FromMary Shelley’s FRANKENSTEIN:
“Beware. I am fearless and therefore powerful.”
This is the anthem for women in 2024!
Author Archives: Peggy Jaeger
An open letter…
Hey, Kids.
I’ve wanted to write this for a long time, but…life gets in the way, and things happen, and I just didn’t feel as if I was able to put into words exactly how I feel.
But now is as good a time as any, I think, especially with the publishing world the way it is.
You all know I started out as a traditionally published author back in 2015. The fabulous Rhonda Penders, RJ Morris, and their company, The Wild Rose Press, took a chance on a chubby, menopausal, bottle blonde, frustrated writer ( Me!) and published my book SKATER’S WALTZ, which, again – if you know me – know was written between the hours of 1 and 3 am for 3 months, while I was going thru the worst menopausal night sweats Mother Nature ever bestowed.
After that, and through the past 9 years, I’ve had over 16 titles published with them and have had a wonderful experience with this nurturing publisher.
Along the way, I pitched to various other publishers at conferences and was lucky enough to score contracts with three others: Kensington/Lyrical, Limitless, and Magnolia.
Then, I decided to explore indie publishing (self-publishing) because I was dropped by one of those publishers without any reason and already had three more books in the series ready to go. I decided to publish them on my own, and since then, I have almost exclusively self-published. One of those publishers went out of business, and the other decided three books were enough for me to prove I was worthy of more contracts.( p.s., I wasn’t in their eyes.)
No shade, just fact.
Now, all this happened without the benefit of a literary agent. I’ve pitched to many agents over the years, both in query letters and in person, and no one has ever taken me on as a client, one even telling me point blank at a meeting she “didn’t like my voice.”
Yeah, let’s just talk about how fragile my ego was for months after that why don’t we?
Sarcasm aside, no agent and now no publishing house, and the self-pub route is my go-to.
I tell you all this because – if you don’t already know – self-pubbing is hard work. Really hard. You are a business of 1. You are the writer, the editor, the cover designer, the promoter, the distributor, the publicist, everything that there are several people on a team doing in a traditional pubbing house.
If you self-publish, you are IT! CEO and all the minions underneath that.
Now, if you have the money to, you can pay people you contract to design your covers, do your edits, your publicity, and your distribution.
Notice I said that you can do all those things IF YOU HAVE THE MONEY TO.
I, and I’m not ashamed to admit this because it is the truth, am not independently wealthy, nor do I work outside the house. I left my job once I got that first publishing contract and, truthfully, have never looked back.
So, I do it all.
And I mean ALL.
I write the story, edit it, design the covers for the books, and format the manuscripts. I am in charge of uploading the books to a publishing company, aka Amazon. I am in charge of any and all publicity to promote those books. I am the one who must call indie booksellers to get my works into their stores (Quick Aside, I have been in only one.) I have to order proof copies and find arc readers for them. I have to design ads, graphics, and publicity shots for promotion. I decide what the prices are, where the books are distributed, and then I am the CFO to keep all the expenses in check. I have to find unique ways to market my books so they stand out from the other 100,000 indie books that are pubbed every week.
In a nutshell…I am it. All of it.
And I’m tired.
I’m tired of making self-promotion videos every day for my books that only a handful of people see.
I’m tired of trying to find new readers on platforms that confuse me, like TikTok and Instagram. The algorithm doesn’t support my stuff, so about 200 people see my videos every day, and they are already following me. Plus, I hate doing those promos. I am, basically, an introvert and not a salesperson. Those two combined do not make for an enigmatic speaker or “hawker.”
I’m tired of seeing zero sales on my Amazon royalty sheets, months at a clip. If I had to support myself financially, I wouldn’t be able to and therefore wouldn’t be able to write. I’d need to go back into the workforce at 64 years old. Yeah, how many job opportunities are there for someone like me? I hear Walmart is hiring.
I’m tired of doing everything every day with no help. I don’t have a PA and can’t afford to pay one because — no sales. Vicious cycle, much??
I can’t afford to attend big book signings with multi-authors anymore because of the expense involved. Table fees, hotels, gas, plus purchasing the books that I hope will sell and yet never do. Also, since I am a business of 1, I have to schlep everything to the sites, set it up, and be responsible for sales, self-promotion, and inventory. My brain is only so big, Kids. Only so big.
I have to admit this here, even if it makes me look like a loser, but it’s demoralizing and soul-killing to go to a big signing and have hundreds of people walk by your table on their way to a “bigger name” or someone they already follow, and never even make eye contact with you, or dismiss you and your table with a glance. I am the type of person who will try and establish a connection with people I don’t know at signings, but I must come across as weird or desperate(!) because 9 times out of 10, readers just walk by. Some smile. Some make a comment telling me they don’t read what I write. Yeah…demoralizing.
Pity party, table for one?
That’s the way this is sounding right now, and I don’t want it to be a whine fest.
But…it’s also ego-crushing when you know authors who have written books that are – let’s just say, not great literature – making a killing in sales, propelling the writer to celebrity status, and you know – you know! – the stuff she writes is crap.
And that makes me sound petulant and childish and jealous, but…pot, meet kettle and call her Peggy.
Do I still query literary agents even after all this time? Yes.
Do I still receive form letter rejections from them? Absolutely. Weekly. My total of negative responses to queries is up to 503 right at this moment.
Have I tried unique ways to get new followers through giveaways, both on Goodreads and other platforms? Yes. The results have been okay at times, poor at most, and just served to lessen my savings account total and not garnered me any new followers or readers who want to read more of my stuff.
Last year I spent over $10,000 on book signings ( travel, hotel, table fees, books), and my total income from them was only $798.00. Not even girl math can make those numbers make sense in the real world.
If I owned my own business I would have declared bankruptcy by now. Hell, five years ago!
Every day I ask myself why am I doing this? Why am I setting myself up for hurt and failure once again? Is there something in me that has a pain/pleasure response ( not to get kinky!) But who enjoys failing so many times? And I know the knee-jerk response is that “you are not a failure. Look at all you have done.”
I get that argument. I really do.
But… having a sound ego about your accomplishments is one thing. Going broke trying to attain those accomplishments? Quite another.
And every day, the only answer I can come up with to my question – because it’s the truth – is that I love to write. Writing truly is, as my website states, my oxygen.
So…moving forward and leaving the pity-me train…
I am cutting back severely on the number of big book signings I am doing in 2025, and I am going to concentrate on simply writing and doing smaller signings, where the table fees and/or travel expenses are zero or at least affordable. I have already contracted to do four big signings next year and will honor those. ROMANCY CNY in April 2025, ROMANTICON in July, and BOOKSBOOKSBOOKS in September and A VERY MERRY BOOKMAS in December. But that is it for the biggies.
I do have a few smaller, more intimate ones on the line, too, thankfully.
Hopefully, I will get asked to do a few library or more local ones along the way.
For now, though, it’s break time.
I still write every day and I still have a 2024/2025/2026 book schedule for new releases that is live. 2 more this year; 10 in 2025 ( 6 reprints on books I got the rights back on) and 4 newbies; 4 newbies in 2026.
Let’s see what 2025 does for my sales bottom line. If it improves, I may come back into the world of bigger and better multiauthor signings.
But for now… I’m gonna be on the sidelines for a bit, just writing, because…I’m tired. And I love writing. Just…writing.
Filed under Writing
#fridayfive 10.18.24
Today is a post near and dear to my heart. The five things I lovelovelove about being a Grandma
- babies. Who doesn’t love babies?
- remembering my daughter at the same age as my grandchildren are now. Teaching her, helping her, reliving milestones thru my grandchildren.
- unconditional love – given and received
- you can give them back if they are misbehaving ( lol) unlike your own children when you had to suffer thru the bad times.
- having someone think I’m smart again, LOL
Filed under #fridayfive
#TBT #ThrowbackThursday 10.17.24
From April 2017…
On #Libraries, #Librarians, feelings of connection, and #books
Apparently, it’s National Library Week. This is one celebration I can get behind and actually enjoy. Enjoy writing about; enjoy celebrating.
I’ve mentioned many times before in this blog that I — for all intents and purposes — grew up in my local library. I was what was called ( during my youth) a latchkey kid, meaning, after school, I was on my own, home alone, because both the adults in my life had full-time jobs that didn’t let out until 5 or 6 each night. School let out at 3, so that meant five afternoons a week I needed a babysitter until I got old enough to be left on my own for a few hours, which in my case was at the age of 7.
I’m remembering what my daughter was like at 7 and am horrified that my mother believed it was an appropriate age for independent responsibility, but that’s another blog topic entirely.
Anyway…
Every day after school I would be dismissed after the bell and then trek to my local library to stay until it was time to get on home.
I loved the library.
I loved the safety of it.
I loved all the books.
I loved loved loved the Librarians.
I loved the quiet.
Like Belle in Beauty and the Beast, all I wanted to do was read. I wanted to be transported to other places, live lives that weren’t my own; be loved and cherished like a princess and rule a kingdom with wisdom and grace. I could be anything I wanted to be and I could explore everything. It was in the library that I discovered my imagination and my joy of storytelling.
Once I was through the library doors each afternoon, after a 15-block walk along city streets from my school, I’d let out a sigh, safe in the knowledge that nothing bad could happen to me here. I was secure now, protected. Bad people didn’t come into the library, only good ones. People who wanted to be educated, and who wanted to escape from their everyday, boring lives and live richer, happier, more exciting ones. The library wasn’t the place where the bullies who tormented me in school “hung out.” I was free from the cruel insults, tormenting taunts, and physical violence that had become my daily life at school.
The Librarians all knew me by name and were my first, actual, REAL teachers. I learned facts in school. The Librarians taught me about life. They’d recommend books for me to read and once I was through the kids’ section selection, they moved me onto what would now be called YA ( young adult) novels. I may have been 8 or 9 years old, but I was reading about the lives of pre-teens and teenagers, living in their shoes as they drifted through life, and getting a feel for what was to come my way once I was their age.
The Librarians talked to me about books, asked me my opinion on ones I’d read. They actually valued my thoughts. They showed me the strength there is in knowledge and the beauty there is in imagination. They fostered in me that desire to tell a tale, tell it well, and change a reader’s life. They taught me how to be entertained, and in so doing, how to entertain. They taught me how to gather knowledge, the beauty there is in research, and how to prioritize. To this day, my home library follows a basic Dewey Decimal system. To some, that may be a bit extreme. But to me, it is a real tribute to the librarians who helped form my mind and fed my soul.
In the library, we spoke in hushed tones and whispers. We used the original inside voices. In my house, the voices were more often raised than hushed, loud than peaceful, tormented than quiet.
In the library, I found myself…as a girl, a person, a student, and, ultimately, as a writer.
Every day I thank God for the women and men who worked and still work in local libraries. They are unsung heroes to countless children and adults. Where some may think that the previous statement is a tad theatrical, it isn’t to me. The Librarians I knew as a child were my heroes. They kept me safe, loved and cared about me, and opened a world for me I never knew existed.
Heroes, every last one of them.
So, help me celebrate National Library Week. Support your local libraries by donating old, in-good-condition books, attend book sales and fund drives and become a Friend of the Library. Encourage your children and grandchildren to get Library cards and to use them! Often and with enthusiasm.
Finding your local library is just a Google search away!
Filed under #throwbackthursday
#tuesdaytease 10.15.24
With less than a month until the release of A CHEF’S KISS CHRISTMAS, I’m ramping up the attempts to get to my goal of 1000 preorders before release day, 11.11.24.
So, here’s a little something from Portia’s point of view:
“Why do you all have such a penchant for walking around in freezing cold weather?” Portia asked as she huddled under her scarf, tugging it up over her mouth. “This has to be the coldest day since I got here.”
Colt, Abra’s husband, laughed. While he readjusted three-year-old Stevie on his shoulders, ensuring his little girl was safe and secure, he said, “If you think this is cold, Portia, wait another month. January and February are hibernation months in these parts.”
“I’ll be long gone by then, back to perpetually sunny skies and temperatures above freeze-your-you-know-what-off every day,” she responded.
Abra, who had baby Amelia in a carrier attached to her torso, laughed. Most of Amy’s family, including daughter Sasha, her husband, Steve, and their daughter Mikaela, along with Abra, Colt, their two kids, and Amy’s husband Andy, who was holding Blake’s hand while her mother and father were home with the newborn baby, all ambled down the wide Main Street of Dickens, making their way to the town Common where the annual tree lighting ceremony was due to start in a few minutes.
The town turned out en masse for the yearly event, the crowds shoulder to shoulder as they strolled along the sidewalks and in the streets, which had been cordoned off to traffic for the day. The shops along the main drag were filled with holiday shoppers and tourists alike, all providing a huge influx of cash into the town’s coffers.
The local eateries erected food booths along the streets, Dorrit’s Diner included, and sold everything warm and toasty for the cold day from hot chocolate to fried dough and roasted chestnuts.
As the group made their way closer to Amy’s booth, Portia spied a certain hunky chef cooking something on the portable burner inside the booth. Unlike her, he was without a coat, garbed in a long-sleeved sweatshirt and jeans with a logoed apron covering him and fingerless gloves on his hands. A black skullcap hid his salt and pepper curls. The closer they came, Portia was able to discern he was cooking hamburgers, a portable hot dog steamer next to the grill. The familiar and taste-bud watering aroma of the steamed franks made her lick her lips when it drifted over the cold air to her senses.
It had been a few days since their impromptu after-hours talk in Amy’s kitchen. Portia purposefully avoided the diner when Abra suggested they stop for a cup of coffee or a quick lunch because she didn’t want him to feel uncomfortable should he know she was there.
For some reason, she wanted him to trust her, trust she wouldn’t reveal his secret. That didn’t negate the desire she had to find out what he’d been doing for the past two years, but she would keep his identity a secret, that was assured.
As a unit, they stopped when Amy called out to them, “Family! Come here.”
She came around the booth door opening and pulled first Blake into a hug, then kissed Stevie, Mikaela and Amelia in that order, before she lifted her cheek to her husband’s kiss. While Amy interacted with her family, Portia took the free moment to observe Tony while he filled orders.
Focused and determined were two words she thought described him perfectly. Eyes trained on the grill and the burgers he was cooking, a spatula in one hand, the other fisted on his hip while he waited until the perfect moment to flip the meat. His gaze was trained on the grill, nothing around him robbing his attention. Not the noise from the hoards moving about the street, not the pounding beat of the high school band playing at the Common, not even the squeals and shouts of kids running up and down the main drag.
For a hot second Portia wondered if he had the same concentration and dedication when he made love.
Startling, her lashes blinking through a rapid-fire series of tattoos at the uncommon thought, Portia felt her cheeks scorch.
“What’s wrong?” Abra asked from next to her.
“What?” Portia shook her head and turned it to her friend. “What?”
Abra’s brows inched together under the small expanse of skin Portia could see from beneath the woman’s woolen hat. “You gasped. What happened?”
“N-nothing.” She shook her head, digging for something she could say. If Portia was a determined woman, Abra cornered the market. The woman was an amazing researcher in addition to being an award-winning horror writer, and would talk a subject to death if allowed to. Portia knew her friend would question and pester her, ad infinitum.
Predictably, the writer’s eyes narrowed as she stared up at her agent. “You don’t usually gasp at nothing.” Abra looked over her shoulder in one direction and then the other. “Did something happen? Did you see something? Or someone?”
Wanting to nip the interrogation before it spiraled out of control, Portia reached out and laid a hand on her friend’s shoulder. “Abra. I’m fine. Nothing is wrong. I’m just…cold.”
The writer didn’t look convinced. Not for a moment.
Amy overheard what she said though, and commanded, “Come here, girl and let me give you something to warm you up.” She tugged on Portia’s arm and guided her to the booth.
“Our hot chocolate is a town favorite at this event. Made with real milk and shaved chocolate, not that powder junk they sell at the supermarket.”
Tony had just turned from handing the customers waiting for their burgers their order when his gaze connected with hers across the booth.
Portia’s breath caught when he lifted an eyebrow and bobbed his head, once, toward her.
She tried for a smile but her teeth were clattering so much she worried it looked more like a grimace than a greeting. And not all of that clattering could be attributed to the frigid air. Most of it, if she was being honest, was because of the man standing in the center of the booth.
“Here, Portia.” Amy handed her a Styrofoam cup of steaming dark liquid. “This’ll get you warm on the inside for sure.”
She had no real memory of taking the cup because her attention was zeroed in on Anton – Tony -and watching him prepare another order. No wasted movements, every flip of his hands precise and intended for the sole purpose of preparing the food.
Why the heck was that so…so… arousing?
Good grief! I’m getting hot and bothered from watching a man flip cheese onto a slab of meat. What. The. Heck??
And don’t forget all the other DORRIT’S DINER DICKENS HOLIDAY ROMANCE STORIES….
Filed under #tuesdaytease
#mondaymusings 10.14.24
yes. Always!!! I have books preordered for the end of 2025, LOL!!!
Filed under #mondayMusings
One month until release day for A CHEF’S KISS CHRISTMAS!!!
So with just one month to go, I figured now would be a good time to really ramp up the preorders on A CHEF’S KISS CHRISTMAS!!! I set a goal for myself of 1000 kindle copies to open release day of 11.11.24. I am nowhere near that right now ( lol!) but I am still going to try and get there or get close, so if you like:
~small town
~holiday romance
~grumpy/sunshine trope
~starting over post -divorce
~later in life romance ( 35+)
~tears on one page, laughter on the next
~Dickens romance books
~surviving loss and tragedy
then…. A CHEF’S KISS CHRISTMAS is right up your alley.
You can preorder the Kindle version for just 99 cents here: A CHKCkindle
or, if you’d like an autographed print copy directly from me, you can order that here: ACKSPRINT
Either way, books make great gifts for yourself and others during the holidays, and, actually, any day of the year.
Happy reading! ~ Peg
Filed under Dickens Holiday Romance
#fridayfive 10.11.24
AS promised, here are the final 5 things I think authors should know/do at a book-signing.
- Preorders – if you’ve got a bunch of books, it’s physically impossible to bring lots of copies of each. I have 60+ books out in the world now, and even if I just brought 5 of each, that’s 300 books. Believe me, there’s no room at a multi-author book signing for you to be bringing 300 books. The way to avoid this is to have a preorder form available before the book signing. That way, people can get the book they really want, you will have already made some sales prior to the vent (Yay!) and you won’t have to cart every single book you have. Along with that, make sure the attendees know the books you ARE bringing – either in a FB post or blog post.
- Unless you are taking pictures with your readers, of the event, or with another author STAY OFF YOUR PHONE! You have less than 1 second to catch a new-to-you-reader’s eye at a multiauthor event. If you are staring down at your phone, scrolling thru tiktok or your email, you will miss that opportunity to get a new reader and sell a book.
- SMILE! I can’t state this enough. No one will approach a grumpy gus. I will approach an author who looks nervous because — I get it!!! But someone scowling, or with resting bitch face? Nope. Hard pass.
- Engage with the people at the event, the readers who may be walking by your table. Say, “Hi, welcome. What do you read?” Anything that will get them to stop, look at your books, and give you a chance to state your schpiel! And SMILE when you do it, lol!
- Thank people when you sell a book. I know this sounds like common sense but I’ve been at signings with BIG NAME authors who think it’s such a privilege they are there and that the readers should prostrate themselves at their tables, that they forget their manners. Don’t you do that. Ever.
Filed under #fridayfive
#tbt #throwbackthursday #Tbthrusday 10.10.24
This one is from February 2017 – that’s a long time ago, lol!
I’m sure this is an easy feat for most writers, but not for me. I agonize over book titles. Are they too long? Too short? Do they convey the correct theme of the book? Do they even convey the theme of the book? Will it be a memorable title, or one that is easily forgotten in the myriad of published books these days?
Titles can, in all truth, make or break a book. Would you have read any of these books if these were the titles?:
- The High-Bouncing Lover
- The Last man in Europe
- The Dead Un-Dead
- Mistress Mary
- Nothing New in the West
- Wacking Off
- The Don’t Build Statues to Businessmen
- The Kingdon By The Sea
- At this point In time
- Private Fleming, His Various Battles
I was a bit surprised at a few of them, and I can in all truthfulness say I wouldn’t have read any one of them except for the Dead Un-Dead, because I think it was a cool, really out-there title. To see the titles these books were actually published as, scroll down when you’re done reading.
You can’t, apparently, trademark a title. I found this out when I wrote my third book, FIRST IMPRESSIONS ( which, BTW was the original working title of Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice) and did a search to see how many books with the same title there were (423). My second book I called THERE’S NO PLACE LIKE HOME. 366 other authors also called their works of fiction that. SO, how the heck can I can up with a title that (1) hasn’t been used before, and (2) will make the random reader interested in it enough to pick up the book and check it out? Again, no easy feat.
I used to make lists, pages of lists, with book titles. Even then, choosing just one was torture.
I’m so lame at coming up with my book titles I left the naming of my second book in the Will Cook For Love Series from Lyrical/Shine to the editors. They came up with A SHOT AT LOVE. When you read the book you’ll know it’s the perfect title, but I didn’t have anything even close to that I was working with! Thank God for the people in the know who really really really know what they are doing.
Naming your book is an awful lot like naming your child. You want to give it something with character, essence, personification, and beauty. And your book, to the writer, is your baby, your child, your creation, so you don’t want to let it down by giving it a crummy moniker; one that will inspire ridicule and laughter. Honestly, I pity the poor children of celebrities who have been named after fruits, compass directions, and astrological projections. Sad.
See? You probably thought the title was the easiest thing to come up with. I bet you didn’t know how hard it really was to name a book? Well…at least it is for me!
Here’s what the above titles were actually published as, and thank goodness they were!!!
- The Great Gatsby
- 1984
- Dracula
- The Secret Garden
- All Quiet On the Western Front
- Portnoy’s Complaint
- Valley of the Dolls
- Lolita
- All the President’s Men
- The Red Badge of Courage
When I’m not agonizing over naming books, you can usually find me here:Tweet Me//Read Me// Visit Me//Picture Me//Pin Me//Friend Me//Google+Me//
Since this is a 52 week blog hop challenge, here are some other authors who are also taking about how they name their books today. Stop by and check out their blogs.
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Filed under #throwbackthursday
Peggy Jaeger, Author 