Greetings from my attic in the Blue Mountains, and a Happy New Year to you all!
Sydney welcomed the new year in spectacular fashion with its famous fireworks on the harbour. It was an exciting occasion enjoyed by 2 million spectators lining the harbour foreshores. Some of them arrived the day before with picnic baskets and tents to secure the best viewing spots. Well, they were not disappointed! The fireworks were bigger, and more exciting than ever before. The best way to illustrate this is to show you a highlight:
Just before we delve into the new year, there was something special that happened at the very end of 2018 I would like to tell you about. The cover of Professor K: The Final Quest, designed by Nick Thacker, won the gold medal in the 2018 Cover Design Awards in the US. This would certainly not have been possible without your support and your enthusiastic VOTES! The cover design received over two thousand votes which made it the overall winner. Thank you!
Cover Design Awards 2018: The Winner
Over two hundred book covers were submitted. Pro-designers whittled that down to twenty and over two thousand of you voted on your favourite (two thousand!)
As I’ve mentioned many times before, there is nothing more rewarding for a writer than to engage with readers and receive feedback. Because writing is such an intense and solitary endeavour, contact with my readers is hugely important to me because it is the best way by far to find out how my work is received, and how it resonates with the public. I was therefore delighted to receive this email a few days ago from one of my new readers in South Africa which I would like to share with you. Here it is:
Hi Gabriel…
Thank you for this e-mail….I had just finished reading ‘Final Quest’.
To say I enjoyed it, would be seriously lacking the necessary adjectives denoting extreme pleasure.
My introduction to you and your writing, started in December 2017, with ‘Forgotten Painting’. This free offer popped up on my Kindle..(a gift from my daughter), and so much did I enjoy the wee tome, I purchased the Trilogy ..The Empress,… The Disappearance,…The Hidden…
By the time I had completed The Hidden Genes, I was an addicted enthusiast.
I immediately purchased the Final Quest, which I have just finished.. Superb!!!, you are a gifted storyteller and have woven the 4 books together in a manner, that would please a Chess Grandmaster.
Thank you Mr Farago….I have enjoyed a full year of very entertaining reading, thanks to your writing…..and will start today, another Farago, Kimberley Secret.. A gift for which I thank you.
PLEASE continue to write, and do let me know as soon as your next Novel is about to be published.
…I am a 70 year old widower, I live alone, and derive pleasure from books and well written manuscripts.
Sincerely
Rolf
What a wonderful way to start the new year! As you know, I give a lot of my work away for free. This is done to introduce myself and what I do, to new readers like Rolf. It was therefore very satisfying to see that this approach is actually working, because Rolf was introduced to my writing through the Forgotten Painting, a novella, which is available for free. Since then, I have incorporated this novella into the Jack Rogan Mysteries Starter Library,(also available for free), which I introduced to you in my last newsletter.
You will be pleased to hear that since its release, the Starter Library has been downloaded several thousand times already. This could not have happened without your sterling support. As my “literary ambassadors”, you have obviously been promoting the library by telling your friends and family about it over Christmas, and for that, I would like to thank you. But please do not stop here! Please continue to spread the word about the free library, post something about it on social media and mention it to your book clubs and friends.
The more new readers we can introduce to the series the better, because writing is all about inspiration and motivation, and there is no better way to be motivated than seeing your readership expand and grow.
I would now like to turn to the year ahead and tell you a little about what we’ve planned for you, and what you can expect during 2019. Jack Rogan’s many fans will be pleased to hear that our incorrigible rascal is already well into his next nail-biting adventure. And what an adventure it is! Would you like to hear a little about it? I’m sure you would!
Without giving too much away, this time, Jack is drawn into an action-packed mystery involving South American drug barons, an astrophysicist, a deadly Albanian hit squad, the Mafia and the CIA. We leave the fascinating world of medical research and greedy pharmaceutical giants we have explored in the last two thrillers – books 3 and 4 in the Jack Rogan Mysteries series – behind, and enter the dangerous and murky realm of mega rich drug barons and ruthless body parts traffickers who will stop at nothing to protect their deadly trade and eliminate anyone who dares stand in their way. Once again, fascinating characters, like Professor Zachariah Stolzfus, an astrophysicist and mathematics genius, and Major Jodie Anderson, a former fighter pilot who now works for the CIA, are certain to entertain you with their adventures and make you turn the pages.
