Tag Archives: #amwriting #amblogging

On Amazon sales, Returned books, and negative royalties.

It’s been a while since I posted a rant piece, LOL. I’ll try to stay calm while I write this but for the record: I’m seriously pissed.

Okay, a little back story to set the scene.

I had a book sale this month – I put my Matchmaker novel MIX AND MATCH

on sale for 99 cents for 2 weeks. The regular price is $2.99. Didn’t sell a million copies, hee hee, but didn’t do too bad for little unknown me. So, what you need to know is that when you put a book on sale on Amazon for 99 cents, that means your profit or royalty for the sale is 35 cents. You can imagine that I am not getting rich writing and doing this, folks, because I am not. In order to make ANY money I’d need to sell millions of copies at 35 cents.

Not happening.

Now. The book was 99 cents, which in all reality is a ridiculous price for the months of work, blood, sweat, and many sleepless nights that went into writing it. But the fact is readers won’t spend a lot of money on writers they don’t know, so offering a sale price like this is a way to garner new readers.

Back to money. So, 35 cents a copy is all I make on the sale. Here’s the rant part. I had people RETURN the book after reading it. RETURN IT! A 99 cent book!

#WTF

And to add insult to injury on this one, Amazon charges me 41 cents on the return, so I not only lost the 35 cents royalty, I also had to pay Amazon for the pleasure of having one of my books returned.

I can’t decide who I’m madder at: Amazon for the extra charge or the reader who thought reading a book and returning it was a good idea. I’m not the lending library, folks. Neither are the other writers this happens to all the time.

Now I can see if you clicked on the buy option by mistake. We’ve all done that. But this isn’t the case here. There are literally hordes of readers who buy a book, read it, and then return it for no other reason than they want to.

Understand why I’m pissed now?

I had a good friend ask me on Facebook this morning if I thought people ordered it and realized they didn’t want it and then returned it, or if they didn’t realize when their kindle asked them after they finished the book if the choice REMOVE THE DOWNLOAD meant they were, in fact, returning the book and not just moving it out of their digital library. Or, her third option was, are they just evil.

I’m hoping it’s option number two. They don’t realize clicking REMOVE THE DOWNLOAD returns the book to amazon. I’m trying to hope human nature isn’t all that greedy that 99 cents needs to be put back in their coffers.

I’m not hopeful, though, that’s true. I kinda think option 3 is the more truthful one.

Le sigh….. don’t think you’ll get rich if you become a writer, kids. Winning Powerball is easier.

A little clarification: if when you click on the end of your kIndle book it says DELETE PERMANENTLY FROM YOUR device, that is the return. If I just says Remove from your library, that’s not.

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Abbondanza!

It’s my turn over on ROMANCING the GENRES and this word theme this month is ABUNDANCE.

Here’s my take: https://romancingthegenres.blogspot.com/2021/11/abbondanza-by-peggy-jaeger.html

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Are you “Lucky in Love?” Celebrate March with the #ROMANCEGEMS

For the entire month of March, the Romance Gems are celebrating being LUCKY IN LOVE. And let’s be honest: if you’ve happened to find someone to love, that DOES make you lucky!

As usual, we’re having a contest fro Amazon Gift cards, so make sure you read the daily blogs and enter here: LILRG

Don’t forget to stop by the blog daily!

Until next time, peeps ~Peg

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#SundaySnippet 9.29.19 It’s A Trust Thing

Honestly, what other book was I gonna put up here today?? Hee hee.

So, IT’S A TRUST THING releases, as you know, on 11.1.19. Nell Newbery had an idyllic childhood up until the age of 16, when her father was arrested, tried, and convicted of running a pyramid scheme for people who had invested with him. Life as she knew it changed forever the moment he was taken away in handcuffs from their apartment.

Nell has lived her life since then out of the pubic eye, despite the hordes of journalists and paparazzi who follow her, dying to get a sound bit or  a compromising position photograph. She’s cut off all contact with her felonious father and hasn’t visited him once while he’s been incarcerated. But he’s been begging her to visit him of late. The 15th anniversary of the date he was imprisoned is looming and Nell thinks he wants to involve her in a plan to garner him early release. Since she won’t speak to him, her dad emails her. This little snippet is just one of the messages that Nell has been deleting as they arrive. I think her anger shines through in this scene.

That done, I finally checked my in-box. Much of my day-today operations were conducted electronically through email, direct message, and via my website. Some days, if I was busy with something, I’d have dozens of notifications to contend with before I knew it. Staying ahead of the mail was an important facet in keeping my day moving smoothly and my stomach unknotted.

As I opened the application and waited for the messages to load onto my screen, I sipped at the bottled water I’d gotten with lunch. A quick eye stroll down the list of waiting-to-be-read notices and the water suddenly choked at the back of my throat.

No. Just…no.

I checked the return web address, blinked, then checked it again.

It couldn’t be; it had been over a year since I’d heard anything.

One more check. Yup. It was. The return address was from a government-dot-org account.

My father had sent me an email.

Why?

Or more importantly, what did he want, because surely this wasn’t a hi, how are you doing, missive. My father wasn’t wired that way. Every email was usually a request to do something for him.

Speak in his favor at an upcoming parole hearing.

I didn’t.

Write a letter to the Governor asking for clemency or to have his sentence reduced.

I refused.

Get together with his lawyers to discuss how they could finagle him a new trial, claiming the government had railroaded him.

I never bothered to call them.

My father, I’d finally come to realize when I was in college, was a user. Out for himself and himself alone. He’d never asked once about my mother – his wife – when he emailed me. Not once in all these years. Since she’d fallen apart after his arrest and subsequent incarceration, he figured she wasn’t useful to him any longer.

The bastard.

The woman had stood by him, valiantly, bravely, believing in him until the verdict was handed down, and even after that. By virtue of their marriage, though, her reputation was ruined, a side effect of loving the man and sticking by him. All her friends had turned their backs on her. The philanthropic committees and boards she’d sat on removed her from their ranks. Even her family disowned her, blaming her for marrying a man who would bring ridicule and shame upon their good name.

Suffice it to say when they’d disowned her, it had filtered down to include me, the Devil’s spawn. The difference between my mother and I was I didn’t care that her family had rejected me because of who my father was. My mother did, though. She was devastated when everyone she loved turned on her. So much so, she’d disassociated from the world and wound up committed. It was grossly unfair. Her husband was the criminal, not her. The only crime she’d committed was in loving and trusting the man.

I hadn’t seen nor spoken to my father since the day he was escorted out of a federal courtroom to begin his sentence.

He’d gotten my email address from one of his lawyers. Thankfully, none of them had my private cell number and I didn’t have a personal landline so they couldn’t reach out to me. My calls at the office were screened by the receptionist I shared with Ella and Danny, and I avoided them whenever they called.

This missive now staring at me was the first time in over a year he’d made contact.

He knew the anniversary of his imprisonment was a time the media dredged the whole sordid affair up again, vomiting all the details to the public. For the tenth anniversary a cable news magazine had dedicated a one-hour program to it titled, When Greed Ruled the World. My father probably thought now was a good time to strike with another request for early release, or some other legal maneuver. Since his name was going to be publicly front and center again, why not try to garner some sympathy; some empathy for himself? I did a quick calculation and came up with his age: sixty-eight. He’d claim to be an old man, repentant in his ways.

What a crock.

Any measure of daughterly affection or familial obligation died when he’d tossed my mother aside.

She was the one who had my loyalty and love. For her, I’d go to bat and do anything to make her life easier.

My father? Yeah, not so much.

My finger hit the delete key.

Intrigued? I hope so. Remember, you can preorder it now, here; It’s a Trust Thing. Or, if you subscribe to KU, you can download it on 11.1.19.

Looking for me? I’m here:

Tweet Me//Read Me// Visit Me//Picture Me//Pin Me//Friend Me// Triber// BookMe // Monkey me //Watch me

Until next time ~ Peg

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Why #IndependentBookstores are so near and dear to my heart….

I’ve talked a lot on this blog about how much I love the Independent bookstore I have in my town, THE TOADSTOOL BOOKSHOP.

The managers are so welcoming and supportive of local authors and arrange booksignings, author meet and greets, and fun events for the entire community, in addition to stocking local indie author books ( something the big name book retailers do not!)

This year, when I heard about Independent Bookstore Romance Day,  on August 17, 2019, I called The Toadstool in Keene and asked if they were doing anything to celebrate the event. At the time, they weren’t, mainly because they didn’t know,  but once I informed them about the celebratory day, the managers went into hyperdrive to plan something to commemorate the day. I shunted some of my favorite local romance authors their way, and before I could say #iloveromance, an event was up and running.

See? This is why I love the TOADSTOOL so much!

So, come join me and four other fabulous romance writers on Saturday, August 17, 2019 at 4pm at the Toadstool Bookshop in Keene!

You can checkout the authors who’ll be featured at the event on their Amazon profile pages, here:

Angie Moran

Cheri Allen

Clair Brett

Amber Cross

Peggy Jaeger

I really hope I see a bunch of romance readers I know – and even more I haven’t met yet! – at the event. The Toadstool will be selling our books during and after the panel discussion, so click on the links above to see the books available. All of my print books are currently on sale at the Toadstool, but for the e-print only ones, you can find them here: 3 Wishes, Hope’s Dream, A Holiday Promise,  Falling for You, and Be My Hero

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#longandShortReviewsWednesdayBloggingChallenge 7.24.19

This is one of my favorite topics so far from the L&SR Weekly blogging challenge: My favorite quotes from books.

In no particular order:

1. BOOK: New York to Dallas, JD Robb, 2011

In a scene close to the last page of the book, Lt. Eve Dallas is being treated for multiple wounds she received from a serial killer. She is high on the pain killers and speaking to the doctor attending her. (Roarke is her husband).

Eve: “Is my faced messed up? I hate when that happens. Not like I’m pretty or anything, but–”

“You’re the most beautiful woman ever born,” Roarke said from the doorway, and Eve sent him a woozy, drugged smile.

2. BOOK: Peter Pan,  JM Barre “For to have faith is to have wings.”

3. BOOK: LITTLE WOMEN, Louisa May Alcott “I am not afraid of storms for I am learning how to sail my own ship.”

4. BOOK: TWILIGHT, Stephanie Meyer Edward tells Bella: “You are my life now.”

5. THE GODFATHER, Mario Puzo. “Leave the gun. Take the cannolis.”

6. THE GODFATHER, Mario Puzo “A fish rots from the head down.”

Let’s see what some of the other authors in this challenge have to say; L&SR

And don’t forget: DIRTY DAMSELS is available now on KU and here:

Amazon US: https://amzn.to/2XmMfBn
Amazon CA: https://amzn.to/2JkOZpA
Amazon UK: https://amzn.to/2XcgTZS
Amazon AU: https://amzn.to/2xnWg2x

from a book reviewer: “Best romance I’ve read this year, hands down.” I glow every time I read that!

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You can take the girl out of the city….

but apparently you can never take the city out of the girl.

I arrived yesterday in NYC from sweet home New Hampshire, and the heat slapped me silly the moment I stepped out of Grand Central Station. The Hotel this year is only about 3 avenues and 2 blocks from GCS so, ever the money conscious chick, and knowing this burg like I know the back of my hand –  having spent my youth as a citizen of these fine streets – I hoofed it from the train to the hotel.

In the heat.

At midday.

In the busiest city in the world.

Lugging my suitcase behind me.

Yeah…didn’t think that one thru all the way, did I?

Got here ( sweating like a working farm animal) and THANK YOU JESUS my room was ready because if they told me it wasn’t, it wasn’t gonna be a pretty sight.

My room is big enough to house 4 people comfortably and no, I’m not offering any space to anyone, so get that outta your heads asap.

DOn’t have much of view by daylight

But night time is pretty cool, with the lights of 42nd street lit…

Oh, and that heat that was apparent when I arrived? About 5 pm tonight severe weather loomed in, enough so that a storm hazard warning blared on my phone. Torrential rain for 2 hours. Flash flood warning. Whipping winds.

Felt like home….

Until next time ~ Peg

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June Is #weddingMonth on #RomanceGems

This month, The Romance Gems are celebrating weddings. All weddings! There’s even a rafflecopter with great prizes attached to it, one of which is my first “wedding” romance, DEARLY BELOVED (A Match made in Heaven, bk1). Now, please enter the contest!!! I’m not the only one with a prize to give away. The other authors participating are giving away some exceptional books and prizes.

And even if you enter the contest, please remember that DEARLY BELOVED is on sale until 6.21.19 at Amazon, Nook, and iBooks for just #99cents. That’s a great price to start your summer TBR reading list!

So, go ahead and enter the ROMANCE GEMS contest, and drop by daily to read the fabulous blogs our authors write!! There’s always something fun going on with us and we lovelovelove to share! Hee Hee

Until next time ~ Peg

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A little #bookteaser from Dirty Damsels

 

 

So, last Monday I gave you a few book graphic teasers for my July 2 book release from Limitless, DIRTY DAMSELS. I’m doing a complete cover reveal next Monday, June 24, so make sure you set your calendar reminders!

Today, I want to give you a little sumthin’ sumthin’ between my hero and heroine. The blurb is now official, so I’m gonna include that here, as well.  Just fyi – this little snippet is unedited, so you may see some repeating words. Don’t worry; the final version rocks!

Enjoy….

Blurb:   All is fair in business…and love.

When I first saw Cynderella all covered in soot in that sexy maid uniform, I knew I wanted to be her Prince.

She’s a smart and savvy businesswoman who’s built her cleaning company from the ground up. But now that Dirty Damsels was booming, I’ve been hired to arrange a hostile takeover.

But the temptation of having her was too much to ignore…

We ended up spending one night together—a night neither of us will forget. Now, I want more. I need more. I want to spend every night, skin-on-skin, with my beautiful Ella.

Problem is, when she finds out who I really am, she’ll never forgive me.  

Excerpt:

He was massive. At least six-three with shoulders so wide they actually blocked my view of the room behind him. Jet-black, military close cropped hair surrounded a face constructed of sharp angles and etched planes. His jaw was formed from concrete, hard and square and hinting at a little cleft deep in the middle. Thick eyebrows the same color as the hair framed two of the greenest eyes I’d ever seen. They mimicked jade crystals, freshly mined and polished. I would’ve bet actual cash his light gray suit was tailor-made because it hugged the width of his shoulders with sartorial precision and tapered down to a trim waist.

All this ran through my mind as I devised a plan to escape from him to avoid being attacked. I held the plastic dustpan and brush against my body, two pitifully ineffective weapons should I need them against this potential ax murderer.

Okay, I’m pretty sure ax murderers don’t wear Armani to their kills, but still.

His brows pulled together and he was motioning with his hands. When he pointed to his ears I got it. I yanked out the earbuds and let them fall down to my waist.

“Can you hear me now?”

Before nodding, I let the sound of his voice wash over me. It was deep, rich and warm, like a glass of perfectly aged, room temperature, Irish whiskey on a chilly night. In a heartbeat I realized a girl would be happy to do whatever that voice asked her to.

“I tried to get your attention.” He dropped his hands into his pants pockets-exceptionally well fitted pants, by the way. “Then I realized you couldn’t hear me when I saw you swaying back and forth. I’m sorry I scared you.”

I found my voice. “How did you get in? I know I locked the door behind me.”

“You did. But Cal left a key for me with the doorman. I didn’t expect anybody to be here.”

“Your Cal’s guest?”

The smile working its way across his angular face had the same effect on me as his voice. To call it charming would have been an understatement. His lips moved with a slow, purposeful amble from the middle of his bowed upper lip, down across his thick bottom one to finish in a deep dimple on each of his cheeks. Perfect teeth lived under those sexy, full lips. On a girl they’d be described as pouty. On him they were completely and utterly masculine. And devastating. Just as a girl would do anything the voice asked, she’d also give anything for a taste of those lips.

“Buddy,” he told me. “And you are?”

“The cleaning service,” I said hastily. “I thought I had enough time to get the whole place done before you arrived. You’re way early.”

“I hopped on an earlier flight. And don’t be sorry.” His smile changed into a boyish grin. “I enjoyed the show.”

For a second I didn’t know he meant. Then it hit me.

He must’ve seen the realization in my eyes and the embarrassment I know heated my face and neck, because his smile widened and grew a tad wicked, crinkling the corners of his gorgeous eyes. “That was a pretty impressive rendition of the Thick song.”

I’ve never been the kind of girl who can be teased and be comfortable with it. Probably because the evil bitch and her twin spawns of terror teased and chided me mercilessly during my adolescence. My face grew even hotter as my discomfort danced within me. I usually have a pithy comment handy to pull out of my back pocket to shoot down anyone I perceive is making fun of me. It’s an old and trusted defense mechanism I’ve tried to curb for years, but haven’t succeeded at. For some reason, though, I couldn’t think of a response. A little niggle in the back of my mind reminded me he was the guest of a client. A high paying client. A client I didn’t want to lose or annoy. Maybe my subconscious was working for me for once instead of against as it forced me to keep quiet.

“I didn’t mean to embarrass you.” He moved closer, while he pulled something from his pocket. Before I realized what he meant to do, he cupped my chin in his hand and placed a handkerchief against my cheek, giving it a little rub. This close I could see the dark rim of deep moss surrounding the brighter color of the jade in his eyes. Eyes that never left mine. I couldn’t blink or look away. Don’t ask me why, but for the first time I understood what the saying “like a deer caught in the headlights” meant.

The skin across his fingers was rough where he held my chin prisoner, but his actual touch was disarmingly gentle. His warm breath blew across my face as he wiped something away, inspected the area and, then, pulled his gaze back to mine. His eyes were heavily hooded and so damn hot a tiny tug yanked low in my belly and then pushed its way down lower. Much lower. His eyelashes were long and thick and jealousy stabbed through me. No amount of mascara or lash plumping product would ever make my skimpy, spikey little lash hairs look like his natural ones.

“Ashes,” he said, folding the handkerchief and then sliding it back in his pants pocket.

I bit back a whimper when he let go of my face.

Intrigued? I’ll be posting the pre-order links soon. Remember to check back next Monday to see what the official cover looks like. And just as a reminder, here are a few of the teasers I made:

I can’t wait to share Ella’s story with  you all!

Until next time ~ Peg

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In a world of #followers I’d like to be an #Influencer

I’m going to bet if you know what the above icon is, you’ll understand the title of this blog.

First, a little backstory.

When I was a kid, roughly 175 years ago, my third grade teacher, Mrs. Karen Sinclair, said something to me one day that has stayed with me all these millennia later. I was an overweight, thick glasses-wearing, curly haired, shy kid prone to impulse control issues when it came to talking in class. I was bullied – horribly – by both girls and boys. At that age, there really is no division along sex lines with bullying. One day, after an especially verbally vicious attach on the recess playground, I came back into the classroom, sullen and non-communicative. When class ended for the day, Mrs. Sinclair asked me to stay after. She wormed out of me what had been said on the playground. When I cried that all I wanted to do was fit in, be like everyone else, but couldn’t because 1. my clothes were wrong, 2. my hair was wrong, 3. I was ugly, 4. I was fat…etc…. (you get the picture) she took my hand and told me this: “Don’t be a follower.  Don’t be like everyone else. You were born to be a leader, Margaret, to be yourself. There’s only one you. Don’t settle for less.”

Yeah, she was my favorite teacher of all time.

Fast forward 165 years to the present.

The above symbol is the INSTAGRAM logo. Since I started my writing journey, I’ve been attempting to get people to read my books through various marketing methods, one of them, posting on Instagram. Recently, I came across a phase that “called” to me: Influencer. Apparently, there are people (millennials, mostly) who have huge Insta-followers and who get paid for taking pictures of themselves with products. The companies who manufacture the products, pay these kids  for simply posting a picture. People see the picture and are Influenced to buy the product because they want to be like the cool person they are following.

Can you spell BRILLIANT!!

I have a decent amount of Instagram followers and I’m gonna work on getting more, but for now, here’s me at my new job, taking a picture with a product I’d like to tell people about so they can buy it and be cool like me. I’m an Influencer:

Hee hee

Sorry the book is backward – this whole Influencer thing is gonna take time to perfect. 🙂 But  you get the idea.

~until next time ~ Peg

And just FYI: The book’s on sale for 99cents right now until june 21~~ Get yours here:

DEARLY BELOVED

Amazon

Nook

Apple books

 

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