Five star reviews! The joy, the ecstasy of it! People actually *like* my story…

Very Very Clever, Very Different – I Want To Read More!

Really really loved the story (very memorable, and very different) – certainly kept me gripped, and the characters were well rounded, fully formed and interesting

the dark, mystical elements which I have missed since childhood classics from writers like Susan Cooper and Alan Garner … this is a book in the same genre but for adults, which is refreshing

I was sad to have finished it

A great read that hooked me and I couldn’t put it down

instantly grabbing. You’re lured into two separate worlds between Lewis and Louis, and the plot keeps moving at a comfortable pace

You can read the reviews in full – have you read it yet? I’d love to hear what you think it too!

But whilst I revel in people enjoying my story of a man who marries his imaginary friend, I also have the agony of discovering that I released my story with some lingering typos. I hasten to add – and this is from my readers too – that none of the typos hinder the enjoyment of the story but they are annoying and frustrating nonetheless. It’s the pain of the Indie Author: even with an editor, I am just one man at war with words. I’ve since corrected a good number of them and notified Amazon. Hopefully anyone who has downloaded the Kindle version will soon get an opportunity to update their edition, whilst owners of the paperback edition will have rare first editions.

Mr Tumnal is available as both a paperback and an eBook for Kindle.

Mr Tumnal

Shepherd, T E (Cover illustration by Silviu Sadoschi)
Publication date: May 2012
Ebook ISBN 978 0 9571756 6 2 (£2.99) Amazon UK | Amazon.com
Paperback ISBN 978 0 9571756 7 9 (£8.99) Amazon UK | Amazon.com

The question is what bit of the book do I read from. So here goes, those of you who’ve read it, please give me your suggestions, and hey, I’ve even made it easy for you.

[poll id=”2″]

The question is what bit of the book do I read from. So here goes, those of you who’ve read it, please give me your suggestions, and hey, I’ve even made it easy for you.

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Originally published at shepline: the journal. You can comment here or there

After a couple of week’s I tried a free promo day. It wasn’t the best planned of things, rushing it out with barely 24 hours notice but buoyed up sales and kept it ticking along. Generally speaking I’ve been having a monthly peak and a corresponding dip. During September and October they dipped a lot, flat-lining to virtually nothing. Again, possibly with not enough planning, I organised another free promo this time across Thursday and Friday to celebrate the first six months of publication. In just 24 hours the book was downloaded just short of 3,000 times and rocketed me into the number one spot (if of free books) in a couple of genres…

I did look at those 3,000 downloads and think ‘if only they were paid downloads I’d be looking at more money that I get paid doing the day job in three months’ – I couldn’t help myself – but in truth I shouldn’t feel like that because those people wouldn’t have known about the book had it not been on free promo. And it doesn’t matter anyway, the promo lifted me back up the rankings, increased my visibility, and kept me bobbing along (often in the Top 100 of the Fairytales/Myths and Fairytales genres) with on average one sale every day, ever since. I’m also pretty certain that the book has now gone beyond my own sphere of influence to be bought by persons completely unknown to me.

It’s both a scary and exciting thought that something that I created now has its own (if modest) momentum. Long may it continue!

Changing the cover has been a controversial decision, with many of my friends actually preferring my own illustrated former version of the novel, even if they admit that the all-colour new edition will sell more on bookshelves. Oddly though, the version is closer to my original vision of what I wanted the cover to be like. The black and white illustration was my interpretation of a photo that I could in no way afford to use. The new one uses someone else’s illustration which I can afford the licensing on montaged with my own photograph, and I think represents the way that the burden of the war between the worlds falls on one girl who stumbles, literally, into the responsibility.

There has been much said of late as regards the way that Amazon has been slowly killing off high street stores and independents, and I do a feel a bit guilty about getting so completely in bed with Amazon with the eBook and POD publication of my novel. That said, the reason why the paperback has the admittedly high price of £10.99 is because I opened out the distribution as widely as possible to allow local bookshops to order it.

So today I did something that have never done before, and have been petrified of doing so. During our Saturday morning trip into Bicester I ventured into Cole’s Books to ask if they would be interested in stocking the book of a local author. I was half-expecting that on a Saturday there wouldn’t be the right person to talk to, but no, they were interested so long as they can get it on sale or return, but they scanned the barcode and it came up on their book distributor so I think that might be hopeful. Hey, I might even be able to do a book signing. Now that would be an experience…

Following my bravery, and the purchase of much healthy fruit and veg, Emma decided on the spur of the moment to take me for a celebratory lunch at Amici’s Italian Restaurant in Bicester. Whilst we were choosing from the scrummy menu we had the most torrential of downpours and the waiter was jokingly offering fresh, locally caught fish from the street outside! 🙂

As I write this, my current performance on Amazon is:

Amazon Bestsellers Rank: #15,070 Paid in Kindle Store (See Top 100 Paid in Kindle Store)
#55 in Kindle Store > Books > Fiction > Fairy Tales
#95 in Books > Fiction > Myths & Fairy Tales

And its picking up some good reviews too both on Amazon and Goodreads with a 4.5–5 star average rating.

• Review of The End Of All Worlds by T E Shepherd

Separately to this review I also had the following comment which I think gives the review added validity as well giving me pause to thought about whether or not I’ve got the cover blurb quite right for enticing in readers…

I wouldn’t normally ‘choose’ to read your book, based on the description, but I am so glad I did. I liked the way it moved along, turning into something different to what it seemed at first. very cleverly put together!

Something else that this review has done though, is that it has given me added confidence. I think there was a nagging part of me that was saying, even though I have really worked the novel and got it as good as I can, because it hadn’t been chosen by someone to be published it was somehow lacking in some way. This is clearly nonsense!

Coincidence being the funny thing that is, there was of course an article in The Guardian today about how to become an ebook superstar with various dos and don’ts. Thankfully I seem to be doing much of right things (or at lease not doing the don’ts!) thanks in the most part to my new twitter pal Emily Tippetts.

With only half the day gone I’d passed the 100 downloads in a single day mark, and entended my reach in the US quite considerably, climbing UP 525,395 in the rankings which places me at:

Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,488 Free in Kindle Store (See Top 100 Free in Kindle Store)
#27 in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Fiction > World Literature > Mythology
#37 in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Children’s eBooks > Science Fiction, Fantasy & Horror > Science Fiction, Fantasy, & Magic

…in the US store placing me ahead of the Twilight Saga and The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe in number of downloads. Considering I’d only sold one copy in the US to date, I am pretty impressed with this and as it must have increased my visibility over there. Here’s hoping that half those readers are vociferous readers and keen reviewers! If it has then today will surely have been worth it.

To get The End Of All Worlds find it on Amazon with the below links, or search for it on your local amazon site…

( UK readers | US readers )

The story is blended with different stories, not just the adventures with the huldufolk and the very real threat of climate change but also stories of romance, and the development of Hanna’s band. One of the threads is that of Alice. She walked into this novel out of an earlier, unrelated, story. She’s brilliant. See an extract from her own diary entry – one of the unseen but parallel stories in the novel.

From Alice Cartwright’s Diary

Day 1: Reykjavik to Hólar

I don’t think I’ve ever been more scared in my life. I’ve been travelling for over 24 hours now. First I had to get the train down from Manchester to Cheltenham to meet up with Kirsten. Quick cup of tea and a Snickers and she was driving us to Heathrow to get our flight. I was petrified. It was bad enough before I did my first NT Acorn camp – that’s where me and Kirsten met – and it was a great holiday. The best.

This was different. Hardcore. This was a proper expedition. Iceland in tents, building and repairing trails. I thought drystone walling on the York moors was going to be scary.

The gang are not what I was expecting though. They are just normal. I mean there’s the usual weirdo who I’m going to have to avoid, but the rest seem nice. Kirsten and I have fallen in with a couple who seem nice. I say couple, they’re friends. He’s really fit. She’s half-Icelandic or something with family in Reykjavik. I thought we were staying in Reykjavik overnight but the leader he’s driven us from the airport and gone straight north. We’re staying our first night in an agricultural school or something – mattresses on the classroom floor with these really scary portraits that follow you round the room – very Harry Potter!

The country is so beautiful. The drive up here was amazing. I’m going to love this trip. I know I am. But bed now. I think there’s our first geothermal pool to look forward to after breakfast tomorrow…

To get The End Of All Worlds find it on Amazon with the below links, or search for it on your local amazon site…

( UK readers | US readers )

Please talk about this promotion on Facebook, and Tweet using the hashtag #TheEndOfAllWorlds…

It’s a beautifully written book so far which seems room draw, at its heart, much of the same imagery army own book. This makes me happy. The imagery is comfortingly familiar. The myths are resold in different says but that is the point when handling retellings – to come up with a new way of saying it.

The publication of A.S. Byatt’s book, and also Joanne Harris’ Runemarks books and their basis in norse mythology is one of the reasons why I decided that the time was now to publish my own norse-inspired story.

One of the challenges that I faced, and one that I still need to write about, is how I was to ensure that my Indie-published book is properly edited. I was therefore interested to read the author’s note to the book, and wonder whether I should have opted for something similar to explain any residual inconsistencies in my names and spellings…

A Note on Names

This story has been made from many stories in many languages – Icelandic, German and others. The names of the persons in the myth vary from telling to telling. Iduna is the same person as Idun. There are many ways of spelling Jørmungandr or Jörmungander. I feel happier using various spellings, rather than trying to achieve artificial consistency. Myths change in the mind depending on the telling – there is no overall correct version.

Perhaps not!

In the first couple of days it shot up the charts, getting into the Top 20 for the genre that it was in, but it has naturally enough slipped back down the rankings. At around the #50,000 mark in amazon I’m happy. It’s not the #1 bestseller but with something like 8 million titles in amazon its good, and its averaging at about 2 copies every day. For an unknown Indie published author I think that’s pretty damn good. And not all those sales have been to people I know either!

( see the book on amazon )