glad that I’ve managed to improve my ads slightly and gain more knowledge about advertising.

Get my books into more libraries.

This is the one goal that I haven’t attempted all year. I’m looking into ways that I can get my books into libraries, but I haven’t contacted any yet. This goal will probably roll over into 2023.

Make all of my books available in hardcover.

Every single one of my published books is now available in hardcover! This is my favourite kind of book and I knew I wanted to have hardcovers, even if I don’t sell many. They are currently all on my ‘publishing’ shelf in my living room!

Participate in Camp NaNoWriMo and NaNoWriMo.

Original Elementals #3: Shadowhunter and Celestial Plague #4: Hell were both completed during the months of Camp NaNoWriMo. Original Elementals #5: Tempest was completed during NaNoWriMo in November.

That’s all the goals that I had for 2022! Next week I’ll discuss my goals for 2023, some exciting ones are on there. See you next week!

PS; don’t forget to check out these book bundles:

Mid-Christmas Horror Giveaway

Magical Winter Fantasy

The Character Who Hates Her Power The Most in Celestial Plague

Hi all!

The last main character in Celestial Plague who needs a blog post is Ashleigh Warren. Although quiet and loyal, she's the one that gets the most transformation in the series.

Ashleigh's mother died shortly after giving birth to her. Her father, who she calls Lord Warren, gave her to his sister to raise while he created his cult. By the time Ashleigh was two, the cult had over five hundred members. At six years old, the cult had absorbed most of her town and created it's own little area - Warrville. It's here in the Warrish cult that she met Raya and Shannon. They grew up together, learning about sins and how to guarantee that they will get a place in the afterlife. Ashleigh believed in this the most out of her friends, as she was also getting taught it at home by Warren. Just before her ninth birthday her aunt went missing and never returned. Ashleigh grieved heavily for the loss of the woman she called mother, and never knew what happened to her.

In Warrish, powers are not be used as they are sinful. In school, students are taught to control their powers. Warren pulled Ashleigh out of those classes and made her believe that using her power would mean that she is disrespecting God. Ashleigh has the power to change the colour of hair and fabrics. Though because Warren never let her practice, she has no control over it. She wears gloves to prevent herself from accidentally using her power. She's always ashamed to take them off at night, as the insides are always brightly coloured. As her power is transferred through her skin, she tries to keep herself as covered up as possible. Every time she accidentally brushes against someone and changes the colour of their hair, she has to punish herself as per Warren's teachings. She follows his teachings as much as she can and is completely brainwashed by them.

She is the most naïve of the group, believing everything Warren says without question. The only thing that she struggles to agree with him is marriage. Ashleigh is asexual aromantic, though she doesn't know it. She thinks something is wrong with her as she doesn't want to get married and hates the idea of sex and childbirth. Her friends accept her for who she is, which gives her some comfort. All of her friends are LGBTQ+, with Shannon and Jenna being lesbians and Raya being bisexual. She struggles with this idea as Warrish teaches her to hate them for feeling that way. But she can't hate her friends, and instead tries her best to help them in whatever way she can.

Like Raya, Ashleigh doesn't get along with Jenna too well. Even she can see through Jenna's façade and isn't convinced that she loves Shannon. While she tries to be support of her friend, she knows the relationship will end badly. She also isn't a huge fan of Dan, as he is completely obsessed with Raya and she doesn't like being around men.

That's it for the main characters of Celestial Plague! Next week's blog post will announce the publication of Celestial Plague #1: Nirvana, so don't miss it! See you next week.

PS; don’t forget to check out these awesome book bundles!

URBAN FANTASY: 1st in Series on KINDLE UNLIMITED—Get your Binge On!

Young Adult Sci-Fi & Fantasy

Series Based off of Mythology

Hi all,

If you've read some of my old blog posts then you'll know that a lot of my writing is based off of various mythology and mythological creatures. I was always interested in mythology when I was little and that has carried over into my adult life and my writing. I've already written one series based off of Egyptian mythology but I thought I'd talk a bit more about other mythologies that I would like to write about as well.

Egyptian.

Curse of Anubis includes Egyptian gods. The ones that show up the most are: Bastet, Sekhmet, Set, Anubis and Mafdet. I've always wanted to write about Egyptian mythology as I've always loved reading the stories growing up. I would love to go to Egypt one day to see the pyramids and I'm always on the lookout for Egyptian exhibits in museums.

Greek.

Greek mythology was my favourite when I was younger. I had numerous books about the stories of the gods and demi-gods. I've got a series planned, Damaged Goods, which will centre around the Greeks. Pyrrah, the daughter of Hades, struggles to find her way in the world when her father turns his back on her. Desperate for power, she vows revenge on the gods and recruits their descendants to help her. There's also the book that I want to write for Patreon about Laelaps and the Teumessian Fox which is based off the story of the uncatchable fox and the dog that never loses its prey.

Norse.

The part that interests me the most about Norse mythology are the Valkyries. I want to write a series about a school where girls are trained to be Valkyries and paired with their flying horse partners. It would be like Elemental Dragons, but instead of dragons there would be flying horses instead!

Celtic.

I've only recently started looking into more and more Celtic mythology and I find it really interesting. I would like to write about it in some way but I'm currently brain storming ideas. I'm sure I'll come up with something good at some point!

Persian.

This one is the one I know the least about as I've only just started researching it. But so far I've seen a few mythological creatures that have caught my eye that I think would be interesting to write about. Once I've done some more research I'll have a think about what stands out to me most.

That's it for this week, I hope you enjoyed reading! See you next week.

PS; looking for some new books to read? Check out the ones in these bundles:

Science Fiction September

URBAN FANTASY: 1st in Series on KINDLE UNLIMITED—Get your Binge On!

Young Adult Sci-Fi & Fantasy

Underwater Stories

Hi all,

Before I start writing Original Elementals #4: Devouring next month I want to get some short stories written. I've found some anthologies with themes that I find really interesting and they all involve underwater beings. I thought I'd write a post explaining what creatures I'm planning on writing about in these stories.

Nessie.

One of the anthologies has a strange theme of Loch Ness Monster vs Ghosts of Atlantis. I think this theme is unique and a good one to stretch my imagination. As the title of the anthology suggests, Nessie, the Loch Ness Monster, will be involved. But I'm also going to include Morag, the monster of Loch Morar. I think these two go well together as they inhabit separate Lochs and I think it will be interesting to tie them in together. As for the ghosts of Atlantis, I've got a few ideas bouncing around in my head but nothing solid for now.

Mermaids.

A different anthology has the theme of mermaids. I'm thinking this story will be a horror one, featuring a mermaid preying on fishermen who have taken something from her. I don't know whether the thing that they have taken will be a mythological creature or a tiger shark, I haven't decided yet. But this mermaid won't be nice to people she comes across, she will use anything at her disposal to make them suffer.

Kelpies.

I like the idea of kelpies in their horse form. I would like to include them in a short story, but I'm not sure if this will tie in with Nessie or the mermaid. The kelpies will probably appear in a herd and I like to imagine them being aggressive. They will not hesitate to attack whatever is threatening them.

Leviathan.

A monster hiding in the deep that suddenly comes to the surface is one of my favourite tropes. The monster that I'm thinking about will erupt from the deep and will control the weather. Freak storms, maelstroms, tsunamis - all controlled by this monster.

That's it for this week, I hope you enjoyed reading! See you next week.

PS; check out these free ebooks:

August Fantasy Giveaway