Writing to fight child trafficking
PRESS RELEASE
Last month an international award-winning Kiwi author and mum of two published a Christmas charity box set to raise money and fight child trafficking with charity, Love146.
Writing under the popular Jordan Ford moniker, Hamilton based ex-teacher and board member, Melissa Guyan had joined with 14 international romance authors to produce ‘Tis the Season for Love on Amazon, on October 15.
Guyan published the box set under her Forever Love Publishing company, and says she’s thrilled to see over NZ $1000 coming in from a product that originally sold for US99c, then US$4.99 a few days later.
“At this rate, we project we will have over US$1000 within a month. That is super exciting, and all the authors involved are very grateful for every single contribution” says Guyan. “I can’t stress enough that Love146 is an amazing charity full of people who work tirelessly to bring an end to the trafficking and exploitation of children. We selected them as our charity to support because their entire operation is based on love, something every child in this world deserves!”
Jordan Ford books have woven tales of resilient, healthy love for the teen and young adult market for years – a group that Guyan says are bombarded with consumer-driven hypersexualized content that she steers away from. A portion of all these sales have in fact been donated to Love146 since 2017.
Mostly down to Jordan Ford’s popularity, Guyan has sold almost 80,000 books on Amazon and notched up almost 400,000 free downloads. From other outlets combined, her books have been downloaded over half a million times, and on Kindle, page reads total almost 5 million, equating to 170,000 book sales.
In addition, this September Guyan took out the Gold Medal in the Readers’ Favourite International Book Award Contest, Young Adult Romance Genre. This meant the Hamilton mum beat writers in over a dozen countries, in a contest that reviews the work of independent authors right through to New York Times best-sellers and celebrities.
Guyan’s next challenge is to prepare for the local launch of the new series that inspired the Love146 charity novella. The Barrett Boys series starts off with the release of The Runaway, due for launch on November 19 at Hamilton’s Rototuna High School library at 7 pm. Everyone in the community is invited to attend this free, catered event.
See Melissa’s story published in New Zealand Herald’s Waikato News, and Vermont, USA newspaper, Burlington Free Press. Melissa was also interviewed on The Breeze Waikato, and Coromandel CFM.
