Industry Snapshot 2013: Marketing Your Book

Friday and Saturday, Sept. 27-28, Industry Snapshot 2013: Marketing Your Book in the 21st Century takes place at Coffee Time Romance's Coffee Thoughts, the blog. Learn what services professional marketers offer today's authors, learn what you should ask before hiring any marketer, learn what a marketer is and isn't, and more. Ask questions of participating professionals. Join us for this "don't miss" event.

Tomatoes, Blueberries, Worms, and Honors

What a day! We began with a super find at a local farmer's market: 150 lbs. of tomatoes for thirty-six dollars, with twenty-four ears of corn and three extra tomatoes thrown in for free. Then Harold and I spend blissful hours at a pick-your-own blueberry farm. Harold picked almost a full bucket of blueberries for my mother, I picked two and three-fourths buckets for us. Twenty-five pounds of sweet-scented blueberries altogether.

When we arrived home, a small box waited on the porch: 1,000 red wiggler worms shipped in dry peat moss. I managed to wait to open the box until we unloaded the car. The worms have arrived before their official home has (a Worm Factory), so my kitchen compost bucket has become their temporary home. I got tickled with the worm care instructions: 1.) Do not leave box in the sun (that warning should have been printed on the outside of the box for the postman, who left the box in the sun), and 2.) Add 1/2 cup of water. The last time I checked on my babies, they covered the inside top of the compost bucket. They're exploring their temporary home.

After blanching and freezing a dozen ears of corn and filling a canner with peeled tomatoes, I checked email. I was yesterday's featured author at Books To Go Now! Wow. What an honor! What a great publisher.

Industry Snapshot: The 21st Century Author

Join part three in the Industry Snapshot 2013 series: The 21st Century Author. This interactive event takes place on Coffee Time Romance's Coffee Thoughts blog. Ten authors discuss today's publishing options and share their experiences with traditional vs Indie publishing. Ask all your publishing related questions this weekend, July 27th and 28th, and hear what some best-selling authors in their fields have to say.

Christmas In July Blog Hop Winners

Congratulations to my blog stop winners! Drawn by rafflecopter were:

Shannon, who won the $15 Amazon Gift Card and

Alina, who won e-copies of Moons' Kiss and Fallout

I had so much fun meeting everyone and hearing your stories of Christmases past. A warm Merry Christmas to everyone who visited and participated. May the wonderful memories you've read about give you ideas for creating future cherished moments for your children, friends and loved ones.

Christmas in July Blog Hop

Welcome to my blog! Escape the heat of summer with snowy thoughts of Christmas in July. Here’s your chance to win gifts, including a $100 or $25 Amazon Gift Card offered by Books To Go Now. That should help with Christmas gift buying! Eligibility requires that visitors comment on this post and include their name and email address. The more blogs you visit and comment upon, the greater your chances to win.

What’s your favorite or most unforgettable Christmas memory? I can’t remember Christmases as an adult without remembering my holiday wedding preparations. One of the things Harold and I thought we’d do was move some of his infrequently used belongings into my attic in advance of the Big Day. That would eliminate one to-do item from a long list of tasks that needed completion and would free us to enjoy our honeymoon afterward without thoughts of things left undone. Right? Well . . . .

Moving went according to plan until I was following Harold across the attic and he got really short really, really fast. “Harold!” I gasped and nearly dropped the box I carried in my haste to reach him.

He straddled a floor beam, one leg hanging down out of sight through a hole in my living room ceiling. “Are you okay? Are you hurt?” Images of a visit to the emergency room and a groom on crutches flashed through my mind. How had he not noticed where the attic floor ended and raw beams began? Even as we climbed the attic stairs, the thought hadn’t crossed my mind to mention the limited floor space.

It took a moment, but he assured me he was all right. Still shaken, we climbed down the stairs to inspect the living room. The hole in the ceiling was large. Falling plaster had wiped out the Christmas tree.

“What a big footprint you have,” I murmured in awe.

Our eyes locked.

“At least Santa won’t have difficulty getting in to leave presents,” I said.

The prizes:

What’s your most memorable holiday event or gift?

I’m giving away a $15 Amazon or Barnes & Noble gift card (winner’s choice) to one lucky winner, and gifting electronic copies of my science fiction novel Moons’ Kiss and the futuristic romance Fallout (co-authored with Jon Kohl) to a second lucky winner. Enter via rafflecopter to win one of these fun prizes, and don’t forget to comment on this post (and other participating blogs) for a chance to win one of BTGN’s great prizes. Thanks so much for visiting. And Merry Christmas!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Upcoming Events

I'm excited to be participating in Books To Go Now's Christmas in July Blog Hop, taking place July 19th through the 22nd. BTGN is offering a $100 Amazon Gift Card as the top giveaway prize, and a $25 Amazon Gift Card as a second grand prize. I'll be giving away a $15 Gift Card to Barnes & Noble or Amazon (winner's choice) as a top prize, plus electronic copies of the Sci-Fi novel Moons' Kiss by Kimberly K. Comeau and the futuristic romance Fallout, co-authored with Jon Kohl, to a second lucky winner. Return this weekend for full details on how to win.

Equally exciting is the third installment in Industry Snapshot 2013, this one investigating The Twenty-First Century Author. (The first two installments included interviews of The 21st Century Publisher and The 21st Century Agent.) The interactive author event is taking place July 27th and 28th at Coffee Time Romance's blog. Learn what it takes to succeed in today's publishing world and ask questions of the participating authors.

Hot Summer Nights Giveaway

Prizes, prizes, prizes!

Tell us about one of your hot summer nights. Comment on this post with your name and email address for a chance to win one of two grand prizes:

1st Grand Prize: (1) Kindle Fire

2nd Grand Prize: (1) $100 Amazon Gift Card

Enter my international rafflecopter drawing for a chance to win a $15 (USD) gift card to Amazon or Barnes & Noble (winner’s choice) and an ebook copy of my mainstream social science fiction novel, Moons’ Kiss.

No Dead Otters!

The last day of our Otter Creek Campground stay, Harold and I have a chance meeting with a kindly gentleman who speaks highly of Johnson's Orchard, located an exit or two south along Virginia's Blue Ridge Parkway. The thought of replenishing our exhausted stock of apple butter excites me. On the return walk to our campsite, I ask Harold if he's willing to stir apple pulp for hours and hours. His enthusiastic response seems tainted with hesitation.

"What's wrong?" I ask.

"I don't know how to get back to Richmond from Bedford."

"I can get us back," I proclaim. "Trust me."

His expression makes me understand that he's not convinced. I've not convinced him of my competency after twenty-two years of marriage? Humph! Just because . . . Errrr, ummm, never mind that.

His skepticism strengthens my resolve. "I'll show you on the map when we get back to the car." And I do. I win him over. After all, we have the kindly gentleman's instructions: "You'll see a huge sign for an orchard on the left," he'd said. "Johnson's Orchard is on the right." With those instructions and my trusty map, how can we go wrong?

Do I still detect hesitation in Harold's agreement? Naw! It was just some catch in his breathing. We are, after all, on top of a mountain, albeit surrounded by forest, and he is, after all, afraid of heights.

We break camp, pack the car, and head south along the Blue Ridge Parkway, eventually reaching "the highest elevation in the State of Virginia"--nearly 4,000 feet above sea level. "Look at the view!" I gush, agog over the panorama of valleys and slopes: the mountains of West Virginia to the west, the foothills and flatlands of Virginia to the east.

"I'm driving," I hear, reminded anew of Harold's sacrifice in taking me to the mountains I love despite the heights that terrify him. The first time I'd taken him camping, we'd reached the mountains on a pitch-black night. My bladder about to burst, we'd seen no signpost for a rest area for miles. I convinced him to pull over so I could relieve myself behind a tree. "Don't go that far!" he'd shouted, startling me. "You'll fall off a cliff." On another trip, when I'd advanced to the barren rock rim of a cliff to admire the fantastic view, he'd yelled, "Get back here! You're going to fall!"

"No, I'm not!" came my laughing reaction each time.

We snake down the mountain without stopping at an overlook, find the correct exit, see the huge sign for the orchard we don't want and not a sign for the orchard we do want.

"Peaks of Otter Winery," Harold reads a sign on the right.

"There should be a sign for Johnson's Orchard along here somewhere," I say. Fenced fields stretch to distant tree lines. We see cattle, begin to see scattered houses, then a sign for the town of Bedford, and finally the town itself. "Did you see any sign for Johnson's Orchard?" I ask Harold, disappointed and confused.

"No," he answers. We stop at a major crossroads and peer left, then right. No sign indicating which way we should turn. This crossroads wasn't in the kindly gentleman's directions.

"I'm going to ask for directions," Harold proclaims, and pulls into the gas station on the corner. I follow him into the mini mart, welcoming the opportunity to stretch my legs and search out a restroom.

"It's back the way we came," he says when we rejoin. "The guy that runs the place lives back up that way. We need to follow the signs for the Winery." I squint suspiciously. That announcement is a bit too gleeful. Nevertheless, we purchase soft drinks, return to the car, and have a second chance to admire the peacefully grazing cows and the touristy clapboard store with the worm fence and the big sign offering homemade peach ice cream and mountain grown apples. We reach the Winery sign and turn left. "It should be about three miles down," Harold says confidently.

I'm sure we've gone three miles and passed that milepost when I spot a furry thing lying in the road. "That's a dead otter!" I cry, sitting straighter and craning my neck. It looks just like the stuffed toy otters offered for sale at Otter Creek's gift shop. "What a great souvenir. Stop the car!" Why buy a fake otter when I can own the real thing? What a memento. After all, every physical feature in the area is named Otter-something. Otter Creek, Peaks of Otter, Two Otter Creek, Peaks of Otter Winery . . . .

Harold doesn't deign to answer and doesn't stop the car. I slump against the seat, mutter, "Spoil sport," and return my attention to the scenery. A house! That goes by. More fields. Up a slope. Down a slope. Up another. We're still in the valley, but even Harold starts to fidget. "We should have seen something by now, don't you think?" I ask.

"This has to be the right road. We haven't seen another one." We continue on, and in the distance spot a crossroad. On the right is a farmhouse, a small s-shaped curve, and in the juncture of the curve, a sign. Large letters proclaim Peaks of Otter Winery above an arrow. At the bottom of the sign in tiny print are the words "Johnson's Orchard." Hallelujah! We turn right. The road angles up a slope. We pass land for sale. We pass a farmhouse. We pass another. We come to peach trees with limbs bent to the ground under a burden of ripe fruit. Row upon row of apple trees stretch beyond sight, burdened with red and yellow apples, branches so burdened that some have broken, their tips lying on the ground. Maybe the owners will hire me as a migrant worker, I fantasize. What heaven!

We locate the orchard’s entrance, then a gray weathered barn with a graveled parking area. Farther down the road, fat, dark grapes hang from wire trellises; to our right, a lone purple plum tree stands, its upright limbs wreathed with fruit like a brilliantly adorned Christmas tree.

Inside the enclosed barn sleeps a shaggy, clay-colored dog. He doesn't even snort as we pass him in his old man's bliss. Shelves stocked with canned goods of every sort wrap the left-hand wall; a rustic counter and cash register occupy a space in the center of the floor. In the wide-open space beyond the cash register stand wooden bins, each marked with the name of an apple or peach. Some names I recognize; some I don't. But it's the fruit, not the names, that draw me. Red apples, yellow apples, golden apples, red-and-greenish-gold-striped apples; peaches wafting a scent more alluring than perfume. In a canner's daze, I stutter questions to someone who looks like he works there and receive directions on how to sate the fruits of my desire. Harold and I consult and decide to pick our own apples. It's a way to remain in this heaven of God's bounty as long as possible.

We leave the barn with the employee, are pointed in the direction of ripe apples, and begin picking, mostly yellowish-green apples, some red. If they had names, I never learned them. All I knew were their full, beautiful, squat apple shapes and the hot scent of an apple orchard drowsing, like the old dog, under a late summer sun. Harold picks until I sound the poison ivy alert, then he retreats to the picnic tables arranged in rows under a tin-roofed, open air shed, leaving me to wander the dusty rows of scattered weeds and broken limbed fruit trees, choosing and picking the most perfect apples from many different trees.

When I can fit no more apples into my half-bushel bags, I locate Harold and we return to the commercial barn. I gather a half-bushel of peaches from the interior bins while Harold samples the orchard's wines. I locate their samples of apple cider and point Harold in that direction. He points me to the canned goods samples: jams, jellies, chutneys, relishes, butters. I taste pumpkin butter for the first time. Finally, we pay for our fruit purchases, locate sandwich items from our camping supplies, and return to the picnic tables for a late lunch and enjoyment of the breeze that blows up the slope. The clay-colored dog joins us and receives a crusty bit of bread for his patient companionship.

Even without the dead otter, this day provides the perfect end to our mountain vacation.

* * * * a Rafflecopter giveaway

Don’t forget to visit other participating author blogs for other prizes and even more chances to win: