Author Showcase - December 13, 2014

I will be at the Richland County main library on December 13, 2014, from 11 to 1.  Check out the list of over 100 authors who will be there. 

If you follow me on facebook, you know I not only sell books but am selling bookworms and "market bags" (sold as a book carrying bag for all your goodies or to carry your library books).  It's the time of year to place your order for bookworms or other crocheted gift items.  Bookworms are $2 each and there are (at the writing of this posting) 23 colors available but some of them are in very limited supply as they are colors that can't be picked up at any store nor can they be ordered from Red Heart or other places.  Market bags/book carrying bags (or purses if you would like to line one yourself) are two sizes, small and medium, and they are $12 and $20; I'm doing these in the cotton more so than the acrylic yarn and like them better.

If interested in obtaining class gifts, stocking stuffers or other gifts, please email me at eeldering @ gmail (dot) com (eeldering@gmail.com) and let me know what you are interested in and I'll discuss payments and shipping with you. 

Hope to see many of my South Carolina friends at the event in December; have a blessed holiday everyone - see you in the postings - E :)

Bookworm Colors and Writing Contest Update

So this morning, I made the trip to Laurens to hit up that Walmart searching for more colors for my bookworms.  I couldn't find the Melonberry (1 bookworm available) or Ocean (14 bookworms available), so looks like when those two colors are sold out then there won't be any more, unless I happen to print off the coupons from Hobby Lobby and can find them there or order directly through Red Heart with no discount, which I'd rather not do. 

At the end of this week, I will hold a quick guessing contest for the bookworms plus a signed copy of a book -so stay tuned for that.

Just a reminder that the Writing Contest for synopses for my characters from Finally Home  is still going on and is open to all students in grade 4 and up.  I had thought of just leaving it opened to upper elementary/middle schoolers, but I've decided to let high schoolers enter as well.  I've also extended the contest to the 5th of February, so that I can make my rounds on the 7th in the local area to collect any submissions (yes payday so I can have gas enough to run around and gather all the entries) and be able to mail out prepaid envelopes to everyone else.  Hoping to see lots of new ideas and lots more stories in the Kelly Watson series.  Good luck to everyone - looking forward to seeing what your students come up with. - Keep on writing and see you all in the postings - Mrs. E :)

Half a Century celebration

I'm celebrating half a century, so what better way to celebrate than to do fifty giveaways in 50 days. Crocheted bookworms, ebooks, writing related giveaways, state related giveaways - all between now and the 2nd of August (no giveaways on Sundays or holidays, but may change my mind and do something for the 4th of July just because it ties in with my state series).

First giveaway today will be 10 red, white and blue crocheted bookworm bookmarks to the first 10 correct comments on this blog the answer to this question: Where does Ms. Elysabeth make her home? (hint - answer can be found somewhere here or here).

Happy hunting and when you comment, please leave your email (you can leave it in email addy (at) whatever server (dot) com format if you want to). I'll need to contact you to get mailing address so I can send out your bookworm.

Giveaways galore

Next week is my birthday and I'm not asking for presents but am going to do a half-century giveaway special. From June 5 (my birthday) through August 2 (no Sunday or holiday giveaways), I will do 50 giveaways. No purchase necessary. All you have to do is leave a comment on this blog and correctly answer the question and be the number of the day to win. Tune in Tuesday for the first giveaway. (Hint: These cute little critters stole the show in Savannah in November of 2011; if you need to figure out what is being given away, you can check the JGDS blog under the Savannah Children's Book Festival postings).

So let's all celebrate my birthday and hope you enjoy the prizes.

Of note, no matter how many times you enter comments, once you have won a prize, you can't win again for ten days; so that's like giving you all five chances throughout the giveaway time to win something. Stay tuned and let the celebration begin.

This and That

This week's sales have been 0 again, but I am running "The Proposal" free again (yesterday and today). When I checked my report at 10 minutes until 2 this morning, the past 6-weeks' report hadn't gone up but I had 410 downloads in the US (several in the UK, DE and FR) of "The Proposal". Having checked it about an hour or so before that, I had 370 something downloads. So my question is why when I look at amazon's rankings and standing in the free downloads section did it show me ranked at 585 with the 370 something downloads and 16th in the free kindle downloads, humor and dropping me to 598 ranking, still at the 16th spot in the same category when I gained almost 40 downloads. With more downloads, the ranking should be moving toward the top 100 (from 585 to 400 or 300 or whatever) not back up in numbers (higher ranked which is not what an author wants to see).

UPDATE AT 9:30 AM: Total downloads for Saturday were 424 in the US, 46 in the UK, 5 in DE (that is Germany, not Denmark as I had originally thought) and 1 in FR (I hadn't had any downloads in France for my other stories). Still no sales of any of my other stories but when I checked the amazon page for "The Proposal" my three other stories ("The Tulip Kiss", "Bride-and-Seek", and Finally Home) were listed as what customers also bought with "The Proposal", albeit there were no other books listed in that. My ranking went from 598 to 461 and #11 in the kindle store/ebook/humor department. Almost in the top 10. So far this morning, I showed 22 downloads in the US and a few in the UK, DE and possibly 1 in FR (I'll have to go back to check it out later since this report is reflective of the week ending March 31).

Please don't forget that if you have read any of my stories, whether when offered for free or you have purchased them and have completed reading them, reviews are very welcome. Please post them on Amazon, Goodreads, librarything, your blog, wherever you post your reviews and let me know when the review is up so that I can try to drive traffic to your website or blog. I appreciate it very much.

I don't hold any hope of making any sales after the free offering nor do I hold my breath that any of my other stories will show any sales in the days to follow, but one of these days I'll be a known author.

In other news, I have completed another afghan (posting to follow on Monday regarding my new campaign for the afghans) but have misplaced my camera so can't post pictures on the blogs or websites. It is frustrating because the last time I saw the camera was at the SCASL conference.

I'm still looking for some new ideas to post about and am glad to see I've had a couple more folks comment on at least one posting (this past Thursday's had 3 people comment), which means Susanne is not alone and there are two more folks reading my blog sometimes. Now to work on getting more readers or followers who will leave comments. I'm not up to any challenges as suggested by several folks, so maybe I need to give away something.

How about some bookworms. Your choice (all bookworms can be found on my website under the gifts tab and I think I'm up to 8 different colors including the Christmas one. So if you have not already received a bookworm, the first 8 people that comment here will get a bookworm, their choice of color. So leave your comment, suggest a topic to post about, or just leave words of encouragement and don't forget to leave a way to contact you so that I can get your mailing address (email address can be left in the comment in the following format: eeldering (at) gmail (dot) com) to send you your bookworm. See you all in the postings - E :)

New bookworm colors

As promised, here are the pictures of the new bookworm colors. They will go up on my websites soon but for now, the revealing of "Earthworm", "Cotton Candy" and Easter or spring bookworms:

The bookworms are $1.50 each plus shipping and if you order in bulk (20 or more, the cost is $1.25 each) - I'm trying to build up my cache so will be getting more yarn every trip to town, just to make sure I have a large collection of bookworms for in-person events and to sell on the websites. Thanks - E :)

Shopping and New items

Yesterday was payday along with taxes coming back. I took the kids shopping for clothes. Daughter did well getting what she needed - 3 jean capris, 4 tops, a pair of shoes, socks, underwear; son not so well in my opinion since he spent $60 on shoes which he probably could have gotten for half the cost at Walmart, 2 pair of jeans, a jacket that he needed and it was a great price (Old Navy - was originally priced at $90 and marked down to $22 - so that is his only sound purchase of the day), a pack of V-necked T-shirts. Me I did okay - got a pair of shoes that were on sale but because I bought daughter's shoes and they were running a BOGO50$ sale in the store, I got my tennis shoes for half off the sale price; I know that sounds petty but for a pair of Keds originally markd at $35, down to $25, and then to get them for $12.50 in the end - I'm a happy camper. I did pick up a top at Ross's and two nightgowns. The things I didn't get included some pants and more tops but they will have to wait as I spent way too much on other things.

What I did pick up at Walmart, and color me sticker shocked, was some new yarn for bookworms to sell at my events. Why sticker shocked? just a month and a half ago, the yarn was $2.33/skein and yesterday it was $2.58/skein (yeah, I know that's only a 25 cent increase but it was still shocking but I guess everything is going up relative to the price of gas/gallon). If I had about $20 I would have bought a bunch of the Christmas yarn for the end of this year since that was a popular item in November. Maybe in a week or so I can run in there and pick up several skeins to have on hand for the next season.

One of the colors I did pick up was what I already make what I call my "autumn" bookworms because that color scheme did very well. One of the others I'd been looking at for a whle and been thinking of getting is called "Monet" and it's very Easter-y or maybe this will be my new "spring" one. I did pick up two more skeins (four in total) of yarn - one called "bonbon print" and it could be a "spring" color scheme as well except it reminds me of cotton candy sort of - so not sure what I'll call that one. The last one, I think, is going to be one of my new favorites. The skein coloring is called "woodsy", so it's a lot of browns, tans and earthy colors. That bookworm is being "earthworm" - lol. I did one of each of the three new colors last night and went to take pictures of them (without their eyes right now) and my camera battery was dead, so the pictures will have to wait until I get my camera charged up (and by that time, the worms will all have their eyes - lol).

I'm running out of topics to write about, so I'm now turning this back into a family blog - lol (not really - just in that kind of mood today). If you all have any suggestions of things you'd like me to post about, please don't hesitate to leave a comment -

Update on Imogene: I wrote about 2 pages on the story Sunday - set the timer and all - and had a line or two that I really liked: People were always telling Jacob he could Imogene's twin, and they could as they had similar features - the dark hair, the Asian complexion, the eyes, and they shared more than just the same parents. They also shared the same date of birth seven years apart.

Does it give you an idea of what the story is about? Not really. Does it come into play later in the story? Maybe. Imogene went missing at the age of 5 while her family was vacationing in Asia. It is now 10 years later, the approaching 15th birthday; the few months before passports for children were individualized, and her mother, Sarah Beth is making the final quest to find her daughter to bring her home. A lot can happen in ten years and a lot did happen to Imogene, which I hope to bring out in the story as it develops. After writing what little I did Sunday afternoon, I told my editor that this story may be written piecemeal and pieced together to make it a novel (or at least novella length) as I have all these disjointed scenes floating around in my head that I know I need to sit down and write but there are no flowing ideas to move the story from point A to point B. Mini sections that somehow have to have some filler to make it a story.

What about my readers out there? Have you ever written a story in a disjointed manner (one scene/section at a time) and then tried to piece the story together in an orderly fashion? Let me know - it will be interesting to compare notes - E :)

It's here!

Finally Home proof copy is here. If you would like a copy for a Christmas present, now is the time to order. Once I go through the book, I will be releasing it to the public, and since I will be out of town a good bit next week (from Wednesday through Sunday, but not all in the same place - lol), I will be placing an order early Friday morning (from all the orders received between now and Friday morning) to ensure I have copies of books on hand for the Savannah's Children's book festival next weekend and to send out to all who have placed their order early. If you do not place your order with me (send me an email - eeldering@gmail.com with Finally Home order in the subject line) by mid morning Friday, your copy may not get to you in time for Christmas since I will have to place the order for copies after Thanksgiving, but it is possible that your copy could be received in time for Christmas. Usually I need a 2-1/2 to 3-week lead to order books, get them, sign them and place back in the mail. All orders placed between now and Friday will also receive a free bookworm bookmark in your choice of autumn, Christmas, primary, spring, summer or winter (one per book ordered, so if you ordered 6 copies, you could request one of each color - lol). Please indicate which one you would like when placing your order and also remember to tell me to whom to make the book.

Copies are $13 plus $2 for shipping per copy for the first 2 copies; 3 or 4 copies shipping is $5; and over 4 copies shipping will be $10. If you want to order from my website, you can check out the book page here and place an order that way. Email and website orders are direct from me and will be sent from me. If you do not want to email me but order directly through paypal, you just need to use my email addy as my paypal addy. If you want to order from amazon.com, check back the first of next week to place your order. Remember if you order a copy from any place other than a direct order and you want it "signed", you will need to go to kindlegraph and request your personalized note. You do not need a kindle to request a kindlegraph; these can be sent to any valid email addy (they come in as a PDF).

For advanced praises on Finally Home, stop over at Ms. Faye Tollison's site and check out her September postings. See you all in the postings - E :)