KOBO sale of Funeral Food this weekend! 50% Off!

KOBO is running a sale this weekend, with 50% off of select titles, including Funeral Food, the 1st Tory Bauer Mystery. Use the code SAVE50 at checkout!

If you don't have a KOBO reader, you can download a KOBO app for your phone or computer.

Woohoo!

Enter to win a signed Funeral Food magnet and note card

Curt (amazing son and artist) is hosting a Funeral Food magnet and note card giveaway on his blog. Three winners will be chosen from the entries, and each will get a signed magnet and note card. Click here to enter!

And after you enter, take a peek at his other work. He's pretty good, if I say so myself!

Funeral Food Swag

The SoCal contingent traveled back from Oregon with us, so Gramma is my main occupation these days. But I'll still have some time to post, and to complain about the weather (we got home to find the AC nonfunctional, though The Hub fixed it in the time honored way: he hit it with a big stick until it started working again). The heat index is supposed to top 100 today, and the weatherpeople are throwing around words like *enhanced tornado risk*, and *severe storms*, so we may spend the afternoon hunkering down.

In the meantime, the Funeral Food swag arrived from CafePress while we were gone. In fact, it arrived double because the first shipment got lost somewhere along the line, so CafePress kindly resent the items. They said if the first package did show up, I could keep it with their compliments. Sometime in the last two weeks, both shipments did, in fact, show up. So I have lots of fridge magnets, note cards, and two identical tees.

You can guess what shirt I'll be wearing today. When the cover for The Hotel South Dakota is finished, I'll have a fridge magnet giveaway.

In the meantime, if you're interested in any of the goodies, the CafePress link is on the upper right of the main blog page (the beer glasses are back in stock). And of course, if the mysteries themselves intrigue you, Funeral Food and Sex and Salmonella are both available in most ebook formats (links to the right). Hotel will be available fairly soon.

Swag

I may have single-handedly kept CafePress in business over the last month.

I did a test order of the hoodie from Curt's HopHeadSaid store, and I am delighted with the quality. I like my hoodies and tees to be loose and long, so I always order a couple sizes over what I would take in a woven shirt. This hoodie was huge, but after machine washing and drying, it shrunk a couple of inches in width and 3" in length. It's still more than plenty big enough, but you might want to take that into consideration if you order sweatshirts from CafePress (or air dry them, which would probably eliminate the shrinkage). Curt wasn't sure about keeping the hoodie in the inventory, but I think he should.

And of course, I had to order some Sex and Salmonella things. The tee shirt is the economy model from CafePress- it's lighter than their higher priced tees, but it looks fine (and I suspect it'll shrink a little). I love love love the apron- and the ingenious construction (the neck loop and ties thread through casings so the loop can be shortened without D-rings). It's made of a nice canvas twill, and I expect the apron to do its duty for a very long time. I also ordered a packet of note cards, and some fridge magnets, both of which look absolutely great.

The S&S magnet now has a place of honor.

Let's hope I don't have to choose between the two...

I have an order of Funeral Food themed items that could arrive today. I am getting FF magnets too. Once the cover for The Hotel South Dakota is finished, I'll have a drawing for a couple of sets of the three magnets.

And as soon as CafePress gets the pint beer glasses back in stock, I'll order some of them as well. If you're of a mind to decorate your house and body with my new eBook covers, the link to the CafePress store is on the upper right of the main blog page (I just get bragging rights from orders, I don't make a profit, and Curt only gets a small royalty). If you do order anything, send me a pic- I'd love to post it!

Less traumatic stuff

I have to stick around this morning, because my replacement Kindle will arrive (I know this because FedEx called yesterday, to make sure I would be here to sign for it). I don't know for sure what time they'll get here, so I just have to wait. On the other hand, except for swimming, there is not a single thing that I plan to do outside today anyway. I got up at 5:30 to run before it got hot, but it was already too late: 75 degrees and 94% humidity. I treadmilled instead. This is the only currently scheduled Heart Attack Day (our heat index is predicted to hit 110 this afternoon), and then a cool front will come through and dry things out a bit. It'll still be warm, but with much lower humidity.

Anyway, I'm making good progress on the never-ending wedding shawl.

The beads don't show up well in most of my photos, so I took it outside and tried there. They sparkle beautifully in the sunlight.

 I have about 11' left to knit. After I finish the knitting, it'll take an evening to Kitchener the blasted thing together (well, the *thing* is not blasted, but I would happily blast old Kitchener), and then another evening to block it. Did I mention that we're leaving July 12? If all goes well, I'll be done early. Keep your fingers crossed.

You might notice the new link on the upper right of the blog page- my amazing and talented son has listed lots of cool items with the new Tory Bauer eBook covers for sale through CafePress. Full disclosure here- I do not profit from the sale of these items. Curt did the designs, and he owns the copyright to the covers, and I didn't pay him for them (plus, he agreed to design all six of them for me- he's A Good Boy), so I'm more than happy to let him keep whatever profit there is from sales. Chances are, I'm the only one who really wants a Sex and Salmonella apron (which I ordered the minute it was available- the pic is from the website, but I'll post one of mine when it arrives), but just in case: the store is open. Tee shirts, aprons, cups, tote bags, note cards and other hilarious things are available (if you have a hankering for a doggie tee shirt with the Funeral Food cover, you got it). I seriously need a set of beer glasses with my covers on them, but the pint glasses are on back order. As soon as they're in stock, I'm ordering some.

And speaking of Sex and Salmonella- the Kindle files are done and sent off. The book could be available for download as early as next week, with Nook and other formats to follow immediately. Woohoo!

Again with the rolling drums...

Funeral Food is now available for Nook!

Woohoo!

Drum Roll Please- Funeral Food is now a Kindle Book!

Check it out here.

We'll get the typo in the character name fixed asap (she's Tory Bauer). In the meantime, I'm going to do the Happy Writer's Dance for a little while! (and the Proud Mother Dance, since my son designed the cover!)

Sex and Salmonella and The Hotel South Dakota should be available within a month!

Apologies

I'm sorry that I've been quiet lately. In addition to coping with a really miserable heat wave (we've had temps in the high 90's, with matching humidity- we're talking middle of July heart attack weather, not the first warm days of summer ), I've been finishing up work on the Kindle formatting of Funeral Food.

Non-writers probably don't realize that writers have to read their books at least a dozen times before publication. By the time a book hits the stands, nothing seems fresh, or funny, or readable. Long before actual publication, I never want to see the book again (well, unless I am gazing proudly at it on bookstore shelves, or on bestseller lists)(HAH!). Except for carefully selected excerpts that I would trot out at appearances, I have managed not to re-read any of my mysteries.

Until now.

The first version of Funeral Food was published as The Missionary Position in 1993, in a limited trade paperback edition. The revision came out as a mass market paperback in 1998. Since then, I had not so much as peeked at the pages, until the Kindle file for the book arrived. But a new version demands a new reading, even though I am the world's worst proofreader. And this book had to be read, not only to check for errors, but to make sure that the Kindle formatting was correct. (Speaking of Kindle- hearing my book read out loud by the computer voice was worth the price of admission all by itself.)

I expected to cringe at every word. And you know what? I did cringe a little bit (my first editor was right- I needed an adverbectomy), but I also chuckled once in a while. I had forgotten major plot points and whole characters, so though it was not exactly like reading a new book, it wasn't exactly like reading my own book either. I still wish I could revise the whole thing (and take out a passel of adverbs), but on the whole, it's.... okay. (Side note- the book went into 4 printings- check Amazon for reviews from people who didn't write it. Most of them liked it).

So today I have to write the book description (which is, in some ways, harder than writing the book itself- how do you condense a year of work into two paragraphs that will entice someone to part with hard-earned cash?), and then the files will go to my agent, who will get this thing moving. I think that the book will be available in all e-book formats, not just Kindle.

In the meantime, the Sex and Salmonella files will be ready for proofing very soon, and Curt is nearly done with the cover (I don't know what he's going to put in the middle of the frame, but I know it'll be cool). S&S only had one paperback printing so it's the rarest of the titles, and it's pretty hard to find. I'm glad it'll be available again.

And when I'm not working on old books, I've been moving ahead slowly with the revision of the new book. And working on Cassy's Wedding Shawl (the wedding is barely a month from now... Yikes!)... and okay, I confess... I've been reading a little bit (I'm on the 3rd book of the Game of Thrones series... wowsers... it pulls you in and doesn't let go).

Anyway, I'll try to post more often.

Almost there...

There is still work to do (proofing, catalog description, cover blurb, amending the acknowledgements), but we're one step closer to the Kindle release of Funeral Food!

Final doesn't mean what we think it means...

Curt is still tinkering with the cover of Funeral Food. The Kindle version of this book (and of Sex and Salmonella, and The Hotel South Dakota) will be ready for release soon, which means that pretty soon, *final* will actually BE final.

Once again, the changes are small, but wonderful. The artist is a genius. Read about the changes and take a peek at the Sex and Salmonella cover work in progress here.

Cool, no? I can't wait to see what Curt puts inside the frame.

The Final(ish) Cover for the e-book version of Funeral Food

I wanted to post this link  yesterday, on the evolution of the Funeral Food e-book cover, but Blogger was down for almost 24 hours. We're back in business now-so please take a moment and go look the path this notion took to becoming perfect for the book. I didn't give Curt any hints or suggestions for the style or theme- I let his brain take over. And I love the results.

The changes from the last version are minor, but wowsers, do they ever make a difference.

Now, he just has to do it 5 more times...

The e-book cover for Funeral Food

Most of you know that before I started writing knitting books, I wrote six mysteries in the Tory Bauer series. The books were published as paperback originals by Avon (I shared an editor with Dennis Lehane and Laura Lippman, which is some pretty amazing company). The books have been out of print for quite awhile, but the first three are being readied for release in the Kindle format (with the Nook version to follow shortly thereafter). My son, Curtis Taylor,  is designing the covers for the e-books. He has two blogs, Curtis Taylor, Artist and Illustrator, where he details his journey as a new writer (and sells his own original artwork and note cards), and Hop Head Said, a beer-blog that he writes for Ventura County. I love his work, and one of the pleasures of releasing these books in a new format, is that I got to choose the cover artist. I did not hesitate.

We expect Funeral Food, Sex and Salmonella, and The Hotel South Dakota (which is the correct reading order- ignore their original publication order) to be available next month. If you're completely unfamiliar with the series, the Amazon reviews will give you a notion of what to expect (hint: bad words, and no knitting).

Curt has been working on the covers for a few months, and yesterday, he sent me an almost-final draft of the cover for Funeral Food. There may be some minor tweaks, but this one is pretty well finished.

I don't know about you, but I love it!