Book 1 in the Zeuorian Series is part of Smashwords Summer Sale, which starts today. The book will be FREE. Yes, I mean free. Until July 31st.
You can download the book in epub, kindle or other electronic formats.
Tag: fantasy
#FridayReads #BookReview Evangeline
Evangeline (A Dark Faerie Tale, #0.5)
by Alexia Purdy
Book Overview
The Land of Faerie is calling.
There are places unknown, magic lures you in and love spans lifetimes.
Don’t resist. It’s in the blood…
Evangeline is a short story prequel to Ever Shade.
Book Review
I came across this book on Amazon Free Fantasy stories. I decided to give it a try, being it was a short story and I didn’t have to commit too much of my time before deciding whether or not I want to read the series. Sadly my first impression wasn’t that good, because:
The story was written in third person omniscient, which I’m not a huge fan of reading. It can become difficult to follow. Evangeline was no exception. The author didn’t have any transitions between the two POV’s Evangeline and her sister, Jade. She switched POV mid-paragraphs. So most of the time I had to re-read paragraphs to figure out who was speaking, taking me out of the story.
Next, the first couple of chapters the author spent a lot of time narrating and explaining backstory about the sisters and their powers instead of letting it unfold naturally with the story. However, she left off the most important part–character development.
The sisters characters were flat and hard to connect too. They had no personality. No unique characteristics. I didn’t even really know what they looked like, except Evangeline had black hair and brown eyes.
If that wasn’t bad enough, just as I finally felt the story was getting interesting when Evangeline met Jack, the story fast forwards to her leaving Jade to spend time with him, whom she had been dating for awhile and loved. Then the next chapter jumped again where she was living in Faerie Land.
I gave it 2 stars.
Despite my issue with third person omniscient, narrating backstory and flat characters, it had a potential. If the author had written in the interactions between Jack and Evangeline as well as Jade and the fairy king the story and the characters could’ve became interesting. However it didn’t. It felt rushed and confusing instead.
Perhaps if you were reading the story, after have read book 1 it may have been more interesting. But starting with this book only turns you off from the series as it did with me.
Reminder: Today is the last day to download The Zeuorian Awakening Free on Amazon Kindle.
About The Author
C. Zablockis is an Indie author of paranormal, dark fantasy and horror novels. She published Lexi Greene’s Dangerous Lesson, Lexi Greene’s Grim Awakening, Monster (The Zeuorian Series) and My Watcher (The Zeuorian Series) YA Dark Fantasy Thriller.
#Indiechat How to Tell If a Book Promoter is Legit
After receiving the below email from http://www.thebooksmachine.com soliciting me to promote with them The Zeuorian Awakening (currently being offered FREE on Amazon as a Kindle book promotion). I decided to do a little research to see if their stats were legit.
Dear Cindy Zablockis,
I have recently come across your book The Zeuorian Awakening (Volume 1) on Amazon and due to both its quality and plot, it qualifies to be promoted in our community of readers.
The Books Machine is a website that connects authors and readers. It helps writers promote their work, gain in reputation and prestige, and reach a potential audience.
Our press team’s offer includes help promoting books to thousands of readers in our community, whether at reduced or regular prices. This is done through a deals promotion page on our website, a Facebook post with exclusive deals reaching over 25,000 readers, as well as a “Newsletter of the Day” that uses a unique and innovative marketing tool featuring an excerpt from your book within a unique customized layout.
The days currently available to feature your work in our newsletter are tomorrow and Friday. In the following link you can find more detailed information about who we are, get to know our community of authors and readers, and find out how this promotion can benefit you and your book: http://www.thebooksmachine.com/deals/dealspromote.html
Also you can find a powerful tool to promote your titles in an innovative way through a professional Video Book Trailer production, adding it on your Amazon book description, Author Central, Deal description, social networks, Youtube Channel, your own website, etc. You can see more information, prices and real works that we’ve made for our authors here: http://www.thebooksmachine.com/booktrailer/videobooktrailer.html
Warm wishes,Meryl Wright
Site Administratorwww.thebooksmachine.com
FB: www.facebook.com/TheBooksMachineCopyright 2014
What I found about thebooksmachine.com
(This is an average of multiple Traffic Reporting Sites Stats)
Website Statistics
- Unique “New” (Never been to the website) Visitors: 625 – 852 (Daily) or 18,750 – 25,560 (monthly)
- Daily “Web” Page views by New & Returning Visitors as well as webots: 1,704 – 4,062
- Bounce Rate (% of visitors who visit 1 page for less than 60 seconds and then leave the site): 100%/100 %
- Website Trust worthiness: Very poor (Web browsers and Virus software will warn visitors site not safe)
- Website Privacy: Very poor (Your cookie information can be copied. i.e. ip address, email, etc…)
- Website Child Safety: Very Poor (Adult content. Computers with child browsers will block the site)
- Website Security: None (They have no HTTPS Protocol needed to hide information entered in forms)
Facebook Statistics
- Facebook page has 27,786 likes
- 69 People talking about their post this week
- 39 New page likes this week
- Last post 4/13/16
- # of post a day: 1 – 2
- Post time: early morning around 7:30 am or evening around 5:30 pm
Twitter Statistics
- Tweets 447
- Following 1,173
- Followers 3,990
- Likes 109
- Last Tweet September 2015
Google+ Statistics
- Google+ followers 13
- Last post June 2015
So What does all that mean?
If I ran my ad for 2 days on their site as the email suggested, I would have:
1,250 potential people may view my book ad on the web site for less than 60 seconds, depending if it is on the home page and above the fold (visible without scrolling) before they leave the website.
152 people may view the ad on Facebook (based on 8.24% average post reach x T # of likes “views” / 30 days * 2 days) and less than 4 people may share my book on Facebook (based on .21% engagement rate x Total # of likes / 30 days * 2 days).
Bottom Line
I wouldn’t pay them a penny. First of all, their website isn’t secure to receive payments or protect information entered in the registration forms. The numbers I discovered is considerably far less than the 25,000 they were touting. No wonder they don’t have an official advertising page with their web statistics posted like legitimate websites.
If you like to learn more about Web Analytics visit this website:
How you can look up a website advertising stats:
Free Services
Paid Services
- Alexa Ranking http://www.alexa.com
- Compete.com http://www.compete.com/
- SimilarWeb.com http://www.similarweb.com/
- FeedCompare.com http://www.feedcompare.com/
- SEMRush.com SEMRush.com
How to Check Blog Stats
Blog Post Comments
Another way to gauge the popularity of a blog is to look at how many comments it gets per post.
With my sites, I’ve found that an average of 1 out of every 200 readers leaves a comment. So a post with 20 non-Nicholas comments was viewed about 4,000 times. This changes with every post and every blog, but again, it gives you a general idea.
Total Comment Counts
Immediately after you comment on a WordPress blog, your browser redirects you to where your comment will show up. If you look at the URL, you’ll see something that looks like this:
http://www.website.com/blog#comment-108656
The second half of the URL tells you that you left the 108,656th comment on website.com. This number includes spam comments. Assume that 75-90% of the comments are spam and you can get an idea of how many comments a site has had since day one.
About The Author
C. Zablockis is an Indie author of paranormal, dark fantasy and horror novels. She published Lexi Greene’s Dangerous Lesson, Lexi Greene’s Grim Awakening, Monster (The Zeuorian Series) and My Watcher (The Zeuorian Series) YA Dark Fantasy Thriller.
#FreeReads Zeuorian Awakening
Get for a limited time (April 13th – 15th) The Zeuorian Awakening for FREE on Amazon Kindle. Click here to download now.
Use Samsung GS7 to design a #Bookcover
I was playing around with my new Samsung Galaxy S7 camera and took some pictures of my roses.
With a little Photoshop magic, I created this book cover with the photo I took.
About The Author
C. Zablockis is an Indie author of paranormal, dark fantasy and horror novels. She published Lexi Greene’s Dangerous Lesson, Lexi Greene’s Grim Awakening, Monster (The Zeuorian Series) and My Watcher (The Zeuorian Series) YA Dark Fantasy Thriller.
My Watcher: The Zeuorian On Sale #Fantasy #Ebook
My Watcher: The Zeuorian is now on sale.
Book Overview
For the past two years Lexi avoided everyone at her high school so no one would discover she could read minds and sense danger. She didn’t want another psycho trying to kill her, because they got it in their head she was a monster.
But all that changed on her 17th birthday when she transformed into a total hottie and started developing powers beyond her control.
If that isn’t bad enough, a stranger is following her. She doesn’t know who he is or what he wants, yet he knows all about her abilities and that she’s developing more. And . . . he’s her only hope of understanding why she’s changing and others are after her.
One problem, he could be anyone at her school. With her new appearance, it’ll be a miracle to weed him out amongst her admirers. Still sometimes the truth is worth risking everything to uncover–even your life.
“My Watcher (extended version of Awakening) is a suspenseful, thrilling, fast pace, dark fantasy (paranormal), coming of age, mystery that will take you on a ride. When you think you know who is her Watcher, the author throws you a curve ball. For you romance fanatics, there is a little bit of that in the story too.”
You can purchase it at:
Mind Readers Book Review
Cameron Winters is a freak. Fortunately, no one but her family knows the truth… that Cameron can read minds. For years Cameron has hidden behind a facade of normalcy, warned that there are those who would do her harm. When gorgeous and mysterious Lewis Douglas arrives he destroys everything Cameron has ever believed and tempts her with possibilities of freedom. Determined to embrace her hidden talents, Cameron heads to a secret haven with Lewis; a place where she meets others like her, Mind Readers.
But as Cameron soon finds out some things are too good to be true. When the Mind Readers realize the extent of Cameron’s abilities, they want to use her powers for their own needs. Cameron suddenly finds herself involved in a war in which her idea of what is right and wrong is greatly tested. In the end she’ll be forced to make a choice that will not only threaten her relationship with Lewis, but her very life.
Review
Similar to my book My Watcher (The Zeuorian Series) Cameron is gifted with the power of telepathy and people are after her, except she isn’t an alien, but a special human. So you can tell why I read the book: a little research and I like these kind of stories.
The story kept you interested from the very start after the coffee shop blows up. I like how she is struggling with trying to stay hidden and using her power to help others.
However I thought it was a little abrupt and unrealistic Cameron abandon her grandmother and to live with a group of other mind readers. But I understand why she chose that path, because her desire to do good won out.
Overall I liked the story and rate it 4 out of 5 stars.
About The Author
C. Zablockis is an Indie author of paranormal, dark fantasy and horror novels. She published Lexi Greene’s Dangerous Lesson, Lexi Greene’s Grim Awakening, Monster (The Zeuorian Series) and My Watcher (The Zeuorian Series) YA Dark Fantasy Thriller.
Difference between My Watcher and Awakening
If you have been following the Zeuorian Series, you probably noticed I just released two free short stories and My Watcher while Awakening has been pulled from the online book stores.
As part of the up coming launch of the next book Control this fall, I’m offering prequel free short stories and an extended version of Awakening (book 1) to re-spark interest in the series, because it has been a while since the first book has been launched. (Sorry life got in the way. The past year I’ve been sick and so has my 3 year-old son. I swear getting old sucks.)
The Short Stories
Lexi Greene’s Dangerous Lesson and Grim Awakening are the two combined stories in Monster broken out into their own books. (Actually Dangerous Lesson had been published prior to Monster and pulled from the stores for a limited time.)
In addition to those two free stories there will be several other free prequel short stories being posted in the next month. The stories will lead up to book 1 with short scenes from other characters (i.e. Tyler, Everett and others) in the book. However, none of the scenes will spill as to who is her real Watcher, which was still up in the air at the end of book 1 (intentionally).
Upcoming Short Stories Teaser:
Its seems danger is everywhere Lexi discovered after being forced to attend high school, but is it random or because they believe she is a monster for having telepathy.
Awakening Extended Version (My Watcher)
If you read book 1, you are probably wondering what has changed in the book and do I need to buy it?
Well if you don’t have the time or money to pay 2.99, you can skip buying this book and won’t be lost reading Control. For one I plan on briefly explaining story facts in the next book to bring new readers up to speed, if by chance they buy it before My Watcher. (And yes it happens.) However several new scenes have been added to the book and facts that will be referenced throughout the series that might be worth reading. But if you’re not sure, here is a brief list of what had been added to the story:
- Scenes to explain further Zeuorian history and Lexi’s powers.
- Scenes to deepen the love story
- Scenes to deepen secondary characters and give them more backstory as well as make them sound unique and not cliche or flat.
- Scenes to deepen Angie’s love interest.
- Final scene with Tyler and his father to introduce his character for Book Hunted and explain in detail Tyler’s actions in book Control.
If you decide to buy the next book great. It will be released on April 8th. You can preorder here:
Amazon
Nook
ITunes
Kobo
Smashwords
Update 4/5/16
Awakening will be exclusively available on Amazon Kindle for those of you who want to read the shorter version.
About The Author
C. Zablockis is an Indie author of paranormal, dark fantasy and horror novels. She published Lexi Greene’s Dangerous Lesson, Lexi Greene’s Grim Awakening, Monster (The Zeuorian Series) and My Watcher (The Zeuorian Series) YA Dark Fantasy Thriller.
My Watcher Free in lieu of Review
Update 4/23/18
I’m no longer giving away My Watcher. Keep posted for other free stories on my blog.
I’m looking for book reviewers for My Watcher. I will supply you a copy of the book for free for an honest review on Goodreads, Amazon and other sites. (Blogs okay too.)
If you’re interested please post me a comment. We’ll make arrangements from there.
Book Overview
For the past two years Lexi avoided everyone at her high school so no one would discover she could read minds and sense danger. She didn’t want another psycho trying to kill her, because they got it in their head she was a monster.
But all that changed on her 17th birthday when she transformed into a total hottie and started developing powers beyond her control.
If that isn’t bad enough, a stranger is following her. She doesn’t know who he is or what he wants, yet he knows all about her abilities and that she’s developing more. And . . . he’s her only hope of understanding why she’s changing and others are after her.
One problem, he could be anyone at her school. With her new appearance, it’ll be a miracle to weed him out amongst her admirers. But sometimes the truth is worth risking everything to uncover–even your life.
“My Watcher (extended version of Awakening) is a suspenseful, thrilling, fast pace, dark fantasy (paranormal) mystery that will take you on a ride. When you think you know who is her Watcher, the author throws you a curve ball. For you romance fanatics, there is a little bit of that in the story too. Please note, this isn’t a slow pace, Twilight-style romance.”
About The Author
C. Zablockis is an Indie author of paranormal, dark fantasy and horror novels. She published Lexi Greene’s Dangerous Lesson, Lexi Greene’s Grim Awakening, Monster (The Zeuorian Series) and My Watcher (The Zeuorian Series) YA Dark Fantasy Thriller.
Free Zeuorian Short
As part of the pre-launch of Control the second book in the Zeuorian Series, I’ll be offering Lexi Greene’s Dangerous Lesson and Lexi Greene’s Grim Awakening short stories free.
Dangerous Lesson available at:
Kobo
Itunes
Nook
Smashwords
Grim Awakening available at:
Kobo
Nook
iTunes
Smashwords
Both books are posted on Amazon for .99. But if you want it free, send them a message telling them the price is free on other sites and you want them to match the price.
About The Author
C. Zablockis is an Indie author of paranormal, dark fantasy and horror novels. She published Lexi Greene’s Dangerous Lesson, Lexi Greene’s Grim Awakening, Monster (The Zeuorian Series) and My Watcher (The Zeuorian Series) YA Dark Fantasy Thriller.
C. Zablockis 