Darren Shan's Blog, page 21

Bookbub tie-in deal

I ran a BookBub promo for the first Archibald Lox eBook earlier this week, and it's given the book a BIG boost. As you can see from the attached screenshots of various Amazon charts, it got to the #1 spot on the Fantasy Best Sellers (free) chart in the UK, and #4 on the same chart in the USA. It also got to #23 on the OVERALL Best Seller (free) chart in the UK, and to #27 in the USA. Woo-hoo!!!! To tie in with the promo, I reduced the prices of ALL the eBooks in the series. The first book is...

Best opening lines

An article was published in the UK recently, listing the best opening lines of a book as voted for by 2000 readers in a poll. I agree with the number 1 choice -- Dickens' brilliant opening to A Tale Of Two Cities -- "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times." An amazing opening line, and the rest of the book isn't too shabby either!! :-) A lot of people on social media have been debating whether or not the opening line from the first Harry Potter book should have made the list (it...

Phantasmagoria website

The latest issue of PHANTASMAGORIA magazine is now on sale through the magazine's website. It contains a long, wide-ranging interview with ME, a special focus on the original King Kong movie, and loads of other cool stuff too. This is the link for the Phantasmagoria home page, where you can order a copy of the latest issue of the magazine, or any back issues that might catch your fancy: https://phantasmagoriamag.co.uk/phant... 

TRY YouTube

TRY is a YouTube chanel, whose aim is to bring quality Irish comedy to the world. It boasts more than a million subscribers, and offers lots and LOTS of fun video clips -- you could lost yourself for weeks at a time in these if you wished!! A new clip, posted yesterday, is called... Irish People Try 10 Shots, 10 Questions: Dermot & Gráinne. It basically features two Irish people, Dermot & Gráinne, who answer ten random questions while downing ten shots!! (Most of which are alcoholic, althoug...

SYFY - will Cirque Du Freak rise again?

Cirque Du Freak: Will Darren Shan's YA Vampire Saga Rise from the Coffin After Film Version? (We haven't seen the last of Larten Crepsley and his vampiric protégée!) That was the heading (and sub-heading) of an article that appeared on SYFY during the weekend. Its author, JOSH WEISS, had spotted a post of mine from last Christmas, when I mentioned that Cirque Du Freak had been optioned again, and that a team was working on adapting it into a TV show. While Josh doesn't have anything fresh to...

Father of the Typesetting

I finished typsetting the paperback edition of Father Of The Future today, my next Darren Dash book for older readers. Typesetting is when you play around with the text to make sure everything looks neat on the printed page, so that there aren't big gaps between words in certain lines. It's far trickier than you might imagine -- I'm sure the paperbacks of my first few Darren Dash books look horrendous (I keep meaning to go back and typeset them again, but it's finding the time...), but I've lear...

Phantasmagoria on Amazon

The latest issue of PHANTASMAGORIA magazine is now on sale through Amazon stores worldwide -- there are links to the USA and UK stores below. It contains a long, wide-ranging interview with ME, and loads of other cool stuff too. I'll post again once it hits their website, for those of you who would like to get hold of a copy but don't like to buy through the Amazon behemoth!! USA: https://www.amazon.com/Phantasmagoria... UK: https://www.amazo...

Father of the Future cover reveal

One month from today, on October 18th, FATHER OF THE FUTURE goes on sale. It's my 6th book for adults under the name of Darren Dash... my 10th book overall for adults (I released four under my Darren Shan name in the past)... and my 61st book in total (not counting a fan book and a collection of short stories that were only ever released in Japanese). I thought today was as good a time as any to treat you all to a world exclusive COVER REVEAL, so here we go! I absolutely love what my deisgne...

Last day of Archie Back To School sale

My Archibald Lox Back To School eBook promo has brought LOTS of new readers to the series. As you can see from the attached Amazon chart, book 1 has been #1 on the Best Sellers in Children's Paranormal, Occult & Supernatural Books (Free) for most of the last couple of weeks -- nice!! This is the LAST DAY of the sale, and although the first book will remain FREE to download, and book 2 will remain just $0.99, the price of the other seven books will return to normal tomorrow. So, if you want t...

September competition winners

I meant to draw the winners for my September competition yesterday, but as I explained in a brief post, I had to go for an angiogram and was away longer than anticipated. (Results, by the way, were mixed -- my arteries are partially blocked, which is obviously bad news, but I should be able to treat them with a good diet and some medicine, so I'm hopefully not looking at any major surgery in the forseeable future -- phew!!!) Anyway, I'm back at my desk now, and ran the figures through a rand...