My Favourite Bookmarks

Hi all!

I use a lot of bookmarks for my paperback books that I really love so I thought I'd share them with you! I discovered these two artists on Twitter and I fell in love with their art and knew I had to buy some of their stuff.

@kanizoart

You may recognise this artist as they illustrated the poster for Glass and Ice. I love their work on animals and knew that I needed some of their bookmarks. I picked the above two as they were the designs I loved the most. The tiger is gorgeous and the tassel colour is perfect to go with it. The fox one was a harder decision as it was between that one and a dragon one! I ultimately went with the fox as I preferred the spacial theme and the tail was what really sold it for me. The bookmarks themselves are a great fit and are pretty sturdy.

@sushiartstudio

I only recently discovered this artist with their Pokémon drawings. Although all of the bookmarks are amazing, I went with the panther as I adore the way its staring through the leaves. The fauna they draw are ones that I personally haven't seen drawn often and I love the fact that they're drawn with big cats. The tiger one was a freebie as the ribbon hole was drilled in the wrong end, but I really like it! The ribbon makes it look like the tiger is playing with it. Mishka prefers these bookmarks as she loves the ribbons, though maybe she also likes the fact that they're big cats. These bookmarks feel really nice and slot into books perfectly. I love the finish on them.

I highly recommend both artists for their work and you can check out their shops here:

kanizo.co.uk

sushiartstudio.com

That's it for this week! Show the artists some love, as they definitely deserve it. See you next week.

PS; check out this boxset bundle. All books are fantasy and free to download in Kindle Unlimited!

Fantasy & Sci-Fi Box Set Kindle Unlimited Promo

I Finally Signed up To Kindle Unlimited

Hi all,

I saw Amazon were offering a free trail of Kindle Unlimited, or KU, when I was looking for books the other day. KU is a subscription service with Amazon where you pay a monthly fee and can download as many ebooks as you want. As long as the author has enrolled their ebook in KU, you can download it for free. I've always put off getting KU as I wasn't sure how good it will be.

Well, I wish I had done it sooner.

There are so many good books on KU and I've downloaded quite a few already! Books that I had read previously have the entire series on KU, so I've been adding them to my library to read later. Already I'm saving myself quite a bit of money for one subscription. When I signed up I was on the fence about keeping it, but now I definitely will.

I know it's going to help me achieve my goal of reading 100 books this year. Thanks to it, I'll probably go over this goal.

Some of the pros I've found so far are:

Its cheaper.

I'm saving a lot of money downloading the books in KU than if I were to outright buy them. This is a lot of help for those who read a lot of books but can't afford to buy every one.

You're still supporting the author.

Even though you're downloading the book for free, you're still supporting the author. For every page you read, the author gets paid. If you stop reading halfway, then they only get paid according to the pages you read. You're still supporting your favourite authors with your subscription!

Variety.

There are a lot of books in KU, with new ones getting added every day. Some people may find that they're downloading more books than they can read.

If you're on the fence with subscribing to KU, I'd take advantage of Amazon's free trail just so you can see what it's like. As long as you cancel before they charge you if it's not for you, you don't have to pay anything.

Also, a little reminder: all of my books are enrolled in KU! So if you do sign up then you'll be able to download all of my books for free.

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

PS; don’t forget to check out these book bundles! All of the books are in Kindle Unlimited too:

Flights of Fantasy

Dragon Books

Where to Buy Indie Books on a Budget

Hi all!

This week I'm going to show where you can buy indie, also known as self-published, books when you're on a budget! Libraries and charity shops are great for reading books on a budget but I've found that not many are willing to stock self-published books. It's easy to find traditionally published books in libraries and charity shops as people buy and donate them all the time. So, for those of who you who would love to support indie authors without breaking the bank, I'll show you where to find them!

Amazon Deals.

Amazon has loads of books that are on sale every day. They have perma-free books, which are free to download and Kindle Daily Deals. You can find books for £1 and 99p in the daily deals, which I frequent often to look for a good read! Perma-free and daily deals are pretty good for finding a new series, as the first book could be free or heavily discounted. Although Amazon is used a lot by self-published authors, a lot of traditionally published authors discount their books on Amazon as well.

BookBub.

BookBub is a service that sends out daily or weekly emails with deals on new books. You can choose from loads of genres and formats and they will let you know what books you may like. I get daily emails from them on Fantasy, Sci-Fi, YA and Horror books and I've bought loads of books this way. They have a variety of deals, from free to 99p and heavy discounts. You can also choose where you prefer to buy these books as well, including: Amazon, Kobo, Apple Books and Google. If you're not into ebooks then they also offer deals on audio and print books as well.

Hello Books.

I found Hello Books thanks to being a part of a few author groups on Facebook. They're relatively new and work like BookBub. You get weekly emails with books from each genre that you're subscribed to. I've signed up to their Fantasy, Sci-Fi and YA email lists. All of the books offered are free, 99p or heavily discounted. They currently don't have as many genres as BookBub do, but the books that I've bought thanks to them have been enjoyable. If you want a bit of variety, I'd recommend signing up to both BookBub and Hello Books to get a vast array of books that you may never have discovered.

IASFA.

The IASFA specialise in Sci-Fi and Fantasy books. They send out one email a month that contains a bundle of books with a specific theme. The books are then available to download for free during that time period and once the promotion is over they go back to their original price. There's also occasional book bundles that offer loads of books in one bundle for a set price that doesn't break the bank. I've downloaded from many of their bundles and have loved them! I browse through all of the monthly books, despite what the theme may be, just in case I find a book that I never thought I'd enjoy.

I hope that this post is helpful for readers who love to read but are on a budget! I use all of the above and can personally vouch that they are amazing and great for finding deals. That's it for this week, see you next week.

PS; want to discover your next favourite author? Check out the books in these bundles:

Free Sci-Fi and Fantasy Books

When the Sun Sets…

My 2022 Writing Goals

Hi all,

As promised - here are my writing goals for 2022!

Write four books.

By the end of the year I want to have written the first drafts for the following books:

Original Elementals #2: Maelstrom

Original Elementals #3: Shadowhunter

One of the standalone books that I have planned

Original Elementals #4: Devouring

Publish two books.

I want to publish Years in April and Celestial Plague #1: Nirvana in October.

Get three covers designed.

Celestial Plague #1: Nirvana and Celestial Plague #2: Heaven will have covers by the end of the year. These have been booked through my usual cover designer, Deranged Doctor Design. I also want to get a cover done for the Years reader magnet to match the Elemental Dragons Short Story Collection and Famished.

Self-edit all of the Celestial Plague series.

I want all of the books in the trilogy to be self-edited by the end of the year. They will then go to my editor before coming back to me for the final edit. I'm planning on getting the first two edited by my editor this year and the third one in early 2023.

Write the Years reader magnet.

I've attempted to do this so many times before but found that none of my ideas were working well. I've scrapped this reader magnet so many times and I would like to get it done by about February.

Make two reader magnets available to my newsletter subscribers.

The Years reader magnet will be available first and then Celestial Plague: Seashine. Both of these will be free to download for my newsletter subscribers, as well as my other two reader magnets.

Submit more short stories.

Although I wrote a lot more short stories this year, I only submitted three of them. I would like to submit more to anthologies to expand my publishing portfolio.

The image that will be used for the Years book poster - illustration by chlmerrahh on Fiverr: https://www.fiverr.com/chimerahh?source=order_page_user_message_inner_link

Read 100 books.

I read 200 last year so I think 100 will be doable. I've got loads of books currently sitting around waiting to be read, so I don't think I'll struggle for reading material!

Grow my mailing list.

I would like to have at least 500 subscribers by the end of 2022. I'm already doing plenty of newsletter swaps and group promotions on StoryOrigin, and would like to grow this further.

Focus on Amazon ads more.

I've really struggled with this in the past as my automatic ads never seem to spit out many targets for me. I'd like to give this another try in 2022, especially since I have more books in my backlist now.

Get my books into more libraries.

My books are currently in a few libraries and I would like to get them into more. I would like to send out emails to libraries that are willing to stock indie books and see if they will take any copies of mine.

Make all of my books available in hardcover.

Now that Amazon are giving authors the choice to publish a hardcover book, I'm making sure that all of my future books will be in hardcover! It's my favourite kind of book, and they look gorgeous on my shelves.

Participate in Camp NaNoWriMo and NaNoWriMo.

I like participating in these events as I like seeing my word count go up each day. I'll be participating in all three of these events this year!

I think that's everything that I have planned for 2022! Mentally I'm doing much better than I was last year, so I hope some of these goals will be more achievable! What are your plans for 2022? Let me know in the comments. See you next week!

PS; looking for some new books to start off the New Year? Check out the ones in these bundles:

New Year, New Monsters 2: From the Ashes

New Year, New Worlds SF/F Giveaway

2021 Year in Review

Hi all,

As with last year, I’m going to give you the run down of 2021! Some goals I hit, while others I didn’t get anywhere near. My mental health has suffered a lot this past year and I’m hoping that 2022 will be better for me.

Write three books.

If I manage to finish Street Rats by the end of the year, I would have written five! The ones that I have written are:

Curse of Anubis #2: Limbo.

Curse of Anubis #3: Middle.

Curse of Anubis #4: Dual.

Street Rats.

Original Elementals #1: Frostbite.

Plan nine more Elemental Dragons books.

I’ve managed to plot out all of the books in the series, and I’ve written the first book! In a few weeks time I will start writing Elemental Dragons #2: Marine and I’m hoping to get it finished before April 2022 Camp NaNoWriMo.

Publish two books.

As promised, Elemental Dragons #4: Cinder and Fire was published in April and Mute was published in October.

Create and publish the Elemental Dragons boxset.

This was published in July, and I didn’t realise how tricky it was going to be! Combining four books into one took a lot of work and formatting to make sure everything was in the right place.

Get two covers designed.

Both Mute and Years got their covers designed. The cover for Years will be revealed in a few weeks. I also got a cover designed for Mute’s prequel, Famished.

Edit three books.

I only edited one book, Years. As I said before my mental health has been pretty low, especially towards the end of the year. And getting Years back from my editor took several blows out of my self-esteem, to the point where I still haven’t gone back through all of the edits now. It will be ready by April, but for a few weeks I wondered if continuing to publish books was the right thing.

Hire a sensitivity reader.

As I have only just started editing Celestial Plague #1: Nirvana myself, I haven’t had the chance to look through sensitivity readers. I’m hoping to get this done next year.

Write more short stories.

I have written a lot more short stories this year, one of which has been accepted into an anthology! This should be released next year, and I’ll keep you posted.

Write Curse of Anubis short story/novella.

I tried writing a few ideas I had but none of them seemed right so I’ve scrapped them. For now I’m focusing on the reader magnet for Years.

Read 30 books.

I’m not entirely sure how I did it, but I read 200 books! Due to the way I was feeling I dove into books to escape a lot more than I have in previous years. Hopefully I can continue to read more next year!

Participate in both Camp NaNoWriMo and NaNoWriMo.

I joined both the April and July Camp NaNoWriMos and NaNoWriMo. I managed to get the first drafts finished for:

Curse of Anubis #3: Middle.

Curse of Anubis #4: Dual.

Original Elementals #1: Frostbite.

That’s it for this week! Next week I’ll talk about my goals for 2022! See you then.

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

New Year, New Monsters 2: From the Ashes

New Year, New Worlds SF/F Giveaway

The Warriors Short Story Competition

Hi all!

If you're not a fan of the Warriors, or Warriors Cats, series, you may not have any idea of what I'm going to talk about today. Warriors is a book series written by Erin Hunter, a penname for multiple authors. The Warriors series focuses on groups of cats, called Clans, that live around a forest and later on a lake. There are hundreds of characters from the series and the authors have written 60+ books. If you haven't seen my other blog posts on Warriors, you can check them out here and here.

The latest Warriors book to be published

So, when it was announced that Warriors would be holding their first ever short story collection, I could feel the younger version of me getting excited. Despite all of the fanfiction that has been written on the series, the website has never held a competition for all the authors out there. This competition has been split to under 13s and over 13s. 500 words have to be written, following on from the prompt that they have provided.

Although I wish they would have given us a higher word count and more freedom to write what we wanted, I still think it's an interesting prompt. We are introduced to a few cats from ThunderClan and also given a few hints as to what we can write about. I have decided that I will continue to write from Brightpaw's perspective, and pick the story up from when they leave camp. I'm not sure about what characters to include yet, as the word count is so low that you can't introduce that many. But I do have an idea of where I want the story to go.

Some tips for if you do want to enter:

Don’t include too many characters - you’ll run out of words more quickly.

Don’t focus too much on description - you don’t have enough words.

You don’t need to follow the prompt to the letter - if you want Brightpaw to head to RiverClan or twolegplace, go with that instead! Don’t feel pressured to make her interact with her siblings or Swiftpaw.

StarClan does not need to appear - you can just write an ordinary day if you want to.

Want to switch POV? - Don’t be afraid to do this if you don’t want to write about Brightpaw or ThunderClan.

Foreshadow if you want to - You can foreshadow any future event you want.

If this competition is successful, I hope they do more. Perhaps they could give us the freedom to write about any events from the books, or even for people to use their own characters. I'm hoping that they will expand on this in the future, as it could lead to some amazing stories from fans. I would also love to write more about my original character, Russetheart, as it's been years since I've revisited her story.

The competition entry page

I still read every Warriors book that comes out now, and I can't wait to start writing my entry. The deadline is the 10th December, so I'm hoping to finish NaNoWriMo and then start working on my entry. Perhaps after the winners have been announced I'll share what I wrote about in a separate blog post!

If you're a fan of the series and want to enter, I'd advise you do it. After all, you haven't got anything to lose! If you want to check it out, you can here: Competition Page.

And the entry page is here, with the prompt and rules: Prompt and Rules.

Good luck to anyone who enters!

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

My Favourite Horror Tropes

Hi all!

As it's Halloween today I thought I'd write a horror related blog post! I read and watch a lot of horror, so I thought it would be fun to share some of my favourite horror media tropes.

Ancient Tombs/Pyramids

I love horror that is set in a cramped space such as a tomb. In most cases the villain are undead or angry gods. I love seeing characters try to escape while trapped in such a small area and get picked off one by one. My favourite film with this trope is The Pyramid.

Events After an Apocalypse.

Seeing the world get destroyed by deadly viruses or nuclear weapons never gets old in my eyes. You get to see the characters adjust to their new world and the threats around them. I especially like the virus trope, as other characters see their loved ones deteriorate and develop symptoms.

Creatures That Can't Move.

The way that I've seen this done best is the Weeping Angels in Doctor Who. The monster can't move while it's being watched, but then it's up to the characters to continually keep their eyes on it. At some point, they eventually look away.

I don’t think Rocky would be much help in a horror film…

Cat Scares.

In films, you think there's going to be a massive jump scare but instead it's just a cat. If you've read my other blog posts you'll know why I like this one!

Long Limbs.

I don't know why disproportionally long arms freak me out so much. It always send a shiver down my spine. It's why I used a wendigo in Mute, as they can be known to grow larger the older they are.

Research Labs.

A group of people are working away on an experimental government project in a lab and it escapes! It then hunts everyone down one by one until it either escapes or is killed in a dramatic fashion. The experiment usually has only one weakness, which the characters take ages to figure out. I love this one as you never know exactly when the monster is going to pop up.

Aliens.

An alien creature is accidentally brought onto a ship and wreaks havoc while killing everyone. The Alien franchise is great for this, especially in the second film when there was hundreds of Xenomorphs!

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

PS; looking for some last minute horror books? Check out the ones in these bundles!

October Tricks and Treats

Halloween Frights

Books That I Would Love to Read More Of

Hi all!

This week I'm going to talk about what kinds of books I would love to read more of! For once, this will not be about cats or dragons... Probably.

Giant Sharks.

I absolutely love b-movies, and can't get enough of books that are also like b-movies. The best ones for me will always be ones containing giant sharks. The ones where the sharks are gigantic due to nuclear waste or scientific experiments. They're usually super silly and such a joy to read!

Dinosaurs.

I can't seem to find many fiction books about dinosaurs. I'd love to read more about dinosaurs that have escaped from captivity, or have somehow survived the extinction event that wiped them all out. My favourite dinosaur of all time is the velociraptor, and I do love films and books about them.

Monsters.

To me, there's nothing better than a good monster story. Some people accidentally wake up a monster that's been sleeping for a thousand years, and it starts to wreak havoc. Unfortunately I can't seem to find many of these books that I can really get into.

Giant Bugs.

Again, this goes back to b-movies. I love watching some poorly designed 3D spider attacking people in a sleepy village. I managed to find a series about smarter, larger pests that I devoured. Now I'm hoping to find more books like it!

Monster Fights.

One monster being pitted against another. Which one will survive? Will the humans kill both? Nothing beats a good monster rumble. Whether it be between Crocoshark vs Sharktopus or Godzilla vs King Kong, I'd love to read more books where this is the focus!

That's it for this week! Next week I’m going to talk about an award - the SoundArt Dragon Award, keep an eye out for that post!

PS; looking for some free books? Check out the ones in this bundle - all Sci-Fi and Fantasy!

Spring Sci-Fi and Fantasy Giveaway

Dragon Books to Read While Waiting for Cinder and Fire

Hi all,

This week I'm going to talk about my top three favourite dragon series (apart from Elemental Dragons, of course)!

I've discovered two of these quite recently, and I've fallen in love with them quite quickly. I thought I would share them with you guys so then you can check them out while waiting for Cinder and Fire to come out! I recommend all of these series to readers of Elemental Dragons. The links to the books are in the name and author!

So, without further ado:

Wings of Fire by Tui T. Sutherland

I found this series through Warriors, my all-time favourite series. The books are told from the point of view of dragons. In the first series, five dragonets have to stop the Sandwing War as prophesised. However, this doesn't go to plan. My favourite series is the second one, as I was drawn to all of the characters and wanted to read the next book as soon as I finished one. My favourite characters are Glory and Moonwatcher.

Dragon Assassin by Arthur Slade

I thought this was a weird combination at first, but I was quickly drawn into these books. I love the dynamic between Carmen, the assassin and Brax, the dragon. They strike a deal, he helps her kill her brother who has slaughtered most of her assassin academy, and in return she will kill whoever he wishes. Brax is sarcastic and tries to pretend he doesn't care for Carmen, but it's obvious he does.

Dragon School by Sarah K. L. Wilson

These books are told from the point of view of Amel, a servant girl with a disability. She wants to become part of the Dragon School, where she can train to be a dragon rider. When she chooses her dragon, she instead finds that he chooses her. Her and Raolcan have to save her friends, while facing the disappointed mocking of dragon riders who don't think Amel should have gotten a chance.

That's it for this week, I hope if you do decide to check out any of these books that you enjoy them! See you next week.

Only a few days left to check out the books in this fantasy bundle!

NEW YEAR HIGHS AND MYTHOLOGY

2020 Year in Review

Hi all!

Next week I'm going to write about my 2021 writing goals, so this week I thought I would look back on my writing goals of 2020!

Write two books

I've managed to write four books this year:

Celestial Plague #3: Purgatory

Years

Mute

Curse of Anubis #1: Halfway

Publish two books

Elemental Dragons #2: Venom and Earth and Elemental Dragons #3: Glass and Ice were both published this year, thanks to everyone who has read them!

Get three covers designed

Elemental Dragons is now complete with covers, and I managed to get one for Celestial Plague: Seashine. Seashine's cover will be revealed at some point next year.

Edit two books

Although I wanted to edit Celestial Plague #1: Nirvana, instead I edited Mute. But I still manged to meet my goal, despite swapping the books around!

Write four short stories

I've written multiple short stories this year, though I didn't manage to get any published. I've posted a lot of them in my monthly newsletter for my subscribers to read. I also hope to combine some into an anthology of sorts once I have enough of the same genre.

Read 15 books

Due to lockdown I managed to blow this goal out of the water. I have read 100 books this year! Most of them were ones that I had wanted to read for a while, like Wings of Fire and Five Nights at Freddy's. However I also discovered new authors this year whose work I love.

Participate in Camp NaNoWriMo and NaNoWriMo

I participated in both this year, with writing Years, Mute and Curse of Anubis #1: Halfway.

That's it for this week, I hope you enjoyed reading! Next week I will discuss my goals for 2021. See you next week!

PS; looking for new books to add to your list in the New Year? Check out these book bundles:

Fantasy Reads for Cold Winter Nights

New Year, New Monsters!