We've Broken the eBook iBook Barrier!

***
It is a bit magical, and I suppose frightening in a who-has-got-control-of-copyright sort of way, but I'll be daggone!

Mama Pajama Tells A Story is now available on Kindle and Nook. Who'd of ever thunk it? And it's selling!

So I'm sitting in my little computer/sewing room. (The room is newly spic and span and organized, I might add, due to the fact that my novel had been nudging me to work on it, so of course I spent days cleaning, instead). I log on to my Facebook page and spit my coffee on my screen. A friend from Norway wrote on my wall. That's not so unusual, but what she posted caused the coffee spewage. (I think that's not a word, but it should be.) She wrote:

OMG had to share, it had been a while since I checked to see if your book was on amazon in kindle form and it now is!!! Very excited, just downloaded it :) I have been wanting to read it for a while but trying to keep all my books in kindle version. Hug your whippets for me :)

And she included the link:

Mama Pajama Tells A Story: A Collection of Writings About Dogs and Their Servants [Kindle Edition]

I marched myself down in my Big Pink Thing to Bill's studio.

"Great, just blankety-blank great! Now my book is available on Kindle for $3.99."

"How did that happen?"

"Do I look like I know?"

"Guess you better call the publisher."

"Guess I better."

After hours on hold and being disconnected twice and speaking to two different departments, we ascertained that no, I hadn't signed the eBook clause, and yes, they could take it off Kindle right away. 

Hmmmm. 

I've been reading every book I've read for at least a year (has it been two?) on the free Kindle app on my iPhone. I'm reading more than ever, and no waiting for the book to arrive, and wasn't I being just a bit hypocritical and ...

"Well, no, don't take it down just yet. Let me think about it."

I went to the Kindle store link that my Norwegian friend had provided. I scrolled down the page to find:

Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #241,692 Paid in Kindle Store

That was humbling. Meaning that not counting the free books, mine ranked way down at the bottom of the barrel. But, I had no where to go but up, right? So I posted it on my Facebook page. And I posted it on the FANS OF MAMA PAJAMA TELLS A STORY Facebook page. My Facebook friends who have Nooks said they felt left out. I did a little search on Barnes & Noble and there it was. So I put up that link. My kind and generous Facebook friends shared the links. This was getting exciting.

I just now checked on the Kindle store page. 

Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #14,096 Paid in Kindle Store 

Holy moly!!! [She does a little giggly dance, a kind of Staying Alive John Travolta meets the Michelin Man and Pillsbury Doughboy's illegitimate love child. She's grateful no one except her dogs can see her. Even they look askance, except the youngest two who join in the fun.] 

Amazon's Sellers Ranking formula is strange and incomprehensible, but that was a heck of a jump! I think it translates to somewhere around $20 to $30 in royalties for me, and that's if there is any way to hold Amazon accountable for eSales.

But. I need an agent for my novel. I believe in the story I'm trying to tell. I'm not so good in believing in myself, but oh I do so believe in this story. I'm on the third revision. The third rewrite. I want to get it right, as right as I possibly can, before I search for an agent. I wish I had an MFA in creative writing after my name. I don't. I can't tell an agent that I am on the Faculty at some prestigious writing college. I've never even submitted to the New Yorker, much less been published there.

And this day? It might mean nothing to a 'real writer'. It does mean that there are 14,096 Kindle books which are selling more than mine today. But it has given this little writer the courage to dare to call myself a writer again.

Thanks, my friends.

Hug yourselves for me.

Looking For Suggestions

Hey, Mama Pajama Tells A Story fans, want to give me ideas for which stories to read? What do you think should be first? Last?

Thanks!

Oops Blogoversary, Your Favorites, and Thank You!

I missed the exact date. But that's no reason to miss the celebration! This silly blog was two years old on September 7th! Can you imagine? I, who was Never Going To Have A Blog, have been at it for two years.

I went back and looked at that Very First Post. I said, "Blog, blog, blog: it's the new blah, blah, blah." I wrote a little story about public poopage way back then! And I included an excerpt from the novel, most all of which has been cut from the rewrite. (Not the Run! part; but it's been changed and moved.)

I introduced you to a Very Old Dog and we said goodbye to him.

I laughed with Lady Maria ...

And visited with a Nekkid Neighbor .

And said goodbye, after a Lifetime of Laughter. Little sweet pea.

We extolled the virtue of Support Socks! Remember?

We laughed at the notion of being considered SEXY!

I shared some fiction, one I wrote about Santa, which got shared a LOT, thank you so much!

And the most widely read and shared post of all, a three part short story about a Rescuer, and the dog she rescued, Joe.

The horse short story has already gotten almost as many reads. Looks like you are sharing that one, too. More thank yous!

Here is a piece I wrote the very first week of the blog, which you might have missed.

I've made new friends, and reconnected with old ones. You've supported me through a rather challenging year, and put up with certain rants and pity parties.

I hope in return I've been able to bring you a smile or two, and a good kind of cry once in a while.

I sure do want to say a most heartfelt Thank You!

So I think I'll do a random draw from the comments on this post and send a free, signed copy of Mama Pajama Tells A Story.

And, if you would, for me, please hug your hounds!

Blog Sharks! part one

If you are older than dirt, as I am, you remember the silly Saturday Night Live skits called (cue Jaws tuba... dah dmp dah dmp dah dmp) Land Shark.



[AOL Video]

Well, recently we had a rare (for this blog) sighting of (dah dmp dah dmp dah dmp) Blog Sharks.

I accept full responsibility. I unwittingly dangled the bait. Here's part one of the Rest of the Story.

In telling about my experience with this unprecedented natural disaster, I said,

"But most of the stories are of the heroic efforts of the people working twenty-four hours to get the power back up. And of neighbors helping each other. Of the rapidity and effectiveness of this President's response, in stark contrast to the Katrina victims who are still waiting."

A website of political commentary had linked to my blog, (unbeknownst to me) to share the photos and stories of the ice storm that I had posted. The author of this website writes a weekly syndicated column which appears in nearly 200 newspapers and websites. According to Wikipedia, the website is "at most times residing among the top five conservative political blogs."

And there was a link from that website to Patience-please, Days of Dog Poop and Stories.

So an army of folks got offended. (If you think the comments are bad here, you should see what they say about me there!) The anonymous commenter here thought I was taking a "cheap shot at President Bush" though on that other site he isn't anonymous, he is 'Tim from Paducah'.

He went on to say, in the comments here, and on the political website:

"The excellent response to this disaster has everything to do wih the character and the spirit of Western Kentuckians and nothing to do with anyone in Washington; but how would a Northeastern liberal artist relocation program transplant know anything about character and spirit."

First, I want to reassure my Northeastern liberal (and conservative and politically uncommitted) readers that those are Tim from Paducah's words, not mine. I am well aware that folks in the northeastern parts of this country (as well as people in other countries altogether, other continents, even) know a whole lot about character and spirit, and have frequently demonstrated both.

Some of you might be confused by the "artist relocation program transplant" name calling. My husband and I moved here, six and a half years ago, as part of an innovative program initiated by the City of Paducah. The city had an idea to revitalize a blighted, drug infested, decaying section of Paducah, by encouraging artists to move in and fix up the homes. When we bought our burned out shell for $17,000 from a private citizen, we became the first out of town artists to sign up. There was no guarantee that any other artists would come, ever, but we loved the city so much that we were willing to take the risk. We especially loved the people.

The house was amazing. The people we bought it from had purchased it after a fire had destroyed the interior. They had gutted it, mostly, and then had abandoned the project, leaving it to sit vacant for two years. There were no interior walls, just the inside of the exterior brick, and no windows. Where our dining room table now sits, there was a 6' by 9' hole. Peering over the edge of this hole one could see the two dead possums floating in four feet of standing water which was the basement. All of the original woodwork, fireplaces, staircase, fixtures, everything had been removed. It was our dream shell.

We had a nice little eighteen acre horse farm in Maryland. We sold that for Bill to be part of the exciting dream which was Paducah's Artist Relocation Program. We put all of our resources into rebuilding this house, at way more cost than we planned. (Anyone who has ever rehabbed a home will draw in their breath and roll their eyes and nod, I'm sure.) We left family and friends, and I placed the kids' ancient ponies who, I feared, would not survive the move, with my generous stepdaughter.

The whippets, nine of them in those days, and I moved here two months before Bill did. He was making sure the transfer of his medical practice went smoothly, and that his patients were cared for. I knew no one. The house wasn't yet finished so the dogs and I lived in the new addition: Bill's studio and gallery. No shower, no kitchen, no light in the powder room! No fence for the dogs, no computer, no phone, no cell phone service unless I drove out of town.

No friends, and at this point the neighborhood was still a little dicey.

too be continued...

hug your hounds

Heart Attack

No where else on Earth could I write the following and not be involuntarily committed to an inpatient Psych unit. Oh how I appreciate you, dear readers!

I can tell you that I spent a two week, most-expenses-paid trip in Italy, Italy for heaven's sake, feeling like my heart was being attacked.

OK, before even you get out the straight jacket for me, let me explain. That two week trip was the longest I had gone without hugging a dog and/or horse for forty-four years. If you count my first ever pets, my parakeet Birdie, and my cats Stripy and Blackie, (does this explain why my dogs now have names like Giacomino?) then it was the longest I had been without animal companionship in fifty years. I am fifty-four years old.

To see photos of the beautiful places we visited, and some beyond delightful plein-air drawings by my talented husband, check out his blog! (He'll enjoy the visitors, too!!!) We stayed a week in Tuscany, the glory of which has been the subject of great art and literature. We saw David in Florence, the Tower in Pisa, the Piazza in Siena, and vista after beautiful vista from our home base of Fonterutoli. (Font-uh-ROO-tuh-lee). There was a road, with its original stones, into this village built by the Romans in 900 A.D. (Bill has photos on his blog.)

We went to Rome and saw the sights. And we went to a wonderful village in the province of Puglia (POOO-lee-uh) where Bill's grandparents were born and raised. Twenty-one Renzullis met there for a family reunion. There were no other tourists (in fact at first the locals thought we were there to evangelize them! HA!) and the beauty of that place will stay with me for my life. Such was the magic in that town, that my heart felt the least attacked there. We could look out of our hotel window, see the 300 mile wide valley where most of the wheat for all of that Italian bread and pasta is grown, and far off in the distance see the Adriatic.

the view from our window

But through it all, I felt like I couldn't quite fill my lungs. As though I had been amputated. Not like I had lost a limb; rather, I was the limb, lying useless and severed. Disembodied.

Because of the immense generosity of my neice, Molly, I didn't have to worry about the health and safety of the dogs. They know her well, and adore her, and I trust her as I would no one else. I did worry that I had placed a terrible responsibility on her, and I overemphasized that I was leaving her with very fragile old dogs, whose every day was, at best, iffy, whether I was home or not. In my defense, it didn't help that we had very little Internet access during the whole stay. I went to a pay-and-show-your-passport place in the nearest town, and learned that Maria, who will be 14 in February, had been vomiting and had stayed at my vet's for the afternoon getting IV's.

There's not enough air in this country. Why can't I breathe?

Luciano had given Molly a black eye. His special self was jumping up to kiss her while she was bending down. Whippet heads are hard. Oh boy. Hang in there, Molly. Bill's daughter let me send some messages from her blackberry, but nothing came back.

No news is always good news. Molly was visiting with friends after the dogs went to bed. The computer wasn't cooperating with her and kept 'poofing' her messages. Had Maria died and no one would tell me? What good would it do to ruin my vacation? What, Bill? Oh yes, that is a gorgeous view. What the heck is wrong with the air? No matter what I do, my lungs feel empty. I'm drowning here.

I sent a blackberry message to my dear friends and neighbors, Lee and Dee. Is Molly all right? Were the dogs all right? Please! Were Molly and the dogs all right? Yes, they replied. Molly and the dogs were just fine. Maria was back to barking and begging, and she was eating well.

OK. I should be able to breathe now. Why do my arms feel leaden? So empty and useless.

In Rome for two days, if I sat on the bottom of the marble steps in the hallway, the WiFi worked. Molly was doing fine, the routine was less scary, and Maria continued to eat and be merry. They were all enjoying Molly's head-counting "biscuit meetings" immensely, and Giacomino was sleeping all the time.

There is something wrong with my heart. It squeezes too tight when it pumps. Or it doesn't fit in my chest anymore. Maybe some of it is missing, and it's rattling around in a too-big pocket.

Bill's grandparents' home town

No Internet in the whole town of Castelnuova. But such was the power of seeing Bill walk the streets where his grandparents had played as children, of seeing the town with his own eyes, which he had heard about all his life, my heart seemed to fit better again.

And I would be home soon.

The dizzying hour and a half bus ride rocking and zigzagging down the mountain into Foggia sped by. And the packed train, sardines for three and a half hours to Rome, was fast and pleasant. I felt a little giddy.

Tomorrow!

We got up at 5 AM to get to the airport. Rome to Milano, then Milano to Chicago, then O'Hare to Amy's house, then the seven hour drive home. Just over 25 hours of traveling. Molly wanted to get the dogs up and witness the whippet joy, but I just wanted their lives to return to normal. It was nearly midnight, and they were in bed. I went upstairs.

Giacomino was waiting at the baby gate at the top of the stairs. He was wagging, and his ears were standing straight up, but his eyes were confused. No so with Bill's Delia, whose soft-crate zipper has been broken for years. Her Bill was home! She danced and sparkled. Her Bill was home! I went into our bedroom and put all of me that would fit into each crate and kissed each dear occupant.

"I'm home," I whispered.

I know, from doing whippet rescue, that a whippet starts to bond to a new human after about a week to ten days, and by three to four weeks they are part of that human's heart forever. I had been gone for fifteen days. And I saw the confusion in their eyes.

I'm home.

For the first two days, Giacomino stayed asleep, and when he was awake, he had a blank stare, like he had gone someplace inside himself and couldn't see out. Maria had another episode of vomiting and we went back to the vet. Her blood work and belly xrays were great! I went on an errand, and returned to the chaos of Excessive Greeting Disorder. Molly, ever astute, said, "That must be music to your ears." Oh, yes. We said a sad, grateful goodbye to Molly and she went back to her own dogs, whom she missed as much as I did mine.

And now that I've been home for six days, Giacomino's eyes are no longer blank. Maria is barking more, though she's not back to her mouth of the south status, and Delia is Bill's extra appendage.

I am a foolish old woman. I have no problem with that. As I type, I am surrounded by eight somnolent dogs. My heart fits in my chest and I can breathe. I am who I am.

I'm home.

Hug your hounds

Bloggus Interruptissimus

Dearest Readers,

We will be unable to blog

from now until

mid October.

Please hold the whippets

in your hearts

until we return.

(We are fine, don't worry!)

***

hug your hounds

Give-away, blog-o-docious thank you!

Here Ye, Hear Ye !

From the Very MOUTH OF THE SOUTH to your ears

We have some BIG THANK YOUs to share with YOU, Dear Readers.

Since 9/07/07, we have had 75,621 pageviews... OH MY HEAVENS!!! More than 75,000 pageviews for the dog poop blog!!! And 53,473 visits from more than 110 countries.

And that is because of YOU, dear readers!!! And we can't thank you enough! You have told your friends and spread the word and thank you thank you thank you.

In our first post, on September 7, 2007, we

• told a story about the dogs pooping in public,
• blamed Amy, Mary, Jeannie, and Rhonda for talking us into blogging, and
• included an excerpt from the novel

But that did not stop you from coming! Google Analytics this morning gave these exciting numbers-

The most popular story is still Mr. Mouse, with nearly 4000 pageviews, next is the Rescue, followed closely by My Dog Is Getting Old. The overheard conversation, For Dog Lovers Only, is right up there.

Some of our personal favorite stories are

• What's in a name?
• The Smile Maker
• The Difference Between Dogs and Humans
• When All is Right
• When Nine are Too Many, and finally
• Remembering

To THANK YOU, DEAR READERS, we'll be doing GIVE-AWAY DRAWINGS from now until our September 7th BLOG-O-VERSARY!!!

The first Give-away, never before offered for free ...

[drumroll.......]

the ever popular POOP CANDLE!!! Great for birthday parties, barkday pawties, hostess gifts, powder rooms, oh the possibilities are endless!

Simply leave a comment, by scrolling down a little bit and clicking on "click here to comment" or on "post a comment". We will draw from the comments and if we draw you, you WIN!!!

Thank you. Sweet Maria, at thirteen and a half, is worn out from all this excitement. She says, "Sweet dog dreams" to you and yours.

Hugs to you, and to your hounds

And the winner is... (winners are...)

I typed up all of the entries. (Oh, and please note that I didn't blab, blab, blab about this free drawing, because it was to be a Reader Appreciation Give-away, so I put it at the end of a LOOOONG, boring post, and only the dearest of dear readers would have slogged through the drudgery and find the opportunity to get a freebie!)

I then cut them up into equal sized pieces and put them all into one pile, all together, with none left out.

The dogs were all sound asleep. Who would supervise?

I couldn't raise anyone, and Bill is still out of town, so it was up to HENrietta and Fartin' Earl to see that all entries were in the empty CD holder ready to be drawn:

Yup, they were all in there (you can click on any of the photos to enlarge them... use your back button to return):

I did the drawing. And then I felt like a cheapskate. Because I do so appreciate all of you dear readers. So I drew another. And then even one more. And then I thought how much each book costs me and I got a grip.

Here are the WINNERS!!!

Congratulations! And thank you for your unexpected and surprisingly supporting words!!! Really, I was the winner here, and I pumped out about ten chapters of the novel zoom with enthusiasm and confidence after reading your kind words of encouragement.

And since I feel bad that there were only three winners, I will lower the price of the book on eBay for one week, 20% !!! Wow!!! Bill will kill me!!! Welcome home, darling!

THANK YOU.

hug your hounds and winners please email me your snail mail address and let me know if you want my autographed book and to whom you would like it signed, or let me know if you already have the book and want two free custom collars instead.