A Time For Everything

Get some free romance novels...


I'm participating in the promo...they are not all male/male romances, so take a look if you're so inclined.

And now for an update...I heard back from KDP and I spent almost an hour on the phone with a lovely, patient gentleman named Christopher who helped me (hopefully) get the book accepted for print so that I can order copies for my conference.

The bleed issue--that my cover graphics (back and front cover images) weren't long enough for when the book gets trimmed was insane. The cover template I was sent--by KDP--was 2475 pixels high. After two print proofs with issues, I made those graphics 2510 pixels high (35 additional pixels) and there was still an issue on the back end. They could see it, but it never shows up on the screens and views that I have access to. That's a problem.

But, as I said, Christopher walked me through an alternative method and reviewed it on his end and said there is now 99.9% that it will be accepted this time. *cross your fingers please*

The other issue was with pagination. The main book is numbered and the excerpt of the second book is numbered although not continuously--why would it be?? According to the notes in my files, this could be an issue and cause a print delay.

WHUT???

My print proofs arrived within days of ordering with nary an issue as far as the page numbering was concerned. *sigh*

BUT-- I just need print books right now, so I deleted the page numbers of the excerpt and re-uploaded the manuscript.

Please, please, please...let that work. I will have an email within twenty-four hours.

Now to get book two sorted... Wish me luck and have a great weekend.

So it's Friday. :0)

The weather is easing, so it looks like it's time to head back to the gym. Tomorrow. Yep. My body is also griping about the lack of enough physicality. Sure, I've been using the home treadmill, but it doesn't really compare to a workout at the gym.

Writers group contest is winding down, so YAY for that.

Writers group 35th anniversary is this month. Guess who's in charge of that? Yep. That'd be me. In celebration, our group put together a continuity of short stories. The free book can be downloaded from Smashwords. I do have to do a bit more shopping for prizes and decorations for the meeting, but nothing major.



In other exciting news, I finally sold a couple of hockey jersey patterns from my Etsy shop. That was quite exciting. I finished a new pattern and will be working on the stitching this weekend so that I can get a picture of the finished project and make the pattern available online next week. Actually, I finished three patterns that are all variations on a single theme. I'll get around to stitching the others once I'm done with the first one, but one is Christmas themed and the other is winter themed, so there's not a huge rush, right now.


We had  a good visit with the Brown-Eyed Girl and her roomie. She/they opened b-day gifts and Christmas presents and now I'm staring down the calendar at Darling Daughter's birthday as well.

Anyway...time to get this up and start heading toward the weekend.

Have a great one.

Okay, not really, but it sounded good. :0)

I'm participating in a Christmas Advent Calendar Romance Novel give-away and I wanted to share the info with you! This is your chance to stock up on free books for the winter--if romance novels tickle your fancy.


Hope you had a lovely Thanksgiving full of delicious food and family-filled or friend-filled fun. We opted to stay home since December is going to be pretty busy for us. And I made a full crockpot of my favorite beef stew, which we'll be eating all weekend, because why not? Gotta have leftovers, right, no matter what you have for your Thanksgiving meal!

My writing group sponsors two writing contests a year. The Carolyn being one of them. And we need reader-only judges.


If you'd be interested in free romance novels of varying length in exchange for answering a few question about each book, then please sign up to judge. You can choose the number of books, the categories you prefer, as well as heat level. And if you have family or friends who may be interested, please pass along the info.

For more information and to sign up, visit the Carolyn Readers Choice Award Judge Info page.

I have a few things to share today...

A) It was another good weekend for yard work. It was warm, but there was a lot of passing cloud cover on Saturday morning. So I raked up at least 12 cubic feet of crap out of a small section of the back yard. As I've mentioned previously, I'm trying to get my back yard grass area turned back into a healthy green lawn. So that means getting rid of all the crap matted down between whatever grass and weeds I have and of course removing the weeds.

Sunday dawned bright and sunny and I decided to skip the yard work.

Before...

After...



The first 12 cubic feet came from this section of the yard only--from the two trees in the foreground, to the shed with the stepping stones providing the stopping point on the left...



I've been mowing in sections since I don't have the stamina to mow the whole thing at once. When I mow, I cut the grass low low low. And I've been raking that section. Meanwhile, I've taken to digging up the dandelions when I can and just snapping the plant off at the root if I can't actually dig it out. I put down weed and feed around the first week of May, but they only recommend doing that every eight weeks, so it's manual weed removal in the meantime.

And I'm enjoying the great outdoors as long as I can. Once summer officially hits, my outdoor hours will be limited to early morning and late evening. Good thing I'm an early riser!

B) On Friday evening, Sonshine and I found a baby blue jay on our back porch. It was sheer dumb luck that the dog raced out the door and right over the little thing. Otherwise we could have had a tragedy on our hands.

At first we thought it was wounded, but finally determined that the little thing had either fallen from the nest or was learning to fly. The worried callings of the parent blue jays as well as their constant transfer from branch to branch rather than just flying off led me to figure the latter two situations were most likely. Sonshine picked up and carried the dog inside and we left the birds to their baby.


A short time later, Sonshine looked out the kitchen window to see baby blue jay doing a hopping roll in the direction of his parents' encouraging calls. Eventually he made it through the chain link fence and under the neighbor's privacy fence. I hope he made it made safely back to his nest.


C) And last but not least, I stumbled upon another great resource for free books: Books Should Be Free. E- or audio versions seem to be available for books in the public domain, including many of the classics for many different platforms (Apple vs Google vs others). Believe it or not, I've never read Jane Austen, so I'm going to try listening to one of her books. First on the list: Pride and Prejudice. Though I must confess to seeing the 2005 film version starring Kiera Knightly, and then on Saturday evening, DD and I watched Sense and Sensibility starring Emma Thompson and Kate Winslett.

Hope you had a fun and/or productive weekend as well...

So Monday I shared where I get most of my books...

But with soooo many books out there, whether you pay for them or not, how do you choose?

For me it's a combo of the cover and the title. I still haven't decided which one will sway me more. I think it's a toss up, really. But there's some magical mixture that will induce me to click through and read the book description. Most of the time, say 90% to 100% of the time, I will download it.

I should add that the author sometimes plays a factor. Like I'll read just about anything from Deanne Gist or Dee Henderson or Joel Rosenberg.

You know--as I was searching through the covers on my iPad for a few examples to share, I determined that it's the title more than the cover that appeals to me. I'm not saying the cover image isn't important, but as I was looking through my books, I realized that a lot of the covers are just okay.

I realized that I like sounds. I remember people more by voices than faces. So if the title sounds appealing, then I'm more likely to click unless the cover image is a huge clue that I *don't* want to read what's inside. Interesting discovery!

A few more books on my to-be-read pile include:




And the one I started this past weekend was:



Not so much for title or the cover in this case, but because I read the first book by this author, Catching Jordan, and enjoyed her writing.

So...what draws you to a book?? Title, cover, author??

The time change a few weeks ago is still throwing me for a loop. I keep thinking it's later than it really is. Not that that's a bad thing, but I usually adjust more quickly.

However that's not the point of the title or this post.

The point is I want to read. And read and read and read. At the beginning of the year, I wanted to get back to reading more, and I pledged to read (on average) a book a week. According to my list here on the right, I'm three books shy of achieving my goal. WOO HOO! I should be able to reach that goal without a problem.

A good number of those books were ones I proofread, but hey, they were books and I read them (twice, even). So they counted.

With the exception of the Harry Potter books and one or two others, I've gotten all my books for free. I have a link to one of many lists of freebies. A quick Google search will net you several.Here are a few:

http://www.amazon.com/Totally-Free-kindle-Books/lm/R27UG52OAM3TFX

http://onehundredfreebooks.com/

This is my fave: http://www.squidoo.com/the-best-of-amazon-daily-free-ebooks-kindle-ipad

Don't forget you can download free Kindle and Nook apps for your PCs and other devices like tablets and smart phones. Your books should sync from device to device so you can read the same book from multiple devices at once! Or you can read different books on your different devices--whatever floats your boat.

I had to stop visiting and downloading books because I had so many already, but on the other hand--you can never have too many books!

Some of the books on my virtual to-be-read pile incude:






How many books are on your to-be-read pile...?

These days, it's easier and cheaper than ever to be a reader (aside from the library where it's free--though you do have to drive there). Since my advent into e-reading, though, I usually choose virtual books for pleasure reading over physical books. It's purported that because today's generation is growing up with devices in their hands, physical books will eventually be a thing of the past. It's kinda sad. One of my fantasies is to walk into a book store with a blank check and fill up my own personal library. Classics, biographies, history, whatever. If it appeals to me, I'd buy it, even if I never read it.

Yesterday, though I should have done more work, I spent a good hour or so perusing amazon.com's free book list. I came away with an even dozen of interesting new books, most romance, but a few in other genres.

Even if you don't have a Kindle, Amazon's e-reader, you can still take advantage of the free books. There are PC, iPod, iPhone, iPad and probably Android apps out there that will allow you to read the Kindle format on the device of your choice. I have the app on my iPad. Same holds true for Barnes & Noble's Nook. I'll be downloading that app later. Then I'll have to peruse their free book offerings....

Aside from the above fantasy, I do still like certain types of books to be physical. For example, I'd really like to have the Harry Potter series in hardback (as well as e- and audio). I also love large coffee table type books.

What about you? How do you like your books?