Tuesday 7 April 2015

Loads of FREE stuff, reviews and news of a book rising through the ranks...

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Mark-Barry/e/B008479RWI/ref=sr_tc_2_0?qid=1425158526&sr=8-2-e



For the first time ever (well, three years), a Green Wizard book has actually sold more than Ultra Violence in the UK.

My latest, which is competing in the mainstream Crime and Crime Fiction charts,  (so it will be a while if it registers, if at all), is starting to sell. 

Thank you to everyone who has bought the book/been nice about it/retweeted/reviewed/shared the good news of the literary Elijah.

Btw - fair play to all those of you competing in made up charts with about eight novels in it. You can call yourselves a bestseller in marketing. That's really clever! Wish I had thought of it!

:-D


Anyway, if you want a free gift card to buy the e-book, drop me a message or a comment on here. I have 25 to give away in exchange for an honest review. I also have some spare paperbacks I can post direct to the UK or US, also in exchange for an honest review. 

I'll even throw in a joke, a postcard of Southwell Minster...


...and very possibly a postcard of a cute kitten like this one, making his second appearance :-D



*

The terrific Sheffield based author EL Lindley writes on Twitter:  HOLLYWOOD SHAKEDOWN byMark Barry Crime writing at it's best complete with lovable anti-hero

This is Green Wizard's least successful book if judged by sales. Yet I can name four noted judges who think its the best. Whatever your opinion, it certainly deserves more sales than it gets. And it's buttons and washers...99c 0r 99p or something ridiculous like that (thank you authors who-give-your-hard work-away-free/pirates/etc) sooooooo why not give it a try? 


http://www.amazon.co.uk/Mark-Barry/e/B008479RWI/ref=sr_tc_2_0?qid=1425158526&sr=8-2-ent

Gee, what's the worst that can happen? You can either love it or hate it.



...and finally. Are you an Indie? How do you get readers to access your books. 

Top dramatist (and friend of GW), Terry Tyler, writes this week about Brand Visibility. It's a cracker.

http://terrytyler59.blogspot.co.uk/2015/04/be-visible-be-discovered.html

Till next week - or when I think of something to say again...

Mark
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The Paperback of Once Upon A Time In The City Of Criminals is OUT, ladies and gentlemen.





UK Customers  £5.67


I have left the price at COST (i.e Amazon's minimum) until MAY 3rd. 

If you have asked for a free copy, it is either on its way, or I am waiting for a postal address. 

Thx everyone. As TT said in her review: 

This is the sort of novel that reaches cult status; maybe in five years' time people will be saying, "What, you mean you haven't read City of Criminals? Where have you been?"

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There's no easy way to photograph a paperback book without one of dem dere 3-dangle printer thingies, so I shan't bother. 





I shall just post the cool cover photo again...but allow me to tell you that the paperback is beautiful, the best I have ever created. 

For those of you who bought a PB, Carla is a terrific looking paperback (see below) but this one...this one....is different class. 

Strange it emerged from one of the scariest episodes of my life. I guess everything happens for a reason (and other platitudes). 


Derbyshire based alternative model Freyaa Ray whose hands grace the cover of
City of Criminals.

Don't you just love model Freyaa Ray's fingernails here? She suggested that colour, btw. I asked for something else entirely - what do I know? 


FREE E-BOOKS

Listen, as well as another ten paperbacks to give away I have 25 Amazon gift cards to redeem against the EBOOK version of the novel, in exchange for an honest review on Amazon, so if you are an e-reader and fancy giving some urban crime a bash, then leave a comment or a DM.

I forget that many of you have gone over to the e-side and aren't coming back. Me? I am a tattooed, dyed-in-the-wool, rock and roll, stubborn as a mule paperback reader (and paperback writer) so I don't want you to think I am discriminating. Enjoy your modern new fangled e-machine!!

I have quite a few US readers (though be aware, this is a VERY British book, with slang, vernacular and references etc), - so please get in touch. Happy to sort you out one way or another.

Cheers, Mark
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Just had a review come in from Rosie Amber's  superb Review Blog. 

This one is for Carla from author Judith Barrow, (who I don't know personally).

She gives the novel a 4.5, which is something of a relief as the word on the grapevine is she doesn't pull her punches and she's had this by her fireside a good while. 

Judith also has some interesting comments to make about the book, which are well worth a read.

http://judithbarrowblog.com/2015/04/03/rosies-book-review-team-rbrt-4/

No-one ever sees Carla the same. I can't think of one consistent theme crossing the wide range of readers.  Is that a good thing? A bad thing? Who knows...

Thank you, Judith!


And thanks too to  Rosie Amber for introducing me to these great reviewers.

https://rosieamber.wordpress.com7
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Stop Press:


Terry Tyler, noted author of Kings and Queens and Last Child, has been on a Green Wizard reading jag (thank you, Terry!) just lately and bumped into the GW best seller UltraViolence.  

It has ranked and charted on various charts in the UK for three years and once reached the lower reaches of the main Amazon UK chart. 


As far as I know, it is the possibly the only football hooligan novel that women not only read, but (mostly) enjoy. Here's her review.

"Mark Barry is rapidly becoming my favourite Indie of those I have read..."

http://terrytylerbookreviews.blogspot.co.uk/2015/04/ultra-violence-by-mark-barry.html


And finally, for those of you who (1) enjoy something COMPLETELY different, and (2), enjoy quality writing, why not try Motel Literastein from the quirky Phil Conquest. Out weekly - I  never miss it. 

Proper writing from the edges of reality - (well, an Englishman in Philadelphia).

http://motelliterastein.blogspot.co.uk/


10 comments:

  1. I have most definitely gone over to the other side, Mark - I read a thick paperback that a writer kindly sent me, before I read UV, and it kept getting on my nerves; I couldn't prop it up on my knees while I ate my WeightWatchers toffee sundae (something of a nightly treat) (I know how to party...), I could prop it up against the mirror while I straightened my hair without heavy things to hold the pages back, it was uncomfortable to hold in bed... no, I am firmly and e reader person now. It's only the words that matter, at t'end of t'day, like. BUT!!! I have just ordered the paperback to send to a non ereading friend for his birthday :)

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    1. ....I mean I COULDN'T prop it up against the mirror, I am firmly AN ereader person, etc..... grrr to early morning typos. Well, all typos, really. Sure I will make many more today :)

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    2. Thanks for buying the paperback, T :-D I hope your friend enjoys the book. I've actually got into e-boooks a bit more since I bought my Fire (I read Last Child on there), and I'm slowly warming to it. With e-books, it doesn't help that I collect books themselves (love the aesthetics) and, also, when I was a kid, I had what is now labelled ADHD. The temptation (when one hits a boring bit in a book), to jump to ANOTHER novel is like prodding a loose tooth :-) Mark x

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    3. When you first started writing, T, how did you picture your Fantasy Successful Self?
      Reclining on a Cartland-style chaise longue? Jumping up and down in a vault full of twenty pound notes? Entertaining Richard and Judy on the spotlit cream sofa?
      Me? I pictured suntanned holidaymakers enjoying a Mark Barry paperback around the pool in a hotel in Torrem...Torremo...Torr...er, Magaluf.
      Can I alter the fantasy for a Kindle? Hmmm...trying...:-) Marky x

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    4. That's not a syndrome, it's just a low boredom threshhold! Or just not wanting to read boring bits. I skip read loads. And have given up as many books as I've read all of in my life, I'm sure. Makes sense to me; why would you carry on reading/watching/listening to something that is not entertaining you?! :^D I don't mean I abandon as soon as I hit a boring bit, but if there are too many borings bits I do, yes, and always have done, Kindle or not!

      In answer to your second question, living somewhere wild, beautiful and remote, where all I had to do was write, knowing that people are loving them enough to keep buying them and thus enabling me to carry on living in wild, remote beautiful place and not having to go anywhere or see anyone I didn't want to. That's all. My requirements are not ostentatious!

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    5. ..... and now I must carry on with the next one. Because if I don't I can guarantee that will never happen, whereas if I DO, there is a teeny tiny miniscule chance it one day might!

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    6. I watched one of those Britain Is Shit Lets All Move To The Colonies afternoon shows with my Mum one day. South Africa was the chosen target and they showed this cliff house in Cape Town.
      Now, it's the usual airbrushed house embedded into a cliff, with laminate and tubular bells and shiny glass walls, but what astounded me, T, was the price. It was about fifty grand. You couldn't buy a garden shed over here for that!
      I watched this show just prior to writing Hollywood and all the way through I thought - gee, if this sells, I could actually LIVE there!! :-) It was like a fantasy coming true. We share a very similar fantasy, Terry. Isolation and sunshine. Sigh - just those two words alone...:-D Cheers, Mark

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    7. Isolation and not to hot, for me - a Scandinavian or Scottish island would be ideal!

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  2. Sorry to interrupt the chat but terrific post Mark and I am so, so, so delighted that everything is going so bloody brilliantly for you at the moment. It is so well deserved and I am looking forward to my upcoming holiday that I am saving HS for :-) This though is just really, really great and I shall share and hope the rest of your review copies are snapped up pronto...a note to anyone else reading this and not knowing whether to bite or not?? Do it...it will be the best decision you make all year...I promise x

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  3. Still thinking about this one. Left a big impression on me. #likeawesome! Getting people to buy books is like pulling teeth (sorry can't think of anything more original my faction brain lacks creativity) but readers are missing out if they don't take you up on the offer. I loved it so much I read it cover to cover twice and
    W O W what a great cover it is! Congrats and all that! Brits rule the world!!!!

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