I have a special offer for you, if you are a subscriber to this site and if you claim it before June 1st, 2016.

This offer is about my new book “5 Minute Perseverance Game: Play daily for a month and become the ultimate procrastination breaker”, which I will self-publish in the coming few days.

The offer is to receive a free copy of this e-book in exchange for an honest review on Amazon (and/or Goodreads). If by the end of reading the book you will say that it goes against you to write the review for it, then no problem at all. You don’t have to feel obliged to do so. You can also un-subscribe from my blog and news any time.

But let me try and catch your attention with two more details. The cover and the description.

My wonderful editor and cover designer, who is also a brilliant illustrator, Alice Jago, as always did an amazing job, both with the edits and the cover. I sent her the photograph with dices, I purchased from Canva.com, with white background, the one you can see below on the left, and the result of her work is on the right. I also told her about my wish for a dark background and yellow letters. The idea I had was dark red for the background and some kind of yellow-golden letters. But she simply nailed the character of the book, by the way she designed the cover. The cover is playful and fun, just like the creation of the book and everything about it was and is for me.

And here is a short description of the book:

“Is there something you would like to do but you simply don’t have enough time or strength of will to do it? Is there a book you want to write, an instrument you want to play, a language you want to learn, or something completely different that you’ve wanted to accomplish for as long as you can remember?

If you really and seriously want to succeed in this dream project of yours, then play a game. Not a serious game. But a fun 5 Minute Perseverance Game.

This short, personal and humorous game description will help you to melt your procrastination and become an ultimate procrastination breaker.

So don’t wait any longer, read this book and invite your procrastination to a round of the 5 Minute Perseverance Game.

Bonuses: A PDF-version of the book and a community to join, be motivated by and supported in persevering, and having fun with seemingly daunting projects.”

So if you would like to be one of the very first to obtain a copy of this e-book and obtain it for free, then subscribe to one or all blogs and the news here, if you haven’t done so yet, and send me an e-mail to vib@optimistwriter.com with your request for your free copy of the book, and please let me know which format you would prefer: PDF, MOBI, or EPUB. And please do this as soon as possible, but latest on May 31, 2016.

Oh, and don’t forget to download the free e-book “Turn Your No Into Yes: 15 Yes-Or-No Questions to Disentangle Your Project”, when you subscribe. It will help you identify what to do during the moves of the fun 5 Minutes Perseverance Game. You can read an opinion about this e-book here.

Spring holidays are coming and in case you are searching for an Easter read, I might have an idea.

Jot me a line to vib@optimistwriter.com with a subject “Easter read” until March 21st and I will send you two e-books to read, “A Spy’s Daughter” and “Seven Broken Pieces” (from the series “A Life Upside Down”) in exchange for your agreement to consider writing an honest review for one or both books on Amazon and maybe also on Goodreads (if you are a member there).

When you write me an e-mail, please let me know if you like the e-books in the Kindle format or in pdf.

Let your friends know so that they can use this possibility as well.

Wishing you wonderful unfolding of the Spring and looking forward getting many e-mails. 🙂

Here is an excerpt from a note to the reader at the end of “A Spy’s Daughter”:

“For many different reasons, writing this book was very special for me. It was like playing with several sets of LEGO® at the same time. Here is what I mean by this.

Imagine you buy several sets of LEGO, let’s say a car, a castle, and a ship. You build each of them as shown in the instructions. You love playing with them and enjoy each part of them. Then you disassemble them and build out of all, or most of, the pieces something new: a spaceship, with wheels, that resembles a castle.

This is exactly what I did with this book and am doing with the whole series. It is pure fiction, but many of the scenes did happen, either to me or to others I know of have heard of. The characters are also patched together from myself and the people I know and cherish, including our stories. You can see it in the first pages of the book, with the names of the two sisters, Victoria and Svetlana. These are the names of myself and my sister. The other given names I attributed to these characters also reflect how I feel about them. My sister is pure joy to be around and to interact with. So the character’s name is Svetlana Joy. And my sister is smaller than me, so she’s younger in the book. The age gap between the characters is almost the same as between my sister and me, although in reality my sister is the elder of us.

My husband played the wish-cake joke on me (although he didn’t name it the wish-cake. He baked the cake, put the candles on it and said, “Make a wish and blow out the candles”). And he is from the former GDR (Eastern Germany). Two different characters in the book had each of these details attributed to them.

It was an immense pleasure to play with the real “building set” available to me from the details of my life and people I know, as well as the imaginary one I discovered every time I sat down to write this book.”

“A Spy’s Daughter”, Copyright © 2015 by Victoria Ichizli-Bartels

Picture: These magnets are featured in “A Spy’s Daughter” and play a small but a special role there.

P.S. The prices for e-books “The Truth About Family” and “A Spy’s Daughter” on Amazon.com are back to normal. But they are still at the very affordable $2.99. 🙂 “Seven Broken Pieces” remains at $0.99. The pictures below link to the books on Amazon.com. If you would like to find the books on Amazon.de or Amazon.co.uk, or CreateSpace, then please see here.

A secret surprise. I’ve pressed “Submit for Publishing” twice today. Once with Kindle Direct Publishing (e-book) and once with CreateSpace (paperback).

Both for the prequel to the series “A Life Upside Down”. It is a short story and its title is “Seven Broken Pieces”.

You can find its description here or directly on Amazon.com.

The first book in the series “A Spy’s Daughter” was published shortly before Christmas.

How it feels. I’ve published “The Truth About Family” during the night and “A Spy’s Daughter” during the day.  It is three o’clock in the morning as I write this, which is less than half an hour after pressing the button “Publish” or the second time today for the “Seven Broken Pieces”.

So I’ve published again during the night.

It does feel special and somehow very intimate. Just me and my book. I’d say this feels like celebrating a New Year’s Eve in an empty house or flat, alone with one’s sweetheart.

The two of us here, the rest of the world out there.

Or sleeping. Like the three sweetest people in my home right now. I’m smiling as I think about telling my family that I sent my third book for publication.

How we are going to celebrate. The digital launches are quiet, without clinking of glasses with Champaign, sharing chocolate and cake, and readings in a bookstore. But they are still very special. Particularly for the authors. So there is a wish to celebrate, to offer more surprises.

This is what I have planned already for quite some time and glad that I can finally tell you about it.

The e-book price for the “Seven Broken Pieces” will be (and remain most of the time) 0.99 $ at Amazon.com.

This was of course not the part of the celebration I meant.

Here it is: I have arranged that from February 10 to February 17 the price for “The Truth About Family” and “A Spy’s Daughter” will be set down to 0.99 $ each.

It means that in this time-frame you will be able to buy (currently) all of my three e-books (”The Truth About Family”, “A Spy’s Daughter”, and “Seven Broken Pieces”) for 2.97 $, which is less than the regular e-book price for “The Truth About Family” or “A Spy’s Daughter”, which is currently 2.99 $ each.

Right before this promotion starts, I will notify you again on this, so that you can purchase one or another of my e-books at a discounted price, if you didn’t purchase it (or them) yet, but would like to.

What I am up to now. The next project, which will see the light soon, is also a short story, which I will offer as a free e-book on my site. It is called “Between Grace and Abyss”. And of course there are few other projects in writing. But this news will come in another letter.

In the meanwhile, here is the e-book cover for my new short story

P.S. Great thanks to my brilliant cover designer, Alice Jago, for another wonderful creation for my books.