My 2018 Aussie reads — a gallery

Posted: December 20, 2018 | Author: Cassandra Page | Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: Australia, AWW, Instagram | Leave a comment

I love to support Australian writers, both by reading and reviewing their works, and by taking pictures of their smexy books and posting them over at my Instagram. Below is a gallery of Aussie books I’ve read this year. Run your eyes over these gorgeous books! Buy them! Leave reviews! (And if you want to throw me a follow over at Instagram, that’d be pretty cool too.)

Sadly, there are four missing, all of which I read as ebooks and didn’t organise a picture of. I suck. They are Seeking Faith and Losing Faith (by Lauren K. McKellar and Jennifer Ryder, respecitvely) and Nothing and Everything (by K. A. Last). You should read those too.

Do iiiiiiit. ❤

My top five(ish) Instagram posts of 2016

Posted: December 30, 2016 | Author: Cassandra Page | Filed under: On social media | Tags: Instagram, PopVinyls | Leave a comment

I was going to do a list of my favourite bookish Christmas Instagram posts by other people, because there are some corkers out there, but WordPress restrictions prevent me from properly embedding Instagram posts so that people can readily access the original. And I wasn’t comfortable copying the images off Instagram and uploading them separately, even with links, because that way lies madness and copyright infringement.

So. I decided instead to list my own top five most liked posts from 2016 — because that way they are my own photos and I can’t get in trouble from anyone but me. (I may have a stern word with myself later…) I’m still relatively small time in #bookstagram circles, but these posts did better than usual, and I’m rather proud of that.

You’ll notice that every single one of these images has something in common: a PopVinyl figure. I have a rather embarrassing collection of them and, while I do post a few images without them, those never seem to be as popular. I can understand that. I love my Pops too! ❤

Five — 99 likes

I chose five because that’s how I roll. Of course, the problem is that three of my images are tied at 99 likes each. And if you don’t think that the missing like to get them to 100 is driving me nuts, you’re kidding yourself. :p

Four– 103 likes

This is such a simple photo — I noticed that my Katniss Pop went really well with the cover of Atlanta Burns, so I, um, popped the two together and snapped a pic. I didn’t predict how well it would do.

Three– 105 likes

I posted this just after Fantastic Beasts came out (it’s a great movie, btw), so I guess it was always going to do reasonably well! The book was a Christmas present from my son, but (because he’s seven and I actually had to pay for it) I took the picture before we wrapped it up. Shh!

Two — 109 likes

Another tie! The picture of Cinder is very recent; I only took and posted it this week. The other one is about a month old. Rose isn’t my favourite companion, but for reasons I don’t understand you can’t get Donna Nobel or Martha Jones as Pops. Gah!

One — 133 likes

I’m tickled pink that my most liked picture so far is of my own books. I’d like to imagine that is the reason, but I suspect it has more to do with the Sarah PopVinyl (from Labyrinth), and the fact I had a Scentsy burner in there. Still, I’m going to call it a win!

Bookstagramming, my way

Posted: September 9, 2016 | Author: Cassandra Page | Filed under: On social media | Tags: bookstagram, Instagram | Leave a comment

I know I’ve mentioned from time to time that I am on Instagram now. Like Twitter, I joined Instagram because I had a vague thought that it might be a good idea to have an author profile there. But, also like Twitter, I’ve very rapidly fallen in love with #bookstagram, where book obsessives take smexy photos of books and post them for all to fangirl over. It appears to my creative, visual art-y side. And my book obsessive side.

It’s really interesting, seeing the different approaches people take with their styles, or feeds; some people have a combination of different looks, while others have a definite overall theme: books with lights, books with food, messy book pics, abstract book pics … you get the idea.

After a bit of playing around, I discovered that my favourite sort of photo to take was one with a crisp white background and white colours; the below picture is a screenshot of my most recent nine photographs. That doesn’t mean I don’t do other styles, but that combination predominates.

Here are things you can expect from my posts if you follow me:

Crisp white backgrounds and bright colours (duh)…
PopVinyl figures. Because my son and I have around 80 of the adorable little suckers, and I might as well get some use out of them!
Pokemon, because I am a Pokemon Go addict and my son owns a bunch of plushies and toys.
Fake flowers and candles, as these are basically compulsory for bookstagram photos.
The occasional geeky paraphernalia, because that’s how I roll (dice) (see what I did there).
Some photos of finished colouring projects.
BOOKS!
- (Sometimes even my books, because they are very pretty, if I do say so myself.)

And even if you don’t follow me — if you don’t have Instagram or just don’t love me that much 😉 — I’m sure I’ll keep posting the occasional picture here, when I review a book that I’ve read in paper format. So you won’t miss out!

Do you like free things?

Just a reminder: the Isla’s Inheritance ebook, the first book in my young adult urban fantasy series, is available free from the following retailers:

Amazon US | Amazon UK | Amazon Australia

An Unexpected Turn of Events

Posted: June 8, 2016 | Author: Cassandra Page | Filed under: On parenting | Tags: bookstagram, Instagram, motherhood | 3 Comments

I know, I know, I’ve been AWOL. The last week was always going to be bad in terms of blogging etc, because my son turned seven on Monday … but it took an unexpected turn last Thursday when the school called to say they thought he had broken his arm.

It turned out he had. In three places — both wrist bones and his humerus, just above the elbow. He needed surgery to have the bones set (and the elbow pinned), and we spent the night in hospital.

It … was not our best day ever.

To make matters worse, his party this year was booked in at a gymnastics centre, so we had to cancel. The plan is to reschedule for once he’s out of the cast and gets the green light from his doctor to run around like a lunatic again, but that will be after our impending holiday to Alice Springs, some time early next term.

You’d think unexpectedly having a week off work would have meant free time, but I’ve been fulfilling the role of Mumma Nurse for the last week. I haven’t had much time to read, or write, or go over the excellent edits I got back from Lauren on my fantasy manuscript. In fact, the only thing I have kept up to date on is posting to Instagram, and that’s because I had already taken a bunch of book pictures and had them saved on my phone, ready to go.

Yes, I do photo shoots for books now. (That happened fast.)

Still, the boy is in less pain now than he was, and tomorrow we have the first of several follow-up X-rays booked to see how he’s healing. So hopefully life will return to something resembling normality some time soon.

How have you been, internet? Read (or taken photos of) any good books lately?

Bookstagrammin'.