Bits and Pieces

I mentioned my buddy Bill was getting his new puppy over the Memorial Day holiday. Bill said in his weekly report "Spending time with Sawyer, previously called Nolan." I like the name Sawyer. Here's a picture (taken at the breeder's, Ammo's Brittanys).

Status of the My Mother-in-law Misadventures: I currently have 27 downloads from Smashwords (all using the free coupon which expired last week) and one sale on Amazon. Though none of my friends have written a review, our dear friend Tammie wrote me and said "Bought it, read it, LOVED it!!!! I could envision every scene and laughed out loud many times. She was a character and much loved."

People don't realize how important good reviews are for book sales. Our last book was downloaded over three hundred times and received only one review, for three stars. I consider three stars perfectly acceptable.

I even belong to a book club for which I bought the membership. The idea was that each person in the club would help the others, downloading and reviewing books that interest them. They left me standing in the desert on my book and I'm disappointed. (If you want to know what group it is so you can save your money, send me a note.)

I've read and reviewed over fifty books on Amazon (and will continue to do so). Amazon tells me I helped thirty-five people make a buying decision. That's pretty good and makes me happy to help. Plus, I consider the reviews my chance to be creative AND helpful.

I'm studying what is required to develop a print version of My Mother-in-law Misadventures  using Createspace. It's amazing how much work is needed (an entirely different set of pictures with higher resolution, for instance) to develop the paperback version. I have no idea of the costs yet, but will keep you posted. Stay tuned.

Humble Bundle is doing it again - pay what you want for their games. This time they have a set of six games available for the Mac through Cult of Mac. The deal doesn't last long from this posting, so get it quickly here.

Our garden is doing well. We ate some green peppers and some jalapenos from it the other day and they were tasty. The new bed has peas and they are doing great so far, but it's early. It seems the sun here in Houston batters the plants during the day, though. We're thinking of creating sunshades for the planting beds.

The squash is climbing the twine I put out there for that purpose. One of the squash plants decided the twine was too restrictive and is trying to climb the fence. I think it is in competition with the luffa plant which is right next to it. More on that, with pictures, at Darling's blog site.

The squash plants