Karen Woodward: A Writing Taboo: Never Begin Your Story With Weath...

The Panzermobile has been getting quite a workout in the Catoshere this week! Today we stopped in at Karen Woodward's blog to see what she's been up to lately.

We had to read her post when we saw the title, Never Begin Your Story With Weather.

"Say it isn't so!"

Panzer says, "No weather? Say it isn't so!"

 "But ... but ... one of our new stories starts with weather, because the weather is a character in the story."

 Fear not Panzer. It's not as bad as you think. Weather can begin your story ... sometimes.

Tootle over to Karen Woodward: A Writing Taboo: Never Begin Your Story With Weath...: to read all about it.

A Newbie's Guide to Publishing: Konrath's Sales

Panzer can't believe it!

Panzer says you have got to read this post by Joe Konrath about his book sales! Konrath has got some hard numbers here about his sales and how much money he's made.

This post is exactly why you need to get your ebooks uploaded to Smashwords and Amazon. True you may not make as much as Konrath, but you won't make anything if you don't have anything uploaded!

Read all about it at  A Newbie's Guide to Publishing: Konrath's Sales

Private Eye Writers Shamus Winners

Panzer and all his friends want to congratulate the winners of the Shamus Awards:

A Tip of the Fedora to the Shamus Winners

Best Hardcover P.I. Novel
A Bad Night's Sleep by Michael Wiley

Best First P.I. Novel
The Shortcut Man by P.G. Sturges

Best Paperback Original P.I. Novel
Fun & Games by Duane Swierczynski

Best P.I. Short Story
Who I Am by Michael Z. Lewin

Book Review: The Useless Cat Book

Panzer is doing back flips he's so happy!

He picked today's ebook The Useless Cat Book by Janet Jeanes for me to read to him. Now don't get your tail tied in a knot. It's NOT an ebook about a USELESS CAT. Nobody in their right mind would ever call any cat useless. Jeanes states in the intro (and repeats it in the beginning of the story) that the ebook contains USELESS INFORMATION.

The ebook is a re-telling of the story of Puss in Boots. The story has a few extra facts about cats that all of you who read this blog already know (which is why the information is useless).

Hmmm. Let's see. Fact One: Cats don't like to be laughed at. What? Who would even try to laugh at Panzer? I mean laugh at any cat?

Fact Two: Control freaks and cats don't get along. Duh! You know nobody controls a cat (Panzer), right?

Okay. No more spoilers. You have to read the ebook for the rest of the useless facts.

Panzer gives The Useless Cat Book four paws up.

He rates it G for everybody.

Available at Amazon for the Kindle.

Killer Characters: You Can Lead a Cat to Water by Lucy Burdette

Okay, I admit it. Panzer found this post at Killer Characters. He was out tootling around in the catoshere by himself (yes, alone again!) and stopped in to read Evinrude the cat's post about Lucy Burdette's book You Can Lead A Cat To Water.

Evinrude is definitely a cat with attitude.

Panzer says all you cats out there tootle over to  Killer Characters: You Can Lead a Cat to Water by Lucy Burdette: and read what Evinrude has to say.

Oh, and yeah. My bad boy is grounded again! I have the keys to the Panzermobile for the next week.

Susan Kaye Quinn, Young Adult Author: Self-Publishing Basics: Ebook Formatting - The Eas...

Panzer was out in the Catosphere today and stopped at Susan Kaye Quinn's blog. He's doing the happy cat dance! She's got a self-publishing series going on there.

The series has a great section on formatting your ebook for Kindle and Barnes & Noble. (That's where everybody wants to start now days.) It's divided into two parts: The Easy Way and The Hard Way. Panzer recommends you start with the easy way!

Panzer says tootle over to Susan Kaye Quinn, Young Adult Author: Self-Publishing Basics: Ebook Formatting - The Eas...:  and get started on formatting your ebook today!

Book Marketing Made Easy Q & A

Panzer and I attended Dvorah Lansky's  teleseminar, Book Marketing Q&A.

Panzer subscribes to Lansky's enewsletter.  She solicited questions from her readers and then put the teleseminar together using those questions and their answers. The questions cover marketing for ebooks, dead tree books, PDF's,  KDP, Amazon and more.

If you're interested in marketing information, you can attend a replay of the seminar at Welcome to the Event

The Vincent Zandri Vox: Libraries Get It

Panzer is doing the happy cat dance!

Panzer and I stopped in at Vincent Zandri's blog today and got the answer to a question we've been thinking about for quite awhile.

Is there someplace we could do ebook promotions besides on a virtual blog tour?

Well, Zandri has the answer: a library. A library? Yup. He has a promotional gig at a library for one of his ebooks.

Panzer says, "That is so awesome!"

Go to The Vincent Zandri Vox: Libraries Get It  to read all about it.

A Newbie's Guide to Publishing

Panzer is rolling on the floor he's laughing so hard! He can't believe Joe Konrath did this.

As you may have read, some pretty heavy weight writers got outted (by themselves) for buying fake reviews for their ebooks on Amazon. There's been quite a storm raging over these reviews.

So, Konrath got to thinking Why not? 

 And ... he wrote some fake product reviews.

Go to Konrath's blog  A Newbie's Guide to Publishing  and read why he did it. You decide if you agree with him.

How To Read Amazon Review Graphs - GalleyCat

Panzer loves GalleyCat!

Can you guess why? (Sure you can. Meow!)

Here's a great post about Amazon Reviews and what they really mean. If you haven't heard about the paid ebook reviews at Amazon, there's a link included in the post to the article that lead to this review explanation.

Head on over to Panzer's friends at GalleyCat and learn the truth at  How To Read Amazon Review Graphs - GalleyCat