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

Matty and the Moonlight Horse - all royalties go to Redwings Horse Sanctuary!

Today I have been looking back and was reminded that the first book I made available for kindle was Matty and the Moonlight Horse - an exciting, fast paced adventure for pony lovers of 8 years upwards.  So if you haven't read it yet, please do take a look.

From a writer's viewpoint, Matty is the favourite of my characters.  Kind hearted, bold and impulsive, she is always getting into trouble - but mostly because she cares!

And all the royalties from the Matty e-book trilogy are donated to the wonderful Redwings Horse Sanctuary.

Have a great weekend!

Book link to buy https://www.amazon.co.uk/Matty-Moonlight-Horse-Adventures-ebook/dp/B00942U36G/

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

NagMag reviews Matty & the Moonlight Horse!

Matty and the Moonlight Horse had a lovely book review in the October issue of the excellent equestrian NagMag.  Thanks guys! Hope it leads to more sales as 100% of my author royalties for the Matty trilogy are donated to Redwings Horse Sanctuary.  The e-book is available to buy in all Amazon territories.

You can find the magazine here (the review is on page 10):
http://files.site-fusion.co.uk/webfusion121088/file/nagmagoct15pdfforwebsite.pdf

Buy the book here: 
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Matty-Moonlight-Horse-Adventures-ebook/dp/B00942U36G/

Related posts:
http://janeayres.blogspot.co.uk/2012/10/interview-with-gemma-carnell.html 
http://janeayres.blogspot.co.uk/2012/10/5-star-reviews-for-matty-and-moonlight.html
http://janeayres.blogspot.co.uk/2012/09/matty-horse-and-pony-adventures-on.html

Get Matty and the Moonlight Horse free - for a limited period only!

Calling all horse lovers! Matty and the Moonlight Horse is free to download from now until Thursday.
 
So why is it free?  Because I hope you will read it, love it and want to buy the next two books in the trilogy.  And since all the royalties go to Redwings Horse Sanctuary, you will also be helping horses in need.

Click the link below if you want to try it.
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Matty-Moonlight-Horse-Adventures-ebook/dp/B00942U36G/

Now you see it……book visibility, categories and Amazon ranking

Yesterday I spent 2 hours checking that the categories for my kindle books were the most appropriate and this resulted in changes in most cases.  I did the same for my search words. There was a reason for this.  One of my titles is selling much better than the others.  MUCH better.  And I still don’t know why. It is certainly more visible than the others – is this because it is selling better or is that why it is selling better?  Chicken or egg?

Beware of the Horse is ranked 12,476 of all paid books in the Amazon UK kindle store, which is fantastic. This means that it ranks 32 in the top 100 kindle store/books/fiction/children’s fiction/animals, which is turn means that it shows up on Page 2 of the top kindle books page in that category. For a while it was in the top 20, so was on Page 1. 

In the US, it ranks 40 in a similar list, so still appears on Page 2 (just) and its overall ranking in the kindle paid store is 30,867.  I pretended I was a reader searching for the book and clicked on some of the search options. For Children’s Horse Books, which yields 7234 results, it appears on Page 1. For kindle store/horses it is on Page 1 in the centre of the 2^nd row. Very noticeable! And in kindle store/ebooks/teen & YA/literature/fiction/horses it is the first book on Page 1 of 266 pages. Before War Horse, which is the second book!  Before you get too excited (I did!) this ranking is in terms of search relevance (not popularity or sales!!). Even so, in terms of visibility, this is a great result.

Yay! You’d think I would be a millionaire by now (ha ha!) if you knew nothing about the publishing process and the mysterious Amazon algorithms. Clearly, I’m not – you only have to look at the overall ranking of the book in the US, ie 30,867 to realise that.  

However, it does make you understand how important the categories are.  I wondered if the fact that the book appears in the Teen and Young Adult category for horses, which only lists 263 books in this group, as opposed to 798 for children’s horse books, is significant. 

To put this into context with my other books, which I promote more actively, the rankings as of yesterday (they change hourly) in the Paid in Kindle store are as follows:

Title                                                                                  Amazon.com             Amazon UK

Coming Home                                                                        423,201                 76,745

Matty & the Moonlight Horse                                          338,972                 85,325

Matty & the Problem Ponies                                             659,019                 48,935

Matty and the Racehorse Rescue                                    727,973                 57,135

You will understand why I am so pleased about the ranking of Beware of the Horse by comparison – and the enormous challenge of selling any books at all when the competition is immense – especially on Amazon.com, which is a much bigger pool.  Since I donate my royalties from the Matty Books and Coming Home to animal charities, I have a powerful incentive to drive sales.  The Matty series was the first I published, when I still had even more to learn than I do now, and sales were steady for the first few months but are now dropping off. When I checked the categories I had selected it was fiction/general and juvenile fiction/general, which is not exactly making the best use of my available choices.  There are only 2 categories for authors to select, but there are sub categories within some of these, so I have changed to Juvenile Fiction/Animals/Horses (which I chose for Beware of the Horse) and the second is now Pets/Horses for one title and Sports/Equestrian for the others.  Phew! I will monitor sales and see if this makes a difference. 

Visibility of the titles when you put horses or ponies into the search bar isn’t too bad for the Matty series.  However, I am really struggling with Coming Home, my cat story, which simply doesn’t appear for pages when you put cat or cats in the search bar.  I’ve tweaked my search words and changed one of the categories.  But I think the main problem is the fact I don’t have the word “Cat” in the title of the book.  Realising this after publication, I added a sub-title (The Journey of Two Special Cats) which helped a bit, but I will have to change the title of the book if visibility doesn’t improve.  (It did have a sales spike, after some frenetic promotion, but unfortunately this did not last long, despite the book having great reviews).

I have more marketing ideas and plans for all the books, and it is still very early days, (I’ve not had a complete sales year yet with any of the titles so far) and I’m determined to raise lots for the charities. 

What I love about indie publishing is the fact that you can monitor your sales and if you aren’t satisfied, you can take action. It is this element of control that I enjoy, and finding ways to get round obstacles. 

Recommended reading – Let’s Get Visible: How to get noticed and sell more books by David Gaughran.  More than recommended – this book is a must for indie authors and anyone interested in marketing for writers. I refer to it constantly. 

Related posts:

http://janeayres.blogspot.co.uk/2013/05/the-business-of-writing-part-2-elusive.html

http://janeayres.blogspot.co.uk/2013/01/marketing-e-books-for-children-update.html

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

http://janeayres.blogspot.co.uk/2012/10/backtracking-lessons-in-indie.html

http://janeayres.blogspot.co.uk/2013/06/e-book-sales-growing.html

Horse Book Reviews: Matty and the Moonlight Horse

Just had a nice review of Matty and the Moonlight Horse from Sharon Miner at her excellent Horse Book Reviews blog:

This delightful tale is timeless - young girls dreaming of owning their own horse - and the characters are engaging. The ending leads the reader to wanting more...

http://horsebookreviews.blogspot.co.uk/2013/05/matty-and-moonlight-horse.html

Thank you, Sharon.  I'm so glad you enjoyed the story!

Matty and the Moonlight Horse FREE until Sunday!

My e-book Matty and the Moonlight Horse will be FREE to download from Amazon from today until Sunday - please share with other horse lovers!

Click here to download:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Matty-Moonlight-Horse-Adventures-ebook/dp/B00942U36G/

http://www.amazon.com/Matty-Moonlight-Horse-Adventures-ebook/dp/B00942U36G/

Interview at Female First: Matty Books

Today I'm being interviewed over at e-zine Female First.


If you want to check it out the link is here:
http://www.femalefirst.co.uk/books/matty-horse-and-the-pony-adventures-279708.html

This ezine offers great opportunities for writers to promote themselves and their work - go to their Get Published page for info.

Tomorrow I have another story featured on the site.

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

Stranger than Fiction or You Can’t Make This Stuff Up

The award winning American author E. L. Doctorow has been quoted as saying, “I am led to the proposition that there is no fiction or nonfiction as we commonly understand the distinction; there is only narrative.”

We all have different versions of the same events. So is truth a subjective concept? And how does truth apply to fiction, which is, essentially, make-believe?

In the essay called The Story of my Life in 3500 Words or Less* (by journalist and screenwriter Nora Ephron, who sadly passed away last year) the writer observed, “I can’t understand why anyone would write fiction when what actually happens is so amazing.”

Authors are frequently advised to write about what they know or from personal experiences.  When I was younger I used to think that the more real and true an incident or storyline, the more authentic and believable it would be to the reader.  It is only in recent years that I can see this was a fallacy. Self-delusion. The fact that something actually happens doesn’t make for a better, or for that matter, worse story.  What happened is almost irrelevant, compared to how the writer relates this to the reader.  The most outrageous propositions can be made plausible with a skilful writer.

In the 1970s, when I was a teenager, I got locked in the toilets at the local cinema with a group of my friends after the film had finished, as a result of staff negligence.  It was scary (all the lights went out, so we were in total darkness), spooky, and completely bizarre.  We managed to make our way to the main entrance, eventually, which looked out onto the street and we banged on the glass doors and shouted “Help” repeatedly before anyone would stop and listen.  The few passers-by ignored us, or hurried by.  When, eventually, the police arrived, they assumed we had deliberately got ourselves locked in to vandalise the place.  The Cinema Manager had to be called to unlock the doors,  and he drove back in a foul mood (he had been drinking and reeked of alcohol).  I pointed this out to the policemen, who appeared to have no interest in this fact, and our names and addresses were demanded.  We were terrified of what our parents would say if we were arrested, (and may have given false names) but we were finally left to walk home alone (having missed the last bus and not enough money for a taxi).  Four teenage girls.  Nearly midnight.  I was livid at the way we had been treated.  Our parents didn’t believe us, so I contacted the local press (I was a feisty little so and so!), who showed initial interest in the story and then backed down after speaking to the police.  That was the end of it.

 

Years later, I included the incident in the first draft of one of my teen novels, but was advised by my agent and publisher that this all seemed rather far-fetched, unrealistic and would I please omit it from the story. Initially I was frustrated, pleading my case. But I changed it. Many years later, I realised that they were right.  Including every detail of what happened didn’t add to the story. It wasn’t needed.

The book was Matty and the Moonlight Horse.  And the idea for the book came from that late night walk home after getting locked in the cinema and taking a short cut through the graveyard.  With me thinking, in the way that my pony-mad teenage brain operated, “What if we encountered a runaway horse by the tombstones?” 

Anyway, you will find in Matty and the Moonlight Horse that I modified real events so that Matty and her friends leave the cinema late because one of them insists on queuing for pizza, so they miss the last bus home, take a shortcut through the graveyard, and as the church bell strikes midnight……well, you’ll have to read the book to find out what happens next. 

  

*in the collection I Feel Bad About My Neck and Other Thoughts on Being a Woman

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.

Nigella Lawson and Me

Of the several resolutions I have made for 2013 (losing weight, writing more, running more, going to bed earlier, getting up earlier, etc – you get the picture!) I have also decided to be a bit braver on my blog.  Previously, I’ve tried to focus on being a writer rather than a person, almost afraid to reveal what makes me tick.  Of course, who and what we are is inextricably linked to the way in which we create our words and stories. 

Because of my life experiences, my fictional characters have to work for their positive outcomes.  I hesitate to use the word “happy” ending but prefer to opt for hopeful instead.  In Coming Home, my latest book, Kira, the teenage protagonist, undergoes a great deal of heartache and hardship on the journey to find her lost cats.  In the first of my Matty trilogy,  Matty and the Moonlight Horse, my impulsive female heroine falls in love with not one but two perfect horses.  By the end of Book One, she has neither,  but learns that if dreams don’t come true they can change and evolve – as we do.  

Imperfections, anxieties, flaws and fears are what make us human.  Experiences, both positive and negative, inform and affect our thoughts and creative processes.   So how, you may ask, does this relate to Nigella Lawson?

I am the total opposite of what is termed a domestic goddess.  I can barely cook, for starters (forgive the pun!) and maybe, just maybe, there is a tiny part of me that envies those who can.  I avoid cookery programmes on TV and consequently never imagined I could ever have anything in common with a glamorous celebrity such as Nigella Lawson.  Funny how, with the help of the media, we construct an image of a person we have never met and don’t know and make judgements.  As a writer, who is used to constructing fictional characters, I credit myself with a level of intelligence and awareness that should stop me falling into this trap but I can be as guilty as the next woman.   

Back to Nigella, who was recently interviewed in Red magazine.  Normally, I would have skipped this article but for some reason, I started to read.  I’m glad I did.  She is refreshingly honest and I found myself being unexpectedly moved.  Nigella “admits” to being a “catastrophiser.”  It is telling that I use the word “admits” as if it was a guilty secret.  I, too, am habitually drawn towards what my counsellor labelled “catastrophic thinking”.  Basically, this means that in certain situations, my mind will identify the worst possible scenarios and conclude their inevitability in a process that seems entirely logical.  While this can be useful as a fiction writer, it can stop me doing activities that most “normal” people would perform without turning a hair and can really interfere with daily life.  But I try to hide this behavioural trait since I know from past experience that the majority of people often regard it as weird and incomprehensible.  Certain life events, such as major bereavement, can reinforce catastrophic thinking, which Nigella reflects upon, having lost three of the people she loved to cancer.  Something else we have in common.  Dealing with catastrophic thinking can be an exhausting battle and she describes herself as a worrier and prone to being fearful, which I can totally identify with.   Her frankness resonated enormously and I have huge respect for this.  It was also a real lesson for me on stereotyping people as a result of media hype.  Reading the interview left me feeling inspired to acknowledge and tackle issues and emotions that I tend to hide from, and not to shy away from expressing these through my writing.

Oh, and another thing Nigella and I have in common too – a belief that calorie counting and dieting makes you miserable, “draining the pleasure out of life”.  Well said, Nigella.  I think women everywhere would agree on that!    Although this may make my resolution to lose weight in 2013 rather tricky…..

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

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

Interview with Gemma Carnell, Fundraising Manager for Redwings Horse Sanctuary

I'm delighted that Gemma Carnell, Fundraising Manager for Redwings, kindly agreed to take some time out of her busy schedule to allow me to interview her.  Since all my royalties from sales of the Matty Horse and Pony Adventures are donated to Redwings, I thought it would be helpful for readers to learn more about the work of this amazing horse sanctuary and why donations are so vitally important.

Jane: How long have you been working as fundraiser for Redwings and what made you decide to work for a horse sanctuary?

Gemma: I have been working at Redwings for eight and a half years, but I first started to support the charity in 1988 when a friend adopted a pony called Pepper for me! I have always wanted to work for a charity and am proud to be a part of such an amazing organization where you can see the achievements all around you (I can hear a happy donkey braying as I type and can see a cheeky pony running round the veterinary recovery paddock!). The fact that we are not only here to rescue and rehabilitate horses and donkeys, but also offer life-long care to those who are too ill or too traumatized to live in a private home, is a remarkable thing. I genuinely do not believe that anyone else offers the level of care and dedication to so many horses.

Jane: Redwings is the largest sanctuary of its kind in the UK.  Can you give us an idea of the scale of funds needed to keep everything going to enable Redwings to rescue and care for horses and ponies that need help?

Gemma: Redwings relies 100% on donations made by the public – we receive no government funding. We need to raise at least £6 million a year just to care for the 1,250 horses that live with us. Nearly 60% of our income is received through legacies – a gift in a Will really makes a powerful difference. The rest of the funds we need are raised through people adopting a horse or making a donation.

Jane: Can you tell us a bit about what it’s like to work for Redwings.  Is there a typical day?

Gemma: No day is ever the same at Redwings and that is what makes working here extra special! We are a friendly, dedicated team working really hard to help horses in need and we are all prepared to muck in to ensure we use our resources in the best way possible to benefit our horses. Fundraising involves lots of time at  the computer, planning and analyzing, but I also spend a lot of time at our three (soon to be four!) Visitor Centres, where people can meet our horses in person for free. Keeping in touch with the supporters and seeing the horses is an important part of my job and one of the most rewarding.

Jane: What is the hardest thing about your job?

Gemma: Seeing a poorly horse arrive in a terrible state is always heartbreaking. Sadly we are seeing more and more of them and it never gets easier.

Jane: What do you like most?

Gemma: Driving up the road in the morning or on the way home at the end of a busy day and seeing fields full of happy horses, knowing that you have helped them be content and safe for another day.

Jane: Do you have any favourite horses, ponies or donkeys?

Gemma: Yes, but don’t tell the others! Tinkerbell the Shetland, Wellington the chocolate coloured cob (who has just been re-homed!), and Denise the donkey – they are all lovely and have very cheeky characters! You can read about Denise on the adoption pages of our website www.redwings.co.uk/adopting - I am also in love with the whole of the Breakfast Group – 19 young ponies who were rescued from Wales recently. They have the best names (such as Waffle, Weetabix and Bagel) and are all adorable – seeing them grow up and get well again has been such a privilege.

Wellington

And last but definitely not least, I absolutely love little Doc! Doc was born at Redwings after his Mum was rescued from the notorious Spindle Farm in Amersham in 2008 - he was the cutest, fluffiest foal I have ever seen and grew up to be a cheeky chap, always escaping under the paddock fence to the 'big boys' field' to try and share tea-time feeds. He and his family were named after fairytale characters as a symbol of the fairytale ending they had after their traumatic lives.

Doc at 2 days old with Mum Snow White

THANK YOU GEMMA!  
Please visit the Redwings site to find out more www.redwings.co.uk

Related posts:
http://janeayres.blogspot.co.uk/2012/11/guest-post-eleanor-mcfarlane-and-chester.html
http://janeayres.blogspot.co.uk/2012/09/matty-horse-and-pony-adventures-on.html

Matty and the Moonlight Horse is FREE to download from 19-23 October!

DON'T FORGET  - Matty and the Moonlight Horse is FREE to download from 19-23 October on Amazon.

Aimed at children, teenagers and nostalgic older readers, Matty and the Moonlight Horse is the first story in a exciting trilogy. 

Meet Matty Mathews.
Thirteen years old. 
Pony mad.
And pony-less.

Until a midnight encounter with a mystery horse. Life’s about to change for Matty …..

Available from www.amazon.com and www.amazon.co.uk


5 STAR REVIEWS!

All profits from sales of these books are going to Redwings Horse Sanctuary
                     
http://www.redwings.org.uk/

5 Star Reviews for Matty and the Moonlight Horse

Reviews are hard to get and lifeblood for a writer, so imagine how thrilled I was to read the latest review on Amazon for Matty and the Moonlight Horse, which says, 

"In this book, Jane Ayres has created a pony novel which manages to combine the best of both traditional and modern pony stories. It will appeal to a wide range of readers, both youngsters and oldies re-visiting their horsy youth. A definite cut above the average teen pony story!"

Read the whole review here - and please buy the book, which has just been reduced in price for a limited period, as all royalties go to the Redwings Horse Sanctuary. Thanks!

http://www.amazon.co.uk/product-reviews/B00942U36G/ref=dp_top_cm_cr_acr_txt?ie=UTF8&showViewpoints=1


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