WELL! WHAT A FUN RIDE WITH

HENRIETTA HAMSTER'S 

BIG ADVENTURE!!

    I finished my KDP 3 day free promo stint with 401 downloads. 

 Now, to a lot of guru's out there, that may seem like a trifle, but for me, that is about 300 more than I had hoped for!  Pretty fun, although asking my friends to download and leave reviews was really difficult, and of course waited until the last day so it was too late, but I did get 3 FABULOUS reviews (so 4 altogether) which is pretty sweet!  
     The one thing that did kill me was that I did not get people to go to my download page to pick up the free audio of Henrietta Hamster. Was this because I made up the new site up THE NIGHT BEFORE and not time to advertise in the book itself ?  (Since Amazon does not allow links in description to your website.) 

Uh, duh. Yeah.  

Oh well, live and learn!  Next time I will have it set up. You have to do it once to know what is happening, and you can only read other peoples examples to guess.

I got the final proof from my guy for OLLIE OTTER'S DAY AT THE BEACH.

 It took 6 tries, but this is what I had envisioned, and so finally got it.  (Since it is a series, I wanted Henrietta Hamster's Big Adventure and Ollie Otter's Cay at the Beach to look alike.  And yes, I DO love Beatrix Potter book covers especially the older ones.  Maybe I am old fashioned in my book taste, but I really don't like a lot of the crappy-ass covers I see on totally outsourced Kindle books)

I love the way the pictures turned out.  Buying that Bamboo Tablet was the best thing I could have done!  
Although I have been into "Art" for a long time, (Yup we did the "Trial Run" at the Squamish Foyer Gallery  (pictures) and the big show at  Kay Meek Gallerycoming up in December for the "Read as Red" pieces. ) I never really gave Adobe Photoshop a real try until I got a pen in my hand and was able to actually "draw" on the computer.  Just can't draw with a mouse, I guess.

So I have all next week off, and will trying heartily to get Ollie Otter's Day at the Beach up and running, along with the 3 (!) A-Z picture books that I am still struggling with. (Pictures are really hard to get right on Kindle) Everything is ready to roll, except they just aren't perfect yet. I want a full page picture (as I have hidden pictures embedded and hard to see if too small)

Oh well, will be a busy "holiday" :)

Henrietta Hamster's Big Adventures On 3 Day FREE Download Promo!!

FREE 3 DAY AMAZON PROMOTION

Free eBook AND Audio MP3!

Henrietta Hamster's Big Adventure 

FREE PROMOTION June 11, 12 and 13th!

Free Audio mp3 of Henrietta's Big Adventure

www.henriettaandfriends.com

 

Join Henrietta 

For The Adventure Of Her Life!

 

CLICK HERE and pick this beautifully illustrated children's eBook up today!

From Amazon

Henrietta's Big Adventure

Henrietta Hamster longs for a big adventure, but when it comes her way she realizes that a big adventure is not what she expected! 

Reviews:

I predict this book will become a best-selling children's book. It is FULL of sweet, fun, and will-make-you-smile moments that I think children and adults will love equally well. The fact that the author had a hamster as a pet becomes evident in the special bonus section at the end of the book. (Love this feature!)

Whether you are looking for a sweet story to share with your children, a book that will help your children learn about caring for animals, or a book about hamsters because you are a hamster enthusiast - this book fills all that and then some.

Don't even hesitate - you and your children will love it! 

"A great book to snuggle down and read together"
"Great story for my little hamster lovers!"
"Wonderful illustrations, reminds me of the books my mom read to me as a kid!"

Bonus Hamster Care Information included in the back of the book, because after you read this book, you will definitely be interested in owning your own Henrietta Hamster!

Ideas on Illustrating Henrietta Hamster's Big Adventures and the A-Z Animal Tales

      

Although I love watercolour and acrylics, (yes, even stinky, messy glorious oils too) I am always open to new ideas on art.  Coming from a fine arts background, jumping to quilting, dumping that as soon as I had perfected the 1/4 seam and a straight stitch from hell, I am game for any type of art, especially EASY to do,... and looks great art.  

My friend Linda Sharp has a talent that is just awesome, really one of the true artists I have known in my life, (and I have met a few who were definitely legends...in their own minds)  Linda is also a sweet person, I mean in that not sickly sweet fake bs, but someone who speaks little (and in a really small tiny voice, and only big ideas come out.  Really hard for a big mouth like me to calm down and listen, but for her I do.  

     OK, so anyway, before I drone on for ANOTHER damned paragraph (yeah, I can hear you saying OMG will she shut up and get on with it) I do have a story. I was invited to Linda's place on Friday afternoon, and she showed me her latest artwork that she does for North Vancouver Community Players at Hendry Hall. 

   Now, she has been doing this for years - illustrating their stages, doing the art for their pamphlets etc., and she showed me the leaflet that they had produced with her work.  

  Well, I took a double take! Her work is always witty and amazing but this was soo good! So of course I had to know her creative process, and she started laughing and looked a wee bit embarrassed. 

    Sheepishly, she said that what she did was get out a ton of collage material from books magazines etc., and then starts playing around on a blank page, making things work.  Then she will use coloured pencils, paint, whatever to bring a continuity to the picture.  After that she "just" scans it.  (Don't you love these talented people and their "just"s? )
     
    Sounds JUST so simple, but really, totally brilliant have a look at these examples (low res jpegs, but still you can see the talent)

   

Henrietta Hamster's Big Adventure: Free Promotion June 11 to June 13

Henrietta Hamsters View

Well, I bit the bullet and am using Amazon's KDP program to market my book next week!  That means Henrietta Hamster's Big Adventure will be on a FREE PROMOTION on June 11,12 and 13th!  I hope I get lots of downloads and great reviews, and the timing is perfect as I am truly celebrating (the 13rd is the day I watch my daughter, Isla, graduate from Simon Frazer University with a degree in English).  Yippee!
Now I have to figure out how to make a page with the download for the free audio of Henrietta Hamster's Big Adventure: The Audio Book!  And make sure that I put the link in the book or at least on my Amazon page :) 
 
I have been busy working on the problem of formatting my A is for Ant book, and I do think I may have done it all wrong (of course) so will have to redo all the sizing of the jpegs so that the pictures actually look like the whole size of the "page".

Kind of funny, that my friend Linda asked me to bring over my Kindle so I could show her Henrietta Hamster's Big Adventure and I had to explain that I used a Kindle iPhone app to read eBooks on my iPhone, and a PC Kindle app to read on the computer.  Plus I showed her the best sellers page (paid and free) for downloads, and I think she was pretty amazed!

So now I will be figuring out how to "announce" my book will be on a free give away on Amazon for June 11,12 and 13.  I have been collecting names of sites to announce my free day to give away Henrietta Hamster's Big Adventure but I hit the mother lode with this site. He has collected 80 sites to contact that will announce your site!  Which sounds like about 80 more than I actually want to contact, but ce'la vies baby.