Bittersweet Farm #2 and #5 in Equestrian Sports

There's a lot of competition in this category so it's a nice treat to see Bittersweet 1: Mounted and Bittersweet 2: Joyful Spirit in the top 5. 

Yes, I'm working on Bittersweet Farm 3: Wingspread.  Notice how the books are named after horses?  Yes.  I think the next one will be named after Greer's horse.  No, it won't be Counterpoint.  Everything is always changing at Bittersweet Farm.

I'm quite far into 3 and it's only about 5 days since the hunter pace!  They're busy and it's going to get busier.

Flag Day

It's sometimes easy to forget that people lived, fought and died for our freedom to sit on a couch and do nothing.  No people of any country has ever been more free than in the USA and yet we treat it as a nothing little thing.  Even today, there are women in the world not allowed to go to school, or to drive, or to leave the home without a male relative escorting her.  There are countries where a woman needs 4 witnesses to testify that she was raped.  Her word alone is insufficient.  This week a 15 year old boy was shot in the face and killed by the police in front of his parents so the point was really made, because he spoke out against the government.  Homosexuality is a crime punishable by death.  Slavery is not against the law.

We are not that kind of people.  We never have been.

God Bless America.

The Missed Wish Transforms Itself

Here's a little backstory on this novella.  A friend lives near a fountain and he wondered about wishes.  That sent us both in different directions--me with a book in mind and he with a script in mind.

I didn't write a book and he didn't finished the script but I did wind up with a cute novella even if the right title was elusive.  It was originally one thing and then I shortened it and then shortened it again to The Missed Wish.  I had other things to do so moved on.

A few days ago I went back to it since it's a cute story, I like the characters, the setting on the California coast, polo as the sport they play.  I worked on the cover and couldn't do what I wanted to do quickly and easily.  It's possible but I didn't want to commit to hours of effort.

Today I renamed it twice.  I really think the first title is the best Caprice's Epic Fail 100% Totally Screwed up Messed Up Wish.  Long, huh?  But I don't mind.  Then I thought other people would so I shortened it to Caprice's Totally Screwed Up Wish.

Digital publishing makes changing your mind easy.  Changing my mind has always been easy but the rest of the world didn't cooperate well with that.  Now I don't need permission to see if something else will work better.

Here's the blurb.

If wishes can come true, how could one girl go so wrong?
When seventeen year old Caprice Rydell flips a coin into a fountain and makes a wish that's just the beginning of trouble.  Cap learns her father is a bigamist, and it's all downhill from there.  It's bad enough that news is announced on a national television show but it all plays out in front of Mill Crocker, captain of the school polo team and the more gorgeous guy Cap's ever seen.
Mill doesn't take Cap’s wishing seriously and thinks she already has what she wants. Cap just wants to reset her life back to normal by retrieving that coin. Just how is Cap going to find it among the thousands in the fountain?

ELFS

Not the movie.  The acronym I noticed this morning when reading about how everyone likes free stuff.

Obviously everyone does like free stuff, and loss leaders are common in the marketplace.
There's a store by the name of Stew Leonard's which is notorious for giving away samples of food.  By the time you get to the check-out line, you don't need to eat lunch and your shopping cart is full.

So giving away books works.  Provided it leads readers to your other books.  The common wisdom is that you're better off putting Book 1 in your series as a giveaway and let readers be intrigued enough to keep going.  This isn't set in stone.  I have a friend who doesn't have a series, she gives away thousands of books through Select and Bookbub and I would say she's very successful.

Since ELFS that means a lot of people will download any free book and 1) not read it at all 2) read it and go meh 3) like it enough to seek out more books by the same author.

The author is the winner really because each time a freebie is downloaded, their readership is better defined.  If you get a bad review "Boy, I got this for free and it was so bad they should have paid me to read it!" all that says is that's not your audience.  Priced at free there will be unlimited opportunities for the right audience to coalesce around an author.

Bittersweet Farm 3

Yes, that's in progress.  There will be surprises, twists and turns at the farm.  Does anyone vote for Rogers getting a boyfriend?  Wouldn't that be unexpected?  I wonder what Greer would say about Rogers getting a steady guy before she has one.  Since Greer is so unpredictable it's hard to know what her reaction would be to anything.

I have another idea kicking around but I've been so busy with everything from gardening to formatting, I haven't had a lot of time to think.  Maybe soon.  I have the title, though, and it's good to have a title before the writing commences.  It's a little bit like a compass, keeping me pointed in the right direction.

I've been playing around with the cover for Pass or Fail.  Sometimes I get tired of what's there and need a change.  I like the top version because of the background colors but I like the black and white because it's stark and the book is rather stark and disturbing.

Any votes which you like better?