New Year, New Website, New Book

It has been almost a month since I wrote my last blog post. We (my husband and I) have been making some changes to my website and don’t have everything quite ironed out, but we are working on it. Then there has been our Christmas that extended well into January, and, on top of that, we’ve been ill. Things are beginning to even out though. At least, I hope so.

I am quite excited that in only twelve days and a few hours Pelican Publishing will release my book Ranch Girl and the Orphan Lamb Adventure, a middle-grade, 80-page chapter book. It has been on several Internet sites for the last several weeks for pre-order, but on February 5, it will be for immediate order and will make its debut in bookstores such as Barnes and Noble and Books-a-Million. If you don’t see it on the shelf, ask for it.

Please forgive me for being excited, but it has been a long and winding road. Traditional publishing seems to take forever. I plan to write a blog post one of these days on the journey from writing a book, revising and revising, submitting to publishers, finally having it accepted, and then being faced with the months and months of the publishing process. Even though I have been published before, it was for short fiction (short stories and children’s stories), articles, book reviews, and a poem or two. Traditional book publishing is an entirely different animal. But, I have learned a lot and feel I have been given a free education. You can’t beat that!

Well, I’ll end this for now but will likely bombard you on Release Day and beyond. I will be having some events coming up in the next few weeks and months—book signings and the likes. My Pelican Publicist and I have just begun working on these and are open to suggestions. My website now has an Events tab on the Menu. There you can find upcoming book-related events and, perhaps, a few other items. Bear with me as I navigate the changes on my site. Here are a couple of online places to find Ranch Girl and the Orphan Lamb Adventure:

http://www.amazon.com/author/bef
http://www.barnesandnoble.com