Hello again...What's new? Not much

Hello again, dear reader. Yes, it has been a while. Seven months, I think?

What's new? Oh, not much. I'm still as uncertain, and indecisive as ever. Aerials, motherhood, writing, and librarianship all continue to fight for supremacy in my confused and befuddled heart and mind.

Andrew remains a wonderful support, although I know he's getting frustrated with me, a) because I can't seem to make a decision, or even in progress toward a decision; and b) because he can't help me. I'm not going to delve into this right now.

What brings me back to my little blog space? Well, it's NaNoWriMo,...which in the past I have despised (writing ridiculous amounts in a month does not make one a writer). I'm definitely not going to meet the fifty thousand word goal, but I AM writing. For me, that's pretty big. I haven't had a new set of characters to write about in over three years (hm,...wonder why). I haven't had a new story idea in three years either. I was beginning to despair that that aspect of my creative life was all over.

After a recent re-watching of Casablanca, I had an idea. Something about the phrase 'Everyone comes to Rick's, got me going. Any maybe I could take some of the elements of my favourite book, Sunshine, put then together and come up with something interesting? Whether anyone else will find it interesting remains to be seen.

So, I'm here to proclaim to the hill tops and back: I AM WRITING.

I will try to blog again soon about some other (non-writing) projects I've got planned for November and December.

My current self-published novels available on Amazon. Cimwai's Bay, The Cure, and Circus of Love, under my pen name, Peggy Fitz

Ciao,

Andrea

Cimwai's Bay, now available for download on Amazon

Look. At. This.

I've written a blog post. I know, it's been a while. Closing in on a year since I last posted. I never meant to stop blogging, I simply ran out of time.

Aside from having a active 20 month old, I've been working part-time from home, and I'm also an now an aerials instructor! Yes. As of May 2016, Brass Butterflies in north Waterloo, offers lessons in aerial silks and aerial hoop. I'll try to pen (type) a few posts about this new direction in my life in the coming weeks. If you have any burning questions about aerials you need to have answers to now, feel free to fire them my way.

The main purpose of this post is to announce my recently released novel, Cimwai's Bay for download on Amazon.

Ava is an average girl-next- door—albeit with a mane of emerald hair. Soon after her failed beauty treatment, which cannot be turned back to normal by dye, or remain trimmed at a shorter length for more than a minute, she is forced to flee her beloved home to escape the archaic anti-magic laws of her community. Ava doesn’t desire great magical power, even when she’s told she has the potential for it. Rather, she’d prefer to hide away in a quiet, clean kitchen where she can turn out perfect pot roasts and flaky apple pies. Half of her wish comes true when she finds work in the capital city of Korval as the housekeeper of the great magician, Jacob Baine. Sensing her magical skill, Jacob coaxes her, or perhaps more aptly infuriates her, along the path to taking control of her magical abilities. With all the stress of her new life, can Ava be blamed for falling for the mysterious Troy? Dashing and charming, treating her to cake and tea, she doesn’t realize the danger he represents. Only when it’s too late to escape Troy’s plans does she realize she’s the key to his plot to break the magical seal over Cimwai and bring himself to power.

This is a self-published title, and it's now available as an e-book. I've decided to use my pen name Peggy Fitz (a few readers once privy to my first attempt at a serial 'VoP', may recognize this moniker). Currently there is only one title featuring Ava Ravenscraft available, although a second is partially completed. It's my hope to release the full trilogy, but I can't tie down a timeline at the moment.

I have further self-publishing plans, which includes the release of my aerial romance, 'The Circus of Love,' before the end of the summer. Featured in this novel is Beth Witt, an aerials silks performer who finds herself caught up in a company scandal and romance. I still need to piece together a cover, but that shouldn't take too long.

Finally, I will be re-releasing my previously self-published title, The Cure, with a new cover at which time I will change it over to my pen name as well.

You'll hear more for me soon.

Ciao,

Andrea

The Cure, Q & A: Imaginary fan questions

I have written three fan letters in my time. One to Ann M. Martin, author of the Baby Sitter's Club books, J.K. Rowling, of well, you know who fame, and Stuart Mclean, the author/creator of the Vinyl Cafe stories. I think I know where the return letter from Stuart is stashed, unfortunately I don't think I have the others.

Of course, I'm not even remotely famous, and the last time I checked my sales, I'd made a whopping $14.00, so I don't expect to get my own fan mail anytime soon. However, I thought since not much has been happening around the Milne household over the last few weeks, I might answer some questions that I imagine might be asked in a letter or email.

Q: How long have your been writing stories?
Years. At least since I was ten, when I wrote my first one act Christmas play. I've always written short stories, and during my first year of university, I emailed a serial to my friends, about an alternate universe where everyone had peg-legs. I moved onto novels after I graduated from nursing.

Q: Did you take any special classes or courses to learn how to write?
Yes. After I finished with nursing, I spend three semesters at Seton Hill in their Writing Popular Fiction program. Unfortunately, I didn't graduate after loosing my focus in my fourth and final semester. Even though I didn't graduate from the program, it improved my writing skills considerably. Although I still feel that the ability to create a good story is largely innate, courses and classes in writing can definitely strength your skills.

Q: How many stories involving Nora do you have planned?
It will take three stories to complete Nora's tale and I don't have plans to do any more after that. I often lose interest in a series that goes on for longer, especially if the characters suffer what I think of as "the most unlucky person in the world" syndrome. Three stories will take Nora to the end of her journey, with most of her goals met, and a great deal of personal growth accomplished.

Q: Do you have any other stories you're working on, or have published?
Yes. I have an upper YA novel, title Cimwai's Bay, which I'm currently querying to agents. If, by the time I've released all of Nora's stories, I haven't managed to find someone to pick up the series, I'll also release it via self publishing. After all, the key to success with self-publishing is to have as many novels on the market as possible.

Q: What do you like best about writing?
I like to entertain people with stories. When I was younger, I told lots of jokes, and I've always liked to act and sing. Since I'm not an especially good actor or singer, writing is another avenue for entertaining. Plus, I tend to have no shortage of ideas to write about, although they don't always make it into a novel.

Q: What do you like the least about writing?
The amount of time you have to spend sitting at a desk with just a computer. I'm naturally an introvert, so it's not as huge a sacrifice as it might be for those of a more social nature. Also, I often feel guilty when I opt to watch a movie, or go out for an evening rather than write. It's one of those hard facts about being (or trying to be a writer), it takes a lot of time to craft a novel.

If you have any questions for me about writing, knitting, baking, or being an aerialist, feel free to post them (Note: I do moderate my comments, so it make take a while for them to appear).

Ciao,

Andrea

The Cure, Q&A: Meet Tomas Classen

Now it's time to meet Tomas Classen.

I can't recall if I've written this here before, but I'm an enormous figure skating fan (since the early 1990's, when Kurt Browning was competing) and I frequently have dreams involving figure skaters. Of course, these dreams rarely involve figure skating, the skaters who make appearances are usually just hanging out with me. At any rate, when I had my dream about living in the airplane hanger, it also involved a Canadian figure skater, one Jeffrey Buttle. He was one of the 'cool' kids, and I definitely was not, and he's the body model for Tomas.

Jeffrey Buttle, 2008 World Champion. I linked to this picture through Wikipedia, but I don't know where they scammed it from (hey, I'm a librarian, if I can't source something accurately, I can at least be honest about it).

Of course, I have no idea what Jeffrey is really like (I can only surmise from the interviews I've seen of him, that he's generally a friendly, charismatic type of person) so technically, Tomas is only based on him physically speaking. Therefore, Tomas isn't terribly tall, only five foot eight (the ideal height for most male figure skaters is in the five foot six to five foot eight range, it's a centre of gravity thing required for jumps and spins) and he's physically fit, very trim, but not beefy. His hair is multi-hued, but is predominantly a golden-blond colour, and his eyes are described as crystal blue. I definitely made Tomas something of a pretty-boy.

My brother, Matthew Thorne's, rendition of Tomas.

Personality wise, Tomas is meant to be very charming, open, and friendly towards everyone. He's the daydream of every girl in the compound, and he tries not to encourage anyone's hopes, but since he's a genuinely nice person, he has trouble discouraging the attention he doesn't want (hence why Ursula and Rose thinks he actually considers them as his close personal friends). He's also much better at keeping his temper under wraps than Nora, but that doesn't mean he never gets angry. Rather, when he gets mad, he gets really mad, and that most often happens when he feels he needs to defend Nora.

My own sketch of Tomas, working in the greenhouse.

Finally, we don't get to learn much of Tomas's aspiration in The Cure, (you don't even get to learn much about them in The Cause, either), but since it's really not a spoiler, I'll tell you. He'd like to go into records management (did I mention I'm a librarian?), which has a limited job field, especially in a small compound like Nu. That's about all I can say about that.

Again, let me know if you have questions! Feel free to post them to this blog, or to post them on Facebook if that's where your reading this from. I'd be happy to answer them.

Ciao,

Andrea

The Cure, Q&A: Meet Nora Watson

I don't have a consistent practice for how I develop characters. It all depends on what arises first, the idea for the story, or the idea for the character. Sometimes I'll have a particular person in mind as a body double, often I don't. What I intentionally do, is avoid giving a great deal of description to my main character so that my readers might reasonably imagine themselves as the protagonist. Although, since most of my lead characters are female, that might not work so well for any male readers, but maybe it doesn't matter so much. I don't know.

For Nora, I didn't have particular description in mind. I thought she was probably of average appearance, so pretty, but of course she wouldn't have acknowledged such a compliment if it was passed her way. She has long brown hair (it's way easier to just let your hair grow, then ever cut it or style it) that she generally ties back into a ponytail or messy bun, and she had brown eyes. She looks a lot like her mother. She's about five foot six, or 168 centimeters tall (or my height) and slender.

My brother, Matthew Thorne's rendition of Nora, created for when I posted the chapters here on this blog (sorry, no longer available).

Of course, there's a lot more to Nora than her appearance. As I was developing the story for The Cure I decided that there needed to be something unique about her. She couldn't just be some smart, average of appearance, teenage girl who was awkward with people. There had to be something else. There had to be a reason for why she had so few friends, why she was an outcast for more than just the purposes of my story. That's why I made her deaf.

I've been fascinated with the deaf culture since I was young...since I first saw The Miracle Worker, which is a movie (starring Anne Bancroft) about the early childhood of Helen Keller. I've always admired that she achieved so much considering she was both blind and deaf. I know some sign language (although not nearly enough to successfully communicate with a deaf person, I'm sure), and I volunteered at the Bob Rumbell Centre for the Deaf in Toronto for a short period during my undergrad. I also took several opportunities in my Masters to work on projects related to the Deaf culture.

I have one small regret around making Nora deaf, and that's that I made her deaf and not Deaf. That means she's physiologically deaf, but not culturally. The reason for this is that, she's the only deaf person in her compound. She had no one to learn from. This is why she speaks and reads lips, rather than uses ASL. I try to point out in a couple of places that lip reading isn't perfect, that she can't understand what people are saying when they don't look at her, and even then, she has to fill in bits as best she can. I also have people occasionally remark on her unusual 'accent,' to note that her speaking voice is differentl because she can't hear it herself.

 Small piece of back story that never comes out--Nora's mother was sick when she was pregnant (Rubella), which is why Nora is deaf.

My own depiction of Nora, created early this fall, because sometimes it's fun to draw.

Finally, I made Nora a huge science nerd. That's because I wanted to demonstrate that girls can be smart at science, too. I was kind of an all around student in elementary and high school. I was good at music and art, but I also achieved good grades in math and science. I did, after all, start out my university career in biology.

So, there's the background on Nora Watson, my heroine.

Feel free post questions if you want to know more about her, or my other characters (although there will be additional Q&A's on them to come).

Ciao,

Andrea

My continuing exploits into self-publishing

I haven't looked at my sales figure yet. That's mostly because I don't want to disappoint myself. I know that I'm not going to suddenly be able to 'quit my day job' with this venture, most authors can't, but discovering that I've only made two or three sales would be really disappointing. There's a blog post written by an author named Tobias Buckell, in which he talks about some of the realities about self-publishing. Basically, he points out that most books, whether they are self-published or released by a traditional publisher, don't sell well. In other words, there's a very small number of J.K. Rowlings in the world, and a whole lot more S. Andrea Milne's.

To put it another way, I've released The Cure in the hopes of entertaining a few, spreading Nora's story as far as I can, and if I'm lucky, eventually making back the money I put into it (which thankfully, hasn't been a great deal). I'm not in it for fame or glory; I'm more likely to remain obscure and experience heartbreak.

The spreading the word about Nora is tricky. I don't have a large social network to help me get the word out about my book out, but there's been a few surprises in the past few weeks. A couple of people, who I wouldn't have expected it from, have re-shared my posts about The Cure. This is always a nice surprise. I mean, I've got some re-posts from people I would have expected it (Hi Andrew, Michelle, Emma, and Greg!), and I'm extremely grateful for that. It's the people I don't expect it from that make me feel extra special (and consequently like I'm bad friend).

Plus, The Cure is still only available on Kobo, which also limits the number of sales I might be able to make, since it's not as big a retailer of ebooks as say, Amazon (I'm hoping to get The Cure out there before Christmas, but I hit a slight snag on getting my US tax identification number).

As a further note about Kobo, I'm rather disappointed with the 'Related Titles' that appear when you search for my book on the website. Frankly, most of the titles are porn. I contacted Kobo about this matter, but it wasn't resolved with any success. They say the 'Related Titles' list is developed by a title search, and not by genre, but that doesn't explain why I'm seeing what I'm seeing. From the conversation I had, I think this might not be the case if you log in with a Kobo account, but I'm not sure. Ultimately, I have no leverage in the situation, so I just have to deal with it.

That's all for now. I hope to post some more insights into the self-publishing process, and into the characters and plot of The Cure, in the weeks to come.

Ciao,

Andrea

The Cure, Q&A: Find the Map

As explained in Diana Wynne Jones's, The Tough Guide to Fantasyland, the first thing you should do whenever you begin a fantasy novel is, find the map. Usually it's within the first few pages, just inside the front cover. It tells you everything you need to know about the geography of the fantasy world you're about to submerge yourself in.

The Cure, isn't actually a fantasy novel. I'd term it more a work of speculative fiction, or a dystopian novel. However, there is a map. A map I sketched during a class, no less (the class was definitely during my Masters, possibly a class on digital reference services). Okay, so it may not exactly a map, so much as a blue print, but it will definitely give the reader a better idea of what I imagined the compounds of my world to look like.

The blue print sketch on its own. If I get around to it, I'll try to put together a more technical-looking, computerized blue print with straight lines and what not.

The full page including my calculations for the number of people living in Nu Compound, and therefore how many cubes there needed to be.

Ciao,

Andrea

The Cure: Available on Kobo

You can purchase a digital copy here: The Cure, on Kobo. Check it out, buy it now, and if you enjoyed my writing, please tell your friends and family.

Ciao,

Andrea

My venture into self-publishing: obtaining an ISBN

When I first decided to release The Cure, I hadn't considered the possibility of obtaining an ISBN (International Standard Book Number). It's not required by most online retailers (some provide an in-house ISBN or other identification number) and I'd thought it was one of those things that would be too difficult for a self-publisher to get. Not so! It's especially easy if you're Canadian, but first, what is an ISBN and why get it?

As per the Wikipedia page on ISBNs:

 "The International Standard Book Number (ISBN) is a unique numeric commercial book identifier based upon the 9-digit Standard Book Numbering (SBN) code created by Gordon Foster, Emeritus Professor of Statistics at Trinity College, Dublin, for the booksellers and stationers W. H. Smith and others in 1965.
 The 10-digit ISBN format was developed by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) and was published in 1970 as international standard ISO 2108.
 Since 1 January 2007, ISBNs have contained 13 digits, a format that is compatible with "Bookland" EAN-13s."

My understanding is that ISBNs are mostly important for brick and mortar bookstores so they can keep an accurate account of their stock (i.e. taking orders, making sales, etc). This is probably why ISBNs aren't required for digital books. There isn't really a stock, or at least, there's no physical product changing hands. Why it can be useful for independent publishers is that it can help boost visibility in the vast market of online books. You can also search a book by it's ISBN (although who's going to search for an ISBN over a title or author I don't know).

So, if you're a Canadian resident, ISBNs are free of charge, which is awesome, since if you're an American resident you have to pay for it.

Canadian residents go to Collections Canada, which is a part of Library and Archives of Canada. Once there, you click on the 'Join CISS' link on the left hand side. Next, click on the 'Acceptance of Terms', link and then you're taken to the electronic form you're required to fill out to obtain an account. It's a pretty straightforward form, requesting standard information. The one funny thing is, if you're planning to publish a digital book like I am, you select the Electronic Book Text option under 'Type of Product' (It sounds like a very archaic way of describing a digital book).

I waited around 10 days (I can't remember exactly what day I hit submit on) before I received an email to state my application had been accepted. From here, you have to go back to the CISS website, log in, and go to the 'Request an ISBN' link. At this point you just need to fill out one more form (again, very basic) and click submit. You'll have your ISBN almost immediately.

The ISBN for The Cure is: 978-0-9921294-0-8. It should be on sale very soon.

Ciao,

Andrea

My venture into self-publishing: picking retailers

I had hoped to have The Cure out for sale by now, but things will be postponed for a couple more days at least. I'm taking an online course on self-publishing offered by Author E.M.S., which runs from September 8th to October 4th. I'd been wondering before I started the course as to whether or not I should delay publishing until after I'd completed the session (I have so much to learn!). After the first day of reading, I was feeling overwhelmed with all there was to cover and was pretty sure that I ought to read through at least a few lessons before I plunged in.

**The moderator of the online course I'm taking just popped up on the discussion board to make an important distinction between publisher v. retailer. Amazon, Kobo, Barnes and Nobles, etc., are all retailers. They aren't publishers, they just distribute my work. That's the thing about self-publishing, YOU'RE THE PUBLISHER! I have to promote and protect my own novel.**

Part of my concern was what to do in regards to tax claims on Amazon. The way I understand it is, that although I don't have to pay American taxes, I need an International Taxpayer's Identification Number (ITIN) in order to get paid. Additionally, I'm subject to a withholding tax on any royalties I make, unless I show that I'm from a country that has a tax treaty with the US. I'm actually lucky here, since I'm currently residing in the US and have a visa, my route to an ITIN may be easier than if I was living in Canada. I'm still being paid by a Canadian company, by the way, which is why I currently don't have any other reasons to interact with the IRS.

If you're looking for information on how to get an ITIN, you can check out this blog post by Joan Leacott.

So, that was one of my big concerns about rushing ahead into publishing on Amazon. The other was, how on earth to price my novel, but that's more easily overcome with a little market research.

Something that came to my attention during my first course reading was, why hadn't I thought of publishing on Kobo Writing Life, a Canadian company? I'd been focused on Amazon's Kindle Direct, assuming that since Amazon was so huge, it was the best way to go, but considering the difficulties surrounding the payment and tax issues, why not go with Kobo, at least to start?

To be clear, I don't want to publish with only one company, and there's no need for me to publish with only one (although depending on which program I sign up with on Amazon, I may have to agree to an exclusivity period). In order to gain exposure and make sales, I need to get on as many different platforms as possible. My current intention is to get onto Kobo as soon as I get my ISBN (maybe I'll post about that another day...), meanwhile I'll begin the steps towards obtaining my ITIN. Once that comes through, I'll publish on Amazon. After that, we'll see. There are lots of other companies to self-publish on. It's just a matter of how diverse do I want to get/have the time for.

Ciao,

Andrea

My venture into self-publishing: the editing

Although I felt that The Cure was fairly well edited, I wanted to get someone with a more professional eye (than my friends and husband) to look over my novel before I put it up for sale on Amazon. As always, I was concerned about the grammar aspect, but I wanted to make sure the story and characters made sense as well. I figured, even through I couldn't get a proper publisher to release it, I still wanted it to be as polished as possible.

So, I hired an editor. I was given a name or someone, whom I contacted, was given a quote, and a time frame. Unfortunately that experience didn't work out as well as I had hoped. I had to nag to get chapters back and although the responses were generally quick (after I nagged), the excuses almost became comical after a while. The comments in the manuscript felt sarcastic at times (it's not cool to use ALL CAPS, or smiley faces like you're joking) and almost like the editor was lecturing me for having not corrected errors from the last time I made them (never mind that I sent my manuscript to them all at once). Eventually, I ended up in tears one night somewhere in the middle of chapter 12 and decided that enough was enough.

I either had to battle massive self-doubt for the remaining chapters as I worked through edits, or I had to find someone else to look through the end of the manuscript.

Then it occurred to me that my sister-in-law might be able to help. I recalled that she'd done some freelance editing, and that she'd trying to organize a story-share one time which I participated. So, I sent an email, explained my situations, and thankfully, she agreed. I'll do another post of about her editing later. It's a part of our deal. She provided me with an important service and I'm going to write her a testimonial on my blog.

For now, I'll just say that I'm extremely grateful. I'm back up to where I left off with the other editor (yeah, she went through the whole manuscript from the start for me) and I hope to have it wrapped up by the end of the week. Yeah. I hope to have the whole thing wrapped up in just a few days. It seems a little crazy now that I'm writing this. Wrapped up, and out there for people to buy. I just hope a few people buy it, and at least some of them enjoy it and look forward to seeing the second story.

For now, I need to get on with the editing, so I can indeed have it on the cyber shelves within a week or two.

Ciao

My venture into self-publishing: my cover

One of the steps involved in self-publishing is getting/developing/creating cover art. You need something to catch the eye of a browser, right? Because people really do judge books by their covers.

When it came to thinking about my art, I knew I didn't possess the skills to create something cool, so I contacted a friend of mine, Anna Krider, who has tons of skillz in graphic design. To see her work, you can check out her website: Peach Pants Press.

I didn't have any particular ideas of what I wanted my cover to look like, I just wanted it to look "professional." After a little back and forth, Anna created something funky and abstract. I like the sparkly bits throughout the body, plus she used some nifty layering techniques (that I can't tell you about because it's actually spoiler related!). Anywho, here's my cover:

Now I have a super awesome cover, and I got to employ the skills of a friend. Two birds down with one stone, I'd say.

Cheers,

My venture into self-publishing: the why

I haven't looked back over my blog posts to see how many times I've said I wasn't going to self-publish. It's probably been more than once, or twice, or...enough times, anyways. Sometimes I feel like I have no constancy. I tend to run with an idea for a while, while it's exciting and new, but once things aren't going so smoothly, or they're taking too long and the excitement wanes, I change my mind, or perhaps more accurately, I just give up.

So, what's changed this time around?

Back in April, around my birthday, I was exchanging messages with a friend. A friend who I contact whenever I need publishing advice, usually when I get a hint of success (I've had 2 different publishing companies interested in my work, one for Nora, one for Ava, but they've both fallen through). When we were talking this time, she mentioned that she had released some work through the Amazon Kindle Select program. I'd already released Nora here on my blog, but it hadn't gotten a large readership, and so I got to thinking.

It still might not get a large readership on Amazon, but would it hurt? It couldn't hurt. Right?

E, self-publishing is popular. Occasionally authors see a great deal of success--not that I'm expecting big numbers and big money--but authors are also seeing decent success. With the Amazon Kindle Select program anyone can publish with it (although there are some rules about what type of material can be published) and editing isn't required (although I hired an editor to go through the manuscript). The royalties are also much better with an e-book than a print book, which is a plus--assuming I can get people to buy mine.

And so I hope to have The Cure available early to mid September. This isn't exactly how I'd always dreamed of making my publishing debut, I've clung to the idea of being traditionally published for a long time, but at least for Nora, it's the only way she's going to see a wide release. I feel that I've racked up enough rejections with her to have to take the hint that no one's interested. I'm still going to query agents and editors with my other series Cimwai's Bay, but who knows, maybe if Nora does well, I might try the same thing with Ava.

So does has this post answered the why?

If not, feel free to ask a question, although as I note, I moderate the comments, so it won't show up immediately.

Ciao,

Andrea

My venture into self-publishing

I haven't exactly started my venture into self-publishing yet (if you consider the start to be once the book is finally available for purchase on Amazon), but I've been getting ready. I've been editing and formatting my manuscript, acquiring cover art, etc. It's coming and soon (I'm aiming for early in September).

I plan to compose a few lead-up posts prior to the book's release describing the processes I went through such as finally making the decision to self-publish, getting an editor, finding an artist to create a cover, formatting the manuscript and then finally making it available on Amazon.

But, you might be wondering gentle Reader, what manuscript am I publishing? Well, I've decided to start with The Cure. Which means I will soon be taking down the posts which I released last fall and winter. It's partly, the cow v. the free milk scenario. It's also that Amazon has an exclusivity clause so I'd be contractually obligated to remove it.

So, watch this space over the next couple of weeks for more details on the release of The Cure, and maybe even consider purchasing it once it's not available. Or, if young adult speculative fiction isn't your bag, consider passing it on to someone to whom it would appeal.

Ciao,

Andrea