Category Archives: Books and Readers

Winter Sale for Waterspell Audiobooks

Through 5 January 2025, every book in the Waterspell fantasy series is on sale. The audiobooks are on sale, too! $14.95 for the four-book boxed set; $11.95 for The Karenina Chronicles. That’s $10 off the list price for each.

Available a la carte (without a subscription) at Chirp, Apple Audio, Spotify, and Nook Audiobooks. If you have an Audible membership, each book is 1 credit.

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Oppose Piracy & Get Free Books Legally

“Online piracy is a major factor contributing to the decline of authors’ income. Each year, the publishing industry loses hundreds of millions of dollars in lost sales to piracy—and with each lost sale, authors lose royalty income. There is a clear correlation between the decline in income from writing and the exponential growth of online pirate channels dedicated to distributing and selling illegal ebook copies.” —The Authors Guild 

You CAN Get Free Books — Legally and Honestly

Authors often give away books to reach new readers and build their audiences. For example, the first book in my Waterspell fantasy series, The Warlock, is free at a whole host of retailers. Anyone can get it from their preferred store absolutely free: see the list of retailers at books2read.com.

Rather than downloading bootlegged ebooks from pirate sites, please sign up for one or more of the following legitimate book-lovers’ newsletters/emails. Subscribe for free, and enjoy a never-ending supply of free books:

Happy reading!

If you find a book you particularly like at any of these sites, please consider purchasing an additional book from that author. Writers can’t keep writing if we have no income. Please support us with your book purchases. Thank you.

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Filed under BookBub, Books and Readers, Discoverability

Waterspell’s Winter Sale! 2024

My Black Friday sale was encouragingly successful, so I’m repeating it. Through 5 January 2025, every book in the Waterspell fantasy series is on sale. Book 1: The Warlock is free, and the five subsequent ebooks are $1.99 each, which means you get the entire six-book series for only $9.95.

But wait! There’s more! Save $1 if you purchase the boxed set for $4.99 and add the two linked sequels for $1.99 each.

Available for all ebook devices: Kindle, Kobo, Nook, Apple, Google Play, etc.

Universal Book Links:

“A must-read for fantasy enthusiasts who enjoy immersive world-building, well-developed characters, and a storyline that seamlessly blends magic and human emotion.” NetGalley

“In this saga, the author has created an epic fantasy world full of magic, danger, romance, and travel through time and space. The characters are vivid and complex, including a young woman on a hero’s quest, and a powerful warlock who isn’t sure whether to kill her or embrace her. This is a most enjoyable read for fans of fantasy and fine writing.” NetGalley

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A Waterspell Black Friday Sale! 2024

My first-ever Black Friday Sale! Now through December 4, 2024.

Get the four-book Waterspell bundle plus the two linked sequels for only $8.97. That’s a savings of $7 off the regular list price of the ebook editions.

Quick Links to Retailers

“A must-read for fantasy enthusiasts who enjoy immersive world-building, well-developed characters, and a storyline that seamlessly blends magic and human emotion.” NetGalley

“In this saga, the author has created an epic fantasy world full of magic, danger, romance, and travel through time and space. The characters are vivid and complex, including a young woman on a hero’s quest, and a powerful warlock who isn’t sure whether to kill her or embrace her. This is a most enjoyable read for fans of fantasy and fine writing.” NetGalley

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Release Day! The Fires of Farsinchia

The Fires of Farsinchia: A Waterspell Novel by Deborah J. Lightfoot

It’s finished! 🎉 With the November 2024 release of The Fires of Farsinchia, the Waterspell series is complete. 

Fires (published 19 November 2024) picks up where The Karenina Chronicles left off. Nina doesn’t get to spend much time in her island world. She’s barely landed on those tropical shores before she’s called back to fight new fires in her native realm. Because let’s face it: For a storyteller, Ladrehdin is a more interesting place. Particularly down in the South Country, where magic is returning, but only in fits and starts, and with unpredictable results.

I’m grateful to every reader who has followed the Waterspell story since the first book came out in 2011. I’ve obsessed over these characters since about 1996. They’re completely real to me, they’re alive, and so is their world. I’ve loved tagging along on their adventures, but the time has come to let them go on about their lives without me looking over their shoulders.

What’s next? An old manuscript has been sitting in my files for about 20 years. Long dormant, it’s finally stirring, calling to me to pull it out of the dark drawer and let sunlight fall upon it. What I read in its pages may make me cringe. I’m a better writer now than I was 20 years ago. But then again, those mostly forgotten pages might hold pleasant surprises. Time will tell.

If you’ve got time for a six-book, 680,000-word fantasy series that reviewers say is “nearly impossible to put down” (bless you, Dear Readers 💙), then by all means, begin at the beginning with Waterspell Book 1: The Warlock. But if you’re not looking for a commitment of that size, might I recommend that you start with The Karenina Chronicles? It’s a linked sequel, but it IS a standalone. It’s fully accessible to readers who have no knowledge of the previous four books. 

And when you’ve finished The Karenina Chronicles, you’ll be ready for The Fires of Farsinchia, the book that answers burning questions, including: Will Nina find love again after the death of her Earthly husband? Will she figure out where she belongs? Or is she doomed to remain a restless wanderer who finds no peace on either side of the Void?

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Karenina at Kobo and Audible

Such a busy week! And a busy month of August, from Day 1. The Karenina Chronicles (the newest book in the Waterspell series) is featured at Kobo all month in the category of “Science Fiction & Fantasy Under $5.99.”

Plus, The Karenina Chronicles audiobook is now available at Audible as well as all other major retailers.

🎉 I’m breathless with the speed of events. 🥳 If you’re looking for a good read for your August vacation, please check out The Karenina Chronicles: A Waterspell Novel in any format you like: print, ebook, or audiobook. Discover why readers call it “exceptionally vividly realized” and “engaging from page one.”

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The Karenina Chronicles Audiobook Is Live!

🎉 Already! It’s live!

The brand-new audiobook of The Karenina Chronicles is now available at several retailers including Chirp, Kobo, Apple, and Nook; and at Spotify it’s a STEAL for only $11.49! 🤩 Audiobook retailers set their own prices, and this must be a new-release special price that won’t last long.

Please help me introduce Hannah Eggleton to audiobook listeners who will love to hear her work. This is Hannah’s VERY FIRST audiobook narration, and she has done a beautiful job. Wherever you get audiobooks, you can find it at Books2Read. Thank you for your support! 💙

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Snipped Scenes: The Fires of Farsinchia Outtakes

As I work back through my old notes for my novel-in-progress—notes scribbled on scraps of paper, some dating back a year—I find bits that I’m not sure can be incorporated sensibly into the Fires manuscript, but I’m reluctant to trash these bits. Therefore, I’m saving them here, just in case I’m inspired to use them in my final editing passes. “Kill your darlings,” they say. Eliminate any part of your writing—scenes, sentences, descriptions—that you love, but which don’t serve your story. I’m not ready to decapitate the following, so they’ll stay here for now, awaiting their fate.

On the Void’s Time-Warping

On Nina’s Permanent Departure from the Island World

Where Is Nina’s Sword?

Nina’s rapier figured prominently in The Karenina Chronicles (Waterspell Book 5). But in The Fires of Farsinchia (Book 6), it’s nowhere to be seen. That’s because, at the end of KC, Nina had left it at home in Ruain. Thus, she doesn’t have it with her when she makes the leap back through the void to the Ore Hills, at the beginning of Fires.

On Wolfram as Courier

A novel is like an iceberg. Much of the story is out of the reader's sight, known to the author but hidden in the depths.
A novel is like an iceberg. Much of the story is out of the reader’s sight, known to the author but hidden in the depths.

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What’s New in the Waterspell Universe

I haven’t blogged in months because I’ve been traveling the world. The world of Waterspell, that is. The place keeps me busy. Here’s some of what’s happening:

The Karenina Chronicles: A Waterspell Novel by Deborah J. Lightfoot. Audiobook narrated by Hannah Eggleton.

The Karenina Chronicles
A Waterspell Novel
by
Deborah J. Lightfoot

Audiobook narrated by
Hannah Eggleton

Fall 2024

The Karenina Chronicles audiobook is nearly finished! Narrator Hannah Eggleton has done a beautiful job. Hannah has captured Nina’s voice, attitudes, and personality so perfectly that I must keep reminding myself that Hannah is Hannah, not Nina. 😁 We’re aiming for a Fall 2024 release. The audiobook will be available everywhere: Audible, Chirp, Hoopla, Barnes & Noble, Spotify, etc.

Here’s a 2-minute sample to whet your appetite. I love the strong self-confidence of Hannah’s voice.

The Sequel: Fires of Farsinchia

Yes, there’s a sequel in the works. The Karenina Chronicles is itself a stand-alone sequel to the original Waterspell quartet. To follow Nina’s story, you don’t need to have read the first four books. KC takes the saga into a new generation with new characters and conflicts.

But just as Nina demanded that I tell her full story in a chronicle of her very own, several characters from KC have also clamored for more time on the page. The result is turning into yet another Waterspell novel, to be called The Fires of Farsinchia. I’ve been handing out business cards with Fires listed alongside KC, which is putting the cart before the horse since Fires is still months away from publication. It won’t be listed yet by any bookseller.

To give googlers a search result, however, in case any recipient of my card googles the title, here’s the blurb, along with a sneak peek at the cover:

Waterspell: The Nina Sequels by Deborah J. Lightfoot. "The Karenina Chronicles" and "The Fires of Farsinchia."

You map lovers out there will be happy to know that Fires includes a map, this one drawn professionally by Tiffany Munro, cartographer for Feed the Multiverse Studio. This lovely and detailed map will be a great help to readers in following the new story through a complex landscape. I’m thrilled with it! 💙

Map of the Ore Hills and vicinity, detail by Tiffany Munro, cartographer, from The Fires of Farsinchia: A Waterspell Novel by Deborah J. Lightfoot (c) 2024. All Rights Reserved.

Will There Be a Waterspell Book 7?

Possibly. I’m making notes for a book that could take the saga into the third generation. Two young adepts from The Fires of Farsinchia got married, and I’m sure their children will be unusually magically gifted. I may have to tag along on their further adventures, for I’m sure they’ll have many.

I need a break from this world, however. Since 2020, I’ve lived in the Waterspell universe. It has dominated my life. Which isn’t a bad thing at all, except I’m at the stage of life where I really should devote time to clearing out the clutter. My writing room is bursting with old projects, old notes, and files that need to be tossed. My late husband left a garage full of tools and bolts and fasteners of all kinds. It needs going through and boxing up for donation to Habitat for Humanity. Maybe I’ll take a year to declutter before tackling the story of the third generation in this fantasy family saga. Stay tuned!

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Filed under Audiobooks, Books and Readers, Magic, On Writing

Book Promo Sites: Ranked and Updated

Here’s my annual analysis of my marketing efforts. This is pretty much all that I do in the way of marketing: I run a promo every month in a different email/newsletter.

The bar graph is screenshot from my Amazon KDP reports. Each blue bar is the total number of books that were ordered that month. Since I have a five-book series, the full-series promo at Written Word Media always brings in the most orders. People tend to buy every book in the Waterspell series. I love my readers. 💙

In 2023, I branched out a little from my regulars (Book Barbarian, Fussy Librarian, Written Word Media). I added Hello Books to the rotation, and will continue to use them. EReader News Today was also new on my list in 2023, and it did well. GoodKindles, however, was a complete bust. They’re off my list forever. With BookRaid, I have seen diminishing returns over the two or three years that I’ve been advertising there. Not sure they’re worth the money any more.

A full-series promo at Written Word Media continues to deliver the best results. It’s pricey at $170, but cost-effective for promoting the five books in the Waterspell series all at one time. Written Word Media offers several promo options. I tried their “Readers’ List” promo for the first time in August 2023, with disappointing results. Even combined with a concurrent Book Barbarian promo, the $125 “Readers’ List” email blast failed to produce the number of book orders that the $170 full-series promo brought me.

To summarize, this is how I’ll rank the effectiveness of these sites, in terms of the book orders they brought me at Amazon and how much I paid for each promo:

  1. Written Word Media full-series (Fantasy/Paranormal Series Promotion)
  2. EReader News Today
  3. Hello Books
  4. Book Barbarian
  5. Fussy Librarian
  6. Written Word Media “Readers’ List”
  7. BookRaid
  8. GoodKindles (a failure, so I’m not linking to it)

To see how my choices and experiences have evolved over time, you can look at my earlier posts on this subject — 2022’s Book Promotion Sites: Ranked, and back to 2021 when I was Focusing the Plan.

Since I hate marketing and I’m really bad at it, running promos this way is the easiest and the most effective approach I have found. Most of these promos cost $45 to $65. I budget to run one promo a month (rotating among these sites, and sometimes doubling up with less-expensive ads at BookDoggy and ManyBooks). Occasionally I splurge on a $170 Written Word Media full-series promo. I was an election clerk in November 2023 and got paid $188 for the day’s work. That will buy a promo. 😁

What promo sites do you recommend? What have your experiences been with pay-per-click ads at Amazon, BookBub, and Facebook? I tried those, but I found them to be way overpriced and ineffective for my books.

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