I published the Kindle of The Hostile Game on Amazon today

Today, I published the Kindle edition of THE HOSTILE GAME on Amazon.

In The Hostile Game, Manchester-based Serena, now eighteen and pregnant, finally discovers the reason why Tile X befriended her seven years before. She doesn’t like what she hears. Mayhem ensues, with a retired Irish police superintendent becoming more involved than perhaps he should have.

The Hostile Game, the third book in The Hostile series, is a gripping contemporary paranormal thriller. It was published on Amazon in Kindle and paperback editions in April 2017 and can be read as a standalone like the other books in this unusual series.

Readers tell me The Hostile Game is even better than the first two books, The Hostile, and Holiday for The Hostile. I’m currently writing book four of the series, Confronting The Hostile.

Link to the Kindle edition on Amazon.co.uk http://amzn.to/2pYdk9J
Link to the Kindle edition on Amazon.com http://amzn.to/2p2ktbQ
Link to the paperback edition on Amazon.co.uk http://amzn.to/2oDzb6E
Link to the paperback edition on Amazon.com http://amzn.to/2oDJzv5

Each of my ten Kindle editions is £0.99, or equivalent currencies, on Amazon and always free to Kindle Unlimited subscribers. The paperback versions won’t break the bank either. If you enjoy audiobooks, two of my books, The Hostile, and Her demonic Angel, are also available on Amazon, Audible, and iTunes as audiobooks.

An extract of The Hostile Game http://amzn.to/2pKDBfe

Another landmark day

I’m excited and delighted to be holding the first paperback copy of The Hostile Game, book three of The Hostile series, only two days after it was published on Amazon. It’s only £5.75 or equivalent currencies. At the end of April, the Kindle version will join the paperback version on Amazon.

I’m currently writing book four of the series, Confronting The Hostile, which will be my eleventh book. Each book in this unusual paranormal thriller series can be read as a standalone.

In The Hostile Game, Manchester-based Serena, now eighteen and pregnant, finally discovers the reason why Tile X befriended her seven years before. She doesn’t like what she hears. Mayhem ensues, with a retired Irish police superintendent becoming more involved than perhaps he should have.

The link to the paperback edition of The Hostile Game on Amazon.co.uk http://amzn.to/2oDzb6E

The link to the paperback edition of The Hostile Game on Amazon.com http://amzn.to/2oDJzv5

I just thought that I’d better mention …

I thought that I had better mention the fact that my official author site is at http://www.joymutter.com and is not this site. My Amazon author link is http://amzn.to/1QbEyVT.

I think I started this particular site before I even thought of publishing my own books. It was more for fun, but gradually morphed into blogs about my books, which have taken over my entire life.

All of the information, links and details about each of my eight books, my reviews, excerpts, my blogs, information about my Goodreads Giveaways and bio are on my http://www.joymutter.com page. I would greatly appreciate a visit from you on my official site as it gets rather lonely over there. The only comments that I seem to receive on my official site are from spammers, which I am sure you will agree is very disheartening, ha! Please, make my day and leave a comment on my official site.

Dipping a toe into Facebook advertising waters

I thought that I ought to pay some attention to my non-fiction book, Living with Postcards. With a mixture of hope and desperation, I have just placed a small advert promoting my Living with Postcards Facebook page on Facebook. It will run for 7 days from today. Please let me know if any of you see it lurking in the sponsored panel down the side of your page. I’m very interested to see how effective the advert will be. My recent Facebook advert for my Joy Mutter’s Books page gained thousands of views but zero sales. The same might happen with my Living with Postcards sales. Who knows?

Thankfully, a number of readers are taking up my free kindles whenever I offer them, which I do with annoying regularity. I hope that I will eventually receive some mind-blowing reviews after people have read the free kindles or the free paperbacks offered on my Goodreads Giveaways. It is naturally not obligatory for anyone to write reviews, good or bad, but hopefully a few people might spare the time and effort. Life will become frustrating without ratings and reviews, although I am eternally grateful for the wonderfully encouraging ones that I have already received.

As someone very close to me said recently, ‘Joy, people are too busy these days to bother with buying and reading books’. She could be right, especially when it concerns the books of unknown authors like me. Am I downhearted? Not really. I still love what I do and refuse to give up writing and publishing my words.

If you reckon that I bang on about my books too much on Facebook, Twitter and Vine etc, well, I am sorry, but these days my books take up at least 95% of my life. I have no pets to tell you all about and refuse to buy one.

 Link to paperback edition of Living with Postcards on Amazon

Minor setback

19th May 2016

Well, unlike the production of Her demonic Angel audiobook which sailed through problem-free, six of the twenty chapters of The Hostile audiobook need revisiting. Fourteen chapters passed the scrutiny of ACX with flying colours, so that news was very encouraging.

I was disappointed about the problematic six chapters for about five minutes, then buckled down to start remedying the slight issues. I rerecorded chapter three entirely on the same day that ACX told me that there were one or two extraneous sounds. I am now in the process of sound editing it and will then work my way through the rest. I have also sorted out sound errors on chapter seven. Luckily, I am not up against any external deadline, so I am not in the least bit panicked by this minor setback. The Hostile audiobook will be available within the next month though, or my name’s not Joy Mutter!

I was actually somewhat encouraged that errors were discovered by ACX as it proved they were actually listening to the tracks. I had been amazed at how easily Her demonic Angel audiobook passed quality control on ACX, considering it was narrated, recorded on Audacity and sound edited by yours truly. So, undaunted, it’s back on with the headphones and off I go again.

Still giving it all away

15th May 2016

Since my last blog, I have been working towards the publication of the audiobook of The Hostile. I have only two chapters to sound edit and then I am ready to upload it to ACX. Then I will be holding my breath in the hope that there are no problems. There weren’t any issues at all when I produced the Her demonic Angel audiobook, which is now available on Amazon, Audible and iTunes.

In the past couple of days, I have dipped a toe into advertising my books on Facebook. I am hoping that it will be effective and actually produce a few sales. According to Facebook, people seem to be looking at my advert, which consists of a video of all of my books. It’s running for a week and cost only £12, so I am not expecting miracles, although for a miracle to happen would be perfect.

I ran a one day offer of a free kindle edition of The Hostile yesterday, just for the hell of it. Hopefully the readers who have taken advantage of my many free offers and promotions will leave reviews, but it is naturally not guaranteed. I very recently was delighted to discover that I had gained a couple of five star reviews for two of my books, Living with Postcards and also for The Hostile. I pasted their kind words into the Reviews page on this site.

Yesterday, I offered my next-door neighbour, Lee, the choice of a bottle of wine, money or a paperback copy of my latest book, The Hostile, for unblocking my outside drain and trimming my hedge. I hasten to add that he offered to do these jobs, I didn’t beg him. I am delighted to announce that he chose my book as payment! I laughed and told him that I’d have punched him if he had chosen the wine or the money ha! He now has two of my books, although he knocked on my front door to ask if he could buy a paperback of Living with Postcards from me at Christmas to give to his mother. Luckily I had one spare copy that I could sell him. Now that Lee has so generously unblocked my drain and cut my hedge, I wish I had given, not sold it to him.

Just because

2nd May 2016

As it’s such a cold, wet Bank Holiday, I thought that I would try to resist continuing to work on my audiobook of The Hostile, as it’s supposed to be a holiday. Instead, I decided to throw all of my books on the floor and photograph them on my iPhone. Trying to be logical, I ranged them in order, from the first book I wrote and published, A Slice of the Seventies, to the latest, The Hostile. And why not? Before you say anything about the quality of the photograph, I am a writer not a photographer.

My Goodreads Giveaway of 5 free paperback editions of Random Bullets ended yesterday

I have just sent the five paperback copies of Random Bullets off to the five lucky winners. It was the first Goodreads Giveaway that I have ever attempted and it remains to be seen if it will affect book sales. Nearly six hundred people entered the draw, which was encouraging, and also resulted in about a hundred people adding it to their ‘to read’ list on Goodreads. This is far more than have added any of my other books to their ‘to read’ list. If you aren’t on Goodreads, you probably don’t have a clue what I am talking about, but I shall carry on regardless.

I had allowed Americans and Canadians as well as Brits to enter the draw, and naturally it was all Americans who won a copy of Random Bullets. This meant that my ploy to have free postage with my Amazon Prime membership went out of the window, as I had to not only pay Amazon for the paperback but also for the postage to America, but hopefully the extra expense will be worth it. You live and learn, well, I try to anyway, ha!

I think my next Goodreads Giveaway will be exclusively for British entrants, but I will probably relent at the last minute and include Americans and Canadians as well. Many of my most supportive online friends are American, so it’s only fair that I don’t exclude them. I’m such a giver ha! I have probably given away almost as many books as I have sold, but that’s fine by me … sort of.

I am just about to trot off to Goodreads Giveaways to give away 5 free paperback copies of Her demonic Angel, my collection of short stories. This practice of entering my books on Goodreads Giveaways might turn out to be addictive. I hope that I don’t bankrupt myself!

Memory jogger

The kindle edition of my new thriller, The Hostile, is free on Amazon today, 1st May and also tomorrow, 2nd May. Grab yourself a bargain! Link to the Kindle edition of The Hostile on Amazon

Thrilled!

It is hard to believe that it was only yesterday that ‘The Hostile’ went live on Amazon and yet I am holding a printed copy this morning. I’m so thrilled with the finished result, which is an appropriate emotion, because it’s a thriller.

 

Another day, another edition of The Hostile

Today, the paperback version of The Hostile was made available on Amazon to keep the Kindle version company. I already had a lunch planned with my good friend Diane, so I have just celebrated the publication in style. Tomorrow, I will continue with the production of the audiobook edition of The Hostile.

My first attempt at a Goodreads Giveaway of another of my thrillers, Random Bullets, ends on 30th April. I will then be sending five lucky readers paperback copies of Random Bullets. If the Giveaway goes well and does not cause me any unexpected headaches, I will give away free copies of The Hostile and some of my other books on Goodreads. I hope that I will receive some reviews from the Goodreads Giveaways, but the winners are in no way obligated to review the book. I have my fingers crossed that they will do though, because I will never be able to interest new readers without reviews.

The Kindle edition of my thriller, The Hostile, went live on Amazon today!

As promised, my contemporary thriller, The Hostile, went live on Amazon this morning as a Kindle edition! I am hopeful that the paperback edition will be published on Amazon tomorrow or the next day. The audiobook version, narrated by me, should be available on Audible, Amazon and iTunes in a week or two.

Here is the link to the Kindle edition of The Hostile on Amazon : http://amzn.to/242YqRo

I would really love to hear what you think of The Hostile.

A rather momentous day

I managed to hit a few more milestones today. This morning, I finished recording my narration of the final chapters of The Hostile audiobook. I have edited the sound on about half of the chapter tracks, so it will be a few weeks before the audiobook version is released on Audible, Amazon and iTunes, where it will join my audiobook edition of Her demonic Angel. I also sent the files for the paperback edition of The Hostile off to Amazon this evening to be reviewed by them before I publish it on there. Tomorrow, I will submit the Kindle version for review, even though I am tempted to do that tonight. I have to remind myself that there is no rush. Only I am setting the deadlines. The excitement of publishing my books has yet again taken hold of me, as always happens when I am so close to publication, but I will force myself to resist this evening and watch television instead.

One reason for me telling myself that I should perhaps rest this evening is because the inside of my mouth is very sore from concentrating so hard for so long. My poor lips have never recovered from when I published Her demonic Angel earlier this year. A sore mouth is a hazard that I would never have imagined happening to an author, but the more I concentrate on writing and publishing my books, the sorer and more swollen the inside of my lips bizarrely becomes. I am starting to look like a Mick Jagger impersonator!

The Hostile is  a contemporary thriller with a generous dash of fantasy. It is my eighth book, which I find hard to believe, but it is a fact. I am trying to decide whether to start book nine, or to concentrate on making audiobooks out of Random Bullets, then Potholes and Magic Carpets.  A Slice of the Seventies would also lend itself very well to being turned into an audiobook. I am also torn between writing a sequel to The Hostile, because a sequel is very possible, or writing a completely different story. I have ideas for both books. Decisions, decisions!

What a giveaway!

I must be feeling generous. I recently seem to be giving away books left right and centre. My first Goodreads Giveaway promotion has been running over the past couple of weeks – five copies of the paperback edition of my contemporary thriller with a fantasy twist, Random Bullets. The promotion ends on April 30th, when Goodreads will inform me to whom I will be sending the five free paperback copies. I will probably be entering all of my other books into Goodreads Giveaway promotions at some point.

I am also giving away FREE copies of the Kindle edition of my collection of short stories, Her demonic Angel over this weekend, 16th and 17th April.

On my Facebook Joy Mutter’s Books page, I have been giving away promotional codes to the first person who comments on my post. The winner can then use the code to claim a free audio book of Her demonic Angel from Audible.co.uk. worth £16. Not to be sniffed at! So far, I have only given away one promo code but I have plenty more to give away. I will run promo code giveaways for free audio books of Her demonic Angel when the mood takes me.

I am itching to step up the promotion of my book Potholes and Magic Carpets but I am reluctant to do that whilst Amazon is dragging its heels changing its BIC classification from Fiction/Erotica to Fiction/General. There is no erotic content in this book or any of my other books to speak of since I published revised editions of Potholes and Magic Carpets, Random Bullets and The Lying Scotsman a month or so ago. I asked Createspace support team to change the classification over a month ago, but it still has not been done. I have told them that it urgently needs to be done because anybody buying the book expecting it to be erotica will be sadly disappointed, which would reflect badly on me and on Amazon. I am perfectly willing to delete Potholes and Magic Carpets from Createspace and Amazon and republish it under a new BIC classification if that is the only way that I can remedy this unfortunate situation. However,  Createspace support keeps telling me that they are dealing with the matter and that I should be being told soon that the problem has been solved. I have been told that for over a month. Meanwhile, I cannot promote Potholes and Magic Carpets at all, because I do not want to misrepresent it. Hopefully they will soon tell me some better news and I can start marketing the book properly.

I am halfway through narrating, recording and sound editing my second audio book, The Hostile, even though I have not as yet published the paperback and Kindle editions. The Hostile is my eighth book and is another thriller with a fantasy twist although nothing like Random Bullets. The book is written and edited, but I am finding that reading it out loud as an audio book is showing me further ways to improve it. I will probably always record the audio book before the printed editions in future.