Kate McVaugh's Blog, page 3

Broadsided in Bali - Free - April 17 - 21

Broadsided in Bali Free Download
17 - 21 April
Cozy, International Mystery, with women of a certain age.

Curse Breaker...New Cover...Free Download

April 11 - 15 FREE

PARANORMAL ROMANCE

The Curse Breaker of Cairo has a smashing new cover. (Same steamy, exotic interior.)



Available on Amazon

.99 Launch Sale - Tortuga Straits

Tortuga Straits and The Parrot Hotel $.99 - April 9,10,11


Featured in The Fussy Librarian

It may be up a little sooner as to accommodate those worldwide time zones.

Canva is the Answer

It took me over a week, but I have now spruced up my all my eBook covers and added Amazon A+ content to individual book pages. In this gal’s opinion, it looks rather flashy. Kate McVaugh Amazon None of this could have been done without utilizing Canva.
Canva

I only found out about the online, mostly free, graphic design site about a year ago, after noticing some classy book/author graphics. I asked around and was directed to their site.
Initially, I made a few simple graphics that could add to my short-lived twitter account. I then used it to produce a few things for my blog. But the book cover thing didn’t happen until a week ago.

It turned out that all the time I had spent on my book covers might have been defeating the purpose of author exposure. Although I had spent hours on covers, and they look great as paperbacks, those images did not translate to readable eBook covers on small devices. Blame for that is clearly my doing. As a person who does not like to read on a kindle, does nothing but text on her phone, it never really penetrated the brain that the rest of the known world lives on their tiny screens. I got to work.

Back when I was first able to self-publish, the only tool at my disposal had been the KDP cover creator. Although quite limited, one could play around and get a decent cover, especially when I provided my own cover art. (photographs.)
On my book, Broadsided in Bali, I had a clear idea in my head, but it was impossible to achieve with the limits of KDP publishing. I turned to the internet and poured over tutorials on creating a book cover.

With only Word, Paint, and a purchased image of a temple in Bali, I came up with a cover. It took hours and hours – which I thoroughly enjoyed – and was quite pleased with the end result. If you had asked me two weeks ago if I still liked the cover, I would have pulled it off the shelf, looked at it, and replied Yes. Ask me now and the answer would be different. None of all the fancy stuff I employed on the cover translates to a tiny kindle image.

As for my other seven books, I took a good look. They all seemed professional and clean to me but did not stand out, especially in tiny form. Time to get to work using Canva.
Oh my goodness, I told myself after I started. I had no idea it was this easy and fun to create a cover on Canva. My preference is to use photos and there is no end to what is available on their site. For Murder, Jaz, & Tel Aviv, I went for a shot of the city coastline. When it came to the series sequel, Jaz, Tall, Men, & Mayhem, I found a night shot of the same scene. (for that one I had to subscribe to the Pro account, but it’s a 90-day free trial.)

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On the Pronunciation of Foreign Words, Masks, & Nuclear War

The Great Gate of Kiev, from Mussorgsky’s masterpiece Pictures at an Exhibition, is how I first learned of the city. Up until a few years ago, the only way I ever heard it pronounced was kee-EV. Gradually, news broadcasters began to call the city Keev, citing something about “That’s how the locals pronounce the name of their city”. That being a rather questionable proclamation, I decided to investigate.
Over the past few days, I have carefully listened to several Ukrainians speaking about their capitol city, and not a one called it Keev. They also did not say kee-EV, however all pronounced it with two syllables. I challenge anyone to find me a native Ukrainian who calls the city Keev. That is not to say that kee-EV is any closer to the “proper” pronunciation, but it is no worse. And it sounds much more lyrical to my ear.

When a language is spoken by a non-native, and is also transliterated from a different alphabet, there is no correct way to pronounce it in English.

Should the world now adapt the practice of only saying the names of foreign cities the same as the locals? By that reasoning Germany should be called Deutschland, Cairo – Al Qahirah, Moscow – Moskva, Rio de Janeiro, Hee-o. I won’t even mention the inaccuracies when attempting to pronounce the name of a city where the local idiom is a tonal one. It simply cannot be done. It is an impossibility to assign a politically correct spelling or pronunciation to any geographical location. In the big picture, it does not matter.
FULL POST HERE

Tortuga Straits - Free Kindle Copy

Available for free download, March 4,5,6.
Enjoy!

Canadian Truckers to the Rescue

Big shiny trucks driven by big burly men. What’s not to like? I’ll happily admit that I’ve always had a thing for truck drivers. In my early days, I thought that steering a big rig across the open plains might be one of the most romantic jobs around. I suppose I could have given it a go back then, but at this stage of my life I couldn’t imagine even attempting to shift into second, let alone drive a massive truck on the highway. And those Canadian truckers deal with sub-zero temps and snow. I can’t leave the house if it is below 65°F, and I wouldn’t attempt to drive a tricycle in the snow. Thank goodness we have real men and women who are up to the task.
FULL POST HERE

New Book Launch

Tortuga Straits and The Parrot Hotel is now available on Amazon.


Tortuga Straits, a tiny village on the coast of a small island, floating in a forgotten corner of the Spanish-speaking Caribbean. The Parrot Hotel, a once prosperous haunt, now rarely sees a guest. Yet those who still reside in town welcome the calm after decades of busier times.

It’s the anniversary of the day Trader first arrived in this beautiful, seaside town, some sixty-odd years ago. His plan to stay a few months turned into a lifetime, building The Parrot along the way. And with his hotel came jobs, and friends, and prosperity for the locals as well as the travelers who set down roots in Tortuga Straits.

Over food, beer, cigars, and rum, Trader and his friends reminisce about days gone by. Children born and raised and off to a better life in the Capital and beyond. Nature protected and saved from shady developers and ne’er-do-wells. Weddings of locals and travelers alike, brought together by events in Tortuga.

Although the town may be slowly returning to its original state of only flora and fauna and tortugas and palm trees, all those who knew it are thankful for the years spent in such a magnificent place.

Warsaw in my Thoughts

It would be impossible for me to ever truly understand or feel what my relatives experienced in Nazi-run Warsaw. It was not a good end for most of them. The few that did make it out of Poland left around 1920. And although they well knew what happened to the rest of the family, it was something that was never discussed while I was growing up. Were my grandfather or great-aunt and great-uncle alive today, I would ask many questions about those years and the ones we lost. But those who knew Warsaw are long gone and I am truly grateful that they, and my mother, do not have to see what is happening to the world today. Segregating society using a false narrative, separating clean from unclean, should not happen more than once in a person’s lifetime.

For nearly two years there has been a well-orchestrated effort to control, separate, and conquer the peoples of the world. A campaign of fear for a non-deadly virus, foisted upon those who have forgotten history and ignore the facts, has worked. Moreover, the utmost has been done to silence and disparage the minds of reason who speak the truth. Scientism has won out over science.
FULL POST HERE

Digging the Coffee House Scene No More

I’m calling on all the cool cats and hip chicks of the Beat generation to give us a hand. Those of you that hung out at the coffee houses in San Francisco and Berkeley, reciting poetry, sipping java, smoking cigs, playing guitars, and giving the finger to the man.
Caffe Trieste in the city, along with Caffe Med across the bay in Berkeley were among your favored hangouts. Caffe Med is now gone, but you still have Peet’s.
You flocked to the original Peet’s Coffee in Berkeley when it opened in 1965, just as beatniks had begun to morph into hippies. Different names, but with many shared values. Drop by any day and you’d find Mr. Peet talking coffee and brewing cups for a variety of question-the-government hipsters and university professors alike. Personal freedom figured high on your list of priorities in life.
FULL POST HERE