Category Archives: Uncategorized

no matter where you are in your writing career.

I don’t usually post things like I am about to do here. I try to bring positivity and light to my blog writing because there is enough darkness and negativity in the world right now and I don’t want to be a purveyor of those same things.

But…

A few days ago I received an email that sent me down a rabbit hole of research and I want to tell you all about it, what I did, and the resolution.

As a writer, I get between 15 and 20 emails and phone calls ( how they get my number I will never know!) a day from individuals claiming to be book marketers, book club presidents, even PR people who want to HELP me promote my books and get them into the hands of readers for reviews. Or they want to interview me on their podcast for a “nominal fee” to cover sound booth costs. If you’re a writer these days, you’ve seen, received, and heard about these book scammers. I usually read the email, block the sender, then hit delete and go on my merry writing day.

But as I said, the other day, I got an email that was so different from all the others that I actually thought it might be a real, true, request. Notice I say, MIGHT. That’s because I’m nothing if not a doubter. I came out of the womb questioning everything from the harsh overhead lighting to the reason I needed to smacked on the butt by the doc.

Anyway.

Here is the email I received, in its entirety, just as it appeared in my email box:

Mon, Mar 23 at 11:46 AM

Dear Peggy Jaeger,

I hope you’re having an inspired week.

My name is Priyal Agrawal, and I am a Commissioning Editor at HarperCollins Publishers. I recently came across your novel The Sheriff and the Psychic: Welcome to Renewal Book One and was immediately drawn to its engaging blend of romance, mystery, and small-town intrigue.

At HarperCollins, we are always interested in contemporary fiction that combines suspenseful storytelling with rich character development and emotionally compelling relationships. Your portrayal of Police Psychic Silvestra Coeltrain navigating both personal challenges and a mysterious series of events in Renewal, Oklahoma, alongside Sheriff Caleb Blackbear, creates a captivating narrative that balances romance, tension, and small-town charm.

What specifically stood out to me in The Sheriff and the Psychic:

Strong, Enigmatic Protagonists
Silvestra and Caleb’s chemistry, combined with their individual complexities, provides readers with relatable and compelling characters whose interactions drive the story.

Blend of Mystery and Romance
The intertwined plot of livestock deaths, a murder, and personal stakes creates suspense, while the romantic tension adds depth and emotional resonance.

Vivid Small-Town Setting
Renewal, Oklahoma, comes alive through your detailed depiction of its landscape, community, and unique inhabitants, enriching the narrative and grounding the suspenseful events.

I would welcome the opportunity to learn more about your inspiration for writing The Sheriff and the Psychic, your process in developing both the mystery and romantic elements, and any additional projects you may currently be working on.

Next Steps: If you have a literary agent, please feel free to put us in touch. If you are currently unrepresented, I would be happy to continue the conversation directly and discuss potential possibilities for your work.

Thank you for sharing such an engaging and suspenseful story. I look forward to the possibility of connecting.

Warm regards,

Priyal Agrawal Commissioning Editor at HarperCollins Publishers HarperCollins Publishers LLC+44 141 305 3100priyalagrawal.harpercollins@gmail.comHarperCollins Publishers LLC (Headquarters / US Office) 📍 195 Broadway, Floor 22 New York, NY 10007 United States

Looks legit, right? The Publisher logo; the links. And I’ve heard of indie writers whose books were picked up by trad publishers before, so for a moment I thought…is this happeneing to me??

Then my logical brain took over. Because I am such a good researcher ( thank you Nursing career), I immediately went into spy mode. I didn’t click on the links at the end of the email because doing so could have engaged a virus – something my computer geek squad tells me about ad nauseum. But I did Google the HarperCollins website. I typed in the individual’s name into the “about us” link. No info. Them I scrolled around on the site and found something interesting. This, at the bottom of their first webpage:

• CONTACT US
  • Customer Service
  • For Authors
• OUR COMPANY
  • About Us
  • Our Values & Commitments
  • Services, Sales & Rights
  • Media
  • Careers
• NOTICES
  • Publishing Fraud Alert
  • Recruitment Fraud Alert

The last two links is what I found interesting When I clicked on the first one, I found this:

Publishing Fraud Alert

We are aware of reports that scammers impersonating HarperCollins staff or claiming to be literary agents are targeting authors with false book acquisition offers. These individuals request that the author pay them or provide sensitive financial information in exchange for literary services, to facilitate a publishing agreement, or even to arrange a film or TV deal. Their emails sometimes include letters purporting to bear HarperCollins logos, imprint names, and staff signatures.

These communications are fraudulent. They do not come from HarperCollins and are not associated with our editorial processes.

Interesting, no? So I did what a good little spy would do and emailed them at the fraud link provided.

This is what I sent and what I got in reply:

Me: Goodmorning. I received this email this morning from someone claiming to be a HCP representative, and believe it may be fraudulent. Please advise. Peggy jaeger

HC: Hello Peggy, 

I hope you are well. This is not a legitimate offer from HarperCollins Publishers. You may be the victim of a scam. As HarperCollins is unable to report crimes on your behalf, we encourage all targets of publishing scams to report the matter their local law enforcement agency, the FBI’s Internet Crimes Complaint Center, and the FTC’s fraud reporting website. 

Thank you.

Robert Smigielski

Manager, Contract Operations

HarperCollins Publishers

195 Broadway, New York, NY 10007

So, my instincts were correct. Always good to get the reassurance.

My next musings concern whether or not to notify the FBI’s Internet Crimes Complaint Center and the FTC. I’m still mulling that over.

But, Kids, I have no remorse naming this scammer. I think he/she/they gave away their right to privacy once they sent that fraudulent email to me. Save this post and if you receive anything that looks like the email I received, do your due diligence and call it out.

So, if you’re a writer – newbie or seasoned – trusts your instincts. If it sounds too good, it probably is. Do your homework. Do your reaearch.

Now, I asked myself, what if I’d sent that email to HCP and it turns out the person was legit? An actual editor was reaching out to acquire my already published indie book? Would I have killed any chance of being offered a contract by questioning the editor’s validity? And you know what my answer is? Okay.

Yeah. Simply, OKAY.

I still would have had selfrespect for deep diving into an issue that is plaguing one too many authors these days.

I hate scammers.

I really do.

~ Peg

to the release of VENDETTA.

in exactly 14 days, this little book releases into the book reading world and I couldn’t be more excited – nervous, but excited.

I never intended to write another FBI book after Retribution, but…things happen and plans change. And now that they have – and with the ending of this book, well, book three is in the plotting stages.

What can I say? I like the serial killer/crimefiction genre, lol.

The ebook is just 99 cents across all digital media, including amazon plus you can purchase print copies on line and from my website order form.

My nerves are always shot when I have an imminent book release, so the next 2 weeks are going to torture for me, lol. Keep my in your prayers.

Peg

Today’s first line is from my addition to the ONE SCOOP OR TWO series, VANILLA WITH A TWIST

On the third day of his enforced vacation, Deacon Withers decided he’d had enough.

Tandy Blakemore spends her days running her New England ice cream parlor, single-parenting her teenage son, and trying to keep her head above financial water. No easy feat when the shop’s machinery is aging and her son is thinking about college. Tandy hasn’t had a day off in a decade and wonders if she’ll ever be able to live a worry-free life.
Engineer Deacon Withers is on an enforced vacation in the tiny seaside town of Beacher’s Cove. Overworked, stressed, and lonely, he walks into Tandy’s shop for a midday ice cream cone and gets embroiled in helping her fix a broken piece of equipment.
Can the budding friendship that follows lead to something everlasting?

For the New England Book Ball attendees.

I am a signing author at the first New England Book Ball next month and to ensure I have enough books with me for the expo, my preorder form is now live, here: PREORDER

I will not be bringing all the books listed on the form because I only have 1 table, so if you want a specific book, now is the time to ensure you receive it by preordering. I am taking orders and will send out the invoices 1 week prior to the event to make sure you still want the book(s).

This is going to be an amazing event! I can’t wait!

It’s so hard to believe that 3 years have gone since I lost my mother.

The ache of that loss has never gone away.

The emotional toll continues to wrack me every day.

The emptiness is vibrant.

I miss you, Mommie. So much.

First,

Since I’m 100% Irish, I love celebrating this day.

When I was in college/Nursing school at Hunter College/Bellevue School of Nursing, the nursing student leadership was always awarded a spot in the NYC St. Patrick’s day parade each year. In my senior year, my friends and I were lucky enough to participate and be at the start of the lineup.

This is a horrible picture, but the only one I have, copied from my yearbook, so it needs to suffice. In the top photo, holding the banner, I am the second one from the left. If you can recognize me, I am the short haired, glasses, chubby one looking upward.

It was raining and 32 degrees that day as we started the parade. It only got colder as more and more people got drunker and happier, lol. But it was a top five memory for me and still is to this day. I was a proud Irish American in 1982 and am now, in 2026!

And I will be until the day I leave this mortal coil.

(Happy St. Patrick’s Day) Lá Fhéile Pádraig sona duit.

Todays first line comes from my addition to the Deerbourne Inn series, HOPE’S DREAM

Quaint; a description Tyler Coleman had never used before, but it fit the structure he stood in front of with his suitcase in one hand, his briefcase slung over the opposite shoulder.

Hope Kildaire gave up her dream of becoming a nurse practitioner when a car accident killed her father and left her mother an invalid. Working two jobs and caring for her mother leaves the twenty-seven-year-old with no time for fun or relationships. When a law firm representing her paternal grandparents sends her several letters, Hope ignores them. She despises the family who disowned her father and wants nothing to do with them.

Lawyer Tyler Coleman’s job is simply to obtain Hope’s signature on a legal document. Getting it is harder than planned, though, when an unexpected attraction blossoms between them. If Ty is honest with Hope about why he’s in Willow Springs, he’ll fulfill his assignment but may risk hurting her.

The opportunity to have everything she’s ever desired is at Hope’s fingertips. Will her dream come true at the expense of Tyler’s love?

Can you tell I’m excited?!

This is a dream come true for me. I will be signing my updated version of DIRTY DAMSELS at the RWA booth during BOOKCON. It takes palce at the Javits Center in NYC. I am signing on SATURDAY, 4/19 from 12:30 until 2:30 at the RWA booth # 559 in Hall 3. I fyou have tickets or are planning to come, please come visit me. Buy a book. Get some swag and take a picture. This is gonna be a top 5 day for me, kids, as a writer.

Again….can you tell I’m excited??!!!

old. Yikes!

This past Sunday, hubby and I were in church and prayers of intention were sent up for a woman who had died recently, whom we knew. She was, in fact, my daughter’s fourth grade teacher and a lovely, amazing, loving woman and educator. I hadn’t known she’d died. Since I don’t read the newspaper anymore I never see the obituaries. I used to read through them religiously when I worked to see if my patients had died, but since retiring…not so much.

Anyway. I was really sad to hear of her passing and it got me thinking.

Hubby and I are at that age now when our parents, aunts, uncles, and even our friends, are starting to die. Whether from old age ( parents) or illnesses ( friends), it has made me pause and reevaluate my life as it is right now.

I’ve never been in a place where I have people getting ill and dying on both side of my age group before. When I was a kid, all the people I knew who died were old old, like in their 80s and 90s. Great aunts and great uncles. Elderly neighbors. No one younger that 80. Certainly no one in their 40s, 50s or 60.

That’s changed, radically, in the past 2 decades.

Now, I know people in their 40s who have been afflicted with life threatening illnesses. I know people in their 50s who have succumbed to heart attacks.

It’s enough to give you a few moments of pause and make you reflect.

I had a bone density scan the other day as part of my routine care and it showed I have osteopenia. Not osteoporosis – not yet – but inching that way if I don’t take measures now to prevent it. The upper limit to slip into osteoporosis is 2.4. I scored a 2. I need more calcium, more water, a diet rich in green leafy veggies, no soda ( this one will be the hardest). Calcium supplements with Vitamin D, which I have been religiously taking since my mother broke her first hip 7 years ago have been a staple of my life. But since I have thyroid issues, that calcium doesn’t seem to be gaining any leeway. Strength training, which I already do. All things to prevent the possibility of fractures as I age. And believe me, after seeing what my mother and stepfather went through with two broken hips each, I never want to go through what they did. But that’s only one concern of my aging process.

Cancer, melanoma ( which I’ve battled for years), kidney disease, heart disease, stomach issues, bowel issues. All these things increase as we age. Now, I could just as easily be involved in a car crash and die as from any one of these disease states, but still. The end result is death.

I have friends who, like me, take care of themselves. But that doesn’t rule out something occuring to strip us of the life we have left.

Aside from the physical implications of disease states is the mental toll illness takes on not only the person suffering through it, but the people surrounding them as well. I know from my own experience how depression gripped me in its hold after my mother’s sudden death, when everything, all the responsibility, all the care, all the followthrough was placed on me to care for stepfather, and to manage my mother’s financial affairs. At 63 I had to grow up fast. And believe me, it was hard.

Death makes you grieve. It makes you think. It makes you reevaluate relationships. It makes you take stock of your own, present life.

If something were to happen to me and I would die tomorrow, I would do so with so much still lef tto do in my life. When that osteopenia result came in, the first thing I thought about was my grandkids. I want to live to see them grown, get through school, start careers, find life-partners. I want to be a part of that as a fully functional ( mind, body, spirit) Grandma. And I am going to do everything in my power to ensure that happens.

Take care of yourself, people. If you don’t want to do it for yourself, do it for those you love.

and why I’ve scaled back doing them.

Yesterday I did a post about book arcs and the expense they incur for the author. I stated why I don’t really do book arcs to too many people (only ones I trust) because of the price to order the book and then send it out to people. You can read that post here for context: 3.10.26

Today I want to explain why I have decided to forgo many of the booksignings I have done in the past to meet readers and, hopefully, sell some books.

The main reason, and you could probably guess this, is the money involved. I don’t know if readers know what the expense sheet looks like for authors when they attend these massive booksignings with multiple authors, but let me give you a little rundown.

First, you have to pay for your table. Table fees run anywhere from $150 to $500 ( yes, that’s true!). So right away, if you are the author, you are thinking about how many books you have to sell to break even on that fee.

Next, if the signing is somewhere a distance from where you live – as most are – you have either gas money for the car, or airfare for travel to get there.

If you must travel to the booksiging, you then have lodging fees. And you have to eat, so add food to the sum as well.

Next, most readers like freebies, as do we all, so you have to offer book swag. Chapsticks with your name on them. Book marks, drink cozzies, pens, anything and everything you can think of that you can give away – for FREE – to readers to entice them to remember your name and read your book, I always have candy at my tables, too, so…another expense.

Most authors now have banners with their names/books/social sites on them. These run anywhere from $120 to $ 250. Table runners with your names emboldened on them are another expense. All of this is to get name recognition for readers.

If you live in another state and need air travel to get where you are going, shipping your books to the venue is the way to go to avoid over-poundage luggage fees. I don’t know about you, but have you seen the postal delivery rates recently???

So, factoring in everything above, you can spend anywhere from $500 to $2000 on a booksigning event. If your book costs $15 that means you need to sell anywhere from 33 to 133 just to break even. The most books I have ever sold at an event was 20.

Yeah, I’m not getting rich from doing this.

That isn’t the point, of course, for writing, But I also don’t want to go into massive debt just to sell a book or two, so I have decided to drastically reduce the number of sales events I am going to in the future, In 2026, I am only doing 2 big ones, and 1 library one so far. In 2027, I have 1 big one scheduled.

Do I hate missing out on meeting readers face to face? Of course. That connection between the reader and the author is so important. But I can’t go into debt just to satisfy the wish of meeting people in the flesh.

If I ever become a big name in the industry or get a bestseller attached to my name where I am actually making money and not just spending it, this may change. For the foreseeable future, though, I’m scaling back.

And I hate doing it…