An App for Everything

As you know, I have my books published on Amazon, for Kindle devices, which means, up until now you've only been able to buy the books from Amazon. That mostly also means you need a Kindle to read the books, or so you may have thought.

The truth is, these days, there's an App for everything, as well as Kindle. I don't need the App, because I have a Kindle, an older keyboard one, not a touchscreen, but I do have the App on my Android tablet, where I read the most. In fact, you can get the Kindle App for ipad, iphone, Android and PC. All you have to do is go to your store and download it, it's FREE.

Of course, you also need an Amazon account, but that's FREE to set up too.

About a month ago I came across another option which has allowed me (and any self-published author) to publish my books to:
Nook (Barnes and Noble) http://www.barnesandnoble.com/u/NOOK-Book-eBook-store/379003094/
Kobo, http://store.kobobooks.com/
and iBookstore http://www.apple.com/au/apps/ibooks/

 Draft2Digital has come to the rescue, and today I already have the "Winnie and Hunny Speak" Series available in the Barnes and Noble ebookstore. Kobo and iBookstore take a little longer, but the books should be available through them within a week.

This is excellent news for readers who don't have Kindles, but have other devices such as Kobo, and who don't want to fuss around with multiple devices/Apps on multiple devices. Two friends have Kobos, and up until now they couldn't buy my Amazon books. Now they can. Hooray for innovation!

So spread the word to whole wide world folks, if you've got other ereaders other than Kindle, get your author friends to publish through draft2Digital so you can read their work on your device. Email your favourite authors and let them know about this service too. It works to benefit all of us.

And now that I have my books uploaded to more sites, I can hopefully get back to writing. It's been two frustrating weeks of sorting and fixing "stuff".  I'm in the middle of changing my ISP which isn't going smoothly. I'm tired, and Winnie and Hunny have left muddy paw prints and bits of stick all over the floor. It's hot. I stepped up to air con on yesterday, then drank coffee this morning so now feel wired!

What's a girl to do? Have lunch, it's 1.30pm here, have a snooze, and go and sort ISP out.

Happy reading, writing and playing with dogs,

Leonie

When Blogging/Writing is Slow, check out Pinterest for Ideas.

I'm still in the research stage of "Labradoodle Fun and Facts", because sometimes other things in life come along that need attention before writing. And sometimes blogging ideas are hard to come up with and you grow a little stale, soooooo, I go to Pinterest, amongst other places, for ideas.

I discovered Pinterest only about 3 months ago and I absolutely LOVE it. Here's a link to their page for you to check out. http://www.pinterest.com and of course if you click on the gadget on Leonie's Lives you'll see what I've got on my boards, which I created for my page.

If you don't know about Pinterest, it's a social media site, yes, but, it's purely VISUAL. You get to Pin (post) images, anything you like, within the rules of course, and it's VERY POPULAR because there's no imagination required. Brilliant, and it's popularity out ranks Facebook. Naturally, it works differently, and you'll be pleasantly surprised with what you find.

If you haven't already, start up your own page, it's a whole heap of fun!

Till next time,

Leonie

My Other, Earlier Books

Before I wrote the Winnie and Hunny Speak series, I published a book of poems. They were published last year, about this time, but they were written in the early to mid 1970's.

I started doodling when at high school, during a boring class which I can't recall, and it evolved into thought and lines and poems which I wrote down in to a very large red covered journal.

I recall it being the time of Woodstock and nuclear bomb testing in the South Pacific, and of course, the Vietnam War. Local University students would march past my school and we would have to pretend not to notice them go past our windows. Yeah, as if!

Several years later I went to Europe and travelled around with a friend. I still wrote poems and when I eventually returned to New Zealand from whence I came, it was to a family tragedy. I wrote one or two more poems shortly after, then only one more about 10 years ago.

I still had my Big Red Poetry Book though, and I had transferred every poem onto my computer thinking one day to do "something" with the poems. That something turned out to be "The Odd One Out - Primitive Poems from the Past. My first foray into ebooks and self publishing.

My poems were the outpourings of a young and lonely soul, a teenager naive yet to the world and her place in it. I didn't think anyone other than myself would be interested in them, let alone want to publish them, so it was up to me. And because I already had a kindle, I heard about self publishing, and the rest, as they say, is history.

So above is the link to my author page/ book list on Amazon which includes all of my books to date. There's also a volume of poems written by my brother Paul. He was tragically killed in a car accident when I was overseas, and was the reason I returned home. He was 17. I never knew he wrote poetry, and only found his work one day several years ago when I was helping my mum shift house. I believe his words are better than mine :) Check his poems out: Salamanca Summer.

http://www.amazon.com/Leonie-van-de-Vorle/e/B00DR8SI9M

First Storms, Wet Dogs

Hi All,

I can't seem to inset a workable link to Hunny's book cover, at the moment, so what you have in the sidebar works if you highlight it and follow it to Amazon. Then you can see which cover I chose, and of course...purchase the book :)

It's Friday, yay! Yesterday afternoon we had a lovely thunderstorm, the first real downpour of the wet season. I always make sure I'm on my back veranda when storms pass over, as I enjoy them so much!

The dogs had a wonderful time as well. Shortly after the rain began, Hunny went out and stood in it, she was simply enjoying its goodness. She'd had a bath on Monday, so she was clean, however, she just loves the water so much she had to have some of the rain as well.

Then she came back and shook off all over me. She waited a few minutes before repeating her rain and shake adventure and in fact did so several times until she was thoroughly soaked.

Winnie wasn't having any of it at first. She prefers to stay dry, except when it comes to the sprinkler or the hose of course. However, she realised that Hunny was having more fun than she was, so very surprising to me, she joined in.

Naturally, I ended up with 2 wet, smelly dogs that wanted to sit next to me on a small 2 seater sofa on the veranda. The rain had stopped and the air was a little cooler now, so guess who was feeling chilly?

I could go inside and change, but they had to remain out for a while longer. They had muddy paws as well as being wet, so on the veranda it was. After towelling her off, here's Winnie.

Don't you just love dogs?

Have a great weekend everyone, see you Monday.

Hunny Labradoodle's Helping Hand online

Hunny's compilation is now online, and this marks the, for now at least, final :) book about Winnie and Hunny. But who knows what a year may bring? Maybe so many more adventures will happen that they'll have to put paw to keyboard - err - dictate for (a) further book(s).
 
I will be concentrating on my next book called "Labradoodle Fun and Facts" as well as finishing my memoir "Broken", about a breakdown I had 15 years ago. That was a rough, tough time.

As you probably noticed yesterday, I blathered on a lot about designed dogs. No more along those lines; more informative from now on.

Originally, Labradoodles were bred as Guide Dogs in Australia for someone who was blind and whose husband was allergic to dog dander. The best was a Labrador Retriever X Poodle. That was in the 1960's, and many Labradoodle's were used very successfully as Guide Dogs. It wasn't until much later that the "designer dog" label was attached and the world went crazy.

So then, part of my new book will look at the fun stuff about Labradoodles, and part of it will look into the road traveled by  them from their early days to where they are now. They have come a long way indeed. For example, there are Associations that have set breed standards, and are in the process of having the Labradoodle recognised internationally as a legitimate breed in it's own right.

I'd vote for that. :)

Labradoodle Design

Once upon a time all dogs were just dogs. They weren't Beagles or German Shepherd Dogs or Pomeranians or Labradoodles. Many of our much loved purebreds today are in fact only recently so. Some as recent as 150 to 200 years. So what was all the fuss about when Labradoodles came along?

The fuss was that lots of people got greedy, greedy for the get-rich-quick schemes that sprung up out of "designer dogs" and the puppy mills which grew around them. Now this topic has been done to death and I'm not about to rake it up again, but to me, it does seem unfair to Labradoodles, the innocent parties in the matter.

Labradoodles are wonderful dogs, as are most breeds of dog. We all have our favourites and not so favourites. We choose our companions according to many criteria: size, coat, looks, status, personality, behaviour, ability, etc.

If a new breed is created, which has beneficial qualities others don't, isn't that a great thing? It happens all the time with breeders of many animal and bird species, and nature does it irregardless of what we think.

Don't you just love it? We're not really in control and never will be!

By the way, I've uploaded "Hunny Labradoodle's Helping Hand". It's being published at this very moment and tomorrows post will have a link to it. Hunny is very pleased with herself.

'Till then

Leonie

From Airedale Terriers to Labradoodles

When I first looked for Winnie, I wasn't looking for a Labradoodle. In fact I wasn't going to have another dog after my last one went to doggie heaven.

She was a 12 year old Airedale Terrier called Lea who had a tumour one day, and a month or so after the vet discovered it I took her back again. As I opened the car door to take her out, the heavens opened and we were soaked. It was as if the angels were crying for her.

I stayed with her and watched the light disappear from her eyes as she slipped into her final peaceful sleep. I cried and cried too, and when I came home my children and I held a wake for her. They had grown up with her, it was such a sad day.

So that was it, no more dogs. I was too devastated, and wouldn't go through that again.

Buut, then you get talking to a friend over lunch one day and become enthusiastic about dogs all over again, and what hope is there? And that's exactly what happened, as you can read in "Hi, I'm "Winnie."

First however, I had to do some research because although I adored, and would dearly love to have another Airedale, (she was the second I'd had), I was getting older and found the grooming a bit much. So a smaller dog was the answer.

Second, Airedales had a "non-shedding" coat, much like a poodle's, but it did need clipping, that's really why I wanted to "downsize", as I'd done the clipping too. So my priorities were coat, size and temperament.

I looked at Welsh Terriers, smaller but very similar to Airedales; Soft Coated Wheaten Terriers, very cool; Wire-Haired Fox Terriers, and Labradoodles. For one reason or another, the only one that was perfect was the miniature Labradoodle!

In the month, yes month, of online research, soul-searching, doubting and not telling anyone my thoughts, I found out a great deal of information on Labradoodles and their origins. In my next few posts, I'll tell you some of what I found about these wonderful dogs.