Kris Pearson's Blog, page 14

Slice of Heaven

Easter weekend – four days to write (or so I thought.)

Good Friday dawned fine and warm after a very wet week. The garden was awash with weeds, the soil was soft, so there went Friday.

                            

The super-dark smoke bush is just turning colour. It’ll be bright orange in a few days. Isn’t nature amazing?

We’d promised to do an urgent curtain job on Saturday, and managed a trip to the local rubbish tip, too. We always have plenty of packing to recycle, and this time there was lots of green waste from Friday’s gardening efforts as well. Then after lunch – yay, more rain. Bum on chair, hands on keyboard, and 1700 words were added to ‘More than the Money’. I’m loving writing this one, even though I’ve let myself in for a lot of work by changing the plot.

Sunday – chocolate eggs and sunshine. Darn, hadn’t planned on more gardening, but at this time of year you grab the good days when you can. I spent the morning surrounded by butterflies. Big black and orange Monarchs, and a lot of smaller buff and brown jobs who were very friendly indeed. With my hands in soft soil, the sun on my back, and crunchy apples fresh off our tree for lunch, I had no complaints.

Frustration is...

…a new computer.

Oh. My. God. Yes, it had to happen because the old one was getting very tired, but it’s not a fun exercise.

The trouble is that I regard computers as souped-up typewriters that send very fast airmails. I’m so uncomputerised I’m laughable. Although when I really think about it, I suppose I’ve achieved miracles in the last few years.

I’m blessed with a patient and determined man who still seems to love me. He has gone to endless trouble to choose something with a faster processor and more than double the old memory. He has transferred all sorts of things across from my old computer and only breathes slightly more noisily when I moan and groan and demand to know how to turn the thing off and on. Well why is the turn-off symbol hidden? What was wrong with having it in the bottom corner where I could see it? (I think this might be the updated program rather than the machine. I’d better be fair.)

I have never been so annoyed. Nothing is the same. Files that used to be familiar old friends now have whole new personalities. All the icons have changed. An epub no longer looks like an epub. Things now lurk up strange dark alley-ways.

I’m bellowing ‘What the heck is Skydrive?’ and ‘Where’s my address book gone?’ and ‘Amazon doesn’t know me!’ at very regular intervals. With the aid of my small scruffy notebook full of passwords I’m slowly reclaiming my old territory.

Good friends

Several nights ago, the phone rang. “Hello Kris!”

Darn - I knew that husky distinctive voice. She was...?

“Hi,” I replied, pretending I recognised her.

“How’s everything going?”

(Oh, who was she???) “Fine. Excellent thanks.”

“And I hear you’ve written lots of books.”

Ha! A clue! Not someone from my current life then...

“Yes, just finishing number twelve.”

At that, she took pity on me and introduced herself. It was Chloe, one of my old flatmates from forty-plus years ago. Unseen for many years because she’d moved to Perth in Australia, and now, after the long sad decline and death of her husband, and a lot more travelling, to Buenos Aries. She dances the tango, plays the harp, sings in a choir, and is the only friend I have who’ll be able to read my books in Spanish.

What a co-incidence though! My second translation (Out of Bounds – Zona prohibida) had arrived in my inbox earlier that evening.

Anyway, we did a bit of catching up, and it transpired she was meeting one of the other girls from that time. Did I want to join them for coffee on Wednesday? Did I what!

'E' versus 'P'

I’ve been thinking some more about e-books versus print books. Nothing is ever going to convince me that the future of mass-market fiction lies anywhere but with e-books. To be able to buy them cheaply, read them anywhere on a magic little machine that will store hundreds of them, and not have to find bookcase space (or a friend or book fair to pass them on to) is wonderful.

Not so with big colourful cook books or gardening books, or sports bios with lots of photos, maybe. But are iPads and other brands of tablets stealing those markets too? Watching my husband tap and swipe and zoom photos out for a better look makes me fear for my collection of gardening books – or at least the ones I’d like to buy in the future.

There are numerous items on the internet quoting ‘facts’ and figures on the subject. You can Google them and read to your heart’s content about the ratios of electronic and print books sold in bricks-and-mortar bookstores, through mail order businesses, and issued by libraries. Depending on who’s behind the blog or report, the figures vary wildly. I think there’s no doubt though that ebooks are steadily encroaching and will continue to do so.

The books I write are all electronic. Do I secretly want them in print so I can line them up on my bookcase and gloat over them? Yes, of course I do!

Success - and less

Someone told me something wonderful this week. I was sitting on the floor surrounded by acres of beautiful linen curtains – repositioning all the hooks because the maker had put them in at the wrong level.  A few feet away, at a very nice dining table, sat a thirty-ish industrial designer who was working from home that day. He was having problems with his graphics programme and making helpline calls – which involved a good deal of waiting.  We got talking in the gaps. I LOVE talking to strangers. You never know what you’ll be told.

I found he’d just had his first look at the prototype of an interesting steel shelving unit he’d designed – by chance manufactured by someone whose curtains we’ve installed in their last three houses.  He was currently working on baby products - cribs etc. I told him I wrote romance novels, and handed over one of my cards as proof. I was, after all, just a woman on the floor with his mother’s curtains until then.

His eyebrows rose at the colourful covers with their passionate clinches, and if I‘m lucky my card might be given to his fiancée, who would probably be more in my target market.

And he said this: ‘I never read any fiction until about a year ago. What a waste! All those people to meet and places to go. I’m really hooked now.’  It was Hugh Howey’s ‘Wool’ that had so captured his imagination.

True Love...

 

A shortie this week, because it’s been incredibly busy. Not just our decor business and trying to get some writing done, but a family crisis as well.

My parents-in-law are past ninety, and still living in their own home. They’ve managed this because my father-in-law has looked after his wife with real devotion.  She’s been unwell for a long time. She’s not very mobile and her sight is greatly impaired. He has been her eyes and legs for years.

Several months ago he finally admitted he wasn’t in such great condition himself any more. Meals on Wheels and a man to mow the lawns were arranged.  A woman to help with housework, too – but she was rapidly despatched as being sloppy. Not up to the standards of bathroom cleaning that a ninety-four year old could achieve!

They were really keen to keep their independence and stay in their own home, but a few days ago we got a panic phone call.  Dad was sick. Fainting.  Couldn’t breathe. Had Mum called the ambulance? No – because that would leave her alone and helpless in the house. We drove for half an hour quite fast to see what we could do.

We found Dad waxy white and just about passing out. I think having company helped, and we got some food into him, which helped a bit more. And took him to the medical centre where a nasty chest infection was eventually diagnosed. But none of this was going to return him to instant good health.  We needed to find some respite care for them both.

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Smashing those Words

I wonder how much you know about Smashwords? Everyone thinks ‘Amazon’ when it comes to independently publishing books, but Smashwords has done a huge job of making it possible to publish your own books over the past few years.

Smashwords is quite different to Amazon, and I’m always surprised by the number of writers who don’t understand this. You publish with Amazon, you sell with Amazon – end of story. And only for Kindle.

You publish with Smashwords, and they distribute your books to all sorts of other places worldwide. Barnes and Noble, the iBookstores, Kobo, etc. Also to library services. You don’t necessarily sell much at Smashwords itself. In two years I haven’t hit two hundred sales – but through the other e-stores they distribute to, I’ve sold many, many thousands. More than this, they convert your books so they’re suitable for most brands of e-readers.

Right now Smashwords are sponsoring ‘Read an Ebook Week’. They’ve invited all their authors to drop some prices to encourage people to read more. In my case, I’ve made ‘The Wrong Sister’ free. If you’d like a copy, go here and quote code RW100 to save $2.99. Have a good look around the Smashwords site – I’m sure you’ll find other books you’d like, too.                 

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Fiction from Fact

Right now there’s something magical happening near to where I grew up. It’s the annual Art Deco Weekend in Napier, New Zealand.

The central city area of Napier, as well as much of my home town of Hastings, was flattened by an enormous 7.8 earthquake in 1931. What the earthquake didn’t destroy, raging fires finished off, started apparently by the naked flames of Bunsen burners in pharmacies. The underground pipes were ripped apart by the movement of the ground so there was no water to fight the Napier fires. The land was heaved up out of the sea by several feet. And from the very sad ruins grew a new and very different city The same thing happened to Santa Barbara, and Napier is often referred to as ‘the Santa Barbara of the south’.

My first job was at the radio station in Napier, and I never thought twice about the building I worked in. However, Napier is a tourist town, and some years ago the powers-that-be recognised they had something beautiful and unique in all those art deco buildings. A city-wide spruce-up ensued. All the most notable architecture was freshly painted in shades that showed off the wonderful plaster mouldings. And so the Art Deco Weekend was born.

                     

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Judge a book by its cover?

Well, do you? Can you? Nothing screams ‘amateur book’ more than a really bad cover - and I guess we’ve all seen some shockers. This week I’m going to take a look at the philosophy behind two different authors’ covers, and finish with a terrible joke.

By the time I started publishing my own books I’d spent many years laying out press ads and brochures and thought I could probably handle designing covers. I made some awful mistakes early on, but the beauty of e-publishing is that nothing is set in concrete. You can change a cover (or anything else) overnight. Here’s one I changed this week. I found this great shot with the wicked eyes and decided it was a heap better than my current one. As this is a three-book set for the price of two, I didn’t want the people too visible. Readers can decide for themselves which couple they are. I’ll be interesting to see if sales reflect the changeover.

                                

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The Writing Process Blog Chain

I’ve been tagged by Australian author Cathryn Hein to continue this electronic chain letter. I’ve known Cathryn online for a number of years, and had the great pleasure of meeting her face to face at the RWA conference at Coogee Beach. (And I promptly swiped the setting for part of ‘Resisting Nick’.)

Cathryn writes powerful, passionate and moving rural love stories. Her first - ‘Promises’ – is on the bookshelf right beside me. This was followed by ‘Heart of the Valley’ and ‘Heartland’. Check out her website for news, excerpts and more.

And now I’d better answer the four questions expected of me.

What am I working on?  

The third of my ‘Heartland Heroines’ series. It’s called ‘More than the Money’ – and you can easily guess that the ‘more’ is love. It’s a forced marriage story. Will nasty Grandpa get his way and coerce his shy grand-daughter Alfie into marrying Rory, the Kiwi cowboy newly returned from Texas? Rory’s keen because he’ll inherit half of beautiful Glenleighton Estate. Alfie’s definitely NOT keen because she sees it as losing her half – and a great deal more besides. Grandpa Alfred is pushing them together, but will he prevail? Or will they turn the tables on him?

As well, I have two more Sheikh novels under way. This was the year I was going to retire and write full-time. Not happening so far!

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