Shaun the Sheep and happy endings

I'm a huge fan of Shaun the Sheep and watch it on TV most days.  I love the charm, simplicity and positive messages - and adorable characters, of course.  If I'm feeling low, it always makes me smile.  The kind of emotional response most authors for children hope to evoke. However old I get, I will always enjoy stories for children.

Related post: http://janeayres.blogspot.co.uk/2012/07/happy-endings.html

Cats and book reviews

Book reviews are hard to come by, so when I get positive reviews I’m always very grateful.  It shows, I hope, that I am connecting with readers in the way that I intended.  I’ve been lucky so far, and some of the comments for Coming Home, my story about two special cats separated from their young owner, Kira, were so lovely it made me feel quite emotional.  Maybe it was because the book was such a labour of love.   I hope you enjoy it too – and every penny and cent of the royalties are going to the charity Cats Protection.

Some comments about Coming Home on Amazon.co.uk and Amazon.com

“It is a lovely little book, and a nice easy read. Any cat lover will enjoy the story and relate to the descriptions of the cats.”

“The characters work well, and the story is just the right length. It is well edited and produced and the front cover is evocative of the story itself.”

“I think most cat lovers would enjoy this story of hope and determination. I enjoyed it very much!”

“A tender story about the love of a young girl for her two cats and the love they share with her and with each other. Their persistence in trying to become reunited and the difficulties they faced in this pursuit were so suspenseful that I kept reading. It also brought tears to my eyes at times. You could just feel the emotions of the characters throughout the story. I loved the way in which the author tied together all the different characters and events. This is a wonderful story that even adults will enjoy. Read it - discover what happened; I highly recommend it.”

Related posts:
http://janeayres.blogspot.co.uk/2012/12/inspiration-for-coming-home-norwegian.html
http://janeayres.blogspot.co.uk/2012/12/coming-home-my-new-book-for-cat-lovers.html
http://janeayres.blogspot.co.uk/2012/01/running-cats-and-writers-block.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

Carnival of the Indies for December

One of  my blogposts called "E-books and Writing for Children"
http://janeayres.blogspot.co.uk/2012/11/e-books-and-writing-for-children.html
has been reposted on the wonderful Self-publishing Carnival of the Indies.

There are some brilliant and hugely varied posts about indie publishing on this site, with lots of invaluable information, so do have a look.

Check it out   http://goo.gl/13Oph