Karen Grey's Blog, page 3

What I’m Looking For Double Giveaway!

I received the first hard copies of my very first novel in the mail this week. To celebrate, I’m giving away one paperback and one audiobook (CDs). I can sign them if you’d like, too.

Paperback available from any bookstore – just ask them to order it! Also available on Amazon, of course.



To enter, just comment below telling us where you were in 1988. Deadline Monday, 6/15 at 5 p.m. EST.

For extra chances, you can follow Karen Grey on Facebook @KarenGreywriter, Goodreads or Bookbub. (Just tell me in your comment if you’ve done it, I’ll believe you.) I’ll pick the winners at random. Entrants must be 18 and in the continental U.S. only.

Audiobook available in CD from from Barnes & Noble and other purveyors. Digitally from Libro.fm and Downpour. (Audible copies to come…someday)

(Psst. There’s also a giveaway of the Kindle version on the book’s Goodreads page, so you have lots of chances to win! And this one is open to readers anywhere in the world.)

But if you want to just go ahead and buy a copy, you can see all the current options on my website (which includes the option to buy directly from me). Alternatively, you can order from your local bookstore!

The post What I’m Looking For Double Giveaway! appeared first on Home Cooked Books.

Newsletter Snafus…

I tried to get this to work yesterday but it was a failure. So trying again today. Here we go:

So, I have a confession to make. I thought that all my new blog posts were being automatically emailed to subscribers, but for some reason that has not been happening for awhile. It’s taken me some time and (for me) a whole load of mental gymnastics to navigate the maze of RSS feeds and other gobbledygook to figure all this out, so forgive me if you received an email yesterday with no content. And please have mercy on me for blundering through all this in the midst of multiple national crises.

This will probably end up in your spam folder. But if it doesn’t, if you’re still with me, before you actively unsubscribe, I do have some big news.

My first novel releases June 23.

You can find it in this nifty list of new releases linked here (and I appreciating you clicking through as that gives me credit on this promotion): https://books.bookfunnel.com/junenewreleases/qq10knllle

Also,

I’ll be reading from my book at the virtual event NOIR AT THE BAR on Thursday, June 11 at 7pm EST. (My book is not a mystery but the organizer, Edwin Hill is an author I record for who has kindly invited me to read anyway. I’ll also be reading a bit from one of his Hester Thursby books. It’s free and doesn’t require an app but you do need to sign up to attend here: https://www.crowdcast.io/e/virtual-noir-at-the-bar-4

Plus,

Please save the date for another virtual event coming Thursday, June 25 at 8pm EST. More on that coming soon…but, (hint, hint) it includes EIGHT audiobooks narrators!

Finally,

Between now and June 23, if you want to help me get word out on my novel, I have a whole “secret” page set up where you can find links to follow me on my new author social media sites, download images and copy and paste posts. ANY help from this page is very much appreciated.

Thanks for your support and feel free to unsubscribe if you no longer want to receive emails about Karen White audiobooks, Karen Grey books, articles on Creativity, recipes and/or cute pet photos. Actually the latter are mostly on Instagram and Pinterest. Like this one:

The post Newsletter Snafus… appeared first on Home Cooked Books.

Catching up…

So, I have a confession to make. I thought that all my new blog posts were being automatically emailed to subscribers, but for some reason that has not been happening for the past two years.

This will probably end up in your spam folder. But if it doesn’t, before you actively unsubscribe, I do have some big news.

My first novel releases June 23.

You can find it in this nifty list of new releases linked here (and I appreciating you clicking through as that gives me credit on this promotion): https://books.bookfunnel.com/junenewreleases/qq10knllle

Also,

I’ll be reading from my book at the virtual event NOIR AT THE BAR on Thursday, June 11 at 7pm EST. (My book is not a mystery but the organizer, Edwin Hill is an author I record for who has kindly invited me to read anyway. I’ll also be reading a bit from one of his Hester Thursby books. It’s free, and you can sign up to attend here: https://www.crowdcast.io/e/virtual-noir-at-the-bar-4

Plus,

I have another event coming Thursday, June 25 at 8pm EST. More on that coming soon…

Finally,

Between now and June 23, if you want to help me get word out on my novel, I have a whole “secret” page set up where you can find links to follow me on my new author social media sites, download images and copy and paste posts. ANY help from this page is very much appreciated.

The book will be available in ebook, paperback and audio, so you’ll have your pick. You can pre-order now at all sorts of locations, including buying directly from me (where you can get a signed paperback – order soon to get it anywhere near the release date as Covid-19 is slowing down deliveries).

Thanks for your support and feel free to unsubscribe if you no longer want to receive emails about Karen White audiobooks, Karen Grey books, articles on Creativity, recipes and/or cute pet photos. Actually the latter are mostly on Instagram and Pinterest. Like this one:

The post Catching up… appeared first on Home Cooked Books.

EVERYDAY MUFFINS

(and preferably, baked goods)

If you have a family like mine, where everyone likes different things, this is the recipe for you. Easy and quick, not too dense and not too sweet, these were great on their own or with a bit of butter or cream cheese. Based on this blueberry muffin recipe, I added chocolate chips to some and a berry variety to others.

Blueberry and Raspberry muffins

Yield: 24 regular sized muffins

Ingredients



3 1/2 cups all purpose flour1/4 cup almond flour (or flour of your choice)2 1/4 teaspoons baking powder3/4 teaspoon baking soda1/2 teaspoon salt3 eggs1 1/2 cups buttermilk*3/4 cup canola or other light vegetable oil2 teaspoons vanilla extractabout 2 cups berries, chocolate chips, nuts or other add-insTurbinado or other coarse sugar for dusting (optional)



Instructions



Preheat the oven to 400°.Line or grease 24 muffin cups.In a large bowl, whisk together the first five ingredientsIn a medium bowl, beat eggs and then whisk in next three ingredients. *if you don’t have buttermilk, you can substitute sour cream, plain yogurt, regular milk and/or cream. If you use the latter two, cut the baking sodaMix ingredients into the dry, just until blended.If everyone wants the same kind of muffin, gently fold in the final ingredients and then fill each muffin cup almost to the topIf people want different add-ins, fill each muffin cup halfway with batter, drop in a few berries/chips/nuts, add more muffin batter and sprinkle a few more add-ins on topSprinkle with coarse sugarBake 20 – 25 minutes, until tops spring back to a gentle touch, or tester comes out clean. Don’t overbake!Cool on a rack for five minutes and serve.



Chocolate Chip muffins

You can print the recipe here:

The post EVERYDAY MUFFINS appeared first on Home Cooked Books.

Everyday Muffins

(and preferably, baked goods)

If you have a family like mine, where everyone likes different things, this is the recipe for you. Easy and quick, not too dense and not too sweet, these were great on their own or with a bit of butter or cream cheese. Based on this blueberry muffin recipe, I added chocolate chips to some and a berry variety to others.

Blueberry and Raspberry muffins

Yield: 24 regular sized muffins

Ingredients



3 1/2 cups all purpose flour1/4 cup almond flour (or flour of your choice)2 1/4 teaspoons baking powder3/4 teaspoon baking soda1/2 teaspoon salt3 eggs1 1/2 cups buttermilk*3/4 cup canola or other light vegetable oil2 teaspoons vanilla extractabout 2 cups berries, chocolate chips, nuts or other add-insTurbinado or other coarse sugar for dusting (optional)



Instructions



Preheat the oven to 400°.Line or grease 24 muffin cups.In a large bowl, whisk together the first five ingredientsIn a medium bowl, beat eggs and then whisk in next three ingredients. *if you don’t have buttermilk, you can substitute sour cream, plain yogurt, regular milk and/or cream. If you use the latter two, cut the baking sodaMix ingredients into the dry, just until blended.If everyone wants the same kind of muffin, gently fold in the final ingredients and then fill each muffin cup almost to the topIf people want different add-ins, fill each muffin cup halfway with batter, drop in a few berries/chips/nuts, add more muffin batter and sprinkle a few more add-ins on topSprinkle with coarse sugarBake 20 – 25 minutes, until tops spring back to a gentle touch, or tester comes out clean. Don’t overbake!Cool on a rack for five minutes and serve.



Chocolate Chip muffins

You can print the recipe here:

The post Everyday Muffins appeared first on Home Cooked Books.

FREE BOOKS

(& not just mine)

I’ll keep this short and sweet. I’m taking part in a fun book giveaway with eleven other romance writers: MATCHMAKER. Each of us created a “match card” for our heroes and readers can choose free ebooks to read based on the hero descriptions. All you have to do is join that author’s mailing list.

RomanceBooks.blog has lots of giveaways and fun stuff so whether you’re a reader or writer or both you might want to sign up for their newsletter, too.

You can get an Advance Reader Copy of my book THIRTY TWO DAYS before it releases! (Reviews on Goodreads, Facebook, Instagram…wherever you hang out are appreciated.)

Here’s the link https://bit.ly/matchmaker-grey to all twelve free books – available only through May 28.

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The Making of a Book Cover

Years ago, my then tweenaged daughter was invited by a Children’s Book World (a convenient bike ride away from our house in Los Angeles) to interview author Jacqueline Kelly about her book The Evolution of Calpurnia Tate (one both my girls would recommend, both in print and audio). Since my daughter was only eleven, I came along. When the discussion centered on the book cover, I was surprised to learn that while Kelly felt lucky to have suggested the woodcut style for her cover, authors rarely have much input into the cover design of their books.

While I suppose it makes sense on some levels to hand this over to marketing and design experts, when it came time to publish my first novel I was glad that going indie meant I could have full control.

I was quite happy at the beginning of the process, and in the end. But in the middle, it was hard to be the one to make choices that could make or break the success of the book.

So, I thought I’d share how all this went down for readers who might be interested and for other authors (who can hopefully learn from my missteps).

First task: study current design styles in the genre. For me, a difficult part of my process overall was pinpointing this book’s genre. I started out writing a 3rd person romance. A year and a half in, I decided to switch the point of view to first person, which was surging in popularity. Then I noticed that the Romantic Comedy sub-genre seemed to have been nicked from the movies to replace the somewhat offensive Chick Lit sub-genre. (See “Chick Lit,” Genre or Insult? and Chick lit? Hate the term. Love the genre for more on that subject.) Since Romantic Comedy could embrace my not-quite-contemporary-not-quite-historical setting, I decided to jump on the bandwagon.

And I loved the rom-com covers – the colorful, quirky, illustrated covers.

I was determined to have one.

Trick was finding a designer who would work with an indie author. After checking the copyright pages of the books whose covers I loved, I did my best to contact the designers. But most of them aren’t freelancers, they worked for a publishing house. Often, there are two people involved; an illustrator and a designer.

Thankfully, after many internet searches, I found Lana Pecherczyk and Bookcoverology all the way across the world in Australia. Lana is an illustrator and a designer (and a writer – we had such fun working together that I’ll be recording her first audiobook), and she was excited about the 80’s theme. So we got to work. First we talked about illustration styles. Lana had the idea to use the Aha video of Take on Me as an inspiration.

Which led me to the 80’s artist Dennis Mukai’s work.

I sent her character descriptions, a synopsis and lots of images, including these for my main characters.

One of the most exciting moments of my new writing venture was opening the email attachment with this drawing of my characters.

It was like I was seeing the characters I’d created in my head for the first time, perfectly rendered.

Then I made my first mistake: I got a bit too literal with the elements I thought should be there to give readers hints about the story. Everything from a vest (Will always wears one but in the design it kind of made him look like a crossing guard), to a motorcycle helmet (he’s not a total beta hero but the helmet just wasn’t reading), to a skyline (it’s an urban setting but Boston just doesn’t have an iconic skyline), to a bust of Shakespeare (important but I don’t know why I thought it should be tipped over).

Thankfully, Lana was willing to work through a LOT of drafts to get a design where the various elements would give hints about the setting, characters and themes without being visually distracting, but most importantly where we get that these two people are fated to fall in love, but will have to work to make their strong connection a lasting relationship.

Then we had to figure out the font. Big mistake number two coming. Fonts have trends and say a lot, it turns out. I thought I’d done my research but after some feedback from trusted sources, we just went too far and too literal in trying to create an 80’s vibe with the neon and the shading of this font, losing what makes the cover current to readers.

Again, patient Lana tried out another batch of fonts for me and we settled on this Pretty in Pink font, but in what I’m calling the “Karen Grey” gray color – with a few faded areas to give it a vintage feel. Finally, we had a winner (with at least twenty more variations on the above themes emailed back and forth in the process).

The book releases June 23, 2020 and will be available in paperback, ebook and audiobook (CDs and digital download) at all retailers. Ebooks are available for pre-order now at Kobo, Amazon and Barnes & Noble now and other pre-orders are coming soon. Follow Karen Grey on FB to get all the news.

If you’ve read this far and want to help me get the word out on the book, please put it on your Goodreads Want to Read list or go to this secret page for sample social media posts.

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MARBLE BUNDT CAKE

(and preferably, bundt cake)

This is an adaptation of a favorite from a bakery that was in biking distance of my house in Los Angeles, the Buttercake Bakery. The recipe I started with, printed in the LA Times, was a bit too sweet for me, so I made a few adjustments. Today, since we are doing our best to limit visits to the grocery store, I had to make do with some ingredients (see photo below of dairy product lineup) . It still came out yummy!

Goes well with ice cream



Ingredients



2 2/3 cups all-purpose flour2 teaspoons baking powder¾ teaspoon salt½ teaspoon baking soda**2 cups sugar1 cup butter, room temperature4 eggs, room temperature2 teaspoons vanilla extract1 cup buttermilk*1 cup chocolate chips (optional) ½ cup plus 2 tablespoons unsweetened (good quality) cocoa powder ½ cup plus 2 tablespoons boiling waterpowdered sugar, for dusting (optional)

*if you don’t have buttermilk, you can substitute (or use a combo, as I did today) of sour cream and/or plain yogurt

all good dairy options for this cake

**if you don’t have any of the above dairy options, you can use regular milk but if that’s the case, eliminate the baking soda

Helpful hint for all bundt cakes: use your fingers to get lots of butter into all the crevices and then flour liberally to avoid sticking



Directions



Heat oven to 350 degrees. Butter well and lightly flour a 12-cup bundt pan.Whisk together the first four ingredients in a medium bowl.  In a stand mixer, cream sugar and butter. Beat in eggs one at a time, then vanilla. Mix in flour and buttermilk alternately in a couple batches. Stir in chocolate chips if using.In a medium glass or metal bowl, stir together the cocoa powder and hot water until smooth. Then mix in about 1/3 of the flour mixture.Pour half of what’s left of the plain batter into the bundt pan. Pour chocolate mixture on top, and then the rest of the plain batter on top of that. Gently swirl with a wooden skewer or sharp knife to marble (don’t over do this).Bake for about an hour, until the cake springs back lightly and tester comes out clean.  Don’t overbake.  Cool completely in pan on a wire rack and then invert onto serving plate.  Dust lightly with powdered sugar and serve.



After the swirl, before baking



love this Omega shaped swirl

You can print the recipe here:

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MEET LIBRO.FM

or, SOCIAL DISTANCING AND YOUR READING LIFE

Since we are all grappling with the changes that prescribed
social distancing is bringing to life at the moment, I thought it might be a
good time to share some ideas for ways to keep reading and listening without
all the money going to one monopoly of a company, even if you can’t leave your
house.

Have you seen a bookmark like this on the counter of your local bookstore? If you have, that means they are a partner store with Libro.fm.

I’ve been a fan of audiobook distributor Libro.fm since I first learned about the company. In fact when I did, I emailed the man who started the company and said, “You stole my idea!” Now, Mark Pearson couldn’t have stolen my idea since it only existed in my head, but years ago I did think it’d be a great idea for someone to figure out how independent bookstores could sell audiobooks. My local bookseller had explained that it just wasn’t cost effective for them to stock audiobook CDs. Even Barnes and Noble tends to stock only a small display of audiobooks. Meanwhile, Mark Pearson founded Libro.fm.

Here’s how it works:

When you sign up for your Libro.fm account, you get to choose your partner bookstore and every time you purchase an audiobook, that store gets a percentage of the profit. If you don’t choose a specific store, that percentage goes into a pot that benefits all member bookstores. In this way, even if you don’t leave your house, you can support your local economy.

“But,” you might say, “I have a subscription and I download a book or two a month from a different company.” Here’s the thing. You may or may not know this, but the company you’re mostly likely talking about is owned by a much larger company. A company that not only owns online retail but actively squeezes profits from publishers and authors by using books as loss leaders. If you’ve studied any economics, you’ll know that it’s not healthy for most markets if one company holds a monopoly. So if we want authors to be able to afford to write and publishers to publish, we need to push back against the monopoly.

One way to do that is to buy elsewhere. Here’s the awesome thing. You can get the same exact subscription at Libro.fm with almost** the same selection of books. I’m such a fan, I talked Mark into letting me share an incentive. If you try out Libro.fm with the code KARENWHITE, you get THREE BOOKS FOR THE PRICE OF ONE.

https://libro.fm/redeem/karenwhite

You won’t lose the books you’ve purchased from other companies. You’ll just listen to your new books on the Libro.fm app, available for Apple or Android devices.

Since you (and your family) might have some extra time on
your hands, I hope you’ll try it out. Download some audiobooks, pull out a
puzzle and have some nice quiet family time while you listen.

Here are some recommendations for books (many of these are
the first book in a series) that my whole family loved listening to:

For younger kids:



Piggle Wiggle by Betty Macdonald narrated by Karen White



Al Capone Does My Shirts by Gennifer Choldenko narrated by Kirby Heyborne



Little House on the Prairie by Laura Ingalls Wilder narrated by Cherry Jones



The Candymakers by Wendy Mass narrated by Mark Turetsky



For older kids:



Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone by JK Rowling narrated by Jim Dale



Faith, Hope and Ivy June by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor narrated by Karen White



Inside Out and Back Again by Thanhha Lai narrated by Doan Ly



Flipped by Wendein Van Draanen narrated by Ryan Gesell, Tara Sands and the author



Parties and Potions by Sarah Mlynowski narrated by Ariadne Meyers



The Incorrigible Children of Ashton Place by Maryrose Wood narrated by Katherine Kellgren

Take care, everybody!

**the almost is because some authors choose to only distribute their books via one company. But the vast majority of publishers and many self-publishing authors are now distributing across multiple channels. With 150,000 audiobooks in stock, you’re likely to find your favorites. Also, I’ll earn a small bonus with every new member who signs up so thanks in advance for trying out Libro.fm.

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Word for 2020

Home for the holidays, my daughter was describing some issue with her roommates or her classes or her job. Honestly, I can’t remember what she was talking about, probably because I wasn’t listening carefully. What I did do, was jump in with my opinion about what was happening. After I’d held forth for a few moments she stopped me with, “I don’t need you to solve my problems, Mommy.”

What she didn’t say was, “But I do need you to listen to me.”

I heard it all the same.

And that’s my word for 2020.

Listen.

I’m worried about what’s happening in the world, about the high levels of acrimony and anger. My impulse is to fix things, but these issues are so deep and complicated that I don’t even know where to begin.

I’m also aware of my position of relative privilege. I’m female, but I’m white, well-educated and grew up without hardship. My health is good and my family is well (at least at the moment–avaunt evil spirits).

I live in a city that has a history of racial violence, is currently affected by the opioid crisis, but in my neighborhood it’s easy to avoid all of that.

I volunteer at the homeless shelter, give money to various causes, but I’m hesitant to wade it to the larger problems because they seem so complex. Meanwhile, I do my best to live lightly upon the earth, raise my girls to be good people, take care of my critters and do work that helps, or at least doesn’t hurt people.

None of this seems like enough, but I’m aware that problem solving from a POV of privilege is not useful, whether it’s gang issues in my community or my kid’s problems at school.

I think the best thing I can do right now is listen.

To as many people, from as many different backgrounds, as I can.

So that’s my word for 2020.

What’s yours?

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