Random coincidences

My latest book 'A Series Of Seriously Consequential Coincidences' was recently published for kindle, so to publicize it, this week's blog post features a round up of memes, jokes, facts, and personal experiences all on the theme of coincidences.

1) Imagine sitting on a plane and it turns out that the passenger in the next seat looks exactly like you! That's what happened to Neil Douglas when he boarded a flight and discovered that the person sitting next to him was a mirror image of himself.

Credit: Telegraph

By a further coincidence, they were both going to the same destination!

Editor's note: "Of course they would be going to the same destination. It was a plane, not a bus. That's how planes work!"
Charles: "Yes, it was a joke."
Editor: "Oh, right. That makes more sense."

Entertainment memes and jokes

My latest book 'Murdertainment' was recently published at Amazon for kindle, and whenever I publish a new book I like to promote it with a light-hearted blog post on the theme of the book.

However, the theme of 'Murdertainment' is a sci-fi story set on a planet where murder is used for entertainment purposes, which I have to admit, isn't particularly light-hearted. So instead, I've decided to have a blog post about entertainment in general, with a look at ten* of the most popular forms of entertainment.

* In no particular order.

1) Sports

You'd have to be very forgetful to forget your own son. However, if you did forget your son, then this is what you might say...

Credit: ifunny

Bonus joke:

Friends Are Like Batteries

My latest short novella, 'Friends Are Like Batteries', was recently published, and whenever I publish a new book or short story, I like to feature a blog post on the theme of the story. So sticking with tradition, this week the Charles Fudgemuffin blog takes a look at the unusual combination of friends ... and batteries!

1) To start things off, here's an example of an unlikely friendship.

True friendship.

Whoever invented the saying 'to fight like cat and dog' had obviously never met this cat and dog!

Monsters and goblins

My latest short story 'The Venus Gargantua' was recently released for kindle, and the cover (pictured below) gives you a brief idea of what to expect.

The story features an evil monster, and a village of goblins, so to stick with that theme, this week's blog post is on the subject of monsters and goblins.

1) At what time did the monster eat the Prime Minister?

8PM.




2) Why do goblins have big ears?

Because Noddy wouldn't pay the ransom.




3) Apparently, Bigfoot can grow up to twelve feet.

But they usually only have two.

Dead Man's Switch

Dead Man's Switch
by Charles Fudgemuffin

Exciting news! My latest book 'Dead Man's Switch' was released this week!

To promote it, this week the Charles Fudgemuffin blog takes a lighthearted look at the subject of death, starting with an optimistically accurate Japanese word...

1) In Japanese, the kanji for 'widow' translates as 'not dead yet person'.




2) I helped my friend hide a dead body.

He said, "Thanks."

I said, "Don't mention it."

Legal disclaimer: The above story is a work of fiction for the purposes of making a joke. In reality, my friend is extremely ungrateful, and would never say thank you.

Teddy bear jokes and facts

My latest book 'Planet Of The Teddy Bears' was released this week, so to promote it, this week's blog post features a selection of teddy bear memes, teddy bear jokes, and random teddy bear facts.

Planet Of The Teddy Bears
by Charles Fudgemuffin

1) The world's largest teddy bear

Have you ever wondered how big the world's largest teddy bear is? Then wonder no more!

The world's largest teddy bear is a massive 55 foot tall, and is located at the Exploration Place in Wichita, Kansas.

To help you put that into perspective, a bowling lane is approximately 60 foot long, so it's almost as tall as a bowling lane is long!

So if you were planning on buying it, then I hope you've got a very big house! Also, I hope you're prepared to be disappointed, because the Exploration Place probably won't sell it.

Discaimer: Apologies to anyone who hasn't ever wondered
how big the world's largest teddy bear is. I'll try
to more accurately predict your teddy bear themed
wonderings when coming up with future facts.

The Quiz Master

Regular readers of the Charles Fudgemuffin blog may have noticed that whenever I publish a new book or short story I generally like to promote it with a blog post, and this week is no different! My latest book 'The Quiz Master' was released this week, so in keeping with tradition, here's a brief summary of the plot:

The Quiz Master.
Available for kindle from Amazon.

"When the Deep Space Genesis agency discover the first potentially inhabitable exoplanet 'Nova Satus III', they plan to transport ten convicted criminals to that planet to use as metaphoric 'canaries in a coal mine', in order to test the suitability, and safety, of the planet's surface for human life.

However, even before the 'canaries' have barely started their journey, a mysterious hacker known only as 'The Quiz Master' takes control of the ship, and puts the canaries through a sick and twisted 'Last Man Standing' elimination game that will leave nine of the canaries dead, and only one survivor.

Who is this mysterious Quiz Master, and what are his motivations? And which of the ten contestants will survive?"

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As regular readers of the Charles Fudgemuffin blog may also have noticed, I occasionally like to feature quizzes on the blog. However, whereas the quizzes on my blog are generally light-hearted and sometimes a little bit silly, the quizzes, situations, and tests that the 'contestants' face are somewhat more unsettling, and of course the stakes are a lot higher!

To give you an idea of some of the questions, dilemmas and tasks that the contestants face to determine who is 'eliminated', one of the rounds that the Quiz Master puts them through is called Moral Dilemmas. In this round, the contestants are faced with numerous hypothetical moral dilemmas, one of which is as follows:

How many days before vampires take over the world?

A vampire conundrum.

My latest book, Fly-Tipping, was published this week, so to promote it, this week's blog post is inspired by a question posed by one of the minor characters from the book:

"If a vampire drank the blood of one human per night, and every human he drank the blood of turned into a vampire who then subsequently also drank the blood of one human per night, how many days would it be before every person in the world was a vampire?”

Before I answer the question, here's a poll to see how many people get it right. Obviously I can't list every possible answer*, so instead I've grouped the answers into various ranges to make things a little easier.

* Well I suppose I could, but it would be a very long poll!

Lottery themed memes and jokes

My latest book 'The Freedom Lottery' was released this week, so to promote it, this week's blog post features a selection of lottery themed jokes and memes.

However, I should first clarify that the plot of The Freedom Lottery has nothing to do with the regular lottery where you can win lots of money. The Freedom Lottery featured in the book of the same name, is a lottery whereby 'winning' prisoners can risk their lives for a shot at freedom by attempting to walk across the minefield which surrounds their prison without getting blown up.

Anyway, the book has 'lottery' in the title, so that's the promotional introduction over, and now let's get on with the lottery themed jokes and memes...

1) I just won $1,000,000 on the lottery and I'm donating a quarter to charity!
I'm not sure what I'm going to do with the other $999,999.75 though.



2) What's the easiest way to complete your family tree?
Post on social media that you won the lottery.

How to advertise your book or blog for free with Project Wonderful

A step by step guide to free advertising on Project Wonderful.

My 'True Or False' rectangle advert on Project Wonderful.

Update: Project Wonderful no longer exists. Obviously that means you can no longer advertise on Project Wonderful, because it doesn't exist any more! Please therefore ignore the following article. I mean, you can read it if you want, but it no longer applies, because Project Wonderful no longer exists. Did I mention that Project Wonderful no longer exists? Yes, I think I did.

- - - - - - - - - -

One problem that all indie authors face, and many traditionally published authors as well, is how to get your book discovered by new readers. One of the easiest ways to publicise your book is with advertising, but the problem is that most indie authors generally don't have a large advertising budget. However, with Project Wonderful a lack of advertising budget isn't a problem, as their advertising rates start at free!

You might think that free advertising would mean your adverts get only a tiny number of views on rarely visited blogs, but at the time of writing I've been using Project Wonderful for less than a week, and my ads have aleady had over 50,000 views! Obviously you have to be realistic about your expectations - a website with millions of daily views isn't going to be available for free - but so far I've found that even if you allocate only a few minutes each day to posting your ads, the results can be impressive.

Here's a step by step guide on how to advertise your book or blog for free using Project Wonderful...

Promotional flyers for advertising your book

'Real life' can sometimes be just as effective as the internet for promoting a book...

Flyers for one of my early books.

A while back I reported on how one of my best sales periods came after I created some promotional flyers to advertise my books, and then distributed them to party-loving backpackers at the Full Moon Party in Koh Phangan (when I wasn't partying myself, that is).

My original flyer creations were fairly amateur efforts and weren't going to win any awards for graphic design, but they got the job done and helped gain me a few extra sales in the week that followed that Full Moon Party.

Since then I've designed more eye-catching flyers and used them on a few occasions with successful results. As you can see from the photo above, this time I went for colour flyers and for the design I basically just used the front cover of the book, then added a short text explanation to inform people where they can download the book.

True Or False: A new book from Charles Fudgemuffin?

True!

True Or False:
A Collection Of 100 Light-Hearted Facts And Bluffs

It's been around a year now since I published my early scifi themed series of books, and after writing a story which spanned six books and approximately two thousand pages, I initially felt like I needed to recharge my batteries before writing my next novel. 

I have since started writing my next novel, but it may be quite a few months before it's ready for publication, so as a diversion until then, I've also written a non-fiction book.

Well ... it's sort of non-fiction. I suppose you could more accurately describe it as half non-fiction and half fiction, as my new book is entitled 'True Or False: A Collection Of 100 Light-Hearted Facts And Bluffs'. As the name suggests, it's a collection of 'facts' some of which are true, and others of which are nothing more than devious bluffery.

The book is a change of direction from my previous scifi books, and features a writing style closer to what you would find on this blog. To give you a flavour of what to expect, this is the first true or false 'fact' featured in the book...

Payhip: A handy sales website for indie authors

A review of the benefits of Payhip.

The 'How To Save The World' books,
now available in epub format from Payhip.

For the first couple of years on sale, my alien comedy 'How To Save The World' books were available exclusively from Amazon.  I had always planned to make them available from other ebook stores, but somehow I never got around to it.

However, earlier this year amazon.com were four months late in paying me my royalties, and their disinterested and tardy attitude to resolving this late payment finally prompted me into action.  As a result, all six books in the 'How To Save The World' series are now available in epub format from my Payhip sales page.

My experience with Payhip so far has been very positive, so I thought I would write a blog post on the benefits of self-publishing with Payhip for any indie authors currently considering expanding the number of sales channels where readers can buy their books.

Here are some of the advantages of Payhip:

Subliminal ways to affect book review ratings

Research suggests that certain 'trigger' words can influence a reader's perception of a book.

Physical and subliminal conditions
can alter a reader's perception of a book.

A recent report published by a team of pyschology scientists at the University Of Central Newcastle has revealed some interesting findings into the effects of environmental conditions on a reader's enjoyment of a book, and the results will be of interest to authors and readers alike.

The full report stretches to eighteen pages, but to briefly summarise the results of their experiment, two groups of readers were given the same selection of books to read and then asked to rate each book out of ten. However, one subtle difference was that the second group was housed in a room where the temperature was kept five degrees higher than that of the first group.