Great Middle Grade Reads discussion

Hi there.
I'm Alex Norton, I'm new at this, I'm trying to be careful and post in the correct places and not annoy anyone.
I've written a middle-grade paranormal fantasy novel and I'm taking the popularly offered advice to distribute free copies for reviews. HONEST reviews. Totally honest.
It's been on Amazon since August, sales are decent and I've garnered a few reviews (good ones), but I'm starving for more feedback. Let me know if you prefer mobi, PDF or epub format.

~The Goblin's Winter~
Danny Hallow, a boy of eleven with some unusual inherited abilities, is summoned to the town of Eddystone for the reading of his uncle's will. He finds Eddystone is in the grip of extreme winter temperatures unheard of for over a hundred years, and out of the cold a new predator has emerged. Something small and vicious. Something that takes an interest in Danny.

Thank you.

Witchbone Book One: The Goblin's Winter

Done very nicely, Alex! Lots of info to get us interested, and the link to the Goodreads page. I wish everyone did as well.

If you don't mind waiting till the spring for a review, I'll take a Kindle copy, please.

Jemima,

Thank you for your kind offer to read and review my book. If I understand this correctly, I'm able to send a gift redemption link directly to your email, which you can provide to me through Goodreads messaging. I solemnly swear not to use it for any further or nefarious purposes.

That said, I'm only able to purchase a gift copy from the US website. I'm not sure what happens from there. You may have to deal with the hassle of exchanging it for credit to obtain a copy from the UK website. You probably have more experience than I do with this process, don't hesitate to give advice.

Thanks again, and feel free to send me a message with your information any time you're ready.
~Alex

Jemima wrote: "Done very nicely, Alex! Lots of info to get us interested, and the link to the Goodreads page. I wish everyone did as well.

If you don't mind waiting till the spring for a review, I'll take a Kind..."

Well, I checked it on Amazon UK and it's only £1.54, so I bought it :)

One thing you may not have realised - you can download your own file of the book from your KDP bookshelf (in the preview area). As long as it's DRM free you can send that to anyone by email, you don't have to do it through Amazon. I'm not sure if it's limited if you've got DRM enabled, but for indies there are plenty of very good reasons to make it DRM free.

Jemima,
Thank you for the purchase and the advice. I'm still fumbling around figuring all of this out.
Writing is easy. It's the crash courses in formatting, marketing, and networking that's a challenge.
~Alex

Jemima wrote: "Well, I checked it on Amazon UK and it's only £1.54, so I bought it :)

One thing you may not have realised - you can download your own file of the book from your KDP bookshelf (in the preview area..."

Alex wrote: "Jemima,
...
Writing is easy...."

Yes. And if you think publishing it is hard work, wait till you spend 50% of your time promoting it!

But don't mind me. I'm a tad burnt out at present :)

Understandable. :)

I enjoy writing as a hobby, and I dig into promotion and advertising with enthusiasm (limited to Sundays and only Sundays, a rule I made for myself and don't really stick to).

The formatting, now, that was more like work. I didn't research it before I went to publish so I had to spend half the day watching Youtube videos before I had it set to upload. Book Two is half-done, and this time I'm formatting as I go to save myself the hassle later.

Thank you for the advice about downloading. It turns out that I cannot do this from Amazon, but I found an app to use that will save the original file in Mobi or Epub for review distribution.

~Alex




Jemima wrote: "Alex wrote: "Jemima,
...
Writing is easy...."

Yes. And if you think publishing it is hard work, wait till you spend 50% of your time promoting it!

But don't mind me. I'm a tad burnt out at presen..."

I rarely have trouble formatting ebooks. I just go with the wordprocessor using simple styles for headings and places where I want it e.g. centred.

My only problem these days comes when transforming a Mac written book into Word, but I've worked out why, I think. It's because I've grown up using two spaces at the end of sentences, and sometimes when I search-and-delete them it leaves a code behind. My plan for the next book is to save it as rtf (rich text format) before converting to Word.

But if you write on Word in the first place, it's no problem.

Check out the Smashwords Style Guide (it's free) for some good tips and hints.

Alex wrote: "Understandable. :)
..."

Hi Alex! I've finally got around to reading it, and wow - it's the best MG book I've read for ages. I'll be reviewing it on my blog August 31st, if you can wait that long. (Well you probably can.)

I'm going to offer some technical notes for your consideration by message.

Alex, if you are still looking for reviews, I could give this a go (and yeah, that's because Jemima likes it. That's usually a good sign for me, though I couldn't handle Lockwood & CO...).

As for formatting... I'll second the recommendation about the Smashwords guide. Also about using styles for the formatting from the get-go. I stick with my publishing styles (in MS Word) and have very little icky stuff to clean out of the final MS. My first book, I had to use what they call the "nuclear option," where you wipe out literally ALL formatting (included paragraphs, IIRC). That was a PITA.

Also about switching files between programs: yes, always reduce to RTF first. I get rid of weird stuff before posting on my blog by copying to TextEdit and then copying again to paste into Blogger.

Thank you! I'll wait patiently for your valuable feedback, and any technical notes are quite welcome.
~Alex

Hi Alex! I've finally got around to reading it, and wow - it's the best MG book I've read for ages. I'll be reviewing it on my blog August 31st, if you can wa..."

Thank you, I'm always looking for reviews. I have it handy in PDF, .mobi or epub formats, whichever you prefer. Feel free to inbox me your email address and I can send it to you.
~Alex

Rebecca wrote: "Alex, if you are still looking for reviews, I could give this a go (and yeah, that's because Jemima likes it. That's usually a good sign for me, though I couldn't handle Lockwood & CO...).

As for..."