The Viking's Apprentice: November 2013

How is everyone?

I hope you are all well, and I hope if you are in Scotland you are able to join in Book week Scotland in some way. Even if it's just picking up a book for the first time in ages, and sitting down to get lost in the imagination of your favourite author.

My Book week has started very well. This morning The Master's Revenge reached number 1 in the best seller list for norse on Amazon.co.uk. Thank you to everyone who has purchased a copy. I really appreciate it. I still can't believe how successful both books have been. This time last year I was still waiting on The Viking's Apprentice being published and now I am lucky enough to have had a number one best seller in Canada and the UK and number 2 in the US. It's amazing what you can achieve when you put your mind too it.

Back to book week. I feel I should point out this is my first Book Week Scotland as an author. This week I have a series of talks in local schools to talk about writing, reading and my own experiences as an author. Public speaking is something I'm getting used to, and hopefully better at, however I'm much more comfortable behind my laptop than in front of an audience.

The children I will be talking to are all in the age group that my books are aimed at. I am genuinely interested in seeing how many of them are regular readers and what they look for in their books. I will post again on Thursday night once I have completed my series of talks and I will let you all know how it went and what I gained from the experience.

If you would like to know more about Book Week Scotland please visit their website Scottish Book Trust.

AuthorsDB Book Cover Contest

You may be aware of a great website called www.authorsdb.com this is a website that shows 1000's of great book covers from every genre from new and old authors alike. Every year they hold a book cover contest and I'm delighted to say that The Master's Revenge has made it through to the semi finals. Voting for the semi finals ends on December 15th. I would love you all to please follow this link and vote for my book cover. Scroll down to where it shows you the star ratings and please cast your vote. You can vote once per day. I appreciate all your support. The link is underneath the book cover.

click here to vote

Thank you to everyone who votes. If you would like to contact me you can do so by any of the following means.

Facebook - www.facebook.com/thevikingsapprentice

twitter - @bannon1975

email - kevinmcleodauthor@gmail.com

website - www.kevinmcleodauthor.com

How is everyone today?

It's freezing in Scotland, and yesterday we had the first snowfall of the winter, and technically it's not even winter yet. My car is in the garage getting a winter service, while draining my bank account as the repairs get done.

I don't want to talk about my books today. In fact I don't want to say much at all. I am going to hand over to a reviewer to tell us a little bit about themselves. Quite often authors are invited to talk on reviewer and blogger sites and I thought it would be nice to reciprocate.

My very first guest on my blog is Rebecca Bennett of Rebbie reviews. Rebecca was the first reviewer to review The Viking's Apprentice so it seems only fair that she is the first reviewer to guest on my blog. Her reviews are excellently written, well structured and tell you enough about each book without giving too much away. That, in itself, is a skill.

Ok, over to Rebecca:

Reading has always been my passion, ever since I was little. I'd join book clubs at school and spend my free time exploring libraries or doing research online. I've always had far more books than bookshelves and that has never put me off buying new ones. Reading has actually got me through some really dark times and helped me to escape reality for a few hours, as I'd lapse into character after character. As you can imagine, having a kindle now it's more tempting than ever to buy every book I find since it all fits into one device!

I was reading that many books and verbally reviewing them to my boyfriend that he suggested reviewing the books on Amazon and similar websites. After a while I decided I needed a hobby so I created Rebbie Reviews, a simple blog on wordpress where I would publish my reviews and eventually when I got bored I could just shut it down. I never imagined anyone would actually read it! When I realised I was getting regular views I decided to make a Twitter page and the first person I met was an Indie Author named Kevin. I hadn't even realised that there was this whole online community of new and relatively unknown authors out there when I first decided to start my reviews, and it quickly changed from a hobby I could quit at any time to a way to promote these wonderful people and help move indie authors into the spotlight.

Of course I still review any book I read but I have found friends in the indie community and love reading their work and chatting to them about their works in progress. Another thing I like about reviewing is the ability to recommend books and encourage younger people to read more. All from my laptop! There are more and more kids out there who don't read and those kids are quickly becoming adults. If I can inspire just one person out there to read a book then I've done my job.

I want to thank Rebecca for taking the time to write her post. If you're an author looking for a review or a book lover looking for your next book then I encourage you all to visit Rebbie Reviews and have a look around. You can connect to her on twitter @rebbie_reviews

Would you like to guest post? If so drop me an email or leave a comment on this post and I will get back to you. Everyone is welcome (within reason). My contact details are at the end of this post.

I am considering doing proof reading for other aspiring authors out there. I have had several requests and if you would like to make a request please get in touch.

Ok, so just in case you don't know anything about my books here is a very short summary.

The Viking's Apprentice has been an amazon best seller in America, Canada and the UK and can be viewed here - The Viking's Apprentice Highest chart positions: 2 in America, 1 in Canada and 5 in UK.

The Master's Revenge, which is book 2 in the series, has reached the Amazon best seller list in America and Canada (still working on the UK!) Highest chart positions 4 in America, 3 in Canada and 31 in the UK. It can be viewed here - The Master's Revenge

Both books are available in paperback and kindle.

My contact details are: www.kevinmcleodauthor.com or kevinmcleodauthor@gmail.com.

My twitter account is - @bannon1975

facebook - The Viking's Apprentice

Have a great week everyone.

Kevin