One Hour for My Priest

I am so excited to share with you the newest book from our critique group: One Hour for My Priest by Tina Jost. It is a prayer companion for when we offer an hour of prayer in front of the Blessed Sacrament for our beloved priests, without whom we wouldn't have the Mass or the Holy Eucharist. We began this practice a couple of years ago through the Seven Sister Apostolate and I cannot even begin to express to you the shower of graces, not only upon the priests we pray for, but in our own lives. I've known Tina since we moved to Charleston--she brought us a most delicious lasagna--and one of the things I discovered is that not only is she a fantastic cook, but a prayer warrior extraordinaire. I can always ask her to pray for an intention and when I feel weak and discouraged, I can rely on her to pray for me. I am so blessed to have a network of strong prayerful women in my life.

So, when Tina showed me some of the prayers she was writing during her Holy Hour, I knew she had to make these available for the rest of us. It's not easy making a Holy Hour for a single person. Too many concerns distract and when the mind wanders it's so helpful to have a book to turn to. Tina's prayer companion can easily be adapted for anyone you want to make a Holy Hour for or for your own self. It is going to become a permanent resident of my Adoration bag to help me turn my thoughts on Him instead of the responsibilities of the day. A Holy Hour is one of the greatest gifts in this life.

I'm also excited that I get to share a few copies at the Marian Eucharistic Conference. Our critique group--Charleston Christian Writers--has purchased a table. We hired Gabriel Shahid to make a banner for us and we just love how beautifully he rendered our vision. We also made flyers--yes, we are learning to do what we can to share our books! 

On Disappointments and Surprises

March for Life weekend coincided with the annual ALA meeting when the awards are announced for the best books published in the previous year. Youth media award winners here (I've not yet read a single one, but our librarian is wonderful about stocking the major award-winners, so will remedy this soon). Even though I spent much of my time in prayer that weekend, I was aware of a little hollow. There was no phone message for me. See, I had entered Tongue-Tied for the Schneider Family Award. It didn't even make the honor. I wanted to cry. The previous year, I entered Bound. Yes, I cried then too. The sticker you see on Bound is the Seal of Approval from the Catholic Writing Guild, just the first step towards the Catholic Arts & Letters Award.

Why do I do this to myself? Because I think they could've won. Yes, I'm biased. But I'm also a big reader and my books are comparable to the ones who've won in previous years. We're told to not compare ourselves with others, to do the best we can do, but seeking comparable titles is something we should do. Why am I looking for more validation? The biggest reason is for gaining more readers, having a wider audience. If I get that shiny sticker, it's vetted by people in the business. I know that kids don't care about stickers or whether a book is work-for-hire or trade. They just want a good story and they are discerning. You can't fool kids. But the people who put those books in the hands of kids are adults--parents, teachers, librarians, grandparents--so you have to woo them too. Thankfully, Tongue-Tied is marketed directly to schools so it will get in the hands of kids, still I would've appreciated a sticker. I know, vanity, vanity, it's all vanity.

In other news, I went to my KDP dashboard and was surprised to see a spike--10 paperbacks sold of Bound! On Friday, Jan. 22nd, the day of the March for Life! I assumed it must've been a youth group leader or teacher who wanted to use it for discussion. I thought for sure I'd hear from this person and if they were within driving distance, I'd visit their group. But there were no such calls or emails. Then I thought, I should look up where the sales came from on my Author Central account. People, if you are not using this wonderful tool, you are missing out on data that Amazon collects. I discovered that the sales were spread throughout the country. What a coincidence. I wonder what prompted ten people to purchase a copy of Bound because I've observed that unless I run an advertising campaign, there are no sales. With self-publishing, discoverability is low. And I'm giving up on advertising because I lose money. Let's face it, I'm a writer, and I need to focus on the writing, but something somewhere triggered ten people to buy a copy and I'd like to know what it is. Maybe it was the recent magazine article in Shalom. That's the only thing I can think of. If you have any ideas, let me know. Regardless, I'm delighted that ten more people will read BOUND and share it. My readership will grow slowly. We write to change the world, to make a difference, one person at a time, and what a privilege it is to have this beautiful writing life.

Your thoughts on awards? Do you read award-winners?
ETA: Jan reminded me how personal it can be so adding a link to the time when I served as a judge for the SCBWI Magazine Merit Awards.  

Respect Life BOUND Sale

October is Respect Life month and I am having a sale both for the e-book (on all platforms) for 99 cents and paperback of BOUND for $10.99 this entire month. This is a perfect time to get multiple copies for your classroom or book group discussion. I hear it has provoked many thoughtful discussions, especially when it's hard to choose life. Please contact me if you want me to come speak to your class or book group. It would be a great pleasure.

I am a few days late but September has been a busy month with two writing conferences, deadlines to meet, and preparing for two High Masses (JOY!). I hope you will share this with your friends. Also, I hate to beg, but if you've read the book, I would really appreciate a quick review on Amazon--this is not like the book review you had to do in school; rather the best and easiest way is to just express your honest reaction. Perhaps it made you think. Maybe you want to spend more time with Rebecca and Joy (I do!) or you hated the ending. It's really okay. Once a book is published it belongs to the reader. I am thankful for all my readers, whether or not they have reservations about leaving reviews.

Here's the most recent review:

C. Kane

5.0 out of 5 starsA compelling, believable, and satisfying novel

August 9, 2019

Format: Kindle EditionVerified Purchase

This is a page turner with multidimensional characters and realistic, compelling choices for the main character. The metaphor of the possibility of alternate realities is apt as Rebecca navigates a series of tough decisions and revelations to ultimately make up her own mind in a way that is satisfying and believable.

 

One of the things I've learned is that Amazon gives a boost to your book if it has more than 50 reviews. So my heartfelt thanks to all who've read AND reviewed BOUND. I keep praying it will fall into the hands of those who need to read it.

I've not done any marketing for my other books, except for a school visit or two the years they came out. At the Write2Ignite conference, quite a few people were astounded that I have a lot of books and I don't market any of them. But I have no need when teachers and librarians see them listed in industry journals. Alas, most self-published books have the problem of discoverability; they do not get seen and they sink into oblivion. Actually, the vast majority of trade books tank too, so I don't feel too terrible. It's the bestsellers that keep a publishing house in business, that allows them to purchase books that they love that only 500 other people might love. So I'm very thankful for the bestselling celebrity books because I've read so many wonderful books that otherwise wouldn't be published. 

In any case, this is a great time to be writing. You have more options than you think. Don't let the rejections get you down. Persevere. Here's something I wrote on rejections for Write 2 Ignite.  

Happy reading, writing AND submitting, folks! 

Deuteronomy 30:19 I call heaven and earth to witness against you today that I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Choose life so that you and your descendants may live.

One Year Book Birthday Sale

I published BOUND one year ago! What a journey it's been--exhilarating at times, equally frustrating at other times. I've learned so many things and still have so much more to learn. Thanks to all my early readers and supporters (you know who you are) who read the book and shared it with friends and corrected my typos. Thanks to all who reviewed Bound. Thanks to the numerous interviews and discussions. I am so blessed to have this writing life. To celebrate, I'm holding a sale: 99 cents for all e-book platforms and $10.99 for the paperback from July 2nd-7th. Luckily, this anniversary coincides with the annual National Right to Life Conference and it's held in Charleston this year (July 5-6). Perhaps I'll see you there!!! Please share!!! 

BOUND

What joy to see BOUND on the shelves of my library!!! Of course, I'd be even happier if it were checked out. My friends, spread the word. I have prayed that BOUND may find its way into the hands of young women and men, and parents of special needs children, and especially those who really need to read it, who will be transformed by it. I am no marketeer, but a simple writer. Please help me. Ask for it at your library because self-published books will hardly ever get on the radar of librarians. Recommend it for your classroom (13+) or book club. Invite me to come speak with you about it. If you loved it, share it with a friend, write a review. And my heartfelt thanks to all who've done so much to promote it already. It's been nearly a year since I published it and although I told myself I would learn to market, it is a painfully slow process. I did a few experiments in advertising but I don't know what I'm doing. And I confess that I would rather write new stories that are roiling in my head.

I feel an urgency about getting BOUND in as many hands as possible because it is unabashedly pro-life. And we need the ordinary people to stand up for these most vulnerable amongst us--the babies. I've been so thankful to see many states passing "heartbeat" laws to protect babies and their mothers from the horrors of abortion. But other states, Democrat-led, are enshrining abortion as a fundamental right and go as far as to advocate infanticide. However, most people oppose abortion during the last three months of pregnancy when the baby can live outside the mother's womb. I find it strange that people try to make exceptions for rape or incest. Abortion punishes the baby, not the rapist. Of course, it's a great burden upon the woman to conceive a child in this way and carry it to term. Ryan Bomberger has written a very cogent argument for preserving life in all cases: I am the 1% used to defend 100% of abortions.


This is why I wrote BOUND. I took one of the worst-case scenarios and made a case for the dignity of the human person because each of us is fearfully and wonderfully made. We each have a unique role to play. 

Consider that 71 million baby girls have been aborted in China and India since the 1980s simply because they are girls. These missing girls are now missing women, women who would be wives, mothers, teachers, doctors, artists, etc. The men are already feeling this loss. In the US alone, we are missing over 61 million children since Roe v Wade (1973), some of whom would be middle-aged by now. These are our brothers and sisters, our aunts and uncles, our friends. And the carnage continues at the rate of about one every 30 seconds. Worldwide it is a staggering 1.5 billion. I know this is too big a number to comprehend, like numbering the stars, but every one is utterly unique and irreplaceable. This is a huge loss of life--it is unjust, like slavery, like the Jewish holocaust. We must end it.   

This is the season of Pentecost! Come Holy Spirit and enkindle in us the Fire of Thy Love. Send forth Thy Spirit and renew the face of the earth. Listen to this beautiful Gregorian Chant: Veni Creator Spiritus! 

 

In Praise of the Local -- Island Expressions

I always try to shop locally and one of the most wonderful things about living on Daniel Island is that everything I need is here. About the only time I leave the island is on Sundays to go to Latin Mass at Stella Maris. Yes, this is how small my life is and I like it just fine :) 

My interview with Heath Ellison of Daniel Island News is up. A friend of mine saw it before I did--our newspaper was soggy by the time I found it. I doubt many on the island will even see it because of Florence. I shouldn't complain when so many people have lost their homes in NC and upper SC. It's better to have a Cat 4 hurricane blow through quickly than this awful slow-moving Cat 1/tropical storm. The torrential rainfall has caused devastating flooding. 

Anyhow, newspapers are notorious for cutting off the ends of things if they're running out of space, so my book signing/meet-the-author event didn't show up. Locals: I'll be at Island Expressions on Tuesday, Oct. 9th from 4-6 pm. I hope to see you there. I picked up a dry copy of the paper from the lovely shop--it's the place I go when I need to get a unique gift. The best part is that many of the items are made by artists in the area. So thankful for local arts and crafts.   

 

Finally, here's a very useful website that lists all newspapers in the US: http://www.usnpl.com/  Local papers are always happy to publish community news so if you have a book to promote, never hesitate to contact your newspaper.

Happy Bits and Bobs

I'm sooo delighted to have Bound in the Pauline Books & Media store downtown Charleston as well as in Island Expressions, a beautiful little boutique shop on Daniel Island. It's wonderful to be amongst the greats. Books really are the only thing that break the space/time barrier so my book is happy to rub its spine against Flannery's. Up above were Tolkien and Lewis. 

I promised that I'd share results of my weekend sale for the e-book. It was a success. There were 18 downloads :) Don't laugh. When you've had zero in a week, 18 is progress. As you can see, my reach is very small. I know of people who get thousands of downloads when they have a sale. I don't know enough about advertising to throw $$$ at it yet. My hope is that those who read Bound will share it. That way readership will grow organically. 

Friends, I ask that you request Bound at your library whether or not you've purchased a copy. This becomes win-win for all. ISBN is 978-1983227417. Thank you. 

We've also had a bounty of jalapenos so Michael made ABTs. I made an Indian milk dessert--kalakand--from the gallon of milk left over. Oh my! It was a perfect antidote for the jalapenos. The cats, too, enjoyed licking the bowl. Here they are, sated!

I also received a newsy letter in this beautiful handmade card from my PhD advisor, Lin. I love how much care she's taken to choose a card (her sister is the artist) that fits with Bound. I can almost imagine it was made specially to highlight some of the themes in my book! She'd introduced me to Marcel Proust--there was a copy of Remembrance of Things Past in our tea room, where she also kept the two-volume Oxford English Dictionary. Even though I had to use a magnifying glass to read it, I loved it. It's such a rare scientist who enjoys using words precisely (I think it's a necessity no matter what field you're in). It was so good to catch up on her life and to know she enjoyed Bound so much she wants to share it with a long-time colleague and friend from England who comes every summer to do a few experiments with her. How I wish I could join them for a discussion. It'd be like old times. Happy sigh! 

Labor Day Weekend Sale

I am determined to learn marketing this fall, so my first experiment is to play with pricing on the e-book. For this Labor Day weekend, I'd like for you to have the fruit of my labor for only 99 cents! 

I hope Bound reaches many new readers at this low price. Please spread the word. If the results are spectacular, I might even share them :)

The e-book is also now available on other platforms besides Amazon thanks to Draft2Digital. I've changed the price on all the platforms through Sept. 3rd. I'm not quite sure how to reach people who are on all these other platforms. But going wide is the first step. I have thought about joining KindleUnlimited but they want exclusivity. I'm a little leery of putting all my eggs in one basket (okay, I know it's only one small egg, but still).

I made the advertisement using https://coverssellbooks.com/ I don't know if I'll be doing paid advertising any time soon. I still haven't recouped the cost of hiring a professional designer. Still, given I'm in this for the long haul, it's a most worthwhile investment. Here's what James Egan, a guest judge, on the Book Designer said about the cover: A nice straightforward approach. I like how the lines of the title font mimic the lines of the illustration. A most educational website both on self-publishing and book design.

I hope you all take a rest from your labors and enjoy the holiday.