Rewind that decade! Side by side we almost flew, chasing time and scents. Labrador sleeked through meadow, coat a-shimmer. A mirror.
Upon reflection, side by side our hearts still fly, with time the hounder. We compete for silver now, not of riches but of hair.
Snow-dusted garden
Luminous eyes pinprick night
Explorer dog lamps
From today, for a fortnight, I’m running a Goodreads Giveaway, which means that one lucky person has the chance of winning a paperback copy of my newly published novel, Noah Padgett and the Dog-People.
The Giveaway ends at midnight on September 28, but don’t leave it to the last moment. Enter the draw now, before you forget.
This novel is aimed at anyone aged 10-18+, so you might like to win a copy either for yourself or for a child you know.
I hope that dog-lovers in particular will love this quirky and exciting adventure story, which I had such fun writing.
To enter the Giveaway, click here.
I’m so excited and a little bit nervous. The big day has arrived. It’s adventure time for twelve-year-old Noah Padgett and his chocolate Labrador puppy, Bluebell. With one click of a link they’ve landed themselves in the Zyx-dimension, where the predominate species is Canis sapiens. These intelligent dog-people view the boy and his puppy as mutants and alien collectibles, forcibly separating them and putting both their lives in peril. Will they survive, or won’t they?
Not telling. You’ll need to read my book to find out.
For readers aged 10-18+, this is a story for all the family.
Harry Potter had a magic wand at his disposal, but Noah Padgett must survive by his wits alone.
Noah Padgett and the Dog-People is available to buy from Amazon (Paperback & Kindle Editions).
To find out more, click on GetBook.at/Zyx
Fingers crossed, official publication day for Noah Padgett and the Dog-People is set for Friday, 9th September, although I might have a soft launch a couple of days earlier to marry up the paperback and kindle editions on a single Amazon Product page. With my début novel, Desiccation, I had to email Amazon to ask them to do this, despite the fact that it’s meant to happen automatically. Such is life.
Before things go live, I’d appreciate a little feedback on my product description for Amazon and/or your votes in a 24-hour poll.
I’m happy with the four sentences below that are a replica of the blurb on the back cover of the paperback edition, but please let me know if there are any glaring errors that I’ve missed. I’m also happy with the Audience Guidelines, which will go at the foot of the blurb.
The area that I need help with, is deciding which of the two excerpts from the novel would work best as a prefix to the blurb. In other words, the excerpt is the first thing a prospective customer will see, so it needs to draw them into looking at the rest of the description, encourage them to read the sample pages in the “Look inside” feature on the product page, and then buy the novel.
I’ve decided to market this novel under the main category of Juvenile Fiction/Animals/Dogs and the secondary category of Juvenile Action and Adventure. The reason for not marketing it under Fantasy, is because there isn’t a Juvenile category for “General Fantasy”, only “Fantasy and Magic”. Noah may have many attributes, but magic isn’t among them. He has to survive by his wits, not the waving of a wand!
<><><>
The Blurb
Noah Padgett’s new stepmother Kate treats him as the worst inconvenience in the world and wants him to disappear out of her life, along with the nuisance puppy that his father bought him for his birthday. Her wish comes true, although too fast for her to notice.
Mad entrepreneur Monsieur Percival Poodle is the self-appointed ruler of Zyx, a dimension where Canis sapiens is the predominant species. Percival likes to collect alien specimens, and two of them have just arrived in his dimension from Earth. One is a primitive four-legged chocolate Labrador and the other a human boy.
Mercenary Lurcher Sergeant Salt works for the highest bidder and makes it his policy to extract maximum profit from jobs. This means selling his alien captives separately, however much distress it causes them.
Fate has already stolen Noah’s beloved mum from him, replacing her with a stepmother from hell. Now it seems that Fate has struck again and stolen Noah’s beloved puppy, leaving him to languish in a high security hospital for criminally insane Canis sapiens, with no apparent means of escape.
Audience Guidelines
Average Grade level 6
Readability fairly easy
Younger Middle Grade Advanced Readers (aged 8/9)
Upper Middle Grade/Lower Young Adult (aged 10-13)
Older teenagers and adults who enjoy reading children’s fiction
<><><>
The Excerpts
A. The hall clock strikes midnight. Noah counts its chimes from one to twelve. He tells himself the ravenous clouds are just a preview to a fantasy game: that there’s no harm in checking things out.
He clicks the link.
B. With every beat of his heart, his yearning grows for home, or rather for random things to do with his city. The sound of seagulls, swishing waves, and a gale-force wind whipping flags about poles; the smell and taste of salt; slimy green rock-pools full of crabs; old shells; vinegary fish and chips wrapped in paper and eaten out in the fresh air; hot pavements; shimmering roads; cycling through traffic jams; the stink of petrol and diesel fumes locked in a heat haze: anything other than this sterile whiteness and deep silence, broken on and off by muffled dog barks.
Sarah Potter Writes 