Operation eBook Drop

Edward C. Patterson, an author and Vietnam veteran, has partnered with Smashwords in creating a website called Operation eBook Drop which allows authors to post their free ebooks for download by military personnel. You can upload your book on Smashwords, and become an Operation eBook Drop affiliate with a few clicks. If your book is for sale, you simply create a coupon on the Smashwords site giving 100% discount to our good people in uniform. I did this with my book and then wrote to a friend that young people in the field aren't going to be interested in a book about 60 year old women, but she wrote quickly back "they all have moms." If you have a children's book, this might be a terrific opportunity for a soldier in the field to share a story with their children, even from a great distance. Do some good today, authors and publishers! Share your stories. The words on the digital device in this illustration are from "Four Little Sailors" by Bill Staines, on The Happy Wanderer CD. It's a delightful song about the adventures to be enjoyed in reading. Happy wandering!

Chantepleure Digital 75% Off in July!

Chantepleure is on sale at 75% off in the month of July at Smashwords. Only $2.50. As I am behind myself, as well as beside myself, we're already gobbling up the days in July. There are thousands of books participating in the July sale so do click and browse. Chantepleure (pronounced shant-pluray) means to sing and weep at the same time. It's a lovely word, and although it may not be possible to sing and cry simultaneously, we women manage to pull that off just as we do most impossible things. My new favorite quotation is Rita O'Grady being interviewed in Made in Dagenham. A male reporter asks her (a striking Ford worker who has just declared the 187 women will stay out until equal pay is gained), "how will you cope?" Rita turns her head and raises an eyebrow. "Cope? How will we cope? We are women. Now don't ask such stupid questions." Chantepleure is about three women friends in their 60s who have been friends all their lives. It is fictionalized reality, as friend Rosemary calls it. Only the names have been...well, juggled to celebrate the warriors turning elders. These are my friends, my life; your friends, your life. We sing. We weep. We cope. A woman at one of my book signings laid her hand on the book, looked at me over the top of her reading glasses. "Books today," she announced, "have too much sex." I laid my hand on the book next to the book she touched. "There is, in my book, no sex at all," I said, looking over the top of my glasses, "because quite simply I don't remember how it goes."