If you read this blog often, or have been to my site before, you may have heard me say that my UK-only titles, Second Hand Heart, When I Found You and the forthcoming Don't Let Me Go, would soon be available to U.S. readers.
Well, today's the day for Second Hand Heart as an ebook. Today Second Hand Heart is available electronically on Amazon, Barnes & Noble and Smashwords, at a very attractive price. Just follow the links in the previous sentence, and you'll see what I mean.
If you don't have an ebook reader, don't give up and don't tune out. The paper version will follow very shortly, and I will announce it on this blog as soon as the
My friend and reader Laur McSpadden was nice eough to share Fauxgerty for the More Kitty meme of this blog.
Laur writes: "Fauxgerty adopted me while I was attending Manchester College. I had no plans or desire to get another cat at the time, but there I was, sitting in front of the library, when this adorable orange tabby made a bee-line towards me from across the college mall. I knew what was happening as I saw his approach (I've been adopted by cats before), and I tried to explain to him that I appreciated the
Finally, a family of pets so big that I can't fit all of their names in the post title.
This lovely house full of cats comes to me courtesy of reader and Facebook friend Pam Fogal. I was always rather taken by the guitar-playing cat that is her Facebook profile pic. You don't see that every day.
Pam writes:
"I would like to introduce you to the furrkids...
Finally, the truth of my relationship with the Princess Lamballe.
Well, right off the bat, I must admit we can’t have known each other terribly well. She was a contemporary of Marie Antoinette. She died in 1792. But I must be quite the expert on her life and death. Because, according to just about every online bookseller on the planet (unless I’ve corrected the listing and it hasn’t yet reverted) I edited her secret memoirs. Says so right there on the Amazon page. Edited by Catherine Ryan Hyde.
Now, if you look at the cover, it tells a slightly different story. It says it was edited by
My Twitter friend and the wonderful blogger behind Notes of Life, Nikki-ann, was kind enough to share her kitties Mika and Leo for this blog.
Nikki-ann writes, "Mika has been with us now for 10 and a half years. He was a young cat at around 6 months old when he turned up at the school where my parents worked. The poor little mite was wet & cold and he decided he'd like to hitch a ride in Dad's car. Dad wasn't sure about that and so got the cat out of the car, but no sooner had Dad got back in the car so had the cat! So home came Mika and he's stayed ever since! We did put up a couple of posters in the village to say we'd found a cat, but I'd fallen in love with him at first
The pet method. Very popular.A few days ago, I made the switch from a More Puppy to More Kitty blog meme. I knew I had more kitty pictures coming from readers. There had been promises made...well, you know how it goes. Yes, I know you all have lives. I have one, too. I know how things get forgotten.
So I posted this simple message on Twitter and Facebook. "Those of you who promised me kitty
I have two blog giveaways closing today. Well, okay, to be quite honest, they were supposed to close yesterday,. But I got busy, and...well, you don't want to hear about all that. Better late, as they say.
The winner of the signed advance readers copy of Pay It Forward is Rhonda Baker.
The winner of the ARC of the brand-new Don't Let Me Go is Paul Ellsworth.
I've been telegraphing the fact that the More Puppy meme would soon give way to a More Kitty meme. Lots of my fabulous readers have fabulous kitties, and this is nothing if not an equal opportunity meme. In fact, before I'm done, I'm planning a run of far more unusual pets, some of which I've had in the past (a boa constrictor, a peacock, a PO
Almost every day, unless I'm traveling, or on a more strenuous hike somewhere else, I walk my dog Ella on the boardwalk at Moonstone Beach, in my little town of Cambria. Now and then I'll run into a local I know. But, since Moonstone Beach Drive is lined with motels and inns, most of my fellow walkers are tourists. Some walk hand in hand, enjoying the view. Which is nice. Many stop to take photos. Also nice. And others are on their cell phones, lost in the conversation, eyes trained toward their feet. And this I find perplexing.
I have nothing against cell phones per se. And I
Dear Archarcharch, get well soon.Well...if you haven't read The Bet or The Bet, Part Two...I'd suggest it. Otherwise you're likely to feel like you missed something. But if that's too much trouble, there's always the short recap:
Okay, there were these four crazy authors. I was one of them. I still am. The other three were Andrew Smith, Brian Farrey and Kimberly Pauley. It was all Brian's idea, so I guess he's even crazier than the rest of us. Then again, he didn't end up having to write a story, so maybe he's crazy like a fox. The idea was to place a bet, the losers of said bet having to write a story with a title handed to them by the winner. We settled
You probably know by now that my dog, Ella, has a thing about being covered up. She's half Chinese Crested, so she has no undercoat, and not much hair at all on her chest and belly. She likes to stay warm. In fact, that's an understatement. She's a canine heat-seeking missile.
I once thought that either she was unusual in this, or that most people wouldn't let their dog under the covers even if the dog wanted to be there.
I was wrong.
Here's what I learned in the course of gathering puppy and kitty photos for this blog meme.
A couple of weeks ago, I got a package delivered from London. It was a few extra copies of the ucorrected proofs (what we would call advance readers copies over here) of Don't Let Me Go. My editor, Sarah, said she was sure I'd find a good use for them.
Of course, in my mind, this means only one thing. Giveaways!
If you haven't heard anything about the book, check out the Don't Let Me Go page. It's due out in late September from Transworld UK.
I've mentioned it before, but the books that are published in the UK only are about to get a lot more available here in
Okay. I'm sure you've noticed by now that, with the exception of Henry the Hero, the word "puppy" in this blog meme is a bit... figurative. Most of these "puppies" are full-grown dogs. But my reader and Facebook friend Linda Carton has a dog named Missy, who just had a litter of puppies. You know, the actual tiny ones, with their eyes still closed.
I started this More Puppy meme with, of course, Ella. She’s my “puppy.” Then I moved on to the “puppies” (mostly fully grown) of my fellow authors and valued readers. As I did, I made an observation. A few people sent tributes to late dogs, ones who were no longer with them.
That made me think about Jessie.
I got Jessie on the 16th of April, 1992. I remember the date because it was the day before my birthday. I was in my starving artist phase, and I didn’t have much money, to put it mildly. My lovely dog
Puppy HenryMy long-time faithful reader Sara Brandenburg writes, "Can you give Henry his much deserved attention...for More Puppy?
"My young man Henry is so much for a sweet 10-month-old Newfoundland. I won't lie, he can be such a pill! He daily spills his water on the kitchen floor, once when upset over being left behind for the day he scratched a hole in the wall, and at 100 plus pounds I still have to lift him into my suv, but on May 3rd he saved my life.
"My apartment building has been power washing/spray painting the last few days and using a generator for power. For whatever reason
Yes, this confirms it. We are authors, not horse-racing experts.
Dialed In came in 8th, Pants on Fire 9th, Archarcharch 15th (but, in his and my defense, injured) and poor Comma to the Top finished 19th out of 19. What happened to Comma to the Top? First or second through what seemed like the whole race, then dead last.
Archarcharch had to be taken off the track in an animal ambulance, but the early reports are optimistic. A non-displaced and non-life threatening lateral condylar fracture.
Boru and DianneUnless someone responds to my "last call" below, this is the final dedicated guest puppy post for the time being. My plan is to do a post on my own dear late puppy Jessie (I can't help noticing how many people sent, including today's puppy, tributes to pets who have moved on, and it's inspired me), followed by pets who like to sleep covered up (Ella's specialty, but wait till you see the others I've gathered) followed by More Kitty.
Appropriately, this last puppy, though his name was really Boru, went by the nickname "puppy." Many thanks to Dianne Greenlay for sending this story.
I think I’ve made it amply clear that I respect book bloggers as an invaluable puzzle piece in the modern book business. But of course that business is rapidly changing. A whole new model is becoming the norm—maybe not erasing the old model, but probably displacing it in terms of sheer popularity and volume. It will have its advantages, and a definite down side. I’m optimistic, however, and I’ll tell you why in this post. I think it will work. But here’s the linchpin of the whole deal: with the help of book bloggers, I think it will fill the needs of readers/book consumers. Without them, it could be a nightmare.
The self-published ebook, along with print-on-demand technology, has opened a
For those of you who didn't read my first blog post about the bet, the whole thing goes a little something like this. I'm in a 4-way bet with three other authors, inspired by the bet in this Atlantic article about a Stephen King short story, “Herman Wouk is Still Alive.” Fellow author Brian Farrey found and tweeted it.
“Every year my son Owen and I have a bet on the NCAA March Madness Tournament,” King said, “and last year the stakes were that the loser would have to write a story [with a title] the winner gave to him. And I lost. Except I really won, because I got this story that I really like.”
Along with the link, Brian tweeted, “Anybody wanna make a bet with similar stakes w/me?”
So, yesterday I saw the final cover for the U.S. edition of my novel When I Found You. I was going to wait and pipe up about it when the book is available (Soon! Sooner than you're probably thinking!) but it was just too pretty. I had to share it with you now.