Friday, 31 August 2012

Reaching for the Stars #1

 
 
 
There is nothing quite like seeing your book at #1 in an Amazon chart!
I’m super busy right now, writing my next novel and a novella scheduled for an October release, but over the August Holiday weekend I was stopped in my tracks by Reaching for the Stars reaching number one in the Amazon.com Kindle Contemporary (free) Fiction Charts and also receiving some fabulous reviews.  Thank you to all that downloaded and took part in sharing, tweeting and blogging!
The same weekend, Amazon.com introduced Amazon India! My loveahappyending.com colleague and friend in India, Anjana Vasan, whose fabulous website Kindle and Me checked out my books for sale in India - at 88 rupees - and assures me ‘it’s good - people are going crazy for ebooks’.

All good news!

I have also been collaborating this week with my good buddy and cover designer JT Lindroos, whose work is now in such demand by publishing houses, I’m so glad I found him first. He has redesigned the cover for Reaching for the Stars (which I showed you last week) and now the cover of Bagpipes and Bullshot.  What do you think?
 
 
 


I love love love it - and I can’t wait to see what JT will come up with for my October release and Halloween themed magic romantic  novella  ‘How Do You Voodoo?’
I’m hoping to show you next week!
Love, Janice xx



Friday, 24 August 2012

Tartan-tastic!


I’m not quite ready yet with the big blog revamp but I do have a tartan-tastic new cover for my disgruntled celebrity chef novel ‘Reaching for the Stars’. Check it out!
 
FREE to download on Saturday 25th, Sunday 26th & Bank Holiday Monday!

To celebrate the new look cover and also the August Bank Holiday you can download Reaching for the Stars to your Kindle or Kindle App on your PC, Mac, iPad etc for FREE from Amazon on Saturday 25th, Sunday 26th and Bank Holiday Monday 27th August. Click the link and please feel free to spread the news far and wide!
This is what some reviewers have said about Reaching for the Stars:
“I love the way that Janice writes. You are whisked away to a part of Scotland and get so involved with the story that you feel that you are playing a star role in the book.” Kim The Bookworm
“A wonderful plot and some extremely engaging characters all bundled together in a steamy Scottish kitchen!”  Lou Graham - Book Blogger
“Even though I knew this was a complete work of fiction, I found it fun to imagine one of the top celebrity chefs losing their marbles and giving it all up. What an amazing story that would be to follow in the tabloids.” Lindsay Gentles - Turning the Pages Book Blog
“Horton's writing actually transports the reader straight to the scene - I felt like I actually knew some of the characters.” Sarah Taylor - Today I’m Reading Book Blog.
“Well done Janice Horton you have got the 5 star from me...” Rea Book Reviews

Also: 'Reaching for the Stars' was voted The Most Popular Book of the Month for January 2012 with Readers - on Jera's Jamboree Book Blog!

Get your Kindle copy FREE this weekend!
 
My other news is that The 'Gilly & Kim Let Loose' show is back on BBC Radio Cumbria on Bank Holiday Monday (Aug 27) from 12-2pm. This time it's all about romance and will feature the interview I recorded with Gilly at the Romantic Novelist's Conference last month. Gilly and Kim have been described as the French & Saunders of Radio Cumbria!  So if you get a chance - do listen in on Monday - but if you do miss it you can always 'Listen Again' for up to seven days from the web! BBC Radio Cumbria is on 95.6FM 96.1FM and 104.1FM.
 
Kim & Gilly - the French & Saunders of BBC Radio Cumbria!
 
That’s it for this week – have a great Bank Holiday everyone.





Friday, 17 August 2012

This week I’ve been a bit hyper….



Because there is SO much going on! First and foremost of course is the writing. I’m working on a full length novel for publication in 2013 but I’m also working on a novella which I will publish in October as an ebook to Kindle. The writing is going really well and I’m having a lot of fun with it – so much so that it’s keeping me awake at night - plot ideas keep popping into my head. The novella is a Halloween Special and I can’t wait to tell you more about it in the coming weeks!

I have my fabulous cover designer JT Lindroos working away on the cover art at the moment and that alone is getting me hyped up with excitement, especially as we are tweaking the covers of Bagpipes & Bullshot and Reaching for the Stars at the same time.

In sync with the new covers, I’ll be revamping this blog too – in the next couple of weeks – and I’ll be adding some exciting, fabulous, stylish, and very Scottish features. So, you’ll know where to come for your weekly fix of Scotland, the land and it’s people, (or should I say it's characters?)

Can I ask, if you are interested in knowing more about my current and future writerly projects, for you to subscribe to my Quarterly Newsletter? (see top sidebar)  I promise not to bombard you with ‘stuff’ but to politely send you only exciting news, the odd special offer, and subscriber exclusive newsletter competitions - with prizes.

If the Newsletter is not for you but you’d still like to know what mischief I’m getting into then please do consider ‘liking’ my Author Facebook Page. It's all there!

Following on from my recent blog post on Author Tags - this is the one I decided to go with:

Scottish Fiction with Humour and Heart

This week has been a big week in Edinburgh and I was invited to take part in the Edinburgh Ebook Festival. If you missed it – this is the link to my Auld Lums & New Reeks’ feature in which my books, Bagpipes & Bullshot and Reaching for the Stars, were showcased and peer reviewed as part of the virtual festival. The Twitter hashtag for the still ongoing event is #edebookfest

The wonderful reader/writer magazine style website Loveahappyending.com - of which I am a featured author - picked up the story of my involvement with the Edinburgh Ebook Festival and you can read the feature by clicking the red link.

Also this week: I was featured on Celebrating Authors, where I talked about my favourite authors and ‘five random things’ - one of which became the headline!

Other news: TWO new 5* reviews for Bagpipes & Bullshot which with 22 reviews continues to sell well, particularly in the US, which is totally thrilling.

Finally, I was delighted to find out today that I’m being gossiped about in the September issue of the glossy and award winning Dumfries & Galloway Life magazine - by shortlisted Columnist of The Year Gilly Fraser - in her riviting report on this year's Romantic Novelist's Conference in Cumbria. You can read Gilly’s column here.

So now you can appreciate why I’m a bit hyper….
See you next Friday - I’m off to lie down!

Friday, 10 August 2012

Housework...

There is nothing I want to do less than housework right now even though I am normally a house proud sort of person - as it’s the last thing on my to-do list when I’m working on a new book - but we are putting our cottage on the market very soon. The sales particulars of which will be available online as well as displayed in a glossy brochure and so, over the past week, there has been a steady procession of people scrutinizing the old place.

First there was the Home Report Surveyor perusing (a requirement of selling a property in Scotland) and then the Estate Agent getting the grand tour and taking notes and finally the photographer exploring each room and pointing her lens into every nook and cranny while looking for the right lighting – when there simply wasn’t any to be had.
I’m exhausted. My hands are dry and my nails are ruined from all the cleaning and polishing to bring our humble abode up to the standards of sparkle you might expect to see in the pages of Home & Gardens magazine. Because believe me, if everyone is going to be looking in my boudoir, it’s going to damn well shine like it’s never shone before - even without the right light!



So I apologise for the disruption to my usual wise and witty writerly bloggings and I hope to be back to normal posting next Friday. In the meantime, do remember that if you can’t get to Edinburgh this year for the International Book Festival, you can always attend the Edinburgh Ebook Festival instead – virtually.  It runs from the 11th -  27th August and I’ll be appearing on Tuesday 14th August in the Auld Lums review feature.  I also have my own Festival Author Page if you’d like to check it out.  The whole event promises to be innovative and unique and I’m so thrilled to be in the company of so many of my favourite Scottish writers.

So I hope to see you at the festival - virtually

#edebookfest
 

Friday, 3 August 2012

Edinburgh Ebook Festival 2012


It’s coming up to festival time – now you might be thinking music festivals, beer festivals, flower festivals but I’m thinking book festivals and one in particular - the one taking place in Edinburgh this month!

In August, something very special happens in Scotland’s Capital and that would be The Edinburgh Fringe, The Edinburgh Festival, The Edinburgh Tattoo and The Edinburgh Book Festival.

Edinburgh is my favourite city in the whole world and it’s where my eldest son lives and my middle son goes to university. It’s where I browse on George Street, go shopping on Princes Street and get my hair done on Fredrick Street. Its museums and art galleries are amazing and its restaurants are fantastic. – It’s where I set my book ‘Reaching for the Stars’ - and it’s a city close to my heart. Now there are those who can get to Edinburgh and those who can’t. Maybe you live too far away. Maybe you just can’t afford it. Don’t despair.


Indie Ebook Review is bringing Edinburgh to you via the Edinburgh Ebook Festival!



Edinburgh Castle
(Photo courtesy of Wikimedia Commons)

Please note this is an independent, virtual festival, with no ties or association to the commercial entity that is the Edinburgh Book Festival.
The inaugural Edinburgh Ebook Festival, in which I have been invited to take part this year, runs online and concurrently with the ‘real’ thing from August 11th to 27th 2012.
The Edinburgh Ebook Festival showcases some of the best of indie e-book writers around. The festival seeks to introduce you to writers, publishers, and to explore the whole world of epublishing from a new and distinctly Scottish perspective.
There will be around 40 featured and contributing writers and a total of around 100 specific ‘events’ including reviews, short stories, poems, features on all aspects of epublishing, writers comments and an insight into who is who and what is what!
The official ‘rolling’ launch of this website will happen at 10am on Friday 3rd August.
From then till the opening event on 11th August, there will be content added to the site by the organisers, who will be getting it shipshape and ready for you to enjoy, highlighting features of what’s to come and how to get the most from this unique festival.
It’s the Edinburgh Festival that you can attend without ever leaving home!
We will all look forward to seeing you ‘virtually’ in the weeks to come. Bookmark the website and Facebook Page and tell your friends. Everyone is welcome and everything is FREE. All it will take is some of your time and we hope to offer you enough interest to have you coming back every day right up until the close on 27th August.

See you at the Festival - virtually!

#edebookfest