Sarah Barnard's Blog, page 15

Testing something.

I’m trying something out, seeing if the software works how I want it to. I need some people to test it for me, and I don’t think it’s fair if you get nothing from it.

I’m adding downloads of my ebooks to the website, and if bought here the files will have something extra in – a little bonus, if you like. To test the system thoroughly I’ve added the files for Earthlink: Impact in three formats: Kindle, ePub and PDF and I’ve set them all at an introductory price for today and tomorrow (Thurs 19th April and Friday 20th April). I need to test the payment part and for that some money has to change hands, but it really doesn’t have to be much. 50p for UK readers and 75 cents for US readers – small change and straight from your paypal account. You won’t miss it and you’ll get the first of the Exclusive ebooks direct from here.

If you wouldn’t mind, give it a try, buy yourself an ebook and then let me know what you thought. I’m interested in how the software works, how easy it is to download the files and how the files look on your ereader, or ereader app. The links are all here for you, as well as on their own page.

Exclusive Content

Each copy bought directly from this site will have something extra for you. Earthlink: Impact has a short message and autograph included in the file.

Scroll down to find the file format you need, click Buy Now and follow the instructions.

UK Readers

All files set at 0.50pence for a limited time only. This price expires at midnight UK time on Friday 20th April. This special offer price is only for the purposes of testing the new download system. All feedback gratefully received.

Kindle edition (.mobi file)

All downloads are licensed for your personal enjoyment only. These downloads may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share your download with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each reader, or in the case of free content please ask that person to download their own copy. If you’re reading this book, or using this item and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to www.sarahbarnard.co.uk and purchase your own copy.
Thank you for respecting my hard work, and the hard work of any artists involved in the creation of these items.
Sarah Barnard

By clicking the button below, I agree with the Terms & Conditions.





















Buy Now
0.99 GBP

Epub file – for Sony, Nook and others

All downloads are licensed for your personal enjoyment only. These downloads may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share your download with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each reader, or in the case of free content please ask that person to download their own copy. If you’re reading this book, or using this item and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to www.sarahbarnard.co.uk and purchase your own copy.
Thank you for respecting my hard work, and the hard work of any artists involved in the creation of these items.
Sarah Barnard

By clicking the button below, I agree with the Terms & Conditions.





















Buy Now
0.99 GBP

PDF file

All downloads are licensed for your personal enjoyment only. These downloads may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share your download with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each reader, or in the case of free content please ask that person to download their own copy. If you’re reading this book, or using this item and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to www.sarahbarnard.co.uk and purchase your own copy.
Thank you for respecting my hard work, and the hard work of any artists involved in the creation of these items.
Sarah Barnard

By clicking the button below, I agree with the Terms & Conditions.





















Buy Now
0.99 GBP



US Readers

All files set at 0.75cents for a limited time only. This price expires at midnight UK time on Friday 20th April. This special offer price is only for the purposes of testing the new download system. All feedback gratefully received.

Kindle edition (.mobi file)

All downloads are licensed for your personal enjoyment only. These downloads may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share your download with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each reader, or in the case of free content please ask that person to download their own copy. If you’re reading this book, or using this item and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to www.sarahbarnard.co.uk and purchase your own copy.
Thank you for respecting my hard work, and the hard work of any artists involved in the creation of these items.
Sarah Barnard

By clicking the button below, I agree with the Terms & Conditions.





















Buy Now
1.50 USD

Epub file – for Sony, Nook and others

All downloads are licensed for your personal enjoyment only. These downloads may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share your download with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each reader, or in the case of free content please ask that person to download their own copy. If you’re reading this book, or using this item and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to www.sarahbarnard.co.uk and purchase your own copy.
Thank you for respecting my hard work, and the hard work of any artists involved in the creation of these items.
Sarah Barnard

By clicking the button below, I agree with the Terms & Conditions.





















Buy Now
1.50 USD

PDF file

All downloads are licensed for your personal enjoyment only. These downloads may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share your download with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each reader, or in the case of free content please ask that person to download their own copy. If you’re reading this book, or using this item and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to www.sarahbarnard.co.uk and purchase your own copy.
Thank you for respecting my hard work, and the hard work of any artists involved in the creation of these items.
Sarah Barnard

By clicking the button below, I agree with the Terms & Conditions.





















Buy Now
1.50 USD

Who’d like a free gift?

I’m just testing something, bear with me.

Can you do me a huge favour and try the link that should appear here:

Download The Heir - Free printable bookmark.

Thank should lead you to a download thing that should give you a free printable book mark.

Help yourselves.

Any feedback on the ease of use, anything that went wrong and so on would be gratefully received, as would any comments on anything else you’d like to see available for download.

If it works out then I’ll add more in a set of 4 Portal bookmarks, make some more freebies and maybe set up selling my ebooks directly to you as well.

 

Lilith’s First Born

The Heir.

Set roughly 30 years before The Portal Between, Heavily pregnant, and with her own life and that of her unborn child threatened by her consort, Lilith flees her home to seek the aid of her sister, who was thought to be lost. Heather has been in hiding and only Lilith knows where she is or how to reach her.

Heather holds the healing magic that Lilith needs and Heather lives in the one place where Lilith’s unborn child might be safe.

The Heir is a short story and your kindle purchase will include the beginning of The Portal Between as a bonus.

The Portal Series.

Amazon Kindle – UK

The whole Portal Series is also available on Kindle in the US, and in other Amazon regions.

The Heir

When Lilith’s unborn child is threatened, there’s only one place she can go. She flees her home to find her lost twin sister, the only person who might understand the choice that Lilith must make.

The Heir, the story of the birth of Lilith’s heir is set three decades before the events of The Portal Between.

The Heir is a short story and includes the first few pages of The Portal Between.

 

The Portal Series.

Amazon Kindle – UK

FREE Ebook for Easter.

My sci-fi novella, Earthlink: Impact, is completely free for Amazon Kindle from Friday 6th April through to Monday 9th April.

Earthlink:Impact is a short novella, at only approx 20,000 words, a quick read.

Sci fi, with a troubled teenager, aliens and spaceships.

What if they are up there, monitoring us, and the planet? What if the planet has grown, developed, become conscious in some way? What if just one person could hear that consciousness in pain? What if that one person had just crashed a stolen car after a night of drink and drugs?

Sage is eighteen years old and, ever since she can remember, there's been a voice in her head. She'll tell you that she doesn't hear voices, they don't tell her to do anything. It's just a single voice, and it doesn't speak, it screams. She hears an unending scream as if the voice is someone in constant, agonising pain.

She's been told she's hallucinating. She's spent time in psychiatric care and on strong drugs that cut her off from her feelings, and she hates all of it.

But she's not hallucinating, the voice is all too real and Sage has been watched for years in the hope that she's not the only one who can hear. When Sage puts her life in danger, and it's clear that she is unique, intervention is necessary.

Links for Amazon UK and US as follows:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Earthlink-Impact-ebook/dp/B006YR4BIK/

http://www.amazon.com/Earthlink-Impact-ebook/dp/B006YR4BIK/

Not got yourself a kindle yet? Then download the FREE version to your computer/phone/tablet/whatever you do have!

Get your kindle reader for your device here.

Help yourselves, share with your friends, from Friday 6th April through Monday 9th April.

Sitting in the sun.

There's a low wall. The red bricks are cool but warmed by the blazing sun. It's not really blazing, it could be a lot hotter than it it but it feels hot against the chill of the morning.

I'm sitting on the wall,  waiting for the klaxon to sound. There's no school bell here, just the raucous shout of a klaxon-like alarm to mark the end of the school day which my daughter says feels far too long when the sun is shining like this. She's almost 9 now, all legs and long blonde hair that hangs to her shoulders and needs brushing more often. She's nothing like I ever was. 

As has been my habit for as long as I can remember, I'm people watching and wondering about their lives.

"Kate!" Someone calls out and she sweeps past, long red-tinted, dark hair flying in the warm breeze, jogging to catch up with her friend. For a second I smile, thinking of my Lily and my Kate as the two women walk off, deep in conversation about children, meeting up and the up-coming break from school.

But there she is, heading for the infants school next door to where I sit. She's often in a rush, not running but walking fast as if she might be late. Her hair is glossy raven-black, rippling onto her shoulders. Just like yours was, only yours was straight, wasn't it? But yours was the same deep, rich black and you had blue eyes.

She wears her sunglasses pushed up onto her hair, like you did. There's something about the way she walks, the way she holds her hands, reminds me of you and I wonder what happened to you after we lost touch.

It's been how long now? I was 18 or 19, so it's 24 or 25 years, at least. It could be longer, I can't remember really. I moved, left home, and you moved too and we just drifted apart until we lost touch completely.

If I think about it, if I do the maths, she could be your daughter. If she's picking up her own kids then you could be a grandmother.

Gods, but that makes me feel so old. You must be in your 50s now. Would I know you if we bumped into each other again? Would you know me? I suspect not. I hope life treated you well.

A new home, a new life.

Has it really been almost 2 months since my last blog post? Blimey…. My excuse? I moved house, quite suddenly. I've been wanting to relocate for a while and in early February I got the call to say that a house was available and we could move. Now. As soon as possible, and certainly within the following 2-3 weeks.

Panic set in, stress ensued and the mad, frantic packing commenced, and the PC got neglected and then packed. It stayed in the box until I could get the internet sorted in the new place. We moved in on March 3rd, the day before my birthday, and internet and phone were booked for the following Friday. A few days to unpack, get settled and then I could get back online.

Hah! Two weeks after that I finally got back online again and I'm still unpacking, still trying to get things sorted, but it's slowly all falling into place. And we're happy here. It's calmer, peaceful and beautifully inspiring.

Lily seems to like it here. Or maybe it's the Naiad who likes it here, considering the stream that's within 5 mins walk from my front door. Or perhaps it's Drummer, and Gentian, who love the trees.Or Elder who loved to walk on the scrub ground when she was younger.

No matter, the Portal characters are vocal again. I thought I was done with them and I could move on to Sage, but Sage is silent.  Kate is also, oddly, absent.  Possibly because Lily is telling me parts of her story from before she knew Kate. I hope Kate's happy. She deserves to be happy, although her life can never be the same. Love and loss do that, they change you.

I am discovering Lily's reasons for some of the mistakes she made, some of her regrets and some of the details that were missing from the Portal books. I now know her name for the realm she ruled. She's kept that very close to her chest until now.

As for me, I'm making a home here, discovering I can wallpaper quite well, and painting walls in between working out what's growing in my new garden and starting to think about excursions to the beach and into the woods. There's lots of work to be done, but it'll happen in time.

In the meantime I have a short story featured in an imminently released anthology from the With Love Project. The Heir is a short snapshot with Lily and her twin sister, Heather and I think you'll like it. I'll let you know when the anthology is out and where to get it.

Got any tips?

I was asked this on good old Google. Here I am, if you want to see what I'm up to over there. The poster in question was doing that thing of celebrating with a sad face. I'm sure he won't mind me quoting him….

kindlejoy the feeling you get when see your rating jump 100,000 on the amazon rating billboard. kindlesigh the feeling you get when you watch it slowly slip back to #300,000

Especially if you all go and look at his book: The Dragon and The Crow (Magickless).

I commented on his post, because I'm just that kind of person. I'm a bit random, but I'll jump in and say Hi, offer to share what I can. One of my books, Earthlink: Impact hit 10,000 in the overall ranking yesterday, and was around #17 in one of the smaller charts: Kindle store> Books> Fiction> Metaphysical & Visionary.

That's a fantastic number! I'm so proud of it, and I told him so. He was suitably impressed.

TB asked, "any tips?"

You know sometimes, just now and then, the words flow and you read them back and think, Oh Yes! I just had to blog it…. and expand it into a larger ramble. Make of it what you will, and take from it what you feel fits for you.

You see, although promotion and marketing aren't my strongest areas, there are some things that just make sense. TB only has a single book out, and it only has a single review of 3 stars. I'm not sure if it's a good book, but I've got the sample so I'll read that later. But, before I even look at that sample, there are things that can be done to help improve the look and feel of that page.

Did you go and look? Need the link again? Here you go: The Dragon and The Crow (Magickless)

What do you see? The product description is short. But it tells me what I need to know, and it's snappy. I'm sure it could be improved – and I know all of mine could be improved, and I know I'm rubbish at product descriptions so I'll leave that alone.

Scroll down a bit. "More about the author." No picture, no information, no "More" at all. I'm not sure how well the author pages work really, but if it's there, and it only takes a few minutes to put up a picture and a brief bit on "more" – then you should make use of it. Oh, and only one book.

Back to that one book. Tags really do help to identify the themes in a book, choose carefully and they can really help with promoting the book in the right places.Even if they don't help that much, they're there so use them. Also, get your friends to "like" the page, get them to share it, to add to the tag numbers.

Reviews also help, a lot. I'm sure I don't need to blather on about those. Reviews are the reader's window to what other readers thought of your book. Some will love it, some will hate it, and most won't bother reviewing it unless you ask them. Even then, most won't review it even if you ask. But some will. You may need to give some copies away to get those first reviews, but it's worth it. Really, it's definitely worth it.

This is what I said on Google+.

Write the next book, then another one, then another. And get your name known wherever you can. Thought about submitting shorts to an anthology somewhere?

Don't kindlesigh, just use the kindlejoy. You got to 100k, a BIG leap up the rankings, that's fantastic, celebrate! Who cares where it is now, that's where it was. You climbed Everest, you stood at the summit, and now you're telling everyone from the comfort of base camp.

It's that positive attitude. Focus on the good, on the Great! Leave the other stuff in the dirt, where it belongs. Don't whine at me. I'm a reader as well as a writer, and I'm a person too. Yeah, really, I am, a proper human being. I hang around online with a lot of writers, and a lot of readers too, and I find the ones that I prefer to spend time with are those who celebrate every success and who don't wine about the not-so-stellar days. Yeah, I had a blip, it's cool, tomorrow's another day.

Don't get me wrong, we all have rough days and sometimes we need to scream. But what you put out, you get back. What you focus on is how your life is shaped.

Positive attitude alone won't get you sales, won't make your book into the next Harry Potter. You can't just sit back and think positive, you have to get out there and make it happen. But the positive attitude will make people react to you differently. When they like you, then they buy your books. Yes, bookS, plural. Go and write another one.

That applies to me too. I could go on for ever about this, but I'll stop there and maybe do more another day. I need to be working on the next book in the Earthlink series. Sage is back on Earth and stuff needs to be happening with her. New people need to arrive in her life and I think I want more aliens.

What if….

My favourite phrase, ever.

"What if…"

It's a brilliant pair of words, it opens up so many possibilities. I just love it.

That tiny little phrase opens doors and makes the imagination spin off in all sorts of interesting directions. I'm sure you've played the game too. Even on a day to day level it makes you think, makes you wonder. What if I don't bother getting up? What if I try something different for dinner? What if I learn something new? What if this or that happens?

Then there are the more day dreamish What if's and those are what really spark my imagination.

If someone disappeared, what if they didn't just run away? What if they were abducted? What if they went willingly and then ended up trapped?

What if magic was real? What if we could get to another world at the flick of a switch? What if aliens are visiting us but we just don't see them?

What if I write a book? Or several….

What if, is dreams, flights of fancy and talking to yourself. For me, What if sparks fantasy, space travel and adventure. For others it creates romantic walks on moonlit beaches, or car chases and narrow escapes.

It's the most incredible key to the door of imagination.

What if you let your imagination loose today?

Spaceships

For the past week I've been running through edits for a new series.

The Portal series is complete, and although there may be a couple of prequels at some point, I'm not enjoying writing them right now so they're back in storage, gathering dust until they become intriguing again.

But the new thing….

There's no magic, but there are spaceships!

Earthlink: Impact.

Sage is eighteen years old and, ever since she can remember, there's been a voice in her head. She'll tell you that she doesn't hear voices, they don't tell her to do anything. It's just a single voice, and it doesn't speak, it screams. She hears an unending scream as if the voice is someone in constant agonising pain.

She's been told she's hallucinating. She's spent time in psychiatric care and on strong drugs that cut her off from her feelings, and she hates all of it.

But she's not hallucinating, the voice is all too real and Sage has been watched for years in the hope that she's not the only one who can hear. When Sage puts her life in danger, and it's clear that she is unique, intervention is necessary.