writing

Sword of Kings goes to #3!

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Thanks to a lot of promotion and support, my two day sale of fantasy short story Sword of Kings went to #3 on the Amazon Best Seller list of  “Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Fiction > Fantasy > Epic” (and #201 on the overall list).
The rating will fall quickly, since the sale ended at midnight, but I kept good company for a while (see screen shot…and please ignore the Pampers ad)!

Thank you to everyone who downloaded and reviewed (or will review) SoK…I am really overwhelmed right now and can’t tell you how much I appreciate the support!

The next two day sale–of my short story Assassin–has just started (12 midnight EST) and goes for two days as well. Details will be posted very soon!

Update
I checked the lists (of course) around 7:30 a.m. EST and was tickled that SoK has made it to #1 on the Epic Fantasy list. My hope for the”cascading sale,” as you might have guessed, is to keep the first story buoyed up by this amazing support from readers…while my second and then third story bounce up as well.

It’s not out of the question to have all three in the Top 5 of Epic Fantasy at the same time if things fire in the right order. I’ll be writing an analysis next week of the experiment. Fingers crossed!

Sword of Kings: Free today!

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My cascading six day fantasy sale starts today with Sword of Kings, FREE today and tomorrow (June 21 – 22) only!

Escape for a time to the kingdom of Mercia…

Synopsis

“My sword is dying.”

King Andreas was confident, bold, courageous…until his sword–the living symbol of his power–began to crumble in his hands.

With his brother Jon by his side, Andreas has little time to find out why the sword, passed down through a hundred generations, is failing now. The answer he finds may save his kingdom, but at a terrible price.

Sword of Kings is a 4,100 word short story of high fantasy. Included in this volume is a Story Notes essay detailing the thought process and background behind the writing of the work.

Ready…Read…Review
If you enjoy Sword of Kings, please consider writing a review at any one of the following fine websites. Your support is what makes my writing possible. Thanks in advance!

Amazon http://www.amazon.com/Sword-of-Kings-ebook/product-reviews/B00758JRAY/
Goodreads http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/13556735-the-sword-of-kings
Librarything http://www.librarything.com/work/12351974/reviews/85867266
Shelfari http://www.shelfari.com/books/27043965/Sword-of-Kings


Don’t forget…
Two other fantasy shorts are on sale over the next few days: Assassin (June 23-24) and Seven Into the Bleak (June 25-25)!

Three Stories + Six Days = Free Fantasy Swag

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A thousand year old sword loses its magic and a kingdom hangs in the balance…

A young prince must make a terrible choice to stop a war…

A band of adventurers faces death and glory a mile below the ground…

Escape this world for a short time with three tales of high fantasy—Sword of Kings, Assassin, and Seven Into the Bleak—all FREE over the next week on Amazon, starting tomorrow, June 21.

To get the word out about my stories and provide some micro-therapy sessions for those in need, I’m holding a cascading sale where each of the three titles is free for two days:

June 21 – 22       Sword of Kings
June 23 – 24       Assassin
June 25 – 26       Seven Into the Bleak

My only request: if you like what you’ve read and I managed to take you away from the cares of this dimension for even a short time, please consider writing a review and sharing the story with one other person.

I’ll even make it easy for you: on the opening day of each sale, I’ll post the links to all of the review sites for that story. Your support is hugely appreciated!

Mark your calendars and happy reading!

Why WordPress?

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The following post began life as a how-to email I sent to a writers’ group I belong to, the Northern Virginia Writers Club, after several non-techy members expressed frustration over trying to get onto the web. It seems a bit redundant to post this bit about WordPress on a WordPress site…but of course any number of people could stumble across this blog via a simple browser search, with no knowledge of why my site is hosted on WP.

This is a very light, quick introduction into why I chose WP for my site and blogging needs. Feel free to ask questions in the Comments section to clarify anything I glossed over.

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The Art of Tyrants

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Drottningholm Palace – one of ten owned by the Swedish royal family.

I have the travel bug, which makes me a sucker for travel shows. And one of my favorite shows is Rick Steves’s goofy yet wonderfully accessible travel series Europe Through the Back Door.

The theme of the show is to introduce American travelers to Europe in a down-to-Earth way that doesn’t insulate them from the “real” Europe by installing them in five-star hotels and the middle of bus tours fifty-people strong. Rather, the idea is to get out and get your figurative hands dirty by doing things locally, with as much contact with the inhabitants and their culture as possible.

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