The Sign of the Rose

As I've noted before, we indie fantasy authors have to work to promote our ebooks.  And I tried something new with my latest, "The Sign of the Rose."  Here's the link on Amazon.

I enrolled it for a campaign in "Kindle Scout."  They eventually did not select my book, but it was an interesting experience.  For a successful "KS" book, Amazon themselves publish and promote and advertise it, which would be great.  There are so many good books on Amazon (and bad ones), that it's easy to get lost.

Amazon is essentially crowd-sourcing the decision of which indie books to publish.  Authors (like me) are invited to put their books up on the Kindle Scout site, where the first two chapters are available to give readers a preview.  Amazon restricts entries to full-length books and to certain fictional genres only (mystery, romance, science fiction/fantasy, and general literature).  Readers can preview the books for free and vote for their favorites by "nominating" them.  They can nominate up to 3 (and can change their minds if they find a better one).

At the end of 30 days, Amazon looks at the ones that have been the most popular and chooses from those which ones it will publish.  To reward nominators, those who have a "winning" book among their nominations at the end of the 30 day period will get the entire book, free, a full month before anyone else.

Kindle Scout is, as the name suggests, designed for ebooks to be read on a Kindle.  But since my novel was not picked up by KS, I've also made it available as a print book, for those (like me) who prefer a physical book to reading on a screen.

Hope you enjoy the book!  It's as close as I've ever come to writing real historical fiction set in the Middle Ages.  There's no magic in it, and it's definitely inspired by medieval history.  In fact, the inspiration for the book is a story written in Old French around the year 1200, "Guillaume de Dole."  I loved the strong heroine and the plot twists and thought modern readers would enjoy the story too.  (I did recast it.  Medieval authors routinely did things like have the hero and heroine fall passionately in love just by hearing about each other, without ever meeting.  Or authors would forget to include an important plot point and just mention much later that it had happened.)

What we call "romance" was invented in the twelfth century, as was so much else.  This book is a romance in the medieval sense--adventure, glory, and love all mixed together.  But I think it also passes muster for the modern definition of romance, although no bodices are ripped.

For those of my fans who want Yurt-or-nothing (and I know you're out there), never fear, more Yurt is coming.  But that pesky day job slows my writing way down (so inconsiderate), and this story just showed up in my brain late in the winter and demanded to be told.

© C. Dale Brittain 2016