A Happy Announcement

 Dear Readers, Ms. Linda Loegel Hemby is pleased to announce the arrival of her newest family member, Joan.  Reinventing Joan is now published and available at amazon.com, both in print and on Kindle.  After many boys, a girl has finally joined the family.  Although she just came into the world, Joan is a product of the mid -1800s where life is not easy; in addition, there are sicknesses for which there are no cures. Consequently, Joan lives a rough, and at times, tragic life. Her three older brothers, help teach her to be strong and able to handle whatever comes her way.

She is a minor character in Testing Michael;  now she has her own book with her own story to tell.  

I would urge you to order the book and if you like it, please leave a review on Amazon. I would be eternally grateful to you.

If you live anywhere near me in North Carolina, I will be at craft fair on Saturday, April 20, from ten to four o'clock at Restoration Church, 901 Old Fairground Road, Willow Spring, NC.  I will be selling my books there, including  Reinventing Joan. 

My daughter, Cyndi, will be with me selling her delicious baked goods. Come visit us and get something good to eat for when you're ready to settle down with a good book. this is the church's first annual craft fair, so let's start the summer season off by supporting them. 

All of my books are meant to take one particular period in history and explore how it affects one family. Learn history the easy, fun, painless, way.

Quote of the Day: “There is no education like adversity.” Benjamin Disraeli

The Results Are In

 Hey, Y’All,

My last blog post asked which cover of my new book you preferred. I got quite a few responses, pretty much evenly divided between the two covers, and some good suggestions as well. I changed the title yet again, 

this time to Reinventing Joan, published the book last Wednesday and ordered a proof copy. It arrived Saturday and here it is! You will recall that Joan is a spinoff character from Testing Michael. My friend and I went to the Bentonville Battlefield, here in North Carolina, Saturday and seeing the canons, uniforms, tents, etc. I felt as though I were seeing a 3-D version of Michael. It was thrilling.

Reinventing Joan will be available on Amazon by next week and soon will be available on Kindle as well. Enjoy. 

.Now get ready, I have a surprise for you today. Through her webinar on marketing, I met a delightful author named Nev March. We corresponded with each other and she was kind enough to write a guest blog for you. Since her blog is about social media, I’m in the process of trying to learn my way around Instagram and have contacted a tech savvy teenager to help me. Today’s kids have grown up on Instagram, Twitter/X, etc. and treat social media like a second language. Or, maybe a first language. At any rate, I’m interested in having him help me iron out a few problems I’m having with Instagram.

Now to my guest. Nev March. Nev was born in India, now lives in the U.S., and is an award-winning murder mystery author. She has written Murder in Old Bombay, Peril at the Exposition, and The Spanish Diplomat’s Secret. Nev has a bubbling spirit and is a delight to know. Thanks to her suggestion, I am now a member of the Historical Novel Society. Here is her gift to you:

Guest Blog – Nev March

How to get found on Social Media

 Whether you are an Indie author or traditionally published, these days, having a social media presence is how we can grow our audience and potentially, our readership. So how does one appeal to new readers and expand one’s audience? Here are some tips to ‘Get Found’.

First and foremost, the quality of your interactions is FAR more important than the number of views or followers (I worry about getting ‘fake’ followers who are just bots!) So, start small and engage with people you know, follow your favorite authors and put out a few posts. Soon you will have a set of loyal readers who follow you, are curious about your books, writing you’re your opinions well. Readers like to know about writers’ lives. One shouldn’t reveal personal details (your number, where you live!) but what you’re eating or drinking, places you’ve visited, books you’re reading are fair game.

 Facebook, Insta and X have a host of fun content, so you’ll start following topics you’re interested in. (Just search the term with a hashtag. #music #classicalmusic #violin #concerto for example.) That’s it! Your readers are following hashtags too!

Hashtags are how you get 'found' on Instagram and Twitter/X. (I believe Facebook does not yet use them.) Think of it this way: avid readers follow the hashtag #cozymystery so you would want to include that (one word) in your posts. Here are three tips.

 1.      What topics or genre does your book cover? If your book is about the Civil War, #civilwar and #historicalfiction are valid tags. How can you know? Open instagram.com and type in # followed by the word. As you start typing it will show you what the popular ones are! 

2.      You can also do a google search on 'best hashtags for historical fiction' and see what comes up. Use different variations in your posts, so you get different groups of people to see your posts.

 3.      Repost, like and save posts from authors you like, especially those which have over a thousand likes—look at them closely. What did they do well? Was it the intriguing image? The catchy text? Which hashtags (also called tags) did they list? Copy these out into a spreadsheet to use with your own posts!

 

Many thanks to my new friend, Nev March.

 Quote of the day: Social media is a very, very powerful tool. It also gives power to tools. Chris Young

 

 

 

I Need your Help

It's been a while since I talked with you, but in my defense, I've been busy writing my lastest historical fiction novel, tentatively entitled, Discovering Joan. Yes, this time I'm writing about a, gulp, girl!  So far, all my books have been about boys, that I affectionately call "my boys."  They are Mark, Gary, Lou, Danny, Rob, Michael and Simon.  A member of my writing group suggested I write about a girl. I fought the suggestion for a long time figuring girls are no fun to write about, they're not as daring and don't get into trouble the way a boy does. 

However, when someone suggested I write about the girl Michael meets who's posing as a man in the Civil War in Testing Michael, I thought about it and decided I could possibly do it.

I had laid out the background for Joan in Michael, not knowing I would be featuring her in her own book. The trouble with that is that now I have to adhere to what I laid out which means in her book, I have to kill off her baby and her husband for her to have a reason to join the Union Army in 1861.

I have just finished killing them off (life was hard in the 1860s!😄) and I'm getting her ready to pose as a man in order to be accepted into the army , now I need YOUR help.  She's learning to smoke a cigar to make her transformation believable. I have never smoked even a cigarette, never mind a cigar, so I don't know the first thing about it except what I've researched. She has only seen her father, brothers and husband smoke so she's been a bystander, not an active participant. 

I'm hoping one of you dear people will remember the first time you smoked a cigar and how it made you feel, how it tasted, smelled, etc.  Remember, this is 1861 and cigars were quite different from today's cigars.  If you have some amazing insight, I will be happy to incorporate it into the book  and give you credit in the Acknowledgements.

Another way you can help me is to vote for one of two possible covers I've come up with. Each shows Joan as a girl and also her posing as a male soldier.  Please tell me which you prefer, No. 1 or No. 2. You will note that the title  is different between No. 1 and No. 2. Disregard that and tell me which cover design you prefer.

No. 1

No. 2

For reference, here is the cover of Testing Michael in which Joan is introduced as a minor character. Michael is a thirteen-year-old who joins the Civil War as a messenger.

Your input will be a big help in the finalizing of this book which will, hopefully, be published in the next few months. I'll let you know when it is. Your input is most appreciated. Thank you.

Quote of the Day: We can’t be everything for our book. Sometimes, we must surrender it to people who can help.  Eeva Lancaster, Being Indie: A No Holds Barred, Self Publishing Guide for Indie Authors

I Want Summer. Now!

I trust you all had a nice Christmas and a safe New Year. I did. I have a pedicure waiting for me! But it’s going to have to get a lot warmer than it is right now before I venture outside in sandals to put on after my toenails are painted. This weather is not what I expected when I moved to the sunny South. And I know it’s not just here but all over the country. I heard that 49 of the 50 states are dealing with this miserable weather; I have not yet heard what that lone state is that’s not suffering from rain, snow, wind, or ice. Is it where you live? If so, good for you! Texas, Florida, California, and 46 other states are all putting up with this &*%#  winter weather.

By now, you may have figured out that I don’t like winter. I grew up in Vermont but I didn’t like winter as a kid, either. My mother pushed me outside, bundled up so tightly I couldn’t move, and said, “Go outside. Play in the snow. Have fun.”

Sure. My sister and I went out and made a snow angel, threw a snowball or two, made a quick snowman, and dug a tunnel through the snow bank the plow had left at the end of our driveway, then banged on the door asking to be let back in. For the five minutes it took us to “play outside,” it had taken an equal amount of time to get snowsuits, boots, hats, gloves, and scarves on, then even more time to get the wet items off. Our wrists and ankles, where snowsuits didn’t quite reach our mittens and boots, were red and stinging from the cold. Our noses were red and running. Our wet outer clothes covered all the floor registers so that in one room you could smell warm wet rubber, in another warm wet wool, and so forth. If there was an unused register, you could find us standing on it in an attempt to get warm.

Fast forward and having lived in Connecticut for thirty years where I still hated winter, I moved to San Diego, CA to get warm. Beautifully, wonderfully, overwhelmingly warm. All year round. You could see people sunbathing in January on the grass in Balboa Park and in February you could sit on the beach at La Jolla Shores and watch the swimmers play in the waves. If you wanted snow, it was just a short ride to the mountains. What I laughed at was seeing a pickup truck driving back into town with a two-foot snowman in the truck bed; a snowman they had made in the Laguna Mountains by scooping up snow with a surfboard and now their creation was melting in the San Diego sun.

You may notice that in my books, whenever the season is winter, I don’t say how much fun the family has outside skiing, sledding, fully enjoying winter. No. I use my imagination a lot when I write, but I can never imagine anything fun, good, or nice about winter. They say, “Write what you know,” so that’s the ONLY time I fully write what I know.

All this to say, I’m ready for summer! I want it and I want it now. I’m tired of being cold. It is, however, a good time to curl up with a good book. I have a few if you need any suggestions. 😊

 

Quote of the Day: "Winter changes into stone the water of heaven and the heart of man.”  Victor Hugo