Your Own Personal Copy

You can win your own personal, signed copy of Murder Spins a Tale. Just leave a comment to this post telling me why you want to read about the adventures of Martha, Denali and Falcor. I will put the ten comments that I like the best in a hat and the winning entry will be chosen at random from those ten. Be sure to include your email address in your comment. You can link proof it by using the format flocknfibermysteries at gmail dot com or you can send it to me at that email address. Just be sure I will know how to link your address from your email to your comment.

So here's your chance to get the very first copy beyond the proof copy that I get from the publishers. What a deal! Tell your friends, relations and co-workers. No fair keeping this opportunity all to yourself.

We Have Lift Off

Murder Spins a Tale is now up and running and ready for your reading enjoyment. Please go here Murder Spins a Tale to order your own personal copy. If you want a signed bookplate to place in your book, it is available by sending a stamped, self addressed envelope to me at the address on the copyright page of the book.

And after you've read and enjoyed the adventures of Martha, Denali and Falcor, I hope you will review in on Amazon.com.

It's Almost Lift Off

One more test of my patience. I received my proof copy in the mail yesterday. Express mail takes from Friday to Wednesday if it's going from South Carolina to Kea`au, Hawaii. I approved the proof copy last night and now I must wait again. It will take a week to ten days to get the book available on Amazon. In the meantime, I thought you might like to see a picture that I took of the proof copy cover.

You might also like to check out my web site for Flock and Fiber Mysteries It still isn't connected to my domain name because of technical issues, but you can get to it with the link provided here. I will be changing out the art work on the page for the book as soon as I have my "official" picture of the book cover.

Thanks for keeping up with me and my progress through the self-publishing process. I'll keep you posted on the ongoing adventures of marketing on here; and of course, I'll let you know as soon as the book is available on Amazon.

More About Those Working Dogs

Last Saturday, I was at Ahualoa Alpacas on the slopes of Mauna Kea. They were celebrating Alpaca Days and holding an open house for the public. Officially, I was there to demonstrate spinning with alpaca fiber and to talk to people about the fiber, and I enjoyed doing that. But what I really loved was watching Leo, a young Maremma, doing a perfect job of guarding his flock of alpaca.

It was a lovely sunny day and there was a large crowd wandering around and standing at the fence trying to get as close as possible to the wonderful, furry critters. When the alpaca were away from the fence, the dog could be seen resting in the shade under a tree. But when the alpaca moved up to the fence where the people were, their guardian was right there too making sure that all was under control.

Only once twice did Leo go on high alert: Once when an ATV showed up with it's noise and the second time when a cattle dog arrived in a pickup with some of the attendees. Notice his body language in this photo. It says I'm all business and ready to take on any danger to my flock.

And Now To Countdown

Part of what I've learned in this world of self-publishing is that you do a lot of hurry up and wait. It helps build patience I suppose. But yesterday, we covered a major hurdle. I uploaded the PDF file that contains the interior of the book. And since I've heard nothing saying that there was a problem with the file, I'm assuming that Create Space now has everything it needs to make a copy of my book.

So now I wait. Soon I should hear that they have a proof copy ready to send to me. I'll let them know how I want it shipped and then I get to wait some more. But at the end of that waiting, I will be holding a copy of my book in my hands. It will no longer be a manuscript or a computer file, it will be a book. If that copy of the book has no problems, I will give my OK and within a few days it will be available on Amazon. After that, it will become available in other areas. Don't worry, I will keep you alerted to all of these events.

Counting down 10 - 9 - 8 .........