Not All Tea And Cakes Or Roses Or Whatever

I've spent the better part of the past two hours trying to make the cover of LACE CURTAIN IRISH more palatable to the taste of Amazon's "Search Inside The Book" team.

How is it that Barnes & Noble could get the image down so clearly all on their own?

And then sell the book much cheaper than the competition?

I did what I could, and figured out what more I might have done after I'd sent Amazon the file. Too hasty, what with the book going live on Saturday. Readers need to at least peruse the back flap copy before making a decision, but that isn't possible until we're all on the same page, me and Amazon.

In the meantime, there's the opening pages posted at Newcastlewest Books. Click on the link and read about the Hanlon clan, in all its dysfunctional and messy glory.

However, it's asking too much of a potential buyer to navigate from site to site. All that's left to do is wait on Amazon, again, to see if I've made the cut, or if I have to copy and paste from BN.com to get a better image. And wait again.

Then there's the other alternative. We're still giving away free copies for those brave enough to fill out a form and take a chance.

The cover's lovely, really. It follows the underlying theme that runs through the novel, as expressed by Daniel Hanlon. The slaughterhouse, where a burly Irishman knocked cattle senseless day in and day out, is real life in a compressed form, but the Hanlons saw that life through a haze of white lace curtains.

Read the book. You'll see how perfect the cover is....even if Amazon is having a little difficulty with the quality of the image.