Crowd at the Payson Book Festival 2016
Newest News:
So I have had a week’s recovery from the Payson Book Festival, held July 23rd. It was a great success with over 90 authors and over 600 visitors. Food, music, story-telling, author presentations and all of those authors selling books from every genre, fiction and non-fiction, imaginable. As the committee, we’re all involved in the wrap-up phase. Financial sheets need to be filled in, evaluations and feedback forms reviewed and reports compiled, and sponsors, volunteers, festival goers and authors need to be thanked. We’ll have our after-action meeting on the 8th to go over what went well and what we can do better. The evaluations everyone leaves for us goes a long way to help us sort good and popular aspects of the festival from those not so good.
AuthorShout.com has been a fantastic promoter for me the entire month of July. I’m so pleased with the publicity they’ve been giving me. My book, Kindred Spirits, was on their site for the month of July. http://authorshout.com/recommended-reading/ Take a look around the site. It will be worth your while if you’re looking for a new to you author and fine reading.
Giveaways:
The Smashwords.com’s Summer/Winter Sale is now over. Four of my books, Mystery at the Fair, A New Start, First Encounter, and Lost Rainbows, were free on the site. A good many of you did go and get free books. I hope you enjoy them. They’re still available on Smashwords.com with my other books, as well as on Amazon, Kobo, Itunes, Barnes and Noble and other retailers for both paperback and ebooks. On my website, I have direct links to every book and where it is retailed.
The Red Hot Summer giveaway is still in full swing. Just click on the Rafflecopter link. You do have to sign up to Rafflecopter but after that, you’re free to click away. I have links to it on my facebook, twitter, and website pages. This giveaway I offer a free ebook, Mystery at the Fair, or for second prize, a $10 Amazon card. Over a hundred prizes from over 50 authors plus a grand prize of $150 Paypal Cash. It’s not hard to enter, there are multiple ways to enter, and it doesn’t cost you anything. You could easily win a prize. If you haven’t entered yet, enter today and every day.
Shout Out:
Let me give a big shout out to Payson Book Festival co-committee members Carol and Bing Brown. They have a back ground in media, both newspaper and radio, and Carol was a professor at Arizona State University teaching communications and media. They were responsible this year for both doing the grant work to gain us a grant from Arizona Humanities, and handling all of the media blitz involved in advertising the book festival all around the state of Arizona. They sent news releases to every paper we had an author from, arranged advertising in the Arizona Republic and electronically on the East Valley Tribune. Skilled writers and media persons, they were instrumental in the success of the 2016 Payson Book Festival. Thank you, Carol and Bing.
Garden News:
The yellow beans are ripening, as are the cherry and early girl tomatoes. I can hardly wait. Yellow beans, especially, are only available in cans. I look forward to having them fresh in the summer. The peach tree branches are groaning under the weight of the ripening peaches. The birds have already begun pecking at the fruit. The hot weather and lack of monsoon rain has killed my youngest apple tree. It was about 3 years old and I’m very sad it’s died. I’ll have to go to the garden store in September and get another. The weather should be cooler and the new tree will have time to get some roots established before winter sets in. How’s your garden doing?
Where Will I Be?:
9th annual Fall Festival in Pine, AZ. October 8th and 9th. http://pinestrawberrybusinesscommunityaz.com/fallapple.html. I’ll be there all weekend as part of the local author book signing. My hubby will be there as part of the chili cook-off at noon on Saturday. There are also crafters and a very excellent antique show scheduled, not to mention music and food!
Want more details about this event? Click here for more information.
Newsletter Sign Up:
Click here to sign up for my newsletter. I’ve put sign-up prizes on both the regular and the Brown Rain newsletter sign-ups. That’s right. If you sign up for my newsletter you get a free story from me. Be prepared for fun and contests! Click on the video link for a short video from me. Hear what I’m working on. Join my “A” Team! I’d love to see you there.
Newest Book Release:
Zoe Ohale is out for editing and is 100% done at the editors’. Now that the book festival is over, I’ll get to the further edits. If you’re a Brown Rain Series fan, I think you’ll like Zoe Ohale. You may remember a short story I published on my blog on 8/20/15, Extra Baggage. That was the second story about Zoe. The first, Betrayal Moon, is in the Forward Motion anthology, due out in the next couple of weeks. Just 17, Zoe has been an orphan living on the streets of Baia Mare since she was 12. Street smart and fiercely independent, Zoe has been offered the chance to move back into legal society by the police officer that arrested her a few months ago. But first, she has to help protect the little kids in her group, help her friend save her father from assassination, and find a criminal ring that just stole all of the physical credits being delivered to the Planetary Bank of Baia Mare. The book, the first of a series, should be out in August, if I can find time to work on it between the Book Festival and the Fair.
The third book in the Brown Rain Series, Kindred Spirits, released on March 14th! I’m pretty excited about it. You can buy it and my other books at: Apple, Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Kobo, Smashwords, Gumroads or Chatebooks today! You can also see all of my books on www.ConniesRandomThoughts.com. If you’ve read any of my books, please drop a review on the site where you bought it or on Goodreads. It’s a big help to me in the book rankings each vendor uses to promote the books on their sites. Thanks in advance.