This is just a quick post to thank everyone that has downloaded ‘All Hallows’ Eve‘ from Smashwords.com. I am absolutely delighted to announce that we have passed 100 downloads, and in my opinion that calls for a small celebration.
As a thank you to all you lovely people who have downloaded my short story I want to keep my twitter based promise and announce a giveaway. For the remainder of this weekend I shall be giving my other work away for the grand total of fuck all via smashwords.com. It’s pretty simple if you have already downloaded ‘All Hallows’ Eve‘ for nothing. Log into Smashwords, add ‘Existence Is Futile‘ and ‘The Story of Albert Ross‘ to your basket. When you get to the checkout enter the following coupon codes:
In return I ask one thing and one thing only. If you enjoy any of the things which I have written please leave a review on their respective pages on Goodreads.com, after all it’s your reviews that might persuade people to take a risk on me.
Recently I received a challenge from a Danish music blogger named Poul (yes, it is really spelled with an O) to come up with a playlist for ‘Existence Is Futile’. Never one to shirk a challenge unless it involves t-bagging, I bravely accepted. At first I thought that it would be easy. After all, I had all the pictures inside my head, all I had to do was to find the music to go with it. However it wasn’t. My inner perfectionist come to the surface, and I have spent a considerable length of time over the last five days humming and hawing over which songs best fit the story which once resided inside my head. Thankfully today I found the elusive twelfth song and have completed the soundtrack to my debut novel. It may not be everybody’s cup of tea, mainly because the cup would have to be bloody enormous, I can proudly say ‘Existence Is Futile’ has a soundtrack.
To check out which songs I selected and my reasoning for doing so click here to visit Poul Om Musik.
I also want to take this opportunity to remind you that you can also see some pictures of some of the places mentioned in ‘Existence Is Futile’ by going to my pinterest page by clicking here.
The last item on the agenda is a big thank you. I want to thank all of you that have downloaded my latest short story ‘All Hallows’ Eve’. The only thing which would make you all even more awesome is if a few more of you lovely lovely people would leave a review on Goodreads and Smashwords. The story is free, it will always be free and it’s on Smashwords. If you haven’t downloaded it yet what the bloody hell are you waiting for? Get it here.
Finally I am both relieved and excited to announce that ‘All Hallows’ Eve’ is now available directly from Smashwords. Just in case you have forgotten what it is all about, check out this short description:
Halloween. The one day a year people wear ridiculous outfits, and drink for reasons they don’t understand. Unless they are British. Then they do that every day.
In a trendy London bar, three friends meet up at a fancy-dress party, in appropriately silly clothes for such an occasion. Each of them content to hide their true selves behind their costumes. The trouble is there are some things you can’t hide from. Like fate.
The good news is that Smashwords now offers the story in a wide variety of formats including Epub and mobi, for those of you that have an e-book reader and a PDF for those of you that don’t. The less good news is that if you don’t have a Smashwords account, you will have to sign up for one. However don’t panic, it only takes a minute and is incredibly straightforward.
P.S. Don’t forget to leave a review on Smashwords and Goodreads once you have read it. And share it with every human being you ever come in contact with!
When my mother suggested that I try to write a costume drama, I don’t think she meant a short story about three men in fancy-dress at a Halloween party. Therefore I suspect she may not enjoy my new short story, entitled ‘All Hallows’ Eve’.
Recently I realised that I haven’t written anything new in bloody ages, so I decided to commemorate a year since ‘Existence Is Futile’ hit people’s bookshelves by writing a short story to publish and give away for free. The trouble is, giving away things for free is not that easy anymore. The likes of Amazon, and Apple do not allow independent writers to publish their work for free. In fact it massively limits your ability to reach readers. When I first wrote ‘The Story of Albert Ross’ I had hoped to do the same. In the end I decided to put it our for the absolute minimum to enable the story to get the widest possible availability. This time, I really want to do this as a thank you to all of you wonderful people out there that have volunteered your own time to read something with my name on. It means a lot, but mostly it means that you are awesome.
To celebrate the forthcoming release of ‘All Hallows’ Eve’ I would like to… drumroll please… present the cover which will be appearing all over the internets very soon
I don’t have a release date yet, so you will have to keep checking back here. I hope to have a final version uploaded to smashwords.com by the end of the week. It will be free, although you will need to sign up for an account, if you haven’t already. And for those of you that haven’t yet picked up ‘Existence Is Futile’, I have some good news. I have added the first few chapters to the end of this short story as a sample, in the hope that I can yet persuade you to invest in a book featuring ninjas and absolutely no jokes about toilets.
When I turned thirty-two years old I believed that life had passed me by. That most of my dreams were destined to remain unfulfilled, and that I had to somehow find a way to carry on regardless. One of those dreams was a dream shared by millions of people who sing, dance and scream on this glorious ball of mud and molten lava which we call home. And that dream is called rock and roll.
The biggest obstacle in the way of my dream was the fact that when I sing I sound like a hippopotamus giving birth on the banks of the Zambezi river, when I play the few chords on the guitar which I know the neighbourhood dogs start jumping from their balconies and when I break dance I, well, erm, break stuff. The only thing which ever gave me any hope was my love for words.
A few months ago I had an invitation to meet a singer who had just started recording a rock album with his band here in Poland. All I knew was that he was looking for help to make an English album. I was curious, but also apprehensive as I really didn’t have any idea what I was letting myself in for. However the fire, the dream, the sheer minute possibility that it could happen was enough motivation to kick me up the arse and get me to meet him. We ate, drank, talked, drank, talked and listened to his album. Within thirty seconds of listening to the first song I had a big smile on my face. After the third track I recall whispering to my fiancée one simple word, ‘fuck yes!’
The band go by the name of ‘Frog’n’Dog’, which incidentally is the apt nicknames of the singer and the guitarist. They are currently putting the finishing touches to their debut Polish album. As far as the plan goes, in the summer they will record the English album, which they will release this coming autumn. In the meantime they are starting to play gigs here in Poland before they set out to conquer Europe.
This is the beginning of a journey which I am absolutely delighted to be joining them on. Never in my dreams did I ever expect that I would ever work with such a group of fantastic musicians on a project with amazing potential. 2013 in the chinese calendar is the year of ‘Frog’n’Dog’. Don’t just take my word for it, check them out.
Scott Andrews 