Going Under : The first 1500 words

Amazon USAmazon UK

A girl who legally does not exist has very few options. As the pressure from police grows and threats from the attackers increase, Karo needs to decide where to turn and who to trust if she is ever going to be able to leave her past behind.

Going Under

Karo did not even think before she dived in. The water in the canal was thick and greenish and she could hardly see the other woman below

I decided to start another multi-part post on the new blog, this one about the mechanics and structure of book reviews. This is the first, about the sources of reviews and ethical issues. The second, coming soon, will be about indies and reviews. Part III - on spoilers - might be where my blood boils. There's a news story that's set Kindleboards ablaze a while back:  Book reviews for purchase.

It's an old story, so why am I posting about it now? Well, with a few more recent stories, this is now back in the news.  Fake or commercially placed reviews are a hot topic at the moment. Forbes Magazine did a piece back in July. There are calls for reviews to require a guaranteed purchase, or vetting, or preventing authors reviewing other authors books, but unfortunately these are likely

To apply, librarything members can find on this page:

It's UK only because of postage costs.

Sadly, some of the copies came back to me due to the closure of my local indie bookstore. However the owner has opened a new children's bookstore in Kingston and I wish her all the best.

In other news, I have finally set up an amazon author page:

http://www.amazon.com/author/vhfolland

and switched the feed from my old blog to redirect to this one, which should update any sites I missed that are still getting the old feed.

Amazon.com
Amazon UK

When Karo saw the woman drowning in the canal, she did not think twice before diving in to save the victim. Too late, the teenager learned that the accident was not an accident. Now the people who tried to drown Liz to keep her quiet want to make sure Karo does not say a word.

For Karo, the pressure from police and threats from the attackers are nothing compared to the real threat: the family she changed her name to escape. Changing her identity again means losing everything, but a girl who legally does not exist has very few options. As the pressure increases, Karo needs to decide where to turn and who to trust if she is ever going to be able to leave her past behind.

The bad? I discovered that a story I put out two years ago, that went through two rounds of third-party editing, a spelling and grammar check, and a beta read, has a word missing on the first page.  I find myself rather baffled. Now, overall I'm actually quite pleased. A lot of today was taken up with work on marketing and promotion, which is why I only got 4,000 words completed (not including editing work on a novella). That was enough to get another of the Days in Brooke's Vale stories into first draft. While I could put it live after editing, I'm not sure whether to do so or keep this one back for the full ebook. What it does mean is that I will definitely have

My first project for the year was the two free days in Select at the start. These can be best summed up as "never done it before, very happy with the result, will do it again". The second is continuing to expand the new website, since it is a lot easier to manage than the old website-and-blog and get the book minisites migrated over.On the writing front, I have a few things already underway: My main priority is a stand-alone novella, almost complete at 30,000 words. After editing that should be out in June some time.I also have the other "Days at Brooke's Vale" stories to finalise for the anthology, and I am hoping to get the next one out for

Amazon UK

Amazon.com
Amazon.co.uk

Other Amazon Sites:

Amazon.com (includes India)
Amazon.co.uk (UK)
Amazon.ca (Canada)
Amazon.fr (France)
Amazon.de (Germany)
Amazon.it (Italy)
Amazon.es (Spain)
Amazon.co.jp (Japan)

Due to a promotion later this month, I've just used my remaining free days, which left me with one over. So, rather than stick it out on its own, I've extended this one by a day.

The results so far are