From the archive:

The dog, who had managed to do a very good impression of being really ill while there was chicken and crackling sent by my son to boost her failing health, was charging round the room in true setter fashion with a stuffed hedgehog dangling from her mouth. Looking at her, you wouldn’t think for a moment there was a thing wrong with her. Odd that.

If Ani is feeling unwell, which is thankfully rare, she retreats under the sofa cushions and doesn’t come out. You get to know her moods and emotions just as clearly as if she could speak. You may not know what exactly is wrong, but that something is not right somewhere is very obvious.

In the same way if I am feeling under the weather, sad or upset for any reason, Ani knows and is always there, cheering me up or just quietly…

Swimming free in the sea,

the way they are meant to be.

There were many hundreds of Pacific white-sided dolphins in this pod, fishing cooperatively, and playing.

It is such a thrill to be amidst a massive pod of these intelligent creatures.

The ocean color differentiation you see below, is a result of the dolphins getting curious, and swimming closer to the boat to check us out.

The dolphins were joined by sea lions,

who were fishing too,

and just as curious about the humans in the boat!

Cheers to you from California’s splendidly free marine mammals~

Today on Mystery Mondays we have Lyn Horner here to give us an in-depth lesson on how to format and publish your book on Amazon. This is a great resource if you’re about to embark on a self-publishing journey.  Thanks Lyn!

Over to Lyn…

Formatting & Publishing Your Book on Amazon

by Lyn Horner

Many thanks to Kristina for having me on her awesome site. I’m a self-published author with 15 books on Amazon. Some authors hire a service to format and upload their books to Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP), Amazon’s self-publishing platform, but I do it myself. Today I’ll share what I’ve learned about the process.

**First, make sure your book meets Amazon’s content and quality guidelines.

 Then prepare your manuscript:

1. Back-up your book file onto an external drive or one of the cloud backup sites (or both.) Copies can be a life saver if anything goes…

Today, we are celebrating tomorrow’s release of Highland Peril by author Amy Reade.   Congratulations, Amy!

Amy hosts a fabulous blog called Reade and Write. Today she’s talking to us about one of my favorite subjects: SETTING.

Setting the Scene

by Amy Reade

Whether I’m on a panel or at a book signing or visiting a book club, one of the questions I’m frequently asked is whether I consider setting to be a character in my books. I get the question so often that I’ve started putting it in the back of each book as one of the discussion topics.

Here’s my short answer (and yes, I’m answering a question with another question): would the book be the same if it were set someplace else? If no, then I would consider the setting a character. If yes, then setting is probably not one of the characters, however important…