Anna J. McIntyre's Blog, page 2

Two blogs too many…

Out in cyberspace I once had half-a-dozen or more blogs on various subjects. Sometime ago I abandoned or deactivated those and redirected my energy to two author blogs. One was for my Anna J. McIntyre pen name—the second for my legal name.

In the beginning, I thought to keep the two separate. After all, books by Anna J. McIntyre are R-rated, while books under my own name are either non-fiction or G-Rated.  My original intent was to avoid confusing my readers. Well…kinda…sorta. It’s actually a little more complicated. But I will get back to that in a minute.

What I have discovered, I don’t do a terrific job keeping two blogs going. Fact is, I can’t even keep one blog going at my current rate. One reason might be my writing and publishing schedule. I’ve been publishing a new Haunting Danielle book about every 90 days.

But the thing is, I have no desire to abandon blogging. There are things I want to write about. So, I have made a decision. From here on out, I intend to post exclusively on the blog under my own name: Bobbiholmes.com. Even if it’s about one of my books written under Anna J. McIntyre.

I will then post a snippet of that blog post on my Anna J. McIntyre page, with a link back to Bobbiholmes.com. That way, readers who stumble across the Anna J. McIntyre page looking for me, will get a small sample of my current posts, with a link to the entire entry.

I intend to publish this post, in its entirely, on both websites. But, this will be the last one I publish in its entirety on my Anna J. McIntyre blog.

As to what I wrote in the second paragraph of this post, about getting back to you on my original intent in using a penname, I will discuss that in tomorrow’s blog post. Hope you stop back by to read it!

(The title of this blog post should have been: One blog too many!)

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What’s new with Anna J. McIntyre?

The Unlocked Hearts series has a new look with updated covers. And now the Coulson Family Saga is no longer exclusive to Amazon. You can find Unlocked Hearts and the Coulson Family Saga at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Smashwords, iTunes, and now at Google Play!  You can get the first book in the Coulson’s Family Saga (Coulson’s Wife) and the first book in Unlocked Hearts (Sundered Hearts) for FREE!

It’s about the women…

This past summer we redesigned the book covers in the Coulson Series. We also renamed the series: Coulson Family Saga.

As you can see by the new covers there’s a similar theme. Each features a woman.

There is a good reason for that. After rereading the series, I realized, my story was really about the women. While on the surface it is a family saga, a thread weaves throughout the series—it’s about how women in this country have progressed over the last century. The Coulson women evolved, they made mistakes, they struggled, they loved, they suffered loss, they confronted challenges, and they persevered.

The Coulson women in book five had come a great distance from where they had begun when Mary Ellen married Randall Coulson in book one.

While the family’s patriarch, Randall Coulson, may not have imagined his family’s future would turn out as it did, I’d say for the women—and the family—they had come a long way, baby.

Countdown Deal on the Coulson Family Saga!

If you’ve started the Coulson Family Saga series—or would like to recommend the series to a friend, this is the week to purchase the books at Amazon, because they are currently on SALE for just 99¢ each! All the books (excluding the bundle we have of the series) are currently available in a Countdown Deal. This means you can purchase the entire series for less than five dollars. That even beats the bundle price.

But the sale will only last for one week. The books will return to their normal price on September 27, 2017.

Of course, if you are a member of Kindle Unlimited, you can read the books for free—for as long as they remain in the program. I haven’t decided if I will renew with KU come November. They may go wide again then and be offered at all the eBook venues. But for now, you can read them for free if you are a member of the program.

You can find the books by clicking HERE!

As many of you know, Anna J. McIntyre is a pen name I use. I’ve written the Coulson Family Saga and Unlocked Hearts series under the McIntyre name. Under my real name, Bobbi Holmes, I’ve written several non-fiction books, along with my popular Haunting Danielle series. Unlike the books under McIntyre, those books are G-rated, and an entirely different genre—paranormal cozy mystery.

My posting on this blog is sporadic—I tend to post more at the blog under my real name, Bobbi Holmes. You can find me there. And if I’m not there, you can always look me up at Facebook.

Happy reading!

The Coulson Family Saga now in paperback!

We’ve re-released the Coulson Family Saga (formally The Coulson Series) in paperback format. It’s the first time all five of the books in the series are available in paperback! You can find them at Amazon.

Coulson’s Wife
Coulson’s Crucible
Coulson’s Lessons
Coulson’s Secret
Coulson’s Reckoning

 

 

Coulson Family Saga: What has changed…

I decided it was time to update the covers of The Coulson Series. While at it, I figured it might be a good time to change the series name to Coulson Family Saga. After all, that’s what the series really is.

I also decided to put the series in Amazon’s KindleUnlimited program for a while. What this means is that readers who belong to the program can basically read the books for free. For other readers, who aren’t in the program, they can buy the books for the same price, yet for the time being, they will only be available at Amazon.

In making these changes, we put the books through another round of editing and uploaded fresh eBook files at Amazon.  I also decided to make a bundle of the series, which means readers can buy all five books at once, for less than ten dollars. That’s less than what some single Kindle eBooks cost.

While I uploaded the new covers last week, they haven’t showed up on the books yet. So, if you look at Amazon, you may find some of the Coulson books wearing the old covers—some with the new.

I also pulled the paperback version of the Coulson Family Saga—temporarily. We never released the fifth book in the series in paperback. But we are planning to re-release the first four books—along with the fifth book—reformatted, re-edited, and updated covers.

The paperback books themselves have already been formatted and the new covers created, but I am just waiting to hear back from the printer on how to proceed regarding the series name change. Once that gets straightened out, and the proofs reviews, I will let you know when the paperback books will be available.

For more about the Coulson Family Saga, click here.

KindleUnlimited for the Coulson Series

My Anna J. McIntyre alter ego has been virtually silent, as I’ve spent the last two years working primarily on my Haunting Danielle Series. I just wrapped up the Book 13 in that series—The Ghost Who Lied, which is scheduled for release on May 31, 2017.

But, I have made a change to my Coulson Series that I wanted to share. I’ve put all five books in Amazon’s KindleUnlimited program. This means the books in that series will be exclusive to Amazon for at least 90 days. I have no idea if I will leave them there beyond that time, or put them back in the other online book stores.

Why did I go exclusive? Readers who are members of the KindleUnlimited program can basically read the books for free. When you’re a member of that program, you can read as many books as you want for one monthly fee. Of course, the books have to be in the program.

For readers who don’t participate in KindleUnlimited, they can purchase the books for the regular price at Amazon.

If you have read the series and enjoyed it—l hope you let your friends in the program know they can read the books for free.

Sometimes a happy ending takes a few generations.

Coulson’s Wife—the first book in my Coulson Series is free. Recently it was featured on BookBub, which means thousands of downloads within a couple days—and it also means some new reviews.

One issue I’ve always had with the Coulson Series—particularly Coulson’s Wife—is that it doesn’t neatly fit into a genre, and when marketing it somewhere like BookBub, it will inevitably get to some wrong readers.

The Coulson Series is a family saga—yet no such genre category is available at BookBub. Over the last few years, Coulson’s Wife has been featured at BookBub under Woman’s Fiction, Historical Fiction, and this last time, Historical Romance. Readers of romance—historical or contemporary—often expect happily ever after, and when a book marketed under romance fails to deliver that happy fix, they feel betrayed and angry. One way to vent is a negative review. I get that—and I understood the risks when going for a romance category.

Of all my books, Coulson’s Wife seems to generate the most varied of reviews. I’ve had readers tell me they loved it—others hated it.

A recent three-star-review wrote, “No happy endings here, I kept waiting for it to happen, and it never did. Thoroughly frustrated. I know there was no promise of such, but still frustrated. I would give it even less stars, but that would be unfair, just because I personally just hated the storyline.”

Contrast that review with this 5-star on the same book, “Amazing, wonderful, moving, all the things that I can say. I laughed and cried. Enjoyed the book, and think everyone would enjoy it as much as I did.”

For readers looking for the happy ending—they’ll find it as the story progresses throughout the series. Why? Because sometimes a story is multi-generational; sometimes the happy ending comes for the children—the grandchildren—because of the sacrifices and lessons of those who came before them.

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Writing Historical Fiction

When writing a historical novel—which I consider any story taking place in another time period—attention to historical detail is paramount, unless you don’t mind irritating your readers. Readers of historical fiction are a savvy group and will notice things like inventions and events appearing prematurely in a story.

After releasing Coulson’s Wife, my first attempt at historical fiction, the reviews on my historical accuracy were favorable. However, there was one reviewer who, while she claimed to like the book, questioned the historical accuracy of several things mentioned in the story. She didn’t know if hysterectomies, refrigerated milk, or movies existed in the timeframe mentioned in the story (around 1918).

The answer: yes.

According to my research, the first hysterectomy was performed around 75 years before the character in my story had one.

As for refrigerated milk, I suppose her real question, did they have refrigerators back then? According to Wikipedia, the home refrigerator was invented in 1913. Before that time, they used iceboxes.

The final question—movies. I didn’t just mention movies, I mentioned a specific movie—one that was actually released at the time it is mentioned in the story: Tarzan of the Apes. Like Mary Ellen in Coulson’s Wife, it is one of my favorite books. As for that old movie—you can watch it here, on YouTube.

In my opinion, writers in the future are going to have a challenging task adhering to historical accuracy when writing a story taking place during the last decades of the 20th century, considering the rapid technological changes that occurred, and the advent of social media. Lucky for them, they will have Google—or maybe something better—to fact check.

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Mother’s Day for the Coulson Family

Sometimes a writer doesn’t realize the underlying message of a book or series when he or she starts writing. It wasn’t until I finished the fifth book in the Coulson Series that I realized what the stories were really about—the women. The strong women who held the family together.

Don’t get me wrong, the men of the Coulson Series were no wimps. Randall Coulson built an empire; Harrison kept it going, and Garret, well Garret is Garret.

But, it was the Coulson women who directed the ship, changed its course. To the women of Coulson, Happy Mother’s Day.

Mary Ellen, who didn’t choose motherhood—but embraced it.

Vera, who because of her demons was incapable of being a good mother—yet still wanted the best for her children.

Alexandra, who was always there for her son—and lovingly welcomed a daughter she never planned.

Kim, who lost a child she never met—yet by the end of the series, was preparing to greet a new one.

To all the women out there—real and those we create in our imagination—Happy Mother’s Day.

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