The Medium Life

 My Clearlake county books have had an upgrade, brand new covers including a cover for the  upcoming, "A Sweet Tomorrow," which will be released later on this year. I think they are just gorgeous...! They are currently exclusive to Amazon but will be wide by September 1st. They are all standalones, but set in Clearlake County, USA.

Pic: @mrs_moa_book_hub I spent two days this last weekend at the Romance Writers of New Zealand conference, 'Kiss and Tell,' and had a marvellous, marvellous time. It was five years since the last conference I went to in Wellington. Five years!!  This time I missed the Friday workshop but was there for Day One and Day Two. So here is a bit of a round up on just a couple of talks. Speaker T.L. Swan (Tee). I'd never heard of Tee before but the woman is quite something. Massive seller, who also started up her own publishing company over in Australia. Main points I learnt from her talks: Keep changing covers and blurbs if you need to. She changed covers on one of her series literally dozens of times before they started selling. Nothing had changed about the books at all but just the covers. You don't give up, you just keep pushing, pushing, pushing until you find your readers. Interestingly, she doesn't read romance fiction at all. I remember ages ago, another top selle...

THESE MAGIC MOMENTS is now WIDE so you can buy it from Kobo, Apple, Barnes and Noble, and more, as well as Amazon. There's a bit of a story behind this book. Back in the Covid years, I really wanted something 'old school' to read, just a simple romance, a true comfort read. I bought a few, including an omnibus of Betty Neels romances and by the time I'd finished I thought, I want to have a go at this style of story. Write something that is just a sweet, heartwarming, feel-good read. So I wrote it, I self published it under a new name "Maddie Summers" in case it bombed and everyone hated it. Fortunately everyone did not hate it, lol, and I ended up writing two more stories set in Bluebell Road. The good news I've already written a third of the fourth one and the plan is to publish it in time for Christmas this year! 

ANNOUNCEMENT: As you  know, I do like writing and reading short stories, and to that end, I've started up a Substack to post the odd short story now and then. Feel free to take a look and read the first story, "The Birthday Tree." CHECK OUT SUBSTACK HERE.

 What I'm working on? Two books at the moment. I have... "Captivating Kelly" being proofread and I hope to publish that at the end of this month, August. I am also editing a new Clearlake County book tentatively titled "A Sweet Tomorrow." As well, I have partially written a new Frazier Bay Book that I'll be plotting out next month. I am new to plotting but boy, it saves so much time. It is so much more effective, so I'm embracing plotting days in my planning. I also hope to have the new Maddie Summers, "A Bluebell Road Christmas" ready for this year's festive season. It's busy busy busy but very much fun. Stay tuned.

I was at a store a few weeks back and happened across a plug in to the wall, single element, induction cooktop thing. I made the purchase to see what it was like. I've been considering a new oven for some time and the inductions were recommended. My current one is not so good. Every time my sister comes over and attempts to cook on it, she's like 'Jo, when are you getting a new oven, how can you cook on this thing?' I can cook just fine, actually. It just takes ten times as long. To that end, I'd been contemplating the induction but they are more expensive, you need to make sure your cookware is induction friendly (I have one large pot that is just that thankfully)  and you also have to check the power supply supports it. It seems daunting. Then I found this plug in element and got home, got it going, cooked minced beef on it, and OH MY GOLLY GOSH. I couldn't believe it, just how quickly it cooked. I said to myself, now I don't need a whole new induction ove...