No Excerpt this week
Instead, I am asking for feedback on the following four synopses. Please have a read and let me know how I can improve them. There will be a free e-book copy of each book for any synopsis that I accept. This can include any book I publish this year.

Ordo Lupus and the Temple Gate
His teenage daughter is viciously murdered in Lyon by a long-forgotten biblical monster. A former WWII MI6 agent, our hero is suspected of her murder by the police and his divorcing wife.

With supernatural powers of foresight he goes on the run to clear his name. He has only one friend – a historian and member of the modern Knights Hospitaller but with his help he embarks on a white-knuckle ride to salvation.

In Paris a witch servant of the mysterious Catholic assassin sect Concilium Putus Visum seduces him during his quest for the secret weapon of the Cathars. If he can solve a puzzling set of clues to find the weapon, he might kill the monster and save his marriage.

But why do the assassins and the monster seem to be protecting him?

Lover’ of Dan Brown’s evocative mix of mystery and history will love this Occult Thriller – a dark and powerful tale.

Ordo Lupus II: The Devil’s Own Dice
His crippled wife is kidnapped by the witch Georgiana, now allied with the assassin sect Concilium Putus Visum, and transported back to feudal 13th Century France.

He is only one man against the vicious and murderous forces of Hell unleashed once again in the form of the shape-shifting Biblical Serpents.

Suddenly trapped in an escape-proof dungeon he must somehow escape, and train to be a knight so he can enlist the help of a corrupt count. Along the way he must overcome his sense of revulsion about his own supernatural power.

He must fight at the epic Battle of Bouvines and survive a climactic nail-biting duel to the death with a seemingly indestructible knight in a strange tower if he is to rescue his wife.

If you love Dan Brown, Anne Rice or Hilary Mantel you will adore this rich, twisting, writhing erotic masterpiece.

Iron I: Too Bright the Sun
Seeking revenge for the death of a friend ten long years ago, Major Jake Nanden has pursued his own personal demons with an almost religious fervour through life and through battle.

He is a soldier so highly decorated that his fame reaches far beyond the desolate moon Io where he is stationed. His victories in the Jupiter Wars are hollow though, for he is a man scared of his own soul.

His life seems to be a trap from which he cannot escape. His is the Replicant Company, and replicants are despised by all.

Likened to a cross between Blade Runner and Paths of Glory, you simply must read this beautifully constructed, intensely dark and powerful Science Fiction tale-with-a-twist if you love Phillip K. Dick and Isaac Asimov.

Iron II: Unknown Place, Unknown Universe
The daughter of a prominent feminist, a nerd and a self-proclaimed douchebag are three student pilots who crash land on an unidentified primitive planet. They must resolve their differences to escape through a worm-hole and get back to Earth.

An alien rebel steals a space-cruiser to escape certain death and go looking for the mythical home of his god. An alien technologist is on the verge of a great discovery.

Though they don’t know it yet, all are in the eye of a storm. The storm is a war of destruction that will engulf the Universe. Both groups must come together in an effort to warn Earth which stands at the brink of disaster.

If you like Stephen Baxter, Arthur C. Clarke or Greg Bear you will just have to read this breath-taking part two of the epic Iron Series.

Other News
As you can see I have been hard at it reworking the way my current books are presented on Amazon. I have been reading three self-help books for authors and applying the lessons I have learned from them. The books are: How I Made Over $42000 in 1 Month selling my eKindle Books by Cheryl K Tardiff, Secret Amazon Hacks and Other Cool Tricks for Kindle Authors by C Preston Stone and The Amazon Analytics Bible: How to use Analytics to Sell More Books on Amazon by Tom Corson-Knowles. As you can see one of the tricks they have all picked up is to include as many keywords in your title as possible! The biggest lesson for me is that Amazon KDP – their lending programme really works for authors so I will be trying it out. As a result, only 2 books are now available on Smashwords although I am still waiting for Barnes and Noble to stop selling my books before I am allowed to put those two; Ordo Lupus and the Temple Gate and Too Bright the Sun into the programme. I will let you know how I get on. One of the other lessons was that my synopses needed to be shorter and include more emotional words – hence the new versions above. Apparently authors are really bad at writing their own synopses so I will be grateful for any help.

I also finally managed to get enough likes for my Facebook page to get into their Insights programme so that I get stats on how people use my pages and what they do with my posts. Thanks to everybody who liked my page and helped me out. The Insights programme is very interesting. I can see that some posts are going slightly viral and others not at all. I will be watching and playing around with these to see what posts generate the main interest. Again, I am fairly crap at these so if you have read any of my books and can come up with some tweet/FB post that is fresh and original I will reward you for each ten that I accept with a free eBook of your choice. This can include any book I publish this year.

My short story Vampire: Beneficence has been selling quite well and has had two nice reviews. This leads me to believe that this is subject ripe for exploration. Indeed the short story was really an experiment with some new ideas and these ideas can easily be expanded. Consequently I will be writing a full-length Vampire novel in the winter.

I have now created three groups on Facebook for discussing general fiction, science fiction and Lycanthropy (vampires and werewolves) so if you want to join me for discussion please do. I have also put links to these at the end of the relevant excerpts or full length stories in my eBooks and a link to my blog at the front. People do preview these on Amazon and can click on the blog link if they wish. I have had quite a few clicks so it proves people are at leas previewing my books if they are not buying them as quickly as I would like. (These links inside books are a trick I picked up from Tom Corson-Knowles)

The last thing I can think of that I have changed this week is that I have joined a few tweet groups and author help groups on Facebook. I was actually in a lot of trouble in one of the tweet groups for no fault of my own: I had tweeted 2 tweets of new authors who had forgotten to include the group’s hashtag so my tweets weren’t picked up and consequently I was accused of not cooperating!

As you can see, I have been working hard to market myself more effectively this week. Let’s hope it pays off. I am already seeing my links shared more often though my stats on Facebook and bitly so we will have to see if this translates into sales. All this has not left me much time to write, which has been frustrating but I need to sell books. ==========================================================

The web address www.lazloferran.com now points to this blog so if you have bookmarked the old addresses of writers-blog1.blogspot.com or writers-blog1.blogspot.co.uk please delete them and add the new one: it will make your browsing much quicker. I hope I move up the google listings, at least for Lazlo Ferran if not for writing! I have also now created a permanent link on the right to my merchandise.
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Elsewhere
I noted (and thanks to Ash for the link) that the Dornier Do 17 recovery operation has run into difficulties and with only a few days left to recover it, my best wishes go with the team attempting it. Hopefully a Short Stirling will follow. If not then I hope Hollywood will want to make the movie of Attack Hitler’s Bunker and then build one from scratch!

Finally, I am a keen player on www.Warthunder.com and I am having trouble with my laptop because it doesn’t have the equivalent of a mouse-wheel. If anybody knows a way to get round this, please let me know. That’s it for this week. Good luck to Valentino and Marco in tomorrow’s MotoGp.

• Lazlo Ferran - Author