New website!

Hi there!

Please visit my new website for all of my latest book news:


www.kittyfrench.com


See you there!

Love Kitty xx

GENIE is LIVE!

It's release day at last!

I'm excited, nervous and terrified all at the same time. :)

CLICK HERE FOR AMAZON UK

CLICK HERE FOR AMAZON US

Thank you! I hope you love Genie!


Love Kitty xx

Genie!

It's just three days now until Genie releases!

I'm incredibly nervous. As many of you know last year was a difficult one for me health-wise, so it has been longer than I'd have liked since my last release.

Genie comes out on Thursday February 26th ~ hang onto your corset strings, we're going burlesque!

A big milestone ~ a quarter of a million sales!

Holy cow!

I've just totalled up and double checked my numbers to make sure, and as of this lunchtime I've sold over 250,000 copies of the Knight trilogy.

Book one launched on Nov 26th 2012, so that makes it fourteen months plus a week or two, which believe me has gone by in a blink.

I read over THIS BLOG POST  from back in January last year when I hit 20, 000 sales, and although life has changed quite a bit since then, I still have those exact feelings of 'oh my god' every morning when I wake up.

Things that have changed:

1) I can do spreadsheets! I really can! My heart will always belong to sparkly gel-pens, but Excel no longer scares me quite so much. Stats have become a part of my daily routine. I'm learning to love number crunching.

2) I've become more confident in myself. Book one felt like a fluke, but three books in and I now feel more settled and secure that I can write books that offer readers a pleasurable escape from every day life for a few hours.
I'll never write a booker prize winner. I'm cool with that. There's room and requirement for all of us.

3) When someone asks me what I do I can now say 'I'm a writer,' without mumbling into my collarbone or blushing. That didn't come easy.

4) I have an agent these days, which has been great for things I wouldn't have a prayer of doing myself, especially foreign rights deals and stuff like that.

5) Other good things happened too, like St.Martins press invited me to be part of their holidays program, and my books are all out now as audio books and paperbacks, as well as being available from lots of e-retailers besides amazon.

6) I've learned SO much about the ever-changing business of self publishing, most of which has been gleaned from other generous self publishers sharing their stats and knowledge in places like the kindle cafe. I'm continually in awe of the way that the indie community supports each other.
Knowledge is power,  and the indie writing community becomes more powerful every day by dint of its willingness to share.

7) I've officially become a 'hybrid author'.
Self publishing has helped to further my career as a traditionally published author too.
I had a romantic comedy novel e-published by Authonomy at HarperCollins in 2012, and adding the link to it in the back of each of my Knight Trilogy books has helped to push sales. Those encouraging sales figures and reviews have resulted in a three book paperback deal with Avon at HarperCollins, which warms my heart more than I can say.
I feel very lucky to be able to straddle the publishing fence - please don't let it ever cut me in half!

8) I hit the USA Today best selling list! Jeez, this was exciting. It happened during launch week of book two in May 2013, and I still stroke it when I see it on my business card.
8a) I have business cards. 

Things that haven't changed so much over the last year:

1) I still don't sleep so much, but when I do, I go to sleep thinking 'what can I do tomorrow to help spread the word?'

2) The oldest cat in the world is on course to become the actual oldest cat in the world. She's nineteen going on twenty, deaf as a post, cantankerous and yowls like a screech-owl, but she's still with us.

3) I remain indebted and in love with FB and twitter as my way to stay in touch with the most important people of all - the readers.

4) Formatting still makes me want to stick my head in the oven.

5) I still work around the needs of my kids, but my husband doesn't have to do that job that was half killing him anymore. He now gets to spend all day being bossed around by me and has become intimately acquainted with the washing machine, the cooker and the school run.

6) There's still Lego on the floor and hotwheels cars on the stairs. Life with kids is perilous, I'm just glad when we all make it to bed unscathed.

7) Excel is all well and good, but I'll always be a sparkly gel-pen girl at heart.

8) That kitchen tap doesn't leak anymore. It just needed a new washer. All that torture for 50p! I can still see the sky through that little hole in the roof though...

9) I still worry that this will all end tomorrow.

My plans for 2014 are taking shape now with the paperback launch of my first HarperCollins book in June, and a new duo of erotic titles in the self publishing pipe line.

So yeah. A quarter of a million sales. Thank you to every last person who has bought, read or recommended the books. I'd love to buy you all a drink.
I won't because I''d go broke, but know that I'd love to.

Kitty x

Blog Tour!

I'm going on tour this week to celebrate the release of the third and final book of the Knight Trilogy!

This is my first ever blog tour, thanks so much to the lovely ladies over at Love Between The Sheets for hosting it for me - you guys rock with your super organisational skills. :)

If you'd like to sign up for my newsletter to be amongst the first to hear about new books,

 please email by CLICKING HERE.

One Crazy Month!

Well, Knight & Stay has been out for a whole month now, and it's safe to say that it's been an amazing, exciting few weeks!

It snook onto Amazon a couple of days earlier than planned, and once word got out it started to climb... and climb... and climb, all the way up to number 13 on Amazon on both sides of the pond.

Who said 13 is an unlucky number? Not me, that's for sure!

It also made the USA Today chart a couple of weeks back, so i can now officially say I am a USA Today best selling author, which makes me smile like a loon. :O) <--- That's me.

And as of now, I have a fabulous agent in New York! Things like this don't happen to me.

I'm really excited about what lies ahead for the Knight Series, more news as I have it!

Kitty xx

Knight & Stay, OUT NOW!

BIG NEWS!

Amazon has  released Lucien early for bad behaviour!

KNIGHT & STAY IS AVAILABLE RIGHT NOW, TWO WHOLE DAYS EARLY!

AMAZON US - CLICK HERE

AMAZON UK - CLICK HERE

COMING SOON FOR ALL OTHER E-READERS

Knight & Stay - The official release date...

The official release date for the sequel to Knight & Play is officially set now for:


 Monday May 6th 2013


That's just one week away!

(Lots of people have asked about a pre-order option ~ there isn't one I'm afraid, self publishers aren't able to offer them. Don't worry though, I'll post the links on here as soon as the book is live. :O)


T-7 and counting...

40,000 sales milestone reached...

It's now sixteen weeks since Knight & Play first went on sale, and it has just passed the 40,000 paid sales milestone.

I started out with no expectation of how this was going to go, and it's fair to say that it's been an amazing few weeks!

Originally just available on Kindle, it's now also  out on Kobo, Nook, smash words, and it's coming to ibooks any day now.

Book two, Knight & Stay is coming in a few week time, and the roller coaster rides again!

I want to say a big, huge thank you to each and every person who has downloaded it, helped me promote it, and to the fab people on facebook and  twitter who make me laugh every day... this thing has completely taken over my life, and I LOVE IT.

Knight & Play now available on Nook & Kobo

Up to now, Knight & Play has only been available on Kindle.

Good news :O)

As of now, it's also available to buy for Nook & Kobo, and should be on ibooks within the week.

Yo'll find all the links on my books page.

*disclaimer* HOT READ! Read at own peril - don't sue me if it melts your Kobo!

Book Two Cover reveal...

Last weekend saw the grand unveiling of the cover for the sequel to Knight & Play courtesy of Vanity Case Books , a fab new review site for women's fiction run by a bunch of girls after my own heart ~ they love wine, shoes and books. We could be sisters!
They did a great job for me over the weekend, a fun night was had by all. :O)

If you missed the party, then here for your delectation is my latest cover.

*sigh*.

I love it! Major thanks to Angela Oltmann for working so hard with me to create both covers in the Knight series, I adore them.

So... Drumroll....

Tada!

Pretty, huh?

Knight & Stay, coming in April 2013

30,000 sales in eleven weeks...

Following on from my very long and rambling twenty thousand sales post a few weeks back, I'm excited to be able to say I've now passed thirty thousand. Or 30, 660 to be precise. :O) That's a bit bonkers, isn't it?

Thanks to everyone who has helped spread the word, downloaded the book, left reviews, tweeted... I'm  indebted to you all.

Am having massive fun with twitter! Come by and chat @kittysbooks - we mostly talk about wine, men, books, and other similar matters of earth shattering importance.

Book two is coming soon. I'll be able to reveal the gorgeous new cover and title in a few days... watch this space.

April is gonna be busy, busy, busy!

I'm thinking if I just give up on sleep altogether, I can make this thing work. ;o)

My first 'official' interview! Get me!

I'm super lucky today - I'm blogging over with the Minxes Of Romance.

Come on over and chat about Knight & Play, wine and risque internet histories...

http://minxesofromance.blogspot.co.uk/2013/01/author-spotlight-kitty-french.html

The minxes are my writing bezzies and crit partners, so I feel double lucky to be over there today. I'm excited! 

20 thousand sales in 7 weeks... how did that happen?

Five minutes ago, the 20,000 copy of Knight & Play sold on Amazon.
Today also marks day 50 on sale.
No promo's, no free days, no price alterations.
Even typing that feels amazing.

This is my first published book so I had no expectations or experience of what to expect, but I sure as heck know it wasn't this! I feel as if i've tumbled down Alice's rabbit hole.

I've written for some years, but this is the first book that's made it as far as readers hands, largely due to the option to self publish which just didn't exist in years gone by.

I'm a full time mum. I write between school drop off and pick up, and then again when the house is quiet after everyone else has gone to bed. I don't sleep much. Most days I have to step over lego bricks and hotwheels sets to unearth the laptop on the dining table, often cleaning up spilt drinks and tossed aside pj's on the way. Then there's the dripping tap in the kitchen that is akin to chinese water torture, and the little hole in the roof we glimpsed when we put the christmas decorations back in the loft last week...
Not that I'm complaining. I'm really fortunate to have a hard working husband who has always believed in me far more than I do myself, and kids who don't mind coco-pops for dinner every now and then when I'm writing and have lost track of the time, which seems to happen more often than I'd like.

Knight & Play was several months in the writing, and then several more weeks of working with a free-lance editor and cover designer to put together the final book.

The thing with self publishing is that the actual writing is only one part of the process, and I'm the first to admit that when it comes to the business side of things I have no clue what I'm doing.
Actually getting the book formatted for Amazon had me close to sticking my head in the oven. I'm the least techie person in the world, so let's just say it was a challenge and gloss over the fact that actual tears were shed.
I managed it in the end, and it went LIVE. Again, we'll gloss over the few attempts it took to erase all the stupid mistakes I'd made. It made my head hurt, and it required wine for medicinal purposes.

So, sales started to trickle in from friends and faithful, lovely writing buddies.
Day one, twelve sales.
Day two, five sales.
Day three, fourteen sales. So far, so good. And that was when it got weird.
By day seven it had hit fifty sales.
Day nine saw my first one hundred sales in a day.
212 people have left five star reviews on Amazon.
It snowballed, and it snowballed, up to some days that have almost topped one thousand sales a day.

It became clear I needed to keep some stats. I've never been near a spreadsheet in my life without breaking out in a sweat, so my stats involve sparkly gel pens and rainbow paper, but they are stats none the less, and those stats tell me this.

At 10.45am on Saturday December 15th 2012, Knight & Play was number 61 in the kindle top 100 books in the US.
At 11.30am on Wednesday January 2nd 2013, Knight & Play was the 3rd most popular erotic book in the US.
Since then, it's bobbed around in the erotic top ten in both the US & UK.
Every time I update my stats with a sparkly gel pen I hold my breath, & every time a new review appears on Amazon or Goodreads I cross my fingers and sing the rocky music to psyche myself up before reading it.
I'm terrified a lot of the time, and much more wine has been consumed in the name of steadying my nerves.

So here I am.
It's day fifty, and I've got this book that is selling more copies than I ever imagined it would. I'm sitting here drinking coffee on my sofa and and I'm trying to make a plan.
What do I do now? How do I make the most of this thing? How can I reach out to more readers?
The truthful answer is that I don't have a clue. I've never marketed anything in my life, and i'm working with a marketing budget of, umm, zero.
Any money from the book has yet to come in, and in the meantime we're juggling debts, school trips, the mortgage, bills,  vet bills for the oldest cat in the world - normal family life on a shoestring in other words, same as most people the world over.

Word of mouth and social media has become my very best friend.
I now understand twitter, and I have even installed tweetdeck - for this non -techie gel pen fan, that was some accomplishment. I get a glow every time that little bird tweets at me, because someone somewhere in the world is chatting to me.

And that, above everything else, is the thing that has completely blown me away over the last few weeks.
The emails, and tweets, and Facebook messages of support, both from people I know and from people I have never and will never meet, but who have enjoyed Knight & Play enough to take the time to get in touch.

I love it. I love these wonderful, encouraging ladies who are generous with their time and efforts to help spread the word. If I could hug each and everyone of them, I would. I'm not going to name names because I'll no doubt miss someone out, but you guys know who you are. Consider yourselves well and truly hugged.

Book two of the Knight series is coming out in April, and I am, if anything, even more nervous than first time around.
I'm confident about the formatting this time, but book two comes with a whole new set of fears.
What if everyone hates it? What if I blow it? Agh! Cue more wine.
The year ahead feels like a big, exciting adventure waiting to happen.

Right now though I'm just really, really proud of how far Knight & Play has come.
My brother gave me a mug for christmas that said 'published author' - I get a kick every time I use it, because no one is more shocked, amazed and thrilled by all of this than me.

I'm proud that my family are proud. I've loved every moment of being a stay at home mum whilst my babies were little, but now they are old enough to go to school, I feel incredibly lucky to have found a job I love. The fact that i'm going to be paid to do it is the icing on the cake.
With a cherry on the top. And sprinkles. Sparkly ones, naturally.

Sign up for updates...

Hello lovely people!

I've had zillions of requests for information about the release date for book two, and i'd love to be able to let you know as soon as I do.

I'm setting up a newsletter facility here on my blog, but in the meantime, please feel free to email me your email details and i'll keep them safe and add you to the list.
(I won't ever share or distribute your email details, just so you know.:O))

CLICK HERE to e-mail me your details.

Thanks so much for supporting Knight & Play, it's been like Christmas day on repeat ever since I published the book. It's blown me away, i'm honestly thrilled, thrilled, thrilled.

Merry Christmas & Happy holidays one and all!

Kitty x

Two weeks later...

Knight & Play has now been on sale for a couple of weeks and all I can say is WOW, WOW, WOW.

The book has taken off like a blummin' rocket!

I am utterly thrilled and exhilarated whenever a good review pops up, or someone tweets or emails to tell me they love Lucien. I don't think it'll ever get old.

We're now at no.13 in the UK erotic chart and no.15 in the .Com erotic chart - it has already exceeded my wildest expectations, every day feels like christmas morning.

Thanks from the bottom of my heart to everyone who is helping to spread the word on facebook, or twitter, or on the bus, or in the pub  - you are all officially frackin'  FABULOUS.

Something that made me titter...

I've recently joined Goodreads, and am currently stumbling around there like a clumsy toddler trying to find my feet.
I did find this though, and it absolutely made my day. I can't thank the lady enough who took the time to put it together. I was blown away, and it made me really, really laugh!

Click here to read sparkly Goodreads review by clever lady

Moving on up the Amazon Hot New Release chart!

What an exciting few days!

Knight & Play is selling better than I dared hope so far, and last night it entered the Amazon Hot 100 New Erotic Release chart. How flippin thrilling is that?!

It was good enough to wake my husband up so he could read it too to make sure I wasn't hallucinating, anyway. :O)

Also I have 5 reviews now, and they all loved it! Could cry. Have cried.

What a lovely few days. Am working my backside off trying to tell as many people as possible on line without annoying them enough to want to kill me. Any suggestions on how to spread the word very welcome.

Publication Day!

I can hardly believe it, but Knight & Play is now available to buy on Amazon!

Sales have already started, and there's a couple of lovely reviews appeared already - I'm officially over the moon. :O)

This is the first book i've ever had out there to be read by anyone who chooses to, and as one of my crit buddies said, it feels exactly  like running around without your undies on.
So, yes. This is me, running around without any knickers on, asking you to please head on over to Amazon to have a look and squee with me!


CLICK HERE TO SEE KNIGHT AND PLAY ON AMAZON

Remember, remember, 25th of November!

Release date is approaching fast now, and I am officially terrified!

Self publishing is a roller coaster ride for sure, but I am very glad that so many people who've already experienced it are so giving with their advice via blogs, twitter, etc. There's so much info out there, it feels like a really wide circle of people holding hands across cyberspace.

My news for today - Knight & Play is due to be published on the last weekend in November, so please come by again soon for competitions and launch events!

I'm pretty excited and mainlining wine in the countdown - that's normal, right?