All the new covers!

First of all the Eros covers:

And now the other covers I have updated for Wittegen Press:

With some of them I've just rearranged a few things and changed fonts, and with others I have completely redesigned them. It was mostly fun, but a couple of them really gave me the run-around!

Wittegen Press' New Look

Wittegen Press' New Look

I've finally done it - I gave the Wittegen Press website a new look. Now technically this should have just involved picking a new theme for WordPress, but things are never that simple, are they? 😝

Do you like the new header? I think it speaks about the site much more than the old one which was just the logo.

New Wittegen Press Home Page

It loads much faster now too! I think the newer themes are much better than the 2014 theme we were using.

One thing that did surprise me, however, is how many of the currently offered themes are not responsive. I had to search carefully to make sure the one I picked was.

If you're unfamiliar with the term, responsive means that the site can be viewed equally well on PC, tablet and phone and it uses CSS div layouts to do it. There is also fluid layout which uses percentages to do it, but, as you can imagine, on a phone percentages are not going to work too well.

Had to sort out all the menus as well because, while the new theme tried to sort them out, if only has once widget area (the old one had 3) so it duplicated a whole load of the menus.

There were some other formatting issues that I had to sort out, but it was actually easier than I expected, which was nice for once 😂

Other things I did while I was at it:

• Added a page for Wittegen Eros
• Updated all the books so they are now tagged Wittegen Press or Wittegen Eros so they can be found by publisher.
• Updated all books with their new covers.
• Implemented the featured stories scroller for the blog page.

New Wittegen Press Blog page

There is only one thing I can't fix and it's driving me batty. Our books used to have a G+ link on them, which is part of one of the plugins we use, and it's no longer formatting correctly, but it won't go away! I've turned off the social media setting for the plugin and turned it back on again, but it is still not working. Most frustrating.

Anyway, I hope you like the new look for Wittegen Press.

Recipe Recommendation - Lentils and Goat's Cheese from BBC Food

Recipe Recommendation

Lentils and Goat's Cheese from BBC Food

So I made this recipe of Lentils and Goat's Cheese last night for our dinner. Really simple, only 6 main ingredients + seasoning, most of which require little to no preparation.

It was delicious!

The flavour of the garlic, basil, lemon and olive oil against the earthly lentils and creamy goat's cheese are wonderful, and the perfect balance. Only 2 provisos edit - 3 provisos:

1. It has to be a creamy goats cheese, not an acidic one - I think this is crucial, or the balance will be off.
2. It is improved by something crunchy, otherwise it's quite one note on the texture scale.
   I did Rob a crispy Quorn fillet to go with his, and he said it set it off perfectly. I tried cashew nuts with mine (didn't think I could eat a whole Quorn fillet), but they weren't the right match. Might work really well with croutons, if you're not going for a gluten free meal.
3. UPDATE 16-Sept-19 - a friend on Pillowfort recommended soaking the lentils before using them (I had mine soaking from first thing in the morning to when I made the dish the second time) and it really does improve it. The lentils are much easier to eat and sit better on the stomach for those not used to them. Soak, drain, cook in fresh water for 15-20 mins rather than 25.

This is the perfect midweek meal, especially for those looking for meatless alternatives that are filling, tasty and full of vitamins and minerals.

The only part that takes time is the cooking of the lentils and that's only 25 mins (at least mine were, according to the packet directions, but canned would probably be quicker). And it's more about leaving them on the stove and letting them bubble than anything more complicated. Everything else is shredded or squeezed by hand.

New Imprint, New Podcast and Free Fiction Friday

New Imprint, New Podcast and Free Fiction Friday

Firstly, apologies - this should have been out yesterday, but our power flipped out several times and meant I was racing to get the eBook for Free Fiction Friday formatted properly because I kept losing work. Everything else had to go on a back burner. Rob is going to connect my PC to the UPS we have for the server, in case it happens again.

So, on to the exciting news!

Soph and I are setting up a new imprint of Wittegen Press called Wittegen Eros:

For a while we've been looking at our titles and thinking that some just don't fit with the others and we want to make it easier for our readers. We also decided that we have enough titles to do it now. So Wittegen Eros was born - an imprint for all our exclusively adult titles.

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This will not affect any of our existing readers - eBooks will be getting a makeover for the new branding, but if you have updates enabled, you'll get the new version automatically.

However, new and exciting things are also coming.

We're launching a podcast - Sexy Stories with Virginia Waytes - who will be narrating the naughty bits from a new paranormal series called The Manor. The Manor being a supernatural hot-bed and  adult-only, exclusive members club in the middle of the English countryside.

The Manor will be episodic, with the first season being 12 episodes long and each episode consisting of:

•  the podcast with introductions and narration of the naughty scenes by Virginia
• an eBook to enrich the story and universe as well as including the sexy parts from the podcast.

More details on this will be coming soon!

However, if you would like a taster of the world of The Manor this month's Free Fiction Friday is the first chapter of episode 1. No naughty bits in this one, you'll have to wait for those 😎, but we get to meet Lucy, the proprietress of The Manor and several of her friends and colleagues.

Lamb in Wolf's Clothing - Free Fiction Friday version

The Manor is a sanctuary for many supernaturals and a new face means new mysteries to solve and new danger to come.
This story has adult concepts, but no explicit content.

To acquire your copy of Lamb in Wolf's Clothing, subscribe to The Wittegen Press Newsletter. News, updates and a free short story every month. Links for this month's free short story are in the final welcome email when you sign up for those who miss the Newsletter mail shot.

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Header Photo by Annie Spratt on Unsplash