Tag Archives: dark

Bookmarks!

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Hello everyone! I posted this on my Instagram page and I thought I’d post it here as well. I thought I’d give an update about what I’ve been doing recently in the literary realm.

Writing has not been top of my list of things to do recently, unfortunately. On the rare moment I do sit down to type, I’ve been working on a lot of different ideas, not anything I’m ready to share yet, though. Honestly, I keep jumping from one WIP to the other so I’m really not getting a lot of anything done, haha.

Recently I made these cute bookmarks and ordered some of them from VistaPrint. I’m excited to see how they turn out. I figured if the writing isn’t coming to me, I could at least do a touch of marketing stuff. I’ll pop these in some of the local shops and see if anything comes of it.😆

Regarding the Trilogy, Danethrall is up to a whopping 29 ratings! It’s sitting quite nicely at 4.5 stars out of 5.😍 Rise To Fall has 3 ratings at 4.6 stars out of 5, and Ashes Remain also has 3 ratings at flipping 5 stars out of 5!!🤩

If you haven’t already posted a review or rating, I kindly ask you to.❤️ Each review/rating helps so much to get the books out there. When each book hits 50 ratings/reviews, Amazon’s algorithm starts promoting and advertising the books, so every rating/review counts.

Anyway, that’s it for now. I’ll post some pictures of the bookmarks when they arrive. Fingers crossed they turn out alright!

-GSKT

Front of bookmark
Back of bookmark

Ashes Remain release day TODAY!

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Today is release day! Both the Ashes Remain paperback AND eBook are officially out! Feel free to rush off to Amazon and get your copy. 😉 Of course, if you have Kindle Unlimited, you can read the entire trilogy for free.

– GSKT

PS – My apologies for not making the announcement sooner – today was a bit more chaotic than usual. -.-

The best-laid schemes of mice and men

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Murphy’s Law has struck again! Ashes Remain was meant to be released on the 28th, but instead, the paperback was released today, two days earlier than planned.

When publishing with KDP, it can take up to 72 hours of review time before your book is up and out for purchase. With my previous books, it has taken the full 72 hours, so I assumed that would be this case with Ashes Remain. How very wrong I was. -.-

This time around, I decided to advertise my novel’s release day to try and build a bit of buzz, so, of course, KDP reviewed the book in 24 hours and now the paperback for Ashes Remain is officially out. 😛 I suppose worse things could happen – better to be early than late, right? (Especially considering I completed the book two YEARS later than expected). Fortunately but unfortunately, the ebook is following the original plan and will not be out until the 28th.

As always, thank you for your support, I appreciate you – and your patience – more than you could know!

– GSKT

PS – In other news, I made an Instagram account focused solely on books! Check it out here! I decided to separate my personal stuff and my professional stuff so that I can keep my private life private and so I don’t harass my friends and family with books promos all the time, haha.

Release Day and the Future

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Only four days until the release of Ashes Remain! Everything is set up for the eBook to be released on the 28th, so get your pre-orders in now if you want to make sure the book will be ready-steady and in your eBook on the day. 🙂 I’m itching to press the ‘publish’ button for the paperback, but I’ve got to wait until tomorrow for that. (Within 72 hours after hitting ‘publish’, the book will be available. I don’t want to be too eager and have the book out earlier than planned.)

Since I finished Ashes Remain, I’ve been going back-and-forth over what I want to write next. I have a rough plan for another Viking/Norse historical fiction trilogy, a fantasy-historical fiction standalone, a couple of fantasy-romance standalones, and a plan for a six-book fantasy series. At this point, rather than focussing on just one, I’ve been writing a little here and there on each, but I need to calm myself and figure out which one to concentrate on.

Realistically, I think I want to write a couple of standalones. I think having a few 200-page novels a reader can pick up, read, then be done with would be good, rather than making them wait twelve months or more for the next novel in the series. Not to mention, it would be a quicker way to boost my catalogue of work.

Of course, because my brain wants to write a standalone or two, my heart is screaming at me to write another series – I’m particularly leaning towards the six-book fantasy series.

Ashes Remain was supposed to be published in early 2020. I had most of the book written in 2019, but, after a few read throughs, I wasn’t happy with where the book was going and threw out almost everything I had written, beginning again from scratch.

Unfortunately, after making that decision, there were a lot of setbacks and losses in my personal life that affected me mentally and emotionally and I wasn’t in the right headspace to write. Then the pandemic began. Between that chaos, learning to homeschool my kids (who handled the craziness of the pandemic like champions), and trying to navigate the new way of life, there wasn’t a moment I could spare to write.

Even though the book is being released two years later than originally planned, it’s finally finished, the Danethrall Trilogy is complete, and I’m content with where it’s ending. I look over the trilogy and I’m surprised to see where it all begin and how it’s ending – in a good way, of course. Even though Aveline was a character of my imagination, I feel like I watched her grow from a child to an incredible woman and mother, and I’m proud of her. She was dealt a rough hand, life wasn’t fair nor was it easy, but she struggled through adversity and overcame every obstacle she faced. It’s sad to say goodbye to her, but I’m happy her arc is complete.

Aveline might just be an imaginary person I conjured up at my desktop, but I was attached to her – as crazy as that might make me sound. It’s strange to try to move on to a new person, a new world, a new story, but I’m excited to see what the future holds.

If you’ve already pre-ordered Ashes Remain, I want to thank you from the bottom of my heart. To everyone waiting for the paperback to be out, I appreciate you, too. When you’ve finished the book, please let me know what you thought, either by posting a review on Amazon or Goodreads, or sending me a comment/message here, on Facebook, Twitter or Instagram.

– GSKT

Bookmarks and Promos

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After Rise To Fall was published, I designed a flyer and had a ton of them printed by VistaPrint. I handed out some of them but my social anxiety got the better of me and I didn’t end up handing out more than a quarter of them. The rest are still in the box catching dust and will probably stay there forever until I finally get the gumption to throw them away. -.-

Since finishing Ashes Remain and having beautiful new covers made for the trilogy, I’m revisiting the idea of creating some promotional materials to hand out.

One day I would like to order a bulk lot of my books and set up a table at the nearby farmer’s market as a sort of test run before I take the leap and approach some local book shops. Not only can I put the bookmarks inside the books I’m selling, but I thought it would be good to have some cute bits and pieces to hand out to people who stop by my table to have a look but don’t necessarily want to buy any books that day.

I designed a couple of bookmarks and settled on the one pictured to the left. It’s simple and to the point, it shows the covers of the trilogy in a fun way and displays my online details clearly should anyone want to know more about the books. The other one I designed seemed a bit too busy and cluttered with information and imagery. This one is just right (IMO).

I’m still thinking of what else I can make. So far bookmarks are all I can think of. 😛 If you have any recommendations, I’m all ears. Do you think the bookmark design is too plain? If so, what do you think I should add to it? Should I do a bookmark focussed on each book as well as a bookmark advertising the whole trilogy or is that overkill?

– GSKT

PS. Two posts in one day! Absolutely incredible. 😛 I don’t promise another post until nearer the 28th, but I do think I’m getting better at this blogging thing, slowly but surely.