Belated Book Birthday!

It has been a little over a year since I uploaded Prince of the Mist to the Kindle platform. Afterward, I uploaded the book to Smashwords for wider distribution. Finally, I struggled over the paper edition, which I uploaded to CreateSpace.

At first, I set the price for the ebook at $2.99, but since it is a novella I later dropped it to $1.99. The paper edition is $5.99--a real bargain.

I designed the cover using a stock photo I purchased. It is eye-catching at 1" high, which helps. I have really been pleased at the response.

Here's a piece of cake for this momentous occasion! (Chocolate is good for you!) Enjoy.

Studying the Stats

Above is the overview of the stats from my Facebook fan page. The graph goes up and down depending on whether I manage to snag someone's attention on the never-ending scroll of status messages in their news feed. It isn't easy and other people can have different results depending upon who their fans are. I do have fans who read my excerpts and enter my contests, but by far the overwhelming favorite topic on my fan page is food.

My fans like to look at food--though not usually the food I have prepared at home. I snapped a photo of my sausage biscuit in a fast food restaurant one day and was amazed that people found it so interesting. Yes, it was tasty but really there wasn't anything unique about it. I took a photo of my fried shrimp at the Lobsterfest and lots of people looked at that. I know there are people who claim to hate reading about what anyone had for supper, but people on Facebook sure are interested in looking at a photo of it--add the recipe and it's even better.

I try to include photos or videos with every post. I don't have an amazing number of fans like Diana Gabaldon (one of Daughter #1's favorite authors). Diana Gabaldon doesn't post photos with every status message on her fan page, but it doesn't matter. For me, it matters.

Flowers and gardening seem to be a big hit, which is a problem for me because I do not have a green thumb. My luck with plants is abysmal. This is embarrassing since my sister is a horticulturist. She is always searching for plants for me that I can't kill. Still, I have taken some nice photos and my fans apparently appreciate the pictures. They can commiserate with me when the deer eat my plants. They can give me advice about what deer might not eat.

Yes, my fans enjoy giving me advice. It's okay. I can always use it. Especially when it comes to gardening.

I'm not terrific when it comes to decorating either. So when I put up a photo of the lampshades I bought that did not look right, I received a wealth of suggestions.

When I dropped my favorite Corningware roasting pan, I got a lot of sympathy. Evidently, there are those who can relate to my klutziness.

Losing weight is a great topic, too.

My fans do look at photos of my artwork, an area where I do have some skill. I get lots of compliments, which sort of makes up for the posts about my klutziness.

Ancient photos receive quite a bit of attention. So far, the photo I posted of me in my Girl Scout uniform has gotten more hits than anything else I've posted. I've gotten more hits than my number of fans. Maybe they all looked at it twice?

What would you like to see on my Facebook fan page?

I Was Lucky

There's me on the left, mixing paints, which is something I still love to do. My brother is sitting on the floor with my sister. In the photo on the right, my mother is at the easel.

It is now three years since Mom passed away. Today is the anniversary of that loss. Mom is still missed, but I consider myself very lucky to have had such a wonderful mother. Mom stayed home to raise us. Yes, the majority of mothers were stay-at-home moms during that era, but my mother put her heart and soul into the job. Nurturing came first.

Still, she never gave up her art. Often, she would paint late at night. Later, when everyone had grown up, she had more time to devote to her passion. For a look at some of her work go to this post:

http://penelopemarzec.blogspot.com/2009/07/some-of-my-moms-paintings.html

No matter how important her art was to her, when someone needed her, she was there. She did the right thing and gave out the best advice. Always.

I wish I could use my cellphone to give her a call. :^(

The New Blue Arrow

I noticed something new on the Barnes & Noble website when I went to check out the status of my books. There's a clever little icon on the bottom right corner of my newer books, a small blue arrow with the words, "Read instantly." It reminded me of Alice and the bottle that said, "Drink me." The arrow intends to entice readers to open the book right away and begin reading a sample.

It worked for me. I checked my own books and then I went and checked out a whole bunch of other books. This could be dangerous. My to-be-read stash of books has been out of hand for a long, long time.

There is one glitch. The cute little blue arrow does not work with older browsers. While that does not matter because anyone can download a free sample, the instant gratification of reading a sample with one click makes it so much more satisfying and you can be assured that you will not wind up ten inches high as Alice did.

So go on over to my page at Barnes & Noble, http://www.barnesandnoble.com/c/penelope-marzec. Read a few samples and see which one grabs you.

Life Skill #34A : Changing a Flat Tire

I believe all of us need to know certain Life Skills. I taught my daughters to cook, do laundry, and clean toilet bowls. They met other students in college who did not know these things.

On my list, Life Skill #34A is changing a flat tire. I was reminded of this particular skill on Friday night. Daughter #1 went out with a friend and at the end of the evening, her friend discovered she had a flat tire on her car.

Everyone who owns a car should know how to change a tire. It's easy to use a cellphone to call a road service, but it might take a while for help to arrive. If you are in a cold place, waiting might not be a good idea. Also remember that cellphone batteries sometimes fail at critical times and that often flat tires happen in places where there are no cell towers, pay phones, or other people.

When our daughters bought their first cars, hubby taught them how to change the tire. A young woman should never expect a hunky hero to be nearby. It would be nice, but in real life it doesn't always work out that way.

I know this because it happened to me.

Once, I had to change a flat tire while it was snowing on a dark lonely interstate in February. Cellphones had not been invented yet and I did not have a CB radio either. Fortunately, I was not alone. I had my mother, my youngest sister and my friend with me. We had been visiting my other sister in a hospital in Scranton.

By the time we headed for home, it was dark and snow was falling. I drove slower because the road had become icy.

On a lonely stretch of Interstate 380, the car pulled to the right as one tire went flat. I had flares, which I lit. I got out the tools, the spare, and the jack. My younger sister held the flashlight. I took off the hubcap and handed it to my friend for safe keeping so we didn't lose it in the thickly falling snow.

A few eighteen wheelers passed us. We did not see a single patrol car.

I had gotten the wheels balanced a few day before the trip and the lug nuts were on so tight that it took both my mother and I to loosen them. As we removed each one them, we placed them in the hubcap which my friend held.

The snow continued to fall. We put on spare in about twenty minutes--just as the flares sputtered out.

As soon as we got rolling again, I turned up the heat. We could have turned into icicles if we had stayed in the cold much longer.

Make sure your daughters know how to change a flat tire. Make sure they are strong, independent women who know what to do--just in case a hunky hero isn't nearby. Or, in case, they have to change a flat for a clueless hunky hero. :^)

Barnacle Dad

My father was never a seafaring man. Yes, he traveled to the South Pacific during World War II in a troop ship, and he could row our rowboat in Treasure Lake, but that was the extent of his watery adventures. So when the dermatologist told me Dad has a barnacle on his back, I thought it was funny--and so did Dad.

The technical name for Dad's unsightly bump is seborrheic keratosis, but it is commonly called a barnacle. Big, ugly, crusty and brown, it stuck out and was visible under his shirt. Yesterday, I took him to the dermatologist who sliced it off quickly and painlessly.

Years ago, when hubby had a boat. He used to put a special paint on the bottom to prevent barnacles--the real ones. Can barnacles be prevented on people? Hmmm?

New Website

I spent quite a bit of time yesterday working on my new website. It is plain and simple, which is the way I generally like things to be. Less is more is most matters--although I haven't been able to apply that principle to my collection of books. :^(

I used a free Weebly site and forwarded my domain name to it. So anyone can type in penelopemarzec.com and wind up at penelopemarzec.weebly.com. (I love the magical internet.)

I intend to add more stuff like links or banners in the future. For now it has all the important information, which is mainly my books and links to each of them. There's a contest and a contact form, too. So go ahead and sign up for the contest! What have you got to lose.

My Newsletter

Here's a view of the newsletter I send out sporadically to my fans using MailChimp. If you go to Summer Scuttlebutt you can read the entire newsletter, which includes a recipe for Lemon Bars that you won't want to miss. (It's easy, quick, and so delicious!)

If you would like to receive the next newsletter go to the contact page at my website HERE. In the comment section write NEWSLETTER. That's all you have to do. Then the next time I send out a newsletter, you'll get one. I don't send out a newsletter very often, so you won't have a cluttered email inbox on my account. :^) However, if you would enjoy hearing from me on a daily basis, LIKE my Facebook fan page at www.facebook.com/penelopemarzecbooks Right now I have a lovely photo of the blizzard of 2010 there--maybe it will cool you off. :^)

Begging for Love

Half-Way Up the Pyramid of the Moon

That's me, age 24, half-way up the Pyramid of the Moon in Mexico. I gave up climbing at that point. In 1974, I went to Mexico with my sister-in-law and one of her friends. My brother had died six months earlier, so my sister-in-law was a relatively new widow.

I had taken French classes in high school so I did not know any Spanish at all, but my sister-in-law spoke fluent Spanish. We went to several small towns of historical significance and then wound up in Mexico City. The small towns had been far more interesting to me for the glimpse of authentic Mexican culture. Mexico City was another big, international city and I had seen several of those by that point in my life. However, I had never seen pyramids so I happily hopped on a bus to spend the day climbing. But it was hot and I tired out fairly quickly. Reading about the pyramids was more fascinating than climbing them.

When I think of Mexico now, I think of the small towns with the plazas on Saturday night and the sound of a mariachi band drifting through the air. I think of the bakeries and the taste of fresh bolillos. I think of the bullfight, too. Poor bull.

But the pyramids. Well, I saw them and I climbed upon them. But I'd rather sit in a plaza, listen to mariachi music and eat bolillos.

In the Style of the Vanderbilts

Hubby and I went on a Road Scholar tour of Great Camp Sagamore. This was our third Road Scholar tour. We've enjoyed each of the programs. In 2010, we visited White River Junction in Vermont. (You can read about that tour HERE.) Last year we visited Chincoteague in Virginia. (Check it out HERE.)

Great Camp Sagamore was a very different experience. For one thing, there is no cell phone service. It is in the wilderness--what was once known as the Dismal Wilderness. It is the land of no cell phone towers. However, there is a phone in the camp which visitors may use with a prepaid calling card.

There isn't any television either, which isn't a bad thing for me or hubby because we don't watch it anyhow. There is a large screen TV with a DVD player and there are some DVDs available for guests. There are board games and books for the use of guests, too.

There is wifi--not in individual rooms but in the dining hall and the reading room. Some people are happy to leave all the technology behind when they go into the wilderness, but I did not want to be cut off completely.

At Great Camp Sagamore, guests usually share bathrooms. Ours was a little way down the hall, but very clean, neat, and modern. We had a bathroom with a shower, but some visitors got old-fashioned bathtubs with feet. :^)

Meals are served buffet style in the big dining room and the food was great. We had to clear our own dishes off the table and put them in the kitchen to be cleaned. All guests took turns wiping down the tables and sweeping the floor. We had to make our own beds and take care of our towels and linens.

Great Camp Sagamore is not a luxury hotel. It is a living museum.

Hubby and I arrived one day early, which gave us the opportunity to visit the Adirondack Museum. That extensive collection was well worth the price of admission.

The one thing that bothered just about everyone was the black flies. It was black fly season. In New Jersey, we are annoyed with mosquitoes, but in the Adirondacks, the black flies swarm. I did not know this until the young lady who signed us in at the office suggested we borrow bug jackets. I had never heard of a bug jacket until that point, but I found it to be a very useful garment.

The jacket made me look strange. Maybe I scared the bugs away! Hubby preferred slathering himself with bug repellent.

Naturally, the Vanderbilts did not visit Great Camp Sagamore during black fly season. The Vanderbilts usually came for a month in August once the black flies were done swarming. The Vanderbilts also came for a few weeks at Christmas time. That was it for the most part. However, many dignitaries and even movie stars were invited to the camp. The caretakers lived there year round.

Hubby and I enjoyed rowing and canoeing on the lake. We played a game of croquet with another couple who knew the rules. (Croquet was a favorite game at Sagamore.) In addition to touring all the buildings at Sagamore, the Road Scholars toured Uncas, which is nearby.

In addition to lectures on the history of the camp and the Vanderbilts, we were treated to entertainment by Bill Smith, an Adirondack treasure!

We enjoyed the company of other Road Scholars who came from all over the country to learn about the camp. Road Scholars runs terrific programs and the prices are reasonable. You can sign up HERE.

One Good Father

This is a photo of my paternal grandfather. He lived to be 86. His mother came to this country from Ireland as a domestic, and for the rest of her life she never wanted to go back to Ireland. She met her husband here in the States. They married, settled in Jersey City and had nine children. My grandfather was the oldest. He was short, like the rest of his siblings--a veritable brood of leprechauns. My grandfather had a dry wit and was always poking fun at anyone and everyone.

He came of age as World War I erupted. Given the job of cook in the trenches, he also had to retrieve the bodies of fallen soldiers.

After the conflict ended, he got a job as a jitney bus driver. Then he met my grandmother. She wasn't Catholic. At that time, marrying outside the faith was frowned upon. My grandparents were not married at the altar, they were married in the vestibule of the church.

He became a milkman and in those days, even in the city, the milkman delivered milk with a horse and wagon, early in the morning. It was steady work--even during the Depression. He and my grandmother had three boys. My father is the oldest. The second son died in World War II.

My grandmother's father owned a chicken farm. When he died, my grandfather could have inherited the farm, but he did not like chickens. He said they were always dying. He continued to be a milkman until he retired--although after a while the horse and wagon were replaced with a truck. :^)

After my grandmother died, Granddad continued to live in his house in the city. He helped out the neighbors and had his job at the polls during elections. Some of his siblings still lived in the old family home a few blocks away and they sent him homemade soup or meatballs. But he could cook up a very good Western omelet on his own.

He got cancer and stayed with my parents for a while. Then he had to go into a nursing home, but he was not there for long before he died.

He was a good father. He remained faithful to his wife, worked at a steady job until he retired, and then helped those around him. His children became hard-working honest men, committed to their wives and families, too.

My grandfather was one of the best, but there are many other great fathers in the world today--like my own hubby, my father, his brother, my sisters' husbands, and so many more. I want to wish all of them a Happy Father's Day.

The Problem With Traveling

Here's a very young me overlooking Florence, Italy. A long time ago, I signed up for summer study in Italy. I got six college credits, plus I learned a lot about Italian history. Years later, I wrote a suspense novel with Florence as the setting, but I knew the story needed work and I never got around to fixing it. I feel I should really take another trip to Italy to see if I have all the details correct. :^)

I enjoyed Florence and I was there for six weeks, so after a while I did not feel like a tourist anymore. Nevertheless, I missed my home and my family. In those days, communication overseas was difficult. I wrote letters and my family wrote back to me. I still have those letters and they are a real treasure.

I have other books I finished that I know need work. There's one with Mexico as a backdrop because I once visited Mexico, too. That's the problem with traveling. I'll go someplace and then I'll want to use it as a setting for a novel. I've been to Florida a gazillion times and I have every intention of using it as a setting one of these days.

I sure wish I could write faster.

Do you have any favorite settings for novels?

Two Rings

We had one car when I was young and Dad used it to go to work. He worked in Jersey City, but he spent most of his career on the graveyard shift because newspapers are put together at night.

I commuted to college in Jersey City. However, my father's schedule and mine seldom coincided. As a result, I had to walk a mile to the bus stop and hop on board the Red and Tan Lines everyday. I arrived at Journal Square in Jersey City approximately forty-five minutes later--depending on the traffic. From Journal Square I caught a bus that traveled along Kennedy Boulevard and reached the college in about fifteen minutes. If I had a class that ended at 6 p.m., I had a more arduous journey home because the Red and Tan, which was an express bus, left at 5:30 p.m. So I would have to take the local bus to the Square, then catch a PATH train to Newark, and then take another bus home--or if it was really late, I'd have to take a train.

When I arrived in my hometown, I would use a public pay phone to call home. I put in my dime, let the phone ring twice, and hung up. That was the signal for Mom or my brother to come and pick me up. I would start walking home, and if the car was available I would get picked up somewhere along the way. If not, I walked the entire distance, which seemed a lot longer in the evening because I was tired and hungry.

For four years, I cheated the phone company by hanging up the phone after two rings and taking back my dime. There's some irony in the situation because I wound up marrying hubby, who worked at Bell Labs. As it turned out, he had commuted to college also. He would signal his parents by ringing three times before he hung up.

Nowadays, there are fewer pay phones. When my daughter needs a ride home from the train station, she sends me a text message. It's so much simpler and far more efficient, plus her cellphone carrier can't complain because they get their money every month.

Texting can be a good thing.

A Tale of Sleep Deprivation

I need about seven hours of sleep to function. I don't usually have a problem falling asleep. However, there have been many times in my life when I did not have enough hours in the day. The only way to find more time was to steal from my bedtime hours, but that did not help me work any better--or write any better.

Way back when I was a college student I worked at a glass factory. For two summers, I endured rotating shifts because the wages were great. However, I found it next to impossible to keep my eyes open. Mostly I stood and packed bottles into boxes, but every hour or so, I got a chance to sit down and watch the bottles twirl by the light box. I was supposed to be looking for bad bottles, but the twirling bottles quickly turned into lovely dancing ladies in long dresses as I started dreaming. I am lucky I did not fall off the stool.

I know many authors who do not get enough sleep. They get up early, write, and then put in a full day at their real job. I never did that. The thought of crawling out of bed at 4:30 a.m. to write never appealed to me. I love writing, but I like to do it with a clear head.

There are the writers who stay up late into the wee hours to write. I never did that either. I actually tried it a few times, but the next day I was not up to par.

I tend to do my best writing in the evening after supper. I don't watch television so I don't have that distraction. I have not written as many books as some authors, but I know my limitations. Not getting enough sleep will make my blood pressure go up and that is a bad idea. So I sleep when I am supposed to sleep and write when I can.

When do you write?

New Review for The Fiend of White Buck Hall

Yes, The Fiend of White Buck Hall was released in 2010, but it received a review from The Romance Studio just the other day. As an author it is always gratifying for me to know the book was enjoyed. It does not matter how long it took for someone to notice it or read it. Teresa T. said, "Ms. Marzec gave us a suspenseful and intense story!" You can read the rest of the review at http://www.theromancestudio.com/reviews/reviews/buckhallmarzec.htm

Many of the characters in the book are former circus performers, including the hero. Naturally, there is a reason for that. When my brother graduated from high school, he needed a summer job. The circus came to town and my brother signed up. He went traveling from town to town, putting up the big tents, living in a trailer, and getting to know the circus family. It was quite exciting. My brother came home with a tan and some impressive muscles.

You can find the book at New Concepts Publishing, where you can read the first chapter. It is also available at Amazon and Barnes & Noble.

If you want to win a copy of The Fiend of White Buck Hall, go to my website (HERE) and sign up for the contest. You might get lucky. :^)

The Lost

One summer, my cousin Sandy came to stay with us. She's the girl on the left in the back, next to my brother. Sandy lived near Pittsburgh in a comfortable suburban home. My uncle and aunt had adopted her, but then they had four children of their own. Sandy felt she had far too many chores to do.

She enjoyed her stay with us and we all got along quite well but after she returned home, the tensions between her and her parents grew worse until at the age of sixteen she ran away from home. She called a taxi, telling her younger sister not to tell anyone.

Sandy was never heard from again. She was never found.

My mother and I had hoped she might run to us, since she had gotten along well with us. When we learned of her disappearance, we went to Penn Station in Newark and stood for hours on the platform hoping to spot her. It was a futile effort.

For a long time afterward, whenever a young woman's body was found in New Jersey, my mother would wonder if it was Sandy.

When I wrote Heaven's Blue I dedicated it to Sandy. It is not Sandy's story, but I was inspired to write it due to her disappearance because I always wished her story had a happy ending.

Hey Girls, We've Never Had It So Good

My work-in-progress is set in 1778. I've been delving into the details of history at that time. I love discovering all sorts of odd little facts. However, I sometimes go off on tangents--inadvertantly. I start off looking for one thing and wind up someplace else.

This happened to me today. I wanted to check into more of the particulars about my heroine's chemise, which was the only undergarment women wore at the time--and they wore the same chemise for days on end. Underpants had not been invented.

Then I saw some websites with information about chemises that I had not really considered. I found out that menstruating women usually bled on their clothing, including that all-important chemise which they wore day in and day out.

For those of you who are already grossed out, you may skip the following websites, though I really think you should take a look. Sometimes, I am just amazed that the human race made it this far.

Click on the following links and be grateful you weren't born more than a century ago:

http://myperiodblog.wordpress.com/2010/11/17/history-of-menstruation-part-1/

http://www.mum.org/whatwore.htm

As the websites point out, women did not menstruate as much because they started later in life than girls do today and then they were either pregnant, nursing, undernourished, or sick much of the time.

We've come a long way.

Begging for Reader Love

Being an author has discouraging moments. Writing books is fun. Selling books--not so much fun. Part of the strategy in selling books is collecting reviews. From what I've been told, the best way to sell books is to get a lot of reviews--specifically on Amazon. Supposedly, an author needs at least fifty reviews to make a difference in sales! The reviews can be good or bad evidently. It's the number that counts. Quantity not quality. :^(

My publishers solicit reviews as the books are released, but many times their notices are ignored. I have asked for reviews from reviewers and I get ignored, too. Experienced book reviewers are evidently busy people.

Book bloggers tend to be more willing to write reviews, but--of course--the author is responsible for contacting each and every one of them. However, not all of them will post the review on Amazon.

Of course, Amazon reviews are supposed to be written by customers, but one need not buy the book at Amazon to post a review. Anybody can do it as long as they have an Amazon account.

I have been lax in soliciting reviews and as a result, I do not have many. I have gotten some very nice reviews over the years, but most of those are not at Amazon.

Obviously, I have to do some catching up. Hence, I am basically begging. I need some reader love.

If you have read my books, please go to Amazon and let everyone know what you thought of them. (You could make yourself famous!)

If you would like to know more about how the system at Amazon works I found a fantastic explanation at Amazon Reader Reviews: 12 Things Everybody and His Grandmother Needs to Know .

You can make a big difference. :^)

New Review for KISS OF BLARNEY!