Lee Strauss's Blog, page 16
April 23, 2016
Vaudeville – Introducing Joel Strauss!
I have to cash in my bragging rights chips right now. My son Joel put out an amazing EP. Seriously. It’s good.
Check it out!
https://joelstrauss.bandcamp.com/
Joel Strauss‘s music is a singular blend of inspired lyrics, a distinctive voice and a variety of styles – including traditional pop, alternative rock, and folk.
tags: acoustic alternative bob dylan folk frank sinatra rock smashing pumpkins the beatles traditional pop Kelowna
April 22, 2016
Free Book Friday – Twenty-Eight and a Half Wishes by Denise Grover Swank
Mystery and Romance by Denise Grover Swank!
The first book of the New York Times and USA Today bestselling series!
“Though much of the book is light-hearted and occasionally outright hilarious, the author sneaks in a few home truths along the way that will hit you where it counts, like how even someone’s best intentions can box you in.” –Everybody Needs a Little Romance
“This was one of those books that I kept telling myself one more page, then I need to put it down. Instead I found myself tearing through the book instead, needing to know the outcome.” –Just Jump Book Reviews
****
For Rose Gardner, working at the DMV on a Friday afternoon is bad even before she sees a vision of herself dead. She’s had plenty of visions, usually boring ones like someone’s toilet’s overflowed, but she’s never seen one of herself before. When her overbearing momma winds up murdered on her sofa instead, two things are certain: There isn’t enough hydrogen peroxide in the state of Arkansas to get that stain out, and Rose is the prime suspect.
Rose realizes she’s wasted twenty-four years of living and makes a list on the back of a Wal-Mart receipt: twenty-eight things she wants to accomplish before her vision comes true. She’s well on her way with the help of her next door neighbor Joe, who has no trouble teaching Rose the rules of drinking, but won’t help with number fifteen– do more with a man. Joe’s new to town, but it doesn’t take a vision for Rose to realize he’s got plenty secrets of his own.
Somebody thinks Rose has something they want and they’ll do anything to get it. Her house is broken into, someone else she knows is murdered, and suddenly, dying a virgin in the Fenton County jail isn’t her biggest worry after all.
April 19, 2016
Author Tip Tuesday – Pixlr
Pixlr is a free web-based app that allows you to do basic editing online. Think of it as Photoshop’s infant sibling.
You can do a lot of the same type of things you can do with Picmonkey and Canva, but Pixlr’s the only one of the three that can free distort. Here are the steps I use to make a cover for a 3D book template.
First, open the website: https://pixlr.com/editor/, then click open image from computer.
Search for your 3D template from your files and open. This example is on a white background, but I recommend saving your book image on a transparent background.
Open a second file with the book cover you want to use. You have to first size it smaller by clicking on image and resize, then click the markee tool to copy and paste it onto your template image.
Click edit from the tool bar and then free distort in the drop down menu. Blue squares will show up on the four corners of your cover. Use your curser to drag the image, distort it, to fit the angles of your 3D image.
And voila. Click File then save. Be sure to save as a .png file for the transparent background.
April 15, 2016
Free Book Friday – Forever Road by Catie Rhodes!
Peri Jean Mace’s knack for seeing ghosts made growing up in her rural East Texas hometown a living hell. Now an adult with her own business, she thinks she’s finally got things under control.
But the murder of Peri Jean’s trailer trash cousin, Rae, forces Peri Jean to face long buried issues. She owes her cousin a favor from beyond the grave and must solve her murder. The more Peri Jean pokes around, the more she realizes everyone in Gaslight City has something to hide.
Uncovering the wrong secret will send Peri Jean straight into the arms of a killer.
April 13, 2016
Before and After
Message in a Bottle
Before Scrivener/After Scrivener
This is a After and Before shot
April 12, 2016
Author Tip Tuesday – Canva
The best thing about Canva is that it’s FREE. There is an upgrade option available, but I couldn’t find anywhere on the site what the upgrades were.
It’s an easy tool to create simple visual designs.
Canva offers a lot of great templates. This is helpful when you’re unsure about the size you need.
I’ve chosen the Facebook page template. Now you know exactly the space your profile picture will take up. The menu provides a lot of background options from free to 1.00.
The Text menu gives you font and color options along with labels.
You can upload your own images. Change the font and color, move images around.
And Voila! This is really simplistic, but you get the idea.
Canva doesn’t have the design palette of Picmonkey, but at least it does save your work so you can make changes later if you want to. I often use the two together.
Have fun with Canva!
April 11, 2016
What I’m doing now.
I’ve come to the conclusion that I’m never going to be caught up, and I’ve made peace with that (I think). It’s okay if I don’t get everything done RIGHT NOW. I have a lot of projects going at any given time, and I see myself as the person spinning plates, hoping one of them doesn’t come crashing down on my head. 
But what woman doesn’t feel like this? At least some of the time?
So, not complaining. In fact. I’m doing the opposite. I’m accepting it. With acceptance comes peace – or something like that.
Back to what I’m doing right now.
Finishing up a power point for a workshop I’m doing in Switzerland in two weeks called Entrepreneurial Authorship. It’s a five hour course.
Working on the accompanying workbook called CRAFTING YOUR BEST STORY – 26 Writing Tips to Get You to the End.
Which I’ll also eventually upload to Amazon.
3. Working edits of standalone psychological thriller I’m due to send to an agent next month.
4. Working on rebranding my contemporary romances to inspirational romances with new name, website, email, newsletter, covers, revisions, etc. (hope to have that up and running in June.)
5. Finishing the 5th book in the above series.
6. Starting the 4th book in A Nursery Rhyme Suspense.
7. Ongoing marketing and promotion. (Which has its own long list)
And when I get back to Canada in two and a half weeks – taxes.
Also, when I started this blog, I got, like, a zillion spam comments, so I’ve been chiselling away at deleting those. Spam catcher plugin is in place. I might’ve deleted a couple legitimate emails. I’m on top of it now, so please, feel free to leave a comment!
One thing at a time, grasshopper, one day at a time.
How about you? What are you working on? No, really. I want to know.
April 8, 2016
Free Book Friday – Somebody Tell Aunt Tillie She’s Dead by Christiana Miller
A little magic can go a long way — to really screwing up a girl’s life!
Mara is having the worst month of her life. She’s been evicted from her apartment, banned from Beverly Hills, and now the tarot cards are predicting her imminent demise.
So, she uses a little magic to make her world right.
Suddenly, an aunt she’s never met dies, leaving Mara as her sole heir.
But when Mara moves into her inherited home, she discovers Aunt Tillie never moved out. She’s still one pissed-off old lady–even post-mortem–and she blames Mara’s magical meddling for her untimely death.
Somebody Tell Aunt Tillie She’s Dead is a quirky urban fantasy that mixes supernatural suspense with humor.
April 7, 2016
Heads up: The BEST Audible offer ever assembled!
NEW Audible customers can join for only $1 per month for the first three months!
Check out the deal: http://www.appsumo.com/audiblegold/
If you’ve always wanted to try audio books, but weren’t sure if they were for you, now’s the time to try it.
While you’re there, you can check out the three books I have available on Audible.
Click on the images for more info.
Happy listening!
April 5, 2016
Author Tip Tuesday – Picmonkey
Why do I love Picmonkey? Because it’s awesome
Picmonkey is a great image creating tool. They offer a free version, or for a small monthly fee, a full service deal.
Let me demonstrate how I used Picmonkey to quickly make the promo image for my current sale.
First, open picmonkey.com and click edit. This is the paid version, which is only around 5.00 a month, so if you make a lot of promotional images, or even book covers, it’s well worth the money. I don’t remember what the free version offers, tut mir leid.
Open the image you want to work on. Since I’m building an image, I opened a white template sized for facebook images. You can see on the menu on the left all the options you have in basic edits, including cropping and resizing. I used canvas color to change the background to gray, (see next).
Next I clicked overlays, which is the butterfly icon on the left. You’ll be given the option to chose one of theirs, or one of your own. In this case, I chose my own and opened the images of my books on an ereader. (I made those images using picmonkey too.)
After resizing and centering my images (easy click and drag), I added the text. Again you have the option to use one of their fonts or one of your own. The guide box you see on the right opens to give you options for color, size, etc.
I wanted to highlight the text with overlays of arrows and stars. Just click the image you want, stretch or shrink, rotate and choose color, drag to where you want it.
I changed the canvas color to white/gray and added a frame. The red arrow points to a combine feature to flatten your image. You can go back and forth with the little arrows in the tool bar if you want to change something. Finally, you can save you image to your computer.
I never used a filter on this promo image, but there are plenty to chose from. Mix and match and find an effect that’s right for you!
The FINAL IMAGE!
If you’re interested in the sale, just click it!
There is a downside to Picmonkey – there is no save files feature in the program. Once you close the website, you can’t reopen the image to make changes. If you feel you must change something after this point, you have to start over from the beginning.
I hope you found this tip helpful. Please feel free to leave a comment or question.
