Approaching the end of April already!  Can you believe that???  Does spring finally look like SPRING where you are, or do you live in Saskatchewan or Ft. St. John in northern BC where they're still talking about snow?!

My pastor just came back from Northern BC and they have a new name for the white stuff falling out of the sky.  They call it"White Rain"!  I suppose that's about as creative as the phrase we used to have for rain where I grew up: "Liquid Sunshine".  Does your region have a pet saying for the weather?
 
Seasonal News

April was quiet in the book front, other than three paperback copies of "Mom's Little Black Book: Godly Advice for the High School Graduate" going out the door.  One actually sold near the end of March, one around mid-April and one earlier this week.  That's three graduates walking the stage and being armed with both Scripture and practical advice as they head out into the world.  Do you have any graduates in your family, school or church?

The paperback can be found on Amazon and a number of other online locations.  Some have bought the PDF, but feel the book is better appreciated in-hand as opposed to on a digital device.  As digital as coming generations are becoming, there's still something special about certain things in print.

Promotional News

One of the sites where four of my ebooks in epub format can be found, http://songdove.tomely.com/ offers a discount if you share a book's link to Facebook or Twitter.  A new site that let's me offer you the PDF versions of ALL my books, will let you share to Twitter or Facebook as well.  Both sites will give you up to 25% off for sharing the book link to Facebook or Twitter.  

Payhip however, also offers fans who would want to promote an author's books on their own sites, the ability to do so and earn a commission.  If you'd like to help promote the PDF version of my books, I'll give you 30% commission for every book sold.  

Payhip's affiliate system adds to the Songdove Books Affiliate Program, extending it beyond the two e-courses now, and into the realm of selling PDF copies of my books. 

Payhip however, wasn't the only new outlet to enter my list of places around the world where my books are available.  Another location also became available this week, the same night I discovered Payhip actually.  This online location offers both the paperback and PDF versions of my books.  The new store is over at Sqeeqee.  My series, Becoming the Bride of Christ: A Personal Journey is being offered in PDF as a complete set download.  All 6 books and the leader's guide, combined into one large PDF document!

Sqeeqee has also made it into the reviews column at:  http://songdove.fa-ct.com/wordpress-mu/songdovemusings/where-to-buy-around-the-world/  as members are able to leave comments on shop items.  

Check out the new online retailers!

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Wrap-up

Production News, otherwise known as TESTIMONY TIME!!!

While not much happened as far as promotional or marketing efforts were concerned: no contests, no blog tours, no giveaways etc, one event did take place on the back end of life here at Songdove Books, that will now let me carry on with two book-related projects.  As most of you already know, hard drive space was at a premium and got to unworkable levels by the time I had to halt my prayer cards and halt recording my series.  At one point, it seemed as if God might provide the extra space via another author, but for reasons I haven't felt at liberty to enquire over, it didn't happen.  When someone offers the potential for a gift, you don't beg.  A gift isn't a gift when it's pestered for.  So I began asking God again how I was going to even manage client creative tasks for my day job, let alone for my two book-related projects.  A couple weeks after that round of prayer, my daughter's laptop died!!!

Normally, when a piece of relied-upon equipment goes like that, the average response is to get upset.  Rather than get upset, my daughter asked to pay me back.  We located a few units at online stores for local retail outlets, and went to check them out in person.  What happened next is completely a God thing!  Unbeknownst to us, someone on the other side of Canada two months ago, had bought a particular laptop thinking they were buying a high-end unit with screaming-good specs!  They got the screaming-good specs, but failed to take into account that the unit's hardware was built for power rather than speed.  The unit had been returned to the store here in Kelowna!  The unit had sat on the tech's bench for roughly a month, with the entire store's staff eyeing it on occasion, but no one really wanting to dive further into why it might have been returned, were there any hardware issues with it, etc?  So we walk into this store completely unaware of this laptop in the back.

While we were browsing laptops, a guy comes over to ask how we're doing, did we need any help, etc.  We share what my daughter was after, talk brands and specs, and it becomes obvious to this guy that I am a computer tech and that my daughter has picked up on my knowledge and talks like the child of a tech.  This leads him to do something he doesn't normally do and share about the laptop in the back, particularly because I'd expressed amazement and how well I am impressed with the brand.  We end up learning about the above laptop and how it's one generation behind the one on the floor.  We learn how it was brought in to this store, and that the unit appeared to have a win8 BSOD of some kind.  The guy was willing to offer it to us below cost if we were willing to a) accept it as final sale, and b) refurbish it ourselves, as we "sounded like we knew what we were doing", which is true.  My daughter bought it after I insisted on putting it through some paces.

We got the laptop home, and after well over 4hrs of updates, updating to win8.1, and figuring out how to do a backup from the MS servers to DVD, my daughter has a perfectly fine working laptop that only seems to throw up a BSOD occasionally because of AVG.  I have discovered in the past, that win8.x doesn't seem to play well with 3rd party antivirus programs, so I wasn't surprised after she put AVG on there and another BSOD showed up.  Her own laptop had lost power somewhere on the motherboard, although the motherboard's own power light would come on, so she gave me it's hard drive!

Thanks to that lengthy story, I have 450gb worth of space to use, and transfering my existing data folder over to it only took roughly 80+ gb.  So there's lots of room to resume the prayer cards and resume recording my series!  I should be good for storage space now for the next while.

Anyone local to Kelowna will not be able to learn who the store was that we dealt with, because as the store manager observed, (yes, it turns out the guy we were dealing with WAS the store manager!) we were a "special case" because we had the technical know-how to get the unit going again.  We were even given the head tech's business card if I had questions.  Come to think of it, I should be contacting them for no other reason than for a) not brushing off my knowledge, as so often happens in places like this, b) selling us a really nice unit, and c) tell them it's working GREAT!

How's that for an answer to prayer?!  The best part of it???  My daughter's income tax return is DOUBLE the price of the laptop!!!  God is so good!!!

How has God worked things, people and scenarios to answer prayer in your life?

 
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