Ruth Ann Nordin's Blog, page 104

Won’t Be Able to Make the First Post for the Court Tonight

Apparently, I’m having one of those days.  I managed to do the June Newsletter, but it took almost three hours due to kids who kept interrupting me and my husband who lost something that required me to help him with to find.  I give up on tonight.  I’ll try to do a post tomorrow.  Sorry for the delay. 

Updates

1.  Will be backed up with emails until some time next week.

So I was on vacation from last Thursday to yesterday (Tuesday) because of Memorial Day weekend, and when I returned home, I saw my inbox and fainted.  Then I got scared and hopped out of my email.  LOL  So yes, I am aware that I have a huge list of emails to tackle. 

But the problem is that I won’t be able to tackle most emails until next week, and I suspect it’ll take almost the entire week to get caught up.  Why next week?  Well, this weekend I’ll be at A Taste Of Omaha in Omaha, Nebraska with my friend Janet Syas Nitsick (a fellow author), and we’ll be doing a booksigning at the same table.  I don’t know if anyone happens to be going to this event, but if you are, I’d love to meet you.   

This event spans all the way from Friday to Sunday and will require me to be gone from the computer all day, whether I’m setting stuff up, greeting people, or cleaning up.  And tomorrow (Thursday), I’ll be getting my hair colored so I don’t look like a grandmother.  (I have white hair, and if I don’t color it, people assume I’m a grandmother.) After that, Janet and I will drive up to Omaha to make sure we know where this weekend event takes place.

2.  I will be at A Taste of Omaha in Omaha, Nebraska this weekend!

I don’t know if anyone reading this plans to be there, but if you are, look for two women who are selling books.  Janet Syas Nitsick has this big Lockets and Lanterns poster (so that will probably be the most noticeable thing you’ll see as you scan the tables).  I’ll have red flowers in a vase with a couple of my books on display on my side of the table.  We’re sharing the same table, so if you see her poster, I’m right there with her. 

Anyway, I’d love to say hi and if you mention you read this post, I’ll sign a paperback and give it to you as a gift.  I can’t bring all 26 of my paperbacks along, but I am planning to bring a couple of Larson and the South Dakota series books.  I will also take a couple of contemporaries.  I don’t have the Regency in paperback form yet.  But if you’re going to be there, I’d love to meet you! 

3.  Working on three books.

While on vacation, I managed to get some nice progress on Her Counterfeit Husband, Mitch’s Win, and Bound by Honor, Bound by Love.  I am now in chapter 5 for Her Counterfeit Husband and am at chapter 10 for both Mitch’s Win and Bound by Honor, Bound by Love.

However, my husband and I have decided to move from Nebraska to Minnesota, and we want to do it before the kids start school this fall (which is in mid-August).   The most challenging goal is to set up services for our deaf child.  So this means I probably won’t make as much progress on the books as I usually would.  However, I will say the place we are buying in Minnesota is in the country and reminds me of how things must have looked when Dave and Mary looked at their land, so it’s pretty inspiring to have a setting like that when writing historical westerns.

4.  Will be working on a couple of blog posts.

Tonight, I’m going to make my first post for the court hearing in the giveaway I’m doing now, and if I do any posting this weekend, it’ll be for that.  And I just remembered the newsletter blog I need to update.  I almost forgot that one. 

Author to Sue Characters For Pain and Suffering

Ruth Ann Nordin To Sue Dave and Mary Larson

by Joseph Connealy

In what has to be a first for authors everywhere, Ruth Ann Nordin has decided to sue Dave and Mary Larson for pain and suffering.

Ruth Ann Nordin as you’ve never seen her before.

“I’ve had to endure Dave Larson’s ridiculous tactics for the past year, and his latest stunt over this kidnapping thing was the last straw,” Ruth said.  ”Not only is it a first for an author to be suing a character, but have you ever heard of a character who is horrible enough to fake their own kidnapping with their wife’s help and then list me as one of the suspects?  I mean, come on!  This time Dave stooped to a new low.”

Among Ruth’s complaints are time spent away from writing her books so she could write blog posts on Dave’s kidnapping, time spent in jail because Owen Russell wouldn’t let her find proof that Dave was hiding in the loft the entire time, and countless emails from Dave’s fans who demanded she return him at once.

“And why are we using that picture of me?” Ruth demanded.  ”It’s awful for my image.  I urge you to remove it at once!”

Moving on to the other side of the story, Dave and Mary Larson were able to offer a response to the charges against them.

“I don’t see what pain and suffering Ruth’s had to endure,” Mary said.  ”She was able to get two more books published in May.  It wasn’t like we rendered her unable to be productive at all.”

“People say I overreact to things, but Ruth takes the cake on this one,” Dave added.  ”No one told her to come to our time and ransack my house and barn like a lunatic.  That was all her doing, and if you ask me, she needs to check up with a psychokenestiastialogist or something.”

“He means psychologist,” Mary said.

“Right.  I guess.”

As of right now, Judge Rick Johnson has agreed to preside over the case.  Joel Larson has agreed to act as Ruth’s lawyer, and Tom Larson has agreed to act as Dave and Mary’s lawyer.  It is rumored that Owen Russell and Sally Johnson are among the witnesses who will give their side of the story.  Other witnesses may come forth in the weeks ahead.

The verdict will be decided by the good people reading this blog.  :D  So be sure to keep up-to-date on the testimonies as they’re posted.

Her Heart’s Desire is Already Available on Barnes and Noble!

Barnes and Noble Link: http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/her-hearts-desire-ruth-ann-nordin/1111069973?ean=2940014363044

I didn’t think it’d be up this soon, but it is.  I won’t be on Facebook for the next few days because I’ll be on vacation, but I have some posts I have planned to post on this blog.  Now that I finally got The Earl’s Inconvenient Wife and Her Heart’s Desire up, I can get started on the next giveaway.

I’ll start this with a newspaper article by Joseph Connealy and then run into the court proceedings.  Rick Johnson will be the judge, and I’ll have some witnesses to testify on each side.  I’m going to come right out and say I am not an expert on court hearings.  All I really know is what I see on TV so I’m keeping it as basic as possible.  But after everyone’s given their testimonies, then it’s going to be up to you to decide if Dave and Mary are guilty or innocent in the charges I’m going to be bringing against them.    So you will decide the final verdict. 

Now, every vote of guilty or not guilty will enter you into the giveaway.  I’ll do the random.org site to pick the winner of several paperbacks by me and Rose Gordon.  I have four signed paperbacks by her in the Grooms Series, which will be offered, but I’m still trying to decide what to add to my South Dakota Series (Loving Eliza, Bid for a Bride, and Bride of Second Chances). 

I think this giveaway will be a lot of fun, and I’ll give more information on it as we get into it. 

Her Heart’s Desire is Available on Amazon and Smashwords! It’ll Be On B&N Soon!

This morning, I published Her Heart’s Desire.  To my surprise, it’s already up on Amazon.  I expected it to be up on Smashwords right away, but I was shocked by how fast it went up on Amazon.  I also put it up on Barnes and Noble through PutIt, but it’s not available there yet.  I plan to go on vacation for about a week, so I’ll hop online when I can to let you all know when it’s available on B&N.

For now, I can give the links to Amazon and Smashwords:

Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Her-Hearts-Desire-ebook/dp/B0085MBTVO/ref=sr_1_4?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1337809462&sr=1-4#_

Smashwords: https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/165099.

Now I need to start updating my website and the rest of this blog. 

I wanted to start the posts for the next giveaway this week, but it’s looking more like next week.  I don’t want to do too much to get into the giveaway until I can be at the computer on a regular basis.

Meanwhile, I’ll be doing what I can to write in Her Counterfeit Husband, Mitch’s Win, and Bound by Honor, Bound by Love. 

The Earl’s Inconvenient Wife is Available on Amazon and B&N, Got an Idea for the Plot to Patty’s Gamble, Update on Her Heart’s Desire, and Next Works in Progress

Wow, all I can say is that both Amazon and B&N are fast with getting a book up.  Amazon is usually quick anyway, but I was surprised by how quickly it went live on B&N.  I guess when you are used to it taking a month or longer, you start expecting it.

Anyway, here is the Amazon link: http://www.amazon.com/The-Earls-Inconvenient-Wife-ebook/dp/B0084JC6QU/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1337434526&sr=8-1

And here is the B&N link: http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-earls-inconvenient-wife-ruth-ann-nordin/1110943776?ean=2940014445634

I did check through the formatting on my Nook, and everything looks good.  It actually looks better than the way Smashwords’ Meatgrinder formats my books.  I credit the Atlantis Word Program for making this possible.  I’m relieved.  After all the trouble I had with formatting To Have and To Hold, it’s nice to have it work the first time.   

I was making a comment to Kesia on this blog about the cover to this book when the idea for the plot came to me.  I knew the heroine would be manipulating things so that she got to marry the hero (so on her part, it was a gamble because it could have turned out to be a miserable marriage.  But I write romance, and I believe romance means you’re promised a happy ending so it all works and the hero ends up loving.  So the gamble pays off. 

Anyway, in The Keeping of Greg Wilson (which was the original version of this story and only 14,000 words long), I had Patty and her father scheme to get Greg to marry her at gunpoint so she wouldn’t have to marry the unsavory John Meyer.  However, in Patty’s Gamble, I’m going to switch things around.  In this rewrite, Patty’s father is going to save Greg from losing his family’s ranch to John Meyer, but as part of the bargain, Patty’s father stipulates that Greg marries Patty so he can combine his land with Greg’s.  Patty’s all for it because she’s been in love with him since childhood.

Here’s my tentative description for the book:

Greg Wilson is in a real fix.  Upon his father’s death, he expects to inherit the ranch.  Only, he can’t because his father owed a substantial amount of money to John Meyer and he doesn’t have enough to settle the debt.  Now in order to protect the land and livestock, he must make a very unpleasant agreement.  He must marry Patty Dixon.

Patty has been in love with Greg since childhood, and when her father offers to buy Greg’s land to keep it safe from John, she sees this as her chance to finally marry him.  With a little plotting, she convinces her father the best way to ensure the land stays in the family is if she marries Greg and has children with him.

Seeing the brilliance in her plan, her father tells Greg the only way he’ll hand the land back over to him is if he marries Patty.  Reluctant to give up his bachelorhood, Greg agrees.  Patty’s determined to prove that Greg’s better off being married.  But that is easier said than done.  Will her gamble pay off  or is this bet going to lead to heartache?

Anyway, that’s my tentative summary for the book. 

I’m about to get this book back from my last proofreader.  I’m going to work on it this weekend when I will be in a car for eight hours.  So I should be able to finish it up and get it ready to be published around June 1 or so.  So I expect the first week of June for it to be available at Amazon, B&N, and Smashwords.  Ideally, it’ll be ready sooner, but we’ll see how things go. 

What I’m Working On Next

I want to get Mitch’s Win out there.  I put it on hold for the longest time, but now that I have gotten The Earl’s Inconvenient Wife and Her Heart’s Desire done, I can work on it again.

I did finally get the description to this book written down:

When Mitch Grady goes to a saloon to take his wayward brother home, he finds that his brother’s horse isn’t the only thing being offered in a poker game.  Heather Curtiss’ brother has bet her as well.  Vowing an innocent woman won’t be forced to give up her virtue to a disreputable gambler, Mitch joins in the game of poker, and with luck, he wins and frees her.   

Heather sees this as her chance to get away from her brother and appeals to Mitch’s kindness to marry her, offering to help him care for his ailing mother and the two children under his roof.  He agrees, and they become husband and wife. 

But Heather isn’t exactly sure what her new role as a wife means, and her scheming brother hasn’t gone away.  Can she find her happily ever after with her prince charming?  Or will her uncertainty and brother ruin her happy ending?

I am still working on this one.  It’s not going to be available in July as I hoped.  The rewrite on the Regency pushed me back.  I don’t know when this will be out, but I will keep the word count widget to the right side of this blog updated so you can see my progress. 

All I have for the description is a pretty short blurb.  I’m not sure if it’s sufficient, but it almost seems if I add more, I’ll be repeating myself.  Anyway, this is what I have:

The day Onawa eagerly anticipated has finally come.  She is to be Citlali’s wife.  But what she doesn’t realize is that he’s devoted to his ambitions to be the next chief.  Will he ever love her or must she play second best to their tribe.

I have started this one.  Here’s the description:

The Duchess of Watkins’ husband just died, and her unscrupulous brother-in-law is ready to step in as the Duke of Watkins.  In desperation, she enlists the help of the butler, and the two determine to quietly bury her husband and pretend he’s still alive.  It will be a secret they will keep to their graves in order to protect the estate.

After burying him in a forest in the middle of the night, they come across a man who has been beaten and left for dead.  And this man happens to look just like her husband.  Seeing this as the answer to their prayers, they take the man home in hopes he’ll agree to be the new Duke of Watkins.  There’s only problem.  When he wakes up, he doesn’t remember who he is, and a search for anyone who might know him leaves his true identity a mystery.  Taking their chances, the Duchess of Watkins and the butler convince him he’s her husband.

Unlike her first husband, this one is everything she’s ever hoped for.  But when he learns the truth, can he forgive her for her lie or will he go back to the life he had before?

***

As for the next giveaway, I plan to start it this week.  I won’t complete it this week, though.  I’ve decided to offer a few paperbacks like last time.  I expect the amount of posts I need to make for the giveaway to be a couple of weeks or so.  I’ll be suing Dave and Mary Larson, and it’ll take some time to get the testimonies done. 

Tweaked on the Cover for Patty’s Gamble

I wanted something to match what I did for Mitch’s Win with the format of someone up front and someone further back.  Then I wanted to put them on a ranch since these feature ranchers in Montana.  I then decided I’d use the same type of border to give the title of the book and have my name at the top of the cover.  I couldn’t move the woman in Patty’s Gamble further down because she has a modern-looking extension in her hair at the top of her head, and this is a historical book. 

So here’s the tweaking I did today:

Updates

I realize I have some blog comments I have to get to, and I plan to do that later today.  (It’s 2am at the time I’m writing this.)  I do have some emails sitting in my inbox for the past couple of days that I need to answer, too.  Please bear with me.  I plan to clean that up later today as well.  I’ve been focusing on getting The Earl’s Inconvenient Wife ready for publication, so everything else went to the back burner (as they say).  

And speaking of The Earl’s Inconvenient Wife, I have published it! 

I worked on formatting three versions for The Earl’s Inconvenient Wife today.  I made versions for the Kindle, Nook, and Smashwords.  Believe it or not, I started this around 3pm and didn’t finish until almost 8pm.  But the good news is that when I tested them out on the Kindle previewer, my Nook, and on Smashwords, everything looked clean.

But they have all been submitted to Amazon, B&N and Smashwords.  I’ll post links when it’s available on Amazon and B&N, but it’s currently up at Smashwords at https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/163727 if you happen to prefer buying your books from Smashwords.

I’m letting Smashwords distribute to Apple, Kobo, Sony, and Diesel for me.  I don’t know how long my books take to get up on those channels, but I do know Smashwords has been having some issues with B&N and Kobo.  Apple sounds like they’re having trouble getting books up in a timely manner for all self-published authors (whether they use Smashwords or iTunes).  So who knows when books will go out through those channels.  But I did get an ISBN and made sure I am set to distribute to those channels whenever everything is ready with Smashwords and those channels.  The good news is that it sounds like the kinks are getting worked out with B&N and Kobo with the Smashwords books, but I still decided to publish through PubIt just in case something got delayed with my book. 

Oh, and I should give a quick shout out to Melanie Nilles for telling me about the Atlantis Word Processor.  The website isn’t the easiest to navigate, but the program itself is as easy to use as she said.  All you do is paste your Word document into it, go Save and Special and save as an ePub.  Then it’s done.  I then downloaded the ePub onto my Nook to check it, and it kept all the page breaks in and indents and everything!  It’s well worth the $30 investment.  So thanks, Melanie!

I made the new cover for Mitch’s Win!

After I uploaded the book to Amazon, B&N, and Smashwords, I wanted to relax.  I browsed pictures for Mitch’s Win new cover, and as I did so, I ended up making it.  So that took me two hours to 2am, and then I got so excited I had to make a blog post and share it with everybody.  LOL

I really do enjoy doing my  covers.  They relax me, and it’s fun to see what I can do to get even better at making them.  By the way, as I was working on Mitch’s Win, I think I figured out what I need to do with Patty’s Gamble, but it’s too late tonight for me to tweak on that cover.  That can be tomorrow’s project sine my proofreader has Her Heart’s Desire at the moment.

Anyway, here’s the new cover:

Just so everyone knows, I’ll update this blog later today to reflect the new changes.

And finally, Her Heart’s Desire is the 9th book I’ve completed in the Nebraska Collection!

How cool is that?  When I wrote Eye of the Beholder, I figured I’d write two other books (His Redeeming Bride and The Wrong Husband) and be done with it, but the more books I write about the Larsons, their children, and their friends, the more ideas I keep getting. 

I’m going to list tentative story ideas for the Nebraska Collection, along with ones I’ve already completed, to give you an idea of where I’m going with the Larsons and their friends.

*Please note that you do not have to read these books in order.  The characters weave in and out of the books, but they are all stand alone books.

Wagon Trail Bride (I expect this to be the official book 1 to the whole collection)

Her Heart’s Desire

A Bride for Tom

A Husband for Margaret

Eye of the Beholder

The Husband List – tentative title for Vivian and Hugh’s romance (I introduce Vivian in Her Heart’s Desire); I’m also not sure if this book should come before or after Eye of the Beholder so placement might change

The Wrong Husband

Shotgun Groom

To Have and To Hold

His Redeeming Bride

Forever Yours – to be written at some point but not anytime soon

Bob and Doug from A Husband for Margaret are going to fight over the same girl in a book. 

Isaac’s Decision

Wiley Greene (Isaac’s friend in Isaac’s Decision) will marry the pregnant widow referred to as Mrs. Ritter because she can’t keep working at a factory once the baby is born, so it’ll be a marriage of convenience)

I want to do stories for all of the Larsons’ children.  I haven’t counted them all, but Richard, Sally, Tom, Dave, Jenny and Joel had a lot of kids between them, and I plan to write their romances.  I’d also like to do romances for Neil’s children as well.  And who knows what friends these children will have to do stories from?  Now you can see why I say this is one of those book collections that keep expanding the more I write the books.   

As a conservative estimate, we’re looking at 30 books.  Now you see why I keep telling you to read the books as they come out instead of waiting for me to be done with the whole series.  I will probably die while writing one of these books because I don’t see the series ever being complete.  While I realize that has a morbid feel to it, it’s actually good news because I’ll never run out of ideas for this family. 

An Inside Look at Writing: Editing (Where the Pain in Writing Takes Place)

I am still working on The Earl’s Inconvenient Wife and Her Heart’s Desire.  (The Earl’s Inconvenient Wife is now with the first proofreader.  I am done with the major portion of editing it.)  Anyway, these two books were done about the same time last month with a week variation between the two.  It’s now mid-May, and you’d think I would have completed everything I need to, but you’d be wrong to assume this.  The editor is very proficient with her job, and she had the books back to me in a short time.  The hold up is all on my end. 

It’s hard to explain how painful the editing process is for me.  Yeah, to the world, I look like I am sitting at a computer and doing nothing, but mentally, I feel like I’m running a marathon.  I have to pace myself because rushing (or sprinting) will cause me to burn out or shut down so I can’t keep going.  I can’t seem to do more than three chapters in one day.  If I do, I need to spend at least one day sleeping or watching TV to relax my mind.  It’s draining.  I’m going through and checking everything in the books while taking into considering that editor’s recommendations.  This is before the proofreaders kick in.  I had an easier time rewriting the Regency than I am editing.  The easy part is writing.  The real work is in polishing the books up. 

Back in the 8th grade, my English teacher (Mrs. Harner who was the best teacher ever) told the class the hardest part of writing is editing, and at the time, I thought she was nuts because creating the story seemed like the biggest hurdle.  And when writing was brand new to me (Mrs. Harner was the one who inspired me after I found an interest in reading thanks to Sweet Valley High books), I did focus more on establishing the story to make sure all plot points connected and did a ton of rewriting.  This was what I did in high school and college.  Thank God self-publishing wasn’t big back then because those early stories sucked.  LOL  But you got to start somewhere.

I have found the more I write, the more I get particular about polishing my work.  Granted, some people don’t think I produce quality work, but I endeavour to do better with every new book I write.  I don’t take short cuts to publish a book.  I made that mistake early on when I did fantasy and thrillers.   I even made that mistake with Todd’s Bride/Ann’s Groom (which is now Falling In Love With Her Husband), Can’t Help Falling In Love (which is now With This Ring, I Thee Dread), and Winning the Heart of Adrienne (which is now Romancing Adrienne).  I went back and rewrote all of those books, and those were all in the first year I was writing romances.  I learned the hard way how necessary it is to slow down and get the book right the first time.  A typo that slips through is easy to fix, but a book that got derailed because I refused to stop and rewrite it is a lot harder to bounce back from. 

And just so everyone knows, I try very hard to clean up typos.  I don’t like there to be any imperfections in my books, but you know, even though I have an editor and a couple of proofreaders and go through the books twice myself, there are times when one or two things slip through anyway.  It’s extremely frustrating, and I do fix it and reupload the book when I find out about it.  This is why I like being in charge of formatting my own books.  Then if I have to change something, it’s easy.  I’ve heard people have changed something in a book that was formatted by someone else and ended up screwing up the formatting.  The whole process is tricky, and this is why I agonize over all the details so I can do it all myself.

Yeah, I self-publish.  I turned down a chance to traditionally publish and I turned down two offers from authors to refer an agent my way to find a traditional publisher.  The reason I self-publish is because it’s my first choice.  I love everything about it.  I love creating my titles, my covers, my plots, and having the final say over what does or doesn’t happen in my books.  I’ve talked to several authors who felt bad about compromising their beliefs but did because it’s what the publisher wanted.  Well, that’s not for me.  I’m stubborn, and I need the books to be done my way.  And when I decided to drop querying agents and publishers back in 2009, I vowed that I would never compromise my books for anyone.  I was laughed at and ridiculed and pleaded with by others who didn’t agree with my decision.  But it’s something I wanted to do so I did.

You know, I’m a firm believer is pursuing our dreams.  I always think of the story of the person on his death bed who thinks of all the stuff he never did because he let fear hold him back.  I don’t want to be that guy.  I’d rather try and fail than never try at all.  And there will be failures along the way.  I’ve tried many things that didn’t work out.  Pen names, editing for others, co-authoring a book, the Nook blog, the story blog, and other projects that fizzled out.  But I did other things that worked.  I never thought writing romances would take off like it did.  After I wrote my first romance, I expected to go back to fantasies.  But then I got my second idea and then a third and before I knew it, I had more ideas than the time to write them.  I tried my hand at my own covers, and while the first few attempts sucked, I like where I’m at today, though I still need to tweak on how I do them.  My most notable achievement was stepping out of my comfort zone and going online to find a guy to marry back in 1999.  People called me a loser for stooping to the level where I was answering personal ads on the Internet and telling me to wait for him to magically fall into my lap.  But I ignored them and replied to (I think) thirty guys whose ads made me think they were decent enough.  (These were guys in my area.  Long distance stuff wasn’t for me.)  And in July, I’ll have been married for 12 years and have four children. 

So I say ignore the naysayers and follow your dreams.  So what if people think you’re crazy or stupid?  It’s not their life to live, and it’s not their choice to make.  Why wait for life to happen to you when you can go out there and make it happen?  Step out of the comfort zone and seek new experiences.  I can’t say all experiences are going to end well, but I’m much better for having gone through them.   There are days where I get bummed out, but that’s a normal part of the human experience.  Overall, I’m glad I’m where I’m at and wouldn’t have it any other way.  I think that’s the key to pursuing your dreams.  When you do, you feel satisfied with your life.

Okay, so I never meant to go on that tangent about pursuing one’s dreams when I started this post, but it evolved into it for some reason.  Maybe I needed to hear it to remind myself that the pain of editing is worth it in the end.    Or maybe someone who is reading this is stuck between choosing two paths: one path that is comfortable and safe (but not very exciting) and another path that is scary and uncertain (but what they really want to do). 

I’ll stop rambling and go to sleep.  Maybe tomorrow, I’ll be able to complete the last chapter of Her Heart’s Desire so it can go to the the proofers.

Cover Ideas

I decided to change the title of Not the Marrying Kind to Patty’s Gamble. (This is the rewrite of The Keeping of Greg Wilson.) I took a look at the cover I was thinking of doing and while that cover is funny, I don’t think it best reflects the direction I’m going with my covers now.  So I decided to change the cover, and while I was experimenting with a new cover, the title “Not the Marrying Kind” didn’t seem to fit the cover.  So after brainstorming with Stephannie Beman, we came up with Patty’s Gamble, which is actually a good way to tie it into a series.  This book is the planned second book for the Montana Series, and book one is called Mitch’s Win.  Mitch’s Win has a poker game in the beginning where Mitch wins the freedom of a young woman whose brother had made her part of the bet.  So I was thinking if I’m going with a poker kind of theme in the title, then I wanted something with the person’s first name and a suitable word to go with it.  So I decided to use Patty because she’s the one who traps our poor unsuspecting hero, Greg, into marriage.  After brainstorming words like wager, bet, “stakes her claim”, etc, Stephannie came up with gamble.

So now Not the Marrying Kind’s new title is Patty’s Gamble. 

Here the old cover and title…

Here’s the new cover and title…

I should add that this is a tentative title and cover. I might end up changing parts of it or the whole thing.  Nothing is set until I publish the book and even then, I’ve been known to fiddle with covers if they’re not working.  One of the perks to self-publishing is that you can keep tweaking on things.

I really like the look of having a woman or man up front and either scenery or another person in the background when I do covers.  I’m thinking the border where the title goes in for Patty’s Gamble might be a good one to also use for Mitch’s Win.  It would help identify the Montana books, but it also says historical western and helps to set the tone of the books.  This summer if all goes well, I am planning to make a trip to Lewistown, Montana to take pictures and get a feel for the history of the town.  These books take place in the Lewistown area.  With the Nebraska series, it’s easy to research because I live right in the Omaha area.

Since I have Patty up close in Patty’s Gamble and the title is based on her character, I figured I should have Mitch up close and Heather further away.  However, it is much easier to find women for close ups than far away and get away with a more historical feel.  So… we’ll see.  If I need to put Heather up front, I will, but I’ll play around with putting her further back first.