Monthly Archives: May 2012

My Pirate Interview With Karen Robertson

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Karen Robertson Author of Treasure KaiI was recently interviewed by Karen Robertson, who is the author of Treasure Kai and the Lost Gold of Shark Island as well as the proprietor of Digital Kids Author, a website dedicated to helping authors publish digital books.

Karen has a lot of great information on her site, and her free book, Top Five Things You Must Know Before Creating Book Apps For Kids is a great place to start for any author starting a book app project.

Enjoy the interview and learning a little more about how I created The Day I Became A Pirate. Leave a comment if you have any thoughts.

Here is the link to the Cary Snowden Interview.

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Nominated For Global eBook Awards!

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Nominee Dan Poynter's Global eBook AwardsThe Day I Became A Pirate has been nominated in four categories in Dan Poynter’s Global eBook Awards. The Global eBook Awards are held annually and focus on eBooks and Book Apps in a wide array of categories.

The Day I Became A Pirate has been accepted by Dan Poynter in the following four categories:

  • Fiction – Children’s Literature
  • Fiction – Children’s Picture Books
  • Best Multimedia in an eBook
  • Best Illustration in Children’s Fiction

Keep your fingers crossed and I’ll keep you posted on our progress!

 

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Pirate Booty Giveaway!

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Calling all scalawags: We’re givin’ away more Pirate Booty next week!

This time, a necklace fit fer a queen’s ransom! This beauty features artwork from three great pirate book apps including The Day I Became A Pirate, Penelope The Purple Pirate, and Treasure Kai.

—Featuring six hand-crafted soldered charms, pirate coins, and various pirate trinkets, this necklace has a retail value of $261 doubloons!

Three of us have teamed up as pirate book app authors: Cary Snowden, Melissa Northway and Karen Robertson for an online event next week. We’ll give the necklace away in a drawing.

To enter the drawing, use the widget below to ‘Like’ all three Facebook pages (each page Like will give you 5 tickets in the raffle). You can also reTweet the news of the giveaway to earn a couple extra ‘tickets’ each day.


a Rafflecopter giveaway

Event Details – We will announce the winner at this online Facebook event:

We’ll be celebratin’ the re-launch of Melissa’s website at www.melissanorthway.com as well as The Day I Became A Pirate‘s recent success at number 8 in the App Store, and Treasure Kai‘s win as ‘Best in Category‘ at the New Media Film Festival San Francisco. Congratulations to all!

There will be loads of promo codes from PicPocket Books, TaleSpring, and Treasure Kai as well as the Pirate Booty necklace giveaway (courtesy of The Day I Became a Pirate), a drawing for copies of Treasure Kai,  signed copies of Izzy And The Candy Palace, a chance to enter to win a year subscription to Disney Publications new Marvel Super Heroes Magazine and special guest illustrator J.H. (among other treasures…)

Mark yer calendar, and tell yer friends. Like each Facebook page for an early start on the drawing:

*A special Thank You to Lynne at The Rusty Locket for creating the hand-crafted pirate booty necklace!

And here is a closer peak at the Pirate Booty Necklace:

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Make Your Own Pirate Flag

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Make Your Own Pirate FlagReady for a fun kids project? Need a Jolly Roger for the cubicle, board room or front door?

Here’s how to make your own pirate flag, appropriate for display anywhere.

Download the Pirate Flag PDF and follow the instructions included on the second page. The PDF includes the Jolly Roger from The Day I Became A Pirate book app, a list of materials you’ll need, and a quick set of instructions.

Here are the instructions:

YOUNG PIRATES: Make sure you have parent or teacher permission.

Things you’ll need: printer, scissors, three long straws, tape, paper cup.

  1. Print page 1 of the Pirate Flag PDF document.
  2. Cut the flag out from the printed page.
  3. Connect the three long straws together by ‘crinkling’ the end 
of one, and inserting it into the other.
  4. Tape the straws to the back of the flag along the left edge.
  5. Poke a hole in the bottom of the cup, turn it upside down 
and push the straw through the hole.
  6. Tape the bottom of the straw to the inside of the cup.
  7. Display proudly and say Yarrr

PS: Definitely a good idea for Talk Like A Pirate Day, this September 19th.

 

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How To Change Your Facebook Language To ‘Pirate’

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International Talk Like A Pirate DayYou may not know this, but you can experience International Talk Like A Pirate Day, every day by changing your default Facebook language to ‘Pirate’.

Changing the language replaces all the standard help text and field labels to ‘pirate speak’, so ‘Search’ becomes ‘Scour’ and your Wall becomes the Captain’s Log.

It only takes a few seconds, and once you get used to it, it’s quite fun.

Here’s how to change your Facebook language to pirate:

1. First, log into your Facebook page. …Of course.

2. From your Home page, find the pulldown menu in the top right corner and pull down to Account Settings.

3. In the Account Settings, click ‘Edit’ next to your Language option.

4. In the Choose Primary pulldown option, select ‘English (Pirate)’ and then Save your changes.

When you come back into your Facebook page you will notice that all the labels and callouts have changed to Pirate Speak. It takes a minute to get used to for most landlubbers, but adds a little fun to yer day and will have you ready and waiting for Talk Like A Pirate Day, this September.

(Not that I’m anxious, or anything…)

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Author Interview – Sheri Bell

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Sheri BellI spent a few minutes with Sheri Bell, who is a good friend and mentor when it comes to getting a book published.

Sheri and I met up in a coffee shop in SLC about two years ago to discuss The Day I Became A Pirate. We have both come a long way since that day, me having my own book published in the App Store, and Sheri having gained some valuable success experience in the traditional publishing market.

Sheri has her own book titled ‘You Think It’s Easy Being The Tooth Fairy?‘, a children’s picture book available at your local book store. You can find Sheri at The Polka Dot Bannner.

We talk about traditional publishing, how Sheri marketed her books and the successes she had as well as some things she recommends authors avoid. We also talk about a few of the differences between traditional publishing and digital publishing.

A standout tidbit of advice from Sheri: Ask your local school librarian to review your book for you during the editing stage to get honest feedback from an experienced source.

Here’s the interview…

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

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Pirate Doodle

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My son Reiley was playing around with the pirate book today and I challenged him to draw a character from the story.

He put pencil to paper and came up with a remarkably recognizable likeness of Jerry, the pirate who gets himself into trouble when The Captain barks his orders.

I may have to have Reiley work with me on the next book. Maybe with a little coaching from Zach. :-)

If your kids get creative and draw any characters from The Day I Became A Pirate, send it in to me and I will feature it on the site.

-Cary

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Pirate News Roundup May 12

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Aye!

It’s been a pretty exciting weekend for the crew.

We rocketed into the App Store and made it all the way to position #8 for iPad Books, which is quite a thrill.

We are currently hovering around rank #10 or #11 and are starting to receive some remarkable coverage and interest.

Here’s a list of sites that carried our latest news, released Friday, May 11 around midday:

WildStart.com: The Day I Became A Pirate Book App Reaches #8 in App Store
AppCraver: Posted an iPad review including screen captures of our Pirates

Breaking Windows: The Day I Became A Pirate Book App Reaches #8

MyAppleSpace: The Day I Became A Pirate Book App Reaches #8 in App Store

macPRCaster: The Day I Became A Pirate

Teachers with Apps: The Day I Became A Pirate Reaches #8 in App Store

Desinformado.com: Pirate Book App #8 in App Store on Fourth Day | iPhone News

iPad News Tracker: The Day I Became A Pirate #8 in App Store

The MacTrack: iPhone, iPad, iPod Touch and Mac News

iPad Apps Review Online: The Day I Became A Pirate Book App

MacMegasite: The Day I Became A Pirate Book in App Store

AppShrink: iPhone App Reviews, iPad App Reviews, and Mac App Reviews

148Apps.biz: The Day I Became A Pirate Book #8 on Fourth Day

Action Figures: Pirate Book App Reaches #8 in App Store on Fourth Day

OSXActions: Pirate Book Reaches #8 in App Store

SlapApp.com: The Day I Became A Pirate Reaches #8

Mac Fanactic: The Day I Became A Pirate App Reaches #8 on Fourth Day

Daily App News Magazine: Pirate App Reaches #8 in App Store

Tech News Service: A Pirate Book App Reaches #8 in App Store on Fourth Day

Maconlysource: The Day I Became A Pirate Book

Appmodo: Book App Reaches #8 in App Store

iPadmodo: Pirate Book App in App Store

Daily App Show: The Day A Pirate Book App Reaches #8 in App Store

 

 

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Congratulations To Our Winner!

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Congratulations!

Aileen K. won the Mother’s Day trivia contest, and our Pirate Booty necklace.

Penelope The Purple Pirate author Melissa Northway asked how many young a female oyster may produce in a lifetime.

The answer: over 100 million. Wow!

Many Thanks and appreciation for Lynne at TheRustyLocket.com for making the booty for the giveaway; it is amazing (and sparkly)!

And Many Thanks to Melissa Northway for inviting me to join the online Mother’s Day Facebook party; that was a new experience for me and it was exciting, interesting and fun to watch so many people get together from all over the world to share a good time.

Super cool!

PS: Watch this space for more details on our next pirate booty giveaway – I have already ordered more incredible necklaces!

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