Tag: Pirate Island (Page 1 of 8)

Middle Grade Pirate and Fairy Tale Book Giveaway

October 31, 2023 / Katie L. Carroll

Happy Halloween! These days you’ll mostly find me over on TikTok where I’ve been posting a lot about Witch Test. Though October is a great time of year to read my upper middle grade/lower YA Mean Girls meets The Craft book about overcoming bullying by finding your inner strength (or witch in Liza’s case!), don’t let that stop you from reading it as we move into November.

@katielcarrollauthor
Make Witch Test your next witchy read! #witchyreads #witchtest #thecraft #nancydowns #wearetheweirdosmister #spookybooks #yabooks #halloweenreads #booktokrecs #yabookrecs
♬ We are the wirdos – KILLER QUEEN

In other middle grade news, Pirate Island is part of a 6-book middle grade giveaway. Today is the last day, so make sure to get those entries in by 6:00 p.m. (ET).

How do you feel swashbuckling adventures and fairytale retellings? Do you love them both?

Well, then I’ve got a giveaway for you! I’ve partnered with five other authors to give you a massive middle-grade paperback giveaway. There will be ONE book bundle winner of 6 signed paperbacks (US only)⁠ from these amazing authors:
@amieborst
@masonbellauthor
@hopefullhappenings ⁠
⁠@katielcarrollauthor
@katfarrow.loreweaver
@r.v.bowmanfantasyauthor

Giveaway is now open until October 31, 6 pm EST. Winners will be selected October 31 after 6 pm and the winner will be announced on November 1st. Must be 18 years or older to enter. The paperback bundle is available to US only. (Full rules are on the giveaway link.)

If you want all the latest news from me and bonus perks like two free short stories and a 10% discount on signed books through the end of the year, make sure to subscribe to my newsletter! Preview the latest one here.

THE BEDTIME KNIGHT Audiobook, Book Deals, SCBWI Conferences, and Podcast News!

April 4, 2023 / Katie L. Carroll

I wasn’t even sure how to title this post because I have so many exciting things to announce. First of all, THE BEDTIME KNIGHT is now available as an audiobook, narrated by Stephanie Quinn. And it earned an orange banner on Amazon for being the #1 new release in Audiobooks on Bedtime & Dreaming for Children! You can find the audiobook on Chirp, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Audible, Libro.fm, Scribd, Audiobooks.com, and Google Play.

If you’d like a free listen of THE BEDTIME KNIGHT, sign up for my author newsletter, where you’ll also earn access to two free short stories! It really is the best way to get all my latest news and exclusive offers, and I’ll only email you once a month. I appreciate all you who subscribe to the blog, but if you haven’t also signed up for my newsletter, I’d love for you to do that too.

For all you Kobo readers, two of my books are on sale right now. For the first time ever, ELIXIR BOUND is free now through April 9th! This award-winning YA fantasy is Shadow and Bone meets The Lord of the Rings with strong female characters embracing their power while on an epic quest. PIRATE ISLAND, the middle grade adventure reminiscent of The Goonies, is only $2.99 now through April 16th.

Now a little something for the writers! I’ll be presenting two workshops at the in-person New England SCBWI Conference, April 28-30. The titles of my workshops are “Traditional vs. Self-publishing: Who Will Win?” and “What to Expect When You’re Self-Publishing.” Keep an out another SCBWI workshop announcement coming soon! You can see all my author appearances, including a local in-person one in May, on the Events page.

Finally, I had the pleasure of being a guest on the Woodbury Writes podcast, hosted by Sandy Carlson, poet laureate of Woodbury, CT. We had a great conversation about creating fantasies for young readers and more!

There’s more I could talk about, like how I’m so very close to being done with revisions of my YA psychological thriller Hamlet retelling. I’ll be doing a cover reveal and release date reveal for that soon…as soon as I finalize the title! But I’ve reached information overload.

What have you all been up to lately?

Signed Books, SELFIES FROM MARS Pre-order, & Self-Publishing Workshop

December 5, 2022 / Katie L. Carroll

Since it’s that gift-giving time of year, a reminder that signed copies of my books are available to be shipped right to you on my Purchase Books page. If you want those goodies to arrive by Christmas, you should get your orders in now. And a reminder that you can also purchase them on all the usual online book retailers or order them from your local indie bookstore.

For those of you who aren’t familiar with my books, my award-winning YA fantasies, Elixir Bound and Elixir Saved, are great for teens or adults who love epic fantasy with cozy vibes. Pirate Island and Witch Test are contemporary middle grade with a hint of the supernatural, great for the 8 and up crowd but particularly perfect for 10-14 year-olds.

The Bedtime Knight is an imaginative, interactive picture book that’s a fun read aloud. And finally, Mommy’s Night Before Christmas is a modern take on the classic Christmas poem that is just as much for the adults as it is for the kids. This one is a great stocking stuffer for all the moms in your life.

Speaking of books (as if I talk about so many other things here!), I have a new one coming your way February 13, 2023, and it’s up for pre-order now. Meet Selfies From Mars: The True Story of Mars Rover Opportunity! It’s STEM with heart. This has been a passion project of mine that I’m so excited to bring to readers. It’s my first nonfiction children’s book, and I have loved working on it, particularly using all the amazing NASA images from Opportunity’s mission. I also navigated the tricky world of music licensing for this book.

At Indie Author Day at the Norwalk Public Library, there was a lot of interest from other authors to learn more about self-publishing children’s books. So I’ve been convinced to offer up my self-publishing workshop “What to Expect When Self-Publishing” in January. This is digital workshop, so you can attend from anywhere (details and sign up here)!

Yes, I’ve been very busy! I wouldn’t want it any other way. What have you all been up to this fall?

Deal Alert: November Discount on Katie L. Carroll’s Books

November 1, 2021 / Katie L. Carroll

Remember how back in the beginning of the pandemic there was a shortage of toilet paper and since then there have been various shortages of certain items? That’s happening now with physical books.

The supply chain issues regarding books can’t totally be blamed on the pandemic (this problem has been years in the making, see “Looking for Answers to Supply Chain Challenges” by Michael Seidlinger), but the bottom line is there is a shortage of physical books.

While publishers are pushing back release dates and paper is in short supply, you don’t have to worry because I have all of my books in stock. For the entire month of November, you can get signed copies of my books at a 10% discount when you use code NOVEMBER10 at checkout on the Purchase Books page.

Signed and personalized books make for great gifts, and I have choices for all the young readers in your life! My picture book THE BEDTIME KNIGHT is a fun read aloud where young kiddos can participate by seeing what is revealed in the illustrations. For the 8-12 crowd, PIRATE ISLAND has pirate treasure and a cursed island (and a little real history thrown in there for good measure). My YA fantasies, the award-winning ELIXIR BOUND and ELIXIR SAVED, are perfect for teens or fantasy loving adults.

This discount is running through the end of November so I can make sure to get them all mailed off in time for the December holidays. All orders come with a bonus bookmark or sticker, customized to the book(s) you’re ordering. Buying direct from me also means that you’re supporting a small business!

ELIXIR SAVED and Author Life Updates from Katie L. Carroll

June 17, 2020 / Katie L. Carroll

I hope you all enjoyed the reading I did of my middle grade adventure PIRATE ISLAND last week. I love presenting workshops and talks to writers and readers in person, but something about recording a video makes me nervous. I think I’m just the type of person who thrives on that face-to-face interaction, but we all must adjust during these strange times.

I’ve been working on my video space and equipment in particular because I recently became Talkabook Certified. Talkabook is a website where readers can book live video calls with authors. I’ll be offering several different options once they launch later this year, and I’m excited to be able to connect with readers this way and details will be on my author visits page.

In book news, ELIXIR SAVED launches in less than a month! It’s been a bit of an ordeal to get it listed for pre-order, but after many chats and emails with various distributors, I think it’s up in paperback and ebook most places now, including IndieBound, BookShop, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and Kobo. If there’s somewhere you like to buy books and it’s not there, let me know and I’ll see what I can do.

It’s really hard to have book coming out amidst everything going on in the world, but I’m doing my best to get the word out without being obnoxious about it. If any bloggers have guest spots open in July, I’d be happy to hop on your blog. I’m working on some fun promo stuff for release day, including a “book birthday” video and a quiz take will tell you what element your magic is aligned with.

At the beginning of the year, I ordered a bunch of bookmarks (pictured above) to give out at in-person events, which obviously aren’t happening. I’m not running any kind of official pre-order campaign for ELIXIR SAVED, but if you have ordered it, drop me a comment or an email and I’ll send you one (U.S. only…sorry).

As for work-in-progress news, I’ve been getting up early a couple mornings a week and hopping on video chat with one of my writer friends to continue drafting my witchy middle grade book–think Mean Girls meets The Crucible with a slight paranormal twist. With everyone still at home , early mornings are the best option for any kind of writing time…at least distance learning for the two older kiddos is over and they’re on summer break. I’ve come up with themed activities for kids for the summer that will hopefully allow me some time to work during the day.

One last thing (this update turned out longer than expected!), I have a secret project I’m working on that I’m hoping to release later this year or early next year. It involves a design skill set that I’m teaching myself, and it’s a project some of you might be familiar with. I got all the rights for it settled, so now it’s a matter of carving out the time for it and figuring out how to make it work.

Sending you all healthy vibes! I’d love to know what you’ve been up to or if you have any summer plans.