52 Ancestors #29 The Musical Earl Culpepper

Posted on July 16, 2015 by Lori Crane

This challenge is set forth by No Story Too Small and this week’s theme is “musical.”

Being a professional musician all my life, I’ve always given thought to where my musical talents came from. My mother sang in church. I have a great grandmother and a great great grandfather (different lines) who played a pump organ. I also have a great grandfather from Ireland who played the fiddle. But the one who usually comes to mind is my maternal grandfather Earl Culpepper.

I have many fond memories of sitting on the front porch with him as he played his guitar and sang. Sometimes he’d even pull out his harmonica and use some contraption around his neck to hold it up to his mouth. He always sang “Hey Good Lookin'” by Hank Williams and sounded a lot like him.

Earl was born in Mississippi on Christmas Eve of 1914 to Sam Culpepper and Annie Blanks. He was the eighth child of the union and a girl follow him. At age 21, he married Ina Inez Burke and they had two daughters – one being my mother. Earl worked his whole life at the Burnley Shirt Factory in Meridian. After his wife died in 1975, he married a lady from the factory who was widowed. They married in 1977. Earl died 5 Mar 1994 at the age of 79 at Anderson Hospital following respiratory failure/aspiration pneumonia following a stroke. He was buried next to Ina at Liberty Baptist Cemetery, Duffee, Newton Co, MS. MS death cert no 9405973.

RIP pawpaw and thanks for the music! ♪♫♪

Plundering the Romance Novel by Ionia Martin

Posted on July 15, 2015 by Lori Crane

I just finished reading the funniest book I’ve read in a long time. I trotted over to Amazon to leave a review. In their little pop-up, they asked me if there was sexual content in the book. I’m not sure how to answer that question, so I left it blank.

I will say, though, that this book is short, sweet, and hilarious. It is told by the hero, narrator, author, and your choice of two heroines. You can tell them apart by the color of their flowing locks. Watch out for the potato sack race which had me spitting my drink onto my Kindle. A MUST-READ for any romance fan or writer…especially writer. I encourage all of my author friends and anyone who loves a good romance novel to go get this book…TODAY…RIGHT NOW. Click HERE. If you hate romance novels, you’ll like it even more.

It is written by our friend and fellow blogger Ionia Martin from Readful Things. Below is her blurb that I copied from Amazon, and make sure you stop by her blog. I linked it above for your convenience.

Description: A silly, satirical romp into the land of romance novels and pirate adventures, full of romance clichés and humour. This book is a short novella, just over 10k words.

Have you ever wondered what goes on in the minds and hearts of romance novel heroes and heroines? No? Good, because this book won’t be helpful with that at all.

If romance clichés drive you mad and you like Monty Python style humour, this may be the perfect book for you.

From the twisted mind of a sometimes writer and lifelong reader, you are certain to have less brain cells than you started with after reading this book.

Captain Stormy is the typical romance hero/villain archetype. He follows the Romance Hero Handbook to the letter, but he is about to figure out that nothing in his guidebook is going to prepare him for the trials he’s about to face.

Uncooperative heroines, lack of treasure, severely delayed sex scenes, a missing crew and an old man’s butt cheeks later, Stormy has a story to tell you.

Even pirates have bad days.

*contains some mature themes and language

Build Your Twitter Following in 6 Easy Steps

Posted on July 15, 2015 by Lori Crane

Building your Twitter following is easy as pie, but it does take consistency.

So, you’ve started a Twitter account and wonder what to do next? How do you make friends, grow your audience, build your following? Sometimes Twitter feels like being in a room with everyone screaming at the same time, but you can wade through the chaos with a few simple steps.

1. Decide what your interest is. I imagine it’s writing or you wouldn’t be on this blog reading this. So, in the search box, type in something specific, say “indie authors” or “civil war” or “sparkley vampires.” This will pull up only people and comments that contain that specific phrase.

2. Click on the names of the people who interest you. If they have about the same number of followers as following, they are likely to follow you back. If you want to grow your followers, those are the people to follow. People who have 50k followers but only follow 18 people are not likely to follow you back. If you are interested in their Tweets, follow away, but if you’re trying to grow your following, don’t waste your time or your finite following limit (more on this below).

3. Do this 10 minutes per day. Click on people you’re interested in for all the topics you put in the search box. Do it religiously. Set your alarm. 10 minutes is all it takes. You’ll be amazed at how quickly your following grows after a few weeks.

4. Use advertising finesse! Only advertise your product every so often, maybe one-out-of-every-ten-Tweets. Use the other 9 Tweets to make friends, share information, build a rapport. After all, it is SOCIAL media.

5. Put yourself on a schedule. Cultivate your followers for 10 minutes per day. Tweet twice per day. Respond or comment on other Tweets twice per day. Re-Tweet other’s Tweets twice per day. If you’re doing the math, that’s 6 Tweets. That means tomorrow, you’ll hit your one-out-of-ten-Tweets advertising point and you can post a link to your book or your review. Don’t forget to add hashtags so it gets retweeted. Click HERE for a big list of hashtags for writers.

6. Connect your Twitter account to your blog. When you post a blog, this will automatically Tweet for you and that’s one less Tweet you have to do today.

Check out CrowdFire. It holds all the magic buttons to see who is following you back and who is not.

Pre-schedule your tweets at Twuffer! If you’re busy or out of town, this can keep your account active for you.

Let the computer re-tweet for you at RoundTeam. You can choose up to three hashtags to retweet.

One note about the number of followers you can have. Twitter has a magic 2000 following limit at the beginning. When you try to follow #2001, you’ll get a pop-up from Twitter telling you that you’ve reached the maximum number of people you can follow. It’s a percentage thing. Once you reach 1819 followers, that 2000 number will begin to increase. As a matter of fact, the number over 2000 you can follow is 10% of your followers. So if you have 1900 followers, you get an increase of 190, so you can follow 2190 people.

Take your time. Work at it a little every day. When you Tweet about your new book and it gets re-Tweeted by 28 people to 800,000 people, it’s worth it. Happy Tweeting!

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Lori Crane is a bestselling and award-winning author of historical fiction and the occasional thriller. Her books have climbed to the Kindle Top 100 lists many times, including “Elly Hays” which debuted at #1 in Native American stories. She has also enjoyed a place among her peers in the Top 100 historical fiction authors on Amazon, climbing to #23. She resides in greater Nashville and is a professional musician by night – an indie author by day.

It’s Monday! What are you reading?

Posted on July 13, 2015 by Lori Crane

It’s Monday! What are you reading?

This week I read “Cades Cove: The Curse of Allie Mae” by Aiden James.

One of my favorite places on Earth is the Smoky Mountains, and sitting in a hollow in the mountains is Cades Cove. I’ve been there many times and was excited by the sheer name of this book.

Cades Cove: The Curse of Allie Mae is a ghost story written in current times with bits of history, tradition, and ancestry thrown in.

David and Miriam Hobbs venture to a secret place in Cades Cove that is reportedly the 1800’s version of Lover’s Lane. They see hearts and names carved on the old trees, and one of the names is Allie. Later they find an old treasure bag with Allie’s name embroidered on it. David takes the bag home to Denver and the ghost story begins. Allie turns out to be a hateful poltergeist that terrorizes David’s family. Of course you’ll keep reading to find out how they get rid of her and who she is. The family connection at the end between Allie and David is intriguing.

When the family can’t take any more of Allie’s deadly mischief, David takes Allie’s bag back to Cades Cove and enlists the help of a Cherokee Indian guide and his shaman daughter to get rid of Allie. After intense spells and a flashback to Allie’s gruesome death, the story ends, and all is well.

At that point, I would have given the book lots of stars for the good plot, but it doesn’t end there. Once David returns to Denver, he receives a letter from the Indian stating they have exhumed Allie’s remains and given her a proper burial. I wish the book would have ended there, but at that point Allie reappears in the family home, making the dog bark and making me feel like I just wasted two days of my life reading a book about how they got rid of her. The story apparently segues into a sequel.

If you like ghost stories, this one is for you!

Check it out on Amazon HERE and take a peak at Aiden James’s website HERE.

Amazon sale rumor, snippet, and a FREE book!

Posted on July 11, 2015 by Lori Crane

Word on the street is Amazon will celebrate its 20th anniversary on July 12 and will kick off a mega sale sometime during the week. I’ve heard they have asked for overtime by their staff, hired some temps, and notified their carriers that the volume of packages will double.

Update: Amazon has confirmed a huge one-day sale called Prime Day on July 15. Lightning Deals, seven Deals of the Day, and according to Amazon, more deals than black Friday.

Well…cool! 7,305 days we’ve been together and I still love you, Amazon!

I’d like to take you back in time to the War of 1812 with a snippet of my book ELLY HAYS. Elly’s husband has decided to move the family from Tennessee to the Mississippi Territory, the land we know today as Alabama. He wants to get his family out of the way of the coming war. Little does he know, the Creek Indians living in the place he wants to go are in the middle of a civil war, so he is completely wrong about the family’s safety. Too bad they won’t find that out until they get there.

I’d like to offer you a FREE Kindle copy of ELLY HAYS while your shopping the sale at Amazon July 12-16. Click here to visit the ELLY HAYS Amazon page and bookmark it so you can return July 12-16 and get your FREE copy.

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War is Coming

“So, what are you saying, James? You want to pack all of our belongings, our animals, and our children, leave Tennessee, and move to some wild Indian territory that’s not yet settled?”

He sipped his coffee and nodded. “Yes, that’s exactly what I want to do.”

“What about the children? What about their school?”

“We’ll do what we have to do, Elly. We’ll school them ourselves if that’s what it takes. This is a great opportunity, and the timing couldn’t be better. The government is selling that land for next to nothing, and we’ll have twice the property we have here. Our farm will be twice as large, earning twice the money. And honestly, with what’s going on in the North, I don’t think we should stay here any longer. It looks as if we’re going to declare war upon the British. They’re already fighting up there, and I’m afraid the fighting is going to move its way down here. I would rather school the children myself than to take a chance on them living in the middle of a conflict, or worse, dying in it.”

She looked at him in disbelief and didn’t know what to say. He had a tendency to exaggerate, so she didn’t know if he was being truthful or purposefully saying shocking things about the children’s welfare to get her to agree to move.

He continued. “During the revolution, my father was too old to fight, but he housed many soldiers who related vile tales of death and destruction. He told me stories of the horrors. Men who weren’t killed or injured in battle often starved and died anyway. Women and children were often caught in the crossfire. I don’t want to sit here and watch history repeat itself. The revolution gave us our independence, but the British are still dominating and oppressing us. We still don’t have the freedom we desire. That’s what they’re fighting for in the north—freedom. I agree with what they’re doing, but I don’t want my wife and children caught in the middle. I think there’s going to be a second revolution. After what my father told me about the first one, I can’t help but be fearful that this one is destined to be the same.”

“Yes, I know the stories. I’ve heard them myself. But I don’t know about moving, James.” She shook her head as she lifted her skirt to stand. She walked away from the table and placed her coffee cup on the counter. “I don’t know how to pack all of our things and start all over. It seems impossible.”

He sipped his coffee again and grimaced. It had grown cold. He placed the cup down on the table and looked at her. “I don’t think we have a choice, Elly. The war is coming. We have a good opportunity right in front of us to avoid the whole situation, to start fresh, and to keep the children safe.”

She leaned her back against the counter and placed her hands on her hips. “What about Indians? Aren’t there Indians there?”

“Yes, there are, but I’m sure they won’t be any problem. Other people live amongst them. And besides, we’ll be buying the land from the government, not from the Indians. It will be our land, fair and square. At least we won’t find ourselves caught in the crossfire because the Indians don’t have guns. From what I’ve heard, they live off the land and keep to themselves.”

She sighed, knowing he would not let this go. He wanted an answer right now, but she couldn’t give him the one he wanted. She looked across the room and stared out the wavy glass of the window for a few minutes, trying to decide what to say. After a while, she folded her arms and looked at her husband. “All right, I’ll make you a deal. You go and look at the land, and if it’s nice and there are no Indians, I’ll agree to move there.”

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ELLY HAYS is FREE at Amazon July 12-16.

52 Ancestors – #28 Elly Hays

Posted on July 9, 2015 by Lori Crane

This challenge is set forth by No Story Too Small and this week’s theme is Road Trip.

Elly Hays was sixteen when she married James Rodgers in Tennessee on 20 Dec 1790. The document to the left is their marriage license. She birthed twelve children.

In 1811, the family packed up and moved to the eastern Mississippi Territory – a place now called Alabama, which wouldn’t become a state until 1819.

You know how difficult it is going on a road trip with little kids in the car? Imagine being on a covered wagon for two months with a dozen of the little rug rats and not a McDonalds in sight.

This was a time in history when the U. S. was flexing its political muscle and tensions were escalating, leading up to the War of 1812. And little did the Rodgers family know, they were moving into Creek territory. Not only were the Creek Indians fighting the U.S. Government, they had also broken into two factions and were fighting among themselves in a civil war called the Red Stick War. The Rodgers family moved into the middle of a hornet’s nest. They were harassed for years by the marauding Indians, who taunted them and stole their livestock, and the final straw, burnt down their home.

Eventually, in 1818 the family took another long road trip and moved west to Lauderdale County, Mississippi, to the land of the friendly Choctaw Indians.

James died in Mississippi eight years later, and Elly moved back to Clarke County, Alabama and probably lived with her daughter. She died in the 1830s in her 60s in Grove Hill, Alabama. The exact date of her death is unknown. Her burial place is unknown.

Her story is told in detail in my book Elly Hays available at Amazon.

5 Ways to Market Your New Book Without Social Media

Posted on July 8, 2015 by Lori Crane

Marketing-Heart1 5 Ways to Market Your New Book Without Social Media

Congratulation on your new book! After months and months (sometimes years and years), you’ve released your baby into the great wide unknown. It’s like sending your four-year-old off to preschool, isn’t it? Well, pat yourself on the back and breathe a big, heavy sigh of relief. Done?

Okay, now the REAL work begins.

Carefully remove your author hat and replace it with your marketing hat. Nobody cares more about your book than you do, and even though it is undoubtedly the most brilliant work of literature to ever hit the globe, no one will know about it unless you tell them.

I’m sure you already have a blog, a Twitter account, a Facebook page, a website, among others. You are the king/queen of social media and all your friends and family already know about your book. What do you do now?

1) Write a press release. Google “Press Release” for formats to write your very own release. In general, write it in third person, like you’re delivering a news report. Capture your audience in your first sentence. “Local Man Hits Home Run with First Novel About Baseball.” Your release should tell Why, Where, Who, What, and How. “John Doe of Detroit, Michigan released his first novel, “Baseball,” to rave reviews.” Continue with reasons why anyone should be interested in this. If you can, include what other important people have to say about it. Keep it to 500 words or less. Finish with where the reader can buy it, where you’re speaking next week, and conclude with your contact information. The last thing to type is ###, which ends the release. Have someone proofread it for you!!! Step one: Google your local newspapers and magazines and send it to the editors. Step two: Find magazines and trade journals that deal in your topic and send it to them. Step three: Don’t neglect big bloggers. Find ones that are in your genre. (You can set up a Google Alert and will be notified by email if your topic appears anywhere on the Internet. Then you can see if your press release was ever actually released by the people you sent it to. Google “Setting up a Google Alert” to find out how to do this.) Finally, Step four: Send it to iReach at PR Newswire. It will cost between $129-$399, depending on who you want it to be available to. It is not cheap, and there are no guarantees, but if someone picks it up, you’re in!

2) Direct Mail Marketing. Mail a postcard or a bookmark. You can buy occupant lists (Google “mailing list”) in a specific area, but if you’re not going to use it over and over, it is pretty expensive. You’d be better off finding lists of people who belong to groups that may be interested in your topic. Decide, based on your book, if you want to mail only to women or Harley riders or baseball fans. Yes, stamps are expensive, but if your postcard is attractive, you should see a healthy return on your investment. Generally, about 2-3 of 100 recipients will act on a postcard offer, so do the math before you invest in the stamps. If you’d like to hit every house in a city, Google “direct mail companies” and find one around you. They will print the postcards and mail them, so you have to do nothing!

3) Newsletter. If you have a list of email addresses, you can set up a FREE email newsletter on Mailchimp. If your newsletter is going out to less than 2,000 recipients, it’s free. Remember, any unsolicited mail is spam, so you might want to mention in your newsletter that you’ve personally included your family and friends in the mailing and they can unsubscribe if they choose to do so. Note: Only about half of your list will actually open the newsletter. The others end up in their spam folder.

4) Personal Appearances. If your book is specialized, you can visit places that are related to your specialty. If your book is about baseball, try the local Little League fundraiser. If it’s about animals, try the local shelter. If it’s about history, try a historical site. If it’s a cookbook, try the local grocery store. If your book is general fiction, try your local book club or library. Towns love local writers. Don’t stop with the town you currently live in. Try the town you grew up in and/or the town your book takes place in. You can introduce yourself with a professional brochure. Make one at Vista Print.

5) If you have a travel budget and vacation time from work, try Trade Shows. There are numerous book festivals and trade shows in every state, every year. And don’t forget summer festivals. If your book takes place at a certain time in history, try the historical festivals – Civil War Musters, Renaissance Festivals, the list is endless. Use those previously made brochures to introduce yourself, and you might want to get some posters made to hang at trade shows. Vista Print makes posters, also.

Write down a list of anyone and everyone who might be interested in your topic, genre, era, and get busy finding ways to let them know about your book. Keep in mind, you have to tell someone to buy something three times before they actually buy it. Tell them you’re going to tell them, then tell them you’re telling them, then tell them you told them. Mail a brochure, stop by to chat, call them to follow up.

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The Unknown Civil War Soldier

Posted on July 8, 2015 by Lori Crane

On the 4th of July, Trophy husband and I went into Franklin, TN for a small-town celebration. As per our usual behavior, we got sidetracked on the way home and visited two cemeteries and a Civil War memorial site. One of the cemeteries hosted the tomb of an unknown Civil War soldier which I had seen in a local documentary on television. I’ll let you read the inscriptions on the photo and be back in a minute….

Here’s a photo I did not take of the events the day of his funeral. I love how the Confederate and Union flags were both draped across his coffin. You can see more pictures at CivilWarAlbum.com.

What has me so intrigued about this story is written on the bottom of the second sign, the one that starts with “Oct 10.” Two actual sons and a daughter were in attendance at the burial. Do the math. If the soldier was thirty when the war ended in 1865 and didn’t have this child until he was eighty in 1915, said son or daughter would be ONE HUNDRED right now in 2015. Just wrap your head around that for a minute. I wonder how many real sons and daughters are left out there. Can’t be too many.

#NEW RELEASE – THIRD BASE

Posted on July 7, 2015 by Lori Crane

Can’t wait to read the new release by PC Zick!

P.C. ZICK

I’m happy to announce the release of my romantic baseball story, Third Base. The writing of the love story between Adriana Moretti and Tomas Vegas is my tribute to love on many levels. First, I wrote about a team that has captured my heart in the past five years. The Pittsburgh Pirates were in a major two-decade long slump when I moved to the Steel City. I’ve watched them grow, improve, and win, so I put them as the winning team at the forefront of Third Base. Also, the couple’s instant attraction, despite the road blocks in their way, rises above it all.

It’s my favorite kind of love story, and I hope you’ll enjoy reading it. Thank you for your support for all my writing efforts.

Purchase Links:

It’s Monday! What are you reading?

Posted on July 6, 2015 by Lori Crane

It’s Monday! What are you reading?

This week I read the thriller “Seven Unholy Days” by Jerry Hatchett.

Seven Unholy Days is about the collapse of the modern-day world at the hands of a mad man. It follows Matthew Becker, the contractor for America’s electrical grid, and an unknown adversary who is taunting him, shutting down the power across the country, crashing the financial markets around the world, kidnapping a young woman, and murdering thousands of people. Slowly, we find out that the perpetrator believes he is the anti-christ, setting into motion the apocalypse, and the catastrophes happening around the world are following the seven seals in the book of Revelations.

The writing bounces back and forth between third person and first person, which is a little distracting, but the story is well worth the effort. It is weaved and plotted exquisitely, with well-crafted characters and a storyline straight out of a million-dollar movie.

It has lots and lots of tech jargon, so if you’re geeky at all, you’ll love it!

Check it out HERE on Amazon.

Also check out Jerry Hatchett’s website HERE.