Freebies and Promotion: A Few Thoughts

So our recent experiments with Amazon Kindle's free promo service has come to an end - wherein we offered most of our Kindle novels and comic books for free for a limited time to see what kind of effect it would have on sales.

Boy, were we overwhelmed! - shifting over 700 copies in only a few days, and also securing our first ever 'sales' in foreign territories. In fact, we reached out to all of the Amazon European sister sites: .de, .es, .it and even .fr all accounted for a significant number, though it's fair to say that they were mostly our comic books, rather than the prose works - graphic works will always cross cultural boundaries better than the purely written word, although quite what they may make of the peculiarly British humour of Arf and Mo is anyone's guess...

It's been an interesting time, in which we saw our books briefly chart very high on the Amazon Free Kindle lists, with our comic books both reaching the top spots in all their categories. Seeing our books at the No. 1 ranking was quite a buzz. And as a 'loss leader', our free offer for Maranatha has already sparked some interest in the pay-for prequel, Venus in Saturn. It's also made Chaz think about the idea of producing something to be offered permanently for free on the Kindle store - perhaps a collection of shorter works, or a novella of some sort (he does, after all, have a good many ideas of all sorts floating around the place).

In short, it's been a fascinating experiment, and opens up a very interesting future for FWB and its products. You may recall a post on this very blog not all that long ago where Chaz basically discounted the whole idea of the Kindle book reader as having any real impact on the publishing world any time soon - well, he's more than happy to revise that view now, seeing how times have well and truly changed!

No doubt we'll continue to pick up the long-term effects of this promotional period for some time to come. Interesting times, as they say.

More Summer Freebies!

As part of the current Fenriswulf Books 'summer of Freebies' (i.e, testing the waters with Amazon's new promotional services), we're giving away - for nothing - the first issue of Arf and Mo in Kindle format. The promo lasts throughout 8th July and ends on the 10th at midnight Pacific Standard Time.

US readers can grab their copy right here.

You can also pick up, for a limited time only (throughout the 8th and 9th July), The Black Flag graphic novel for exactly £0.00! Don't delay - snatch one up today!

Over the last week or so we've given away hundreds of copies of 'Maranatha' and Episode 1 of 'Sundancer's Regret' - even managing to shift our very first foreign copies on Amazon.de! - so it's been a rather interesting exercise in getting our material out there.

Arf and Mo Arrive on Amazon Kindle

Things have been quiet on the Fenriswulf publishing front lately but for all lovers of lowbrow, underground COMIX, Chaz 'n Frang's dubious animal duo, Arf 'N Mo, have now just made it across to the popular e-book platform.

Here's the link for UK readers:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Arf-and-Mo-ebook/dp/B007P7ZZRE/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1333029254&sr=8-1

and for our US-based cousins:

http://www.amazon.com/Arf-and-Mo-ebook/dp/B007P7ZZRE/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1333029481&sr=1-1

"From the broken pen of Frang McHardy and the even more broken imagination of writer Chaz Wood, meet Arf and Mo, British underground comics' best-kept secret of the last ten years...

Follow the adventures of a bloated German Shepherd mutt and a psychotic white lab rat as they belch, break wind and bludgeon each other across an increasingly surreal landscape of early 21st Century British culture.

GASP! as anarchic Arf becomes a police dog, but ends up as Inspector Gadgie's lapdog!
SQUEAL!! as Mo explores the infinite wonders of sexual sado-masochistic vivisection!!
CHOKE!!! as our duo find work in a call centre...but will their peculiar brand of customer service satisfy their demanding manager???
PASS OUT!!!! as everyone else concerned drinks more beer than has ever been consumed in an Amazon Kindle funny-animal comic book before!!!!

All this and much, much more lies within this first sizzling satirical slice of sleazy surreal salami... "

This is Issue 1, a compilation of some of the best strips from over the past 10 years. Not all the best though, as there will be a second issue out sometime in the future...

'Sword of Lochglen' Issue 3 finally arrives!

...and well ahead of schedule, too!



It took a while, but Chaz & Frang at Fenriswulf Books are happy (and relieved) to announce that Issue 3 of the Scottish comedy/drama series is now out there in print format.

Chaz received the first print proof in the post today (remarkably quick service from Lulu.com, considering the time of year) and found no problems with the issue, barring a few artistic tweaks required for the front cover.

We'll be putting copies into George Cordeiro's 'Black Hole' comic shop in Dundee as soon as Chaz has received the first printed batch, but in the meantime you can buy it right here exclusively for the special price o' £1.99 direct from Lulu.com or from the Lochglen official site. Why this issue turned out cheaper than previous ones is known only to the bods at Lulu.com who keep fiddling with the pricing structure, but it means we won't be bothering to offer a digital download on this edition - as the print version will only work out a few pence cheaper than the PDF equivalent.

'Lochglen' Issue 3 Nears Completion

Despite various obstacles and a couple of urgent personal commissions, Chaz has been racing through drawing and scripting pages for Issue 3 of the Scottish comedy/drama series, with only one page left to complete. That amounts to seven completed pages in four weeks - (but not achieved without a whole lot of corner-cutting, copy+paste, and digital trickery to produce the best-looking results in the quickest possible time). As there will be at the very least another one, if not two or even three issues to go yet, we've acknowledged that speed is of the essence to get a project like this finished and out there in a reasonable timeframe. The work has its fans and the next step will be to see how it shapes up on Kindle (although we reckon the lettering - in 6-point OneStrikeScript - will be a tad small for some devices). Chaz's complicated script is taking its own time to develop fully, but the effort's starting to pay off. At this rate, Issue 3 will be out in print and digital format in the next couple of weeks - well ahead of schedule (for once).

In any case, here's the sort-of probably almost-finished front cover artwork by Chaz and Frang for the forthcoming issue 3 featuring - Dr. Mackenzie, Mr MacFaddyen and the eponymous sword with all its jokey nudge-nudge-wink connotations.

News, updates an' a' that at the dedicated home page: http://swordoflochglen.blogspot.com

Highland Flings

Chaz has now updated the slightly neglected 'Sword of Lochglen' webpage. As work on issue 3 rolls on, there's a new Origins of... page describing the influences which helped to create the series; new sample pages from Issue 3 in the Sample Art section - and a finished full-colour rough of the proposed cover to Issue 3 in the Cover Art gallery.

Currently, February/March 2012 looks like the most likely time for the release of Issue 3, entitled 'Tyrants & Teuchters'. ('What's a 'Teuchter' when he's at home?' our non-Scots readers may cry. Here's an online definition.)


A romantic moment as illustrated by Frang for Issue 3.

'The Black Flag' Flies on Amazon Kindle

Chaz originally submitted his first full-length graphic novel to Amazon's Kindle program back in December, then promptly forgot all about it during that period of the lousiest weather ever, becoming officially self-employed, and doing lots and lots of commission works while stuck in the house.

In the meantime, 'The Black Flag' has shifted a respectable number of copies both on the UK and the US Amazon sites - something Chaz was very pleased and surprised to discover tonight. Now that the Kindle project appears to be bearing some fruit, this is definitely a medium into which Fenriswulf Books will be planning more releases in the future (despite some of Chaz's earlier dismissive comments regarding the future of the e-book reader...well, times do change!)

Channeling the likes of 2000 AD's Slaine through the mythical Irish background of the Morrigan and the Battle of Magh Tuireadh, 'The Black Flag' pushes the notion of a Celtic revolutionary underground through a darkly futuristic vision of the British Isles. Anti-heroine Georgina Buadach Macdubhgaill invokes the myths of the good gods of ancient Ireland to bring blood and battle to the streets of London...and in the process, draws another cycle of history to a brutal conclusion.

Here's the link for UK Kindle shoppers.

And for US Kindle shoppers.

The Sword of Lochglen continues...

Chaz & Frang's surreal Scottish satire sees the release of Issue 2, both in print and in downloadable digital format. Wherein our hero William Stanley MacFaddyen realises he has fallen hopelessly in love with his tutor, Dr. Jeanette Mackenzie, and finds a finds a serious obstruction to his romantic ambitions in the form of her stoic and snobbish husband, Gregor.

Deciding to use the grim facts of his life as fuel for his fantasy fiction, MacFaddyen casts those around him as the heroes and villains in his epic novel, 'The Sword of Lochglen'. As reality begins to blur, life begins to get very complicated indeed...

You can pick up a copy of Issue 1 or 2, or read more, at the Lochglen homepage.