Tuesday 3 May 2011

Coming Out on Kindle and Other Stuff





So - after months of procrastinating and faffing and declaring that I'm far too much of a techno-idiot to cope with anything electronic and that books are books with paper pages you can turn and feel and smell and not soulless words-on-a-screen, I've joined the 21st century!

I've gathered together two short-ish volumes of short-ish short stories and published them on Amazon Kindle with the help of lovely Aimee Fry from The Author Works who did the covers, and I'm chuffed to bits with them!

Bucolic Frolics - a collection of rural romps - is available on ASIN:B004UH7V5Q
and
Happy Ever After - a selection of short rom-coms - is on ASIN:B004UGPVH2

It took me ages and ages to work out how to do it (even though the Kindle instructions are wonderfully simple, but then so am I...) then I had a eureka moment when it all fell into place - and I was SO proud of myself when I did it! I wasn't sure about pricing, so just went for the cheapest option, and I'm now going to have a go at *Kindling* a couple of my earlier out of print books and some more short stories - so you have been warned!

The absence from the blog and the plunge into *Kindling* do have a common thread - I've been a bit ill - again. I had post-herpetic-neuralgia - the after-effects of the last lot of shingles when the skin from my neck to my waist felt like someone was constantly pouring acid over it, and the nerve endings in my spine and ribs became inflamed in sympathy and HURT non-stop - and believe me you DO NOT want it. Never, ever... As I spent most of April high as a kite on mega-death-strength prescription pain killers and was unable to sit or lay down or wear any clothes from the waist up (not an attractive sight - and no, I didn't go outside) and slept (ho-ho-ho!) fitfully by standing up and draping myself over a dining room chair, the only thing I could do to take my mind off the crappy stuff was to spend the enforced waking hours by messing around with Kindle. So I did...

It hasn't been all bad though. Last weekend, because I was feeling better, we all went to Jersey for Easter. We being me and The Toyboy Trucker and Elle and The Doctor. And a jolly bunch we were too. Well, TTT and The Doctor were fine, but I was still zonked on medication and hurt quite a bit, and Elle hasn't had the best of pregnancies so far - so the girlie half of the party waddled and limped and grizzled - but we also sat in the glorious scorching sun by the sea and people-watched and ate loads (sadly neither of us are allowed alcohol so it was slightly less lively than it might have been) AND we met up with Debs and her lovely husband and the fabulous Grumpy for lunch AND huge milkshakes - which was brilliant. Thanks Debs - we LOVED it!

And now post-Royal Wedding (I thought it was fabulous.... sigh...) and all those millions of bank holidays I'm going back to work... Which hopefully means that as well as *Kindling* I really will answer emails and catch up with FaceBook and maybe even crack on with Only Make Believe. Of course the garden looks like a jungle and the house is akin to a midden - but they can wait - can't they????