H.E. Bulstrode's Blog, page 4
October 30, 2017
New Release: 'The Ghost of Scarside Beck'
New release: The Ghost of Scarside Beck. A Lakeland ghost story whose lightness soon descends into darkness. Available for 99c/99p from Amazon at myBook.to/GhostofScarsideBeck Free to Kindle Unlimited subscribers.
A very strange incident triggered the writing of this tale, but I'm glad to say that none of the horror injected into it relates to my experience, which is just as well.
Blurb
There are places where the past and the present walk in tandem, where people and events seem to echo those who have been but are no longer. There is something in the fabric of the buildings, in the feel of the earth, that evokes the timelessness of an eternal present, where a crossing over may occur at any moment. Scarside Beck is one such place; a Cumbrian hamlet in which the gossamer film that separates all of our yesterdays from what is now is apt to tear. Is it from the stone, or the sodden soil that this remembrance seeps, to be sensed, and felt, and yet not acknowledged by the conscious mind? There was something here, and it lingers still. I feel it.
October 24, 2017
An unexpected turn of events
Sometimes when writing, something completely unexpected will happen which, in a beneficial way, throws writing plans into temporary disarray. One such thing occurred a few days ago, an incident which defied rational explanation, and was like no other that I had previously experienced. Thus it was that the outline of a new tale was born, and since then I have been writing with a rather frantic intensity that seems at odds with being on holiday. Still, you may view the fruits of my labours shortly. It will then be up to you to disentangle the fact from the fiction.
October 14, 2017
A Tender Discomfort & a Gory Crown
The Cleft Owl: Occult Deception in 17th-century Devon.
Free to download from Amazon Saturday 14th to Tuesday 17th October: myBook.to/Thecleftowl
Witness the work of a practitioner of the occult arts, a willing deceiver and interpreter of dreams, schooled in awe by a house of God rendered a charnel house by a fiery, dancing orb of light. Self-tutored in greed, and self-assured in his deceptions, ‘Dr’ Robert Tooley would have many think him able to command the dead and have them do his bidding, but as his demands grow greater, so the villagers’ doubts grow deeper; there will be an end to it all, and not a pretty one.
Based upon a little-known and strange case that unfolded in Widecombe-in-the-Moor during the late 17th century, a number of the characters here portrayed – Tooley, the Reverend Tickle and the Worshipful Sir William Bastard – all played a role in the life of this tightly-knit community. Lost in obscurity, this episode is here resurrected, and the dead pressed to speak.
This novella is a standalone work in the West Country Tales series, and is also available alongside four others in Anthology: Wry Out West: myBook.to/Wryoutwest
Free to download from Amazon Saturday 14th to Tuesday 17th October: myBook.to/Thecleftowl
Witness the work of a practitioner of the occult arts, a willing deceiver and interpreter of dreams, schooled in awe by a house of God rendered a charnel house by a fiery, dancing orb of light. Self-tutored in greed, and self-assured in his deceptions, ‘Dr’ Robert Tooley would have many think him able to command the dead and have them do his bidding, but as his demands grow greater, so the villagers’ doubts grow deeper; there will be an end to it all, and not a pretty one.
Based upon a little-known and strange case that unfolded in Widecombe-in-the-Moor during the late 17th century, a number of the characters here portrayed – Tooley, the Reverend Tickle and the Worshipful Sir William Bastard – all played a role in the life of this tightly-knit community. Lost in obscurity, this episode is here resurrected, and the dead pressed to speak.
This novella is a standalone work in the West Country Tales series, and is also available alongside four others in Anthology: Wry Out West: myBook.to/Wryoutwest
October 13, 2017
Friday 13th Free Books - Support Indie Authors
#SIAFBB
Don't miss out on your chance to download 70 free and discounted books spanning a range of genres today at Support Indie Authors.
Don't miss out on your chance to download 70 free and discounted books spanning a range of genres today at Support Indie Authors.
October 9, 2017
A Fair Price for Kindle Ebooks?
For the past year, with the exception of my anthology volume, I have adopted a uniform pricing policy for all of my Kindle Ebooks with them each costing a flat rate 99p/99c. From now on though, I've decided that this will change: ebooks under 20,000 words will still cost 99p/99c, whereas those between 20,000 and 30,000 words will increase to £1.99/$2.99 each. This seems a fair rate, and in keeping with other authors' pricing.
Gwydion's Dawn and The Rude Woman of Cerne will both be increasing in price later today, with The Cleft Owl following suit early next month. Old Crotchet, 3:05 AM, and Agnes of Grimstone Peverell will remain at 99p/99c.
Gwydion's Dawn and The Rude Woman of Cerne will both be increasing in price later today, with The Cleft Owl following suit early next month. Old Crotchet, 3:05 AM, and Agnes of Grimstone Peverell will remain at 99p/99c.
September 13, 2017
New Covers!
At last, thanks to the Goodreads librarians, I have managed to get my new cover artwork onto the site. What do you think of the following? Can you pick a favourite?
August 25, 2017
Ghostly and Uncanny Tales
Anthology: Wry Out West myBook.to/Wryoutwest
Available for 99c/99p from Friday 25th to Thursday 31st August only (normally $3.20/£2.49; 369 Kindle pages). Also free to Kindle Unlimited subscribers. Five twisted tales of the uncanny with a distinctly English flavour and a dash of dark humour. This anthology contains:
Old Crotchet – a humorous period mystery with a supernatural twist.
Gwydion’s Dawn - murder, mystery and magic: a satirical journey into Glastonbury’s occult counterculture.
3:05 am – never has a portable television been so unsettling.
Agnes of Grimstone Peverell – the minster guide you’d never wish to meet.
The Cleft Owl – a tale of occult deception in seventeenth-century Devon.
August 24, 2017
A Throttling Good Read
This review of 3:05 am from a reader on Amazon made me chuckle. Although he loved the tale, he did express the desire to ‘throttle’ me. Why? Read on. Oh, and if you’d like to enjoy it for yourself, it is free to download from the 24th to the 28th August: myBook.to/305AM
https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/customer-...
Great short
My second book by this author having just read the first in the West Country Tales.
Again it's a short story with a clever plot line. The characters, though few, are again well crafted and easy to relate to. The story basically involves a husband and wife, a disgruntled work colleague and a remarkable, but creepy, old television. Not much to base a story on but this author manages to.
It's a clever build up to a very strange ending. It's as though the story has been truncated and leaving the reader wanting more. Well it did me. However, it is a surprising ending exactly as it should be for a mystery. It's annoying but also satisfying.
If you insist on stories having all the questions answered and a happy ending this is definitely not for you. If you want a creepy ending that leaves you wanting to throttle the author then this is definitely for you.
For me, I can't wait to read the next in the series.
https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/customer-...
Great short
My second book by this author having just read the first in the West Country Tales.
Again it's a short story with a clever plot line. The characters, though few, are again well crafted and easy to relate to. The story basically involves a husband and wife, a disgruntled work colleague and a remarkable, but creepy, old television. Not much to base a story on but this author manages to.
It's a clever build up to a very strange ending. It's as though the story has been truncated and leaving the reader wanting more. Well it did me. However, it is a surprising ending exactly as it should be for a mystery. It's annoying but also satisfying.
If you insist on stories having all the questions answered and a happy ending this is definitely not for you. If you want a creepy ending that leaves you wanting to throttle the author then this is definitely for you.
For me, I can't wait to read the next in the series.
August 1, 2017
An August Gift
Free 1st to 5th August: Old Crotchet
A humorous period mystery with a supernatural twist
myBook.to/Oldcrotchet
Old Crotchet - her manor, her rules. Cross her at your peril. There's little that will rile a woman more than 300 years of age than the arrival of some flighty young upstart intent upon displacing her. It is Twelfth Night by the old reckoning, and festivities are about to commence as something sinister stirs from its protracted dormancy, awakened, it seems, by the arrival of two young guests. The old ways, they find, should not be treated lightly.
A humorous period mystery with a supernatural twist
myBook.to/Oldcrotchet
Old Crotchet - her manor, her rules. Cross her at your peril. There's little that will rile a woman more than 300 years of age than the arrival of some flighty young upstart intent upon displacing her. It is Twelfth Night by the old reckoning, and festivities are about to commence as something sinister stirs from its protracted dormancy, awakened, it seems, by the arrival of two young guests. The old ways, they find, should not be treated lightly.
July 27, 2017
Book Promotion Results: the Importance of a Good Cover
I recently ran a five-day promotion on one of my books – Gwydion’s Dawn - through Kindle Direct, but things didn’t go quite to plan. I thought that readers might be interested to learn how it went, not because they’ll have any intrinsic curiosity as to how I personally faired, but as a guide to how they might approach such an exercise themselves, and learn from my experience and mistakes. So, before discussing the results, I’ll outline what I should not have done.
Firstly, I made a cardinal error at the outset: I changed the cover artwork of the book being promoted without previewing it to see how it appeared at a smaller resolution. Now, whereas it looked aesthetically pleasing when viewed at full size, as a thumbnail image it didn’t work. Both the title and author name appeared indistinct, and the nature of the ruin in the picture made the composition appear unbalanced. My judgement had also been somewhat clouded by the fact that this new artwork was in some way more appropriate for the story, insofar as it featured an image of part of the ruins of Glastonbury Abbey, and the tale itself is centred on the town of Glastonbury. However, for the casual viewer unacquainted with these ruins, this would be an irrelevance. I realised this half way through the first day of the promotion, but by then it was too late to revert to the previous version of the cover which featured a psychedelicised mushroom (also integral to the story), that was not only more colourful and eye-catching, but also possessed a clearly legible title and author name.
Well, I’ve learned my lesson and changed the cover back to the psychedelic mushroom (it’s not the cover displaying on Goodreads by the way, as this was my very first effort at it. If you’re interested in seeing the real thing, then click on this link: myBook.to/GwydionsDawn).
I decided to run this promotional effort using only free resources, and submitted Gwydion’s Dawn to 16 book promotion sites, as well as making promotional postings in five Goodreads groups, and two Facebook groups. The submission was rejected by seven of the sites and didn’t appear to be visible on a number of others, with only three of them – to my knowledge – including the book in their mailings. The three that did were Ask David, Bookangel and Bookscream. There were no downloads that I could attribute with any certainty to either Ask David or Bookangel, but I did achieve a very modest (well, feeble to be honest) increase in downloads when Gwydion’s Dawn featured in the Bookscream mailing, with perhaps 12 to 14 downloads being attributable to this.
In sum, over the five days 41 copies of the book were downloaded:
USA – 28
UK – 12
Japan – 1
This was very poor, as a shorter promotional run of three days in March/April this year run in conjunction with Support Indie Authors had yielded 84 downloads, despite being submitted to less sites, and another run of three days last October promoted only on Goodreads, resulted in 33 downloads. Moreover, there were no downloads of my other six publications during the period of this most recent promotion, and although it only ended on Tuesday, there have been no downloads since. My poor cover artwork must bear the blame for transforming Gwydion’s Dawn into Gwydion’s Dusk.
Old Crotchet will be going on promotion shortly, but I’m far more happy with the cover that I have recently designed for this story, and am thus confident that it will be more appealing to the reading public and book promoters alike. To see what she looks like, please visit one of the following links:
USA: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01HSDYE2Q
UK: https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B01HSDYE2Q
Canada: https://www.amazon.ca/dp/B01HSDYE2Q
Australia: https://www.amazon.com.au/dp/B01HSDYE2Q
Firstly, I made a cardinal error at the outset: I changed the cover artwork of the book being promoted without previewing it to see how it appeared at a smaller resolution. Now, whereas it looked aesthetically pleasing when viewed at full size, as a thumbnail image it didn’t work. Both the title and author name appeared indistinct, and the nature of the ruin in the picture made the composition appear unbalanced. My judgement had also been somewhat clouded by the fact that this new artwork was in some way more appropriate for the story, insofar as it featured an image of part of the ruins of Glastonbury Abbey, and the tale itself is centred on the town of Glastonbury. However, for the casual viewer unacquainted with these ruins, this would be an irrelevance. I realised this half way through the first day of the promotion, but by then it was too late to revert to the previous version of the cover which featured a psychedelicised mushroom (also integral to the story), that was not only more colourful and eye-catching, but also possessed a clearly legible title and author name.
Well, I’ve learned my lesson and changed the cover back to the psychedelic mushroom (it’s not the cover displaying on Goodreads by the way, as this was my very first effort at it. If you’re interested in seeing the real thing, then click on this link: myBook.to/GwydionsDawn).
I decided to run this promotional effort using only free resources, and submitted Gwydion’s Dawn to 16 book promotion sites, as well as making promotional postings in five Goodreads groups, and two Facebook groups. The submission was rejected by seven of the sites and didn’t appear to be visible on a number of others, with only three of them – to my knowledge – including the book in their mailings. The three that did were Ask David, Bookangel and Bookscream. There were no downloads that I could attribute with any certainty to either Ask David or Bookangel, but I did achieve a very modest (well, feeble to be honest) increase in downloads when Gwydion’s Dawn featured in the Bookscream mailing, with perhaps 12 to 14 downloads being attributable to this.
In sum, over the five days 41 copies of the book were downloaded:
USA – 28
UK – 12
Japan – 1
This was very poor, as a shorter promotional run of three days in March/April this year run in conjunction with Support Indie Authors had yielded 84 downloads, despite being submitted to less sites, and another run of three days last October promoted only on Goodreads, resulted in 33 downloads. Moreover, there were no downloads of my other six publications during the period of this most recent promotion, and although it only ended on Tuesday, there have been no downloads since. My poor cover artwork must bear the blame for transforming Gwydion’s Dawn into Gwydion’s Dusk.
Old Crotchet will be going on promotion shortly, but I’m far more happy with the cover that I have recently designed for this story, and am thus confident that it will be more appealing to the reading public and book promoters alike. To see what she looks like, please visit one of the following links:
USA: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01HSDYE2Q
UK: https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B01HSDYE2Q
Canada: https://www.amazon.ca/dp/B01HSDYE2Q
Australia: https://www.amazon.com.au/dp/B01HSDYE2Q
