Happy two-year anniversary to The Bloody Key! I can’t believe my Gothic retelling of the Bluebeard fairy tale has been out in the world for two whole years already. To celebrate, The Bloody Key eBook is free worldwide across all platforms (Kindle, Nook, Kobo, Apple Books, Google Play, or your other favorite retailer). Get your copy today if you haven’t yet!
Read on for bonus content about The Bloody Key, even more free eBooks, an IndieApril update, and to learn about my new newsletter!
Stuff Your Kindle Day
I’ve joined 25+ other authors in offering you FREE ebooks as part of the Cravings Stuff Your Kindle Day – TODAY ONLY! Be sure to check out all the books and download all the ones that catch your eye. There’s a wide variety to choose from. Happy kindle stuffing!
The Bloody Key 2 Year Publication Anniversary
I wanted to share a little bonus content for the two year anniversary, so here are three alternate covers to The Bloody Key!
The first one was just for fun during the editing/publishing phase, using this Penguin Classics cover generator. It features the painting Spirit by Gene Roux (1885).
The second one is actually a premade cover I had purchased from my cover designer years ago. I still think it’s beautiful–maybe I’ll have to reuse it for a different book!–but The Bloody Key changed a lot between when I purchased it and publication, and the current cover, inspired by pulpy Gothic covers of the past, fits the book’s tone better. Fun fact: originally when I started drafting The Bloody Key, it was set in Spain instead of a Germany/Black Forest-inspired kingdom!
The third one was just a fun mockup cover I did for the NaNoWriMo website while I was drafting the novel. I also briefly used it on Wattpad when I was posting the story there!
Of course, I’m in love with the final cover (illustrated by Elaine Ho and designed by Mallory Rock), but I thought it would be fun to look at some alternatives today!
Indie April Update
April is a great time to support indie (self-published and small press) authors, and I’m so grateful for how many people supported me this month! Between my two free eBook promos and the sale on We Survivors, it was a record-breaking month for me!
As of time of publication, I’ve had over 6000 orders (paid copies & free downloads) this month! This has nearly doubled the lifetime orders across all three books. Here’s to hoping it will lead to many more reviews on Amazon, Goodreads, and other platforms, as well as an uptick in Kindle Unlimited and Kobo Plus page reads. If you purchased or downloaded one of my books this month, thank you so much! Please consider leaving a review if you enjoy it. <3
New Newsletter
If you’re someone who previously subscribed to this blog, first of all, thank you! I really appreciate you doing so. Second of all, I wanted to mention this is the last time that you’ll receive an email about a new blog post coming out! I will be disabling that automated email after this one last round.
I’ve transitioned to an author newsletter, and will now share updates like these in the newsletter instead of the blog. If you were already subscribed, I should have moved your name and email address over, but I did purge some addresses. So if you didn’t get my newsletter to your email yesterday, you might have got caught up in that mistakenly, and I’m sorry! You can resubscribe here.
Going forward, I’m going to use my “author blog” more for writing or self-publishing advice or things like book recommendation lists, though I’ll still post major events like book launches, cover reveals, and awards on it as well. Anything relevant to my wider audience will be linked in my newsletter, so don’t worry about missing out! I hope this will be a seamless transition, and I look forward to connecting with everyone through a ~monthly author newsletter going forward!
That’s all folks! Newsletter subscribers, stay tuned next month to find out the results of the IBPA awards, and whether Songs of Snow takes home silver or gold! I’m so excited to attend the dinner in a few weeks, conveniently (for me) in St. Paul, MN this year. 🙂
As always, happy reading!
~ L.J. Thomas