It’s Official, Book Signing on Valentine’s Day!

Well I’m stepping out of my comfort zone with this one. Although I’m excited, it’s making me nervous too. Since this is my first book signing I’ve been going over things I’ll say or write in books. Yikes, hope I don’t have a mindless time where I can’t spell or get what’s in my head on the book.

What’s really exciting is Ridge will be released that day and he’ll be debuting at the signing. I can’t believe it’s almost here. It seems like just yesterday that I came up with the idea for the Five Oaks Series and now it’s coming out. This book is my new favorite. I poured my soul into this series and when you read it you’ll see what I’m talking about. This series touches me deep down and I’m ready to get all of them out there so that everyone can get as excited as I am.

If you’re in the Zebulon, Georgia area on Valentine’s Day then come on by A Novel Experience Bookstore on the square and say ‘Hi’.

As always, good writing and May God Bless You…

Emotional Roller Coaster…I don’t like roller coasters!

Good Friday morning to all of you. I hope you’ve had a great week. I’ve been a little unplugged mentally this week. Let’s just say my emotional state has gone up the hill, then dropped to rock bottom and then back up again. My brain hurts! I’ve gone from one extreme to the other so fast that I feel like maybe I have whiplash.

My week started with the revisions for Ridge. Yes it releases February 14th so the clock is ticking. Thank goodness the first draft went well and now it’s in the editors hands so, fingers crossed it’ll be ready for print next week.

On the hills of all of the reading, red markers and such, I lost a dear friend to cancer. That hit me in the gut and left me breathless. It’s hard when you see someone often and then you go to not seeing them. At least I know he’s in a better place and cancer free now. Heaven gained a true cowboy on Monday… He asked me one day if any of my cowboy characters were inspired by him. I smiled and said ‘you know it’. Will miss him…

As I trudged through the IRS released tax preparers to start tax filing. If you don’t know it, I’m an Accountant so my busy season officially started on Tuesday. I get excited when tax season starts and wait for the adrenaline to kick in, but I have to say, the older I get the less adrenaline that pumps through my brain.

The highest point of my week and the most exciting thing is that the date has been set for my book signing. What better day for a romance author to have a book signing than Valentine’s Day. It will be February 14th from 3 -5 in Zebulon, Georgia at A Novel Experience Bookstore on the square, I will debuting ‘Ridge’ on that day which is really exciting. So if you’re in this area on Valentine’s Day come by and see me, I’d love to meet you. Stay tuned for more details to come next week!

So as you can tell I’ve been otherwise occupied this week, but hope to be back to normal on Monday. Well, whatever normal is…

As always, good writing and May God Bless You…

Quilting a story

It’s Friday people! Have you figured that out yet? So have another cup of coffee, sipping it slowly while you take a deep breath and say ‘I got this’. Ok, now on to the reason for the picture of the quilt above…

This is a quilt that I inherited from my grandmother. I lovingly put it out every winter on the back of the couch in the den. It’s really old, but well made. Of course I have several of her handmade quilts and actually several of her mothers, but this one just speaks to me. Maybe it’s the wagon wheel design, I don’t know, but it’s the subject of today’s post.

As when my grandmother started this quilt more than seventy years ago, she had to have an idea of where she was going. Then she had to pick out the colors, the patterns of material and just the right backing. It’s the same when you sit down to start you books. You need a direction to go in. If you just sit down a write down words well it’s not going to mesh into a story.

Just as you would do with a quilt you do it in steps. Here are some of the steps:

1: Idea for the story. Usually it takes you by surprise… so be ready.

2: Just an idea doesn’t make a story, you’ve got to have an idea of the bones just as a quilter has a pattern or idea of how they want it to look.

3: Gather your materials. This means, put down an outline and character write up. Make sure you have most of what you need to quilt your story together.

4: Piece them together with pens. This is where you put the parts together. Don’t put the wedding before they meet. It never works out that way. Some days I write part of the story that won’t even happen until several chapters later, but I write on the top of it where it fits in. That way when I get to that part, it’s ready to sew in.

5: Once you’ve got these parts down, then write to your hearts desire. That’s the way a quilter does. They get the supplies together in usually a organized way and then they start putting it together, piece by piece. Each piece should fit just right to make it come out correctly at the end, because who wants to get to the best part and realize they left out some of the pivotal pieces that would make it come out even.

Well, that’s my take on things. Of course there’s so many more steps to putting your book together, but these are just a few of the ways to quilt your story together. Make sure each masterpiece you create is the best you can do and don’t skimp on the middle to get to the end. Every quilt needs a good, well placed middle.

As always, good writing and May God Bless You…

Giveaway on Southern Writer’s Magazine site…

Good Monday morning. I hope all of you had a great weekend. As for me I start this week with a special piece of news. I’ve joined forces with Southern Writer’s Magazine for a giveaway. Sign up this week for a chance to win a signed copy of “Safe in the Pirate’s Arms”. It’s been great all the help Southern Writing Magazine has been handing me.

Here’s the info on the giveaway:

As always, good writing and May God Bless You…

Promote or not to promote…that’s the question!

Good morning! I do hope all of you are staying warm. As for me I’m sitting beside the fire wrapped in a blanket. It’s only 12 degrees here in my part of Georgia which is not funny for this southern girl. It’s a beautiful day outside from the bright sunshine, but then you step outside and it hits you like a ice wall. Not even going there!

On to my post for the day… How do you promote your book? Or do you even do any promoting? For me I do promote when I can. Some authors say that they can’t afford to do a lot of promoting, but I have some good news. You can do some really good promotions for free. Yes I said FREE!

Here are some of my favorite free promotional places:

1: You are looking at the first place. Your blog is an excellent place to promote your book. But be careful, don’t overdo it. Sprinkle in promotional posts here and there, but make sure to keep it light. I’ve seen some really good results from it. You can set up a blog for free and make sure to assign a page for your books within your blog setup.

2: Twitter is an excellent place to promote, but as I’ve said above don’t overdo it. I tried an experiment with Twitter and it went really well. A couple of days I didn’t post anything about my books and my sales were normal, but then for a couple of days I sprinkled in some tweets directly from my book pages on Amazon, Smashwords and some of my other book pages. It helped my sales. I actually sold extra books on those days and the trend went that way for days afterwords and then back down to normal. If you spread out your book tweets to several hours apart and use hash tags such as #amwriting #amreading and #ebooks you’ll see some great results.

3: Facebook is another great place. As with any other promotions don’t overdo it. Make sure you have a separate page for your books because your friends my not enjoy seeing your posts repeatedly. I have a couple of different pages for my books and series. That way it keeps them sparse. Make it interesting…

4: Do a press release. I use PRlog.com and it’s really easy to set up. When I have a new release I set up a powerful press release with tags, then you can share it almost anywhere straight from the release page.

5: Your website. You may be saying ‘but you have to pay for a website’. Well actually there are several free places to set up websites, but keep in mind these free websites can be limited. They are still a great place to tag your books.

These are only 5 of the many free sites where you can promote your book. I hope these help out. My publishing service Horseshoe Publishing can help you for minimal costs to set up any of the above options. But if you’re computer savvy then you should be able to do these fairly well.

As always, good writing and May God Bless You…

Monday morning…back to normal…probably not…

I’ll just say this morning it was hard to get up with an alarm clock. Since my son has been out on Christmas break for two weeks I definitely got spoiled. But after I’ve been up for a little while I’m getting back in the groove. Now back to a normal schedule which feels refreshing.

Things always look clearer after a holiday, well mostly… Today I’m working on goals and release dates for the year. My year will consist of four cowboys and a cowgirl. My new series ‘Five Oaks Ranch’ will start releasing February 14th and continue throughout the year, ending with Maggie’s story near Christmas. It’s refreshing to know where you’re headed and what you’re working on. Of course you know me, I’ll have other books sprinkled in, but this series will be my 2015 spotlight.

With the release of Ridge coming up really quickly, I’m waiting on the date to be announced for my upcoming book signing. That’s exciting in itself and to be premiering Ridge at the same time, well that’s just icing on the cake. My paperbacks will be installed on the store shelves at that time also, which makes me just giddy.

As for normalcy, well that’s not in the cards for me. I’m a writer and we’re just not normal. I mean think about it, we sit and write stories that flow through our head. A lot of these stories are gained from people watching. Nobody is safe around a writer.

So,what are your goals for 2015? Are you getting back to normal today, or have you decided to take one more day off?

As always, good writing and May God Bless You…

When the mood strikes…Write!

Good Saturday morning! I hope all of you are well and enjoying a great day. Here in Georgia it’s cool, rainy, foggy, just plain out nasty, but it’s a great day to clean house and write. I’m coming off a great day off yesterday. I met my word goal and passed it. I’d planned on at least 2500 words but ended up writing almost 4000. Yes!

The funny thing about my excessive word count yesterday was that the mood just wasn’t there early in the day. I’d planned on writing early, but it just wasn’t there. I knew that if I started writing without the spark it would end up on the cutting floor in confetti, so I waited. Then later yesterday the mood struck and there it was. My fingers flew across the keys as the scene unfolded in my mind. I wanted to write faster, but these fingers can only do so much.

As you know I’m working on Ridge, which comes out February 14th. Yes I know, I’m running on overtime, but I had two main scenes that needed to be finished. Well, one down, one to go, then on to my editor. She’s chomping at the bit to get her hands on Ridge. It’s been a work from the heart and she’d sat listening to bits and pieces as the excitement takes over. Patience is the name of the game.

Just a peak at the man behind the book:

Cute huh! He’s mysterious, hard edged, a Cowboy, a Soldier, and family man. Yep he’s got it all going for him except the ride lady to spend his days with. Well, maybe the new vet can soften those edges and turn him around. We’ll see…

This morning I’m spending some time on cleaning my house, doing laundry and sorting mail, then on to Ridge. He’s filled my mind so much that some days I can’t concentrate. The next installment of this series is Oakley, but the funny thing is I’d love to start Chase next, but that’s not in the cards. But, I can write a couple of ideas into his portfolio. Yep, that’s in the works for today also.

What are you doing today? Staying in? Writing? Reading? Hope it’s great…

As always, great writing and May God Bless You…