FREE e-book of MATTY AND THE MOONLIGHT HORSE until 5th December!

From 1st December until 5th, you can download MATTY AND THE MOONLIGHT HORSE for free! This was a lot of fun to write, and all my royalties from the Matty trilogy are donated to Redwings Horse Sanctuary.  So if you enjoy your free read, I do hope you will want to buy Matty and the Problem Ponies and Matty and the Racehorse Rescue, knowing that your purchase is helping horses in need. 

Also see:

https://janeayres.blogspot.com/2017/05/redwings-and-matty-pony-book-series.html

Redwings and the Matty Pony Book Series

As a supporter of the equine charity Redwings, I felt honoured to be informed that my Matty Horse and Pony Series now features on their website here - https://www.redwings.org.uk/our-partners - along with other supporters and partners.

I donate ALL my royalties from the 3 books in the series to Redwings and am proud to do what I can to help horses and ponies in need. The Matty books are fun, fast reads for pony mad children, teens and adults! And they were the first ever of my pony books to be available in digital form for e-readers.

You might also like to check out my 2012 interview with the Redwings Fundraising Manager here:
http://janeayres.blogspot.co.uk/2012/10/interview-with-gemma-carnell.html

Marketing e-books for children - update

In November 2012 I wrote a post exploring the problems for writers marketing their e-books for the 8-15 age group.

This week, I feel more heartened for two reasons:

1. My e-books Matty and the Racehorse Rescue and Matty and the Moonlight Horse are respectively number 28 and 29 now in the Amazon most popular category for Horses and Ponies.  When they were first published last year you had to scroll through pages and pages to find them.  So that's progress and a demonstration of how working damn hard on marketing can pay off.  At least I hope that's what it means!  I am fully aware that this ranking changes daily and also that is totally separate from the Kindle 100 Bestseller list (you would have to sell an enormous amount of books to get listed here.)

2. Since I read the following:

The number of children who have read an e-book has almost doubled since 2010 but children still prefer reading books for fun in print, according to Scholastic Inc's Kids and Family Reading Report, 4th Edition.

So there's good news and bad news.  But mostly good, I think when we also learn that:

Forty-six per cent of children responding to the survey said they had read an e-book, up from 25% in 2010. Meanwhile, 41% of the parents had read an e-book, a big leap up from 14% in 2010. Fifty-one per cent of children who have not read an e-book are interested in doing so.

You can read the full report here:

Children and e books survey

http://www.thebookseller.com/news/children-still-prefer-reading-physical-books-finds-scholastic.html

Related post

http://janeayres.blogspot.co.uk/2012/11/e-books-and-writing-for-children.html

Amazon rankings: Matty Horse and Pony series in top 50!

Utterly astounded!

Just been browsing on Amazon and under the category Horses and Ponies for kindle, my Matty series is in the top 50 in terms of popularity!  Matty and the Moonlight Horse is at 41, Matty and the Problem Ponies at 45 and Matty and the Racehorse Rescue at 48.

I now have to think of ways to improve my marketing to get them even higher up the ranks, especially as all the royalties are going to Redwings Horse Sanctuary.

Thank you to everyone who has helped me achieve this.

Great Books for Horse Lovers

Thank you to Vanessa Wright and Pegasus for featuring my Matty books on their lovely site Great Books for Horse Lovers. Click on the link to read it and to view some great videos from Redwings.

http://www.greatbooksforhorselovers.com/2012/12/buy-pony-e-book-help-horse-this-holiday.html

Vanessa is an award-winning teacher, author, and creator of the internationally touring library exhibit, The Literary Horse: When Legends Come to Life.

As karma would have it, we both have a story in the wonderful Why We Ride: Women Writers on the Horses in the Their Lives (Seal Press, 2010) which chronicles the many ways in which horses accompany women on their life's journey. The book is edited by Verna Dreisbach with a foreword by Pulitzer Prize winning novelist Jane Smiley.  

Your Horse - thank you!

Thanks to the lovely people at Your Horse magazine for kindly posting info about my Matty books on their website.  See link below:

http://www.yourhorse.co.uk/Your-Horse-News/Search-Results/General-news/Dec-12/10-Dec-Kindle-Horse-Stories-for-Redwings/

Related posts:
http://janeayres.blogspot.co.uk/2012/09/matty-horse-and-pony-adventures-on.html

Last chance to get Matty 3 for FREE

Last chance to get Matty and the Racehorse Rescue FREE if you download from Amazon by tomorrow night  (27 November).

The link is here for the UK
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Matty-Racehorse-Rescue-Adventures-ebook/dp/B0094RG64O/

and here for the US and India
http://www.amazon.com/Matty-Racehorse-Rescue-Adventures-ebook/dp/B0094RG64O/

Matty and the Racehorse Rescue FREE to download from Amazon 23rd-27th November

A missing racehorse. A daring moonlight rescue.

Matty’s in trouble again. Big trouble. 

Just a heads-up that Matty and the Racehorse Rescue will be FREE to download from 23-27 November.   Enjoy!

The link is here for the UK
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Matty-Racehorse-Rescue-Adventures-ebook/dp/B0094RG64O/

and here for the US and India
http://www.amazon.com/Matty-Racehorse-Rescue-Adventures-ebook/dp/B0094RG64O/

All 3 Matty books are also available via Amazon as follows, where the free promotion also applies:
Amazon.de  (Germany)

Amazon.es (Spain)

Amazon.fr (France)

Amazon.co.jp (Japan)

Amazon.it (Italy)

Matty cover designs on The Book Designer

The cover designs for my 3 Matty titles are featured on Joel Friedlander's site The Book Designer, with Joel's comments.  Do take a look - and there are some wonderful cover designs included in the list.

http://www.thebookdesigner.com/2012/11/e-book-cover-design-awards-october-2012/#more-25006

Related posts:
http://janeayres.blogspot.co.uk/2012/09/matty-horse-and-pony-adventures-on.html

THANK YOU to wonderful bloggers

A big thank you today to the wonderful Patsy Collins who has very kindly posted info on the Matty books on her brilliant blog Words about Writing and Writing about Words.  

The link is here
http://patsy-collins.blogspot.co.uk/2012/11/horsing-about.html?showComment=1352151293878#c2642837203874434199


Thanks also to the lovely Jaye Nolan for including info on the Rochester Lit Fest site. http://rochesterlitfest.com/2012/10/29/new-pony-trilogy-to-benefit-horse-sanctuary/


Related posts:
http://janeayres.blogspot.co.uk/2012/09/matty-horse-and-pony-adventures-on.html

Matty Stories Price Reduction for Christmas

STOP PRESS: ALL 3 Matty books are now available at the reduced price of £2.98 until 2013 to encourage pre-Christmas sales.  

ALL OF MY ROYALTIES ARE BEING DONATED TO THE FABULOUS REDWINGS HORSE SANCTUARY.  

My blog featured on Digital Books Today

I am thrilled that my post about using a kindle has been reposted on the brilliant website Digital Books Today.  
You can find it here http://digitalbooktoday.com/2012/09/23/lighting-my-fire/

Matty Horse and Pony Adventures on kindle!

I have previously posted about my Matty series shortly being available as e-books and you can now buy them from Amazon.  Click on the links on the sidebar. 


I am donating 100% of my royalties for all three books to the Redwings Horse Sanctuary http://www.redwings.org.uk/


Originally published in 1998, the first book, Matty and the Moonlight Horse was translated into Swedish, Norwegian, German and Finnish, and was later available in the USA, in paperback.   The second in the series, Matty and the Problem Ponies, was similarly published in 2000.  Matty and the Racehorse Rescue was published in 2002 and translated into German, Finnish, Norwegian and Swedish.  This is the first time it has been available in the English language, and the kindle versions are the first time readers have been able to buy all three books in the UK. They are aimed at pony-mad pre-teen and teenage girls and are drawn from some of my own experiences.  

The series starts with Matty and the Moonlight Horse.  Thirteen year old Matty and her fun-loving pony mad friends Ronnie, Spike and Gina work hard at the local stables, mucking out, sweeping the yard and grooming the ponies, hoping that Miss Pugh, the world’s worst riding instructor, will allow them a few rides.

Then impulsive Matty sneaks a ride on Snowstorm, a stunning new pony who she instantly falls in love with, much to the fury of his owner, Mark, and his domineering father. Matty wonders if she will ever get a pony of her own – especially one like Snowstorm.

So the teenage girls come up with a plan – to work even harder, pool their savings and earnings and buy a horse together.

One night, when they miss the last bus home from the cinema, they take a short cut through the graveyard, which they soon regret – until, at the stroke of midnight, they have an unexpected encounter with a mysterious dark bay horse.....


The mystery, action and adventure continues in Matty and the Problem Ponies and there is more drama and danger in the thrilling final story of the trilogy, Matty and the Racehorse Rescue, also available from Amazon on kindle.

Related posts:
http://janeayres.blogspot.co.uk/2012/11/guest-post-eleanor-mcfarlane-and-chester.html
http://janeayres.blogspot.co.uk/2012/10/interview-with-gemma-carnell.html