My latest Sherlock Holmes short story Miss Violet Dixon (deceased)

My latest Sherlock Holmes short story Miss Violet Dixon (deceased)
The front cover created with Gimp with help from Aubrey Watt on You Tube.

Saturday 30 November 2013

Sunshine again! Another sunny day but with a bit of a chill wind....may have to get the mower out and take a tour round the garden. Although it's a ride-on, there are 5 different lawns to cut! Some are quite small but fiddly with bushes and trees that have been planted in them. I have removed several since we bought the house as it was ridiculous trying to drive the mower round them!

Sherlock Holmes and The Zhou Bell has reached its final day as a free download at Smashwords so if you want a free ebook, pop along today before midnight (GMT+1). The latest story, Sherlock Holmes and the Lymington affair is hopefully going to be published next week. It is about 75 - 80% written then I have to fiddle with the language a bit to make sure that it is suitably Victorian. The new front cover is nice, it took me a while to find the right picture that I hope will give not too much away!

I'm struggling at the moment as I am reformatting my other stories to tidy up any spulling mistooks and grammar errors before resubmitting them to Amazon and Smashwords. This is OK except that both of these demand book files in Word format and I generally work on my Mac. I have to write and edit stuff on my little Windows Netbook which is giving me eyestrain! Anyway, all the Amazon ones are done and now show as a second edition. This will please the 'kind' reviewer who loved the stories but hammered me for my clutzy formatting and punctuation. I have also done the same thing for Smashwords but I'm awaiting for them to be reviewed before they can be accepted for their Premium listing. I had major probs. with inserting a hyperlinked table of contents and removing dodgy carriage returns. Should be OK...we'll see!

We were invited out last night by some French friends for a soiree. The evening started with a nice glass of sparkling Vouvray from the Loire with a dash of blue Curacao. Have to say it looked like a prop. from Harry Potter! Plus I read that Curacao is coloured with Brilliant Blue (E133 I think) which apparently makes your wee blue!! The meal was a Raclette, a do-it-yourself cheesy grill experience. Each person has a little 'shovel' which you pile up with cheese, ham, sausage, onion and tomato and then stick under a little grill in the middle of the table. It was yummy but very filling! Desert was something quite un-French, an apple and red-fruit crumble! Apparently, English crumble is / has taken France by storm! I have to be a tad careful as small seeds / pips aggravate my diverticulitis which is a very painful inflammation of the lower bowel.

Next week seems to be looking colder but perhaps drier. I have already had to grace the beach with waterproof / windproof trousers. It is getting colder, we had 3 days this week on our Red Tempo tariff (read the previous entries in the blog for further info. all the electric radiators were turned off and the wonderful log fire in the lounge was brought into use and kept us snug.

Watch out for Sherlock Holmes and The Lymington Affair, I will try my very best to get it out by next week. In the meantime, I will put the book cover on the top of the blog. Have a great week and think of me becoming Myopic on the Netbook!

Dick xx

Wednesday 13 November 2013

It's a  gorgeous, sunny warm day after about 5 really grey and rainy ones. The sun is so warm on my terrace I may sit out there and have lunch! Yippee!

The sale of my new book Sherlock Holmes and The Zhou Bell is increasing slowly. I have given away about 90 so far so if you want a copy, nip along to Smashwords. It's free until the end of November.

I had a greal email from the editor and secretary of The Sherlock Holmes Society of India a couple of weeks ago. They would like to showcase my books in their December issue of their magazine! They will also include an interview I did for Smashwords too. All very encouraging plus there is a possibility of getting my books into print in India and also worldwide through MX Publishing. This is something I will follow up.

Speaking of ebooks, a friend of mine alerted me to the fact that Rick Steins's cook book about his journey through India is currently reduced from a staggering £25 to a miserly 49p as a Kindle Ebook. I have to say that the photographs are superb. I use the free reader app. on my iPad and having the hyperlinks within the text is really useful.

This seems to be a totally book related post, I saw today that Amazon now have an Australian site www.Amazon.au.com and my books are already on sale there. So, if you have some 'rellies' down under, please point them towards my books on that site : )

The fine weather has meant the guy who we have employed to clean the outside of our house has been able to come and jet wash off the moss/algae killer that he sprayed on a couple of weeks ago. It's quite labour intensive as the algae has been on there a looooong time and doesn't want to let go, even though it's dead! It will look good when it is done.

Still not been cold enough to light the fire here in Brittany, a friend of mine in the UK said that they had had frost and it was crunchy under foot. I must say that the very clear night that we had last night meant that the air was quite cold this morning about 7:30 a.m.  The car was covered with condensation but no frost. It is extremely rare that I have to use de-icer, perhaps once per year! Sometimes there is little light front on the windscreen but I reach for the IKEA family membership card which makes a terrific little ice scraper for the car windows.

Anyway, have a great week. Sorry for all the book related stuff but I'm pumped!

Dick xx