Hello friends and fans!

Welcome to my 53rd newsletter!

Pull up a chair, let’s chat! 

Let’s take a look at this months’ news!

April is done and May is upon us – hard to believe this year is already almost halfway done, isn’t it? Well, it is to me.

Most of my writing activities this month were related to marketing – includng the obligatory weekly article post on my DIY site and for my DIY column in the Weekend Post! More about the marketing stuff under the – er, marketing section.

I also have some exciting news about coming new releases, but more about that further on in the newsletter!

Anyway, let’s get to it and take a look at the usual list of goodies!

Current Writing Projects 

I’m always working on something – and with several unfinished stories still waiting in the wings, there’s no shortage of stories to work on. I often rotate my attention between them according to mood or feeling!

So far this year I’ve written three academic papers, one in January, and two in February, where I changed over to editing a book for a client, and then went right back to fiction writing again to work on the new Galaxii book. “Sentinel” will be book 4 in the series and I’m very excited about it!

Amazingly enough, between all the marketing-related hoo-haa I’ve been forced to do this past month, I’ve still managed to do some more work on “Sentinel”, but not as much as I would’ve liked. The new book is currently sitting at over 44k words, which by my standards is somewhere around halfway. As always, I’ll let you know how things go!

Marketing – The Dreaded “M” Word! 

Last month was filled mostly with marketing – and I don’t mind telling you how much I loathe marketing! It’s always felt like begging to me – begging for people’s attention and good graces – “buy my shit – it’s good shit, you’ll like it!” etc! It makes me want to cringe! Then there’s the chance of people reacting badly to my book ads – criticism from random individuals and fellow-authors alike, which is rare, but does happen! Still, it’s a dirty job as the old saying goes, and somebody’s gotta do it – so I guess it’s got to be me!

Anyway, there was a very good reason for my sudden increased focus on marketing: my wife Kay (Wendy K. Engela) who used to do marketing for me via DarkLady Marketing, got a full-time office job, and no longer had the time to continue! As a result, for the first month I hadn’t noticed any changes to views, hits or sales, so I just continued with my usual “light” marketing routine! Then, suddenly – no sales – everything bottomed out! This delivered to me the first month with a zero return in the last year and a half! Traffic slowed to a crawl. Oh, the mortification!

April then, was a month filled to the seams with marketing, brushing up on SEO, revising my website, learning more about keywords, search terms, revising the website again – then having to perform updates and maintenance on this website because of the resulting broken links and “missing” image files! What a headache! To be absolutely honest, I’m “gatvol” (as we South Africans say) of SEO and marketing now! Still, I believe the end result speaks for itself! I now have a much better, more user-friendly author site, with a heck of a lot more green lights for SEO and readability than before – so I’d take that as a win!

Thanks a stack for your support – it means a lot to me that there’s so many of y’all still here with me.

Videos

I’ve nothing new to show you here this time, but feel free to browse through the videos on my YouTube video channel! This promotional video by Nigel Peever, the narrator par excellence of the audiobook version of “Blachart” is still my favorite!

https://christinaengela.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/blachart-video-by-nigel-peever.mp4.mp4?_=1

Publishing

These are the new titles I’ve published in 2021 so far! The first 3 are academic papers, but I still have a few new fiction works in progress and should finish some during the year!

New Releases:

After the three academic papers I put out early this year, I also released the new updated Portfolio 2021, as well as a updated second edition of “The Galaxii Guide To The Terran Space Fleet“. Both are free items for your information and enjoyment.

Audiobooks

I have 5 audiobooks available on Audible and Amazon! Click the links in the slideshow below to view titles available as audiobooks.

This morning (April 30) I found two auditions for “Black Sunrise” (The Quantum Series, Book 1) from my publisher (Moon Books Publishing) in my inbox! I enjoyed listening to both of them – and in fact it never fails to bring a smile to my face, hearing someone putting so much effort into reading something I wrote! I look forward to letting you know who the narrator will be!

Stay tuned for new releases and updates!

Reviews

I have no new items to show you in this section this time, but you can see all my previous reviews here. If you would like to do a review of one of my books, please do get in touch!

Currently Available Titles

My books are available as eBooks, Paperbacks, and Audiobooks, and you can find them everywhere. Click the links in the slideshow below to view titles available in these formats.

If you’re still wondering where to find them in the format of your choice, you should read “Where To Get My Books – Specially For My South African Readers!“.

Communication

Below are links to a few of my most recent posts since my previous newsletter:

• “Shouldn’t That Be ‘Stakes’?” – Or, Doesn’t Anyone Know What A Pun Is Anymore?
• Where To Get My Books – Specially For My South African Readers!
• What Does An Author Get Up To When Not Authoring?
• Another Round At The Crow Bar #52 April 2021

Interactions

• Fan Mail, Reader Reviews & Honorable Mentions

I have the following awesome items to show you this month, including a few stray reviews from Audible’s .co.uk version! Weird that reviews don’t all appear together on the .com site, isn’t it?

1. 1. My academic paper “A Date With The Devil: Occult & Satanic Calendars Debunked” reached first the top 4%, and then the top 1% among similar papers on Academia!
   2. Lee Hall, the reviewer from the UK who’s given so many of my books such glowing reviews, recently tweeted about “Demonspawn” and how he came across my writing! 😉
   3. Andrew left me this lovely compliment on Marchs’ newsletter!

I display my Fan Mail & Compliments with pride, gratitude and humility. You’re always welcome to have a look.

• Hate Mail & Horrible Mentions

Surprisingly, I still haven’t received any hate mail this month either – wonder what I’ve done wrong? How could I possibly have failed to piss anyone off this past month? Oh dear. Perhaps I need new haters? They seem to have forgotten about me!

1. I’m rather proud of my hate mail, and you can review my collection here – but be forewarned, don’t do it while eating or drinking, or you might choke while laughing!

1. Interviews

1. All my interviews are linked to from this page. If you would like to do an interview with me about my work, please do get in touch!

In Closing

Well, that’s all for this time, folks! 🙂

Thanks again for all your support, sharing, friendship and interaction!

As always, feel free to email or message me via Facebook, Twitter or LinkedIn if you have any comments or questions!

All material copyright © Christina Engela, 2021.