The one with the FREE book, the Guide Dogs auction and the virtual event
Hi everyone and welcome to December! I'd have said a warm welcome to December but, my goodness, how much has that temperature dropped? On Tuesday evening, we had snow in Scarborough. It wasn't particularly thick but it stayed. Yesterday morning, it came down again. The fields looked beautiful but some of the side roads in the villages around here were impassable and the road to Whitby was apparently cut off, as is often the case. Hope everyone was able to stay safe and warm.
I'm stopping by today with two separate pieces of news and a reminder …
FREE BOOK
The first piece of news is that the first book in The Starfish Café series – Snowflakes Over The Starfish Café is the FREE BOOK OF THE WEEK on Apple Books UK & Ireland.
This offer runs for a week and will end on Sunday 3rd December 2023, right at the end of the day. It went straight to #1 in the Apple Books FREE chart. Always lovely to have a number 1, even if it's not quite the same having it in the free as the paid chart!
Running alongside this offer, book two in the series - Spring Tides at The Starfish Café - is being offered on Apple UK&I for only 99p. Yesterday I was very excited to see it rise as high as #14 in the overall paid chart and #3 in the fiction & literature category.
The final book in the series – Summer Nights at The Starfish Café – is full price (£2.99) but that's still nothing considering the months of work that go into writing a book and bringing it to market. So, for less than £4, you can treat yourself to the entire series. Go on, you know it makes sense! Book 3 made it to #128 in the overall chart at the start of the promotion which I was very excited about, hoping it would join book 2 in the Top 100 but it hasn't scaled those heights since then.
Thank you to everyone who has taken advantage of this offer and helped those books storm the charts. So very grateful.
You can access the Free Book of the Week offer here.
GUIDE DOGS AUCTION
Author Jennifer Page and founder member of the gorgeous Facebook group, The Friendly Book Community, Sarah Kingsnorth have pulled together a fabulous auction in aid of Guide Dogs. This is a cause close to their hearts as Jen is currently training the most adorable guide dog Labrador puppy called Pete and Sarah has a gorgeous guide dog Labrador called Ozzie.
They're hoping to raise £1,000 and it's looking good as the auction only went live yesterday (1st December) and, at the time of writing this blog post, the total bidding has already reached £428. You can access the auction here.
The auction is running until 14th December to allow time for posting of items before Christmas so why not check out the huge number of amazing lots to treat yourself or a loved one for Christmas, bearing in mind that we cannot guarantee arrival for Christmas as we're reliant on the post which is slower at that time of year, and on winning bidders responding quickly with postal details.
I've submitted two lots. As the auction is raising funds for Guide Dogs, I decided to put forward two of my books which heavily feature dogs. Snowflakes Over The Starfish Café starts with a lost shih tzu on the beach below the café who is a very important part of the series. Healing Hearts at Bumblebee Barnis set on a farm where Farmer Barney is assisted by his gorgeous brother and sister Border Collie team, Bear and Harley.
Please note that he links of the books in the above paragraph will take you to the Amazon page for each book to find out more about it rather than the auction itself. If you'd like to find my books on the Guide Dogs auction, you can find the lot for Snowflakes here and Bumblebee Barn here.
THE VIRTUAL EVENT
I've mentioned this one before so this is more of a reminder. I'm taking part in a virtual event organised by Northumberland Libraries on Monday 18th December at 2-3pm. It's FREE but you must have a ticket to participate.
There are three authors on the panel – Kiley Dunbar, Sue Moorcroft, and me – who'll be talking about Christmas books and our most recent Christmassy releases. You can secure your ticket here.
I think that's it for now. I have a very busy day today trying to catch up with a mountain of admin and tidying which always falls by the wayside when I'm on a deadline. Tomorrow we're putting up the Christmas tree which is always my favourite moment in the run-up to Christmas.
Wishing you a fabulous weekend.
Big hugs
Jessica xx