Babies, Lusaka and eBooks.

We've been very quiet of late. So quiet, in fact, that you'd think we've been off giving birth and moving countries.

But that's exactly what we've been doing! Louise gave birth to a lovely baby boy, Nicholas, and Leani moved to Lusaka, Zambia. However, this doesn't mean we haven't been working hard on the next installments of Idea War, The Folds and ... is that a Ripmender sequel I see emerging? 

We've also been approached by some amazing writers with big plans for their books and careers seeking tips and advice, sometimes hugs. Leani met with a true inspiration: Makhiba Mollo - a business woman with a helluva story to tell. In fact, watch this space. This lady is going places. We've also seen our share of the good, the bad and the ugly in terms of manuscript submissions.

Remember: if you're sending your manuscript to publishers, make sure you've had it read by people who owe you nothing and can offer constructive criticism. Join a writer's circle, submit short stories to magazines (there are some great local publications) and foster those connections. This way you can get valuable advice on your writing. You may only have one shot for your work to be seen by a publisher, make sure it's perfect.

Our Young Adult books: Idea War: Volume 1, The Ripmender and children's book The Guardian's Wyrd are now also available on Obami, the award-winning, social learning management system. Tell your teacher-friends. And it's for free!

Future bookworm in the making.

Leani's inner grammar-Nazi is going to have to be purged.

Stay tuned fellow readers and writers, there's some exciting news around the corner!


Leani & Louise

Books for the price of a cup of coffee

Publishers have been vocal recently about the fact that you can now buy a book for the same price as a cup of coffee. Isn't that sad, they lament? How will it last? Well, of course we'd also like to make big profits and pay rent and eat something other than 2 Minute Noodles. But for now, we need to get more people with those eyeballs of theirs onto our books so that their minds can also be blown by how incredible (and sometimes a little scary) our authors' minds are.

To do list:
#1: blow people's minds
#2: make money when Hollywood comes a-knocking
#3: eat something other than 2 Minute Noodles

So therefore, the point, dearies, of this rant: Look at what you get for a measly R20 these days. It's not much. OR you can spend R20 on a book which will blow your mind, broaden your horizons and leave you looking down at your old school friends who clearly are not as impressive as you are.

Below shows: you can buy a Woolies smoothie, a cup of coffee (not even a double shot anymore), a song on iTunes, a cheapass app or ten diapers. OR you can do better.

This price is only available on the awesome Kobo: http://store.kobobooks.com/en-US/ebook/the-folds 

We were generous and thought we'd even look at what R40 can give you. It includes a Woolies meal, better apps, or a movie on box office movie and some homemade popcorn (no easy popping for you). OR the brain explosion thing.

This price is only available on the awesome Kobo: http://store.kobobooks.com/en-US/ebook/idea-war

Be good, but if you can't, you may as well enjoy.

Leani

3 Horror Reads for Halloween

In the spirit of Halloween and the SA Horrorfest Bloody Parchment event tonight, we've asked horror writer Mico Pisanti to give us three great books that are guaranteed to get your creeps on. Also, you can  click on the images to get your horror fix sent straight to your ereader/door.


This is Mico, and here are his reads:

The Road by Cormack McCarthy

The Road is so stark, so dark and so minimalistic that the reader can hear the empty footsteps of the unnamed father and son who walk through an apocalyptic world of an unspecified cataclysm. This slim novel has so much weight, that you can literally hear it clunk when you put it down. And yet you as the reader cannot look away, cannot stop following these two bleak characters as they walk along the other constant in this book, the road....it is beautiful and terrible...and scary. A masterpiece.

Birdman by Mo Hayder



Birdman introduces the world to Detective Jack Caffrey and his drive to find a killer who sows live birds into the chests of young women's corpses. This is more than a crime novel, Mo Hayder has the power of true horror on her side. She knows how to get under one's skin and not only to raise gooseflesh, but to raise hell in the dark recess of the mind. She is a true horror writer thinly disguised as a crime writer.





Full Dark, No Stars by Stephen King


Stephen King returns the favour to crime fiction by writing about a long marriage between a husband and a wife, Bob and Darcy Anderson. In it he explores the way people can be married to one another and never truly know each other. One night while Bob is away on business, Darcy rummages through Bob's belongings for batteries, and she stumbles across a pornographic magazine of sadomasochism. It is the first step to Darcy discovering she has been married to a serial killer for nearly thirty years. This is a truly frightening story, as it shows that there are rabbit holes  in life which we all can fall down into, and this changes everything we thought to be real and solid. Creeping dread at its best.



Mico Pisanti's work has appeared in Something Wicked and Bloody Parchment and his sci-fi/horror series The Folds: Miss Universe is out now on Amazon.
Check out the Bloody Parchment event tonight - featuring big-name local writers offering their strange tales on the night.