Category Archives: Photos and Videos

Read Aloud Video Series Now Available for “Why Kimba Saved The World”

I’m so thrilled to be able to share this first parent/teacher resource with you! Over several weeks, I recorded videos of me reading aloud “Why Kimba Saved The World” a chapter or two at a time, and the whole series is now complete at available at my youtube channel. Click here to check it out!

Apologies are probably in order for the “homemade” nature of these videos, but until some publisher wants to pay Morgan Freeman to read it for you in a professional studio this is what works on my budget. The series is designed to feel just like read aloud time would have in my classroom back when I was teaching elementary school. My classes rarely missed a day with a chapter book read aloud time (one year, we did the WHOLE “Little House on the Prairie” series), and I love being able to share “Kimba” in this same way with kids I will never have the chance to meet in person.

Please share the link with your teacher friends, parents who home school, or children you know who just might enjoy it!

Hiro: The Cheez-It Lover

We have known this for many years: If you want to find Hiro, just open a bag of cheese crackers or potato chips. She will come running and climb on you until you break off some little pieces for her munching pleasure. None of the other cats are impressed by fish shaped cheese crackers. Frankly, we don’t share “people food” with them, and they are rarely interested. Kimba, of course, must smell everything, but she rarely wants a taste.

Scott has just finished a read-through of the first draft of “Vacation Hiro.” As we were talking about it and sharing bits of Cheez-Its with Hiro, we agreed that I needed to work that in somehow. This will require a photo, which was not hard to get. Leave an open box available, and her head is inside the box in a flash. I’d love to hear from my readers as well. Which photo should I use for the book? Click here for the link to the Facebook album. Leave a comment on this post or on the Facebook page to let me know which one you like better: head in the box or arm in the box. While you are there, “like” my page and follow along with fun photos and book updates!

For those of you who don’t use Facebook, the photos are posted below as well. They are both so cute, I can’t decide. Help!

: Which one should I use? Head in box?

: Or arm in box?

Book Trailer!

Click on the photo to watch the book trailer on YouTube.

It used to be enough to just write a great book and sell it and hope folks liked it. Times have changed! As a self-published author, not only is it up to me to make sure the book itself looks great and is well edited (and I’m grateful for the great team who helped me do that), but I’m also responsible for what seems like hundreds of social media decisions and constant updates. Twitter, Facebook, an Amazon author page, Goodreads, Google, a YouTube channel…the list could go on and on, but so far I have stopped with those. My latest adventure has been creating a “book trailer,“ which is the new must-do thing. I’m not sure if it actually helps to sell books, but especially when dealing with Kit Lit you never want to overlook a way to connect visually.

I’m very grateful that I already have a basic knowledge of how to use Windows Movie Maker and have been through many sessions of vocal and voice training (not to mention drama classes). As a family, we are quite addicted to taking pictures of our beloved Kimba, so I had many to select from. The photo I used for “Regalus” is one I found on the internet when I was writing the book. “There he is,” I thought, so it seemed right to share what he looks like in my mind’s-eye. If you imagine him even scarier, go for it. He’s not an earth cat, so he would be much more impressive than anything we have here.

Comparing what I came up with to many others out there, I think I pulled it off. Clearly, I did not pay $10,000 for a professionally created video. How many books would I have to sell to cover that cost?! But I do think it gets the message across: here’s a cute book about a cat who finds out she is more than just a house cat and has to decide what to do and how to act on this new life-changing information.

I hope you enjoy the video book trailer and will share it widely with everyone on your various social media lists. You never know who might end up watching. “Why Kimba Saved The World” is just Book 1. There is MUCH more to come.

When Frustrated, Just Watch A Cat On A Ladder

Kimba Chases Her Tail On A Ladder

I’m not sure why a cat on a ladder makes me smile and forget whatever drama of the day I am caught up in. If I wanted to see it live, all I would need to do is pull out a real ladder, and Kimba would be at the top lickety-split. Today has left me feeling torn between the YA novel I am doing final edits on and preparing for a target audience read and the fact that I really want to keep moving on “Vacation Hiro” and get that published. A really inspiring workshop with the Northwest Arkansas Writer’s Group this weekend and lots of new ideas from that is not helping matters. There’s never enough time in the day! So I’ve decided that I’ll send out the YA book at the end of March, whatever state it is in, and spend April on “Hiro”. Having goals helps. And then I put on a video of Kimba chasing her tail on a ladder to brighten my day. Click on the photo and let it brighten yours too.

Kimba and My Disney Toys

Kimba and her Disney friends

I freely admit to loving stuffed animals. If you’ve read “Why Kimba Saved The World,” you know that I have quite a collection of Disney mini-plush toys, and Kimba loves them as much as I do. Back in our Houston house, she had a bed up on the shelf with them, and it was her favorite spot to sleep. She also has a little game she plays with them. Every night, when all the humans and the other three cats go to sleep (yes, Hiro, Samantha, & Tabitha have adjusted to a human sleep schedule), Kimba runs the house and plays with the stuffed animals. She jumps up on the bookshelves where they are displayed, picks her favorites for the night, and carries them around the house, singing. It actually sounds more like she is saying “Hello?”. She loves to bring them upstairs and leave them outside my bedroom door, but most recently she has been bringing them to my daughter. This is a new development. And I caught it on video. In my next book, I think I’m going to have to include this. Click on the photo, and it will take you to YouTube so you can watch her nighttime antics. Crazy cat.