Month: August 2012

Goodbye For Now, Kindle Select

I have officially taken Joe Café out of the madness that is Kindle Select. I went in with reservations, and I came out with my reservations cancelled…or with legal gambling casinos on them. Or something. A lot of electrons or whatever got moved around. No doubt about that.

The deal with Kindle Select is that you give the digital rights for your book to Amazon and they ‘promote’ your book while it is in the program. You get five free promotion days for every ninety (free for everybody). Prime members can borrow for free at any time. Yadda. Yadda.

I don’t like being told what I can and can’t do. I also don’t like not selling very many books, so I took my laptop to the crossroads and the rest is history.

Continue reading “Goodbye For Now, Kindle Select”

Sneak Peek: The Other Side of Silence

The Other Side of Silence by Sylvie NickelsToday, we feature a sneak peek of author Sylvie Nickels’ modern historical romance, The Other Side of Silence.

Pippa Eastman has an uneasy relationship with her authoritarian father and historian, Joseph. She escapes it by emigrating to Australia and forming there a pleasant but superficial partnership with Jude. The book’s theme is Pippa’s growing affection and respect for her father as she researches his past. The historic scenes of the Finnish-Russian Winter War of 1939-40 contrast with Pippa’s life in present-day Middle England, modern Finland, a visit to a slave camp in Germany, and Australia. Jude, too, is chasing the truth behind his father’s desertion and alcoholism, and their respective searches bring them closer together.

The Other Side of Silence is available from Amazon.com.

Here is an excerpt from The Other Side of Silence: Continue reading “Sneak Peek: The Other Side of Silence”

Timing Is Everything: Facebook Tutorial

I discovered something interesting by accident last week. How many times have you said to yourself Damn, I wish I could schedule my Facebook updates so that they’d post at a later time?  Well, guess what? Now you can – at least from your “page” anyway. (I’ve not seen a way to do it from my personal profile.)

Facebook Fan Page

So, go to your page, and start typing in an update to all your fans. You can even upload a photo – anything you want to schedule to post at a later date. The strange thing about this (if you haven’t already “set it up”) is that once you click the little clock in the bottom left-hand corner of your posting window, you go to another screen, and moving forward will blow away what you’ve written. Make sure to copy it before you do anything else. NOW, click on the little clock.

Continue reading “Timing Is Everything: Facebook Tutorial”

I Have a Dream

By the time this post posts, the 2012 Olympics will be only a smattering of sweat, endorsement deals, and a few medals Michael Phelps dropped on the way home. Among the standout performances, two American gymnasts in particular caught my attention. Not for their cute outfits, toothpaste smiles, and medal counts, but for what was (and wasn’t) said about them. Gabby Douglas is African American; Aly Raisman is Jewish. These are facts. Sure, there were a few easy comparisons and benchmarks, as American media likes to put everything in tidy, “newsworthy” categories. But I considered these strong young women as Olympians and stultifyingly talented, well-trained athletes first, before even thinking about their cultural and ethnic backgrounds.

What the heck does this have to do with writing, you might ask? Continue reading “I Have a Dream”