Feature through amazon deals email!!

Today I was featured in an amazon deal through email!!! How very exciting! I even sold another copy of the book. I guess I have been clicking on my books a little to much but hopefully I'm not the only one to receive this email!! 

The most interesting fictional places and some other locations

I spent my Sunday making a fictional places sign and I couldn't be happier with how I spent my day!! My husband claims it's Harry Potter heavy but I do not see it. Lol 

Homemade Bread

I haven't gotten any new tongue twister pages done but I made homemade bread. I count that as a win! This bread is delicious, new recipe for home style white bread. I used King Arthur flour for the first time and definitely see a difference! 

Tonight I get back into tongue twisters, hopefully I can be done before the boys birthday. 

Last Day for HELPFUL MONSTERS for .99cents

Last day to grab HELPFUL MONSTERS for .99 cents on Amazon. 

Amazon Countdown Deal Live Now!

The .99 cent count down deal for HELPFUL MONSTERS starts today!!!

You will have all weekend to snatch up this fun active book for your kids! 

Amazon KDP Countdown Scheduled

I just scheduled a countdown deal for HElPFUL MONSTERS for this weekend. The deal will run March 14, 2014 - March 17, 2014. 

Helpful Monsters

I reworked and cleaned up my Helpful Monsters field guide. It is now a field guide with helpful hints for little monster hunters. I am really pleased with the changes and excited to be working in Photoshop and illustrater again.

My children's favorite monster is the Sock Monster. I really revamped the layout of the books and am really pleased with the outcome.  I added a field guide diagram
motif to the images. Used a grid overlay to give a scientific sketchbook feel and added basic notes to help little monster hunters. I hope this adds to the interaction
between the book and my boys.











Another addition at the back of the book is an
activity area. I added a count the cuddle bugs page.
A maze that asks the reader to reunite the sock monster
with his socks and a name the helpful monster book.
These extra pages are just experimental. I will try them out
on my boys later today to check how they are received.

Mud puddles before the snow

Mud puddles before the snow might not be a bad idea for a new book. Anyway, the boys and I went mud puddle hunting before the giant snow storm heading our way tomorrow. We can expect 6-10 inches just when everyone was finally allowing themselves to think spring. Well, everyone except my snow loving son who was desperately sad when the snow started melting. Lol. We will have to get the snow pants ready to enjoy what is hopefully our last snow of the season! 

I know blogs are filled with tons of hands on unique craft and learning activities, but sometimes you just need to jump in the mud. 

If you are looking for an activity for tomorrow's snow day check out my book for free! I listed my book The Dream Train for free for a couple of days. I've gotten 50 new downloads so far and another day or two to go. You can download the title for free here 

http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B00D3B9D4W/ref=redir_mdp_mobile 

if you have a toddler or preschooler that loves trains! 

Stranger Danger and productive promises

Admitting I have a problem with launching myself into a project and then ceremoniously abandoning said project for my next shinny new idea was step one.


This morning I tweeted. "Making to do lists about goal setting. Active procrastination? Tweeting about active procrastination = denial #help"


I like to make lists and dream about the end result of a project. Devout a month or two to building the dream then getting bored or discouraged and jumping off the train. A mix of fears, impulsiveness and inquisitiveness often sideline projects before they have barely begun to live.


I have steadily grown into an adequate gardener and make an acceptable income baking (hopefully this becomes a hobby and not an income stream soon!) but I have a sculpture degree collecting dust, a tiny ceramic kiln that should be fired a lot more often; not to mention my circuit cutter, button maker and metal stamping kits.


Over the last year I placed three books on Amazon through there KDP (kindle direct publishing) site and without any promotion made roughly 100 dollar plus 8 Euro. The 8 Euro I will only see if it can make 92 friends allowing kdp to cut me a 100 Euro check. (I have dreams of cashing the check with my phone and then hanging it above my desk). It is time to consider the real possibility of giving the hobby and lifetime dream of creating books (which my gorgeous and grammar fanatic of a husband will edit) a chance at being a real career pursuit.


Promises



Give it a full year of active pursuit to see improvement
Learn to Tweet and blog in a productive way
Actively participate with other "e"people
Create and publish multiple new works
Make more use of my dusty "A" type personalty ( my introvert is trembling, stranger danger)
I WILL NOT SELF SABOTAGE

Toddler Train book 99 cent download March 7th and 8th!

Trains by CJ Purcell

Amazon countdown deal available for a limited time starting  March 7th!

Trains. Trains going slow. Trains going fast. Trains with wheels going clickety-clack. 

I made this book when my boys were 1 year old and loved anything and everything to do with trains. Being twin boys with lots of energy I made the book bright, simple and fast paced. They still enjoy this book today and will soon be four.

Trains will be priced at 99 cents for a limited time March 7th and 8th! Hurry over and snatch up this great deal!

Dream Trains

I finally revised and reformatted The Dream Train for kindle. My boys still like it after a year, but I need to start working on older books for my almost 4 YEAR OLDS (I really cannot get over them growing up). The Dream Train is a silly train adventure meant to put my boys to sleep and sometimes it even works!

Kindle Comic Creator

I finally figured out how to format children's books for kdp! I mostly make books for my twin boys who are almost 4 years old now. WHERE DOES THE TIME GO!!

I started with a really simple book called Trains  and formatting the book for an e-reader was a mess. I tried  a pdf, jpegs, a word document with jpegs embedded etc. and nothing left me with a an easy page turing experience. Recently, I came a crossed a free download for kdp that allows you to upload jpegs and it formats everything for you!

The formatting is better than most overdrive books I read with my boys and I could not be happier.
Check out the free download here and start making books/memories today.