Aurelia's "Anoraks"

Have you ever tried to find a free stock image for anoraks?

I have.

And I failed, so um...here's an old picture of my kids looking super cute instead.

(c) Aurelia B. Rowl

That counts as an anorak picture, right?

You may be wondering why was I looking for anoraks in the first place?

Well you see... I was toying with the idea of creating a Street Team (see here), but I hate the idea of getting my readers and followers to spam their friends and falsely recommend my books when they are released (see here). If/when I get to the top of a Goodreads list, I want it to be by merit; because readers have read and enjoyed my work, not just because I've basically bribed voters with the promise of free gifts and swag.

So, instead of a Street Team, I've created a new reader group on Goodreads; a place where my readers can gather together, discuss my books and get insider info on what I'm up to. There will be exclusive excerpts, giveaways, sneak peeks, review requests, blog host requests and anything else that comes to mind. More importantly, I want to create a community...

That's right, I want to get to know you too, and in the process, you'll get to know me better as well.

Of course, if you love my work, then I very much hope you'd be willing to recommend me to your friends, write a review, sign up to be a blog host, tweet when I have a new release, share my posts on Facebook etc, but purely because you'd like to support me, not because of what you might get out of it in return.

And the name of this group?

It's called Aurelia's "Anoraks" of course, so if you're a reader—maybe even a fan—of mine, I'd love to see you over there.

Click here to join
Aurelia's "Anoraks"

The Road to Publishing: A Week On

I wasn't supposed to be blogging here today, but my actual blog host for today is missing in action and I didn't really want to miss a day, so I thought a recap post could be good.

Can you believe it's been a week already?

A week since my little 'baby', with all its flaws and imperfections, took its first tentative steps into the big bad world. My nerves were jangling and I was as giddy as a child on Christmas morning all day on release day, which was spent with my laptop in easy reach, hitting refresh and watching my rank rise and fall on both Amazon and Amazon UK. It was utterly surreal seeing people add the book to their Goodreads bookshelves and watching the reviews trickle in on both Amazon and Goodreads - but more on that later.

I must confess that I still check my rankings a couple of times a day - seeing as it will all be over soon, I'm not berating myself too much - and the overall picture looks a lot like a rollercoaster, with peaks and troughs, dips and swerves. My lowest ranking on both sites was on Christmas Day, but I'd expected as much with the majority of people offline; it's not as if I was online much during the day either.

I was elated when I broke into the top 1,500 contemporary romance novels on Amazon (top 25,000 of all books on Amazon!), so at least I'm easily pleased. I expect sales will start tailing off now, as the Christmas season draws to a close. There are still a couple of review sites yet to post, including Harlequin Junkie, but whether the new reviews will trigger one final rush is something I will have to wait and see. They're good to have in the bag for next Christmas anyway, especially as I will have a print version out one way or another.

So, speaking of reviews...

I'm overjoyed by the response to my debut book - from readers and professional reviewers alike - and even my 'bad' review was good, in so much she absolutely loved the first half of the book, describing it as, "Great. Seriously great." I'm not quite sure what went so hideously wrong but at least she found some merit in my writing even if she then slated the rest of the story. I've added a widget so that you can read some of the reviews left on Goodreads so far.

I would like to say a huge thank you to everyone that has bought Christmas is Cancelled - and an extra special thank you to those who have rated and/or reviewed it on Amazon or Goodreads, as without those reviews, I'm sure I wouldn't keep seeing as rise in my rank and reaching so many readers.

If you haven't bought it yet but want to, here are the links you will need...

Breathless Press
Amazon
Amazon UK
All Romance Books
Bookstrand
Goodreads
Barnes & Noble – coming soon
iTunes – coming soon

Goodreads reviews for Christmas is Cancelled

Reviews from Goodreads.com

The Road to Publishing: Pre-Order!

Don't you just love this, despite the spelling mistake...

Aside from a little update to my 'All Set' post, I haven't really shouted on here that my book is now available to pre-order.

Yes. It's happening... IT'S REALLY HAPPENING!

You can now pre-order Christmas is Cancelled over at my publishers website, in your preferred choice of digital format, from ePub, to mobi (kindle), to Lit, PDB, PDF, Sony and Rocket. There is also a choice of currencies: US Dollar, GB Pound, Euro, Canadian Dollar and Australian Dollar, which hopefully covers the majority of readers.

And a huge thank you to those who have bought Christmas is Cancelled already, although, sometimes I wish I didn't have real-time sales figures!!

Christmas is Cancelled will get onto Amazon sometime on or after its release on December 21st, but will take a while to get onto Barnes & Noble, and iBooks. I shall share links as when they go live.

Christmas is Cancelled is also up on Goodreads, and I'd be delighted if you could add it to your virtual shelf to help spread the word. Click 'add book' and you won't even have to leave the page (I think!)

My paranoia of reviews is also building up nicely, with a number of review sites/blogs accepting Christmas is Cancelled for review, with special review copies winging their way to them right now. EEK!

Are you all following me on my blog tour, by the way, it's been fun getting out and about? You might just want to keep your eyes peeled for some giveaways whilst I'm off on my travels...

The Road to Publishing: All set!

The time is almost upon us!

Release day is imminent and everything I need to do as the author is done so now it's just a waiting game...

Today also sees me kick off my blog tour, taking me right up to New Year's Eve. I hope you'll join me as we travel the globe spreading the word about Christmas is Cancelled.

In the meantime, please pop over and add it to your virtual bookshelf if you are a Goodreads user. It is so exciting to see my book there, will all the other ones, and looking like it belongs. A proud moment indeed!

 

ETA: Christmas is Cancelled is now available to pre-order!!

Always On The Go

Phew! The bank holiday weekend is over and there's only a week left of the school holidays, which means I should be able to get back into a routine again soon.

Conway Castle

We all took off to North Wales again for the long weekend and it was good to relax, even if my son and I did struggle a bit with our colds - who gets a cold in August?! - but I also managed to do lots of reading, some more planning for Damsel in Deceit (now a 3-oart series at least!) and I also wrote a 2,000 word short story called Jilly's Folly. I've now got plenty of reviews to write that will be springing up on here over the coming weeks, but I also came across a writing competition whilst I was away.