FREE BOOK GIVEAWAY

Hello all,

It’s been sometime since I posted something book-related. I started this blog with the goal of making it my author platform. However, somewhere along the line, it became more of a personal blog. At the moment, I am happy for it to be whatever it is right now.

Anyway, my good friend, Anan, shared me an email yesterday about a free book giveaway on Instafreebie. If you have a non-fiction self-help book under your portfolio and would like to give it away for free for a few days, you can team up with Sarah Barbour and do it! Please refer to this link for more details.

My first non-fiction ebook, How I tamed the dragon named fear, fits the bill for this giveaway. To give a brief on the book, HITTDNF is a very short, self-help book on how to tame your fears. It’s a personal journey where I have picked examples from my own life and demonstrated how I have been able to overcome my fears over the years.

However, it is also currently part of KDP Select program, which does not allow me to put the book for free anywhere else. So, I thought, why not give out a free giveaway through the KDP Select program itself?

BETWEEN SEPTEMBER 7 TO 11TH, HITTDNF WILL BE AVAILABLE FOR FREE ON AMAZON PLATFORM!!

If you have not had a chance to read it yet, here’s an opportunity for you to download and read the book. Please do let me know what you think of it! 🙂

Until later!

❤

WORLD OF FREE!

Both my books, Bound by Life and How I tamed the dragon named fear, will be available for FREE on Amazon over the coming two days (10th Apr – 11th Apr, 2017).

If you have not downloaded a copy yet, this would a great time!

Bound by Life, my first venture into self-publishing, is a collection of ten short stories. The protagonists are from different walks of Indian life: from tea-vendors on the pavements of Salt Lake, a leading IT hub in West Bengal (Manorama Tea Stall) to a young village boy performing in a circus in a city. The stories are simple tales of day-to-day lives of the common man. If simplicity is your thing, I am sure you’ll enjoy this collection.

How I tamed the dragon named fear is my first venture into non-fiction. It is a self-help book centered around overcoming fears in our day-to-day lives. In this book, I talk about the things that have worked for me over the years in dealing with my fears.

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Book Links:

Bound by Life | How I tamed the dragon named fear

I eagerly await your feedback upon reading both the books. As always, your feedback is what makes my writing better, so a review would be the best gift from you to me.

Cheers!

The first review!

A big thanks to everyone who supported me and spread a word about my book, How I tamed the dragon named fear. Thanks to you guys, I was able to reach 35 people yesterday. And one of the readers was kind enough to leave a review, this soon:

What should I say, that felt great! I guess positive feedback feels especially good if it comes from someone you do not know at all. Thank you Milan for reading the book and sharing your thoughts.

Once again, huge thanks to everyone who spread a word about this book. Also, a big thanks to everyone who downloaded the book yesterday. I hope you find it a good read. And if you do, please leave me a review!

Best,

Arpita

How my beta readers made my book better?

As writers, we are often so close to our writings that we fail to see the flaws that our writings have. While I was writing my recently published second book, I took care that the book did not suffer from such shortsightedness. In December 2016, with much self-doubt and suspicion I sent out a very rough draft of the book to a couple of friends and bloggers.

The feedback I received was immensely helpful towards building the finished product that is now live on Amazon.

The book, How I tamed the dragon named fear, is self-help book that draws heavily from my personal experience. In the book, I have talked about things that make me afraid and how I have learned to deal with them over the years.

The major chunk of feedback that I received from my beta readers went somewhat like this:

1. The book is immensely personal, hence the range of fears is limited, should try and broaden the horizon
2. The chapters were initially designed to be stand-alone capsules – Anand from Anand’s Parodies suggested I try connecting each chapter so they have a continuous flow
3. Adding visuals

I focused on points 1 and 2 and tried to re-create the book from a new angle. Speaking and emailing with my beta readers gave me the much needed clarity. Besides, being the nice folks that my betas were, they supported me strongly even for that really messy rough draft. That act of kindness hugely motivated me to continue work to the finish line and helped me in not doubting myself while I on it.

So, thank you Anand, Rachana and Neeladrita (my lovely school friend who’s currently working towards a Ph.D. in Mohali). Thank you so much for the time you guys took out and gave to this book. You have truly made the book a better one.

Have you ever had your work-in-progress read by beta readers? Did it change the course of your book? Share your experience with me in the Comments section.

P.S: If you have not downloaded How I tamed the dragon named fear yet, do it ASAP. It’s only a few more hours that it will stay FREE! Buy it here.

 

It’s FREE today!

Folks,

My new book, How I tamed the dragon named fear is available on Amazon for free today. Download your copy before you forget! 😀

Free Book Promotion | How I tamed the dragon named fear

As I mentioned in my last post, How I tamed the dragon named fear is now available on Amazon! Woo-hoo!

I have been flooded with congratulatory messages on Facebook. It really feels great!

How I tamed the dragon named fear available for FREE TOMORROW!

To add to this happiness, I am making the book available for FREE on Amazon tomorrow (11th February, 2017). I want to reach as many of you as I can, as soon as I can. For all of you who own a Kindle, I please download the book tomorrow. For those who don’t, you can download Kindle app on your smartphones/tablets as well and then download the book.

My humble request you all to share about the book and the  FREE PROMOTION on your social media platforms! Feel free to link to this blog post! Thanks in advance to all of you!

There, now I can get back to my actual work! Hope to hear your feedback on the book soonest.

YourQuote – The new writing app

Writers are always eager to have their thoughts read. In our busy schedules, often we do not get enough time to flesh out complete stories. What if you could write down the one-liners that came to your mind, a story-line if you please, and set that out in the digital world, along with a beautiful image ? Maybe you could use that one-liner later to structure an entire story!

Well that’s what YourQuote promises to do! It is an Instagram like platform for writers. Created by an author and an IIT grad, Harsh Snehanshu, it has a pretty cool user interface that allows to to write your own quotes (or flash fiction) within 1200 characters. You can use your own images or the images available on the app for the quote background. The end product is really cool and made me instantly happy!

YourQuote already has plenty of subscribers and is growing everyday. I feel it has the potential to become a vibrant writer’s community. If you like the concept of Instagram, you should definitely give this app a try: http://www.yourquote.in/

Let me know once you have installed the app! Let’s follow each other back!

P.S:  Bound by Life, my first ebook, is now available for FREE on Amazon. Download today!

An indie writer’s woes and a free book promotion

Until this October, my first (and so far only) book on Amazon, Bound by Life, has had a steady readership. I have not had as many paid downloads, but since the book is enrolled in KDP Select Program, it has seen many reads through KU/KOLL. The screenshow below shows the KENP read in September, 2016. Though the book has seen many more KENP Reads in previous months, September was much better compared to October and November, with no KENP reads at all.

This kind of made me panicky – because I am not sure about the reason for the drop in reads suddenly. For an author, perhaps nothing is better than being read. Hence, whether or not the royalty is ample, an author always wants readership.

In the past, I have noticed that writing about the book (whether in blog/Facebook) has led to spikes in readership. And for months now, I have only talked about the book when during the Free Book Promotion (FBP). The FBP creates a buzz in the digital world, which later translates to more readership. Which is why, I am again making the book available for free for the next five days.

From Nov. 21 – Nov. 25, Bound by Life will be absolutely FREE on Amazon. The free promotion starts approximately 12 AM PST, so keep a look at your clocks tomorrow, especially if you are not in PST.

When I go back to the Amazon KDP account, I keep thinking when I will be able to put another book out there along with this book. At a point in time, I had a dream that I will publish one book every year. But as I struggle with work life, I realize it is easier said than done. Somewhere, pressed by the cogwheels of life, inspiration vanishes. I have lost count of how many WIPs are lying around here and there in the computer. These days I have even stopped using the computer – with the smartphone, I can do mostly every day-to-day thing that I need to do. Unless, I have to write a blogpost or work in the book, I don’t use the laptop.

Are you a working professional and an aspiring writer? How do your manage your time? How do you insert the much-needed dose of inspiration to your writing life? Write to me in the Comments below.

Until later,

Write On!

 

Free ebook on Amazon Kindle: Bound by Life by Arpita Pramanick

My ebook, Bound by Life is once again available for free on Amazon. If you are a Kindle user and have not read it yet, please do download it.

The free promotion runs from September 6th-10th. In the previous promotions, the book has been downloaded over 100 times. Help me reach even greater audience by sharing this!

Cheers,

Arpita

J for Japanese – 2

See previous post

I am currently in my fourth week of Japanese course. Yesterday, we had our eligibility test post the 3 mandatory sessions. It went well, and I have a good feeling about it as I await the result. Clearing this test will mean that we’ll move forward in the remaining 6/7 week of Japanese lessons.

So far, we have learnt Hiragana, Katakana (learned that all foreign names must be written in Katakana) and some Kanji. I know numbers till 99 as well as the seven days of the week.

Learning a new language takes me back to my childhood days. I had long forgotten the days when it took me a few moments to read each word. I feel like I am in second standard of school again, standing in the class and reading out a passage from my English book, fumbling over the difficult words and my teacher, a kind lady in a maroon sari, helps me out. Even though I know the Japanese syllabary (for Japanese does not have alphabets, but only sounds), it takes me awhile to read out a sentence out loud. Yet, in spite of the time I take to pronounce a word, I am patient with myself. I don’t let myself feel bad that I am so slow. I savour every moment of this sweet struggle, for I know, before long, I shall read my Japanese as well as I read my English, and these days of trial and challenge would be long behind me.

Maybe I like this state because it makes me feel like a child again – where I have the freedom to make mistakes and not feel bad about them. Unlike my childhood, my mother is not there anymore pouncing on me to write my A’s and B’s correctly. I can take my own sweet time to learn to write, and when I am done, I become my own mother, own teacher and find my mistakes. I like this version of childhood so much better. That’s the beauty of learning at your own pace.

I’ll keep updating you all from time to time about my Japanese journey. Meanwhile, my ebook. Bound by Life is free for a few more hours on Amazon. If you have not downloaded it yet, do it right away! Happy Reading, folks!

Buy Bound by Life Now