Fun Book Publicity by Annette Gisby

Just for Fun
Ten Ways to Get Publicity for Your Book

So you've written your masterpiece, had it published and now you're waiting for all those sales to roll in. But they haven't? No-one's buying? The bookstores don't want to know? There are millions of books, how can you get people to notice yours?

Just for some fun, here are ten things you can think on to make sure that the bookstores will come to you, just begging you to let them stock your book. :-)

1. Change your name to Stephen King/Nora Roberts/John Grisham/James Patterson by deed poll.

2. Have an affair with the president/prime minister/king/queen/prince of your country. (delete as appropriate)

3. Buy a million copies yourself to get in the Best Seller Lists.

4. Fail at Pop Idol

5. Get evicted from the Big Brother House.

6. Streak at a popular sporting event.

7. Do a naked skydive with only a copy of your book to hide your modesty. :-)

8. Become a supermodel/actor/sports person.

9. Buy thousands of your books and have them delivered to the pavement outside the New York's Times office.

10. Become a recluse, don't give interviews and watch them coming to you.

These are just for fun, not an instruction manual. :-)

Bargain Book Spotlight: Drowning Rapunzel by Annette Gisby

Drowning Rapunzel
by Annette Gisby
Romantic Suspense/Mystery/Thriller
Cover by Bayou Cover Designs
Only $1 at Allromance Ebooks this week

Blurb:

Murder. Obsession. Insanity.

Recently released from a mental institution, Beth Gregory accepts a job as a live-in secretary/PA to the reclusive painter Josh Warrington. From the first moment he sees her, Beth’s long red hair fascinates him, and Josh wants her to be his Rapunzel for a series of fairy tale paintings on which he’s working.

Beth has two major fears: that she will be sent back to the mental hospital and that the visions which landed her there in the first place will return. They do; this time giving her glimpses of murders before they happen. Beth becomes the main suspect in the murder investigation and then she has the most disturbing vision of all: she will become the next victim…

Excerpt:

He wished he'd thought of the water sooner. It was easier that way, not so much mess. It was peaceful too, watching her hair fan out behind her like a veil of gold. She didn't struggle after his hands were around her neck, and he was grateful. It showed him that she accepted her fate dutifully, like she should. She should never have made him wait so long.

Now he was waiting again, but he didn't mind. He was used to waiting now. Waiting could almost have been his middle name. Actually, it was Alphonse, but anyone who knew that was already dead, and so it didn't matter anymore.

It was a while since he had hunted like this, anticipated the inevitable. Usually he preferred the quick kill, where they didn't know he was coming until they started screaming. He liked to hear them scream. Made it all seem that bit much more worthwhile.

But there was something different about this one; something that made him want to wait, to delay the final moment, to make it last. He wanted to frighten her long before the end, when she would beg him to kill her. He couldn't quite tell what it was; there was just an air of something other about her. She wasn't like the other girls, and he grinned broadly. Of course she wasn't. She was special. But then, they were all special. They were his.

Maybe it was the hair which attracted him. It was long, tumbling in red-gold waves down her back, almost to her waist. It reminded him of golden syrup. He loved golden syrup, loved to eat it straight out of the tin with his fingers. No mother to nag him about that. Not any more. Fingers were fine, but sometimes he preferred bread, white bread, none of that wholemeal nonsense. He could almost taste it on his tongue, could almost taste her and he had to stifle a gasp at the image. No point in attracting undue attention to himself.

He glanced at the folder on the passenger seat, her name stark black against the buff-coloured folder. It had almost been too easy to get hold of her file, but no one knew what he wanted it for and he wasn't about to tell them either. He lifted it up and traced her name with a gloved finger, feeling almost as if he was caressing her already. This one would be so easy to break; she'd already been in a mental hospital once. He had to be careful; if she was sent back he couldn't get to her, not there with their high walls and staff on alert all the time. No, he just wanted to scare her for a while, but not inflict madness on her once more. He gasped as he saw her walking towards his parked car, her head down, her loose hair being buffeted by the spring wind.

Maybe it wasn't the hair; maybe it was the grey-green eyes which seemed to see right down to his soul.  Would she recoil in terror at what she saw there, or would she welcome it like the others before her? They had all welcomed him in the end. Or maybe it was the way she dressed, so unlike her contemporaries in their short skirts and skimpy tops. Any time he'd seen her, she was always covered up in long dresses and baggy sweaters, as if she didn't want to show off any of her womanly curves. She had curves, the clothes could not disguise them, and he had long imagined his hands roving over her delicate skin.

He also knew that underneath all those layers, there was a wanton harlot waiting for him to let her out, just like all the others. How they loved to tease and torment him. This time he would be the tormentor.

But not yet. He would wait. He was getting good at waiting.

Book Spotlight and Giveaway: New Zealand with a Hobbit Botherer

New Zealand with a Hobbit Botherer
by John Gisby, with Annette Gisby as THB (The Hobbit Botherer)
Travel/Humour

Blurb:

What should you do if your spouse becomes addicted to the Lord of the Rings movies and swoons at the very mention of Orlando Bloom's name? (Thud. Quick, fetch the smelling salts.)

How about taking the advice of a strange apparition that reveals itself in a dream? An apparition that looks remarkably like the director of the movies, Peter Jackson, but not quite remarkably enough to prompt legal action.

An apparition that recommends touring New Zealand in an effort to prove that its sheep pastures aren't really filled by frolicking Hobbits. Just sheep and the occasional zorbing local.

This is the hilarious tale of such a tour, featuring snow capped mountains and turquoise lakes, flightless birds and flying cattle, bungy jumping grannies and the carrot mafia, strange yellow eyes peering up from a road map and hotel receptionists always desperate to know win you are living.

"New Zealand with a Hobbit Botherer is hilarious! I mean, I don't think I went more than two pages without laughing out loud! Gisby's snide humor is wonderful and, aside from that; the descriptions of places seen makes me want to pack up a suitcase, find a travel agent and GO! Want to come along? Wait, we must stop in England for our tour guide, because I don't intend to go without him!" - Valkyrie's Lady for Manic Readers

"The next best thing to being able to travel to another country is to read a book that describes it so well that pictures come to mind. It isn't necessary to be a fan of the Lord of the Rings movies to enjoy this chronicle of the author's trip through New Zealand to see locations where filming took place, but fandom would add another level of appreciation to this humorous travelogue." - Maryann Miller for Foreword Magazine

"New Zealand with a Hobbit Botherer was a complete breath of fresh air. I laughed so hard, I could hardly breathe. Moreover, though I have always wanted to go to New Zealand, now I yearn to do so." - Tami Brady, TCM Reviews.

Read an extract of the book after the jump

Article: What is it about Erotica?



Heart Photo © Dana Rothstein
Dreamstime.com

 What is it about Erotica
by Annette Gisby


I've written in lots of genres, from sweet romances to erotica, from murder mysteries to horror, from fantasy to historical, about witches, wizards and aliens and everything in between. But there is one genre that I get asked about time and time again and that is erotica. People who you barely know might ask you things like, "So, you like to be tied up?" Or "You like to be spanked then?"

Not necessarily. When I write a story, whatever genre it is, the story is about the characters of that story, not about me. I have to ask myself, "Does this character like to be spanked or tied up or whipped?" Whatever it happens to be. The characters define what they like, I just write about them. Just because I write about something doesn't mean I do that in real life, and even if I did, whose business is it but mine and my significant other? I wonder sometimes if people understand the word 'fiction' any more.

When I've written murder mysteries, no one has ever asked me, "Oh, so you like to kill people, do you?" No one has ever asked if I am a witch or a wizard or if I believe in aliens or ghosts. No one has asked if I'm a time traveller because I've written something historical or can I travel to alternate dimensions because I write fantasy. But write anything with a sex scene in it and somehow people want to know if you really do that.

It's as if by writing about any sort of sex in your books, people somehow think that you are open to talking about your own sexuality. That's different, that's a personal private thing. I'm quite shy in real life, so people asking me questions about it can get very uncomfortable. I can write about it no problem, but talking about it to strangers? That's a different thing altogether.

I write fiction, I make up stories, including the sexual practices of my characters. I don't think writers necessarily write what they know any longer, you can also write what you research. And researching erotica, like I did for my latest short story, The Prince's Guard,  can be lots of fun ;)