Happy Columbus Day, Calendar, Book Signing: Monday Blog Post

man climbing the mountain from Depositphotos_105717054_original

Newest News:

Happy Columbus Day! I love a three-day weekend and I’m retired. It’s the idea that everyone gets an extra day off of work to have a picnic or take a hike or do other family things that just makes me happy. So I hope you and your family get a chance to do whatever it is that makes you happy.

I’ve finished my 2019 calendar. Arizona is such a beautiful place and a calendar of pictures from central AZ fits in so well with my Jean Hays series, I really just can’t resist sharing. Now that it’s completed, you can find the calendar on Lulu. Just click on the link and purchase as many copies as you want for yourself, friends and family. Feel free to share the link, and this post!

This weekend, October 13th and 14th, I’ll be at the Pine/Strawberry Fall Festival. It’s a craft fair, antique show, book signing and chili cookoff all combined into one, great, two-day event. I’ll be there the whole weekend, ready to sell some books and sign them too. My hubby is entering a chili, he’s titled it Red Menace, in the chili cook-off. The cook-off starts at 11am on Saturday the 13th and the chili tasting and the chili, goes fast. So come early, try the chilis, and browse the many vendors there with great crafts, books, and antiques perfect for birthday or Christmas gift-giving. See you there.

The Gulliver Station box set still has some sort of error that’s preventing it from being distro’d to Kobo, iBooks and other places. That’s on Smashwords. I’ve tried a couple of things to fix it but it’s a no go. Over on Amazon, I’m trying to get the box set up as a paperback. For some reason the cover size isn’t doing what I want in the application. Then in the manuscript, I can’t get the pagination right. I’m about ready to pull my hair out. Still, I may have to make more phone calls to get it all put together correction.

I mentioned last week that I have my notice to transfer all of my paperback book files from Createspace to Kindle. I didn’t get that done because of the fight with the box set. Need to do that before they do it for me.

Giveaways:

The 2018 Authors/Bloggers Summer Giveaway is over. One of my winners is Jodie Pagan who’s won an ebook copy of my book, First Encounter. The other person who won actually unsubscribed in March but came back this summer to try for a prize. I’m not awarding that person the prize. I’ll be drawing a new winner.

I want to take a moment here to mention that as authors, we do these giveaways to build our newsletter lists. I happen to use the service MailChimp and they charge me quite a bit a month to use their service to contact you about my new books, contests and other news. When a contest subscriber joins my list and then unsubscribes, and several do that as soon as the contest is over, I get a nasty warning from the service that because of the number of unsubscribes, they may cancel my service. I know many of you enjoy the contests and love to get the gifts. But please, if you don’t want to hear from me, I understand. Really I do. Just don’t subscribe.

The 2018 Halloween giveaway is now open. You can join in the fun at https://conniesrandomthoughts.com/giveaways-and-prizes/. There’s $80+ as a Grand Prize Paypal cash, plus books and other prizes.

Newsletter Sign Up:

Click here to sign up for my newsletter. I’ve put sign-up gifts on the regular and the SciFi/Fantasy and the Cozy Mystery 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 to be the first to read my books and hear what new books are coming.

Don’t forget to follow my blog, too. Different material goes in the blog as in the newsletter. You can share both, so spread the word!

Newest Book Release:

The Gulliver Station ebook box set released July 30th, 2018. You can buy it at Amazon today. You can also see all my books on https://conniesrandomthoughts.com/my-books-and-other-published-work/. If you’ve read any of my books, please drop a short, honest, review on the site where you bought it or on Goodreads. It’s critical to help me promote the books to other readers. Thanks in advance.

Thank you for reading my blog. Like all of the other work I do as an author, it takes time and money. If you enjoy this Monday blog and the Friday free story and the recipe I put up on the 25th of every month, consider donating to https://www.paypal.me/ConniesRandomThought. I appreciate any donation to help support this blog.