Here’s the amazon.com link for the free apps and here’s the UK one.

See this post for more info on the book.

A grabbit, yesterday.

Don’t delay, or the grabbit will get you!

Published today, ‘Badger’s Waddle’, a novel of impeccably good manners that is very, very rude!

It’s out now — the quirky new masterpiece of British fantasy humor.

• If you’re in between Discworld novels, read this book!

• If you want something original for a change, read this book!

• If you’ve ever imagined what would result if  P.G. Wodehouse and Douglas Adams co-wrote a book, read this book! If you’ve never imagined this scenario, then that’s okay because now you don’t have to. You can read this book instead.

That’s an awful lot of people needing to read this book, so to make life easier, here’s what we’re doing:

1. The Kindle version is set to a special launch price of only 99cents/ 77pence (normal list price is $2.99/ £1.90)
2. If you can hold off until this weekend, the Kindle version will be available for FREE through all Kindle Stores this coming Saturday and Sunday.

Here are the links you need:

Available in paperback from amazon.com  | amazon.co.uk and in Kindle edition amazon.com | amazon.co.uk  

ePUB edition to follow in late summer 2013.

Click here to zoom into a hi-res view of the artwork by Dean Harkness.

Here’s an extract from the press release…

Bromham, Bedfordshire: Greyhart Press, a publisher of science fiction, fantasy, and thriller books, announces its latest book release is Badger’s Waddle by Nigel Edwards, a quirky fantasy set in a surreal English village.

Commenting on the release, Greyhart Press publisher Tim C. Taylor said: “I knew as soon as I read the first chapter that a new writer had joined the ranks of Terry Pratchett and Douglas Adams. It’s easy to name drop famous authors in the genre you’re writing in. What’s not easy is to write like them, because that requires a certain rogue strand in the author’s DNA that allows them to see the everyday world shifted into bizarre new forms. Nigel Edwards has that quirky DNA. He’s Homo Sapiens Cerritulus — weird as well as wise.”

Author, Nigel Edwards, said of his inspiration: “My wife and I were on holiday in Cornwall several years ago.  We visited the Seal Sanctuary there, and one of the countryside walks around the site was named Badgers Waddle. The name was perfect, being simultaneously mundane and twee, yet unusual and evocative. I was immediately struck by how ideal it was for the name of a rural village lost in the heart of England, the sort of idyll that the great Agatha Christie might have chosen as a setting for one of her mysteries.”

Life in the quaint English hampton of Badger’s Waddle is never quite the same as elsewhere in the country… or any other country for that matter. The first sign of impending chaos was when giant rabbits breached the defenses all along the indeterminate length of the vegetable garden of Little Twee cottage.

To patch up the defenses took the combined efforts of the resident gastrognome and a Crippin & Hare Indifference Engine operated by Tavarius Truckle, the man with the highest ever score in an apathitude test. But when tourists start exploding at the village fete, bank deposits build up a critical pressure, and the church’s resident saint finds a loophole in his contract of supra-ecclesiastical employment, the whole hampton must unite to restore some semblance of normality (except for Tavarius Truckle, who’s far too apathetic to care).

Only Goode Nurture, the nice old lady in the tall, pointy black hat, has been preparing for this moment, shaving her gibbons in readiness for the looming crisis.

This book will be lapped up by followers of Terry Pratchett’s Discworld series, and fans of Tom Holt and Douglas Adams. But be warned… underneath the polite gentility of English good manners, this book is very, very, rude!

This is a book that manages to be both terribly polite and scandalously rude at the same time. Please, do not attempt this at home.

If you have a Kindle or means to read a Kindle book (there are free Kindle readers for iPad,  iPhone, PC, Mac, and Android) then stand down your purchasing finger and watch our website instead as we will be running a free promotion on Amazon within a day or so of launch.

For more information, you can head over to the Badger’s Waddle page. I recommend clicking on the paperback cover at the bottom to get a close-up look at the hand-painted artwork from Dean Harkness depicting scenes from the book.

Reaper’s Walk

An ancient vampire operates out of Georgia and powerful enough to bind demons to his will.

In the 1750s, a dark magic witch allies with the Devil to curse the slave owners of Harper’s Town, Virginia. In the present day, that curse is about to reach its payback.

Caught up in feuds, wars, grudges, curses, and a desperate quest to find the Circle of Stones, are a pair of normal young women and their grandmothers. Except… the women aren’t normal, and neither are their grandmothers.

Meanwhile the Grim Reaper is on his way to collect…

And for a limited time, all this for only 99c

For more information see the Reaper’s Walk page where you can also watch the trailer.

Find the eBook on amazon.com | amazon.co.uk |  Smashwords | Barnes & Noble | Sony | Diesel |Kobo  [please note that some retailers may take a few days to reflect the reduced price]

BAMCon is the Berkshire Anime and Manga Convention, a celebration of all things anime, manga as well as related strains of fantasy, science fiction, art and music.

This year, BAMCon will be featuring voice over artists, nerdcore comedians, tons of people in excellent costumes, and even a belly-dancing cosplayer, so if you are in Massachusetts, Upstate New York, Lower Vermont, or Western Connecticut, please come on out!

Tickets are available online or at the door!

**Armand will be in the vendor room all Friday and Saturday as well as hosting a workshop on storytelling on Friday at 1 pm. Come by his booth and purchase a signed copy of VampCon, his vampire pulp thriller.

guest posted by Armand Inezian

As you can read below, Amazon’s current return policy for e-books allows the buyer seven days to return any purchases. Seven days – more than enough time to read the longest of novels. This, of course, opens the door for any and all writers to lose significant amounts of money. If you are an author, or just a fair-minded reader, you need to sign this petition. It urges Amazon to change their policy, thereby assuring that authors get their hard-earned royalties. I’ll thank you in advance

Thomas Rydder                                                                                                                              Author of “The Clearing” on Greyhart Press

Click on the image to access the petition!

Amazon’s current policy for E-books – from Amazon.com (http://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html/?nodeId=200144510)

Returning Kindle Books

Books you purchase from the Kindle Store are eligible for return and refund if we receive your request within seven days of the date of purchase. Once a refund is issued, you’ll no longer have access to the book. To request a refund and return content, visit Manage Your Kindle, Click the Actions button next to the title you’d like to return, and select Return for refund, or contact customer service.

]]> http://greyhartpress.com/2013/04/01/bs-alert-amazon-currently-allows-7-days-to-return-ebooks-and-that-must-change-a-petition-you-need-to-sign/feed/ 10 thomasrydder Ebook refund policy petition http://greyhartpress.com/2013/03/28/guest-post-and-giveaway-its-a-matter-of-genre-by-claire-c-reily/ http://greyhartpress.com/2013/03/28/guest-post-and-giveaway-its-a-matter-of-genre-by-claire-c-reily/#comments Thu, 28 Mar 2013 12:36:52 +0000 timctaylor http://greyhartpress.com/?p=2370 Continue reading →]]> We’re restarting out guest post series with this article from author Claire C. Riley. There’s a lot of pressure on authors to write books that fit neatly into a genre category. That pressure extends to publishers too. Claire, though, is having none of it, as you can find out for yourself by reading her article.

Claire has just launched her debut novel, Limerence. There are two eBook editions up as prizes, winners to be picked on Sunday, 7th April. To enter all you must do is comment on this post, stating that you want to enter the giveaway draw.

For our other guest posts, click this link…

It’s a Matter of Genre by Claire C. Riley

As writers, many difficult choices have to be made when writing a story. The first, and possibly foremast, being the genre and style of your novel. Most writers tend to write in the style that they read. There are, of course, exceptions to that rule.

For me personally, I tend to read a bit of everything. Romance, horror, paranormal, sci-fi, nothing is under lock and key from my mind. So when it comes to writing I just write what comes out and I let my story take me where it needs to go. Apparently this is a fatal no no.

Books need to be pigeonholed and categorised so that they can be found in a bookstores, because unfortunately so many people do choose to only read a certain genre of book.

This is why, sadly, the big publishers turn down so many amazing novels. Because the genre the writer has chosen to write in has too many sub-genres in it to make the marketing easy. Sound silly?

Well, unfortunately it makes perfect sense — to an extent.

Should a brilliantly written book be turned down just because it can’t be easily marketed? Or should publishers be attempting to think up new marketing schemes for these books? After all, things are changing in the publishing world.

When it came to marketing my book Limerence, I chose not to let on what one of the main themes was until around a third of the way in. I figured at least that way readers would have given it a real chance, and be hooked by that point. Deceptive? Yes, a little I guess.

There is nothing in my blurb to say what ‘the surprise element is.’ I shy away from using the catchwords that would normally hook specific groups. The cover also does not give it away. (Although once you have read it, it makes sense) Yet for marketing purposes, I have found that it’s worked really well. So many people have read it now that wouldn’t have normally given it a chance and have expressed their great surprise at the secret element in it.

For instance, one female reviewer left this comment.

‘From start to finish I was hooked, and I’ve never read a  ‘######’  in my life. The characters were amazing (especially Ollie) and the story beautifully written. The love triangle was definitely unique. Without giving too much of the ending away, I’ll just say I found myself screaming no!! more than once. Wonderfully done Claire, can’t wait to see what’s in store for Mia next.’

It isn’t something that she normally reads at all, I know this because I’ve seen her Goodreads shelf, but she had been advised to give it a go. She’s since told me that she’ll be trying more books in the genre now. Score one for writers!

I also had this comment from a male reader.

‘It’s not the kind of book that I would usually read, but I read it on good authority and wasn’t disappointed. The story is dark, grim, romantic, and beautiful all at the same time. The characters are bold, strong, and memorable. I’d highly recommend you read this book, as it’s one of the best books I’ve read in a while and believe you won’t be disappointed.’

Score two for writers!

Another marketing choice I made, was to seek out different book bloggers, the ones that do read some of the main genre themes that run throughout the book, so that I could cover all bases, because yes, I do want everyone to read it, and I do need my specific audience to read it also.

So, my point is this, as a writer should you write with specific genre limitations in place and make you and your book more attractive to publishers, or write for the passion that you have and think up different marketing schemes for yourself to get the reader base?

I have noticed that many of the smaller book publishers are far more forgiving of the limits in place and as such are much more willing to take on some of these books. That’s possibly why a lot of readers are now going straight to these publishers and are not heading for the big six/five publishers. This is a great thing, I believe, for writers, readers and for the smaller publishing houses. They are now getting even more great writers on their books. Writers are getting heard of that several years ago wouldn’t have stood a chance, and readers, well they get the best deal of all, they get to read some amazing new styles of books.

For me, it has never been about money, but writing something of a good quality that people will enjoy. I want to mix things up a bit and to take risks. I want to take things back to the basics of genre. In some ways, stripping it all back to its beginnings, and then starting again with fresh ideas and mixing it all back up.

I would love to see more women getting into horror, and more men trying romance. My next novel, for instance, is a post-apocalyptic dystopian horror with romantic elements. (There is also a surprise element in it, though I’m not saying what at this point, as I know that it will put some people off, ha ha.) People seem doubtful that you can mix horror and romance. The romance genre is supposed to, in theory, have a happy ending. Yet horror is certainly not known for this. However, on the tester chapters that I have sent out, (without the readers being told what genre they are reading) the response has been amazing.

So, my opinion, for what it is worth would be this. As readers and writers, WE hold the power to change things and, WE can help get different books on to the market, and it starts with taking a chance on something new. The big publishers don’t hold all the aces, WE do.

So pass by your most frequented shelf in the bookstore or library and reach for something a little different. Try a new author, try a new style and try a new genre.

I bet that you will be pleasantly surprised if you do.

Claire C. Reily

About Claire

Claire C Riley lives in the UK with her husband, three young children, and one scruffy dog. She likes to break boundaries with her writing, incorporating an old school style of horror and romance. Sexy and dark.

Find Claire online : Website   |  Facebook

Limerence is available now for Kindle

amazon.com | amazon.co.uk 

Click on the button to view other Greyhart Press guest posts.

G.L. Adamson is a mysterious and shadowy figure who enjoys writing things down. Adamson has a wide range of works, ranging from horror and suspense fiction, to sci-fi, to urban fantasy and conservation literature. Keep an eye out for her debut novel with Greyhart Press, “The Death of the Wave”, a dystopian fantasy novel set in an oppressive state that satirizes standardized testing. When she isn’t writing books, she studies wildlife management and nonprofit management at a university, interviews Maasai pastoralists about wildlife conflict, hikes strange mountains, saves murderous owls, creates plays and screenplays and builds tiny scaled models of medieval siege weaponry.

This promotion is now closed. Subscribe to the website to keep up to date with our latest promotions.

“…full of menace and suspense with shocks and horror punching their way through the pages…” 5-stars *****

“I am not usually a fan of horror fiction, but this author’s writing style hooked me.” 5-stars *****

“… couldn’t put it down until I had read it from cover to cover.” 5-stars *****

This Friday and Saturday: Bridge of Blood, pulp horror set in Northern Ireland and written by veteran author Philip McCormac, is available free from the Amazon Kindle Store: amazon.com  | amazon.co.uk  | amazon.ca

Get it while you can… if you dare…

Further details are  on the web pages for the books: Dead Edit Redo: A novella of Horror and Good Medicine and Dead to Rights: A Circularity of Glosas.

Join in on Twitter: #bringingbacktheglosa

These books are amazing, but to explain in a sentence doesn’t do them justice. The best way to enjoy the books is to read both in succession (in any order; that’s the circularity for you). Here’s a taster from the press release…

Anglo-Canadian campaign launches to revitalize the poetry of the Troubadours

Canadian heteronymic professor publishes collection of ‘glosa’ poetry and stars in horror novella as part of the #bringingbacktheglosa campaign.

Bromham, Bedfordshire, UK: Greyhart Press, a publisher of science fiction, fantasy, and thriller books, announces its latest book releases are:

Dead Edit Redo, a literary-horror novella in which the main character is Canadian Alain C. Dexter, heteronymic professor of poetry at Brougham College.

Dead to Rights: A Circularity of Glosas a collection of poems written by the ‘real’ Alain C. Dexter in the glosa style, a vibrant and brief form of poetry popular with the romantic heartthrobs of medieval Europe: the troubadours.

Except… don’t look for Alain C. Dexter in the ranks of academia because Alain is the creation of Canadian writer Elaine Stirling. More than a penname, literary heteronyms are fully fledged characters developed by their creators to allow them to write in different styles and express themselves through different personas. Just listen to the two chatting away on Twitter to realize how different they are!

Stirling developed Alain C. Dexter as part of the #bringingbacktheglosa campaign to popularize the glosa form, a form of short poetry that takes a series of lines (a crown stanza) from another poet and ‘talks’ to the original by beginning each stanza of the glosa with a line from the crown stanza. The glosa form inspired Canadian poet P.K. Page to write the seminal Hologram, a collection of glosas, in 1994. Page inspired Stirling, who created Dexter, who in turn found inspirational crown stanzas not just from poets such as Alfred, Lord Tennyson, but also in the philosophical writing of Friedrich Nietzsche, and Moby Dick by Herman Melville. It is not for nothing that the collection is entitled a circularity of glosas.

In a simultaneous book launch comes Dead Edit Redo, a novella in which Alain C. Dexter stars as a troubled poet haunted by his experience many years earlier when he left the land of the living and experienced a ‘third’ place — neither life not death — where the glosas of Dead to Rights were created. First Nations good medicine is Dexter’s only hope, but does he want to return?

Asked to describe glosas, Alain C. Deter explained, “Glosas deliver like a compact short story, in stereo; they’re a poetic high energy drink, a double shot espresso of verse. You can read one glosa and read it again several times to experience a kaleidoscope effect of something new with each reread. Or you can take in a whole wallop of them and begin to sense the underlying structure that gives the glosa its . . . well, glisten.”

Commenting on the release, Greyhart Press publisher Tim C. Taylor said: “Reading the twin manuscripts for Dead Edit Redo and Dead to Rights was an experience I’ll never forget, and I read a lot of scripts in my profession. Ideas loop around and over and collide and bind with the real and the unreal. It’s a madcap experience.”

Dead to Rights: a Circularity of Glosas by Alain C. Dexter is published March 14th by Greyhart Press in paperback (ISBN  978-1909636019, pp74,  $7.50 ) from retailers such as amazon.com and as an eBook from retailers such as amazon.com ($2.99)

Dead Edit Redo by Elaine Stirling is published March 14th by Greyhart Press in paperback (ISBN  978-1909636026, pp108,  $7.50 ) from retailers such as amazon.com and as an eBook from retailers such as amazon.com ($2.99)

Notes to editors

Elaine Stirling has been a “professional” writer since 1985, by virtue of having sold the first of ten Harlequin romances in that year. Five of those were romantic suspense because she loves a good mystery as much as a good love story. In subsequent years, while attempting to write a godawfully serious and tragic historical nonentity, she sold short fiction to Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine and Fantasy and Science Fiction. To keep food on the table, she became a corporate communication consultant and ended up quite enjoying that too. Her first nonfiction book, The Corporate Storyteller: A Writing Manual & Style Guide for the Brave New Business Leader, was published in 2009.

Learn more about Elaine Stirling at her website www.elainestirling.wordpress.com

Alain C. Dexter is a professor of poetry at Brougham College and best-selling, heteronymic author of the award-winning Gizzard’s Luck & Other Organic Festivities, a collection of short stories; and the poetry collection, Poems from the Soles of his Feet. Dexter enjoys imported beer, hiking in the great Canadian north woods, and hobnobbing with the rich and famous. He appears as himself in Elaine Stirling’s novella of horror and good medicine, Dead Edit Redo, and lives on the north shore of Lake Superior. Chat with him on Twitter @AlainCDexter

Bedfordshire-based Greyhart Press was set up in 2011 by author Tim C. Taylor to publish his back catalogue. Within days, other authors were asking to be published through Greyhart, and Taylor put his writing on hold to run Greyhart Press full-time. To date, Greyhart Press has published 38 books by 17 authors.www.greyhartpress.com    www.ataleforatale.com

Follow the campaign on Twitter #bringingbacktheglosa