Ellie Conway

Everything should sparkle

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Seriously, it should. Not just because I just saw a glitter helmet on the telly (watching American Pickers with My Knight). I’ve been a sparkle lover my whole life. And you all know the joy when my daughter told me I could have GLITTER on my book covers. 🙂

As it stands now, two of the Byte Series have glitter on the covers. I know, I’m excited too!

You knew about Cryptobyte … and the glory that is gold glitter on the cover.

But, now, Metabyte has a new cover. It had to have a new cover (shit happened with my former now defunct publisher, if you recall) and my daughter knows me rather well (imagine?), so when she re-did the cover she added the joy of green glitter. And I smiled, Readers, I smiled a lot. At some stage (probably November) the new covers will be in the bookshop. November because I need to pay for the Cryptobyte copies that have already arrived at the bookshop in prep for the launch on Nov 8. Yeah, they were early. Which is better than being late, right? And for all of you who thought me having a white cover on Qubyte caused OCD anxiety … I’m pretty sure the Metabyte cover will tweak that OCD again. Deal with it. 🙂

#SorryNotSorry

In other news: I’m in Perth with My Knight – taking care of him as he recovers from major surgery (new hip), and, I’m writing. Yes, I am.

I’m having a love hate relationship with the 12th Byte Novel at the moment, but today was a good writing day and now I know that some characters we met in Qubyte are coming back, so, that’s cool. In particular, Tahoma Whitehorse. And I really enjoyed him as a character. Did you like him and his off-sider, Karen Schneider?

It looks like I best go make us some dinner.

Take care out there. xx

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Do I like you?

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Welcome to ‘things I think about on my way to work’ Wednesday.

There’s a chance I do like you. A very good chance.

About the only time the answer will be an outright no, is if you are a digital pirate. If you are, you can fuck right off and get your sticky little fingers off my work. Yes, I am aware that makes me narrow-minded and that pirates are (supposedly) people too. Don’t even try and discuss piracy with me, thanks. They’re evil fuckers who steal from others. End of story.

My criteria for friends is simple. 1. Don’t be an arse (or a pirate). I could add be a reader because I believe reading is extremely important. It teaches us empathy and enables us to see into other lives and worlds. We learn from reading. Perhaps I should add read ‘purchased books’. 🙂

Things that I have no business knowing (but if we know each other well I probably do know.): Your religion. Your political views. Your job status. The bathroom you use. What’s in your pants. Your mental health. Who is in your bed. Your preference when it comes to Vegemite or Marmite. That list could go on and on. None of those things are friendship criteria.

If you are an arse then you’re an arse and we will not be friends. So don’t be an arse and let’s grab a coffee. 🙂

It was Crashbyte …

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This morning I opened a file called ‘Crashbyte’ – that’s what Vaporbyte was always supposed to be called. Book 12: Crashbyte. Somewhere as I was following the story, (and it happened pretty fast – two chapters in) I realized Crashbyte wasn’t going to be book 12. It may not ever be an anything. That’s okay, it happens. I left the file and a few days later I saw an entire scene – nothing at all to do with the two chapters I’d written.

I started writing. I knew straightway it the beginning of something. By the third chapter I knew it was something called ‘Vaporbyte’. Great.

This morning I opened that other file, the Crashbyte one. As I read, a slow dawning occurred. By the time I’d finished I knew what I was looking at. It’s not a nothing at all. It’s part of Vaporbyte. It’s the other story thread.

Apparently I’m writing again. Need to catch up? Then, here …

Bear with …

/ catconnor / 4 Comments

Here are a few of the 15-sec videos made for the Byte Series … YouTube seems to think they have all been uploaded, they have not. YouTube is kinda a dick sometimes.

But here’s a link to go along with them! Byte Series Awesomeness

Five of the videos:

killerbyte
terrorbyte
exacerbyte
Flashbyte
soundbyte

Life versus writing

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Funny how things change. Used to be writing that was my happy place. Now it’s Perth. I have little time for writing and am struggling to find a reason to carve that time out. Finding writing time has been increasingly difficult for the last four years. The only real writing time I get is when I’m in Perth.

I’m too tired to go back to writing late at night and way too tired to get up earlier than I already do.

My days are spent helping other writers, that can be fun and rewarding, I guess. BUT I cannot write in the bookshop – not effectively. Some days I can, but mostly I cannot. Interruptions are rife. Now if they were interruptions because people were buying books, it’d be okay and worth it! But generally, they are not. They’re time consuming phone calls or people coming in asking for directions or browsing (but not buying) or in people calling in for help. Days like yesterday when it was probably a perfect writing day – our internet and phone were out. So, no writing. Hard to work when you work in the cloud and the internet is shitty. And it’s often shitty. Thanks for that Spark.

Smashwords store wide sale is on this month. Fantastic, right? Usually, yes. This time around. 12 days without a sale. I have no idea why or what is going on. The only thing that changed is Facebook pretty well suppressing all links to the outside world and not letting anyone ask for posts to be shared. But I don’t know if that is what made a difference.

I am tired of hearing how great my books are. If they were THAT great then sales would reflect that, right? And people would take two minutes and write a review on a platform that actually helps other people make a choice (and NOT post it on GOODREADS or AMAZON).

Or is it that everyone just tells me but not other people, because I’m accessible?

Sometimes it feels like Ellie is still a fucking secret? This is my 10th as a published author, for almost all of the 10 I was with the same publisher.

I don’t know what it is. I do know that it’s hard to generate sales without money and without sales there is no money (that goes for me personally and the bookshop). Catch 22.

If you have any ideas that do not involve ANY money, because neither the shop nor I have any. In fact, my stupid positive thinking means I have less now than I did before. Yeah, I had more 2 more titles printed for the shop – thinking they’d sell. AND I’ve got an editor to pay for a book that I’m wondering if I should even release. It’s a fabulous story but who will read it?

The same five people?

Well, hey, that’ll pay for the cost of printing! 🙂

July!!

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Hey, come here! Gotta tell you something.

It’s July.

That’s right, July, and that means the Smashwords Summer/Winter Sale is on now. There are some serious bargains to be had.

FYI the ENTIRE Byte Series is on sale – if you hop through the link you will notice that there are 11 books listed in the series (so far) that is because Snakebyte has now taken its rightful place as 5.0 BUT the site only accepts integers so it had to be 6 which has a flow on effect. We also have sale prices on the boxed sets. Remember the Boxed Sets have additional content. You get an extra story in each boxed set. In in-between Bytes category Dead Flowers is free, the others are already very very reasonable. [The in-between byte are stories for series fans who already know the characters.] Just a little note: Snakebyte was missed out of the boxed sets so it still needs to be purchased separately. Despite being a novella it is an important story and a vital part of the series. 🙂

Don’t daly! Now’s the perfect chance to get in there and meet Ellie or pick up the next book in the series. (You could probably get the whole series for two cups of coffee, not even joking.)

If you follow me on Facebook or Twitter you may have seen the 15 second videos created for each book in the series. There are more to come so keep an eye out!

xxx

Last Chance Train

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Blog title is a song from “100,000,000 Bon Jovi fans can’t be wrong”.

You know what makes an author happy? Come on, you do. You got this … say it with me, “REVIEWS.” There ya go. I knew you had it. I would be ridiculously delighted if you’d leave a review of the Byte Books you’ve read – but especially ridiculously delighted if you left the review/s on Smashwords, Kobo, Apple Books, Barnes & Noble … pretty well anywhere that’s NOT Amazon or Goodreads. Why? Because most of my books are no longer available on Amazon and I don’t think “3rd party sellers” should be benefiting from my reviews. Thanks in advance for being cool about this.

In other news: I went home. I came back. That’s all I have to say about that.

I’m working on Crashbyte – and kinda feel like it might get a name change because of Cryptobyte. Do we want to C’s back to back? No we do not. So, I’ll be fossicking through my Byte list shortly looking for something suitable … meanwhile, I know where this story is headed location wise. Ellie is going home. Where is home? Where is she really from? If you’ve read the series so far, you’ll know, or maybe have enough information to guess. It’s going to be a fun book. I can feel it in my bones. There’s a few things my bones are good for 1) detecting weather changes and 2) knowing when a story is going to be fun to write.

EDITED TO ADD: Crashbyte is now known as Vaporbyte.

FYI it’s cold and building up to a storm this afternoon. So here’s a picture of Mahau, (where I was for the weekend).

Mahau Sound, Marlborough Sounds.