Sarah Gray's Blog, page 4

Arcadium Only 99c/99p For Limited Time

Budgets are tight over Christmas, this I know. So for the month of December Arcadium is only 0.99c on Amazon.com and 0.99p on Amazon.co.uk.

Merry freaking Christmas!

If you, or someone you know, loves zombies and dystopian YA fiction, Arcadium is the perfect ebook for you. I mean, I know I’m biased but if you can’t trust a writer who can you trust?!

Arcadium The Sequel? Could It Be True?

Oh yeah! I can confirm there will be a sequel to Arcadium. This project is currently underway with an expected release date for early 2013. I have very few details to pass on at the moment but stay tuned for further announcements as they arrive.

Now please calm down and resume your daily routine.

Official Arcadium Facebook Page

Click here for the official facebook page for Arcadium.

If you liked the book why not like the page! How excellent.

Say What?

Well today I was updating my author bio on my manuscripts for Arcadium and I came along something weird, something… hilarious if you may, in the thank you section. I said this. I actually said this.

“and while I don’t have an editor I’ve done my best to eradicate those pesky little things”

Mmm. Are you thinking what I’m thinking?

So just to clarify: I do not want to eradicate small editors. Just typos. Ok, good. Continue on with your internetting.

Arcadium YA Novel Release

Say what?

My debut young adult novel, Arcadium, is now available for download on Amazon, Apple iBooks, Smashwords and Barnes & Noble in eBook format.

What is Arcadium? Florence knows but she’s not telling anyone, and it could just be the key to the survival of the human race.

Sixteen-year-old Florence West must journey across a disease ravaged Melbourne with her nine-year-old sister Liss, and she’ll do anything to survive. Mostly that means staying clear of all people, the healthy ones on the run and the infected ones hungry for human flesh. But when she meets a man that speaks no English and a defiant set of brothers, Florence will be forced to question her ways. Because there’s only so far you can go alone, right?

Arcadium is a heart-stopping journey of hope across a ravaged urban land where survival always comes at a heavy price.

Where can you get it?

Click here to purchase from Amazon UK

And here to purchase from Amazon US (and Australia/New Zealand)

Click here to purchase from Smashwords (Any country, Any format)

And here to purchase from Barnes and Noble (America)

And finally search “Arcadium” on Apple ibooks

Don’t have an e-reader? Chill. You can still read Arcadium.

Download the FREE Kindle app here (In the UK) or here (in the US/AUS/NZ) and read any book from Amazon on your computer.

Or for an alternative you can download the FREE Adobe Digital Editions e-reader here and read any ePub format eBook.

Sample chapters of Arcadium are available on Amazon, Smashwords, iBooks and Barnes and Noble for free, and three full chapters are available here on Wattpad, also at no cost.

Ok, that’s it! Go forth and read, and if you feel like it you can write a review on the site you download it from.

Review: Angelfall by Susan Ee

Angelfall by Susan Ee should definitely be on your kick-ass YA reading list.

It’s about a girl called Penryn, who has an epic amount of crap to deal with in her life–a schizophrenic mother, big bad and generally evil angels that are taking over the world and turning it to pot, and her wheelchair-bound little sis is kidnapped by one of the many winged menaces scouring the skies. But then Raffe, an angel whose wings and respect have been ripped from his stunning self, and Penryn form an unlikely traveling duo. Penryn holds his wings hostage unless he helps her to get her lil sis back. And so off they go on a wild journey.

At first I was a little skeptical, I’ll admit. I found a few mistakes in the opening chapters and thought it might just be one of those indie books archived in my Kindle and never to be thought of again. But then I saw a review on Goodreads.com that made me give it another go and WOWEE. What a story. It drew me in and left me hanging for more.

Will there be a sequel? I hope so, I’d buy it in a click.

4/5

Judging books by covers

Why are book covers so difficult? I’m trying to make a cover for my novel Arcadium–soon to be released on Amazon–and for some sweet reason I can’t come up with a design. It’s like trying to covey your entire novel in one image… one picture to represent thousands of words. It’s so damned tough…arg! Yes lets make pirate noises.

And now back to work I go…

Flash Fiction Competition Entry

North. East. West. I could go anywhere from here. Be anything. Walking with thumb outstretched, following the empty road.

My entry into TFS twitter flash fiction competition. Theme is NEW. Check out #tfsflashfiction for all entries and details.

e-Readers: not so evil after all?

Worship them as the way of the future or despise them as the death of all things sacred to reading, no matter which team you’re on e-Readers are here to stay.

See, I’ve always thought they were stupid. Always thought they would never take off. But now I’m not so sure.

My only real experience with an e-Reader has been the filthy Kobo. Yuk, what a disaster. I’d rather lug around a library of hardbacks than be within a five mile radius of a defective, inferior Kobo. They were slow, ugly, clunky, expensive and would break all the time. Yet people seemed intrigued.

Living in Australia (might as well have been a parallel universe as far as the book industry is concerned), the dawn of e-Readers gave us limited choices: mainly Kobo or Sony devices. And that was pretty much it. The Kindle, being locked to Amazon, was never an option for us on our distant island home.

But now I’m living in the UK and things are different. I saw a real live Kindle the other day, and it looked epic! Totally James Bond. You can absolutely picture yourself abseiling down a hundred foot dam wall, bullets ricocheting off the concrete, all whilst you leisurely flick through the latest paranormal romance novel on your bad-ass looking Kindle.

The Positives

Kick ass traveling companion as long as you have access to: A) Wi-Fi or 3G   B) A power source   C) An e-reader that doesn’t freeze and corrupt every five minutes.
Access to millions of awesome books that traditional publishers wouldn’t bother with.
MORE MONEY FOR SELF PUBLISHED AUTHORS! And better yet an outlet where people can sell books to the public without having a publisher or agent or having to shell out a few thousand pounds for printing or find space for the boxes of printed books or do the postage and packaging dance.
Access to free books! Never shell out money for a classic again. And loads more previously unpublished writers let lose their creative genius for free.
You will look cool. James Bond cool. Nice.

The Negatives

No battery left… No readie-readie. That simple. No Wi-Fi, No 3G? No new books. Aw, what a buzz kill.
Access to millions of books featuring the most disturbing grammatical and spelling errors by authors who seemingly haven’t even done a second read through of their novel.
Expensive books. More expensive then their paper counterparts in many cases. This notion seems to defy the laws of sense. Go figure.
Drop a book and nothing happens. Drop your E-reader and BAM. It’s dead. Not to mention all the potential flaws: the freezing screens, the batteries that won’t charge anymore and the rubbish customer service when trying to get a problem with your E-reader fixed.
Thievery. You wouldn’t really pick pocket a paper book of someone, but an E-reader is much more valuable (so some people would say ).

So the moral of the story is…if you love them, buy one. If you hate them, don’t buy one. But they’re kind of growing on me.

Blog Fright…

Is there such a thing as blog fright? Similar to stage fright but on the blogosphere.

Because oh my gosh I have no idea what to blog about! I’m not even sure what this blog is supposed to be about. My initial idea was to post some of my writing here. I figure the blog’s not about me. It’s not a diary of my life. Perhaps just my writing life? Yes. I like that.

And while we’re on the topic of horror…

American Horror Story. Oh my wow.

What a crazy TV show. I am so addicted.

It begins with the Harmon family moving into a new place after Ben has an affair and his wife Vivien has a miscarriage. They’re trying to save their marriage and their teenage daughter is caught in the middle. Ben is a psychologist and see’s his clients in the home (so there are always creepy psychotic people wandering around). What they don’t realise is that the house is haunted by all its former inhabitants and some really scary stuff is on the horizon for them.

It’s a messed up storyline, with so many twists. And as I’m editing The Fear I can feel this show inspiring a darker side to the story.

Very cool.