Pushing Books and Chasing Royalties
Over the holidays I managed to add a chapter and a half to The Lord of the Elements (the prequel to The Last Observer). To be honest, I am still trying to plan the story a bit….. I mean, I know what the plot is but it needs a few twists, turns and subplots and I am still ironing it all out so progress is slow. Meanwhile, I am starting a new business book with my colleague Patrick Reames that we hope will be out later this year. I am also preparing a new version of Poems for the Little Room that will be better suited for Amazon and Kindle….. Of course, books need to find a market too. It would be great if my books occupied a particular niche
Read More »The Last Observer – What Are You Missing?
The Last Observer: A Magical Battle For Reality, Roundfire, 2013 The Last Observer is a compelling fictional tale of magic, alternative realities, murder and conflict. An ordinary man is abruptly dragged into the middle of a violent struggle between black and white magicians who both seek to use his extraordinary powers of imagination and observation. He soon learns that reality is not at all what it seems before being called upon to play a decisive role in determining whose reality will prevail. I am fascinated by what makes up reality. Faith can move Mountains it is said. In fact, faith in an ability to imagine into reality a mountain moving is what magick really is. So what might happen if a black magic cult wanted to change the world and
Read More »Three Ideas For Christmas
Here are three of my books that are inexpensive and would make a nice stocking filler……. Available on Amazon or directly from me. Astral Messages: Poetry from Beyond, Createspace, 2013 Astral Messages is my third book of poetry. It uses poems and blog articles from – Asteroth’s Domain – in a poetic discussion about reality and magic. From the opening ethereal beauty of “Astral Messages” to the humor of the questioning about “Why is life so dirty”, this is a collection of 17 new poems. Each is coupled with a short article to strengthen and bolster the points being made. At the end of the day, we are all magicians willfully creating our realities and Astral Messages demonstrates how this touches all aspects of our lives – yes, even our
Read More »Saturday Night Thoughts on Promoting Books…
So its Saturday night and I find myself sat in front of the PC wondering yet again just how in thee world you actually promote a book. You see its November and believe it or not but The Last Observer hasn’t yet made any best seller lists and quiet honestly I am a tad disappointed. I reckon that by now my friends and family are sick to the back teeth of the hearing about the bloody book and probably do the internet version of crossing to the other side of the street when they see me coming! I reckon most of them that will buy it already have so I need a broader audience. But how? I must have spent hours googling ‘how to sell my novel’ and similar search
Read More »Peering at the World Through A Haze
Pretty much all week and through the weekend I have been seeing the world through the haze of a severe head cold. As a result, I have been trying to avoid doing any writing as I can’t think straight. Even today, I am still riddled with this dreadful cold virus thingy. Instead of writing then I decided to do some promoting. Always a good thing to do if you write as otherwise you write for no reason as no one reads your stuff! I decided to promote my poetry for a change and I made Astral Messages and Weird Tales free for the weekend on Kindle. Said promo ends at midnight tonight so you STILL HAVE A CHANCE! As of last looking, over 150 copies of Astral Messages had been
Read More »New Book Review up on Strange Book Reviews
My new book review site at Strange Book Reviews is gradually growing in terms of the books that I have managed to read and review. If you pop over there, you will find three categories; 1. Book reviews – where I have actually reviewed the book 2. Informational listings – Just the book cover and blurb from amazon – most of these I would like to read if I ever get the time. 3. Being reviewed – These books are on my reading list and I expect to review them in the next several weeks. Do pop over from time-to-time and take a look… Meanwhile, my latest review was for the Initiate by Sue Vincent and Stuart France…. Here it is in full. Firstly, this is a deeply unique book
Read More »Words
Heavily scented paragraphs Interlaced with passion Pale luminescent skin Shining under full moonlight Radiantly twitching Beguiling, bewitching Mouthed words of silence Hallowed places Boiling emotions scattered Floating raggedly by An endless chastened sigh Belonging yet constantly longing Heat dashed vibrant thighs Senses on the edge of darkness Entwined they simply lie In one soul searching cry Poem from Astral Messages If you enjoy my poetry please consider sharing it and/or purchasing some of it. My poetry books include; Weird Tales Poems for the Little Room Astral Messages
Read More »Goodreads
I have to say I am entirely disappointed by Goodreads. Goodreads is a website that is supposed to help you discover your next book to read and it has many members. It was acquired by Amazon as well recently. However, the site is poorly designed and I do hope that Amazon are investing a redo because I find it annoying that so many things actually don’t work there. As an author, I also put up an author’s page but I have discovered that this really isn’t worth the effort either and here is why: 1. People are allowed to rate books on a 5-star system. Fine and dandy. The problem is there are no checks built in to see if the reader has actually read the book! So, I can
Read More »Poetry…
I have three books of poetry in print. This is their story…. I began writing poems when I was a boy. It was an outlet. A few years ago, I found a huge pile of handwritten poems that I had written dating back to 1974 and, trust me, some were just downright embarrassing! Some, however, weren’t all that bad. I put these in a pile and typed them into MS WORD for better keeping and put them all in my poetry directory on my PC. I had about 50 poems there so I once again selected what I thought were some of the best and made them into a book. It was self-published off course but it was a nice little book of poems called Weird Tales: Other World Poetry
Read More »Magic As A Reality
The word ‘magic’ can mean different things to different people. For some, just watching the sunset or seeing a beautiful view can be magic, for others it is trickery and sleight of hand and yet for others, me included, magic is real magic. Real magic is making something happen through willing it to be. However, before we go too much further, let us make a few discoveries together that may convince you that we are all magicians and that we work real magic each and every day. As you are reading this, your eyes are taking in light from the computer screen. The light enters your eye. It is then converted into electrical signals and they are then sent to a part of your brain where they are processed back
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