Reviews and Competitons...

For starters I thought I'd announce my Witchcraft Cover competition winner. Aishah Waheed, Rafflecopter picked you as my random winner! Congratulations!! I'll contact you shortly and the PR company will post out your tickets. Which one do you fancy visiting? London, York, Blackpool or Edinburgh??

Secondly, I just wanted to highlight the importance of reviews for all authors, but especially indie authors like me! So I'd like to say a huge big thank you to the 35 or so readers who have left me positive reviews on Amazon UK, US, Barnes & Noble and Goodreads for either Witchblood, Witchcraft or both!

Here is my most recent review, http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/379911547 So thank you to Sara!

Unfortunately even though over 10,000 people have downloaded my books, I only have 15-25 reviews on each site, so this is a plea... please please, if you have enjoyed reading either of my books it would really help me if you could post a short review on either Amazon, Goodreads or B&N.

An Olympic Diversion...

I tried for all of about five minutes to find a way of mixing vampires, witches and the Olympics... but I just couldn't do it! So this evening, as I write, the Opening Ceremony is on the television in front of me... and seriously impressing me by the way!

I had to do a post because apart from my blog being a website for all my friends, family and lovely Witchblood fans out there, this is a kind of diary for me too and the London Olympics is after all a pretty momentous event in my life. My four year old son is already obsessed and is planning on watching it all day tomorrow, pretty much every sport LOL!... Wow! Those glowing rings are amazing... I remember the industrial revolution in history at school, but this brings it to life in such a vibrant way!

Anyway... ahhhh... this is So good! Bond meets the Queen!!! I am SO loving this! :D Talking of the Queen, I love this recent photo of her. She is a truly amazing woman.

Now, I really need to get back on track, so to speak, so I thought I'd just show you who I'm going to be watching and rooting for over the next few days, in no particular order:

Rebecca Adlington: From Mansfield, only an hour or so from where I live, Rebecca won Gold in Beijing for 400m Freestyle (Swimming)



Tom Daley: Our amazing young diver, with rather lovely abs! Divers always amaze me so I'm looking forward to watching this.

 Victoria Pendleton: She's a world and an Olympic champion, she fell in love and proved everybody wrong. She's a role model. Simple.

 

Zara Phillips: I first watched her one memorable day picnicing at the Chatsworth Horse Trials in 2004. She won Eventing World Champion in 2006 and is still one of the best.



Hannah Whelen: She was the youngest member of the team in Beijing at only 16 and is now ranked No1 in the Britain. Oh yeah... and she's from Stockport, my local (big) town!

Now those are the sports I'll be watching, but I know my hubbie and little boy will be supporting Team GB Football so as I can't find a decent pic of the whole team, heres one of Becks! :)

He's part of the reason we're all here - he fought damn hard on the Olympic bid and frankly I'm shocked he's not on the team :(

So all that's left to say is "Good Luck..."







New Designs for Blogger...

So, I thought it was about time I did something about my Witchblood site. When I started in December 2011 I was a complete newbie to blogging, never mind designing your own, so I used a Blogger template and stuck with it!

Since then I have taught myself how to use GIMP (the free software that's very similar to Photoshop)... well I still could do with doing a course or something but I'm getting there! There are actually loads of really good tutorials on the web. So I've mainly been learning about layers and blending images. What I've learnt is it is VERY time consuming (at least it is to a amateur!) but ultimately rather rewarding!

Last month I made my own book trailer for WitchCraft, using Microsoft Movie Maker and GIMP to edit the images. You can see it here:
http://youtu.be/wjejCk1eNX8

And this week I decided it was time to tackle the blog design! First I again found tutorials for making blog Headers and backgrounds which gave me the dimensions I needed. I made the header first bu blending a couple of images linked to my books together and altering the colours. Overall I decided to move away from the blood red colours and use blues and purples instead. I was rather pleased with my banner but when I uploaded it found it to be too short, so beware, the tutorials out there are wrong on width dimensions. I then went to blogger design page and found the page width which I then used to set the width. You can see my banner above easily so I won't post it again!

But this is the background I created:

Again I kept with the blue theme and added the black tulips which represent the tulips Luke leaves on Jess's grave. There are also hearts made from metal shavings and the moon.

Another note for other newbies to blog design: Blogger tells you to use a image 1600x1400 wide or bigger yet when you try to upload it tells you file is too large and after I kept making the file size smaller I lost the quality completely. So unsure what to do I ended up uploading a image size 1350x1200. It's still not perfect. I would have preferred the image to be zoomed out a little so the tulips etc weren't as large and more visible... but currently I don't know how to do that! So this will have to do! Anyway, it's much better than the original boring blogger background. What do you think? Have you designed your own?



Exclusive Pre-view WitchLove Cover

To finish off my Laura Zalenga week I'm posting an exclusive cover pre-view of next years third and final instalment of the Witchblood series,'WitchLove'. As with the other two covers, it's the same girl as in all of them, and I hope I've caught the feeling of the book. Personally I love the way the colour scheme has evolved from dark, vampy reds in Witchblood, through enchanting greens in Witchcraft to delicate pinks in WitchLove. What do you think?

I hope you've enjoyed seeing Laura's work, I know I've enjoyed hosting her and her amazing images. To celebrate I've got another competition to run. 

Keeping with the gothic theme I'm taking the prize winner back in time to the UK's scariest dungeons. Open to all UK residents. I have a family ticket (for 2 adults & 2 children / or 4 adults) valid until the 31st Dec 2012 for a one-day entry into any of these UK dungeons... whichever is closest to you:

Edinburgh Dungeon - See Mary Kings Ghost, Burke & Hare and the Cave of Cannibals.
Blackpool Tower Dungeon - Ride the Drop Ride to Doom & experience the Pendle Witches.
York Dungeon - Experience the terrifying Witch hunts, the ghosts of York & Dick Turpin.
London Dungeon - Ride the Vengeance 5D Laser ride, Jack the Ripper & Sweeny Todd.


 So if you enjoy being terrified and have a fascination in all things grotesque and gruesome just click on the rafflecopter boxes below!

For my US fans, I haven't forgotton you. I hope to come up with an international competition soon.




a Rafflecopter giveaway

Laura Zalenga Week: Nature

My last themed post for Laura is going to be 'Nature' because she uses the natural world so beautifully in so many of her images and it is also so obviously important to her. When I asked her whether she preferred taking pictures in the city or the countryside, this was her reply:

"Definitely countryside/nature, because one of the things I love the most on this planet are forests. These places are so calm and peaceful and still tell their own story. I adore the light breaking through the high green roof when you're standing on soft moss. In contrary to the loud, hectic life in the city, forests are places to recover and to listen to your own thoughts."

She's so right! Here are my favourite 'nature' photos:

I love the dreamy quality in this picture. Laura has captured her sister beautifully here, and again the colours work so perfectly together, with the pale, creamy skin and the vibrant greens and bright white and yellow of the daisys. Perfect!

When I asked Laura about her favourite images, this was one of the ones she picked saying:

"I can't even really tell why, maybe because I adore red, I adore forests and calmness and reflections and dancing and weird poses!"

This is a stunning photo and again the beautiful red coat contrasting with the forest colours and dappled light is perfect. But what I want to know if how on earth did she set a timer on her camera and manage to climb a tree?! Magical!



Laura Zalenga Week: Soul

Laura uses herself in the majority of her images... most of them are self portraits of one kind or another. As she says in the intro on her website, look to her images to see inside her soul. I asked her why...

I enjoy using myself in the images because it means I can start straight away, when an idea comes to mind. I know 100% what I want from the shoot... and because it's a kind of therapy.

Here I have chosen two of my favourite 'self portrait' images:

This image is called 'Ariel in Me' because of the red hair which is created when she was overworking the image and something went wrong with the colours, and she instantly loved it. I instantly loved it too, the eye is stunning, so clear and bright. The tiny camera is cute and perfect for Laura and what is in her soul. The colours and contrasts are to die for.

On Flickr Laura says:

This is the pool in our house. We've lived here for five years now. The pool is still not finished. Always empty. Empty and cold. I was all alone standing on the little footbridge over it, and there was this picture growing in me. ...I needed a little bit of water in it and waited for the sun to almost go down. 

I had an old, big, grey shirt and took my first steps into this new created room. and suddenly I walked into another world. running, standing, dancing, laying in the water. It was my kingdom. my heart was filled with joy.
In the end I was so calm and still. I was just sitting there enjoying the silent mood. Thats why I take self portraits. It's such a great way to understand yourself. To calm yourself. To make yourself feel better. To make yourself feel,and the only person who had this picture in its mind was me. I did it and it felt so good. After all that I love this picture. I'm always able to recapture these feelings.

Wow! Beautiful... I think she said it all.

Laura's links:

Flickr

Facebook

webpage

Laura Zalenga Week: Fairytale

For Day 2 of my cover artist appreciation week I have chosen the theme of 'fairytale' because I love anything fairy related and also these two images are two of my absolute favourites and I couldn't wait to share!

But in order to get to know Laura a bit better I have pasted the intro from her website here for you. This is what she says about herself and her photography... in her words.
My name is Laura Zalenga. I was born in February 1990. I live in the South of Germany. I've been taking photos since 2007 and photography is my life. That is all you need to know. My photos will tell you more than words could.

I'm in love with this photo... in fact I want to be standing on that bridge, in that forest. It is so beautiful. I am also coveting the red coat! I love the way the splash of red contrasts with the ethereal dark forest colours. Laura has put on Flickr that it looks like she's playing 'Titanic' and it does remind me of that and gives a fun playful air to the otherwise cold image. Fab!

This second image is quite simple, but must have taken Laura hours to set up! It reminds me of one of my favourite Studio Ghibli films, My Neighbour Totoro'... the soot sprites in particular. It is magical and I fully intend to take the kids and replicate this down in the woods one sunny day... if we ever get a sunny day again!

Here is another look at the finished result:

What do you think? Which is your favourite?

Laura's links:

Flickr

Facebook

webpage