Category: Sindie Publishing

What’s Whitelisting, Anyway?

I can’t claim to have a lot of knowledge about techy stuff, but recently I learned about whitelisting or “always approving” (which sounds better, IMO) emails from David Gaughran’s weekly email newsletter for authors. Basically, whitelisting is a way for email users to put you (or me, in this case) on an Approved list so your (er, my) emails don’t wind up in the Spam or Promotions or Junk or dratted Cyber-Goop folders.

Cyber-Goop is sticky, icky stuff. Although, it sounds cute. It should. I just made it up. So don’t go trademarking it on me now.

As it so happens, I want my readers to receive my emails. You know, the ones they signed up for. So today I sent out a stripped-to-the-bones plain Jane email about how to “Always Approve” my email address. If you’re pretty sure you’ve signed up for my email newsletter but have never received it, feel free to hop on over to my brand new handy-dandy Whitelist Instructions page. It opens in a new window but lacks a link back to my website (how did I let that happen?).

The page does have a link to the developers at the bottom, so if you’re an author who would like Whitelist Instructions for your own site, click through and scroll to the bottom for the developer’s link.

No, I’m not writing my email address in this blog post. Whenever I do that, I wind up with robots trying to get jiggy with me. And that just won’t do.

If you want to sign up for my email newsletter, I’d love to have you! But you gotta work just a little bit for it. You have to visit my Contact page (oh, the horror!) and fill out the form that is handily-dandily perched right up top.

If you really, really, really want to email me, there’s an email form on the Contact page right below the Newsletter Signup. Yes, I know, I’m aggravating. Someday, like within the next 8 – 16 months, I’ll bust a move away from my HTML site and onto designing something more mobile-friendly, but for now we’re stuck here.

Other new things around the site:

Why don’t I post the new covers on the blog? Well, I will. I promise. Just not today. (Although you can glimpse them in the sidebar).

A Thank You to My Readers…

Hey, everyone, let’s face it, there are soooo many fantastic books available to read these days and only so much time…

Sometimes, even when you would dearly love nothing more than to get lost in an emotional story or laugh along with characters who begin to feel like friends as you get to know them, other items top your to-do list.

And some days, some weeks, some months, and, yes, even some years, that to-do list just seems to grow longer and longer. And you begin to wonder when you’ll have time for yourself. To do the things you really want to.

Some years are more challenging than others.

Some days are a breeze, while others are a chore.

I have a TBR pile too. So I know how it is. And, wow, do I have to-do lists! And so do many of my characters, I’ve come to realize. To-do lists, master life plans, kooky missions, and crazy schemes ~ they really do run the gamut.

So, whether you’ve had a chance to take a well-deserved break and read one of my books or my entire library, whether you’ve started a series and are eagerly awaiting more or if you have yet to take a virtual vacation in a CindyPK world, YOU make a difference in my life as an author ~ and I hope I make a difference in yours.

I want to say…THANK YOU for reading my books.

THANK YOU for telling your friends when a story touches you or makes you laugh.

THANK YOU for finding time to leave a review.

Thank you for just being here and sharing my journey. It means so much!

Q and A at Publishing Spark!

I have a Q and A at Publishing Spark today. Hop on over and check it out.

What is Publishing Spark, you ask? It’s an email/newsletter list provider. If you’re an author, it’s a super easy version of MailChimp. Right now I have email lists on MailChimp, Mailer Lite and Publishing Spark, and I’m testing each out for various lists. I started over on MailChimp, and I really like them, but as my subscriber base grows I’m just in a place right now where I really want the automation features but my writing income, um, still needs work and MC is a tad on the high end for my needs. Enter Mailer Lite and Publishing Spark, both of which offer automation on their lowest tier or free trials. I’m trying out both over the next twelve months.

At the Publishing Spark blog today, I’m talking about my new book, PICTURE IMPERFECT, how I use my mailing lists, and basically offering some writerly advice. I hope to see you there!

Picture Imperfect Cover Reveal and Pre-Order!

All who were losing hope, please join me in celebration, because I finally FINALLY FINALLY have a new book coming out! PICTURE IMPERFECT: A SASSY SUSPENSE is my longest book to date. At 130,000 words (around 420 printed book pages), it is easily double the length of WHERE SHE BELONGS. Now, some of you might say the extra length is why it took me so long to write PICTURE IMPERFECT, and some of you might be right. But there was also a lot of Life Stuff tossed in there. Meanwhile, I was doing some writing as my pen name. But now I am back and working on more and more stuff as Cindy. I will continue to write as my pen name now and then, but, mainly, my focus will be on my Cindy stuff going forward. And I’m very excited about that.

There’ll be lots of news in the coming months, but today I want to focus on PICTURE IMPERFECT, because I’m super excited to announce Special Pre-Order Pricing with a savings of up to 60% off the Retail Price, which will go into effect shortly after the release date of October 18th. Yep, that’s right around the corner. Less than two weeks remaining until release!

Here’s the cover, which, IMNSHO, rocks.

pictureimperfectcover400

Yes, it’s big! And it’s beautiful! If you want to catch a look at the paperback layout, please visit this special page on my website and scroll down.

And you can read an excerpt here.

Okay, how about I let you know what it’s about?

Photographer Ursula Scott discovers her sexy apprentice is an ex-cop investigating threats at his uncle’s studio–but is she a suspect or a target?

Just when she thought she had her life on autofocus…

Photographer Ursula Scott is six short months from buying her boss’s studio and helping her family knock down a massive debt. She can put up with his hairball antics for that long, right?

Right?

But, oh, he makes life difficult. She can barely restrain herself when he hogs credit for her assignments, and now half-naked weirdos are responding to his ad for her first magazine photo spread. On top of that, someone is sabotaging the studio. Worse, she discovers her sexy apprentice is a former cop practicing his newbie PI skills on the case—and she’s a suspect!

Suddenly, Ursula’s dreams and hard work seem about to go up in smoke. In more ways than one.

Well, not on her watch.

When Gabe McKenzie moves home following the shooting that kyboshed his career, he doesn’t expect to get sucked into finding the culprit wreaking havoc at his uncle’s photography studio. He certainly doesn’t expect to fall for Ursula Scott, a long-legged brunette with a definite motive and a desire to play Nancy Drew. Even as he clears her, the sabotage escalates into a bizarre stalking, placing Ursula…and Gabe’s hopes for their future…in danger.

If only he can convince her to stop snooping around and let him do his job as a PI, before an unknown menace threatens not only her dreams—but her life.

~~Did I mention you can Read an Excerpt?

And following are links to the Special Pre-Order Pricing, with savings up to 60% (depending on where you live). Short form, for the eBook the USD Retail Price of PICTURE IMPERFECT is $4.99. During pre-order, the book is available for $2.99 USD and $2.99 Canadian. I’m especially excited about the Canadian price, because that ol’ exchange rate can do a number on the wallet. If you pre-order PICTURE IMPERFECT from an eRetailer using Canadian dollars (ie. for Amazon that would be the Amazon Canada site and not the Amazon U.S. site), you can get the pre-order pricing of $2.99 Canuck.

I buy my Kindle books from the U.S. Amazon store myself, and there’s no way to make the book available for $2.99 CDN if you buy from Amazon US. Instead, it will have one of those wonky prices reserved for Canadians buying from the US. Sorry about that.

PICTURE IMPERFECT is also available on Kobo, iBooks, and for NOOK. So check it out!

iBooks

Kobo

NOOK

Amazon

Amazon Canada

Amazon UK

Amazon Australia

International Amazons, please visit this link and then click the Kindle icon, and you should be taken to the store for your country. Or, visit your Amazon of choice and search for “Picture Imperfect by Cindy Procter-King.” (Spell Procter with an E). (Yes, I’m on a mission; why do you ask?)

Picture Imperfect Progress Report

I have website updates to do!

My sassy suspense, PICTURE IMPERFECT, is currently getting uploaded to various eBook retailers for pre-order, and the release date has been set for October 18th. That’s a 2 week pre-order period. I have some fun stuff planned, but need to wait until the pre-orders are all live.

Meanwhile, the print files are getting prepped and review copies are going out. I can’t wait to get my hands on a proof copy of the print book! But right now I’m waiting for the printer to approve the files before I can order a proof.

Here's the title page to give you a little taste of the upcoming Cover Reveal!
Here’s the title page to give you a little taste of the upcoming Cover Reveal!

My First Time

Formatting a book for print, that is.

Actually, I’ve never formatted an eBook, either. I usually farm out my work. But this time I’ve decided I should learn to format myself. It makes updating files so much easier. For some unfathomable reason, I decided to start with print formatting.

CreateSpace has templates for use with Microsoft Word, and it would probably be a lot easier if I just downloaded one of those templates. Only problem is, my copy of Word is so old (the 2003 edition) that I can’t save as PDF, which I need for uploading to CreateSpace. And…years and years ago, when I built this site and my pen name’s site, I decided to upgrade my Dreamweaver and PhotoShop. They came combined in a program called Adobe Creative Suite 2. Creative Suite has since updated to a cloud-based service, but for someone like me the $20 U.S. a month when I only put out maybe two books a year (that’s being generous, LOL) isn’t worth it. And I don’t design my own covers. So, being the obstinate sort, I decided to try learning how to format my print interior pages with the very old InDesign CS2. The problem? Back when I was buying how-to books for Illustrator and PhotoShop, I didn’t buy one for InDesign, thinking I would never need it. Now, there are a lot of great free templates available for InDesign book interiors, but try finding one for the CS2 version of the program. So, instead of downloading a premade template and creating my book from there, I’m building the template from the ground up. Thanks to YouTube and Google, there are a lot of places I can go for help, but the set-up is never quite the same because, you know, Cindy has old software. This might take me awhile…

Just to prove I’m really at work, here’s a shot of Page 1 of PICTURE IMPERFECT in my Word doc, followed by how far I’ve gotten in InDesign (I finally created page numbers on my Master pages, but they aren’t starting in the right spot. My next challenge is creating running, alternating page headers.)

PI_page1PI_Print

The idea is that once I have the template down pat, I can use it for future releases as well. And, if you can read Page 1 of the Word doc, that’s the world’s first peek into PICTURE IMPERFECT! (Which will go up for pre-order just as soon as I’ve got the cover commissioned).

Yup, I need to create a new website page for the book, too.