The Holiday Author Event: People, Pitches, and Panaché

Book lovers, authors, friends and family converged on The Pressroom in downtown Phoenix this past Saturday afternoon (12-06-14). When we arrived at the parking lot next to the venue, we noticed some streets were blocked off with orange cones. It turns out the city of Phoenix started early to block streets for the Electric Light Parade taking place that evening. In addition there was at least one auto accident nearby that closed an intersection briefly. Roadblocks couldn't keep away people hungry to meet authors, buy books and get them signed and soon the large space was filled! You can get an idea of the size of the hall from the picture above taken before the doors opened. 

 My husband Frank agreed to be my side-kick and cashier for the day. In keeping with the Arrowstar Series theme of the Wild West, Frank dressed cowboy style and donned a black cowboy hat with a silver band. One of my friends commented on a photo she posted on her Facebook page that even though he wore a black hat, there was nothing sinister about the Italian cowboy.

Seventeen people entered the drawing to win the complete Arrowstar Trilogy, and I happily delivered the trio to the winner on Monday. Besides the drawing generating interest in the books, two big posters flanked our six-foot table. One sported the Arrowstar arrow from the book covers and advertised the drawing, while the other showed the horsewoman slinging her rope from the cover of The Storm Women, inviting event-goers to Join the Adventure!

Gathering almost 70 authors in one place for a huge event such as this one is the brainchild of Laura Orsini, a marketing guru and leader of the Meet-Up Group, Phoenix Publishing and Book Marketing. Her husband, Mickey serenaded the gathering with his own guitar accompaniment, and Molina’s of Scottsdale made lunch a real treat with several kinds of burritos and rice and beans alongside tortilla chips. Drinks for the crowd were plentiful from the bar at the back of the hall.

My first book signing ever gave me a chance to think up some witty one-liners to use with my signature on the front page of the Arrowstar books. My favorite one is short and sweet, Giddyup! I enjoyed personalizing books for readers, and I sold more books than I had anticipated! A very nice woman who shall remain nameless found a comfy couch out of the hubbub of the room and began reading Arrowstar, the first book in the series. My first reaction was one of sheer terror that she wouldn’t like it, but she kept reading for quite some time. Whew!

Getting ready for the event, publicizing it and interacting with readers all day long falls under the category, “Take a chance; amaze yourself.”  I certainly ranged outside my comfort zone in many ways. The experience brought me face-to-face with readers, and for that opportunity, a little discomfort was well worth it!

Today’s Tidbit: Authorship requires far more than mastering the craft of writing.

Read On!!

Cheryl (aka C. K.)

Photos by Frank Del Monte and Dianna Renfrow

Writing the History of Women of the West

 Contemporary Women’s Fiction describes Arrowstar’s genre, and while not officially historical fiction the books in the series give readers a sense of the history still apparent in Arizona’s ranching communities today. The Storm Women comes close to being designated historical fiction because the19th Century mining towns mentioned existed at one time, and the newsworthy events tucked in the story line actually occurred.

The actress Nellie Boyd mentioned in The Storm Women actually lived and managed a theatrical company in the Wild West. This companion book to Charade recounts a slice of life in 19^th century Arizona territory that includes accurate descriptions of the rigors of stagecoach travel and also a bit of the history of the Civil War as it was fought in the West. I don’t consider this novel historical fiction because the main characters weren’t players in the real history of the West.

Hopefully the characters of Arrowstar come alive for readers, and they feel as if they were experiencing the story right along with them. My favorite books are populated by women who follow their dreams and tackle life with determination and purpose. I think I long to be like them!

I’ve just finished reading the novel Cattle Kate, and I can recommend it with enthusiasm. The review I wrote for the novel on Amazon.com follows. I hope you get a chance to read this amazing story. And I urge you to remember that your reviews are like gold to authors.

Cattle Kate – A Novel

Written by well-known Arizona journalist and author Jana Bommersbach, the novel Cattle Kate turns long-accepted legend, gossip and intentional misrepresentation upside down. Bommersbach’s accurate account of Ella Watson’s life adds a brand new page to the annals of Wyoming’s frontier history.

Bommersbach dug deep and shoveled the deceitful grit and gravel of Wyoming Territory aside to unearth the facts about the life of this determined and much maligned Western woman. Watson never in her lifetime answered to the fabricated name Cattle Kate.  Her life differed wildly from the stories told about her and this piece of historical fiction sets the record straight after 125 years of slanderous gossip.

Beyond reading the very enjoyable unfolding of Watson’s life, the endnotes and bibliography speak volumes about the extensive research the author completed in order to tell the story. This fascinating trek through the homesteading period of Wyoming Territory left this reader with a renewed respect for the women who ventured West on the strength of a government promise of good land to settle and one day own.

Today’s Tidbit: Women’s history aches to be written and shared.

Read On!

Cheryl

An Interview with the Protagonist of Arrowstar

Talk Show Interview with Star Lance

The host of the radio show, “Lou Grant’s Bookshelf” interviews antiques store owner and historical novelist, Star Lance from Mineral City, Arizona.

Host:  Welcome to “The Bookshelf,” Ms Lance

Star:  Thank you for inviting me, and please call me Star.

Host: I understand you have just released a new historical novel. Would you tell our listeners a little bit about it.

Star:  Yes, my second historical novel, The Storm Women just launched in October. This novel further unravels the mystery of why there are no men buried in the Storm family’s cemetery plot up behind the church in Mineral City, Arizona. The women buried there have fascinating histories, and this novel picks up each of their lives beginning with Margaretta Storm way back in 1857 San Francisco. It also explores the beginnings of rock & roll in 1950’s Los Angeles and brings each of the women’s lives into sharp focus. Readers will learn what it’s like to travel from San Francisco, California to Mineral City, Arizona by stagecoach. In addition, they get to attend a burlesque show in Tombstone and see the ghost town of Pearl come back to life.

Host: What drew you to the town of Mineral City when you were considering moving out West and where exactly is Mineral City?

Star: I saw an ad in the back of Women of the West magazine encouraging tourists to visit the old Weaver Gold Mine in Mineral City. It had just re-opened after a small vein of gold was discovered in what was thought to be a worked-out mine. For some reason that little ad stuck in my head. Maybe it was the idea of someone striking it rich by unexpectedly finding gold that drew my interest. Anyway, I started keeping an eye out for any other news about this small western town. And what was your second question?

Host:  Where is Mineral City located in Arizona?

Star:  Oh yes, it’s just a bit south and about 75 or 80 miles east of Tucson, not too far from the town of Safford and smack in the middle of horse and cattle ranchland.

Host: Why did you decide to buy the contents of the Bobby Flint estate for your antique store?

Star: When the following month’s issue of Women of the West arrived, I naturally looked to see if that ad was still running. When I found it, I noticed a smaller ad next to it advertising an estate sale along with a name and number to call.  After talking to the person who was managing the sale, I really got the itch to follow a dream my husband Max and I had talked about for years.

Host: And that dream was?

Star:  Our dream was to retire to some small town out west and open an antique store to keep ourselves busy. I was already working part time restoring items for an antiques dealer, so I knew a little bit about the business. To pursue that dream on my own following Max’s death seemed like a good way to recover from the debilitating grief I was experiencing.

Host:  What inspired you to write The Storm Women and A Train Robber’s Tale?

Star: A friend of mine suggested I make provenance tags for some of my antiques and that got me back into writing after years of not pursuing the career in writing I’d planned when I graduated from Indiana University. I soon realized that Arrowstar, my antiques store wasn’t going to make it if I didn’t supplement its income. My very good friend Kat Abbi suggested I write a book about Bobby Flint to make up for the store’s shortfall. I was extremely lucky to have my first book picked up by a publisher. Actually, I owe a great deal to my agent and another friend who referred me to him.

Host: What are you writing now that The Storm Women is finished?

Star:  I’m thinking of writing about some of the famous people who have lived in the area around Mineral City like Tom Mix for instance to name just one.

Host: I’m sure our listeners will be eagerly awaiting its publication. It’s been a delight having you on our show. Come back again when you finish the next book.

Star: It’s been my pleasure to be here, and I’ll definitely be back to talk about my next book. Thank you for the invitation!

Host: And that’s “Bookshelf” for today. This is your host Lou Grant wishing you as always: a good book, a comfortable chair and a radio to keep you company.

Holiday Author Event

REGISTER early and win a bag full of goodies at www.holidayauthorevent.com

Saturday, December 6th, 10 a.m.-4 p.m.

The Pressroom • 441 W. Madison Street, Phoenix 85003
Click here for map: https://goo.gl/maps/YRQ6u

  

Women Who Make History

I’ll be the first to tell you that I’m not one of those women who will make history. I’ve been watching the series called Makers on PBS, and I’m fascinated. The episode I just watched highlighted women in the entertainment business who broke new ground in the writer’s room and in the director’s chair as well as in front of the cameras. Remember Marlo Thomas and the television show That Girl? I lived for that show. Then along came Mary Tyler Moore with her funny, edgy show that put workplace biases on display without cramming them down anyone’s throat. These characters were hip single women with drive slugging it out on their own in the big city.

Looking back on the 1960s and 1970s I can see myself skirting all the big issues women were arguing over. I sort of stood back and watched. When divorce knocked me for a loop in the 1980s, and all the 50s style rhetoric I’d grown up with went up in flames, my interest got much, much bigger. I became that single woman slugging it out in the workplace, and I finally understood what all the fuss was about. The Makers gives voice to the intensions behind the scenes of the everyday images in movies, television and advertising.  It’s heartening to realize just how much women have shaped and changed our society in the many arenas previously out of reach to them.

Watching these documentaries has me thinking about how I’m shaping my characters in the Arrowstar series of books. My intension when I’m writing the characters of Star, Kat, Carla, Ricki, and Margo has been to transport readers to a mind-place way out of reach of their everyday stresses.  There is grit and dirt in the streets of Mineral City to be sure, but there’s also a feeling of community that runs deep. There’s a final resting place behind the church on the hill at the end of Main Street where connections to the ones who built the town with muscle and hope are real and visible. It’s comforting to me that outsiders like Kat, Carla, and Star have earned their way into the fabric of a town populated with people who hold so strongly to traditions and bloodlines dating back to the 1800s.

The question that’s nudging me right now has to do with edge. My main focus when choosing a book to read has always been escapism. That’s what I want for my readers as well, but what about deeper meaning and an edginess that pushes buttons and makes readers want to rise up and see above the trees? The women of Makers had vision and courage. They made history and the women of Arrowstar salute them. My hope is that Arrowstar’s characters inspire readers to make some “personal history” of their own, whatever direction that might take them. Certainly readers see that these characters are not without their flaws, and yet they persist in pursuing their rightful place in the scheme of things. As Lou Grant in the Mary Tyler Moore show said so well, “You’ve got spunk!” and then mumbled, “I hate spunk.” Arrowstar’s women aren’t looking for approval; each one is looking for the end of her own particular rainbow. Maybe that’s edgy enough.

I look forward to hearing from readers. Won’t you consider dashing off a comment to ckthomas@cox.net? I’ll do my best to respond.

Type your email address in the box in the right-hand column of this page, and I’ll occasionally let you in on sneak peeks about Bobby Flint and Patsy Rodriguez while I’m writing A Train Robber’s Tale.

Tidbit: Let’s keep on running after rainbows, but always remember to walk in the rain just for fun sometimes.

Read On!

Cheryl

Buried Under the Marketing Tree

Come with me, sit under the marketing tree for a minute, and read the kind of prose I’m writing these days:

Check out the NEW ARROWSTAR COVERS with INSIDER CAPTIONS!

Click the tab above to see the C.K.Thomas – Author – Insider Page!

The complete Arrowstar Series is now on Smashwords and Barns and Nobel’s Nook along with Honor Bound. You can pre-order The Storm Women for e-book delivery to your device on October 15. Stay tuned for news about the paperbacks. Just check this blog’s newsletter page from time to time, or easier still, pop your email address in the box at the right, and the dates will come to you.

The leaves from the “marketing tree” keep falling faster than I can rake them and put them in a basket. Notice that this blog now has an added page you can access from the tabs at the top of the page just below the picture. Readers easily return to the blog page by clicking the Home tab after checking out this new little technology trick.

Obviously “indie” authors get a real dose of do-it-yourself thrills while navigating the many ways the Internet provides for marketing and publishing a novel. The words, “too much screen time” echo inside my head daily as I attempt to let the world know about the updated Arrowstar Series, and its newest release, The Storm Women. I feel like screaming, “We are here, we are here, we are here!!” Luckily I don’t – not too often anyway.

By the beginning of next week, I should be holding a proof copy of the Arrowstar paperback in my hands. That day will make all these marketing days so worth it!

Today’s request: Promise there will be a rainbow when the thunder stops!

Write On!

Cheryl

Writing, Revising, Editing, Formatting, Marketing, Publishing and Other Demanding Challenges

The company Formatting Experts delivers top-notch, personalized service with no money required up front to format my books for print and electronic distribution. Relax, I keep telling myself, but I still wake up in the middle of the night thinking about the most recent set of formatted pages I've approved or returned for corrections.

For instance, we've massaged the text of Arrowstar multiple times while getting the new e-book’s end page ship-shape for readers. We've included a link to Charade  and  the  chance to read the first chapter immediately following the end of Arrowstar. Doing so makes buying the second book in the series a snap. Finalizing details like these generate email decision-making that clearly reminds me of those long-since-past, eight-to-five workdays.

This adventure into authorship has taught me to be very forgiving when I find copy-editing mistakes in books I’m reading. Arrowstar has been read for errors multiple times by me and my copy editor, and yet I found one more change to be made just yesterday! I believe it when I’m told that the brain sees what it expects to see on the printed page and not necessarily what is really printed. In other words, our mind’s eye makes tiny corrections for us based on our expectations.

An eye to marketing the books also figures into this “formatting” process. Although Arrowstar has been available as an e-book since 2011, I don’t have access to Amazon’s email list of people who have bought the book. With this re-launch of all the books in the series and the first publication of The Storm Women, there exists a need to communicate with loyal readers. The end-pages of the books provide  an opportunity to gather not only an email reader list, but also request reader reviews.

On the surface, these add-on’s seem easy, but the “devil” truly is in the details. Building an email address list requires signing up for a mailing service like Mail Chimp where the addresses can be stored and a process for mass emails can be established. Beyond that, an automatic return email must be created along with incentives for readers to enjoy giving up their email addresses. And this example describes but one of the many layered steps to publication and distribution.

I now have so many websites, passwords, and accounts to keep straight that I have to refer to my secure password keeper multiple times during a day’s work toward launching the books. I consider myself very fortunate  to have my granddaughter, who just got her BA in Communications, putting in as much time as she can spare to act as publicist for the books.

In the midst of the anxiety surrounding the series launch, I’m pushing myself to get “out there” to promote the books in person.  I've joined a networking group for authors, and I’m looking  for local book clubs where I can pitch the series. Will all this activity actually lead to book sales? I’m hopeful and determined and cautiously optimistic about the chances, but in all honesty, I’d rather be back in Mineral City exchanging barbs with my characters.

A quote that keeps me sane: “Determination and persistence alone are omnipotent.” Silent Cal (President Calvin Coolidge)

Write on, Read on, and Keep on Keeping On!

Cheryl

Horses of the Arrowstar Series: Marmalade, Toast, Syrup and Buttermilk, the burro

I’m an urban cowgirl with imaginary horses. There are 32 acres of Arizona ranchland in the southeastern corner of Arizona I call my own, but I don’t own a horse or ride one on a regular basis. Not long ago I wrote a blog titled What if You Must Write What You Don’t Know?  In spite of not being able to claim the elite title of Arizona Cowgirl, I’ve created characters who fit that mold very well. Kat owns a ranch she inherited from her grandmother and at one time trained to be an Olympic equestrian. Star, on the other hand, has always wanted to be a cowgirl, but like me grew up in the city. Now that she’s moved to Arizona, she’s going after that dream by taking riding lessons from her friend Kat. Both Ricki and Jim Kane grew up in ranch country and have been riding since they were kids.

There is a mystique about horses and riders that sends our thoughts roaming into the western landscape. I believe characters who choose animals as companions express depths of compassion and caring readers appreciate. These horse-country dwellers have a certain toughness and confidence about them. After all, they not only ride their horses, but know how to rub them down after a long ride, brush out their tails, saddle and bridle them and make sure to feed and water them properly. Not to mention having the knowledge to tend to their ills and have the good sense to call the vet only when it’s warranted. My granddaughter who rides the “range” up north in the state of Washington tells me that a truly accomplished rider not only masters all the equestrian skills, but cares for her horse as well, including feeding, watering and mucking out the stall.

I’ve schooled myself in various ways in order to write about horses and cowgirls. Many years ago I earned the horsewoman badge in Girl Scouts by attending camp where I learned to ride using either a Western or an English saddle. Before the badge became my trophy there were plenty of chances to master quite a few of the above-mentioned skills. Unfortunately, when camp ended, so did my association with the horses. Of course, I’ve participated in trail rides over the many years I’ve lived in Arizona, but I would never answer the question, “Do you ride?” with a resounding, “Yes.”

I have a good friend who has owned, ridden and cared for horses her whole life. She kindly took me out to West World in Scottsdale to watch a competition in the huge covered performance arena there. Walking the dusty path between the stalls while kicking up dust that settled on our boots and jeans, we talked about the joys and also some of the hard realities of horse ownership. That day gave me a feel for the cost, the time and the effort that goes into this popular, but somewhat daunting pastime.

Having heard in the news about horses used by drug runners in Mexico and Arizona that often are abandoned in the desert, I researched this growing problem. Considering the cost of keeping a horse healthy and well fed, it’s a credit to the groups taking them in that they’re able to operate at all, barely surviving on donations and volunteer help. In Charade the second book of the Arrowstar series, having Star find Syrup the horse she desperately wants to adopt among a group of those rescued horses, seemed like a good way to highlight this little- known effort to rehabilitate and adopt these horses out to caring owners. Ricki’s horse Marmalade and Jim’s horse Toast turned out to be part of the glue that brought Ricki and Jim together in Arrowstar the first book in the series. After all, if you’ve got toast, you definitely need marmalade!

The Storm Women, the new Arrowstar release in October 2014, introduces a little gal called Dusky to Buttermilk the burro. In the aftermath of a very difficult time, Dusky’s aunt claims, “In a way, I think that colt saved little Dusky,” Sarah told Margaretta as they worked side by side in the garden, keeping an eye on Dusky as she mucked out Buttermilk’s stall in the small barn behind the kitchen house. And perhaps Sarah is right about that, but I’ll let you decide as you turn the pages of this new addition to the Arrowstar series.

The nitty-gritty details of ranching, horse training and care come, as usual, from sites dedicated to horses on the Internet. Here are some links you might want to investigate if your interests run to horses and the hardy souls who love them:

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/31/us/31horses.html?_r=0 – Horse Rescue

http://www.westworldaz.com/#about – West World

http://www.twisterheller.com/index.htm - Horse Ranching in Arizona

http://gingingray.wantlesspower.com/HorseColors.html - Kinds of horses

http://www.equisearch.com/article/show-skills-for-every-horse - Horse riding and training

Read on! Ride on! Write on!

Cheryl

Author Biography – Books – Blog - Twitter

To receive announcements about new releases, sneak peeks, and insider tidbits, won't you please share your email address using the form provided (at top right). Your address will never be sold or shared. That’s a promise!