The New Book Titles for Curse of Anubis

Hi all,

About a year ago I made a blog post about how I want to change the titles of the Curse of Anubis books. Before, the titles were:

Halfway

Limbo

Middle

Dual

It's been a long time but I've managed to come up with some new names that will hopefully stick a bit better! The previous names were ones that were supposed to be placeholders until I started writing the books. But I struggled so much with coming up with names that they stayed far too long. But now, I'm glad that I can rectify that!

Book one: The Plague's Hope

Book two: The Burning Snake

Book three: The Frozen Eye

Book four: The Dead Kingdom

I think these titles are more fitting for what actually happens in the books and I think they sound a lot cooler too!

The Plague's Hope refers to Tahira as she is the first, and only, person to be partially resurrected after being a zombie. She can travel between the living world and the afterlife. The dead believe that the one who gets resurrected will find a cure for everyone.

The Burning Snake focuses more on Wadjet as she is the main antagonist in book two. She manages to get hold of Ra's Eye and takes the power for herself.

The Frozen Eye is about Horus' Eye and where it can be found. Seeing as one Eye has been found, the one who wields both is said to become the new ruler of the gods.

The Dead Kingdom I'm sure is a more obvious one, but it refers to all of the zombies. They have taken over most of the living world at this point and Anubis has stopped collecting their hearts.

I'm so glad that I finally sorted the titles out because it was driving me crazy. I've spent ages cycling through names that I think would work and then discarding them for not feeling right. These ones feel a lot better and I'm hoping that they'll stick. Especially since book one is coming out in October.

That's it for this week, I hope you like the new names! See you next week. 

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

A Box Set of Young Adult Magic

Epic Fantasy Spring Giveaway

Fantastic Fantasy

Nephilim

Hi all,

A short of mine, False Comet, has been published in an Iron Faerie anthology! You can check it out below…

Dare to enter the cosmic battleground where angels, demons, and Nephilim collide!
Revealing forbidden love, celestial wars, and the extraordinary powers that shape their entwined fates.
Brace yourself for a rollercoaster ride through realms unseen, as each story lures you into a world where the boundary between light and darkness is blurred. promises a gripping journey that will leave you breathless, craving more of the supernatural tapestry these tales so masterfully weave.

Featured authors:
Barend Nieuwstraten III
B.F. Vega
D.L. Smith-Lee
Ellen Rose
Emily Sharp
Gabby Gilliam
Jessica Turnbull
Jordan Davidson
Spencer Helsel
Sultana Raza

False Comet is actually the first story I submitted to Iron Faerie. After I saw the prompt, I came up with an idea that I couldn’t shake! It follows three teenagers who are waiting for a meteor shower but instead witness a comet crash into the Earth. Upon further investiagtion, they wished they had they had just stayed at home instead…

I love seeing my work published in anthologies and I hope to continue submitting to them this year! I’ve already got my eye on a dragon one which I’m hoping to submit to by the end of the month.

That’s it for this week, I hope you enjoy Nephilim! See you next week.

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

Free to Dream (Sci-Fi & Fantasy)

KU Kickstart (All Genre - 1st in Series)

A Dragon-themed New Year’s Adventure

New Year, New Monsters 4: From the Caves

My 2024 Writing Goals

Hi all,

As promised, here are my goals for 2024!

Write three books.

I would like to write the first drafts of the following books in 2024:

Original Elementals #8: Turf

Empty Skies #2: Freezing Constellations

Original Elementals #9: Arcturus

Publish two books.

I’m planning on publising Celestial Plague #4: Hell in April and Curse of Anubis #1 in October.

Re-name the Curse of Anubis books.

While I do like the names they currently have, I think I can do better. I’ve been looking at shorter, snappier titles and also longer ones. I don’t want to publish them with the titles they currently have.

Get two covers deisgned.

The first two books in the Curse of Anubis series will have covers by the end of the year. They will be designed by Deranged Doctor Design, as always.

Self-edit two books in the Curse of Anubis series.

I think I’ve been too hard on myself with self-editing in the past so this time I’m going to cut myself some slack. Editing two books myself is acheivable and I won’t be pushing myself too hard to get it done either.

Finish the Curse of Anubis Short Story Collection and make it available to my subscribers.

I’m planning on getting this enovella finished this year and I want to make it available to my newsletter subscribers before October.

Read 100 books.

I love reading and seeing as I blew my goal out of the water last year I thought I would increase it!

Work on my book sales.

I’d love to be able to publish more books, but in order to do that I need to sell more. I’m going to be tweaking a lot of my books descriptions, blurbs and categories to hopefully get more eyes on them. I want to continue publishing in the future and would like to increase the amount of books I’m able to publish in a year.

Create a Patreon.

Even if it’s not ready by the end of the year, I at least want to get started on it. I put it off a lot last year because I was worried that no-one would want to sign up to it. This is still one of my big goals although I’ve tweaked the original vision a bit. It will now be a hub for all things Elemental Dragons, which means that Original Elementals will be published on there first.

Participate in Camp NaNoWriMo and NaNoWriMo.

I love participating in these events and my writing wouldn’t be where it is without them. I want to participate in all three events again this year and hopefully get some books done in that time!

I’m being a bit kinder to myself this year which is why I’m not setting as many goals as I usually do. I want to try to focus on my mental health a bit more this year. I didn’t realise how hard I was pushing myself until I looked back at my goals from last year. I’m going to slow down a bit but still keep up with my writing.

What are your goals for this year? Let me know in the comments!

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

Free to Dream (Sci-Fi & Fantasy)

KU Kickstart (All Genre - 1st in Series)

New Year, New Monsters 4: From the Caves

2023 Year in Review

Hi all,

It’s time for my year in review! Truthfully I haven’t been looking forward to this as I think I set my goals too high last time. I’m proud of what I’ve done but I think I could have been a bit nicer to myself. This will be reflected in next year’s goals. Either way, I still hit a few of my targets!

Write Five Books

I managed to write four books this year! They were:

Original Elementals #6: Sunrise

Empty Skies #1: Missing Constellations

Street Rats

Original Elementals #7: Stormburst

One off my goal, but I’ve still done pretty well! I have plenty of time to write all of the books that I want to write, which is what I need to keep reminding myself.

Publish two books

Celestial Plague #2: Heaven and Celestial Plague #3: Purgatory have both been published this year!

Edit three books

I just need to do one more self-edit of Curse of Anubis #1: Halfway and that will be two books edited this year. Celestial Plague #4: Hell is completely edited and ready for publication next year.

Get covers designed for the final books in Celestial Plague

I’ve had actually had five covers designed this year, three of which are in the Original Elementals series. You’ll have to wait to see those covers revealed though.

Write the Curse of Anubis Short Story Collection

I’ve written a lot of short stories in the Curse of Anubis universe, mostly thanks to the Furious Fiction monthly writimng challenge. I’m going to work on making a few of the stories a bit longer and then they’ll be ready to be made into a reader magnet. There are also a few stories that I still want to tell that I’ve drafted but not completely written yet.

Write more short stories

This one I’ve actually done a lot of! I’ve been writing a lot more short stories thanks to my writing group and the Furious Fiction challenge. A few have even been submitted to anthologies and have been accepted.

Design more merchandise

The Elemental Dragons bookmark was released this year and I was getting another one designed but unfortunately there were communication issues with the designer. I would love to get more dragon stickers designed in the future and maybe also some cats from my series.

Set up a Patreon

I’ve been stalling on this one because I’ve made a few changes to this plan. Instead of the Empty Skies series, it will instead be dedicated to Elemental Dragons. I want to turn it into a dragon lovers paradise. Everything on there will be dragon (or cat) related and I’d love to get this set in stone for 2024.

Build up my mailing list

This one has been great because I’ve got 450 people on my newsletter now. I’m running more polls and giveaways to hopefully drive up engagement. I’ll be releasing the Curse of Anubis Short Story Collection as well as a thank you to everyone who has supported me.

Continue learning Spanish

Unfortunately this one has taken a back seat this year. I’d love to pick it up again at some point and carry on learning.

Read 50 books

I blew this goal out of the water and read 126! I love reading and found so many good books this year. I read a lot of GameLit which was recommended to me by work colleagues. I’ve got plenty of books on my TBR list to get through which will hopefully make a dent in all of the piles around my flat.

Participate in both NaNoWriMo and Camp NaNoWriMo

I participated in all three again this year and loved every second of it. I managed to hit one million words written total throughout all the challeneges I’ve done over the years. I love the community and all of the work that goes into creating NaNoWriMo and how many writers participate. It’s my favourite writing challenge.

That’s it for this week! Next week I’m going to discuss my goals for 2024, so keep an eye out for that. See you next Sunday.

PS; if you’re looking for new monster books to read this year then check out this bundle:

New Year, New Monsters 4: From the Caves

StoryOrigin Review

Hi all, 

I last did a review post about Infostack and I wanted to do another. This time it's StoryOrigin. It's a platform where you can do newsletter swaps with other authors, join group promos and even send out review copies. I first joined when it was free and stuck with it when they added a payment system. It is now a core part of my newsletter as it brings me new fans and new eyes on my books. 

Newsletter Swaps

You can swap either free reader magnets or books available to buy. I do a mix of both to keep my newsletter going and generate a few sales. Without it, I wouldn't have been able to grow my newsletter so quickly. You can swap with other authors by genre so you can see who would be a great fit for your newsletter. You can also see their open and click rates to decide if you want to swap with them. 

Group Promos

I love creating and participating in group promos. They bring lots of new eyes to your books and are so much fun to organise. I love creating themed ones, such as dragons or monsters. I mostly use them to promote my Kindle Unlimited books, but I have done a few sales ones which have done quite well too. 

A group promo banner I created for a StoryOrigin promotion

I haven't used the other features yet, such as review copies. I do want to use it to gather more reviews at some point though. The dashboard is easy to use and you can keep all your links in one place. It's easy to upload reader magnets and create universal links for all of your books. Without StoryOrigin, I would be struggling a lot more with my newsletter. I know a lot of people compare it to Book Funnel, but I haven't tried that one so I can't comment on it. 

If you're looking for somewhere to build up your newsletter, I would recommend StoryOrigin. I've been using it for years and can't see myself without it. 

Do you like these reviews? If you do, let me know and I'll do some more! 

That's it for this week, see you next week. 

PS; don’t forget to check out these giveaways!

A Post-Apocalyptic Christmas Giveaway

A Giveaway for National Author’s Day

Flights of Fantasy

Hi all!

One of my short stories has managed to find a home in an anthology. You can read ‘Flames of the Moon’ in Flights of Fantasy, which is available now!

Dive into a realm where magic knows no bounds, and legends come to life.
From the mystical depths of ancient forests to the soaring heights of dragon filled skies, these tales will transport you to worlds where heroes rise, kingdoms clash, and the extraordinary becomes ordinary.
Whether you seek epic adventures, tales of mystical creatures, or stories of unlikely heroes, this anthology has it all!
Prepare to be spellbound and experience the magic of an entire universe in a single book.
The authors within this book are:
A J Wilson
Alexandra Haverská
A.M. Cummins
Andra Dill
Andrea Barton
Andrew Kurtz
Angela Zimmerman
Anna-Maria Aschmann
Ariel Finkle
Ashleigh Cattermole-Crump
Austin Worley
Barend Nieuwstraten III
Beth W. Patterson
Blake Jessop
Brandon Hingley-Lovett
Brenda Anderson
Bruce Rowe
Cara Twomey
Cassia Hall
Catherine Berry
Charles Reis
Charlotte Langtree
Chris Hewitt
Chrissie Rohrman
Claire Davon
Connor Sassmannshausen
Dale Parnell
Danielle Mikals
David Bowmore
David Green
Dawn DeBraal
Declan Liam McKendrick
Diane Arrelle
DJ Elton
D’mitri Blackwood
D.M. Slate
Dorian J. Sinnott
Edward Ahern
Elizabeth Nettleton
Ella Everly
Ellie A Goss
Emma Kathryn
Erica Damon
Fiona Honor Hurley
Gabriella Balcom
Gabby Gilliam
Gemma Paul
Georgina Stancer
Ian T. Wilson
Isa Ottoni
James Carraghan
Jasiah Witkofsky
J.A. Skelton
Jessica Labbe
Jessica Turnbull
Jodie Francis
Jon Chan
Jordan Eagles
Joshua D Taylor
Joshua Williams
Juliana Amir
Kailey Alessi
Kaitlyn Arnett
Karen Bayly
Kate Campbell
Katie Jordan
Keith Burdon
Kevin Hopson
Kim Plasket
Lauraine S. Blake
Lisa H. Owens
LJ McLeod
L.J. Wynn
L. T. Emery
Luis Manuel Torres
Lynne Phillips
Lynette S. Hoag
Maggie D Brace
Marianne Reese
Marie Sinadjan
Mckenzie Richardson
Meera Dandekar
Melody E. McIntyre
Michelle Ann King
Michelle Brett
Miriam H. Harrison
M. M. Montelione
MM Reynolds
Monica Schultz
M.W. Irving
Naito Diamond
Natasha Sinclair
Nathan A. Jacobs
NC Smith
Nerisha Kemraj
Nicole Walsh
Olivia Arieti
Pat Woods
Patrick Winters
P.L. Glaser
Rachel L. Tilley
R.A. Clarke
R.A. Goli
R. C. Capasso
Renata Pavrey
Rich Feitelberg
S.A. McKenzie
Sammi Cox
SL Kretschmer
Sophie Wagner
Stacey Jaine McIntosh
Stefan Grieve
Stephen Arndt
Stephen E Sorensen
Stephen Johnson
Stephanie Parent
Susan Cornford
Tabitha Baumander
Taya Rune
Terry Hooker
Terry Keelan
Tim Blaine
Toko Hata
Tony Steven Williams
Toshiya Kamei
Troy Deacon
V.H. Stone
Victor Nandi
Vinny Cucuzza
Vonnie Winslow Crist
Ximena Escobar

As you can see, this anthology is chock full of stories from plenty of authors! There are hundreds of fantasy stories to make your way through. I’ve read quite a few of them already and I think they’re all amazing.

I wrote Flames of the Moon on a whim after a writing prompt from my writer’s group. I had a dream about a girl who was given fire magic from a moon goddess and rolled with it. Despite only being 500 words, I really loved writing it. So much in fact that I have ideas to turn it into a book. The moon goddess will still give out fire magic but there will be three other goddesses too. Once I’ve plotted the story out a bit more I’ll share a few more details with you.

That’s it for this week, I hope you check out Flights of Fantasy. See you next week!

PS; don’t forget to check out this awesome bundle of fantasy books before it ends:

Abundant Woo-niverse Giveaways for Magical Realism, Supernatural, Paranormal, Fantasy, and Sci-Fi

My Feline Co-Author

Hi all! 

It's been a while since I wrote a post about Mishka, so I thought I would rectify that! She's my five year old cat who has been with me through several books. 

Writing. 

She assists me with my writing, usually by headbutting my phone or laptop. Occasionally she will place a paw on the keyboard to try to add stuff in. If I spend too long writing and not paying her enough attention, she will walk all over me until I pet her. She's always making sure that I take enough breaks. 

Editing. 

If I spend too long editing, she let's me know by screaming or walking over my laptop. Unfortunately she has a habit of deleting sentences that I often have to re-write anyway. A bit annoying, but helpful in the end.

Formatting. 

While I'm formatting my books, she usually takes this time to curl up beside me. Either by my hip or by my armpit. I guess this is the time she knows not to disturb me too much, except if I've done it too long without a break. 

Uploading books to Amazon. 

Despite publishing eight books, I still get nervous whenever it's time to hit publish. Luckily I have Mishka beside me. Just stroking her while she purrs eases my anxiety while my book uploads. She makes me feel better about the whole process. 

Marketing. 

Now we're back to headbutting my laptop. She loves doing this, just to let me know that she's still around and wants my attention. Whenever I run Amazon ads she wanders in front of the screen so I can't check the numbers too often. Either that or she paws at the keyboard.

Despite her being annoying sometimes, I wouldn't swap her for anything in the world. She's become a vital part of my author career, even if she is just screaming. I know I'm not the only one who has pets that help them write, quite a lot of authors have fuzzy companions to help them! 

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

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!