C.J. Boerger's Blog, page 5

Holiday Power Rankings

'Tis the season, so here we go. Your updated 2012 holiday power rankings.

1) Christmas - There's really no argument here. Christmas is like the Michael Jordan Chicago Bulls. As long as MJ's playing(Santa), it's just no contest.

2) Easter - Did you know that Easter/Good Friday isn't a federal holiday? Just a state holiday in several states. I'm still counting it because I normally get Easter Monday off too so it feels like a holiday to me. A clear second fiddle.

3) Thanksgiving - Now things are tightening up a little bit, but the extra black friday off puts Turkey Day in the three spot. Stuffing helps, too.

4) 4th of July - Summer. Fireworks. Parades. Stewartville 5k run. What's not to like?

5) Memorial Day - The unofficial beginning of summer, and you know how this blogger likes his summer.

6) Labor Day - A final nice, warm weekend before summer ends.

7) New Year's Day - Gets screwed over by its proximity to Christmas. If New Year's was like in February or March it would climb the rankings. Bad time slot - like being televised opposite Seinfeld.

8 tie) MLK Jr. and Prez. Day - I get an alternating one of you off each year so you two tie. Deal with it.

10)Veterans Day - Again, no day off. But, the it being for the Vets keep it out of the 11 hole.

11) Columbus Day - What have you done for me lately Christopher?

That's it. Discuss...

The stomach flu...

...is no fun. I'm closing in on 40 hours without eating anything. I wonder how long I'll be able to go. Coffee doesn't seem to help. I know, I know, caffeine is bad for you when you're sick. But, coffee is also magical so I assumed it would make me better. No dice. I'm supposed to run a 5k in 24 hours. Can a guy run a 5k without eating for 3 days before running it? Can a guy type a coherent blog post with the flu? Probably no to each...

Mark your calendars!

I will be hosting an author's talk and book signing on Wednesday December 12th at Spring Valley Public Library from 6:30-7:30. More details to come as the time approaches.

Review

I've been looking for a review for Chasing a Dream for a couple of weeks now, and it looks like one's coming soon. A popular baseball book reviewer just posted on his blog that his review of my book will be coming soon. No inclination either way if he enjoyed it or not so I guess we'll see. If it ends up being a good review maybe I'll post it on here. If it's not good maybe you won't hear any mention of it. :)

Along those same lines, if you've read Chasing a Dream (and you don't have the same last name as I do) you can write a customer review on my page here - I believe that Amazon has been removing reviews of relatives to keep the review process fair. But, maybe a non-relative will stumble upon this and post a review.

Downeaster Alexa

With all of this storm talk on the east coast I find that Billy Joel is stuck firmly in my head. All day long I'm "working my fingers to the bone" in my mind. So I decided to stop fighting it and am listening to it over youtube as I write. I have a feeling that it's going to be a Billy Joel kinda day. Because you know what's coming next - Allentown. Who knows where we go from there.

In novel news, Stewartville Public Library and St. Paul Public Library now have copies of Chasing a Dream available. Get on the waiting list soon.

Book signing

First of all, I better make sure I don't type it as a book singing. I just do that. Part of me must prefer to sing than to sign. Every time I write sub notes for school I have to double check that I'm not assinging homework instead of assigning it. I'm sure the sub can figure out what I mean, but I don't like stupid little mistakes. In fact, this paragraph above took me twice as long as usually because I'm so hung up on checking the order of my "gn". There are probably 17 other grammatical errors in here because of my concentration on the "gn". Oh well....

Back to the point, when people find out I wrote a book the first question 90% of the time is if I'll be having a book signing. Yes, there will be one at some point, hopefully soon. However, if you want a book signed and you know me, just let me know and I'll sign a copy for you. Even if you don't know me I can get one signed and mailed to you, it just will cost a little more for postage. But, for some people, that little scribble seems to be important. Makes their heart sing I guess.

Getting a review

My next task in this literary adventure is getting a review for my book. As strange as it may seem, most people don't seem to want to take a chance on a debut writer. I've been in contact with a few different individuals who hopefully will take the time to read through my book and write a few. In fact, if anyone out there reading this would like that task give me a shout-out and I'll get you a book!

Still climbing

We are up to #2 in Free Sports Fiction! Not very far from #1. We were listed on one site, but the others that I inquired about have yet to advertise my book. It's tough without any reviews. Maybe those will come...

Climbing the ranks...

Well, we're now up to #4 in Free Sports Fiction on Amazon. Still a lot of time left on the free promotion. Hopefully a few of the sites that I sent information about the book will post for me and drive up the numbers. I guess we'll see.

Free Kindle Promo!

Well, the free Kindle promo starts tomorrow. It will be interesting to see if the promo increases my book sales or not. The interest in my paperback seems to be building. It sounds like it's going to start infiltrating the local libraries soon. What's next? I guess we'll see...