Peggy Jaeger's Blog, page 3

Call me vain…

go ahead. It’s true when it comes to my books.

Look at this:

Amazon does this rotating thing on your home page where every couple of days they move your book listings around. This is today’s arrangement and I have to say how much I love this pairing. The entire ( so far) Heaven’s Matchmaker collection and my FBI Profilers/serial killer book are the first thing you see when you get to my page. Two genres that couldn’t be more diverse and opposite! One’s about love and happily ever afters, and the other is about murder.

Honestly, how cool is that, lol?!

I love seeing the entire Heaven’s Matchmaker collection together because the covers are so darn pretty. And I thank myself for that because I designed them. Most people by now know the history behind book 1, MIX AND MATCH. That’s my daughter on her wedding day on the cover. I saw the full picture in her proofs and fell in love with it. I asked her if I could use it for the cover of a book and she said absolutely not. LOL. But then I told her I wanted the picture, sans her head, and just her hands and the flowers. She told me we had to purchase the rights from the photographer and he named a price I couldn’t afford to pay. So my dream for a series of books based on that cover went the way of the dinosaur.

And then…

I received the rights to the picture for my birthday from my daughter. She negotiated a much more reasonable price with her photographer, and viola! A book series was born.

I designed the cover for RETRIBUTION as well. If you’ve read it, you know there’s a backstory that fits into the hand coming out of the coffin. It doesn’t play a major role in the story, but explains the reason behind the retirement of one of the FBI profilers. I don’t like spoilers so I don’t want to give too much away, but that cover gives me such joy when I see it because I love that darn book so much.

In fact, I venture to say that these 4 books are the top four in my Peggy Jaeger books I want to reread list, and that I’m proud of.

Please don’t think I’m conceited, because that’s the last thing I am.

I’m just simply proud to be at a point in my life where I am finally doing something I’ve been dreaming about since I was eight years old and writing stories in my diary.

My books aren’t only available from Amazon, though, so if you’re not a B*zos supporter, no worries. You can also find them at these locations and on my website. There’s a drop-down menu above that gives you an order form.

Here are the other places you can find my work:

Barnes and Noble

Kobo

Hoopla

Libby

And like I said, you can always get books from mywebsite.

But I do love that graphic today!

~ Peg

Build a Book Boyfriend Podcast interview…

In May of this year I was honored to be a guest on romance writer Lisette’s BUILD A BOOK BOYFRIEND podcast.

We could have talked for hours about romance, tropes, subgenres… and we spent so much of the interview just laughing and giggling. I love when I can talk about romance books with someone who is as into reading them as I am!!

The interview is up on Substack and you can listen to it here: Podcast interview

And if you’re a Substack subscriber please subscribe to BUILD A BOOK BOYFRIEND

Happy listening, kids.

~Peg

A little reminder for a major milestone…

for me ( !)

Today is Sunday, July 6,2025. The reason I’m telling you the date is so that you have a date reference for what I’m about to tell you.

This Wednesday, July 9, 2025 there is a new Barnes and Noble store opening in Keene, NH, which just so happens to be my hometown. At 5 o’clock, and going until 7 pm, I will have a booksigning, author meet and greet at the store! My first in a major bookseller chain! To say I am excited is a misnomer. I am practically catatonic with glee! This is such a milestone for any author and it’s come 10 years after I started writing for a living.

Yeah, I know. I’m a slow starter in most things in my life, writing no exception.

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Keene

Monadnock Marketplace

32 Ash Brook Road #4BKeene, NH 03431
(603) 602-1669

View Store Details

I am simultaneously jumping for joy and dreading the whole experience. The jumping for joy part is self explainable. The dreading? It’s because I’m a terrified NO ONE will show up. And I mean NO ONE. I’ve done book signings at a local indie bookstore over the years and have sat there for 2 hours and smiled at people who just walked on by and wanted nothing to do with me, merely intent on strolling through a bookstore unaccosted. So if you are reading this and you live in the Keene, NH area and any area within 20 miles, PLEASE come out and see me!

Shameless beg, I know, but like I said, I am desperate, LOL.

I sincerely hope to see some of my friends and some readers as well. The store has a full stock of my traditionally published books, so if you don’t have any of those, this is the perfect time to get them, support a new store opening in our town in this horrible economy *(yay!) and support a local writer ( Me!)

July 9, 2025 from 5-7pm. Be there or be square ( and that right there tells you how old I am!!!)

Summer reading challenges…

aren’t just for kids.

Remember when we were kids, back in the day (LOL), and summer rolled around and before you left school for the summer you were handed a SUMMER READING LIST that you had to complete before school started up again in the Fall? Older grades were also charged with writing a book report for their favorite book read during the summer break.

The purpose of this “challenge” was to keep kids reading during the months off from school so they wouldn’t lose the momentum of reading. My grade school even did a math challenge just to ensure we didn’t lose any of our skills learned during the year – which is a proven fact happens to kids at certain ages if they don’t keep “practicing” what they’ve learned.

I loved those reading lists.

On the first day of vacay I would march to the local library and take out three of the books on my list at a time. I was always a fast reader, so I usually blew through my summer list before July ended, wrote my report – in longhand because we didn’t have laptops back then. Yes, I am a cusp-boomer/gen X baby – and then would keep going back to the library to read other books by some of the fav authors I’d discovered with the list.

Judy Blume. Carloyn Keene. Beverly Cleary. Roald Dahl ( although as an adult I learned about how problematic he was), Laura Ingalls Wilder. These were all on my list as I moved from grade school to middle school. I think this summer, 1971, I read every book these fabulous authors had in print – all gleaned from the library.

Do kids still have summer reading challenges and lists these days? I wonder. I don’t have little kids running around my house anymore, but I know my daughter had a list when she was in grade school in the 1990s.

The funny thing is, as an adult, I still love a summer reading challenge and a summer reading list, and I make one every year. Typically, because it’s vacation time for most of the developed world, time devoted to recreational reading goes up in the summer. With the birth of the Kindle, Nook, and the capability to read on any device you own, plus audiobooks, people on vacation no longer have to lug pounds of print books in their luggage when they travel. You can pack thousands of books, with no added weight, right into your carryon. And you can read anywhere! Beach, boat, plane, cabin in the woods, tent.

Do you have a summer reading list? Do you like them?

Here’s a hint for those of you who never know when a new book is being released. If you are on GOODREADS, you can scroll to the menu and hit BROWSE. You’ll see a dropdown choice titled NEW RELEASES. You can even specify for which type of book your searching. Once you drag down to the upcoming releases, you can scroll through the next four months to see when new books are coming out, again filtering down to what you typically like to read. Or even if you are looking for a new genre to tackle.

I do this weekly (yes, I am a little obsessed!) because I don’t ever want to miss a book by one of my one click authors. Since the books are divided into the months they will be out in the world, it’s easy to make a summer reading list for yourself.

Or a Fall one.

Or even a Winter list.

Yeah…I’m obsessed!

Summer reading challenges. They’re so much fun.

Now…go read, peeps.

~Peg

The drama of AI…

in the book community.

If you’re on TIKTOK ( which I am) there’s always some kind of drama around BOOKTOK, the reader/author division of the app. Drama pushes narratives, which pushes likes/reposts/comments which pushes the all-important engagement and ups the algorithms.

The latest drama involves 3 big Booktok content creators ( the app’s name for people who make videos) and an app called Character AI, which basically takes characters authors have created and writes stories around them. Without the author’s permission. And by a bot. Without compensation.

It’s much more complicated than that, but the offshoot is that these 3 creators have done endorsements for the app/program.

Why is that so egregious to the BOOKTOK community, you ask? Well, I’ll tell you.

Booktok is one of- if not THE – largest community that continually supports, bolsters, and promotes INDEPENDENT AUTHORS. And these 3 creators have professed their absolute love and backing of indie authors over the years. To have them turn against everything they have been espousing and support – for money and promotion – a system that not only does not pay indie authors for using their material, but basically steals it to do so, is against everything the BOOKTOK community stands for.

There are thousands of indie authors who use Booktok to promote their books, gain new readers, and interact with other people who love to read and write as much as they do. I am one of these authors. I’ve met so many new reader-friends who like what I write and read and want to discuss it. I’ve garnered many new readers who have bought my books, liked them, and have come back for more. That is community. That is fellowship. That is people who share a common goal and experience.

AI will be the death of the indie author if allowed to continue on unfettered as it has. META has already taken millions of words by authors to train their bots to “write.” And again, without telling the authors or compensating them. There is no other profession where using the work done by someone else for your benefit without paying them for it would be allowed.

I never use AI in my books, covers, or any part of my writing. All the words come from my head. All the plots come from my imagination. All the writing is done by me typing away for hours, daily, 365 days a year. I now have a rider in the front of my indie books repeating this.

Today I saw over forty video posts from authors – baby and seasoned – who condemned these three booktokkers for going to the dark side. This is my feeble way of protesting what those 3 have done. By informing you, just in case you haven’t heard about the drama, is my way of assuring you I don’t use AI and to let you know there are people out there who are cheating their way through the production of a book. I will never call them authors or writers because they aren’t.

How will you know if the book you are reading is AI generated? I,unfortunately, don’t have an answer for that. But if you read a certain genre of book and by many authors, you may begin to see similar plotlines/characters/ and word choices that will clue you to the fact that the book was not really WRITTEN as much as AIWritten.

Lordy, this career just keeps getting more convoluted every day….

Dreams come true when you…

…table your fears.

Okay, that title is a little cheesy, but… I did something I’ve never done before. I called a major bookseller and asked if they’d carry my books in their store. Here’s the 411: My town has a brand new BARNES AND NOBEL bookstore opening on July 9, 2025. I wanted to see if they’d carry my books since I am a local author and most of my titles are in wide distribution now, B&N included. I received and email from the store manager a few days after I sent that ask and…

I am so indescribably delighted to announce I will be a guest of the store, at a booksigning on opening day!!!

Here is the official notice on the B&N website:

In Store  |  Wednesday, July 09, 2025 5:00 PM ET
Special Event, Author Event

Grand Opening: Peggy Jaeger – Local Author Book SigningAbout this Event

Join us in store as we celebrate local author Peggy Jaeger. Peggy is a Keene local and will be here to sign copies of her romance novel Dearly Beloved.

“Colleen O’Dowd manages a thriving bridal business with her sisters in Heaven, New Hampshire. After fleeing Manhattan and her cheating ex-fiancé, Colleen still believes in happily ever afters. But with a demanding business to run, her sisters to look after, and their 93-year-old grandmother to keep out of trouble, she’s worried she’ll never find Mr. Right.”

Keene Monadnock Marketplace 32 Ash Brook Road #4B Keene, NH 03431
(603) 602-1669

SOmeone once told me that luck is really just preparation meeting opportunity.

My prep was my 65 title book list. The opportunity? A new store coming to town and me feeling brave ( for once!) to ask for something I wanted.

The result? A dream come true – my books in a major retail bookseller and a booksigning at the actual brick and mortar store.

Can you spell GOBSMACKED???

I sincerely hope you can join me if you are in the area on July 9th. I would lovelovelove to see/meet/talk with you and share with you this monumentous moment for me!!!

I’m still pinching myself trying to wake up from this lovely dream ( come true!)

The road to discouragement and disillusionment is paved with…

…poor book sales.

I am going to try and not make this the downer post it is sounding like running about in my head right now. Pray for me, lol.

I have been in the business of writing/publishing for 10 years, almost 11 at this point. I have over 65 titles currently out in the world, over 25 with traditional publishers. I have been on podcasts for bookstagrammers, won many amazing contests for my books, been featured in 2 highly valued e-zines about books. I’ve been to over 30 book signings, 8 of my own and 22 multiauthor events. I’ve spent thousands of dollars on ads promoting my books on the huge social platforms where ads are encouraged. I’ve done book giveaways, been a guest at dozens of facebook parties, and basically done everything that every book marketing analyst says to do to get your books in front of readers. I sell books directly from my website and do preorders for all the conferences and book events I attend. I’ve done ARCS giveaways to readers I don’t know hoping agianst hope they’ll write a review. My return rate on that is ( this is for the last book I promoted this way) 100 arcs/14 reviews.

And we all know authors live and die by book sales and book reviews.

I promote myself and my books every single day on my social platforms. And only about 20 percent of the promos are “buy this book” ones. Most are exactly what the marketing geniuses say to do – promote yourself and your brand: Be real. Be engaging. Be funny. Send the message your video/ad/post is worth viewing.

And I’m tired.

And you know what else I am?
I’m discouraged.

My book sales are nil. Really. NIL!!! Nada. Zilch. No bueno.

If I had to support myself, I’d need three jobs to just to get by.

Someone close to me (okay…my hubby.) says it’s because I write in a glutted genre and he’s not totally wrong. Covid brought out the I-can-write-a-book-and-make-millions crowd who basically, a. can’t write for shit, and b. must have had disposable income to spend on ad after ad after ad to promote their “work,” because all I see are videos and ads promoting it.

They are selling books. Or at least they appear to be. I’m not privy to their KDP page and they could be lying for all I know.

In the good old days when marketing was done for you by the publishers, writers could just crank out the work and someone else was charged with getting your name in front of the book buying public. With the advent of the indie author, this job falls to the author, along with writing, distributing, formatting, editing, cover production and then hawking the book.

All writers want to do is write. I know hundreds of authors and I have never EVER heard one of them say they would rather be marketing their books than writing them.

Not one.

That tells you something right there, doesn’t it.

Even writing this post and then uploading it to all my media sites is taking time away from writing my next book. I sound like I am whining, and you know? I kinda am. Okay, no kinda about it. I am whining. But the frustration is real. Just once I’d like to actually come out on top financially when I have a new release.

I don’t know any other profession that’s a sustainable lifestyle with so little income and such a load of outgo in the finance department.

Okay, whining, for sure.

There is one major factor in my writing career I am doing moving forward. I am not going to be doing the amount of multiauthor booksignings I have been doing the past 10 years. Right now I am a small cog in a wheel. The majority of readers attending this conventions seem to want to read smut ( and that’s the term for it. It’s not a prejorative), romantasy, dark romance, and mafia romance.

I don’t write any of those and am not going to start now just to sell a few books.

I write mostly small town, 40+ h//h characters who have lived lives and ar looking for love. I write everything from sweet to steamy with open door. What the characters are telling me is the story I give them, so if that means nothing more than a kiss, okay. If it means getting frisky between the sheets ( and other fun places), okay. My niche is small, and because if that I am not finding readers at conferences or on the social anymore.

So, moving forward, I am eschewing the big events for smaller, individual ones. Library events are my favorite! The cost is nothing except a donated book and you actually get to talk to people and commune with them.

I sell books on my website and will continue doing so because if I’m not going to big events, I need a way for people who do want my books to get them autographed, personalized, and get some swag to them.

I have one new big event booked for 2026 and so far that is it.

I have 6 more events for this year ( 4 multiauthor, one personal booksigning, and one library event.) and then I am done.

Done.

In between i will still try to hawk my books on socials, but I am hoping I won’t be so whining about it moving forward.

Thanks for listening to this rant.

I really am tired and just want to write.

Writing mode…

I have been frantically working on my newest FBI thriller these past few weeks. I spent most of May writing it to the detriment of marketing any of my other books. I rarely posted on Instagram and only did marginal new material on facebook, just “sharing” many other posts from friends. I did keep up with my tiktok posts because I could film a week’s worth in one day then schedule them to release daily. And to be honest, it’s easier to make a 15 second video than to write a blog post or design a new graphic for the other socials.

I’m telling you all this to make a point. My book sales have tanked. Like, sinkhole dropped. They are flirting with the Earths crust tanked.

I haven’t sold a book/ebook/audiobook in weeks. If I was writing to support myself I’d be either starving or out on the streets by now, lol.

Marketing is my least favorite thing to do in the publishing world, that is no lie. I am not a natural born salesperson and I get hives thinking about having to hawk my wares.

One of the main reasons I have stopped applying to big book, multiple author booksignings is because I am so bad at tooting my own horn and I am sick of losing money at each event because of poor or no sales. Readers walk by my table and I get nervous trying to draw them in, so they typically just smile and walk by to buy books at other tables.

If I had any kind of disposable Income ( like Powerball winnings!) I would hire a publicity firm and let them do all the marketing for me.

Unfortunately, Powerball has not shined down on me, lol, so it’s up to me to push my books.

But I really just want to write and finish my next FBI profiler book.

A rock and hard place? Yup.

Ah, the fabulous life of a writer…. if they only knew.

The unfairness of the publishing world

If you are following any kind of social media regarding the book world, #Booktok, #Authortok, #bookstagram, any of the hashtag/socials that discuss books, publishing, and authors, you have heard the name LUKE BATEMAN in the past few days.

Luke is a thirty-something, WHITE MALE Aussie farmer/former Rugby player who queried an agent a few months ago about a book idea, and never heard anything back. He decided to join Tiktok/Booktok, made a post where he held up a “smutty fantasy” book, said he had ideas while wiggling his eyebrows, immediately got over a million followers ( mostly women!) and then suddenly, a few days ago, he announced ( and was verified by a publishing trade journal) that based on that post he acquired an agent, a publishing contract for over a million dollars and a two book romance deal. Cinder-fella story, right?

Here’s the clicker: Luke self admits he has never written a word in his life. The publisher knows this. The agent knows this.

One million dollars and a two book deal. There is word on the street it’s already being considered a for a five book series.

And let me repeat: he self admitted he has never written a word in his life. He just likes to read.

How the hell is this fair? There are authors (I am one of them) who have been toiling at this for years – decades – querying agent after agent; attending book events in the hopes to pitch to editors; writing, perfectly our craft, doing everything and anything we can to hawk our books, get a trad publishing deal, have our own Cinderella stories…and this jerk comes out of the blue and has the keys to the kingdom handed to him?

Because he’s good looking and has a big social following and likes “fantasy smut?”

When he posted his I GOT A BOOKDEAL video on Booktok, he blatantly said, “I can’t wait to write this book.”

So…he’s never written a book, never written a word of romantasy and he’s now gonna write one because he got paid to do so.

My thoughts are so all over the place on this it’s almost a schizophrenic dervish in my brain.

This is the reason so many fabulous authors have left tradition publishing, and so many others who were never picked up by publishing houses chose to go indie. The gatekeeping that agents do for the trad houses is disgusting. The only reason – and let’s be clear on the fact he’s never written a word – he got picked up is because he had a semblance of an idea, is good looking ( i don’t think so, but most others do) white, and male. If you think this is sour grapes on my part – think again, because it’s not.

BIPOC authors, marginalized authors and women have been kept out of the traditional publishing upper echelons for decades, now more than ever. The very fact that this man could come out of bloody nowhere – okay, Australia isn’t nowhere but you know what I mean – and have this happen because of a post he put up on social media just proves that no matter how hard you try, white males with nothing to show for themselves are always going to come out on the top of the heap.

I’m betting that when he gets off his tractor and sits down to write this epic romantasy book that he had a concept of an idea for, that it’s going to be heavily AI generated.

Bet me.

Bad author signing events… a little spilled tea.

I don’t know where these titles are coming from lately, but I’m here for them, lol.

Yesterday I enumerated several reasons why I’m cutting back on attending multi-author book signing events in 2026. I really should have cut down this year but for some reason I just didn’t.

I want to talk today about why some of these events fall apart.

If you’ve been on TikTok lately, you know there was an event in Baltimore called, I believe, A Million Lives author reader event. Apparently, there were warning flags for several months about the venue, miscommunication, and promises that were made and then never kept from the organizer(s). Over 100 authors/vendors/narrators showed up and paid big bucks to be there, and only about 60 readers showed. Video from the event was heartbreaking. Table after table of author after author with piles of books and no one shopping or stopping. Then, there was a “ball” the evening of the event. It looked ( from the videos) like the worst kind of middle school dance. The majority of authors who attended this event ( not all, but a good number) were baby authors and this was their first experience with a book signing. Numerous videos of them crying and bemoaning they were out hundreds, if not thousands of dollars, filled my feed for days. After a while I shut all the posts off.

I’m not demeaning these authors’ reactions and emotions. That would be cruel. But I’ve been there, so I know crying and moaning and asking people to buy your books on a TikTok post so you can break even isn’t the way to conduct yourself. It really puts a bad taste in my mouth about the “authors” who did that, but that’s neither here nor there.

I can relate to what they were feeling because I’ve been to big events that were oversold or undersold, and I didn’t sell one book an dwas out hundreds and thousands of dollars. And I haven’t been a baby author in over 10 years.

So, back to the title of this post. Where I think these events go wrong.

Hubris. Just because you think you can put on an event like this, doesn’t mean you should and chances are you can’t, and probably won’t make it successful if you do. Especially if you have never hosted an event like a big book signing. There’s a reason we employ EVENT PLANNERS, people. Going into an event headspace and thinking you can make it the greatest thing since sliced bread is a recipe for disaster. Which is exactly what happened with A MILLION LIVES.Having hundreds of authors in an event space that is too small to accommodate half of them is a fire code violation waiting for disaster. I don’t understand all these people ( and the majority of them are writers) who plan these events and want to make them the biggest, grandest, most author heavy event ever. Unless you rent out a stadium, it’s not gonna be comfortable for the authors, who bring a lot of stuff to the event to attract readers and sell their books; the readers who are trying to move around from table to table; or any vendors who also come with caravans of “stuff.” Tables are typically 6-8 feet and have to be arranged per fire code rules. I’ve been to too many over-authored events were there was no room between tables to move around or even store stuff.You need volunteers for any event, but a big book signing? You need three times what you think you do. The reasons are varied, but the main one is for the author’s health and safety and to help guide the readers if they have any questions. I was at a huge event in an oversold situation and the signing was 5 hours. I do not have a PA or any help I travel with. It’s just me. So for five hours I couldn’t drink anything because if I had to go to the bathroom I couldn’t leave my table because of the chance of theft. And because I couldn’t drink anything in an over crowded, extremely hot room, I got dehydrated and sick. Hand in hand with that, there were approximately 7 volunteers ( all teenagers) for over 150 authors and hundreds of readers. They did nothing. I repeat. Nothing. They didn’t give out water to the authors, didn’t check on them to see if they needed a break or a snack, or any help at all. They basically sat in a circle and texted on their phones. For an event to be successful you need ADULT volunteers who are equipped with information to impart, care about what they are doing, and will speak nicely and coherently to the readers and authors.Advertising is a must to draw people into an event. A MILLION LIVES had no advertising and people I know who live in Baltimore didn’t even know the event was taking place. A few mentions in facebook groups or an instagram picture is not going to do it. The authors have to pay for the table rentals and registration fees at these events. Some of that money should be going to paid commercial ads in newspapers, on the radio, etc. You can’t just put on an event and expect people to show up if they don’t know about it. This isn’t Field of Dreams. If you build it, they WILL NOT come unless they know about it.Venues. Most signings I have been to of late take place in hotels because they have event spaces that are rentable. This is good. What isn’t is if the hotel doesn’t give a room rate for the authors or the event as a whole. Again, using AML as an example, apparently the hotel hosting the vent didn’t honor a supposed event room rate and authors had to switch hotels at the last minute just so they weren’t charged $300 a night for a bed to sleep in. This is disgraceful and I blame the hotel and the coordinator. Again, just because you think you can put on a successful event, doesn’t mean you will or should.The other thing I see time and again at events that are poorly run is no sense of organization. No program or map of where the authors are situated in a room for the readers; no swag bag; no swag of any kind. Too many of one genre, top heavy and a poor representation of others. For instance, if you are going to run an event and bill it as romance for everyone, and then have over 85 percent dark romantasy authors, MC authors, and smut, I would like to know that because I wouldn’t attend, since I write neither. This wouldn’t be the event my type of readers would attend. This is exactly what happened with the above mentioned event where I didn’t sell one thing. 90%of the authors were either dark romantasy, dark romance, smut, or dystopian, with a few Mafia and MC’s added. Me, standing there with my small town, later in life, sweet with heat books for five tortuous hours was absolutely ridiculous. If you are coordinating an event, you MUST have a varied amount and variety of authors who write in different subgenres. And when you do, please do not put a smut writer next to a sweet one. I can’t tell you how many people who came to the author next to my table, laughed at my subgenre, thinking it stupid or not worth reading. And yes, that did truly happen and yes those readers were incredibly rude to me. I gave them grace because they were all in their early 20s and didn’t have fully formed frontal lobes yet.

OKay, this piece is way longer than I thought it would be.

To reiterate. Just because you want to put on an author event doesn’t mean you should. Not without the proper help, knowledge, and coordination necessary to make the event a success for everyone attending. There are about ten more things I could add to the above list, but, I’m tired and this piece is depressing me…

~ Peg