Needle's Eye Located

Amid great excitement, the Crafanc Chronicle can today exclusively reveal that Billy Beanpole and his crack team think they've cracked the location of the rock which looks like the eye of a needle. The Chronicle would also like to apologise for any lack of grammar in this post which is being written on a portable communication device.
Beanpole's team only had the following verse, extracted from Richie Earl's fantasy novel The Legend of Finndragon's Curse, to go on.

Ye shaft cast through a needles eye
Touches ye creeping claw of fate
When ye moon is full in ye northern sky
And points to olde Finndragon’s gate

"We scoured the mountains for 6 days without a trace, until Dai Dipstick spotted this tall rock with a hole right through the top of it," Beanpole said excitedly. "He was so excited that he nearly soiled himself!"
Dipstick explained, "It was a stroke of luck, to be honest. If I hadn't had that curry last night, I never would have seen it. I was just looking for a place where I could have a good sh...."
In the interests of good taste, the Chronicle is not able to print the rest of Dipstick's interview.
Beanpole is currently leading his team in search of 'the creeping claw of fate.'

Blog Tour On Track

I can't say that it's been easy, but at last I feel like I'm getting somewhere. The dates for my blog tour are filling up fast and I now have over ten confirmed hosts. Would it have been easier to have a blog tour service manage it for me? You bet, but would that have made the tour more successful? We'll never know, but at least I've been in control.

This week I've been preparing both books for paperback with Lulu. Now I'm no whizzkid when it comes to these matters, but I think I've done okay. Converted .doc to PDF, selected page size, mirrored and set the margins, added page numbers. Then it was time to inset Lulu's ISBN bar code and I just can't do it! Guess I'll have to ask my cover designer, the brilliant Gemma Newey at Dark Phreak Arts for her help again.

Have you published with Lulu? Or is Createspace a better option? I'd love to hear some words of experience.

The Search is on to Find the Cursed Kingdom of Morgannwg

The legend of Finndragon's Curse has long since been believed to be a myth, except by a small group of locals in the town of Crafanc y Ddraig. Recently there has been fresh discussion. First @DerekTheWeather revealed new evidence suggesting #Finndragon never cursed the Kingdom of Morgannwg, claiming that a tsunami had caused the kingdom to sink into the earth 15 hundred years ago.

Derek's claim comes in light of a book written by Richie Earl, who says his information comes from a reliable source. In his book, The Legend of Finndragon's Curse, Earl describes the events which led to the kingdom being swallowed up.

The local newspaper, The Crafanc Chronicle, has today revealed there is a crack team of archeologists being put together at no expense. This super team will investigate the hills and mountains surrounding Crafanc y Ddraig, searching for any evidence that the mighty kingdom ever existed at all. The team is being headed up by ex-collier Billy Beanpole who is very excited to be involved in the project.

"I've been out of work since all the mines closed down," he said in an excited state of excitement. "There's not much call in the valleys for ex-miners these days!"

The Chronicle understands that Beanpole and his team will start their quest on the foothills of the Brecon Beacon National Park. "The first thing we need to find is a rock that looks like the eye of a needle," he said.

Meanwhile, local historian Ivor Egghead scotches the idea and claims that the legend is just that. "If there had been a castle around here, there would be lots of evidence, but none has ever been found," he told one of our reporters. "This project is a complete waste of tax-payers money!"

Egghead, though doesn't think Derek's theory holds up to inspection. "There's no way a tsunami could have caused the kingdom, if it existed, which it didn't, to sink into the earth. We're at least 20 miles from the coast! Derek is out of his depth here, he should stick to forecasting the weather. Actually he always gets that wrong too!"

When asked about Earl's book, Egghead dismissed it as a 'load of old codswallop' saying that it's a 'pure flight of fantasy.'

The Crafanc Chronicle will bring all its excited readers any breaking news as it happens.

SmallTownBoy

Over the past two weeks I've contacted over 70 blogs looking for hosts for my upcoming blog tour promoting the release of my second novel. So far I've had nine responses and I'm sure that there'll be more, but it has taken up an awful lot of my time.

Today I came across a great blog offering free blog tours. I had already sent Forever YA a request, but then found a post on Goodreads. So if you write in this genre and you're planning a tour, make them your first stop. It could save you many hours of your precious time.

Then I came across something that made me sit up. I have spent hours searching twitter, Goodreads and Google for book bloggers, particularly YA to host a leg of my tour. I have lived in a small South Wales valley town all my life. Wales has a population of approximately 3 million and Merthyr Tydfil about 50,000. So almost all of my connections on Facebook, Goodreads and Twitter are from other parts of the world.

So to find someone from my home town was quite a surprise. Robin Jones has a story to tell on his blog SmallTownBoy. He tells about his addiction to heavy drugs which very nearly cost him his life and how he has since managed to turn his life around. Now he is trying to write a book about his life and is looking for some practical help and advice.

Merhtyr Tydfil has a rich heritage. It is the home of the railway - Richard Trevethick's steam locomotive made the first ever journey on a track and started 500 yards from where I live. It was at one stage the steel producing capital of the world and an industrial giant. Times change and sadly for Merthyr not always for the better. The town suffers from the same economic and social problems as many other towns across Wales, the UK and probably many other towns and cities across the world.

If Robin's story can help to inspire other young people who find themselves in a similar situation, then it is a story that must be written.

You can follow Robin's story on his blog and follow him on twitter. Let's give this SmallTownBoy some support! It might just save a life.

I've Got It Covered!

Well it's been a good week and a bad week for me.

I've been trying to enlist some book bloggers for my planned tour, but have had very little success. Over twenty contacted (primarily YA blogs) and only one reply! But at least they said yes.

I've also tweeted and posted on Facebook. So what am I doing wrong?

I'm not giving up though. I could look for a paid blog tour service to do all the work for me, but I just don't like that idea. I'll exhaust all my other options first. Time to track down some more suitable blogs and this time I'll send 50 emails.

I've also devoted much of my time to finding a professional cover designer for my first novel. The Legend of Finndragon's Curse. I found a great website - Freelanced - where there is no shortage of artists, illustrators and cover designers.

However, I was fortunate enough to come across Gemma Newey at Dark Phreak Arts on a Goodreads thread. I thoroughly enjoyed working with Gemma, who was quick and professional. She immediately grasped what I was looking for and produced some excellent covers within a day. She then tweaked and tweaked, until she met my exact demands and this is what she came up with.

But not only that, she has designed ebook and paperback covers for my second book, Return to Finndragon's Den. And all at an incredibly competitive price. I can't recommend her highly enough, and what's more, if you tell her that I referred you, you get 10% off her already unbeatable prices. You'd better hurry though as offers like this can't last forever.