Spring Cleaning and Refreshening

As spring is starting soon, we at Booknotes need to freshen some things up a bit.  One of these things will be the look of our website.  As Easter comes around, we will be adding some minor changes, mostly in spot graphics and color scheme.  We will also be adding to our web content.  Look for some new links in our social media popping up on new dates and times.  Another big change might be in this blog.  We have grumbled occasionally that some Blogger functions don't always seem available in the version used in our website.  However, these functions might become available within the blogger framework itself, when outside the site host.  We are looking into ways of making a better use of this space than the regular updates and what not.  We like our online presence, but will are not using it in the best way.  Hopefully, we will find a way to do so.  Anyway, our first forays will have started by the time this week's post is published.  We will be including links to the online book releases on most Fridays.  We hope to have more capsule book reviews at least every three weeks, usually on Wednesdays.  The blog posts will still be updated on Saturday, even if they might be written beforehand.  For now, check out the store's Easter and spring decorations, which should be up by the time this is published.  That is all for this week; stay tuned for more.

The Pictures-and-Words Equation

When we first started on social media, we didn't have much of a presence.  Basically, we just posted a few messages and an updated picture of our decorated space in the front.  Then, we started adding pictures.  At first, it was just photographs from our events.  Just a cross section of what had happened.  We didn't even get to take pictures at the first event we had after going online; we had issues with the camera.  Then, we started adding a link to our weekly blog posts.  That was all well in good, but still not enough.  We (and in this case I do mean myself) then decided to post capsule reviews of books, on a semi-regular basis.  We were supposed to have more regular reviews on the website, but the person in charge of that didn't really want to do it.  Just last year, we began to post the monthly Upcoming Releases board.  We are somewhat proud of some of our work with it, although there is the occasional mistake as well as some blurry images.  We also began to post pictures of our decorations for each holiday as it comes around.  We are even captioning many of these pics for an added element of fun.   Although it will be slightly late, we will be posting our spring/Easter photos next week.  We have had most of them up since late February, before our latest book signing.  We just wanted it to be actually spring before posting anything else.  be on the lookout for them next week, along with our newest blog post.  See you then.

Our Latest Event

Last Saturday, Booknotes hosted our latest book signing with David Deskins, John David Preston, and Randall Osborne.  Although it was somewhat rainy for most of the afternoon, it was never really heavy or too cold.  We had been worried that the weather might be bad enough to postpone the event,but we didn't have to.  Turnout was a little better than expected, especially considering we didn't do too much advertising.  We served our traditional spiced apple cider, but we were unable to provide other refreshments.  We had a few mishaps, including one major one involving replacing the receipt paper in the credit card machine, but there was nothing too severe.  John David Preston came with a wide assortment of his publishing company's books, but didn't have enough copies of one for everybody.  We are trying to help out anyone who wasn't able to get a copy of that book, or any of the others, on the day of the signing.  We aren't yet sure when this will happen, but we will notify everyone when we get more information.  Again, we would like to thank everyone who helped make this event happen and supported Booknotes.  See you next week.

Feeling the Blues (and Greens)

As we have mentioned many times, we started this website on a whim.  Because of that, many elements were not fixed in place and had to be updated every now and again.  One of these is the color scheme for the site.  Originally, we had a basic blue predominant, as it matched the decor of our store.  Over time, we decided to have some fun with color and changed the website's look from time to time, usually matching it to a holiday or event that was coming up.  For example, we had the background colors for the site in reds and pinks for Valentine's Day.  Now, it is mostly in blues coordinating it with our book signing on Saturday, February 24, with David Deskins, whose book cover is a dark blue.  A few days later, we will be going over to greens in honor of St. Patrick's Day and spring.  Unfortunately, we probably won't be featuring any artwork for that holiday, as our website developer/host doesn't seem to have anything appropriate.  We will continue to search, though.  Anyway, if we cannot find anything, expect to see a lot of Easter pictures up early.  We are talking rabbits galore.  They will multiply to the point of taking over the site.  Also, you might see a frog or two, in honor of the amphibians waking up in the ditch behind our store.  They usually aren't out this early in the year, but the warm spells have got them out now.  They can sometimes be heard all the way out into the parking lot.  (Personally, I have rescued at least five frogs and have taken them back to their home.  None were in the store, however.  I am not sure how they got all the way into the parking lot.)  Next week, we will talk about the event.  See you then.

History in the Writing

Next week, Saturday, February 24, will be our next big event.  Three authors of histories will be at the store signing their books.  Hopefully, there won't be a need for rescheduling.  The main reason we usually don't have events this time of year is due to weather.  Eastern Kentucky in late winter can be very problematic.  We usually have at least on really big snowfall.  In 2015, we had three.  We were closed at least one day per event.  In 2016, we had one very big snowfall.  We were closed two days because of it; not to mention another day beforehand due to a freezing rain/snow event.  Last year, we weren't closed once for snow.  We were late in opening only once for weather, and less than an hour at that.  As of right now, temperatures are forecast to be in the low 60's, so we are not expecting any snow.  However, there does seem to be precipitation in the forecast, so we will be watching.  If we have to postpone the signing, we will post it at least a day in advance both on the website and on our Facebook page.  As of right now, we don't plan on any changes.  Next week's post might be written and posted in advance.  We might have many things to do the day of the signing and we might not have the time to write our next post that day.  Wish us luck for our first winter signing in years.

Difficulties, Technical and Otherwise

Last week, the Blogger app went down, so we were not able to post an update.  We did ultimately write one off the website and posted it on Monday, directly from Blogger.  Later on that week, the host for our website went down as well, on the day we have been using to update information.  We ultimately were able to fix that too.  We also had problems setting up the Facebook Event page for our latest book signing.  We didn't realize the mistake until well after it was too late to fix it.  We did put up a corrected page and the information on it is correct.  We needed a few days to get the basics covered, but it is up and running.  We are updating it every few days, so check back frequently.  We apologize for some of the problems that have been occurring lately; they just seem to keep popping up and not every one of them can easily be taken care of.  We are running a little late today, so see you next week.

Words Are Useless, Especially Blog Apps

This past Saturday, we were unable to update our blog because of some issue with the Blogger application.  Usually, when we know that we won't be open or otherwise unable to post an update at the regular time, we schedule one in advance.  However, this weekend, the problem was entirely with the connection between the Wix website generator and Blogger.  We are unsure of what happened.  In fact, we are writing this post from Blogger itself and not the regular app.  Because of this, we cannot even be sure that this will even be seen on the website.  However, we are writing this in the hopes that it will be seen there.  Since we don't know what the problem is, there might be even more issues than can be imagined.  Therefore, we will not be linking this post with our Facebook page, as we usually do.  We hope to see you here again soon.  Check back each Saturday for the usual update.