Dragon Lake Books

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Wendy H Jones

Boosting a flatlining Facebook event

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It’s almost two weeks until my first Meet the Author event!

Cumbernauld Library and Culture North Lanarkshire have set up a Facebook event page and a page on the CultureNL website to advertise the event and ask people to sign up for free so they have an idea of numbers.

At the beginning of this week only four people had signed up and the Facebook page was only showing myself going and a grand total of 55 people having viewed the event after it had been live for two weeks…

I often feel there is too much to do and not enough hours in the day, but today was the day for doing something about this!

Part of the reason I’d been hesitant about promoting the Facebook event is that I’ve been stung in the past by facebook limiting me from contacting people when I’ve been trying to promote my novels. Facebook, understandably, want us to pay to advertise.

But, I hadn’t realised how easy it is to simply invite friends. I just needed to click on the Share drop down and select Invite friends…

I still had to scroll down through my friends and tick those that are local and I thought would be interested, but ten minutes later I’d invited 100 people. That was a good start. Within half an hour, four people had responded which was encouraging.

Then I paid to boost the event, setting the location within the minimum 17Km distance from Cumbernauld and targetting people with relevant keywords like “Thriller Novel” and “Crime Fiction” and “Young Adult Fiction”

I set the budget at £20 for seven days. Not a huge amount, but, then, I don’t have a huge marketing budget.

Depending on take up for the event I may run a shorter ad just before the event or continue it into next week.

I’m looking forward to hearing more from Wendy H Jones and Caroline Johnston. It would be great to see you there as well!

Killer’s Crew by Wendy H Jones

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Just how many ways can one kill their boss? Wendy H Jones makes no secret of her fictional detective’s desire to find ever more gruesome ways to do away with her Chief Inspector.

Killer’s Crew is the fifth book in the DI Shona McKenzie Mysteries series and the first book I’ve read in the series. I really should have read book one first, but as the sixth book in the series was about to be released (and is now available) and I’m going to be sharing a stage with Wendy at Cumbernauld Library in September, I was keen to get caught up in the story.

Turns out DI Shona McKenzie is as tough as they come, taking no cheek from anyone, but enjoying a fair bit of banter with her team.

Killer’s Crew finds her dealing with the discovery of a corpse found hanging from a ship in Dundee while filming is taking place for a movie. The cast provide ample scope for enquiries until one by one, the body count starts to rise…

As if a suspected serial killer isn’t bad enough, Shona also has to deal with the local Russian Mafia, dastardly solicitors and the boss that she’s secretly planning to dump in the Tay river.

My greatest frustration with all crime fiction is that I never manage to work out who done it! Killer’s Crew was no exception, I was reeling at the end trying to work out what I’d missed.

If you like snappy dialogue, gruesome murders and some tongue-in-cheek humour then I recommend Killer’s Crew.

You can buy all of Wendy’s books direct at her website or from Amazon:

If you’d like to meet Wendy in person, book your free ticket to Murder, Mystery and More on 16th September at Culture NL’s website.

Finally, if like DI Shona McKenzie you occasionally fantasize about killing your boss, you may want to check out Wendy H Jones’ free ebook: DI Shona McKenzie’s Guide to Killing Your Boss

All good clean fun, but remember, don’t try this in the office…

Meet The Authors at Cumbernauld Library

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I’m delighted to be appearing at Cumbernauld Library on 16th September 2017 from 2 till 4 pm.

Supported by Culture NL Libraries in North Lanarkshire, I’ll be joined by Scottish authors Wendy H Jones and Caroline Johnston.

If you are interested or planning on going, it would be great if you could let us know through their Facebook event page.

“Join Mark Smith and friends at the launch of his new book Fallen Warriors at Cumbernauld Library. Mark will be joined by fellow authors Caroline Johnston and Wendy H. Jones who will also give the audience a brief introduction to their own works.

Mark is a local Cumbernauld author of four books including The Great Scottish Land Grab. His new book, Fallen Warriors, is an intriguing story in which a group of ordinary people are drawn together to stand and fight against the largest attack the West has ever seen.

Caroline Johnston, author of What If? is a fantastic teen fiction author who knew at the age of 7 that she was going to be a writer when her love of writing began at an early age.

Wendy H. Jones, author of Killer’s Crypt has written a thriller series based on the character DI Shona McKenzie with Killer’s Crypt being the sixth in the series.

Don’t miss the chance to find out more about these upcoming authors. Book a free place by contacting Cumbernauld Library by phone, email or in person.”

You can find more information on the Culture NL website and book your free ticket for the event there or through their Facebook page for the event.

Cumbernauld Library meet the author

Out of my comfort zone

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Book reviews… I became obsessed with getting as many as I could back at the beginning of the year, hoping I could maybe reach 1,000 for Fallen Warriors. At the same time I’ve realised that I should make an effort to review the books I’m reading and take more of an active part in the community that blogs about books generally.

This summer I’ve arranged to be part of a Meet The Author event at Cumbernauld Library on 16th September 2017, from 2-4 pm. With me will be Wendy H. Jones, winner of Books Go Social Book of the Year 2017 and author of the DI Shona McKenzie crime series and The Daggers Curse, a young adult novel; and Caroline Johnston, author of What If? a young adult novel.

We’ll be interviewing each other as part of the event and so I am reading both Wendy and Caroline’s latest novels in preparation for the event. I’m planning to review both books this summer.

Also, I’ve just finished reading Lydia’s Song, a novel by Katherine Blessan and will be posting my review of this tomorrow.

I have to say, these are not novels I would normally have chosen to read and I’m finding myself out of my comfort zone with genres I’m not familiar with, yet the stories are hooking me in and delivering an emotional punch that is the hall mark of a good story for me.

Tune in tomorrow for my review of Lydia’s Song…