Peggy Jaeger's Blog, page 281

An Ego Check

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So, I was walking by a used bookstore in my town today and happened to glance at the front window. This is what I saw reflected back at me:

Take a close look, peeps. That’s my debut novel in the window.

My first thought was : cool, my book’s in the window for everyone to see!

My second thought was : wait a minute: why is my book in a used bookstore? That means someone who bought it – or worse, someone whom I gave it to as a present – actually donated it to the store. They didn’t want to keep it forever!

My third thought was : how dare they!!!

My fourth thought was : wake up and smell the coffee, Felicia. You’re not Nora Roberts. No one is going to keep your books for posterity, except for your family and close friends ( I hope!!)

My fifth thought: Oh. My. God! They hated it! They didn’t even think it was worthy enough to keep in their homes, on a bookshelf, tucked away getting dusty and molded. It was so terrible they wanted it out of their house. Forever.

My sixth and final thought was: get over yourself.

So, how was your day?

When I’m not having an ego crisis, here’s where you can find me…

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An homage to Lizzy Bennett….

It’s no secret Pride and Prejudice is my all time favorite romance novel. I’ve written ad nauseam about my love for it. Gone with The Wind comes close, but I always view that book more of a love tragedy than a triumph. One of the reasons P&P is so near and dear to my heart is its heroine, the feisty, intelligent, loyal Elizabeth Bennett. I put her right up there with Xena. Lizzy may not have been a warrior princess, defending land and country with a spear and a wicked drop kick, but she is certainly – in my humble opinion – a kick-ass romance chickita.

I recently read a very good piece titled 9 Reason’s we will always love Elizabeth Bennett. These include:

She never received a formal education, but made sure to educate herself.
She was confident and sure of herself, and even someone as imposing as Mr. Darcy couldn’t intimidate her.
She always put her family first
And would definitely have nothing to do with a man who dared to insult them.
She wouldn’t accept a partner for reasons less than love…
An ideal she stuck to, in spite of the fact that marrying Collins would have given her financial security, something no woman in her time could get on her own.
She understood the importance of kindness over money and a harp tongue
She never, ever took advantage of Mr. Darcy’s feelings for her
And she always, always spoke her mind.
To sum all that up, Lizzy didn’t take anyone’s crap, be it from the snivelingly Mr Collins, who could make her family’s future miserable, or from the snotty Lady Catherine de’Bourge, a high born woman of power and influence. She stayed true to herself as a woman and as a person, believed love conquered all, and that marriage should be for love and nothing else.

See? Kick-Ass romance chickita!

Social Media, Rules....

to see images, click on to https://peggyjaeger.com/2016/08/25/so...

And I don’t mean it like “rules for behavior.” No, I mean social media RULES the universe these days.

Let me ‘splain it you, Lucy…..

A little over a year ago I was an unknown, about-to-be-first-time-published author who had 15 Twitter followers on a good day. They were all friends and family who knew me and thought it was cute we were Tweeting one another inane things. My publisher recommended I increase my online presence to find more new readers for my books and to help promote those books through the free marketing Twitter encompasses with every tweet you send. I said, “okay” because, really, what was I going to say, NO? They were the experts. I was just a little unknown romance writer looking- hoping-praying- someone ( anyone) would buy a book from me.

I asked my daughter – the techy maven – how to go about finding new followers and she gave me a sage bit of advice. In order to get more followers, you have to…wait for it.…follow more people.

social-media1

Really? Could it be that easy?
Well, I’m here to tell you that, yes, it is that easy.

I found people who liked the same things I did: writers, romance readers and writers, and book lovers, and started following them, retweeting posts I liked, and interacting with complete strangers. In one month I increased my followers from 15 to 150.

When my book came out, I started tweeting about it, using those infamous and oh-so-beneficial-hashtags, and my following soared to 300.

With the next book, I did the same thing, finding trending hashtags that compared to what I was sharing and hastag-jumped onto those tweets. This brought me even more followers. At one point I was tweeting all my new followers every time I got one, thanking them for joining and following me. This got old pretty quickly when I spent almost an hour of each day doing it, so I stopped. I thought I might lose some followers by not pointing them out, and I did lose a few. But in the world of twitter math, for every 2-3 followers I lost, 10 more came on board. Today, I woke up to 811 followers.



Folks, I don’t even know 811 people!!!

social-media2

Now that I’m with a new publisher, I’ll be following more authors, and in turn, will increase my own followers even more. You can take everything I just wrote and apply it to Facebook, Google, and Pinterest as well. The more social media sights you troll on, the more “people” you will “meet.”

So, this is what I mean when I say Social Media rules. Because it does. Really. Go ahead and Tweet this and you’ll see what I mean!

And if you want to find me on Social Media, here’s where I am…ALL THE TIME!!! le Sigh!

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Book 3

please click on to the following link to see the images: https://peggyjaeger.com/2016/08/18/bo..., I just started working on the third book in my WILL COOK FOR LOVE series for Kensington/Lyrical/Shine and it’s going a little slow, so I decided to take a break ( i.e. procrastinate!) and let you see some of the images I’m using for my characters.

Here’s what I imagine my heroine Stacy Peters looks like:

Here’s my hero, Dominck Nikko Stamp


Here’s Dominick’s teenaged daughter, Melora



and last–but not least–Riley MacNeill, the chef ( and Melora’s crush!)

I Know… I have such a hard job!!!!

Haven’t come up with a title yet, so I’m calling it: COOKING FOR COWBOYS right now. I just know that is going to change!!!

Stay tuned.

here’s where you can find me: Tweet Me// Read Me// Visit Me// Picture Me//Pin Me//Friend Me//Google+Me//

Goal vs. Dream

So…I’m giving this motivational speech next month at a woman’s weekend retreat and I’ve starting putting my thoughts together on what I want to say, the points I want to highlight, and the ideas I want to leave the women with. And by starting to put together I really mean I’m starting to panic about what to say!! I’m going to use this blog piece as a way of organizing my thoughts, so please bear with me!

I’ve always asserted that there is a distinct difference between having a dream for yourself and having a goal. To prove I’m educated in the difference between the two, here are the definitions:

A goal is: an aim or desired result



A dream is: a cherished aspiration, ambition, or ideal


Now, just looking at the two you might think they really are the same thing. But I don’t think they are and here’s why.

I always had a little dream to write romantic fiction and have it published. My dream was to be able to support myself as a writer and have the people who read my stuff like it, be loyal, and want more of it. That was it. Just a dream. A little fantasy that played out in my mind time after time. I’d imagine myself going to book signings and have the waiting line for my table be out the door and around the block! I’d make every bestseller list out there, and talk shows would be clamoring to schedule me whenever I had a new book released. Amazon would list me as a preferred author and my Goodreads page would be off the chart with followers.

Okay, so it was a BIG dream and not really a little one.

What turned my dream into a reality was when I set a goal for myself centering on that dream to write and publish. I put an action plan behind my fantasy. I set a time frame for what I wanted to happen, the means to make sure it did, and took steps to promote and push it along to fruition.

See the difference? My dream was ephemeral, just a thought, an idea, a wish. My goal put action behind the fantasy to make it come true. To break it down even further ( for you literary and English majors!) my dream was a noun and my goal was the verb.

Make sense?

Now, of course, I’m going to expound on that a lot more when I give my talk. I do have to fill an entire hour and not just a three minute ready-to-read-piece like this one! But I think my idea is solid. How I got to live out my fantasy, my dream, how I made it happen, will comprise the majority of the speech. But for now, I have a starting point, so thank’s for listening and ANY WORDS OF WISDOM would not only be appreciated, they would be cherished…so feel free.

Here’s the info, btw, if you want to attend the women’s weekend retreat and see me make a fool of myse–, er…hear me speak: Camp Takodah

and…if you can’t make it to the retreat, here’s where you can find me: Tweet Me// Read Me// Visit Me// Picture Me//Pin Me//Friend Me//Google+Me//
***** for images and links, go to : https://peggyjaeger.com/2016/08/17/go...

Something New...

Recently, I signed on with NetGalley, an online book reviewer site. The reason I decided to do this was because I read a lot of books by new authors, and I know – personally!- how hard it is to get reviews. Reviews generate buzz about books to people, and as an author, I appreciate how valuable a good review is to finding new readers to read my stuff. A good review can up an author’s sales. A great review can propel a book and its writer into another stratosphere. Being a reviewer allows me to help the people I know who read my blog find great new and upcoming authors, and writers they’ve never read before.

I made a new page on my website to list the books and their reviews that I think are outstanding and worthy to be read. This is the link: Books I’ve reviewed . You’ll find well known authors in addition to many names many you’ve never heard of before – but should be hearing about!

My standards for review are the same ones I hope other reviewers will use for me. I won’t write a written review for any book that I can’t give a 4 or 5, to. If a book scores lower than that for me, it usually means the story didn’t resonate with me. That doesn’t mean it won’t appeal to others, tho, and I don’t want to post something negative about it. I’ve read two books recently that I gave only 3’s to because there were so many grammatical and typing errors in the copy I couldn’t actually enjoy the story because of it.

I don’t ever want to be one of those mean reviewers who epitomize the haters gotta hate rule. Those are the reviewers who I always think are secretly writer-wannabes who just can’t – for whatever reason -write the story themselves, so they bash others that do. So. Not. Me!

So, if my humble opinion means anything, I hope you will check back periodically and read about the books I’ve given kudos to.

If you need to find me, you can: Tweet Me// Read Me// Visit Me// Picture Me//Pin Me//Friend Me//Google+Me//

This didn’t win an award, but..

I sent this piece into a contest recently. It didn’t win. ANYTHING!!! Not win, place or show. But that’s okay. I figured I’d put it here and win…your hearts, instead!

TITLE: When life gives you lemons…don’t suck! ( this wasn’t REALLY the title. I just came up with it, like, 5 minutes ago!)

Two years ago I was downsized from my health care job and simultaneously going through the worst menopause Mother Nature had ever bestowed upon a female of the species. I was the human definition of a hot mess with too much time on my hands. My only child was grown and on her own; my husband was still employed full time; perpetual and soul-sucking hot flashes kept me up nights and my brain-like a rabid energizer bunny- never shut down. There’s only so much housekeeping, grocery shopping and cooking a person can do in their free time. My floors sparkled, the checkout people at the market knew me by my first name, my cabinets were organized as if Martha Stewart herself had arranged them, and my husband gained five pounds because of all the new recipes I was trying each week. I’d always liked to read, but starting and finishing a book in a day was a little much, even for me. I needed something to motivate me to get out of bed and showered every morning and to fill those daylight hours productively.

One March midnight, with a snowstorm blustering through the trees outside my New England home, I was sitting in the living room with the air-conditioner turned to high and blowing directly at my hormonally-charged, red, naked and perspiration-dripping body, when I started writing down a story that’d been swimming around in my brain for a while. I’d always wanted to write the great American romance novel but never had the time due to school/work/family/child/life responsibilities. I’d had a tiny bit of success over the years writing freelance non-fiction pieces about everything from Nursing topics (since I was a Master Degreed Registered Nurse), to motherhood and child-rearing concerns, but writing a romance novel had always been my dream since I’d read my very first Nora Roberts book. Now that I’d been shaved down to three days of clinic work per week, I figured I had the time to invest in my dream and might as well use it to my benefit.

Those two days off per week, plus the weekends, were certainly spent well in this endeavor. I treated writing as if I were still working, meaning I devoted the hours I should have been at a paying job to getting the story down on paper, or – in my case – on the laptop. Those hours I spent writing I considered sacred. I could have goofed off; gone shopping; had my nails done: watched a Real Housewives of any city marathon. But I didn’t. I simply wrote my heart out. Three months later I had a 350-page romance novel completed. The day I typed The End is a moment in time I will never forget. The fact it occurred at 2:25 in the morning and I was sweating like a farm animal might have something to do with that.

Now what? I had 350 pages of a story I was in love with but I wasn’t sure what I’d written was any good, had any merit, or even if the story was coherent. Were my characters likable? Believable? Was the story arc interesting or as dull as my brain before morning caffeine? Since none of my friends were romance readers I knew they couldn’t be depended upon to give me valuable feedback because – as my friends – they’d all be loyal and tell me it was wonderful even if it stank. So I decided to do something I’d never done before: I entered a contest. I knew romance-writing contests offered critiques on the work submitted and that’s what I was looking for. I wanted someone connected with the industry to tell me I was either on the right track, or to get the he** off the train because I had no talent and wasn’t leaving the station anytime soon. So I submitted the first three chapters as instructed.

I’d never entered a contest for anything before. I wasn’t that kid who ripped off the back of a comic book and entered a giveaway promotion for a soon-to-be-released-must-have-toy. I didn’t clip the Sunday ad promos begging the reader to enter for a chance to win free samples. Heck, I didn’t even buy lotto tickets when the prize was half a gazillion dollars. Entering a contest was something I’d never considered because I just didn’t – and still don’t – believe in luck. To me, the real definition of luck is when opportunity meets preparation, so blindly entering a contest to win a prize wasn’t on my radar. Entering this writing contest though, where I’d actually prepared something for someone to judge, was a totally different incentive for me.

I knew – knew – I didn’t have a chance at any kind of prize; this was a given. I wasn’t entering to win, though. I was totally invested in the notion my writing would be judged and when I’d get a critique and score back, I’d know if the direction I was moving in was worthwhile. I told myself if the work truly was horrible, at least the critique would show me the areas I needed to address and concentrate on. The added benefit of submitting the chapters, I soon realized, was the people judging me didn’t know me from Adam – or in my case – Eve. Criticism, I’ve found, is much easier to take when you don’t know the person who is critiquing your work, so in my heart I knew my ego wouldn’t be too devastated when the pages came back to me filled with comments about areas for improvement.

But an amazing thing happened: I received an email informing me I’d won my category. And not only that, the judge who’d read it was the publisher of The Wild Rose Press. She contacted me and told me she’d enjoyed what I’d written and asked if I’d submit the entire manuscript for review to one of their in-house editors. Would I? Damn straight I would, Skippy!

So I did. Again, I had no preconceived notions of anything stupendous happening. Just the fact she’d asked to see more than the three chapters she’d read was encouraging. I assumed the editor I’d submitted to would send it back to me, littered with margin suggestions and corrections and with a simple note saying, “Thanks for letting me read this, but it’s not for us,” and that would be that.

But it wasn’t. She liked it too, so the Wild Rose Press contracted to publish it. And my next two books in the series as well, with options for books four and five. And a novella due out in Spring 2016.

At fifty-four years old I had a dream – a dream I’d never shared with anyone – come true. A true middle-aged Cinderella moment. All because I decided to do something I’d never even considered doing before.

To say my life changed forever in the instant I won that contest category would be an understatement. To have the book of my heart actually published, to have a publisher truly like what I’d written and like it enough to take a chance on an unknown, menopausal, sleep-deprived empty nester fifty-four year old bottled blonde with crow’s feet and a muffin top, was not only a dream come true, but a modern day miracle.

When my first book was published in March 2015 I officially “retired” from my downsized paying job. Nowadays I get to go to work in my pajamas every morning – and sometimes in nothing at all, depending on the state of my hot flashes – and I never have to leave my house. I write in an attic loft overlooking my quiet and beautiful wooded property.

In a strange, karmic way, the enforced and unanticipated downsizing was the spark necessary to propel me to change my life and move it in the direction I’d always wanted it to go, but never had the courage to take it. I will never regret entering that writing contest because it opened doors I don’t know would have ever opened for me otherwise. If I hadn’t made the decision to take a chance and submit my story, I think my life would still be the same, unfulfilled, overworked, sweaty, hormonal one it had turned into.

I’m still sweating and hormonal, but now I’m also a Published Author.

And life is so much better – hot flashes and all.

Thoughts...

Some days I have simply nothing to say on my blog ( I know, hard to believe!) so I’m just going to say this for now:
Every day is a gift.
We’re not promised anything in this life – good, bad or other,
So begin each day as if it was the first day of your life and make it count; make it special; make it mean something…to you as well as others.
Be kind even in the face of cruelty,
Be loving even when dealing with hate,
Be quiet when all around you is raging
and
Be the person others think of when they talk about goodness.
Leading by example IS the best way to bring about change for the better.
I believe this and I live this.

Evolving Romance reader….

**Please click on to http://peggyjaeger.com/2016/08/03/evo... to view the images


When I was a teenager ( 175 years ago!), my taste in, and selection of, romance books was a tad different from what it is today. Kathleen E. Woodiwiss and Rosemary Rogers were my top reads back in the day and this little sheltered Catholic girl learned a whole lot about love, sex, and romance ( you thought I was gonna say Rock and Roll, admit it!) from those talented writers. In a world before the Internet, cell phones, reality TV and fame for fame’s sake, these books educated me in the ways of seduction, foreplay, and the real difference between men and women. Being transported back to the times when manners mattered, words could be used to seduce or slay, and women came to a marriage bed untouched and unknowing was fun to read.


Flash forward to the present day and I’m invested in, and now read a, different kind of romance story. While Regency tales of naughty noblemen and lascivious Lords are still fun for me to loose myself in, I know all about sex now, firsthand (!) so my eyes don’t need to be opened from reading about it, and I have a different perspective on what I want to read in today’s romance book.

Contemporary romantic fiction runs the gamut from sweet (no sex) tales of Amish women finding their true loves, to mild ( some sex, bedroom door closed) stories of women embarking on new life challenges; from sensual (sex with bedroom door wide open) stories of women discovering the meaning of their lives, to spicy (LOTS of sex in every place imaginable!) tales of women who are discovering their sexual – and personal – identities.

The common denominator in all the books I like to read now? The word contemporary.


I lovelovelove reading about present day women of any age who are struggling, trying to make a better life, wondering if they will ever find their own happily ever after. Contemporary women in the here and now are my tribe. They live their lives with passion, fight for the ideas they believe in, aren’t afraid to speak their minds, and would do anything for, and sacrifice everything for, the people they love. The men they let into their hearts may not always be deserving of such a place of honor in the beginning of the tale, but by the end of it, my contemporary girls have brought about a profound change in them – and in herself – that it facilitates their lifetime love. Their own happily ever after.

The contemporary romances I read – I will freely admit – run from sensual to spicy. Unlike when I was growing up, women can have sex freely these days without the dread of being burned at the stake ( don’t laugh – it happened), without fear of being abandoned by family and society, and without worry about getting pregnant – although this last one is a popular romantic trope to this day ( the unplanned OOPS baby). They can engage in behavior that at one time would have lead to their banishment from society, their public censure, and their economic downfall. And they can have fun doing it now. Some of my favorite books to read are romantic comedies where the laughs equal the sexy parts, measure for measure.

In my youth, the heroines I read fell into a very small category: ladies of noble birth or not. No in between. No shopkeepers, governesses, scullery maids.

Today, the heroines I read about are brilliant doctors, powerful lawyers, CEO’s of their own companies, tech executives. They are nurses, teachers, veterinary techs, bus drivers, race car enthusiasts, television producers. And they are stay-at-home moms, policewomen. writers. They are all the women I know.

So, in the past several decades I can truly say I have evolved as a romance reader.

But I have to admit I still love a Regency rake!


Since I love contemporary romances, here’s where you can find the ones I write – stories about strong women, the families who support them, and the men who can’t live without them. Amazon author page



My most recent book, THE VOICES OF ANGELS.

Blurb:

Love is the last thing Carly Lennox is looking for when she sets out on her new book tour. The independent, widowed author is content with a life spent writing and in raising her daughter. When newscaster Mike Woodard suggests they work on a television magazine profile based on her book, Carly’s thrilled, but guarded. His obvious desire to turn their relationship into something other than just a working one is more than she bargained for.

Mike Woodard is ambitious, and not only in his chosen profession. He wants Carly, maybe more than he’s ever wanted anything or anyone else. As he tells her, he’s a patient man. But the more they’re together, Mike realizes it isn’t simply desire beating within him. Carly Lennox is the missing piece in his life. Getting her to accept it-and him-may just be the toughest assignment he’s ever taken on.

Buy Links: Amazon /// TWRP /// Kobo /// Nook

If you need to find me, you can: Tweet Me// Read Me// Visit Me// Picture Me//Pin Me//Friend Me//Google+Me//

Serendipity? You Betcha!

Take a look at these 2 photos: Please click on to https://peggyjaeger.com/2016/07/26/se... for photos)

mywall wall2

The one on the left is hanging on my bedroom wall. I bought it right before I got married 175 years(!) ago in a little shop in NYC. I loved the whole Victoria/Regency aspect of it. I believe it’s called Signing the Registry. The one on the right I took as a screenshot when I was recently on the treadmill – you can see my slow progress in the numbers above the photo. This picture I grabbed out of a scene from LOVE BENEATH THE COVERS a documentary about the Romance Publishing business. It was shown at the #RWA16 conference last week in San Diego, but I couldn’t attend due to a prior engagement, so I rented it on i-Tunes for my daily treadmill tortur…um…exercise. You will notice they are one and the same picture of an 18th century marriage license signing ceremony.

Why is this significant, you ask? Well, I’ll tell you.

Every now and again my Guardian angels/karma/the universe ( call it what you like) deems it proper to remind me that I made the appropriate choice to retire early and devote myself to full time writing. Seeing this picture which I have always loved and always will, displayed not only in my home, but in a film about the romance writing industry, proves to me I’ve made the correct choices for my career path these past 2 years.

So…serendipity, much? You betcha!!

My most recent book, THE VOICES OF ANGELS.

Blurb:

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Love is the last thing Carly Lennox is looking for when she sets out on her new book tour. The independent, widowed author is content with a life spent writing and in raising her daughter. When newscaster Mike Woodard suggests they work on a television magazine profile based on her book, Carly’s thrilled, but guarded. His obvious desire to turn their relationship into something other than just a working one is more than she bargained for.

Mike Woodard is ambitious, and not only in his chosen profession. He wants Carly, maybe more than he’s ever wanted anything or anyone else. As he tells her, he’s a patient man. But the more they’re together, Mike realizes it isn’t simply desire beating within him. Carly Lennox is the missing piece in his life. Getting her to accept it-and him-may just be the toughest assignment he’s ever taken on.

Buy Links: Amazon /// TWRP /// Kobo /// Nook

If you need to find me, you can: Tweet Me// Read Me// Visit Me// Picture Me//Pin Me//Friend Me//Google+Me//