Barnaby gets carried away

My local supermarket is awash with special offers, discounts, money off vouchers and 'free' extras - which are only 'free' if you buy the original item.  Barnaby's FREE e - books are, of course, genuinely FREE.  There's not even any obligation to read them, though he'd be disappointed if he thought you hadn't.

Barnaby is particularly intrigued by the supermarket BOGOF (buy one get one free) offers and would like to offer his own, but when you don't even have to buy one to get a FREE one this is giving him some pause for thought. DOFGAOF (download one free get another one free) somehow doesn't have the 'ring' to it that BOGOF has, any more than DAMYLFF (download as many as you like for free).  DAFTFART (download a free title and file a review today) somehow still doesn't have the vibe he's looking for.  He's still working to find the perfect acronym, but in the meantime, download, read, enjoy and then why not download another one?

Barnaby loves his Kindle - mostly.

Barnaby is a little like Winnie the Pooh in being a bear of very small brain.  Although he loves his Kindle e-reader he often forgets the title of the current book he's reading, and the author's name.  Unlike a paperback, which constantly reminds one of the book title and author via it's cover, the Kindle opens each time on the current page and shuts down to a random screensaver picture which has no relevance to the book being read.  Of course one can always get back to the cover via the menu options, but it's clunky and requires a certain amount of effort.  A much simpler and more satisfying solution would be for the Kindle to use the cover page from the current book as it's screensaver when shutting down.  This would be a reminder to the reader and an advertisment for the author.  A win win situation. Barnaby has made this suggestion to Amazon with no result to date, but if enough people joined the campaign ... ? You could add your voice by going to http://forums.kindledirectpublishing.com/kdpforums/thread.jspa?threadID=29226

Meanwhile you can enjoy all the lovingly created covers of Barnaby's books by visiting www.barnaby-wilde.co.uk (don't forget the hyphen).

Barnaby doubles his score and adds ten

The juggling is coming on slowly.  Today another milestone was reached when Barnaby managed to juggle with three balls and achieved over three hundred and fifty catches without a drop, more than doubling his previous best score.

Whilst still in a small state of euphoria over this modest success, Barnaby decided to celebrate by adding ten further poems to his collection 'Life...', at the same time cunningly renaming it as 'Life...(plus ten)'.

This can be downloaded from http://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/barnabywilde as usual in the format of your choice, and the good news doesn't end there.  Despite a 34% increase in the number of poems available there is no increase in price.  Thirty nine poems for just ninety nine cents (about sixty two pence) is just two and a half cents each. 

Now what else can you buy for just two and a half cents?  Enjoy!

Barnaby has an early spring break

The daffodils and snowdrops have been in flower this week and from my office window I can see the first of the blue muscari grape hyacinth just starting to show, as well as a scattering of primrose flowers. In a week or two the bank will be a solid mass of blue and pale yellow flowers, a sign that Spring is beginning to uh, well, spring.
Unfortunately, Barnaby had an early spring break of a different kind this week.  He was just about to drive away from home when there was a loud bang and the front nearside of his estate car dropped about three inches.  It appears that the helical coil spring on the front nearside suspension had simply snapped in two.  The good news is that it didn't happen at 70mph on the motorway.  The bad news is that the car can't even be driven to the garage for repair, so an engineer will have to come here at the weekend to fix it.
At the moment Barnaby can't even bring himself to write a comic verse about it.  Pleasingly, though, downloads of Barnaby's books from the Smashwords website passed 500 copies yesterday.  Enjoy!

Barnaby has a head cold

Sore throat, blocked sinus, running nose, mild headache and a poor night's sleep, yes, Barnaby has a cold. Nothing serious, but it does take the edge off things a little.  Nevertheless he is comforted by the thought that tomorrow is Valentines Day and at this very moment there may be hundreds, if not ones of Valentines cards winging his way.  Mrs W got hers a day early because of a slight miscalculation by Barnaby over the posting, but better that way than a day late (and it did get a very good reaction).

The title of the next compilation of verse will probably be 'The Well Boiled Icycle', though it is not expected to be published for a while.  Barnaby is just mulling over titles at present.  Sometimes mulling is all a man needs to do to be happy.

Barnaby goes to the flicks

We visited the local Picturehouse yesterday evening to see George Clooney in 'The Descendants' in which he plays a Honulu based lawyer.  His wife is in a coma in hospital following a boating accident and he is forced to cope with two wayward daughters. Lingering shots of Hawaiin scenery and a background score of local music. Mrs W enjoyed the film immensely. Barnaby thought it was so so, but it is always good to get out together, so an enjoyable evening was had by both.

'Tunnel Vision', a collection of longer poems by Barnaby Wilde is now available as a FREE download on both the Smashwords platform and Amazon in the 'ebook' format of your choice.  The collection includes 'The Ballad of Wayne and Bill' as well as a trip to Ikea and discussions about Corn Circles and Flying with no hint of Rhinoceros or Elephant.  Just as quirky, with the weak puns you'd expect. Longer verses, but the same quality as usual and a similar width.  You can find out more by going to the website.

Barnaby gets lost in a blizzard

Well, perhaps that's a bit of an exaggeration.  We did have our first snow of the winter yesterday after a week of sub zero temperatures, but it was only a thin covering and a few hours later it had pretty much disappeared.  Today we have clear blue sky and brilliant sunshine.

It was good to see that people had taken advantage of the 48 hour window to download a FREE copy of the verse collection 'Life... (enhanced) bonus edition' on Amazon.  As expected there were plenty of downloads from Amazon.co.uk and Amazon.com, but more surprisingly there was one download each from Amazon.de and Amazon.es.  So, it's 'Hi, Guten Tag and Hola' to everyone who downloaded the book.  I hope you enjoy the poems and, if you do, how about leaving a review?

'Tunnel Vision' to be uploaded within the next 48 hours.  Keep an eye open for it.

Barnaby goes West

Barnaby and Mrs W have just spent a couple of nights in Cornwall at a small hotel on the coast at the seaside town of Looe.  A lovely position looking across the harbour, beach and town.  We pottered along the coast to Polperro and Polruan, and then took the ferry across to Fowey for afternoon tea and a spot of shopping.
It''s all very quaint, but it was pretty cold out and about and we drove through snow on our way home this morning. Parking, even in the depths of winter, was in short supply and expensive. Welcome to Cornwall.

During 1st and 2nd February an expanded edition of poems 'Life... (enhanced) bonus edition' is available for FREE download from Amazon.  This contains the original contents of 'Life...' plus nineteen additional poems.  After 2nd February the FREE edition will no longer be available, but the original version will still be available for purchase from the Smashwords website and the expanded version available for purchase exclusively from Amazon.