173 Downloads of Anabar's Run in 2 Days and my first time on Amazon's top 100 Free Bestseller List

So far my current promotion to offer Anabar's Run for free is going very well with 173 downloads in two days for Amazon US and UK.
There is even more good news as the book has made two of Amazon's bestseller lists. It is ranked #19 on Amazon's US Kindle > Children's ebooks > Action Adventure top 100 free bestseller list. It is also ranked #17 on Amazon's UK Kindle Store > Books > Fiction > Children's Fiction > Literature > Action & Adventure top 100 free bestseller list.
So what does this all mean? Well, I can say for sure that this free promotion is helping get my book some attention. That has to be a good thing. Now I hope this leads to some good reviews and then to some sales. I also hope the people who are downloading the book will want to read Anabar Rises, book #2 in my Anabar series.
For those of you who have downloaded Anabar's Run this week, thanks. This is really good news for me.
P.S. Please check out and follow my Anabar Series Blog. It is a fun site where I am continuing to tell Anabar's Story.
Peace,

Will Granger

Anabar's Run Free on Amazon until Jan 26!

Anabar's Run is now free on Amazon.com until Jan. 26! I just joined Amazon's KDP select program, and after Jan 26, the book will also be available through through the Kindle Owners' Lending Library for Amazon Prime members. So far, 41 people have downloaded Anabar's Run in the first 10 hours! Please get the book and add a review if you wish.

Also, please take a few minutes and check out my fun Anabar Series blog. I am going to continue to add new maps, photos, journal entries, songs, and other information in the coming months. Please follow the blog; I would love to hear your suggestions and ideas.
Thanks,
Will

Review and Interview for Anabar's Run on Bookworm Blather Blog

Big thanks go to Michelle Isenhoff, a blogger, writer, and teacher who writes the excellent Bookworm Blather Blog. Michelle recently wrote a great review for Anabar's Run and interviewed me for her 5-Q Interview feature on her blog.

I really appreciate her honest review of Anabar's Run. I agree with her assessment that the book is best suited for readers age 8-14, and I have starting to market the series to these younger readers I also appreciate Michelle's positive mention of my blog/website for my Anabar Series. I think it is a fun, unique site for my readers, and it is especially nice to have someone else like it.

My presumptuous comparisons with Pottermore ( I think J.K. Rowling stole my idea)

Let me start with several points. First, I am thrilled that J.K. Rowling is starting her new Pottermore site. I'm looking forward to using the site and wish I was part of the beta test. I am a big fan of the Harry Potter series, and I believe that reading the books helped my sons to become skilled readers and writers. Several months ago, I was very interested to learn about Pottermore because I am a fan, but also because I was already trying something similar with my own Anabar Series Blog for my books Anabar's Run and Anabar Rises.
I am really not trying to say I am as good as J.K. Rowling, but I did start my site/blog before I heard of Pottermore. I want my site to be a fun, interactive experience for my readers, and I think it is quite unique. The web offers us many exciting opportunities to add to the reading experience, and I plan to keep adding more material to the site.
Please check out my site. Let me know what you think. I would love to hear your suggestions and ideas.

Thanks, and Merry Christmas,

Will

My review of "The Bones of the Earth: Part 1, Initiation Rites" A definite must read.

I don't review many books, but this new series is really excellent, and I can't wait to read more from author Scott Bury.

The Bones of the Earth, Part 1: Initiation Rites is the first novel by author Scott Bury. I thoroughly enjoyed it and look forward to much more from him. I liked this coming-of-age epic filled with believable characters and situations, tense action, and mystical, magical elements. This is the story of Javor, a young man unknowingly destined to defend the world against evil forces pouring out of the east.

The story begins with a fertility ritual led by Vorona, the village witch and performed by the adolescent members of the village. Bury deftly accomplishes several things in this scene. First, he introduces the characters as typical young people, a bit confused about life, but eager to become adults. It also shows Javor to be naive, which makes his later ascendance even more appealing, as the reader sees how much he grows during the story.

Unaware of his destiny as a conqueror of evil, Javor gets his first taste of combat when Elli is captured by Avars, a pack of savage horsemen. He rescues her, exhibiting a both natural talent for fighting and an unshakable courage in the face of extreme danger. Javor returns a hero, and his life changes when he meets Photius, who convinces Javor to join him on a quest to drive evil from the lands.

The rest of the story is filled with intense action as Javor and Photius encounter a variety of monsters and creatures; each time Javor learns a bit more of just how powerful and capable he is. Eventually, Photius admits that he is part of a secretive group of warriors and that he believes Javor to be destined to join the group and lead the defeat of evil forces coming out of the east.

Bury does a great job here, combining violent, exciting action, with Javor's reluctance to accept his new role. Javor is a realistic young man, pulled in different directions by confusion about what he ought to do with his life. Still, and perhaps despite Javor's reluctance, we see him growing in power and confidence, and he eventually starts to accept, and thrive in, his new role.

The violence, combined with several scenes in which Javor is intimate with female characters, makes this more suited for older teens. The novel also contains many characters, which help give it a foreign feel. This makes it initially difficult to keep track of them, but it becomes clear after a few chapters.

The real strength of The Bones of the Earth is that Bury has created a realistic character chosen by fate and destiny, who is able to fight magical, mystical forces with his very human strength, skill, and determination. I look forward to reading more of this series.

I'm wasting my time talking so much to authors

I need to think about how I should be trying to promote by books. Like everyone else, especially writers, I have a limited amount of time to write and promote, and work at my day job. I have been at this now since February, and while I have made some good friends and learned a great deal on various discussion boards and blogs. all of that is taking time away from communicating with potential readers.

Take, for example, my MG/YA books Anabar's Run and Anabar Rises. Instead of discussing them on author blogs and websites, I should be communicating with young teens and their parents and librarians and maybe even teachers. I need to focus on the people who I think are likely to read and enjoy my books.

Then there is social networking. To be honest, I still haven't really learned Facebook very well. I have a page and started a fan page, but I know I ought to be writing instead. Then there is Twitter. I do like Twitter, and I can usually spare a few minutes to send a few quick tweets or re-tweets. I just reached 100 followers this week, and I felt like that was a significant milestone for me; however, I see many people with thousands of followers. Instead of envying them, I wonder how much time it must have taken them to get so many followers, and for what?

I do believe networking and other forms of marketing are important when you are trying to make it in self publishing, but at some point they become intrusive. I see all this discussing books with other writers taking time away from my writing and connecting with readers.

I have made a few important connections with people in the business, but I don't need thousands of connections with people who probably won't read my books. I understand when other writers don't buy my books. I don't expect them to.

I have joined in a partnership with a small group of professionals involved in publishing. We are actively helping each other to revise, proofread, and market our books. This is vastly different from all those Facebook friends and Twitters folks. In this partnership, we are committed to working together and selling or books. I will write more about this in the coming weeks.

There is nothing wrong if you enjoy social networking and all the other forms of electronic communication available to us. Many people really enjoy them, and I am all for people doing things they enjoy, but I should be focusing on the people who I want to buy my books.
I wouldn't have this blog if I didn't want to sell my books.

Great review for Anabar's Run on CatholicFiction.net

Anabar's Run just received an excellent review on the CatholicFiction.net website at: http://www.catholicfiction.net/2011/07/18/anabars-run-by-will-granger/ .

I appreciate Jody Rakis taking the time to read and review my book. While I did not write Anabar's Run and Anabar Rises to be overtly Catholic or religious books, they do have some underlying themes of peace and avoiding hatred that I hope will appeal to readers of the reviews on CatholicFiction.net as well as other readers. I really hope MG and YA readers will benefit from these messages.

In other news, I also posted an original poem,Why , on my Anabar Series Blog. I wrote it as if it was written by Marabel, Anabar's mother, and I am quite happy with the way it came out. Poems are great fun to write.

Audio Interview with Will Granger at Work-At-Home-Success Website

Big thanks go to Leslie Truex from the excellent Work-At-Home-Success website for interviewing me this week. We talked about my experiences as an online college teacher and author.

First, I talked about some of the different opportunities in teaching college classes online through correspondence and webcam-based formats. I also explained what I know about the qualifications and experience one generally needs to become an adjunct professor at community colleges and universities. This is a great job, and there are plenty of opportunities out there.

Second, Leslie asked about my experience as an author. I told her about what I have earned about self publishing ebooks and promoting. I always like it when I get the chance to talk about my books.

Please go to the Work-At-Home-Success website and listen to the interview .

I really appreciate Leslie taking the time to interview me. I hope you enjoy it.

Vampire Truths: my new short horror story

I just published my newest short horror story, Vampire Truths, on Amazon.com. I decided to write this because I wanted to show my view of what life as a vampire would be like. This is no love story, and my vampire is definitely no romantic hero.

You can read an excerpt from Vampire Truths and learn about my other horror shorts Gladitorium Immortuos and The Deadly Path at my blog: http://baddreamsgranger.blogspot.com/ . I plan to have the story for sale on Smashwords.com next week.

I am having a great deal of fun writing horror stories, and although I plan to start Anabar's Night, which will be book #3 of my Anabar Series,  I think I'll stick with horror for a while. My next horror short will have the title Green, and then I have ideas for a lumberjack tale and another zombie story.

Anabar Rises featured on Indie Snippets Blog

Thanks to Bryan at the Indie Snippets blog for posting an excerpt for Anabar Rises , book #2 of my Anabar series of YA action coming-of-age books

You can read the snippet here: Anabar Rises Snippet .

You can also read more about Anabar Rises and Anabar's Run, book #1 in the series, at my Anabar series blog at http://anabarseries.blogspot.com/ where I have more excerpts, maps, photographs, posters, and other features.

Please check out the Indie Snippets blog. Bryan is doing a great job of promoting many great Indie books by providing excerpts from "New INDIE fiction in bite sized-flavors."

Excellent Review of The Deadly Path on My Book Addiction blog

Please check out a great review of my short horror story The Deadly Path on The Book Addiction Blog at Review of The Deadly Path . Big thanks to BookGirl for taking the time to read the story and write the review. Sales have started out very well for The Deadly Path  and my other horror short Gladitorium Immortuos and I believe this review will help my numbers even more.

Giving away five copies of Anabar series for Young Adult Book Club

From July 1 until July 7, I'm giving away five copies of Anabar's Run and Anabar Rises as part of the YABC Festival celebrating the first six months of the Young Adult Book Club (YABC) on Goodreads.com. YABC
This giveaway will be available for the first five YABC members that post a comment here asking for the books.
Readers can find much more about both books at my Anabar Series Blog: http://anabarseries.blogspot.com/

Shameless Comparison to Pottermore

I know some of you might accuse me of trying to take advantage of J.K Rowling's announcement of her new Pottermore website venture, but (here goes) I believe I have been trying to do a similar thing with my Anabar Series blog. Since I began working on my blog several months ago, I have been trying to make it an interactive immersive experience for readers of my Anabar series.

I carefully read Rowling's press release announcement of Pottermore, and I was happy to see her include ideas similar to what I am doing with my my blog.

The press release states: "J.K. Rowling has written extensive new material about the characters, places and objects in the much-loved stories, which will inform, inspire and entertain readers as they journey through the storylines of the books."


Well, everything on my blog is new material I have written, and I hope it will entertain my readers and add to the experience of reading my books.


Rowling's press release also states: "In the new website, the storyline will be brought to life with sumptuous newly-commissioned illustrations and interactive ‘Moments’ through which you can navigate, starting with the first book..."


Again, I am trying to do much the same thing. My blog now has new photographs, posters, notes, a map, and a journal. I believe these feature will bring my stories to life. I also have plans to continue to add to my blog every week in the foreseeable future. To be honest, I am having fun working on my blog - I hope readers and potential readers will have fun there too.


I think Pottermore is great news for those of us trying to promote our ebooks. Rowling had injected a huge amount of legitimacy to ebooks with her announcement. That can only help us all.


Please check out my blog. I would love to hear what you think.
http://anabarseries.blogspot.com/

New horror short stories and blog

I've just opened a new blog at Bad Dreams From Will Granger where I am promoting the first of my new horror short stories.


The Deadly Path is the tale of five-year-old Cindy, who often watches from her bedroom window as an old man passes by her house in the middle of the night. Strangely drawn to the man, Cindy sneaks out of her house and finds him by following a golden path that only they can see. She watches as he buries strange coins by the corners of several houses. 
What Cindy does not know is that people start dying in those houses. Cindy's life changes when her best friend dies in a fire, and she finds one of the coins buried under the ashes.

Gladitorium Immortuos takes place in Ancient Rome. Soldiers capture some Immortuos (Zombies), which are then used in a new form of gladiatorial combat where the audience gets to participate. The Roman crowd loves the new games, and everyone is happy until...well, ah, when do things ever end well with Zombies?

Anabar's Run featured on Indie Snippets Blog

Thanks go to Bryan for posting a snippet feature on Anabar's Run at Indie Snippets Blog. Bryan runs a great blog where he promotes many authors with interesting "Snippets" or excerpts of 200 words or less. He provides a great service for writers and readers alike. Please check out his blog at http://indiesnippets.blogspot.com/ follow it, and help spread the word about it.

Getting featured on Indie Snippets is my latest step in promoting my books and my Anabar brand. I also just moved my Anabar Series blog to Blogger at http://anabarseries.blogspot.com/ . I believe I have succeeded a creating a fun and interesting site for my readers, especially the Middle Grade readers. I will continue to add to site site.

I think my Anabar Series blog is an example of what writers can now do with our books to add to the overall experience of reading. I believe we will see more and more writers creating interesting websites to compliment their books.