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Happy Birthday, Mac and Cheese, Please, Please, Please! 🥳 ✨

August 15, 2023 by Renae Wrich in category Writing tagged as Children's stories, Mac and Cheese, Macaroni and Cheese, MacaroniAndCheese

I can’t believe that my book, Mac and Cheese, Please, Please, Please, turned three last month!!!

It brings me so much joy to think of my little book as a three-year-old going around begging everyone for macaroni and cheese. 😂

If you haven’t come across my book before, it’s a story inspired by my own daughters and their relentless pursuit of macaroni and cheese for every meal.

Every day, they’d ask their mommy,
“Please, please, please, Mommy.
Please, please, please.
Can we have mac and cheese?”

Publishing this book was such an incredible experience for me during a really tough year. I look forward to putting out the sequel, which I’m hoping to make happen in 2024.

Until then,
Peace, love, and mac & cheese! 💛

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Revealed: what novels inspired me to write French historicals that led to me writing ‘Sisters at War’

August 11, 2023 by Jina Bacarr in category Jina’s Book Chat, Writing tagged as Confessions of a Podcast Goddess, histoicals, writing

When I was making this video, I found an old photo of me ‘studying’ back in the day at university. I was sitting outside what we called the ‘student center’ near the science building on campus. A friend captured the moment and I kept the photo in my college yearbook. [college photo in video]

Yes, we wore dresses and I remember those black suede shoes. Low heels. I started out wearing 3-inch heels — red, of course — but that didn’t last. The campus was vast and hilly and I had to trek across the campus from the humanities building to the library and then to the science building.

A different time.

I lived in Laguna Beach steps from the ocean, got my first surfboard, and had a wonderful mentor from the golden days of Hollywood. A charming, older lady who helped me with my singing.

I’ve come a long way… but I’ll always remember those days sitting on the beach and reading my ‘Angelique‘ books.

And studying French and German.

I made it through college, then went to live in Europe, and embarked on the adventures that eventually made it into my novels. Especially ‘SISTERS AT WAR‘. The story of the Beaufort Sisters in Paris 1940 when the unthinkable happens to one of them… a violent sexual assault… and how it affects them both.

More later… and how I added my own life experiences to the story.

Jina

#BoldwoodBirthday Boldwood Books

Bold Book Club

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CONFERENCE PREP Part One

August 8, 2023 by Tracy Reed in category Writing

Happy August. It really feels like time is zipping by on a bullet train.

Let’s get down to it. In case I hadn’t mentioned it, I’m excite to be signing at the inaugural Steamy Lit Con later this month. This is my first mega signing and I was surprised at the amount of prep it required.

I had a lot of questions. At the top of the list,how many books to take? Followed by what kind of swag to take and how much?…What titles to take so I could set up a preorder?…Table decor…what to wear?…Can I bring an assistant?

It seemed like the list of questions was endless. Then I started noticing in the author group people were talking about exclusives. My mind was buzzing. I didn’t have an exclusive book or product.

I was growing overwhelmed with each post I read. I finally reached out to couple of veteran mega book signing authors for clarity because the answers I was getting were all over the place.

Check out some of the questions and answers.
How many books to take?
50 – 100 copies per title
200 per title
Don’t take every title, but take about 20 – 40 per of the ones you bring

What Swag to bring?
Postcards
Buttons
Bookmarks for sure
Pens, Stickers and bag clips
Magnets

Signage…
You definitely need a sign
I only do table top signs
I hate those retractable banners
I use a custom table cloth or drape

Forms of payment…do you charge tax?
PayPal
Cash
Venmo
CashApp
Square
Get a QR code
My website
Bring a lot of change
Yes, charge tax
Figure tax into the price

Do you discount your books?
Yes
No

I’m not exaggerating when I say it took me about a month to come up with a plan. Originally, based on some early information, I thought I was going to need A LOT of books. I was basing this on what I’d seen on various social media posts. If I’d stuck with that plan, I was going to order a few books every month so I wouldn’t have to do large orders. Well that never happened.

So here’s what I did.

Selected a show inventory.
I have a few titles and knew I didn’t want to bring everything. I knew I wanted to take my most popular series, The Good Girl and The Alex Chronicles. I also wanted to take my duet, A Southern Gentleman. I hadn’t intended to take my other series Generational Curse, but it’s going…I’ll explain why later. Plus I wanted to take my stand alone.

Let me explain. If this weren’t a local event and if it weren’t the first time I’d be meeting these readers, I’d have take fewer titles. My two main series have five books each. When you add in the duet and stand alones, it begins to look like a book store.

I did a preorder.
I did this because it would help with figuring out what to order. I was hoping for a lot of preorders. I received three…technically it was four. My mom/show assistant was generous to place a preorder. This was two more than the last time I did an event with a preorder. I understand the low number is because I’m a relative unknown…I’m working to change that.

Two of the preorders came from books I was on the fence about taking. I figured if I got preorders on them, I’d take them. That’s how I ended up taking the Generational Curse series and the anthology I was in earlier this year. For the record, I always intended to purchase a few copies of the anthology. I just hadn’t gotten around to doing so. The other reason I wasn’t too eager to bring Generational Curse, is because I’m going to do an update. But that changed.

How many books did I order?
I took the advice of the veteran authors and focused on the first book in the series. No matter how much I want people who have never read me to buy the entire series, I couldn’t order based on that. Instead, I ordered 20 of the first two books in each series and the first in the duet, five of everything else. This was a game changer. I write big books and if I’d gone with the other advice, it would have cost me a few thousand dollars.

I’ll stop here, otherwise this post will begin to resemble a novella. I hope this helps as you prepare for your next book signing.

Tracy

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And Then There Were Two by Kitty Bucholtz

July 22, 2023 by Kitty Bucholtz in category It's Worth It by Kitty Bucholtz, Writing tagged as Kitty Bucholtz, middle-grade fiction, self-publishing, writing

When I got married 33 years ago, I knew there would be a lot of combining things in our lives. John taught me to enjoy comic books and Dungeons & Dragons. I helped him discover a couple chick flicks he could watch multiple times.

What I didn’t expect to share was my identity as a writer.

At first, it was really difficult for me, a middle child, to share a place I’d carved out for me. (Middle children out there, I bet you understand.) But over time I not only got used to the fact that my animator husband had started writing middle grade superhero stories, I decided to help him get them published.

Insert long story here about sending the book out to agents. (Many of you know this story.) So John decided he’d follow me and self-publish.

And since I’m a book coach and help people not only finish their books, but self-publish their books…yup, I had another client! (This one pays with kisses and backrubs and…ah-hem…moving on!) So as we insert another long story here, I’m now officially a publisher since I publish two authors. Whoa!

Let me know if you’d like to know how that’s working and I’ll make a point of writing it all down and posting it here. Meanwhile, I’m doing the publisher thing and promoting a book! 😀

Life as a Teenage Superhero is free through the end of today, Saturday, July 22, 2023, on all Amazon stores that sell ebooks. (I never thought I’d have to add those last three words, but the new Amazon store in Sweden doesn’t sell ebooks yet!) If you enjoyed the Harry Potter books, you might love Life as a Teenage Superhero. And if you have kids or grandkids from about 8 years old and up, they may love it too! (Also available in Kindle Unlimited for the next 90 days.)

We’ve got John’s second book in the 11-book series, Get a Half-Life, up on pre-order on Amazon with new books in the series coming out every 2-4 months. One of the new things I’ll be doing this year is creating a second print edition that is specifically for dyslexic readers! It’s a busy and exciting time to be a writer — and a publisher!

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🍉 Sweet Summertime

July 15, 2023 by Renae Wrich in category Writing

Greetings, Orange Peeps!

My family is entering a rare period of the year where we don’t have any youth sports or activities. It only happens twice a year – In Christmas and late July.

My oldest daughter’s softball team just wrapped up their season by taking third place in their state tournament. Woo hoo! #ProudSoftballMom

My youngest daughter is finishing up her dance intensives this week with hopes to join a competitive dance line next year. Fingers crossed! #ProudDanceMom

Youth sports definitely has its not-so-glamorous moments that almost always resides with adults. Take your pick- Parents screaming at umpires over a call, or seasoned dance moms glaring at the incoming kids who are just hoping to make the team.

Despite this, I find that there are some pretty spectacular lessons that can be learned from kids in sports. For instance, my daughter’s softball team was one of the youngest teams in their class. After winning all of their games last year, they were bumped up as a ‘C’ team in the next class. The girls would get so deflated every time we would lose against a B team.

“We lost because they were a ‘B team’.”

But then one tournament, they beat a B team. From that moment on, they didn’t let the letter matter to them.

You should have seen this team battle through their state tournament. One game went into triple overtime and I had to pinch myself to remember that these little humans are only nine years old.

Similarly, the day before my daughter’s dance intensives, she decided she no longer wanted to go through with it. I was shocked! I said, “What are you talking about? You love dance!”

She explained to me that she was nervous. “I’ve never danced Jazz before, Mom!”

I reminded her to just have fun and show the instructors the things she knew from ballet and tap. And that’s exactly what she did. That little firecracker danced her heart out and her love for dance was practically seeping from her pores. I could not have been more proud.