Month: June 2019

A Scary Teaser

Hello Everyone – A couple of things to write about this time: first of all, if you’re one of those who have already entered the lovereading4kids competition to win a valuable signed copy of The Shop On Peculiar Hill (which we mentioned last time) you may be interested to learn that there are now several new ways to enter so you may be able to increase your chances of winning! Get over there to the competition page and take a look.

And the other new developments to tell you about are the exciting new “teasers” produced by marketing gurus “Author Shout”, which come in various formats, one of which you will see below. Some of them are even animated, but we haven’t worked out how to use those ones yet. It may be that we need to put in some AA batteries.

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We have to say we think that the red writing on the teasers looks especially scary and bloodcurdling, whereas – as you will know if you’ve read it – the book is pleasantly spine tingling rather than downright terrifying and even comes with specially designated funny bits, so those expecting to catch their death of fright may be disappointed.

Nevertheless, we think that the red writing is eye-catching and should bring in a few new readers, as long as they are not too traumatised by the teaser to undergo the checkout process. We recently invested in an ebook all about marketing and it gave explicit advice not to reduce customers to gibbering wrecks until after they have completed their purchase.

But I’m sure it would be all right.

That’s all for now then. I know it’s summer but Aunt Maggie’s advice is unchanged throughout the year: don’t forget your hat…

(A spokesperson for Uncle Bob drew our attention to the fact that bogeys don’t fly in the summer and it won’t even be July till a week on Monday. He therefore insisted that you don’t need a hat and it isn’t as dangerous round here as Aunt Maggie seems to think. But readers taking this advice do so at their own risk and the spokesman isn’t available for further comment because a piano fell on his head.)

 

The Shop on Peculiar Hill – three free copies to be won!

Well, with the extra publicity we’ve been getting through lovereading4 kids (as we mentioned last time) we’re getting more people reading The Shop on Peculiar Hill and so, we hope, more people are finding this website for the first time. If one of them is you, then welcome to Planet Grimly, your one stop shop for all things Vale of Strange (though we’re a bit short of unge and glop, to be honest – we suggest you try eBay for them). You are very welcome to ask any questions you may have about The Vale of Strange (just occasionally we may even know the answers) or send us a review of the book or some artwork it has inspired you to create. You will see some of the remarkable artwork and responses we’ve already received if you take a look back through the previous posts. Our contact address is grimlydarkwood03 (at) gmail (dot) com

We’re also delighted to announce that those nice people at lovereading4kids have three signed copies of The Shop on Peculiar Hill to give away free! That’s signed by Grimly himself, I hasten to add. It was quite an effort and he had to lie down afterwards. If he ever becomes a truly best selling author (and he’s not quite there yet) he’s going to have to go on one of those army fitness programmes to tone up his hand muscles first. Otherwise he will never cope with the signing sessions. Anyway, just for now his work is done and he’s getting back his strength by munching on a chocolate biscuit and a stick of celery, so the chances are he’ll pull through this time. If you would like a chance to partake of the fruits of his labour then full details of how you can win one of the valuable signed copies he has produced can be found on the lovereading4kids site here.  The competition closes on 30th June, so don’t delay – get entering right away!

It occurs to me, though, that most of you reading this will probably already have read The Shop on Peculiar Hill so you may not be mega excited by the competition. Bear in mind, however, that these are potentially valuable signed copies, so they could be worth a fortune one day – or at least the price of a packet of chocolate biscuits and a stick of celery, in case you too need to recover from an arduous workout. And it also seems likely that you may know some of those unfortunate people who haven’t yet read the book. So here is your chance to bring a little sunshine into their lives by sending them a link to the competition and strongly suggesting they enter. After all, someone – or, more accurately – three people – have to get lucky and one of them could be them!

All right, that’s all for now. Thanks for reading this (assuming you did, and haven’t just cheated by skipping to the end). Don’t forget to spread the news about the competition – and, most importantly – as always! – don’t forget your hat!