This Week in Varicella

It's been a very busy week. In addition to my paying career I've also had a few interesting things going on with my new publishing venture. Christiana and I offered up the Blue Whale in the Bathtub for free on kindle. We did it on a whim really-they offer promotional tools for enrolling in the kdp program and we wanted to see if it would translate into sales. Three days after making the decision, the promotion happened and we gave away around 200 copies. I'm not sure if it was just friends and family or if people troll amazon for free stuff. No sales so far. We may run a three day promotion next month, or after we publish two more books: Keelia and the Blue whaleand Trolls Wanted. I also ordered a proof of the hard copy from create space. It arrived two days ago and looks pretty good. We may make a few small formatting changes, but it looks pretty good. For a 24 page picture book I'm worried the $10 price tag is a bit steep, but if we charge less we'll lose money on every sale. I haven't had much time to write lately, so I've been posting hastily written send-ups of the days headlines at the spoof.com. I've posted seven articles in seven days and today I discovered I was listed as featured writer. I'm averaging a five star rating and over two hundred page views per story. So I guess these are all good things and this week will be hard to top. The only way would be if I actually made money for something I wrote. CV

Pear Song Revisited

I posted the pear song at audioboo. The link is on the right. The song is a bit rough-my voice isn't good and there's no music backing me up. On the other hand, the lyrics are clever and it's a catchy tune. I own the rights, so if any representatives of Big Pear stumble onto this site, feel free to give me a call. Pears: the new musical fruit!

Don't Have Fun Without Me

A little birdie told me Another picture book by the brother/sister team I mentioned yesterday will soon be hitting ebook stores. The story is about a little boy who won't go to bed because he thinks his parents are having fun without him. It's a subject most parents can relate to, and it's got some great artwork. I'll let you know when it's available.

The Blue Whale in the bathtub

Follow the link to a pretty cool children's picture book at the kindle store called The Blue Whale in the Bathtub. It's by a brother and sister writing and illustrating team. It's full of wonderful illustrations that make it worth the $2.99 price tag. This rhyming story, written in iambic pentameter, is full of vivid imagery to match the pictures. It's definitely worth a look from any tech savvy parent with a kindle app.

Back in Blog

It's been a while since I packed up my blog in mothballs and began concentrating my time and energy on other endeavors: work, publishing my first novel as an ebook on smash words and kindle, having back surgery, and birthing a new baby (My wife helped some with the last one), but now I'm back doing this too.

In addition to The Reverend (http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/129963), I will also be publishing a book of parodies, The Oiliest Secret, and a book of short stories called Too Weird. The plan is to offer both for under three bucks, and one may go for as little as free; I haven't decided for sure, but I will keep you posted.  Let me know if you have any suggestions.

Also this summer I hope to put out at least two picture books, co-authored and illustrated by a brilliant artist who also happens to be my sister. Again, I will keep you posted.