When someone we love passes away we are left wondering if they are safe and happy, it is a normal reaction in all of us. Questions rage on, are they in a safe place, do they have the company of others who will take care of them, can they still see us and will they remember us? The answer is yes to all. They are more alive than ever, restored to full health and are able to pursue any hobbies or passions that they desire. Of course they come back, usually more frequently at first to try to reassure us they are not lost, then less as our time goes by and our grief lessens. So where do they go exactly?
That all depends on their progression in this life. For someone who lead a simple life and didn't care much about the bigger picture their place in the afterlife will be pretty much the same as here, similar surroundings, familiar feelings, until they are ready to progress this is where they will stay, seemingly content in their creation of a spiritual existence. Others who worked on their development when alive will progress higher and will be, just as the simple spirit, amongst like-minded spirits. We all graduate to where we belong so all is in balance and harmony, unlike here where we are all mixed up together. Children always go to a higher level as they are devoid of life's ravages that plague and hold us back.
The spirit world is not so different to here, there are houses and cities and mountains and rivers and millions of inhabitants, but there are some things that are not the same. We are lighter and free to travel anywhere we please, telepathy is used more than speaking as we get used to our new surroundings. We connect to people we love, but if there is someone who we don't wish to see then we don't. We pass into the light very quickly, but our adjustment can take longer depending on our acceptance of our being there. All material desires are gone, no need for work or money and we can pursue any hobbies or passions we desire, sometimes being able to do things we couldn't do in life. In all rest assured your loved ones are happy.
Friday, August 31, 2012
Thursday, August 30, 2012
JR Rain and Scott Nicholson's Ghost File series
Do I like things that go bump in the night? Well, like is the wrong word. As a psychic medium I've become accustomed to the other side making an appearance on a regular basis-ghostly doesn't scare me.
As an author I have loved writing about the afterlife in fiction and when author JR Rain asked me to put a story together for his Ghost File series I jumped at the chance. Who wouldn't?
Not only is he a Best Selling Author he also happens to be a super nice guy and my abilities as a psychic seemed to be a plus point in his view.
So I sat down and created Ghost Hall, the next novella to enter into the world of Monty and Ellen Drew who are fictional paranormal investigators. He's the sceptic who's always trying to come around and she's the psychic-together they work on guiding wandering ghosts into the light. It's a unique series that's become a real succes and is set to continue. JR and Scott penned the first novella Ghost College then gave the reigns over to Evelyn Klebert for Ghost Solider and Eve Paludan for Ghost Fire. Now it was my turn to take the reigns and bring forward my take on the adventures of paranormal investigators/husband and wife team Monty and Ellen.
I pondered long and hard for the story-line and figured that being British and living in Belgium gave me an edge. I could set the story in either countries promoting Monty and Ellen to to the status of international paranormal investigators. I went with Belgium seeing as the country is littered with haunted hot spots-literally.
It didn't take long to find my abandoned city hall standing tall and neglected and dating back to the 15th century. It had unceremoniously burned down twice and been rebuilt. The last time was in the 17th century and it's still standing- as of now. I was fortunate to be able to get a peek inside and it was everything a writer could have dreamed of for a paranormal adventure. It was then that Ghost Hall was born.
I don't want to give away too much but needless to say I didn't have much trouble blending modern day investigations with historical facts concerning World War 2. It was a unique experience to be able to write a book using the inspiring time I had spent in the actual location. Friends asked me if I felt it was haunted when I was there. I have to confess there was a strange energy in certain places and a few cold spots. But there were no spirit manifestation to be seen. Maybe they were in hiding and- just may be responsible for every new restoration project falling through for decades. Ummm, spooky!
Recent photographs taken inside the abandoned city hall.
Series 4 in the Ghost file series. Ghost Hall.
http://www.amazon.com/Ghost-Hall-The-Files-ebook/dp/B0090Q0O5Q/ref=zg_bs_157064011_73
As an author I have loved writing about the afterlife in fiction and when author JR Rain asked me to put a story together for his Ghost File series I jumped at the chance. Who wouldn't?
Not only is he a Best Selling Author he also happens to be a super nice guy and my abilities as a psychic seemed to be a plus point in his view.
So I sat down and created Ghost Hall, the next novella to enter into the world of Monty and Ellen Drew who are fictional paranormal investigators. He's the sceptic who's always trying to come around and she's the psychic-together they work on guiding wandering ghosts into the light. It's a unique series that's become a real succes and is set to continue. JR and Scott penned the first novella Ghost College then gave the reigns over to Evelyn Klebert for Ghost Solider and Eve Paludan for Ghost Fire. Now it was my turn to take the reigns and bring forward my take on the adventures of paranormal investigators/husband and wife team Monty and Ellen.
I pondered long and hard for the story-line and figured that being British and living in Belgium gave me an edge. I could set the story in either countries promoting Monty and Ellen to to the status of international paranormal investigators. I went with Belgium seeing as the country is littered with haunted hot spots-literally.
It didn't take long to find my abandoned city hall standing tall and neglected and dating back to the 15th century. It had unceremoniously burned down twice and been rebuilt. The last time was in the 17th century and it's still standing- as of now. I was fortunate to be able to get a peek inside and it was everything a writer could have dreamed of for a paranormal adventure. It was then that Ghost Hall was born.
I don't want to give away too much but needless to say I didn't have much trouble blending modern day investigations with historical facts concerning World War 2. It was a unique experience to be able to write a book using the inspiring time I had spent in the actual location. Friends asked me if I felt it was haunted when I was there. I have to confess there was a strange energy in certain places and a few cold spots. But there were no spirit manifestation to be seen. Maybe they were in hiding and- just may be responsible for every new restoration project falling through for decades. Ummm, spooky!
http://www.amazon.com/Ghost-Hall-The-Files-ebook/dp/B0090Q0O5Q/ref=zg_bs_157064011_73
Sunday, May 27, 2012
KDP Select worked for me.
My books sales were going okay that's just it, they were okay not dead in the water but they were not moving too far forward either. I had tried KDP for 3 days in early April for my debut novel Cappuccino Heaven and I got quite a few downloads which helped my ranking and generated more sales afterwards.
This time I decided to use up my last 2 days and also put my second novel Lost on for 2 days as well.
Well, in spite of all the negative press recently that KDP was on it's last legs and the most you could hope for was a few hundred downloads I risked a couple of days thinking I had nothing to lose. The moment it went on free status the downloads started to come in at alarming speed and continued that way throughout the 2 days as the figure climbed into the thousands.
Cappuccino Heaven hit the Kindle best seller free list at the end of day 1. By day 2 it had climbed from #100 to #33 and stayed there dropping only to #53 when the promo ended. It reached #7 at one point in Romance which suprised me as it's not exactly a love story so I don't know why it landed in there!
Lost did well too, less downloads but did make #9 in Ghost horror where it stayed for 2 days. For a new release I was suprised it got so far.
Now I will wait to see what happens to my sales as the ranking levels out after it goes from free to paid. All in all it was worth it. Thousands more people know who I am and it's great book exposure.
If you're unsure whether to use KDP select maybe you should try a promotion and not be put off by negative information I accept that the 30,000 downloads or more are hard to come by now and there are more free books than ever so you have much more competition but there's nothing to loose and everything to gain for trying.
Of course for me now to see just how sucessful it's been sales wise I will have to wait because I won't know for a couple of days or weeks how it pans out but I'm optimistic.
This time I decided to use up my last 2 days and also put my second novel Lost on for 2 days as well.
Well, in spite of all the negative press recently that KDP was on it's last legs and the most you could hope for was a few hundred downloads I risked a couple of days thinking I had nothing to lose. The moment it went on free status the downloads started to come in at alarming speed and continued that way throughout the 2 days as the figure climbed into the thousands.
Cappuccino Heaven hit the Kindle best seller free list at the end of day 1. By day 2 it had climbed from #100 to #33 and stayed there dropping only to #53 when the promo ended. It reached #7 at one point in Romance which suprised me as it's not exactly a love story so I don't know why it landed in there!
Lost did well too, less downloads but did make #9 in Ghost horror where it stayed for 2 days. For a new release I was suprised it got so far.
Now I will wait to see what happens to my sales as the ranking levels out after it goes from free to paid. All in all it was worth it. Thousands more people know who I am and it's great book exposure.
If you're unsure whether to use KDP select maybe you should try a promotion and not be put off by negative information I accept that the 30,000 downloads or more are hard to come by now and there are more free books than ever so you have much more competition but there's nothing to loose and everything to gain for trying.
Of course for me now to see just how sucessful it's been sales wise I will have to wait because I won't know for a couple of days or weeks how it pans out but I'm optimistic.
Sunday, April 29, 2012
Why I wrote Cappuccino Heaven and why it's making waves.
'Sit down with a coffee or cappuccino and open your mind.'
That's what one reviewer said on Amazon after reading my latest novel Cappuccino Heaven. This book has been making waves ever since it was published in March of this year and it was meant to. Being a psychic medium I could have penned a book about my life and journey into the psychic world but I decided to create a work of fiction instead.
Elizabeth Walker is my character she is the 38 year old newly arrived spirit in the afterlife and she is the voice of my beliefs and those of millions of others.
She tackles the difficult issues of what happens to us when we die and where we go and she tries to find understanding as to why mankind continues to inflict pain and suffering as does the living.
When she's taken by her Mother in spirit to the special nursery where small children are being healed from their untimely deaths at the hands of parents or strangers she wants to fall on her knees and cry, but she can't as she doesn't want to upset the children who all seem so happy.
Meeting woman and children who reside in a man less village she discovers that they were all victims of domestic violence which resulted in their deaths, still afraid of men they are slowly healing but can only do so in a 'women only' environment. Having never experienced violence Elizabeth finds it hard to come to terms with what she must face that not all is rosy in Heaven.
Her limited beliefs convince her that she's content with her afterlife until she discovers specially trained groups dedicating themselves to rescuing lost and trapped souls in the lower levels. She joins one in the hope of becoming stronger in spirit and helping others unaware of how much it would test her limits and impact her whole way of thinking and believing.
Why do you arrive in the lower levels? Committing heinous crimes, using and abusing others and walking on the dark side of life until the moment of death arriving amongst like-minded spirits, in Elizabeth's words, ''There is no light there only candles and they all seem to be the same.'' The pen ultimate example of like attracting like.
She isn't sure if there is a God, her beliefs in life were never that strong so she doesn't bother to look or question until she begins to progress. Re-incarnation is a subject she avoids at all costs without knowing why and grateful to be in the light she drinks endless cappuccino's remaining in her confines until she discovers there is much more to her afterlife than she could have imagined.
Slowly she learns to stand on her spiritual feet and let go of things she cannot change.
Was her small world created by her limited beliefs? Yes. Does she have the ability to change and create a more meaningful afterlife? Yes. We will all have that opportunity when we pass over but we will progress much further if we allow our spirit to grow while we are still living.
I have had many heart-warming messages from readers telling me how much comfort they gained from the book and some have had to take a step back and look at their belief systems.
Whatever your beliefs I hope that Cappuccino is food for thought and...... should you think twice of the consequences of harming another? Yes unless you are 100% sure that in your afterlife all will be forgiven.
Cappuccino Heaven is available in Kindle format on Amazon. The sequel Lost is out soon.
http://www.amazon.com/Cappuccino-Heaven-after-death-ebook/dp/B007IGMZRA/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1335690932&sr=1-1
That's what one reviewer said on Amazon after reading my latest novel Cappuccino Heaven. This book has been making waves ever since it was published in March of this year and it was meant to. Being a psychic medium I could have penned a book about my life and journey into the psychic world but I decided to create a work of fiction instead.
Elizabeth Walker is my character she is the 38 year old newly arrived spirit in the afterlife and she is the voice of my beliefs and those of millions of others.
She tackles the difficult issues of what happens to us when we die and where we go and she tries to find understanding as to why mankind continues to inflict pain and suffering as does the living.
When she's taken by her Mother in spirit to the special nursery where small children are being healed from their untimely deaths at the hands of parents or strangers she wants to fall on her knees and cry, but she can't as she doesn't want to upset the children who all seem so happy.
Meeting woman and children who reside in a man less village she discovers that they were all victims of domestic violence which resulted in their deaths, still afraid of men they are slowly healing but can only do so in a 'women only' environment. Having never experienced violence Elizabeth finds it hard to come to terms with what she must face that not all is rosy in Heaven.
Her limited beliefs convince her that she's content with her afterlife until she discovers specially trained groups dedicating themselves to rescuing lost and trapped souls in the lower levels. She joins one in the hope of becoming stronger in spirit and helping others unaware of how much it would test her limits and impact her whole way of thinking and believing.
Why do you arrive in the lower levels? Committing heinous crimes, using and abusing others and walking on the dark side of life until the moment of death arriving amongst like-minded spirits, in Elizabeth's words, ''There is no light there only candles and they all seem to be the same.'' The pen ultimate example of like attracting like.
She isn't sure if there is a God, her beliefs in life were never that strong so she doesn't bother to look or question until she begins to progress. Re-incarnation is a subject she avoids at all costs without knowing why and grateful to be in the light she drinks endless cappuccino's remaining in her confines until she discovers there is much more to her afterlife than she could have imagined.
Slowly she learns to stand on her spiritual feet and let go of things she cannot change.
Was her small world created by her limited beliefs? Yes. Does she have the ability to change and create a more meaningful afterlife? Yes. We will all have that opportunity when we pass over but we will progress much further if we allow our spirit to grow while we are still living.
I have had many heart-warming messages from readers telling me how much comfort they gained from the book and some have had to take a step back and look at their belief systems.
Whatever your beliefs I hope that Cappuccino is food for thought and...... should you think twice of the consequences of harming another? Yes unless you are 100% sure that in your afterlife all will be forgiven.
Cappuccino Heaven is available in Kindle format on Amazon. The sequel Lost is out soon.
http://www.amazon.com/Cappuccino-Heaven-after-death-ebook/dp/B007IGMZRA/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1335690932&sr=1-1
Tuesday, April 17, 2012
All that is loved is never lost.
''All that is loved is never lost, what remains unseen can still be felt.''
Saturday, April 14, 2012
What if you don't go into the light?
LOST
Cappuccino Heaven II the sequel
What if you don't go into the light?
Elizabeth Walker waits patiently in the afterlife for a much awaited reunion with her husband Mike. But the dream becomes a nightmare when he dies of old age and goes straight into the dark lower levels manipulated by evil entities who revel in taking him further away from the light at every turn.
Endless missions with trusted friends to rescue him fail, each time discovering that he’s taken further and lower into the bowels of hell, unaware of her presence and stuck in an abyss of his own creation it appears all is lost. If onlyElizabeth
Cappuccino Heaven II the sequel
What if you don't go into the light?
Elizabeth Walker waits patiently in the afterlife for a much awaited reunion with her husband Mike. But the dream becomes a nightmare when he dies of old age and goes straight into the dark lower levels manipulated by evil entities who revel in taking him further away from the light at every turn.
Endless missions with trusted friends to rescue him fail, each time discovering that he’s taken further and lower into the bowels of hell, unaware of her presence and stuck in an abyss of his own creation it appears all is lost. If only
 |
| Out of the light and into the dark |
Cappucino Heaven Book I is available on Amazon Kindle edition
Clinging to any shred of hope she refuses to give up, believing as her own strength grows stronger and stronger that the love she has in her heart will be the shining light in what becomes a never ending battle between good and evil.
Tuesday, April 10, 2012
KDP Select does it help?
Having just had my novel Cappuccino Heaven free for 3 days on KDP select I am willing to share the experience with you in the hope that the more we know about this new marketing tool from Amazon the better.
I was not interested at all when I first uploaded my book last month, thinking why should I give my book away for free?
I had invested money in a professional cover and paid someone to format the book properly so readers would not be frustrated with blank pages, I had written 88,000 words, a full novel and felt that all that all my hard work deserved some kind of payment no matter how small. Here is the link to my book so you can see I really do have a well-made cover!
http://www.amazon.com/Cappuccino-Heaven-after-death-ebook/dp/B007IGMZRA/ref=sr_1_28?ie=UTF8&qid=1334055613&sr=8-28
Then a month later I changed my mind and decided to give it a try, anything that helps promotion is a good thing and sometimes you have to give something to gain more back, that's business.
Deciding to do the promotion over the Easter vacation was a risk, many people are away and that would mean fewer downloads, but I went ahead with it anyway. The result was that I had just under a 1000 downloads, Easter Monday being the lowest and my book ranked at 1 in the afterlife fiction section for a while then going down to 2. It was pleasant to see that even knowing it wasn't through sales.
I am not going to bore you with Rank figures, I'm sure you can gleam enough of those from other bloggers.
My point is this, with the massive amount of Authors, me included, going for the new KDP select programme could this mean fewer downloads as the programme continues Having conversed with other Authors some of them well-known on Amazon the consensus of opinion is that they are also getting fewer free downloads on their promotion days as well.
KDP select has only been going a few months so it's new but will Amazon offer something else when they see the programme becoming saturated, for example free promotions targeting Genres rather than everything, just an idea...
As of this moment two days after my promotion ended I've had less sales than I had before! I don't see this as a major catastrophe, more people know me now, those who will actually read the book remains to be seen as does the hoped for reviews, but out of a 1000 readers if a quarter of them like the book and tell others then it has been a success.
Will I do it again? Probably, I have a sequel to the first book coming out soon and may just promo the first one again with my last two days.
Will I re-enrol for KDP select again. Probably, whatever the divided opnions it's a marketing tool that can be very powerful in getting your name and work out there.
I was not interested at all when I first uploaded my book last month, thinking why should I give my book away for free?
I had invested money in a professional cover and paid someone to format the book properly so readers would not be frustrated with blank pages, I had written 88,000 words, a full novel and felt that all that all my hard work deserved some kind of payment no matter how small. Here is the link to my book so you can see I really do have a well-made cover!
http://www.amazon.com/Cappuccino-Heaven-after-death-ebook/dp/B007IGMZRA/ref=sr_1_28?ie=UTF8&qid=1334055613&sr=8-28
Then a month later I changed my mind and decided to give it a try, anything that helps promotion is a good thing and sometimes you have to give something to gain more back, that's business.
Deciding to do the promotion over the Easter vacation was a risk, many people are away and that would mean fewer downloads, but I went ahead with it anyway. The result was that I had just under a 1000 downloads, Easter Monday being the lowest and my book ranked at 1 in the afterlife fiction section for a while then going down to 2. It was pleasant to see that even knowing it wasn't through sales.
I am not going to bore you with Rank figures, I'm sure you can gleam enough of those from other bloggers.
My point is this, with the massive amount of Authors, me included, going for the new KDP select programme could this mean fewer downloads as the programme continues Having conversed with other Authors some of them well-known on Amazon the consensus of opinion is that they are also getting fewer free downloads on their promotion days as well.
KDP select has only been going a few months so it's new but will Amazon offer something else when they see the programme becoming saturated, for example free promotions targeting Genres rather than everything, just an idea...
As of this moment two days after my promotion ended I've had less sales than I had before! I don't see this as a major catastrophe, more people know me now, those who will actually read the book remains to be seen as does the hoped for reviews, but out of a 1000 readers if a quarter of them like the book and tell others then it has been a success.
Will I do it again? Probably, I have a sequel to the first book coming out soon and may just promo the first one again with my last two days.
Will I re-enrol for KDP select again. Probably, whatever the divided opnions it's a marketing tool that can be very powerful in getting your name and work out there.
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