Thursday, October 31, 2019

Facebook Live


So here it is. I'll be doing a live reading of Chapter One of Songbird on Facebook this Saturday evening, at 7:00 p.m. eastern.

The e-book will drop at midnight, and pre-orders for the paperback are open now, as well, which means it should arrive pretty quickly thereafter. Since I'm with a small press, they do print-on-demand through a company called Ingram Spark, which means no one - publisher, bookstore or writer - gets stuck with a pile of books they possibly can't sell. (Not that I want that to happen, but none of us have money to burn, so I love this option). POD books happen just about as quickly as regular books, and if you're an Amazon Prime member, as most of us seem to be (free shipping or Prime Video, they get us coming and going), you'll get free shipping as well.

Tune in if you can. Or if you can't, check out the video on my Facebook page later. It'll stay there, for posterity, or until I can't take it anymore.

Friday, October 25, 2019

Spam?

Well, this makes it feel more real.

Amazon is spamming me to buy my own book.

Hopefully I'm not the only one.

Upwards of 20 pre-orders so far. Hoping for more - Amazon promotes books more heavily if they have pre-orders.

But then again, 20+ already. I'm not complaining. I'm actually a little verklempt, if you want to know the truth.


Saturday, October 19, 2019

Pre-orders are up!


I have the enormous (really, enormous) pleasure to announce that pre-orders are up on Amazon for the e-book version of Songbird. The paperback pre-order should be up shortly (I've seen the finalized paperback format, so it's probably just a matter of Amazon getting all their ducks in a row).

But it exists. In my head. On paper. Online. On Amazon.

Yikes.

Join me in a happy dance, will you?

Friday, October 18, 2019

And then there were two

We knew this day was coming, I just really hoped it wouldn't be this soon.

Annie has been doing okay, but yesterday the tumor started to get in her way for the first time. I heard her crying in the litter box, and when I went downstairs, she was squatting in the box. She was able to pee, but I think the position was causing pressure on the tumor, because once she finished and came upstairs, she was normal again.

Normal is a relative term, though. She's been sleeping way more than normal, and on the couch, when she would normally wedge herself between us in the bed.

I called the vet yesterday and booked her in for this morning. She probably had more time left, but not much, and at nearly 19, I think she was entitled to leave the party before it got painful.

Harriet and Nicky have noticed her absence, but that's it. I'm not sure how much of a behavioral shift there will be now that there are only two.

Monday, October 14, 2019

Friday, October 11, 2019

Me. Live.

Over on my Facebook writer page, I recently asked for question so I could do a test run of Facebook live. This is not my choice, but I need to do a live reading on November 3, and I don't want to discover how technology Works - or doesn't - on publication day.

So this afternoon I tried it out. I didn't warn anybody, because I didn't necessarily want anyone to watch it while it was life. I don't care if that makes me a wuss.

Here's a link to the video, which I have not been able to insert. I'll try again later, when I'm on my desktop.



Thursday, October 10, 2019

Blurb Alert

I have a blurb!

A blurb is basically the back cover copy for my book, something I looked forward to writing about as much as I looked forward to my recent eye surgery.

Boiling down several hundred pages of text and plot into a paragraph or two is even more difficult than it sounds. Thankfully, my publisher took that in hand, and I think they did a great job.

The complicated thing about blurbs is that they are supposed to be long enough to entice people to read, but leave out most of the things that keep them reading once they get there. It's a fine line.

FYI, the art attached here is not my final cover either. This is a photo of a pair of wax figures at Hever Castle, where Anne Boleyn grew up, which I manipulated in a photo editing program to look like a vintage book cover. Because it's fun.





Saturday, October 5, 2019

Forwarding Address

Per my publisher's instructions, I need a website.

After several hours of swearing at unfamiliar tech (I'm married to a computer genius, but I only call in tech support when I'm totally lost), I have acquired a domain name and my original blog now redirects to this.

Just in case of future mishaps, you might want to change your bookmarks to www.karenheenan.com but I'm pretty sure this is going to work.

I'll be back soon with another snippet, a garden report, and a photo of some really cute recycled sweater animals I made this week.

Thursday, October 3, 2019

Snippet Galore

Life at court is a series of meetings and partings.

I hope I'm not burying you all in snippets. I'll have something more to release soon - I just approved the final cover design, and got the blurb/cover copy from the publisher.

It is amazingly hard to boil an entire book down  into a paragraph.