Peggy Jaeger's Blog, page 44

#HappyThanksgiving 2023

From my house to yours, the happiest of days. I have an attitude of Gratitude for your friendship and support, and hope you know just how dear you are to me.

Be well…don’t eat too much (lol) and tell those whom you love that you are thankful for them today.

~ Peg

A non-thankful Thanksgiving…

Another holiday first. While I didn’t spend Thanksgiving with my parents for many years, this year’s day is particularly unsettling.

Since my mother broke her hip the first time, I would deliver a complete Thanksgiving dinner for the two of them every year. My mother loved turkey, so I’d roast a 10-pounder, slice it, then put it into containers so they could portion out what they wanted. My homemade gravy, mashed potatoes, green bean casserole, sweet stuffing, warm biscuits, and a fresh apple pie made up the meal. I delivered it all on the Wednesday prior to the holiday with the caveat they not break into it until the day.

They never listened.

I’d get a phone call every Wednesday, early evening, with my mother claiming it was the best meal she’d had all year.

I had to bite my tongue every year because I’d specifically asked them not to eat it until the following day, the actual holiday.

But, my mother was my mother and had a mind of her own.

I know this was a control thing on my part. I didn’t want them to do anything I hadn’t asked them to do. What I tended to forget every year was that the holiday was just a date on the calendar to both my mother and stepfather. It meant nothing, in reality, since they’d spend it alone, watching the Macy’s parade and just sitting around the house. They didn’t attend Thanksgiving church services ( perish the thought!); they had no friends to spend the day with, and I was always off to my in-laws for the few days of the holiday week.

The guilt I feel now that I never spent any real holiday time with them those last few years is monumental. What would it have cost me to go to their home, even if it was on the morning of the holiday to have breakfast? I could have delivered their meal then instead of the day before and then not gotten mad when they ate it before they were supposed to.

And how stupid is it to even say when they were supposed to? Seriously. They were grown-ass adults and could do what they wanted, eat when they wanted, no matter who thought otherwise.

This year, as always, hubby and I are going to spend the day with his family. My daughter and her growing family will join us.

And I have no one to cook for this year. No turkey and all the trimmings to make and then deliver. No salvos to wait until the actual day to eat it all. A plea that will not be paid heed.

 I will go and visit my stepfather in the nursing home on Wednesday and most likely bring him a chocolate turkey. He will spend his first Thanksgiving as a widower with a bunch of strangers, eating institutional turkey and trimmings.

The guilt continues to grow, kids. Each and every day…

#wednesdaywisdom

hope this one makes you laugh today…

#Holiday ebook prices #99cents

Just a little friendly FYI reminder that all the ebooks in my catalog that I control ( not counting the trad published ones)will be lowered to 99cents starting on Thanksgiving and they will remain that way until 12.31.2023 You can get a jump on the BLACK FRIDAY DEALS, because since you subscribe to my blog, you know about the sale ahead of time. The ads say Black Friday, but I’m actually reducing the prices on Thanksgiving.

So….

Ebooks anyone? They make great gifts for you. You all know I write a wide range, everything from sweet, to sweet with heat, to sensual to steamy.

But all my heroines are strong women – some are billionaires, a few are writers. One is a cheflebrity!!

Go ahead and check out my Amazon catalog ( if that’s where you shop) and if you’re on KOBO or Nook, those ebooks are on sale, too

AMAZON

Happy 99cent reading, Kids

And if you like print books to want to give them as gifts, my ONLINE HOLIDAY WEBSTORE is open for business. I’ve discounted all the print books to prices even online retailers can’t match!! Check it out here:
PEGGY’s HOLIDAY BOOK STORE

#mondaymusings 11.20.2023

Who, besides me ( raise hands, kids) is eating a little less each day this week so when Thursday comes you can stuff yourself like that damn turkey?

Anyone?
just me?

Le sigh….

Lesson learned…more to come.

So.

I’ve been writing full-time and professionally now for 8 years. I’ve had to learn stuff I never in a million years thought I’d need to learn back when I got my first publishing contract in 2014.

Book formatting. Branding. Marketing. On-spec writing. Copyright law. Book design.

That’s only the tip of the iceberg.

I joined Twitter ( back when it was called that and not whatever the hell it’s called now) Instagram, Pinterest, Facebook ( and multiple FB groups), Goodreads, Bookbub, LinkedIn – again, just to name a few.

I’ve done more marketing than I ever in my entire life thought I’d ever want to do. Which is a lot considering I never wanted to do any.

And now I’m on TikTok, hawking my books to booktokers.

Here’s the lesson I just this week learned: none of the people on these platforms is my target audience.

None.

Tiktok? 18-24 year olds. I write 35+ age characters.

Instagram – same demographic

TwtX – I don’t even know what the demographic is there, other than the people on it are mean and grumpy and feel they can bully you anonymously

Bookbub – okay, here I may have some traction, same as GoodReads, because…readers! Of all ages.

Facebook – my professional page barely gets any traction/views other than my near and dear friends ( who also see the same content on my personal page because I’m a redundancy idiot). I don’t garner new readers to the professional page at all.

Now, I could PAY for ads for all these places to try and get new readers, but 2 things: I have no money, and the ROI is never comparable.

So my target audience is females, romance readers who like 35+ age romances, everything from sweet with heat to steamy, smalltown, romcoms and romantic suspense lite.

Now, I have my target audience. Does anyone know where I can find them so I can tell them about my books?? Because I need to sell some books.

My online holiday webstore has been open for 19 days and I’ve publicized the heck out of it.

1 sale.

KDP tells me I have no sales and no KU reads at all for the past 10 days.

Forget KOBO, Nook, and all the other sites where some of my books are widely distributed. If I get .25 cents a month in total sale royalties combined from these sites that’s saying something.

So, where can I find new readers? Where can I find readers who enjoy non-smutty, non-dark, non-erotic books, but love stories about regular people?

Recently, I wrote and posted this for a TikTok to try and find my demographic there:

If you’re looking for spicy, dark, romantasy…I’m not your writer.

If you’re looking for gritty, brought and tumble love them and leave them alphamales…I’m not your writer.

If you’re looking for historical, time travel fantasy or paranormal…I’m not your writer.

But…

If you’re looking for rom coms, small towns, and familycentric stories…I may be your writer.

If you like female billionaires who had it all, lost it, then got it back again all on their own, finding love along the way…I may be your writer.

If you like romance books about strong women, the families who support them, and the men who can’t live without them…I’m definitely your writer.

And if you like to cry on one page and come out of it with laughter on the next…I am your writer.

So…if you like what you see here, and haven’t read anything by me, then please consider doing so.

And if anyone knows where I can find readers who do like the kinds of stories I write…please let me know.

Thanks, Peg

8 months…

All this time I’ve been waiting for my stepfather to release his anger at me – the anger I know he holds for me putting him in the nursing home; the anger I know he holds for believing my mother died of negligence; the anger he holds because of the loss of his independence.

I’ve been waiting for him to unleash it all on me, and today I realized…I’m the one who’s angry.

Furious, truth be told.

I never got to say goodbye to my mother.

If not for my husband rushing to her bedside when I couldn’t get there, she would have died alone. I am so furious at that.

So furious.

I’m furious she spent her life in what most would believe was a poverty state. Never having any money for anything other than the bare essentials; never doing what she wanted with her life instead of always having to find a job she could physically and mentally perform when she was so damn exhausted it was a wonder she could stand upright most of the time.

She bought clothes and shoes in the local Goodwill – shoes that were always the wrong size for her. Her foot measured at an 8 but she bought whatever she could afford, many times, squeezing into a 7. And she wondered why her feet always hurt.

I hate the fact she only saw her great-grandson once and that she’ll never meet her great-granddaughter.

I could scream at the top of my lungs about how unfair life was to her, how people took advantage of her – even those who claimed to love her, myself included. I could smash something against a wall and shatter it with the amount of fury inside me for how her own mother mistreated her for her entire life.

Who am I kidding? What I want to smash is my grandmother.

I’m so damn angry she never got to see Ireland – her dream.

I’m so damn angry she never knew how much I truly loved her – loved her – despite our tortured our relationship was at times.

And I’m so, so mad I never told her the extent of my love.

All this time I’ve been the one sitting on a mountain of anger, waiting for it to unleash.

And it finally has…

#fridayfive 11.17.2023

Book reviews are manna to authors. Today’s Friday five are the 5 reasons they matter so much to authors.

they are free for you to do!help the author get their name and book in front of new readersincrease Amazon’s search algorithmtell other readers what an awesome book you just read that they should, toopromotes reading

N.N. Light’s Holiday Gift guide! Books for everyone on your list!

So excited that A PRIDE OF BROTHERS: DYLAN is featured today on NNLight’s Holiday Gift Guide – Thriller/Suspense category. Just click on the link and scroll down to find my book ( it’s the third one!)

If you haven’t read this face-paced, bodyguard trope, romantic suspense yet, now’s the right time to do so!!

Cyber-security specialist Dylan Keane is working undercover to suss out a corporate thief. When he zeroes in on Harper Vale, he thinks he’s found his mole.

Harper has a reputation as a coding savant and an introvert. Dylan’s interest is flattering, but after she’s implicated in the theft of the company’s protected software, she doubts everything he’s told her.

When a series of potentially deadly accidents occur involving Harper, Dylan wonders if she is being set up to take the fall. One thing is certain: the more time they spend together, the more Dylan realizes he’s the one who’s falling—for Harper.

Dylan Keane knew if he hadn’t been forced to walk the straight and narrow by his parents and older brothers he would have had a lucrative career as a con man instead of a private investigator.

Both professions required a large amount of personal hubris and, well, confidence in order to get people to drop their guards and divulge things they wouldn’t ordinarily give a voice to. Both required an in-depth knowledge of human nature and the ability to predict what people were willing to do to protect their secrets. And both required an exceptional ability to believe the role they were playing and lose themselves in the character.

Dylan possessed all three qualities and one more extremely important one: he was naturally likable.

The fact he’d been blessed by the Gods of good looks didn’t hurt either.

So, armed with those good looks, likability, and superior acting skills, he skirted the perimeter of the corporate lunchroom until he spotted his mark pay for her lunch and then lift her tray.

Surveilling her for the past three days told him she’d walk directly to an empty table in the corner, not establish eye contact with any of her co-workers, and settle in, facing the parking lot through the room-wide windows to eat alone.

Not today, sweetheart.

He tugged his phone from his back pocket and clicked on one of the apps. Pretending to read it, he moved towards the mark, his apparent concentration focused solely on his phone.

Apparent being the operative word, because his true attention was fixated on the woman now crossing the room on her way to her table.

She dressed for comfort, but then everyone in the tech division of Kirkpatick Industries did. Worn and aged Converse sneakers were the shoe of choice among the twenty and thirty-somethings who made up the bulk of employees, his mark no different from her coworkers. Where they did differ was in the definition of comfort. Where t-shirts and faded jeans were the norm, she routinely wore body-hugging black leggings with oversized, long-sleeved button-down shirts in varying neutral colors. No jewelry, no personal adornments. He doubted she had a drop of makeup on.

That told him she didn’t like to stand out in a crowd, but didn’t necessarily want to be a lemming, either.

 Her shoulder-length wavy blonde hair was typically pulled into a messy bun or dangling in a tale down the nape of her neck.

Dylan wondered what it would look like free and flowing down her neck and back.

The few things he knew about her life he’d culled from an in-depth and barely legal digital deep-dive. An only child adopted by a couple who had long since given up on ever having biological children, she’d been the class nerd all through grade school, high school valedictorian and then graduated second in her class at M.I.T with a double degree in computer programming and engineering.

She’d been recruited by ten top tech companies while a senior but had opted to get her Master’s degree before signing on to any.

Daniel Kirkpatrick himself had recruited her after reading a paper she’d penned on the future of the gaming industry for her thesis.

That had been eight years ago. By all appearances, she was a diligent worker, wicked smart, and had perfect performance reviews. She was also a loner and hadn’t moved up the corporate ladder as one would have expected given her educational pedigree, something that alone was suspect.

With a flick of his finger across the screen, giving the impression he was engrossed in what he was reading, Dylan moved with ease and finesse across the lunchroom until he bumped into his mark, clipping her lunch tray and causing it to fall flat on the floor.

“Oh, Jeez. I’m so sorry.” He reached out to grab her forearm when it looked like she was about to follow the tray.  A jolt of surprise surged through him when his work-roughened hand met skin spun from silk. “Are you okay?” he asked. “Nothing hot spilled on you, did it?”

Brows the color of unmined gold pulled together over eyes a hue his mother would have dubbed fresh basil. Sitting behind oversized glasses that hid their natural beauty, those eyes now squinted as she peered up at him. Annoyance flicked in the moisture coating them.

Glancing down to where the contents of her ruined lunch sat and then back up to him, she shook her head. “Lucikly, no.” Irritation spilled through the words.

“I’m really sorry,” he repeated. “I was so engrossed in reading an article I wasn’t watching where I was going.”

“There’s a reason you shouldn’t walk and read,” she said, testily. Squatting, she grabbed the tray and began placing the spilled contents back on it.

The subtle chide had him smiling on the inside because it sounded like something his mother would say. And in exactly the same pissed-off tone.

“Here, let me do that.” He bent and took the tray from her. “There’s nothing salvageable here,” he said, inspecting the now-ruined salad. “Let me buy you another one since I’m the reason this one is toast.”

Intrigued? I certainly hope so, LOL. IF you like Dylan, you’ll like his brothers – the rest of the Brothers, Inc. bodyguards in the PRIDE OF BROTHERS series.

Rick

Aiden

Dylan

#wednesdaywisdom