Fun with Photographing Cardinals

cardinals 069 (640x427)female on chair mohawk (640x427)female on basket below peanuts (640x427)

The female was sitting on the seed plate, the sunflower seeds all gone. But she was sitting there as if waiting for me to bring out the seeds.

female at feeder (640x427)female on seed plate (640x427)

Then she went to the feeder.

To the chair.

Then discovered the new suet/peanut/sunflower seed feeder overhead. She was up there and gone so fast, I was only able to get one shot that wasn’t really clear. She hasn’t been back since, at least while I’ve been watching. The male was looking for the seeds on the patio. I put those down there for some of the birds that like to eat them off the patio. The other feeders, the finch one is empty because I don’t have any finches. And so none of the birds ate the seeds. I finally poured it out for them. The one below that similarly can remain filled for months and not be touched. So the like the simple plate with the seed on it. The reason it’s broken? The wild cat that roams the area knocked the table over and broke that and a decorative planter I had sitting on there. 🙁

And that’s my fun with photographing cardinals.

Back to writing…

Have a super day!

Terry

“Giving new meaning to the term alpha male where fantasy is reality.”

Connect with Terry Spear:

Website: http://www.terryspear.com

Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/421434.Terry_Spear

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TerrySpearParanormalRomantics

Twitter: https://twitter.com/TerrySpear

Wilde & Woolly Bears http://www.celticbears.com

 

Experimenting with new Promotional Tool and More Fun Photography Textured Art

Terry Spear

a book bubble about

Taming the Wild Cougar

Terry  Spear
Taming the Wild Cougar

Author Insight

https://www.bublish.com/bubble/add/3862/6837#

I write hot wolf and jaguar shifter stories based on the real animal, but these are not horror stories. They’re romances where the shifter is born this way, normally, and is comfortable with who he or she is. Each animal is distinctive from one another. The wolves, pack animals, loving family. The jaguars, mysterious and exotic. The cougars is the latest in my shifter worlds and they’re wary and curious at the same time. Since they live all over the States, I thought it would be fun to give them a home too.

baby sparrow (640x427) (2)two clarity

Original Baby Sparrow

baby sparrow (640x427) glitter mute background and foreground

Dreamy Quality Baby Sparrow, Looks like a Fairy World

Internet problems last night, so couldn’t finish my post. I was playing around with a baby sparrow picture I  had taken a while back, making a misty foreground and background which makes the baby bird stand out a little more. Gives it more of a surreal look.

Okay, I’m off.

Back to working on SEAL Wolf in Too Deep. Just 30 pages to go on edits. 🙂 Then it’s working on bears and Taming the Wild Cougar.

Hope you all have a grand day!

Terry

“Giving new meaning to the term alpha male where fantasy is reality.”

Connect with Terry Spear:

Website: http://www.terryspear.com

Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/421434.Terry_Spear

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TerrySpearParanormalRomantics

Twitter: https://twitter.com/TerrySpear

Wilde & Woolly Bears http://www.celticbears.com

Trying Something New in Promotions & Cloud Textures

I’m not sure it’s going to make all that much of a difference, but they had a free trial for their site for a month, so giving it a shot. It’s cool the way they set up a “Bubble” to show your author profile and then an excerpt of the book. Since Taming the Wild Cougar is coming out in October, I wanted to see if it would help with preorder sales or not.

https://www.bublish.com/bubble/stream/6837?share=fb

I tried one for Dragon Fae and had these results.

Date facebook icon twitter icon email icon bublish icon
August 6 6 3
August 5 31 63 17
August 4 27 45 14
Total 206
This is for views on the various sites. The first day, I posted a preview of Dragon Fae’s first chapter. The second day an excerpt of Hawk Fae, the follow-on book. No increase in sales on either.
So I deleted the book and started over again. This is after an hour of posting it. I wanted to see if a different book would have more of an impact. Usually adult books (romance) do, and since this is a preorder with a highly discounted price, I thought it might.
Date facebook icon twitter icon email icon bublish icon
August 6 40 46 15

So we’ll see. I figure I can’t go wrong with a free promotional tool. If nothing comes of it, then I don’t lose any money. They say if you have a new bubble up today or tomorrow, it’ll go into the special weekend reads. So I should be all set.

Line of Thunderstorms, Textured Sky

Line of Thunderstorms, Textured Sky

Line of Thunderstorms, Original Photo

Line of Thunderstorms, Original Photo

Starry Night

Line of Thunderstorms, Starry Night

Playing with more textures. The top has two different cloud texture layers.  The first was similar to the blue of the original blue sky. The second had a pretty aqua coloring. And then I did a light erase on the clouds to show the build up. The last picture I added a blue grunge to make it appear darker like night, and a galaxy sky. I always want to photography the stars all in the night sky. But they rarely show up. So here, I can do it. lol

Okay, just finished Billionaire in Wolf’s Clothing to turn in and got copy edits for SEAL Wolf in Too Deep. *sigh*  Was going to get back to Taming the Wild Cougar. And need to make up 4 bears this weekend. 🙂

Okay, back to edits!!! 🙂 Have a super wonderful TGIF.

Terry

“Giving new meaning to the term alpha male where fantasy is reality.”

Connect with Terry Spear:

Website: http://www.terryspear.com

Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/421434.Terry_Spear

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TerrySpearParanormalRomantics

Twitter: https://twitter.com/TerrySpear

Wilde & Woolly Bears http://www.celticbears.com

Green, Green Dragonfly

Green, Green Dragonfly

Green, Green Dragonfly

Lightened up the background a little so the dragonfly is easier to see against the cement slab.

dragonflies 009 (640x427) purple glitter

whimsical background

I was so excited to see him fluttering around again and finally was able to get the puppies in the house so I could capture him. Messing around with the background to showcase him better.

original photo

original photo

Working away on Billionaire. Hope to have finished rereading it one last time today! Have a super day!

Terry

“Giving new meaning to the term alpha male where fantasy is reality.”

Connect with Terry Spear:

Website: http://www.terryspear.com

Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/421434.Terry_Spear

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TerrySpearParanormalRomantics

Twitter: https://twitter.com/TerrySpear

Wilde & Woolly Bears http://www.celticbears.com

Having Fun with Using Textures on an Iris

iris with purple mist (640x626)

Iris with purple mist texture

iris (640x626)

Original Iris Photo

iris glitter (640x626)

Iris with glitter texture

iris antique book (640x626)

Iris with antique book texture

Updating files this morning before I get to work on rereading Billionaire in Wolf’s Clothing. Made all the changes I think I needed to, so hopefully this will be the final read before I turn it in.

Takes forever for my files to upload, soooo while I was waiting, I was looking at background textures for fun and for working on book covers.

https://creativemarket.com/graphics/textures/popular/18

And then I had to play around with them! So these are some of the variations on the original photo of the iris I took this spring.

Which do you like the best?

Terry

“Giving new meaning to the term alpha male where fantasy is reality.”

Connect with Terry Spear:

Website: http://www.terryspear.com

Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/421434.Terry_Spear

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TerrySpearParanormalRomantics

Twitter: https://twitter.com/TerrySpear

Wilde & Woolly Bears http://www.celticbears.com

Dragonfly Eating Dinner

dragonflies 007

I think the white fluffy looking stuff is a swarm of tiny bugs and the Dragonfly is out for dinner.

I saw a beautiful green one yesterday, only I didn’t have my camera with me. He flew around me and over the puppies. We had disturbed him, and did again later when they had to go out. I put the puppies in the house and went out to capture a shot of him, but haven’t seen him again. 🙁 I haven’t seen a pure green dragonfly, so I want to capture him in a photo in the worst way.

Don’t you hate that? When your model won’t cooperate?

My latest audiobook is now available!

Killing the Bloodlust | [Terry Spear]

Army officer Crystal Anderson can’t help the draw she has to vampires, although she’s supposed to be drawn to them to kill those who are renegades, since she’s a born huntress. But something about her is different. Ostracized from her family, she lives precariously on her own. That is until a local vampire targets her. Then she meets a fellow Army officer Robert Parker – who she believes is one of them – a vampire or blood host, or something. Suddenly, nothing is the same.

Army officer Robert Parker is on assignment at Fort Hood, Texas, trying to track down the vampire who murdered his sister after hours. When he spies Crystal coming out of a vampire house, he assumes she’s a human host, and that she can lead him to his murderer. Except he’s drawn to her like a hunter would be to a huntress, until he learns she’s not quite right. She’s fighting alone without a family of hunters’ support, and he’s bound to do something about it before she gets herself killed… or worse.

http://www.audible.com/pd/Romance/Killing-the-Bloodlust-Audiobook/B0130BB950

 

I’m still working on Billionaire, revising it based on a beta reader’s great ideas. I have to read it over to see if I missed anything with the new changes. Puppies got me up at 2:30 this morning, luckily we didn’t run into the skunk.

Sooo, that means I’m late getting my blog done, etc, etc, etc. Tanner and Max got into sunflower seeds that I put out for the birds and by the time I got them to mind me and come in the house, they’d eaten too much. They didn’t get sick, but man, the poop factor has been unbelievable. I had to take them both out in the middle of the night, at 7:30, they were at it again. Then fifteen minutes later, Max is standing at the door. Which I LOVE. No more accidents in the house. My puppies are growing up! But both went again. I was gobsmacked. Then…yes, again, 15 mins later. Darn birds. It’s all your fault. Eat up your sunflower seeds! Anyway, you can actually feed your dogs sunflower seeds, but keep it to a little bit as they will actually gain weight with them. After as much as I had to clean up the yard this morning, I don’t see how!!! 🙂

I’ve also got 13 books up at iBooks and still 31 to move over there. I learned that you earn 69+% on your books there, 60% going through Smashwords, and I was having trouble sending in updated versions, getting an error message. I needed to give the version another number. It’s a catch 22. I needed to add iBook store links to the books, but couldn’t without them being uploaded to the store first so I’d have a store link to add to the book. A helpful author told me she had the same problem and so she had to do 1.1 to upload the new version. So need to do that with ALL the books again with the updated store links.

Okay, so if you write, you know that if you change one little thing, it can go from a cute little snowflake into the Abominable Snowman. And that’s what I’ve got to check out this morning, while making some other revisions.

But moving the books to another book seller site also means that cute little snowflake has snowballed into the Abominable Snowman. I’ve got to update all my links for iBooks as I get them done. AND, since I’m adding links for Amazon and BN, I need to also update all the books on Amazon and BN. Haven’t even begun to do that. Sooooo….

That means I’ve got to quit goofing off on here, and get to work on Billionaire. Book due soon and the days are slipping on past even sooner!!

Have a terrific snowflake day! With 105 degree temps, no snowmen in the immediate future for us!

 

Terry

“Giving new meaning to the term alpha male where fantasy is reality.”

Connect with Terry Spear:

Website: http://www.terryspear.com

Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/421434.Terry_Spear

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TerrySpearParanormalRomantics

Twitter: https://twitter.com/TerrySpear

Wilde & Woolly Bears http://www.celticbears.com

Evolution of Audible Covers–by the Publisher

Savage Hunger: Heart of the Jaguar, Book 1 | [Terry Spear]

Savage Hunger, Book 1, 1st book in Audible

This one was nicely done.

http://www.audible.com/pd/Romance/Savage-Hunger-Audiobook/B00NAGI2KQ

Jaguar Pride | [Terry Spear]

Jaguar Pride, Book 4, 2nd book in Audible  (someone got them out of order)

Poor design.

When we upload our indie work, one of the things Audible said is that we can’t use a black border like this. Or just use a wider version of the book cover. But sometimes it’s hard to use the same cover for the expanded version from a cover that is a narrower proportion for a book cover to fit a square audiobook cover, especially when we’ve bought the cover from a cover artist and it’s four or five years down the road. But a publisher should be able to do this right.

http://www.audible.com/pd/Romance/Jaguar-Pride-Audiobook/B00WVDEGJK

SEAL Wolf Hunting | [Terry Spear]

SEAL Wolf Hunting, Book 16, 1st wolf book in Audible, 3rd book ready in Audible. This one was interesting, but I could have done it. And it doesn’t make use of the whole space to allow for the title and author’s name to expand a bit, plus it obscures the actual cover. Since this is a brand new ebook and print book release, I don’t see why they couldn’t have made it more like the next cover or the first cover.

http://www.audible.com/pd/Romance/SEAL-Wolf-Hunting-Audiobook/B011D4TXDG

Jaguar Fever | [Terry Spear]

Jaguar Fever, Book 2, 4th book in Audible.

I love this one!

http://www.audible.com/pd/Romance/Jaguar-Fever-Audiobook/B01317BQ24

Which do you like best?

Okay,  back to my regularly scheduled writing! Have a great day!

Terry

“Giving new meaning to the term alpha male where fantasy is reality.”

Connect with Terry Spear:

Website: http://www.terryspear.com

Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/421434.Terry_Spear

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TerrySpearParanormalRomantics

Twitter: https://twitter.com/TerrySpear

Wilde & Woolly Bears http://www.celticbears.com

A Conversation Between Sparrows & Morning Sunrise with the Sunflowers

birds, what do you think (640x427)See how they have a pleasant conversation before they chow down?

bires, lets eat (640x427)

And then there’s no time to talk.

sunflowers at sunrise (640x427)

Now it’s time to start the day.

I nearly missed this. Every morning, no beautiful sunrise, and this morning it was even more brilliant than this. Ran the puppies inside and ran back out with the camera, but the sunrise was already fading. Still, it was interesting with the sunflowers looking on, don’t you think?

Have a great one!

81% done on Taming the Wild Cougar!!!

Terry

“Giving new meaning to the term alpha male where fantasy is reality.”

Connect with Terry Spear:

Website: http://www.terryspear.com

Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/421434.Terry_Spear

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TerrySpearParanormalRomantics

Twitter: https://twitter.com/TerrySpear

Wilde & Woolly Bears http://www.celticbears.com

The Sunflower and the Bumblebee–Fun with Macro Lenses

Bumblebees are aggressively territorial. At my other home about a mile from here, I couldn’t step out my front door without one dive bombing me in the summer months. They’re big, and even though I’m a lot bigger, that’s still unnerving.

So here I was, trying to capture some macro shots of the sunflowers before the season is over, and I get really, really close to the flower, too close, look to see what I was capturing, ack, the bumblebee is back. Sooo, I quickly stepped back a bit, and took several shots.

Fading sun last night, telephoto lenses.

Sunflower with Bumblebee

Sunflower with Bumblebee

With Macro Lenses today brighter time of day.

Sunflower and the Bumblebee, macro shot

Sunflower and the Bumblebee, macro shot

The sun behind the flower makes it appear almost translucent, the shadow of a stem showing right through it.

sunflower and dying sunflower (640x581)

The sunlight was behind the flower, so it made the bumblebee and flower dark. I had to lighten them to show the details. It’s better to take the pictures in overcast or lower light, but bumblebees don’t appear on schedule, so, I took my chances and it gives it a different look anyway, and that’s fun too.

Terry

“Giving new meaning to the term alpha male where fantasy is reality.”

Connect with Terry Spear:

Website: http://www.terryspear.com

Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/421434.Terry_Spear

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TerrySpearParanormalRomantics

Twitter: https://twitter.com/TerrySpear

Wilde & Woolly Bears http://www.celticbears.com

The Life of a Sunflower

Life of a Sunflower

Life of a Sunflower

Last night before I forgot to take some pictures of the sunflowers growing at the edge of my property I snapped some shots. The farmer was going to cut them down, but no, they propagate every year, I don’t have to plant or water them, and every year, they cheer me.

Here is the life of a sunflower in one shot–the brand new baby to the left, full of hope and enthusiasm, coming soon to spread his petals wide and capture the sun and share his joy, the middle one at old age that is just as beautiful as he begins to fade away, but is still colorful and interesting at his advanced age, fading, but not forgotten, and the middle aged flower in full bloom, glorying in the freedom and beauty he possesses. They will all leave seeds for their progeny to arise again.

And that is the life of a sunflower.

sunflowers new , old, not yet born bw

Off to write! I had planned 4,000 words yesterday, but I was messing with ibooks again, and I ended up getting all 7 of the fae books up there. So that was neat. But I have another 30+ books to convert and upload, so this will take some time.

And I want to keep ahead of the game. I did get 2,000 words yesterday, and I only  planned 2,000 today, soooo, that means 4,000 today instead. I’ve been editing the book, which always means cutting and adding and cutting, so word count doesn’t grow as fast as writing new scenes. even so, only 22,000 to go! 🙂

Have a great TGIF!!!

I was so glad yesterday wasn’t it! I would have lost a day of writing! Hope yours is great!

Terry

“Giving new meaning to the term alpha male where fantasy is reality.”

Connect with Terry Spear:

Website: http://www.terryspear.com

Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/421434.Terry_Spear

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TerrySpearParanormalRomantics

Twitter: https://twitter.com/TerrySpear

Wilde & Woolly Bears http://www.celticbears.com