#CapeCod Event - #Fitness, #Beauty, #Psychic Readings, + Shopping! #Mashpee

I'll be participating in a fun Ladies' Night Out coming up on Friday, in Mashpee on Cape Cod, and it's open to all!  I get to combine a bunch of my favorite things: fitness, makeovers, shopping, healthy delicious food, talking to psychic mediums, and socializing with wonderful women, all for a good cause!  I'll be mixing my two jobs (and passions): signing copies of my novels for readers, and also representing the fitness club where I work, which is hosting the event.  If you're in the area, come on by -- it's open to the public, and you can shop local vendors, get a makeover, take a class if you'd like, and sign up for a $20 reading with one of the two mediums booked for the event - they can explore your future with tarot cards or try to connect with your past by channeling spirits!  As someone who writes ghost stories, I've met with several psychics, and almost every time, I've received messages that were so accurate they gave me goosebumps.  I got to speak at length to several psychics when I was doing research for one of my books, Gull Harbor, as the main character is a psychic newly embracing her gift, and one of the mediums was actually distracted speaking to me, telling me spirits of loved ones had something to say. The things he passed along (at no charge) had me 100% convinced some people can connect this world with the next.

If you're interested in joining us for this event, it's at The Fitness Company for Women, 502 Main Street (Rt. 130) in Mashpee, on Friday, April 7th, from 5 pm - 9 pm.  Appointments with the psychics can be made starting at 5 pm.  Beauty appointments, such as makeovers, polish changes, and mini facials, will be first come, first serve.  Our popular "Fit Rev" group fitness clinic will be offered from 5 pm to 6 pm, and a barre class will be offered from 6 pm to 7 pm.  Local vendors will have tables set up for shopping, and I'll have all my novels available for sale and signing (personalized books make great gifts - Mother's Day is coming!).  Healthy food will be provided, and free child care is available.  

While we've done nights like this before, the goal for this one is to celebrate the lives of two members who passed away suddenly and unexpectedly last month, and hopefully raise money to donate to their families.  Vendors and psychics will be donating part of their proceeds, and we'll have other fun offerings like raffles for donated items to help raise money as well.

You can find the FB event page below as well as a list of some of the vendors.  Hope to see you there!

FB Event Page

Fit N DLite Healthy Meal Prep
Limelight By Alcone Makeup and Skin Care
Cape Cod Nail Company
Wampanoag Shells
Achieve More Fitness Apparel
Partylite Candles
Author Kathryn Knight Book Signing
And more!

Entertainment provided by Shelby Donovan

Free Child Care will be provided.

We will be offering raffles, giveaways and lots of membership and salon promotions!

99c Paranormal #Romance Bestseller! #Kindledeals

What an exciting weekend!  GULL HARBOR was put on a 99 cent sale for the first time ever, and it shot onto 3 Amazon Bestseller lists, hitting #1 in Paranormal Romance > Ghosts and Paranormal Romance > Psychics.  It's sitting on Page 1 of the "Ghost" category along with amazing paranormal romance novels like THE HOST and TWILIGHT, although how either of those books landed in the "Ghost" category is beyond me, considering the paranormal elements are aliens and vampires, respectively.  Regardless, it's a thrill to be in such Bestseller company.

Woo hoo!  Three
Amazon Bestseller Lists!

GULL HARBOR really does contain a ghost--a very angry spirit whose frightening and destructive behavior drives the new owners of an isolated Cape Cod house to hire a psychic medium.  Claire Linden arrives in the sleepy beachside town of Gull Harbor ready to tackle a haunted house and prove herself worthy of her gifts.  However, she never expects to encounter Max Baron, the man who promised to love her forever back in college, then disappeared from her life without a hint of an explanation.  As Claire begins to unravel the mystery behind the haunting, Max is forced to share his secret to try to stay close enough to Claire to help protect her from a danger that extends beyond the paranormal.

Click the title to check out the back cover blurb...and grab your copy of GULL HARBOR while it's less than a buck!

Kindle link

Nook link  

Want to see the story board?  Check out the pictures I used for inspiration on Pinterest!
 

Gull Harbor - Amazon Best Seller! Kathryn Knight

Thankfully, sales are still going strong after Gull Harbor's debut on Kindle.  As part of Amazon's Kindle Select Program, the title was offered for free for 5 days in April, and it hit the #1 ranking in the Free Store in Fantasy Romance.  Many of my fellow authors were interested in how I promoted my free days, so last week I blogged about all the effort I put into spreading the word.  And as I researched ranking categories for that post, I discovered something that helped propel Gull Harbor onto a Best Sellers list in the Paid Store.

Paranormal Romance is a huge catch-all genre, incorporating stories that include vampires, angels, demons, witches, wizards, fairies, time travel, ghosts, shifters, and anything else an author's mind can conjure up.  At The Wild Rose Press, it's such a popular genre that we have two separate lines: Faery Rose publishes the "lighter" paranormals, such as angels and time travel, and Black Rose publishes the paranormals with a "darker" element, such as werewolves and vampires.

But Amazon is different, and I'm still learning my way around this enormous marketplace.  Both my novels are ghost stories--with human heroes and heroines attempting to unravel a mysterious haunting--which are not as numerous as paranormal romances involving vampires or demons.  I know from my personal reading preferences that the only "ghost" subcategory in Amazon falls under horror.  While there are a lot of spooky and suspenseful moments in both Silver Lake and Gull Harbor, I would never classify them as horror.  So I didn't give subcategories much thought, especially since our marketing department handles our book listings on all the various sites they are offered for sale.

If I understand correctly, each Kindle book can be classified under two categories.  Both my novels were entered as Romance>Paranormal and Romance>Fantasy.  Truthfully, with the millions of titles available on Amazon (over 2 million currently on Kindle), I never expected to see much of a breakdown for my titles other than overall ranking. 

But the exposure gained by Gull Harbor's free days paid off.  Even after the free promo was over, the title stayed within the top 100 Best Sellers in Romance>Fantasy in the paid store for a while.  And as I wrote up last week's blog post, I noticed something I hadn't considered before.

The Romance>Fantasy category has no subcategories to narrow the rankings down--but Paranormal Romance has four:  Demons & Devils, Psychics, Vampires, and Witches & Wizards.  I'd been so fixated on "ghosts" as the paranormal element in my books, it actually took me a second to realize Gull Harbor fits nicely into "Psychics".  In the blurb, Claire is described as a "medium"--but that's essentially short for "psychic medium".  While she's recently embraced her talent for communicating with restless spirits, she is of course completely human.  For that reason, I just wasn't thinking of her as paranormal. 

I fired off a quick email to our marketing director, and Gull Harbor was moved into this more narrow category within Paranormal Romance.  Since then, it has stayed on the list of Top 100 Best Sellers in Psychic Romance.  It soared as high as #5 out of those top 100, and is currently at #20. 

It's been thrilling to see my novel on the first page in the Paid Kindle Store.  While I know it won't last forever, I'm trying to live in the moment and enjoy the ride!  And taking time off from working on my YA paranormal to write and research that blog post truly made an impact for me this time...if only I'd taken the time to capture a screen shot of that #5 ranking!