Purrfect

April 21^st. 2018

Today I want to introduce you to my author colleague and friend, Carol Thomas. Carol is a member and director of the Chindi book group, and has been very proactive in helping other authors in our group with advice on promotion and marketing. Well, today is Carol’s turn to be talked about because she is our ‘Author of the Week’. Carol’s latest book, The Purrfect Pet Sitter (a romantic comedy), will be released by Ruby Fiction on April 24^th, and is available at the pre-order price of £0.99/$0.99. The link is  http://tinyurl.com/TPPS-AmazonUk. Carol’s first book, Crazy Over You, was released in 2015 and was well received in the indie world of self-publishing. Her second novel, Finding a Friend, was released last year. Carol’s ability as a writer is reflected in her dedication to the art of self-publishing and the results she achieves in book reviews and social media comments. You can learn more about Carol on her author page on Amazon or on our Chindi website at http://www.chindi-authors.co.uk. Naturally we at Chindi wish Carol all the best with her latest book.

Well, my Dragon software arrived last week and is back at Amazon having proved to be perfectly useless. It took ninety minutes to complete the software download which presaged the problems to come; Dragon claim it takes “several minutes”. When I tried to use the microphone supplied with the software, it couldn’t be ‘heard’. I tried several times but to no avail. I then tried my own headphones with a built in USB microphone, but that was no better. I then tried loading it on to my laptop. I achieved marginal success, but once I tried the ‘dictation’ trial process, it couldn’t understand what I was saying even though it had accepted my voice through the recognition process. In the end I uninstalled the software from my computers and returned it to Amazon. So, no dictation for me.

Last week I began messing around with my website home page, using the ‘hidden’ facility to build a suitable page. I looked at other successful writers’ websites to get some idea of how I felt mine should look, but they are all so different. I found Joanna Penn’s home page to look a bit dated, but she is a successful writer, entrepreneur and literary coach, so it can’t be that much of a problem. Strangely though, it was the one I felt mine should look like. Well, sort of, if you know what I mean. One problem I came up against is that I needed to edit the 3D copies of my books. I use Photoshop for this and find the process straightforward (took some practice), but not all the edits went the same way; I needed some innovative creativity to come up with two that refused to be changed. And then I discovered that I didn’t have a copy of the full jacket of my thriller, The Devil’s Trinity, only the front view. Not only that, when I decided to look on Createspace to find the file I’d used for the print version, I discovered I hadn’t used CS; my print version was with Ingram Spark. And I don’t have a copy to hand, so I’ve ordered one from IS and will have to use that innovative creativity I mentioned to come up with a 3D jacket.

On the domestic front, I still have the damning cough, but was well enough to enjoy a picnic on the beach with our Grand-daughter, Gemma and her son, Orin — our No.3 great grandson — at Worthing. It was a lovely day. Tuppence came too and it was more fun and relaxing than trying to coax Dragon software into life and to think of 3D book jackets. Next week though, it’s back to the drawing board. Wish me luck!