Just a little note to say that Ferrian's Winter is 50% off during the entire month of July, as part of Smashwords' Summer/Winter sale. The Kindle version will receive the same discount. So if you would like to buy the book but haven't yet, now is a good time!
The sale begins Saturday, 1st July. (Sorry for the terribly boring promotional stuff. You may return to your regularly scheduled lives/Facebooks/Twitters/whatever normal people do on the internet...) Oh yeah. Also a reminder that Book Two: Grath Ardan will be out on 1st September. (I haven't drawn a cover yet but will post one when I do!) If you don't want to forget, you can put your email in the nice little subscription box over there somewhere. You will only get occasional blog posts from me. I don't do newsletters or spam.
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Recently, I received by email some wondrous sketches of the Swords of the Gods and trigonic dagger by a very nice fan. Thank you Dragon Nerd!! :)
I have posted a map of Arvanor to the Ferrian's Winter main page, with a few caveats. :)
It's a very old map. I mean, reeeeally old. I drew it when I first started writing the book, so around fifteen/sixteen years ago?? Some of the place names and other details on the map that aren't mentioned in the story are liable to change and/or be completely hypothetical. There are also many important locations that are not on the map at all. (The Sorcerer's Valley is the subtitle of my book!!) The world of Arvanor has very much grown organically from writing the story. Places arise where needed, around the characters. I'm not a planner. I didn't spend many years worldbuilding in great detail like some other authors do; this map was only ever meant to give a general impression of where things are in relation to other things. So yeah. It's not super accurate, and best used as a sort of overview of the world. Personally, I don't believe a map is necessary to understand or appreciate the world of Ferrian's Winter (or any fantasy book for that matter!); I trust my readers have wonderful imaginations and are capable of constructing their own mental picture (and prefer them to!) but I realise a lot of fantasy readers really like maps, so... here is one. Enjoy. :) (Incidentally, when I had it on Deviantart for a few years, this was the most favourited picture in my gallery. From people who'd never even read the story. That's something I find interesting...) Hooray! Ferrian's Winter is now available for purchase at the Amazon Kindle store! (Link goes to the US store, but check your local version if it doesn't redirect). And it's also at Smashwords (which helpfully distributes to a number of other ebook stores including Apple, Kobo, etc). I have tried to make the book available to as many retailers as possible and in a variety of formats, so there should be something to suit everyone. :)
(Formatting the thing was fifty shades of hell, by the way. I can understand why a lot of people pay someone else to format their book for them; it's like falling down a rabbit hole of madness...) Book Two will be available later in the year; I'm aiming for September. I need to make a cover for it and do a final read-through. I'd also love to do a print version sometime in future, but this will be expensive to do because it is a veeery long novel. Anyway, if you enjoy reading Ferrian's Winter, please show your support by buying the book! (And tell everyone you know about it! Word of mouth is everything to us indie authors!) Yesterday I finally received in the mail a box of my Sword and Snowflake pathtags. And they are lovely. I created these tags to commemorate the finishing of Ferrian's Winter, and as a nice little promotional item, a gift to those who are willing to take the time to read my book and tell me what they think. Yes, that's right. I will be giving these snowflake tags away for FREE! All you need to do to get one is to read the ten sample chapters of Ferrian's Winter that I have posted on this site. After reading, please use the contact form and let me know your thoughts on the story, good or bad. And please only read it if you are genuinely interested in an epic, high fantasy story. It's about a boy who brings winter wherever he goes, a coming-of-age story of quests and adventure. Thanks to everyone who has expressed interest in the story so far! The downside of finishing a novel is that you then have to have a cover for the damned thing. So it is with Ferrian's Winter.
I've spent a fair bit of time looking at covers and cover designers on Google, but all that really acheived was to make me realise that an awful lot of fantasy books look the same! Certainly, there are some very professional and sleek looking covers out there, and I was seriously considering forking out a few hundred dollars for an expert to make one for me. And I'm sure it would turn out to be fantastic. But something just feels sort of wrong about the whole thing. I will freely admit that I hate this whole marketeting business. My novel was never meant to be a commercial venture, it was always a personal project. My book isn't like any other fantasy novel out there; it wasn't written for a market, so trying to compete with all these flashy bestseller-wannabe books just doesn't feel right. So, against all the 'advice' you read about on writing forums and such, I decided to hell with it and had a go at drawing my own cover. I really want a hand-drawn cover for my book, and I can't find any designers offering this, nor find any designs that match the feel of my story. And doing my own cover feels personal and satisfying. No, it's not like any other cover out there. Maybe it looks amateurish? I don't know. I'm actually fairly pleased with how it turned out. I hope it inspires someone to want to read the book. Hello and welcome to my website! I recently completed my first fantasy novel Ferrian’s Winter. It is an epic adventure novel that took me sixteen years to complete. Finally finishing it was a moment of both elation and sadness, but I'm glad I did it.
I have never (yet) had anything published, despite a great love of writing stories all my life. Always, I write for myself, because it is a fundamental part of who I am. For me, writing is neither a 'hobby' or a 'profession'. It just... is. (And honestly, I find it pretty hard to find fantasy books that I enjoy. No one seems to write them. So I write what I want to read). This site is intended to showcase sample chapters and offer some of my other short stories for free. Like all other writers, I just want to share them with the world. Being stuffed away on a lonely hard drive is kind of a waste, no? You can read the first ten chapters of Ferrian’s Winter here. I also have a Fictionpress page where I’m currently uploading the whole of the first book, updated weekly. This will only be up for a limited time (whereas the ten chapters here are permanent). I do artwork as well; that can be found on my deviantart page and Redbubble. This site is mainly focused on my writing, though I hope to have few illustrations or maps or such up at some point. In the coming months I hope to have an e-book version of Ferrian's Winter available to buy on Amazon (keep an eye out!) I’m working on it. (All I need is some nice cover art. Yeah, I’m an artist but cover art is a whole different thing). In the meantime, have a look around and enjoy. :) |
All of my books can be purchased in digital form from most online ebook retailers, including
Amazon and Smashwords. Paperback versions of my books are available from Amazon's print on demand service. AuthorMegan Leigh is a Tasmanian expat writer and artist living in Amsterdam. She paints nature and animals and writes weird and wonderful stories of fantasy and adventure. Subscribe for updates!
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