Felicity Heaton's Blog, page 90

Saturday Snippets - Scenes from my Paranormal Romance Books

Today's Saturday Snippet is again from a book I haven't released yet.

I asked people on my Facebook what two books they wanted snippets from and there was a unanimous vote that said people wanted a snippet of Hyperion from Masquerade.

The book is in edits right now so excuse any errors. Masquerade is the tenth book in my popular Vampires Realm series and it will be out on May 12th.

This scene takes place at the Creator Day masquerade and is a moment between the lovely Lord Hyperion and the heroine Sophis.

"Did he scare you, my little miss?"

Sophis nodded dumbly. Although, he hadn't scared her half as much as finding Lord Hyperion behind her. How fast had he moved? She had seen vampires move quickly, had fallen victim to it in more than one fight with Vivek, but Hyperion had moved like lightning.

He slid his hands down her bare upper arms and she trembled.

"Perhaps you would do best to remain at my side where it is safe. I am sure I could provide adequate entertainment for you and would make a worthy appearance in your diary. Something about the balcony and moonlight, and a stolen kiss?" Before his lips could touch her throat, Sophis whirled out of his arms and came to face him. He smiled, charming to the last, and placed his fingers under her chin. She trembled, afraid she might have offended him. He could kill her with little more than a flick of his wrist, swiping his claws across her throat. She would bleed to death before she could heal. "You truly are beautiful, but I have a feeling you are destined to bloom for another. We are both waiting for our love to reawaken us."

Sophis opened her mouth to ask what he meant by that but he was gone again. A gust of cold wind blew in through the French doors near the stairs to the balcony, snaking through the vampires that clustered between her and them, and she frowned through them to the night beyond. Lord Hyperion stood there on the patio, his back to her and his hands on the stone balustrade that edged it.

He was wrong. She wasn't waiting for her love. She had only just decided to find someone to fill that position and was certain that it wouldn't happen any time soon, and certainly not at the ball.

I hope you enjoyed this Saturday Snippet!

Covet Book Tour - Final Week

It's time for an update on my Covet Book Tour . I hope you've all been following the tour and are enjoying learning more about the series. It was the final week this week, so I've rounded up the posts and linked them up below.

Don't forget, if you comment on the tour posts, you're also entered into my grand giveaway for six signed paperback copies of my paranormal romance releases of 2011. Sounds good, right? You can read all about it by clicking the Covet Book Tour button above!

I was at Page Flipperz, Ex Libris, Reading Between the Wines and Bitten by Paranormal Romance this week, with some great excerpts, character interviews and artcles about the series!



COVET BOOK TOURJAN 23rd: Riverina Romantics - Author Interview, Excerpt, GiveawayJAN 24th: Bona Fide Reflections - Introduction to the Book / GiveawayJAN 27th: Book Monster Reviews / Literal Addiction - Character Interview / Giveaway JAN 30th: Grave Tells - Writing the Book / GiveawayFEB 1st: Madame D's Boudoir - Introduction to the Series / GiveawayFEB 3rd: The Book Nympho - Character Interview / GiveawayFEB 6th: Lush Book Reviews - Exclusive Excerpt / GiveawayFEB 10th: Bookin' It Reviews - Exclusive Excerpt / GiveawayFEB 14th: Page Flipperz - Character Interview / GiveawayFEB 15th: Ex-Libris - Creating the World / GiveawayFEB 16th: Reading Between the Wines Book Club - Exclusive Excerpt / GiveawayFEB 17th: Bitten by Paranormal Romance - What's Next? / Giveaway
If you want to know more about my erotic vampire romance novella Covet, then you can read all about it or read an excerpt / download a sample at the following sites:

Author's website | Amazon Kindle | Amazon Kindle UK | Amazon Kindle Germany | Amazon Kindle France | Apple iBookstore US | Apple iBookstore UK | Apple iBookstore Australia | Apple iBookstore Canada | Barnes and Noble | Kobo Books | Smashwords | All Romance eBooks

150000 paranormal romance books sold in 2011

I don't often talk sales but I had been meaning to do a year round up post about my book sales and how they're split over the different retailers. I think sometimes the writers amongst you like to hear about how people are doing and whether the split is anything like what you're experiencing. I've always been backwards about revealing sales figures for my books but I think it's good to talk about them sometimes. Who knows, maybe a publisher will sit up and take note if I talk about them and I'll snag myself some fantastic publishing deal. Okay, I'm laughing at that so it's fine if you are too.

I write paranormal romance books for the most part but I do also write science fiction romance, and the sales figures below include those books.

I sold 155000 ebooks in 2011 across my two names, Felicity Heaton and F E Heaton. That's sales, before anyone asks, not free books. In addition to those sales, I had around 50000 copies of my free book, Reunion , downloaded. That's downloads that I can record. It's also on my website for free and other sources that don't record downloads.

I'm going to break it down a little more just to be transparent about everything and give you all a clearer picture of where the sales are coming from.

F E Heaton book sales (Vampires Realm series)
2011 Total Sales: 
54463 ebooks sold119 paperbacks sold
Sales by Retailer:
Amazon: 43974Apple: 7286Barnes and Noble: 1269Kobo: 909Sony: 263Smashwords: 113My website: 287All Romance eBooks: 203Fictionwise: 159
Felicity Heaton book sales
2011 Total Sales: 
101570 ebooks sold293 paperbacks sold
Sales by Retailer:
Amazon: 83279Apple: 11474Barnes and Noble: 2083Kobo: 1727Sony: 1104Smashwords: 342My website: 565All Romance eBooks: 710Fictionwise: 286
Obviously my biggest retailers are Amazon for the Kindle, followed by Apple and their iBookstore / iTunes.

The percentages put Barnes and Noble very much out of contention when it comes to making me any real money or sales. They're barely better than Kobo. So much for BNs delusion that it has 27% of the ebook market, but what else should you expect from a company who focuses on one country when the ebook market outside the US is huge. I feel certain that if Barnes and Noble opened Pubit to international authors, I could probably make a real go of it there but they don't push ebooks other than their Pubit books, so my Smashwords books are left floundering. Sony again shows very poor performance. Most of my numbers on both BN and Sony were for free downloads of Reunion. It makes my numbers look good until I remove the free books from the equation and then I feel quite disappointed by sales at those two retailers.

Here's a breakdown in terms of percentages by retailer to show just where all those sales are coming from and who is clearly the top dog when it comes to my total book sales across both Felicity Heaton and F E Heaton books:
Amazon: 82% (127253 sales)Apple: 12% (18760 sales)Barnes and Noble: 2% (3352 sales)Kobo: 2% (2636 sales)Sony: 1% (1367 sales)Smashwords: 0% (455 sales)My website: 0% (852 sales)All Romance eBooks: 1% (913 sales - I've only been on ARe for Q3 and Q4)Fictionwise: 0% (445 sales - I stopped selling there in Q1)
In terms of individual books, my best sellers for the year were Prophecy: Child of Light , the first book in my Prophecy Trilogy and also the first book in my Vampires Realm series that I write as F E Heaton, and Her Dark Angel , the first book in my Her Angel series that I write as Felicity Heaton.

Prophecy: Child of Light sold a total of 13120 copies in 2011.
Her Dark Angel sold a total of 17847 copies in 2011.

Other books that performed well for me were Spellbound and the other two books in the Prophecy Trilogy under my F E Heaton name, and Her Fallen Angel , Her Warrior Angel and A Promise of Passion in my Felicity Heaton name.

All books in the Vampires Realm series sold over 5000 each copies in 2011.


What about 2012?Well, the plan for this year is to sell 250000 ebooks and hopefully bring up sales of paperbacks to over 500. At the moment, it looks possible. January was always going to be a strong month but since then things have settled to more reasonable levels of sales on Amazon at least. I can't see the other retailers yet. I'm not witnessing the amazing boost that ebook sales experienced in 2011. Things are tailing off now and really settling down, sometimes close to where my sales were in November 2011. That's fine though. It still means I could hit my target.

January was good though, with Prophecy: Child of Light shifting close to 2200 copies and Her Dark Angel selling just over 2600 copies on Amazon Kindle. I think I can probably sell around 20000 copies of Prophecy: Child of Light and 30000 of Her Dark Angel this year. I have to admit, that excites me. Okay, they're on offer for $0.99 because they're the first books in a series, but the other books are shifting impressive numbers of copies too!

My newest release, Covet , the first in my Vampire Erotic Theatre series sold over 500 copies too. Always good to start with a nice sales spurt like that. It looks set to improve on that figure in February too. I have big plans for the whole series and I'm hoping that as each new one comes out, I'll see the same upwards trend in sales that I've had with the Her Angel series . The next book is out in March, so it will be interesting to see how sales go.


If you're a writer and you have any questions, or want to know something that I haven't bothered to mention, just leave a comment and I'll answer it as best I can. I've tried to cover everything you might want to know but I might have missed something.

If you're a nice big publisher or agent and you're reading this and thinking I sound pretty good right about now, I do have masses of books to write, including a 7 book paranormal romance series that I think will be huge. Why not drop me an email and we'll talk?

Similarly, if you're a foreign publisher, I'm always looking for translations and since I own the copyright on my books, I'm open for business. I'd love a German and Italian book deal to go with my Spanish one!

;)

Her Angel Spanish translations - Ángel available now!

My Her Angel romance series is being translated into Spanish by Booket, a division of Grupo Planeta. At the moment, the first three novellas in the Her Angel romance series (Her Dark Angel, Her Fallen Angel and Her Warrior Angel) and Her Guardian Angel are contracted for translation.

The first three novellas were released in a single volume on February 14th 2012. Her Guardian Angel will follow later in the year.

I'm really excited because when I went to see if the book was up on Amazon.es yet this morning, I found that the ebook version was already in the top 1000 on Kindle, and was in the top 100 for Romance.

I'm not sure yet about what sort of distribution it will receive as it's quite tied down to Spain, but I'll ask and see if it will be made available on other Amazon sites and in other countries too.

For now, here's the link to the Amazon Kindle version, and the version on the publisher's main website, Planeta de Libros.


Ángelby Felicity Heaton

¿Estás preparada para vivir un intenso y profundo amor prohibido?

Viven camuflados entre nosotros y están aquí para protegernos, luchar contra los demonios o para observar nuestro mundo. Son hombres atractivos y apasionados atrapados entre las órdenes de sus superiores y las de sus corazones. Y no son precisamente santos... Un ángel justiciero enamorado de una bruja; un ángel forajido acusado de un crimen que no ha cometido; y un ángel guerrero que sacrificará sus alas por su amor. ¿Qué esconden estas tres historias?

Disponible en libro electrónico
» Amazon Kindle (Amazon.es)
» Planeta de Libros

Disponible en libro bolsillo
» Planeta de Libros

You can get samples / read excerpts at all the sites above.

Now I'm off to excitedly text everyone and tell the world... oh, and get on with the edits for my Vampire Erotic Theatre series books.

Schedule changes, operations and Amsterdam on Valentine's Day

With my ear operation drawing closer, I began to get a little too stressed out about finishing Her Demonic Angel by my self-imposed deadline of the operation date. On Monday, I did manage to get the book to around 67000 words, but I also planned out the rest of the chapters in clearer detail and realised that I still have around 15 chapters to write. That's around 60,000 words for me if they're around average length. Some would be shorter, so maybe it would be fewer words to write but it's still a lot considering I only had 6 work days until my operation.

So I had to make a choice yesterday. The deadline of my operation was making me feel icky about writing the book, leaving me feeling as though I was rushing it in parts or that it wasn't going to come out good, or I wasn't going to finish it. I have come to terms with the fact I won't finish it in time, so I made the decision to hold off on writing the rest of it until post-recovery period. Plus, it's probably better to relax in the week before the operation rather than elevating my blood pressure and stress levels!

After talking to my husband about it during the journey to Amsterdam for our Valentine's Day trip, I realised it was probably easier to switch my schedule around and tackle editing two of the novellas in my Vampire Erotic Theatre series, Seduce and Enslave, and proofing Crave, and then write the rest of Her Demonic Angel when I'm back. It's far easier to read just 70000 words to get back into the book than it is to read around 120000 words just to write the final chapter or whatever would have remained had I decided to stick with writing as much of the book as I could before my op.

The upside is that I find editing a lot less stressful so I should be able to get it all done, plus my other stuff like creating the formats for Crave which is out on March 10th, before my operation and should be feeling nice and relaxed in the run up to the day... which I am completely dreading.

Amsterdam was a much needed break for me and I had a really good time with my husband despite the rather cold weather. It was bitterly cold. The canals were frozen! Amsterdam was beautiful and so quiet, and it was great wandering the city. I am very tired today though, and can't concentrate. It was a very long day with a very early start and late return, and a heck of a lot of walking in chilly weather. Another reason for changing my schedule around! I am a mindless zombie today.

Hopefully I will be feeling far more normal tomorrow. For now, I'm off to read over the paper copy of Seduce!

Jealous?

Naughty After Dark Blog Hop

Celebrating all things naughty in the Naughty After Dark Blog Hop hosted by Close Encounters with the Night Kind and Natasha Blackthorne .

Naughty After Dark Blog Hop runs from 12:01am February 15th through to 11:59pm February 22nd 2012. My giveaway is open internationally so everyone can participate.




THE PRIZESOne ebook copy of  Covet , plus signed book cover postcards, bookmarks and romance trading cardsOne ebook copy of Her Dark Angel , plus signed book cover postcards, bookmarks and romance trading cards
HOW TO ENTERSubscribe to this blog using the form below. You must subscribe via FeedBurner to participate. GFC doesn't count since they're getting rid of it in March.Fill in the Rafflecopter form.Leave your name and email address in a comment.If you want to do the extra entries, feel free to do them!
SUBSCRIBE AND ENTEREnter your email address:

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VISIT THE OTHER BLOGS IN THE HOP

Manday Hotties - get your Monday mancandy fix!

It's time for the Manday Hotties Hop again! Be sure to follow the links in the list below to get your full fix of hot sexy mancandy this Monday.

It's the start of another week and it's still freezing here in the UK. It's also Valentine's Day tomorrow so I think we need some special hotties...




That final one... gads! I wish Abercrombie and Fitch would open a store near me and send those guys to my town as "shirtless greeters"... *purr*

Don't forget to clicky click him to make him bigger!


Visit the other blogs in the hop:

Sunday Snippets from my paranormal romance books

Today's Sunday Snippet is again from a book I haven't released yet.

This time, the super special snippet is for another lovely lady, Katrina Whittaker, because she also asked very nicely for a slice of Snow, and it's her birthday soon (okay, it's a month away, but she deserves a nice shiny pressie right now!), and I'm all about sharing (should that be read teasing?).

Note, again the offered snippet is first draft material, excuse any errors or crap writing. This snippet follows on from yesterday's snippet... you can read that here .

I have absolutely no qualms about sharing this snippet of Snow, but again it's going to come with a warning, which I've written below - it's a bit different this time. This scene is from Seduce, the third book in my new Vampire Erotic Theatre romance series , and it will be out on June 23rd.

WARNING: The following scene may cause pangs of distress, a deep need to cuddle a blood-crazed vampire and tell him you'll make it all better, sorrow, heartache, and also restlessness, and irritation. By reading it, you release me of all responsibility for any anger and impatience that may occur due to the book not being released for another four months.

"The restraints?"

Sera cringed at the volume of those two words. Here she was trying to keep things subtle and Snow was shouting it at the top of his lungs.

"You want to tie my brother up?" He chuckled. "You are a dark little thing."

Her blush deepened. It wasn't what he thought it was but she didn't correct him. He lumbered across his room, leaving another trail of wet footprints on the wooden floor. He had the same taste in decor as Antoine. Black, black and more black. His bed was something straight out of a torture chamber though. The mattress looked comfortable enough, covered in black silk sheets and fluffed up pillows. The bed itself though. She had never seen anything like it.

Metal posts as thick as Snow's arms supported the four corners. The top and bottom of each post ended in wide square steel plates that were bolted to the ceiling and floor. On each bedpost, there was a length of inch thick steel chain with an equally as thick cuff attached to the end. The leather lining the inside of the cuffs was cracked and stained dark with blood. The bed looked as though it should have been strong enough to contain the most feral of creatures, but the posts were bent in places, dented and showing signs of wear.

"Seen enough?" Snow said and she jumped.

"I didn't mean to stare."

He shrugged casually but there was shame in his eyes. "I have my good nights and my bad nights."

So she had heard. She glanced at the bed again, feeling sorry for him. He had to chain himself to a bed, cage himself, whenever he had a bad night. Something told her the restraints were used more often than that. Did he sleep in them? Chained and defenceless, open to attack? One of the first things she had learned on becoming a vampire was how to protect herself by finding a secure place to sleep. While the general human population didn't know about vampires and other creatures that roamed their world with them, there were hunters out there who were constantly on the lookout for her kind.

"Snow," she said and he handed the restraints to her.

"Do not pity me," he snarled and closed the door in her face.

"He is right, Sera. It is his choice. I have always maintained that. Do not make him feel wretched for the choices he makes. He desires to protect others, those he cares about, and that is a noble thing."

Sera nodded and turned away from Snow's door, coming to face Antoine where he leaned against his doorframe, wearing only his black boxer shorts.

I hope you enjoyed this Sunday Snippet!

You can read an excerpt of Covet , the first book in the series at my site, or download one for your e-reader from any of the sites where it's available for purchase:
Author's website | Amazon Kindle | Amazon Kindle UK | Amazon Kindle Germany | Amazon Kindle France | Apple iBookstore US | Apple iBookstore UK | Apple iBookstore Australia | Apple iBookstore Canada | Barnes and Noble | Kobo Books | Smashwords | All Romance eBooks

Saturday Snippets from my Paranormal Romance Books

Today's Saturday Snippet is from a book I haven't released yet. It's a super special snippet for a lovely lady, Talina Perkins, because she asked very nicely for a slice of Snow and I'm all about sharing (should that be read teasing?). Note, the offered snippet is first draft material, excuse any errors or crap writing.

I have absolutely no qualms about sharing this snippet of Snow, but it should come with a warning, which I've written below. This scene is from Seduce, the third book in my new Vampire Erotic Theatre romance series , and it will be out on June 23rd.

WARNING: The following scene may causes dizziness, palpitations, fainting, hot flushes, prickly skin, dry mouth and / or throat, intense pangs of desire, restlessness, and irritation. By reading it, you release me of all responsibility for any anger and impatience that may occur due to the book not being released for another four months.

Sera crossed the black and gold hallway to Antoine's brother's door and knocked. While Snow had a habit of just walking in unannounced, she would rather not. Antoine had been angry enough when he had found her touching her brother in a gesture as innocent as a handshake. She didn't want to think about the scale of the fight that would erupt should she walk in on Snow when he was nude.

The door opened.

Snow raised an eyebrow at her.

She mirrored him.

It was a good thing she had knocked. The darkly beautiful man was wearing nothing more than the world's smallest towel around his hips and was dripping water all over his apartment floor.

"Can I borrow something?" she said and her heart flipped in her chest.

"Depends on what it is." He went to take a step back and then stopped. "I do not think it wise that you enter my room. My brother has claimed you as his female. I do not enjoy Javier's dark moods whenever Lilah enters my room without his consent. I have no desire to inflict such pain upon my brother. State what you desire and I will consider it."

Was Snow saying that he thought his brother was attached to her? She had figured Antoine's outburst was just a momentary glitch brought about by his sleepy state.

She didn't dare hope that he was right. She had tried to keep her relationship with Antoine as physical as possible and not emotional, but the more time she spent with him, both intimately and afterwards when they would talk about his life and hers, the more she fell for him.

Her desire to make him see that they could be together was the reason she was here now, about to ask Snow for something that would likely embarrass him and Antoine as much as it did her.

"Those," she said and pointed, already blushing deeply and unable to say the words aloud.

Snow followed her finger, looking over his wide bare wet shoulders. His head snapped back around, white hair whipping with the force of the action, spraying droplets over her.

"The restraints?"

She cringed at the volume of those two words. Here she was trying to keep things subtle and he was shouting it at the top of his lungs.

"You want to tie my brother up?" He chuckled. "You are a dark little thing."

I hope you enjoyed this Sunday Snippet!

You can read an excerpt of Covet , the first book in the series at my site, or download one for your e-reader from any of the sites where it's available for purchase:
Author's website | Amazon Kindle | Amazon Kindle UK | Amazon Kindle Germany | Amazon Kindle France | Apple iBookstore US | Apple iBookstore UK | Apple iBookstore Australia | Apple iBookstore Canada | Barnes and Noble | Kobo Books | Smashwords | All Romance eBooks

Covet Book Tour continues at Bookin It Reviews!

It's time for an update on my Covet Book Tour . I hope you've all been following the tour and are enjoying learning more about the series. There are some great posts about this vampire romance book and the Vampire Erotic Theatre series coming up so keep following it!

Don't forget, if you comment on the tour posts, you're also entered into my grand giveaway for six signed paperback copies of my paranormal romance releases of 2011. Sounds good, right? You can read all about it by clicking the Covet Book Tour button above!

Yesterday I was at the always fantastic Bookin It Reviews sharing an exclusive excerpt from the book and another great giveaway. It's a hot little scene this time, so have a fan at the ready or an icy drink to cool you down!

Next week I have four appearances to round off the tour, including another exclusive excerpt, an interview with Lilah, more about writing the series and what's next!


COVET BOOK TOURJAN 23rd: Riverina Romantics - Author Interview, Excerpt, GiveawayJAN 24th: Bona Fide Reflections - Introduction to the Book / GiveawayJAN 27th: Book Monster Reviews / Literal Addiction - Character Interview / Giveaway JAN 30th: Grave Tells - Writing the Book / GiveawayFEB 1st: Madame D's Boudoir - Introduction to the Series / GiveawayFEB 3rd: The Book Nympho - Character Interview / GiveawayFEB 6th: Lush Book Reviews - Exclusive Excerpt / GiveawayFEB 10th: Bookin' It Reviews - Exclusive Excerpt / GiveawayFEB 14th: Page Flipperz - Character Interview / GiveawayFEB 15th: Ex-Libris - Creating the World / GiveawayFEB 16th: Reading Between the Wines Book Club - Exclusive Excerpt / GiveawayFEB 17th: Bitten by Paranormal Romance - What's Next? / Giveaway
If you want to know more about my erotic vampire romance novella Covet, then you can read all about it or read an excerpt / download a sample at the following sites:

Author's website | Amazon Kindle | Amazon Kindle UK | Amazon Kindle Germany | Amazon Kindle France | Apple iBookstore US | Apple iBookstore UK | Apple iBookstore Australia | Apple iBookstore Canada | Barnes and Noble | Kobo Books | Smashwords | All Romance eBooks