Ruth Nestvold's Blog, page 55

Shadow of Stone – editing process almost complete

Today, I finished the final editing pass on Shadow of Stone and gave it to my hubbie for a last spot check. I asked him to read the prologue and first chapter, as well as a couple of random chapters throughout the book, just to make sure we’ve done everything we can to make the book as error-free as possible. That includes the following:

- Putting various chapters and the synopsis through a couple of different workshops

- About 10 beta readers after the first draft was complete

- Letting the th...

Cracking 1,000 ebooks sales (and other good news)

Sometime this week, I seem to have cracked the magic number of 1,000 ebook sales. We will see if this gets me into more “also bought” lists or other kinds of nifty attention that will help my visibility! It would be lovely to just lean back and get more writing done, but I don’t think it’s going to happen. Besides, those sales are across all my titles, and I’m not sure if the good stuff I’ve heard about kicks in for total sales, or only if a single title passes the 1,000 mark. If it’s single...

Great promotional opportunity: Ebooks for a Buck

I have the great good fortune that Yseult is presently being featured on Michael Gallagher’s book blog Kindle Books for a Buck (or less). Since he put up the link, I’ve sold 12 copies of the book. And that after sales ground to a halt earlier this month, I have no idea why. After a week of no sales, I lowered the price to 99 cents and started looking for promotional opportunities specific to that price point.

The most effective until now has been Michael Gallagher’s site. He features indie au...

Interview, guest lecture, and Shadow of Stone publication delay (sorry!)

There’s a new interview with me from Lisa Binion up at BellaOnline. Check it out!

Part 1

Part 2

The guest lecture at my old alma mater, the University of Stuttgart, was today, and it went quite well. Before the event, I only had one anxiety dream about arriving late, and the students seemed quite interested and asked a lot of questions. It was in a seminar in the German Medieval Studies department (Mediavistik), which to me was quite an honor. For my Masters, I double majored in English and Germ...

“Yseult” featured on Addicted to Ebooks today – #1 in Arthurian Fantasy!

I’m pretty busy at the moment, so only a short update: my novel Yseult is being featured on Addicted to Ebooks today. And it has climbed back up to the #1 slot in Arthurian Fantasy! (Thanks, Vicki!)

After May 21, it will drop down in the list on Addicted to Ebooks, but you can access the listing here.

Still not much time for writing these days. My guest lecture at the University of Stuttgart is on Wednesday, and I only finished it yesterday. I will probably use my notes as the basis for a blog...

Shooting for May 25th publication date for Shadow of Stone!

I’m happy to say I can now announce a publication date for Shadow of Stone. I’ve gone through the edits I got back from the copy editor, and I have a nearly final version of the cover:

While going through the edits, I noticed a couple of typos the copy editor didn’t catch, so I’m also going to try and do one more read-through. Then I will need to do the formatting and send it out to the readers who volunteered to write reviews.

I also need to work on the blurb and product description. This is...

Another successful giveaway: “Dragon Time” now #2 in historical fantasy!

Not only is Dragon Time and Other Stories #2 in historical fantasy, it is also #9 in fantasy overall in the Free Kindle Store, which I’m even happier about:

The success of Dragon Time, however, is food for thought in the marketing department. When If Tears Were Wishes went free, I referred to my post “Promoting Ebooks with KDP Select” and did pretty much everything I recommend there. When Dragon Time went free yesterday, I announced it in a couple of places, but then we took advantage of the...

A visit, a castle, a review, an Italian greeting, and more freebies

After a relatively spontaneous visit to Stuttgart (a long weekend added to a business trip), my brother left early this morning for Frankfurt, then Heathrow (good luck), then Seattle. We had a wonderful time, and he is now the first of my immediate family to meet my granddaughter Mira — one of the disadvantages of relocating to another continent. But the girls really liked him: Lisa was quite disappointed that he was already gone when they came by today for my birthday dinner, and Mira hopped...

“Yseult” Book of the Day on Flurries of Words!

My novel Yseult has been chosen as “Book of the Day” today on the ebook readers web site “Flurries of Words.” Thanks, Paula!

My brother is brother is presently visiting from the States, and today I “have to” run off and visit Hohenzollern Castle with him (poor me). But that means that I won’t have much time to do any promotion of this wonderful opportunity. So if anyone who reads this feels inclined to send a brief tweet out into the world, I would be very grateful!

I’ll upload pics of Hohenz...

Edits and cover images for Shadow of Stone: Almost there!

I’m making progress again on Chameleon in a Mirror, my Aphra Behn time travel, but not as much as I would like. Since I last posted, I’ve gotten over 2200 words written and am now working on a couple of completely new scenes that I realized I needed. Recently, however, I’ve also been spending a lot of my “writing time” attending to various non-creative aspects of my writing life: jotting down notes for a guest lecture I’ll be giving at the University of Stuttgart later this month; checking th...