A crash course in marketing and promotion

We've set a release date for Rachel's Folly: August 19.

But unlike the massive and efficient promotion machine I've been able to enjoy when writing under the Harlequin line, we're on our own for this one. Don has taken it upon himself to become my manager in this endeavor, and trust me when I say he's been undertaking a crash course in marketing and promotion for the past couple of weeks.

Getting this book published started with the manuscript itself, of course. I gave it one final read-through, and then handed it over to  Jessie Denning of Denning Print Company. She and I went back and forth on page font, etc., and then she uploaded the manuscript and sent me the pdf. I read through the pdf carefully and found quite a number of changes to make. (It's amazing how reading something in "book" format makes you look at a story with fresh eyes.)

Meanwhile, Don and I worked on the cover design. We had some lengthy discussions about how it should look. I don't care for "people" covers, much less the so-called "clinch" covers (when the Hero and Heroine are embracing; ug, I hate those). We opted to adopt a retro quasi Art Deco style that, we feel, is both eye-catching and accurate to the story setting.

We also had to write a back-cover blurb which summarizes the scenario of the story without giving away too many specifics, including the "black moment" near the end. We provided all this to Jessie, who then combined all the components into the final product, which she then uploaded to KDP (Kindle Direct Print) on Amazon, which will provide both e-versions and print versions of the book.

We could literally hit "publish" tomorrow, but we're delaying the official release date by a few weeks to give ourselves time to gin up interest among a broader readership.

I can't begin to express how grateful I am that Don has taken on so much of the marketing and promotional burden. You all know how famously averse to social media I am. Yet for business purposes – and make no mistake, writing is our business – sometimes it's a necessary evil.

I have a Facebook page. Up until this point, it had one purpose: To communicate with Younger Daughter in her overseas duty station. Thanks to Facebook's Messenger option, we can either chat with Younger Daughter by typing, or call each other. It's been a blessing to be able to stay in frequent communication with her. After a few bad experiences when I first set up this page, I refused to "friend" anyone except family members or trusted friends.

For obvious reasons, now this has to change. Don set up an ancillary Facebook page specifically for author activities (I'll insert an obligatory plug here – go "friend" me!) which is he managing.

I'm also on Twitter, another new territory to conquer. Most of what I post is a reflection of what's on the blog, but I do have some new stuff and I'm trying to get more active. (Feel free to "follow" me.)

But it's not just social media platforms we're working on. Don has also been navigating the complex and baffling world of promotion. In addition to the backcover blurb, we had to come up with a "blurb" (very short summary), a synopsis, a bio, a tagline, etc.

While there are endless services that promote indy books for a price, for obvious reasons we're trying to keep the costs down and utilize what free resources we can. At the moment we're focusing on Amazon and Goodreads, among other places.

We learned there are a number of sites that locate ARC (Advanced Reader Copy) readers who then write and post reviews of the book ahead of its release date. This apparently has a significant impact on the ranking algorithm used by Amazon when someone is searching for a book to read in the "sweet romance" category. The decision to purchase a book is often dependent on the number and quantity of reviews available (a dearth of reviews often means lackluster interest or a lackluster product).

Of these various websites and services that provide ARCs and other publicity options, each and every one of them has a different application process, so Don has had to keep track of who he's contacted, what their timeline is, etc. He's created landing pages on all these various websites as well. It is Very Complicated.

I already have an author page on Amazon, set up by Harlequin, but clearly it features only HQ titles. Don set up an author page for me to represent everything else, but it won't be visible until after "Rachel's Folly" is released. We're not doing pre-orders on this title; instead we're planning a "book bomb" for the release date of August 19.

For legal protection – Don came across a harrowing tale of a frivolous lawsuit a reader filed against an indy author, apparently just for (expensive) jollies – we'll be publishing future indy books under an LLC, which we already have for our nonfiction writing. Under this LLC, we'll be publishing other indy romances, but also Don's country humor collection, some of our nonfiction ebooks, etc.

When "Rachel's Folly" is officially released, I will be asking all of you, dear readers, to help spread the word on your social media. We'll post more specifics on this as the release date approaches.

Phew. So now you know all the behind-the-scenes stuff we've been doing.

Buried in blueberries

For the last couple of weeks, I've been picking blueberries.

The first pick wasn't so bad, just a modest bowl-full. It took only a few minutes.

Well, that didn't last. Now the berries are ripening fast and I'm picking every other day (this photo is three days' worth of berries).

After I pick over the berries to remove any stems or blossom ends, I bag and freeze them.

The trouble is, it's been very hot here lately (102F yesterday), and I can't pick berries in full sun. Aside from the heat factor, for whatever reason I have a hard time telling ripe berries from nearly-ripe berries in full sunlight. That's why I prefer to pick in the shade. I can't pick early in the morning because by the time I finish milking Maggie, the sun is already on the blueberries. I've been picking late in the afternoon when a bit of shade falls on the berries from some nearby trees, but that only worked until the berries really ramped up production and the longer picking time started interfering with our evening chores.

So I rummaged around in the barn and found an old umbrella we used during our craft booth days. Propped up against the ridgepole over the berries, it's a compromise.

Here's the thing: The blueberry season has barely begun, and already I'm devoting 1.5 hrs every other day simply to picking. That's likely to increase even more, probably to two hours every other day. Last year, if you recall, we harvested just short of 60 lbs. of blueberries. I would not be surprised if we doubled that this year. (We've already let neighbors know we have berries for sale.)

So I have a lot of picking to do in the weeks ahead. Whenever I weary of the endless chore, I stop and give myself an attitude adjustment. How many people working cubicle jobs would do anything to spend a couple of hours in a blueberry patch? It helps change weariness into gratitude.

Honestly, I never expected the small bushes we planted four years ago to do this well ... and they're still not fully mature. How much more can these bushes produce? Time will tell.

When I'm that age...

We have an older couple who lives down the road from us. They're in their late 80s or early 90s and are as active as anyone I've ever met. Bill, the husband, used to be a heavy-equipment operator and still is the go-to guy when anyone in the neighborhoods needs a load of gravel, a building pad bulldozed, a trench dug, or any other heavy-duty project.

Bill and his wife own the five-acre pasture directly across the road from us. They have one horse and two head of Angus cattle (cow and bull).

A couple months ago, the cow gave birth to the prettiest calf imaginable – pure white, with dark eyes and nose and hooves. Just darling.

Well, a few days ago the calf got out onto the road. We called Bill to let him know.

Mama and the bull were trotting along the fenceline in agitation, trying to figure out how to get reunited with Baby.

A few minutes later, Bill and his wife make it up to start rounding the calf back where she needs to go. Don and I grabbed a couple of push poles and began gently herding the calf down the road, to where Bill had opened a gate into the pasture. We're old hands at this and it was nothing unusual.

The calf finally saw the gate and dashed through it, reunited with her herd. And then – this was the funny part – Bill literally sprinted across the road to close the gate before the older animals escaped as well.

It was the way he sprinted to close that gate that impressed me. I'm not precisely sure how old Bill is, but I think I remember him mentioning a couple years ago that he was somewhere in the vicinity of 90 years old, which would put him at about 92 now. And he's still sprinting to get a job done.

That's exactly how I want to be when I'm his age. Go Bill.

Product Review Monday

(Below is Don's book review this week.)

My book suggestion for today is tiny...but oh so packed with information: The Pocket Ref.

At only 5.5 inches tall, this is truly a pocket book. I've had a copy of the Pocket Ref in my possession for years. If for some reason you were magically sent back in time to the 1800s and could only take one book that could fit in your pocket, this is that book.

The Amazon link has an astoundingly long list of the diverse kinds of critical information this volume contains. Much of the information that makes up our modern civilization is included in this tiny, dense book.

Frankly, this is the perfect "guy" stocking stuffer. Highly recommend.

___________

Today's product recommendation is something near and dear to my heart: A pressure canner.

The two most common types of (American) pressure canners are All American and Presto. The advantage of an All American is its heavy-duty quality, the lack of a gasket (it has a metal-to-metal seal), and its incredibly sturdy build. The All American quality is such that it can be used for generations. The disadvantage is cost – depending on size, prices range from about $350 to $650 (the best-selling model #921 is about $450).

The advantage of a Presto canner is its cost (about $125). The disadvantage is the gasket on the lid – it must be checked and replaced every so often to ensure a proper seal. Additionally, the Presto is not as heavy-duty as the All American, and frankly is not built to last as long.

I've owned my All American (model #921) for 35 years and adore it. I have used a Presto once or twice (while teaching friends to can) and, while I didn't like it as much, a lot of that was due to my unfamiliarity with the product. However it should be noted that every canner becomes passionately attached to his or her particular brand and model, so go with whatever brand you prefer. Both brands have a long history of home-canning excellence. (It's worth noting, however,  that neither canner is recommended for use on a glass-top stove.)

I have no experience with Mirro canners and therefore cannot make a recommendation. Ditto for Presto's new electric canner – the National Center for Home Food Preservation has not approved the electric canner, though they stop short of saying it is unsafe (they just haven't tested it yet).

I'm a passionate canner and have canned literally thousands of jars of food in my All American pressure canner. A pressure canner is the ultimate tool for those interested in food preservation.

(Obligatory disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links. As an Amazon Affiliate, if you purchase through those links, we earn a small commission.)

Fruitful trees

Last year, if you recall, we were nonplussed that not one single wild plum or wild blackberry bush yielded any fruit.

Seriously, in late summer these two categories are usually astoundingly fruitful. The wild animals congregate toward this abundance in droves, as you can imagine. There are hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of wild plum trees and untold acres of wild blackberries, and as far as we could tell not one single plum or blackberry ripened. The lack of this bonanza must have been as difficult for the wildlife as it was bewildering for us.

But this year ... this year the abundance has returned, perhaps all the heavier for its lack last year.

In spring, the hillsides were lit up with plum blossoms, like cotton candy.

These blooms are spectacularly beautiful.

Now that full summer is here, the blooms are translating into developing fruit. Take this venerable plum tree by the side of our road, for example.

The young plums are so thick, they almost look like clusters of grapes.

A couple weeks ago, the blackberries flowered, and all indications point to a similar level of production.

Now the petals are dropping and the tiny fruit is forming.

We never found out why there was no fruit last year. But at least this year, the wildlife are going to  feast.

The mystery bird, solved

Ever since moving here to our new home, I've heard the calls of a summer bird. It's a cheerful, chatty call, almost like laughter. For a while, sight unseen, I was calling it a yellow-breasted chat (I don't know why I christened it that except its call was decidedly "chatty"), but then I listened to the actual call of a yellow-breasted chat and realized it most certainly wasn't that. Back to square one. What is the mystery bird?

I mean seriously, this is our fourth summer here and I simply couldn't identify the bird, in large part because while its call was widespread, the bird itself was elusive and evaded all attempts to spot (and hopefully photograph it) for purposes of identification.

Then, a couple weeks ago, this mystery bird began "chatting" from the top of a willow tree in our driveway. I snatched up my camera and crept outside, trying to spot it.

I saw it all right, and took lots of photos. The trouble was, the bird was more or less silhouetted against the sky and I couldn't get into a better position to view it more clearly.

I took dozens of photos (literally, I took 51), just hoping to catch one that would be clear enough to identify the bird. At long last, I was able to catch a flash of bright orange. Aha! That's my clue!

The bird finally flew off to a more distant tree...

...at which point I retired indoors and consulted my bird identification books, looking at all the orange birds in our region.

Then I looked up YouTube videos of the calls for each orange bird. Mystery solved! What I've been hearing is a Bullock's Oriole.

And here's the funny thing: Once I had the bird identified, for the next couple of weeks I could hardly step foot outside without seeing it. Or rather, them. There were at least two males which suddenly started hanging around the yard, resulting in several hastily snatched and not-very-good photos.

After all this time, why did it start hanging around the yard now?

And then, boom. As rapidly as they appeared, they disappeared (from the yard), and now I just heard their chatty, cheery call from afar.

But that's okay. The mystery is solved. Apparently we have a lot of Bullock's Orioles in our area.

My indie book is making progress!

If you recall, a couple weeks ago I announced a new venture: An indie book.

Don and I have been getting a crash course in marketing, which of course is a Brave New World for both of us. Meanwhile I've been in near-constant communication with Jessie Denning, who is doing the formatting and layout. She sent a pdf of the book and I went through it in detail and sent back corrections. (In one spot, I actually misspelled "four" as "for." How...?)

Meanwhile Don designed the cover. Ladies and gentlemen, here's the big reveal:

Here's the back-cover blurb:

What happens when the producer of an historical reality-show company in Los Angeles is challenged to live by the rules she sets for her contestants? This is Rachel's folly: To spend four months living like a pioneer woman on Samuel Finn's primitive Idaho wilderness homestead in exchange for a hefty promotion and a coveted corner office.
 
The physical and mental challenges are staggering. Together Rachel and Samuel face the potentially devastating trials of 19th-century life. But they also are blessed with incredible benefits, including quiet evenings of conversation and music on the front porch with a million-dollar view of majestic mountain peaks.

Can Rachel complete the challenge? More importantly, can she complete the challenge without falling head over heels for the handsome, rugged man who bets she can't?

We're planning the release date sometime in mid-August. Whee, this has been a fun journey so far!

Stormy's growth

Some readers have asked how our little calf Stormy is doing. She's growing! The photograph below shows her drinking her breakfast moments after I finished milking Maggie and released Stormy from the calf pen.

Honestly, I've never a calf this leggy. She's nearly as tall as Romeo, who is three months older. Romeo is, of course, much beefier, since he's not only older, but a half-Angus, half-Dexter steer.

Stormy and Romeo are good friends.

It seems Stormy might be polled, too, which is interesting. We've never raised a polled calf before. Saves us the trouble of dehorning her!

She's also very sweet and affectionate. Originally we were thinking we would sell her (a woman from our church is interested), but now we're thinking we'll keep her as a possible second milker when she's older. With her half-Angus heritage, her calves will be beefier and will work as meat animals (especially since the only bulls around here are pure Angus, so we can keep the meat lineage going). Meanwhile we'll phase out our pure Angus animals, since we prefer the Jersey strain. Filet has a date with the butcher in August, and next year it will be Mignon's turn, followed by Romeo the year after that. Meanwhile we might keep our eyes peeled for a second purebred Jersey sometime next year.

So that's the update on Stormy.

Product Review Monday

For this week's book review, I'd like to highlight some books for very young (toddler) children I stumbled across. We don't own them for the simple reason we don't have anyone in that age bracket in our household, but take a gander at these titles and see if they don't look sweet:

Mommy and Me: Animals

 

Mommy and Me: Around the World

Animals Being Goofy!

There are additional titles by the same author available as well. If you have toddlers, consider these cuties.

________________

For our product of the week, here's Don's review of a stove-top fan:

Don says: "I've seen these small stovetop fans in stores, but I'd never seen one in action until last year, when my local hardware store had one on top of the big drum stove they used to heat the building. It was moving a lot of hot air. At the time I was feeling pretty flush cash-wise and for $23, I decided to get one of the smaller models, a VODA small four-blade model.

"I put it on the cook stove top in November of last year and it's been there ever since. For the entirety of last year's winter it spun, and it really did move the hot air away from the stove and out into the room. I expect that next winter it will be doing the same job again. Can't ask for more than that and I highly recommend it."

(Obligatory disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links. As an Amazon Affiliate, if you purchase through those links, we earn a small commission.) 

A book house

A friend sent me an article for a house for sale in Ohio. Designed as a two-unit short-term rental, it is notable for ... its books.

Yes, the seller amassed 7,000 hardcover volumes which presumably accompany the sale of the house.

Since the article mentions the seller purchased the books for about ten cents apiece, it's an easy conclusion that he got them from some sort of wholesale "books by the yard" source and hasn't actually read any of them.

Still, after seeing endless real estate listings or interior design photos touting sleek modern furnishings dominated by big-screen TVs, I must admit this listing is a refreshing alternative.