Category: Events

That Week Between

We had a wonderful Christmas! Hubby and I bought a new mattress, the old one was OLD! It had dips no matter which side you turned it on. Now we are getting used to a mattress with no dips. I like the bed, but it is taking some getting used to. They make them so many different ways these days. This one arrived rolled up in a box. Hubby had a hard time getting his head around the fact your bed was in that small box. It was heavy which convinced him.

I enjoyed setting up a table and my books at two local craft bazaars during December. I like being able to visit with the readers and make a connection with them.

As always, my favorite part of the whole season is going out in the woods and walking in snow to find the perfect Christmas tree. I love the hiking, the fresh air, and the fun attitude of nearly everyone involved. For some reason husbands think we should cut down the first tree that catches our eyes. My daughter and I have the opinion we need to see more than one to make a decision. And sometimes we do end up going back to the first one. 😉

Getting the sleds out to ride up to the trees.

The whole adventure wouldn’t be any fun if you exited your vehicle walked a short distance into the trees and picked one. It’s the hunt for the perfect one that makes the event thrilling and fun. Also, the sledding or sliding down an incline and the hot chocolate and cookies afterwards.

This week in between Christmas and New Years is a hurry up and finish projects and get things ready for the coming year. I have a book I’m trying to finish but it won’t be done by the time the ball drops at midnight on New Year’s Eve. It will take the first week into January 2024 to get it ready to go off to critique partners and beta readers. 

I have my writing and personal goals all mapped out.

2024 goals

Professional

Publish The Pinch (book 5 in Spotted Pony Casino Mystery) write and publish Book #6 

Write and publish Gabriel Hawke books #12 & #13

Write short story for Windtree Press anthology – 3,000-8,000 words

Get the last Shandra Higheagle book, Vanishing Dreams, in audiobook

Get Hawke books into audiobook box sets.

Put audiobooks up direct to Kobo. Add more books to my bookfunnel account to do more cross-promotions with other audiobook authors.

Put up YouTube videos of me reading short stories and audio of my books with photo galleries.

Personal

Continue walking 5 days a week

Watch my carb and fat intake

Traveling

Keep up my personal blog

Do more horseback riding

I don’t make resolutions I make goals. That way I can tick them off the list as I accomplish them. And resolutions are more a change of lifestyle which isn’t a challenge so much as a mindset where I am a bit competitive and prefer to accomplish a specific goal.

Are you a resolutions maker or a goal maker? And why?

Finishing out November with gusto.

I’m back from the large Holiday Event in Portland, OR. I sold quite a few books and the other NIWA authors books we sold also did well. We sold more than in years past. The goal of the authors who work the booth is to try and sell a book from every author who paid to have their books in the event.

I have some fun photos I took at the event.

Carolers at the Portland Holiday Market.
Reindeer and an elf.
The authors working Friday at the event.

Back home we had Thanksgiving at our youngest daughter’s house. I only had to bring some frozen chocolate pies, homemade rolls, and a vegetable tray. I got off easy. 😉 We had a nice visit and delicious dinner before the youngest (4 year-old) granddaughter said, “You need to go. I have a very busy day tomorrow.” We laughed about that and eventually left. She was excited because the next day she was going to play with a girl cousin close to her age. At home she has 4 brothers and a teenage sister.

This week I’ve been playing catch up on all kinds of writerly things. I need to get back to writing on the current work in progress. I plan to hit it hard starting next week. This week we are hosting my mother-in-law who is an almost 90 year-old dynamo who believes we (she and I) should clean something in my house every morning. Then in the afternoon, I try to work on the business side of writing because it is hard to concentrate on writing when she is either watching TV or sitting at the table knitting.

I am multi-tasking on Friday and Saturday Dec. 1st and 2nd. I was at the conference in Vegas earlier in the month when I saw a call out for people to purchase tables at a craft bazaar for Dec. 1st and 2nd. I asked my daughter to get me a table. She did and now I have that bazaar to sell books at and I am participating in a Facebook Secret Santa party those same days. I’ll have to use my phones Hotspot and take my laptop to participate throughout the days at the Secret Santa Party. Here is the info about that event if you would like to join over 350 authors and have several chances to win prizes from the authors.

The Don’t-Miss-It Event of the Season.

Secret Santa Days!

Over 350 Secret Santa Authors will be gifting you books, gift cards, and swag! 

Join the fun here: https://www.facebook.com/groups/DangerouslyDarkDarlings

Join the Facebook group to be able to participate in the event. I have a lot of fun stuff I’m giving away. I will give 5 people your choice of a FREE ebook, 2 people their choice of an autographed print book, and swag, and 1 person will receive 2 mugs, hot chocolate, a Christmas Tree ornament, playing cards, and homemade sugar cookies.

I’m also happy to say I have another short story in the Windtree Press 2023 Anthology, Whispers. My story, Whispers of the Past, tells about my character Dela Alvaro and her partner Heath Seaver investigating a cabin in the forest that she hopes will give her more clues to her heritage.

A whisper is a soft barely audible sound or resemblance of a sound. Perhaps a thought in one’s head, a flutter of leaves, a feather floating to the ground, or a wish. In this collection of ten stories and a poem the theme of “Whispers” is used in different ways.

From the poem Soul Whispers, from Dari LaRoche, you can conjure up the variety of whispers in the coming stories. This is followed by the Children’s story, Whispers in a Dream, by Susie Slanina, where Metro the dog visits outer space through a dream.

The tale of Friends and Neighbors by Pamela Cowan murmurs of unlikely alliances. In Whispers of the Halycon, author Dari LaRoche’s submission is a twist on a fairytale. Author Mary Vine’s characters, in Whisper Upon a Star, hide their feelings as they try to find a killer.

Her Zayka is a tale of a close bond between a young woman and the nanny she grew up with. Author R. Hockamin has a unique twist at the end. Of Wings and Whispers is a fantasy where author Diana McCollum takes the reader on an emotional ride as a fairy with a broken wing finds love.

Suspense and romance will keep you turning the pages of author Kimila Kay’s Whispering Willows. Author Melissa Yuan-Innes story, Bread and Ashtrays, is an intriguing tale of an empath who sees whispers of a man’s life.

The characters in Whispers of the Past, by Paty Jager, are seeking a person whom they may or may not wish they’d never heard of. Ending this collection of titillating and thought-provoking stories is author Maggie Lynch’s Pax Reborn. This science fiction novella asks the question would the world be better with everyone content and equal?

Enjoy and savor each story. Every one of the stories will leave whispers of questions and coax a smile.

Whispers | Universal Book Links Help You Find Books at Your Favorite Store! (books2read.com)

Whispers – Windtree Press

My next post will be in December. I’m excited to finish, The Pinch, the next book in the Spotted Pony Casino Mystery series and to get ready for the coming year. One which I will have lots to tell you about next December. 😉

Things I’ve Learned…

I don’t know if this will help any of you, but this past week and a half I’ve learned a few things about myself. What started this whole soul-searching endeavor was getting on a plane knowing I was headed for a mob of people.

Last week at this time I was immersed in a conference of 1800 writers set up to teach authors how to run their writing like a business. I’m not saying I didn’t learn a few things, but a good number of the presenters were people pushing their services. However, when more than one of them said the same thing, I took notes.

Which has led to a list of 6 items I need to do in regard to making my books easier to promote and or entice the reader to purchase. There are 6 items I need to do to ratch up my social media presence. Another 4 items that pertain to getting more interaction on my newsletter. And 9 items to work on that deal with promotion.

The biggest item I came home pondering was Direct sales from my website. It was all everyone talked about. Authors who were doing it talked about how much money they were making and people who can help you set up direct sale sites on your website. It sounds like a great idea to:

1) make more off of each sale

2) have more ease of creating sales and discounts

3) connecting more with your readers.

However, I have all my print books up on my website for Direct Sale with me autographing the books and sending out swag with the book with no mailing fees. You can also contact me about purchasing multiple books in a set for gifts at reduced pricing. Just click on the tab “Shop” here: https://www.patyjager.net/

Thinking about how much work I had to do to get just the print books up on my website and connected with a place that handles the money, I can’t imagine the hours it would take to set up a direct sell for all the ebooks and audiobooks I have. Because of the time factor and I don’t feel like “training” readers to come to my website to purchase from me, which is what I would need to do to make the whole thing worth my time- which would be taking away from writing- I have decided not to do direct sell for the audio and ebooks.

I will be doing more promotions with different audiobook vendors to share deals with you and other listeners. I will even be putting up some promo stuff here for you to help me decide what works and what doesn’t. So stay tuned in the next few weeks to help me determine what will grab a reader’s attention for each of my series- both in murder mystery and romance.

It was fun to see my author logo used in one of the presentations when they were talking about branding!

Now I’m off to sell books at the NIWA booth at the Portland, Oregon Holiday Market at the Expo. If you’re in that area, I’d love to have you come by the booth and say HI!

Fun Writing Things

Last month the 11th book in my Gabriel Hawke Mystery series released. It was a struggle to complete due to the complexity of the story. So far my beta readers and reviewers say I did a good job with a serious and triggering story.

Damning Firefly deals with a person of authority abusing his status and using it to sexually assault young women and teenagers. It went on for decades because no one would listen to the one person trying to stop him and the victims were ashamed or scared.

While Hawke is discovering all the sordid transgressions of the victim, he is still using his tracking and logic to find the real killer and save more lives.

Damning Firefly

A church fire.

An unconscious woman on Starvation Ridge.

Gabriel Hawke, fish and wildlife officer with the Oregon State Police, helps with a fire at the Lighted Path church before heading out to check turkey hunters. He discovers a car wedged between two trees and a woman with a head injury reeking of smoke. Is she the arsonist?

Hawke encounters the county midwife gloating over the burnt church and learns she and the victim in the car know one another.

Two seemingly separate events lead Hawke to a serial rapist and a county full of secrets. 

Universal buy link: https://books2read.com/u/bQeBDZ

And releasing November 1st is a novella to hopefully give all my Shandra Higheagle Mystery fans more closure on that series. I released book 16, Vanishing Dream, the last book in that series, two years ago and fans still ask me for more.

Because there has been so many asking for more, I wrote a Christmas novella that is set 10 years after Vanishing Dream.

Christmas Chaos

Check out a super-special Christmas surprise— a continuation of the Shandra Higheagle Mystery series. Ten years later the twins are at college but there’s trouble brewing.

Shandra Higheagle Greer is anxiously awaiting a visit from her twins as they head home from college for Christmas break. After a ten-year absence, her deceased grandmother is back in her dreams and the message seems clear. The twins are in trouble. After giving a young woman a ride to a nearby town, they have become suspects in her murder.

Even though he’s been removed from the case, Shandra and her husband, Weippe County Sheriff Ryan Greer, continue to investigate, determined to dig up proof that the twins had nothing to do with the homicide. Even if that means putting one of the twins in danger to uncover the truth.

I don’t have a pre-order link. If you want to know when it releases, you can follow me on this blog or sign up for my newsletter – https://bit.ly/2IhmWcm

Other fun stuff, I’ll be at an author promotion and marketing conference the second week of November and on November 10th I’ll be part of a 300 author book signing at the Horseshoe Casino in Vegas. There will be door prizes and raffles as well as authors selling and signing books. It is a big party all day long! What else would you expect from an event in Vegas! You can learn more here: https://www.facebook.com/groups/ravevegasauthorsigning

And then! I’m home for 4 days and I’ll be at the Portland Holiday Market at the Portland Expo Center from Nov. 17th- 19th at the NIWA (Northwest Independent Writers Association) booth. I’ll have book bundles for gifts or for yourself and freebies. Stop in if you’re in the Portland, OR area.

As soon as I get all my Shandra Higheagle and Gabriel Hawke audiobooks uploaded in box sets, I’ll start writing The Pinch. The next book in the Spotted Pony Casino Mystery series. This is the book a friend and I went to the Oregon Coast to research. She kept telling everyone we were there for murder and mayhem! Which was kind of true. We talked to casino security guards, checked for security cameras, and skulked about hallways and places that I thought Dela, my character, might need to know about. It was a fun weekend.

Indigenous Peoples Day

As a writer of Native American characters in my books, and not being Native American, I keep abreast of all the ways Indigenous people are being heard and seen. In fact, that is the main reason for my three mystery series. I started the Shandra Higheagle Mystery series with the desire to write about a culture I have been in awe with my whole life. And have felt have been unjustly treated.

My mystery books are not only written with a twisty mystery, but I also deliver a small amount of Indigenous culture and what they deal with from people who don’t care to understand their culture. Shandra Higheagle had a Nez Perce father and a White mother. I had her raised in the white world and brought her back to her Nez Perce family as an adult. Having her learn about her culture as I did.

My Gabriel Hawke books, I have a character with a Nez Perce Father and a Cayuse/Umatilla mother. He grew up on the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla reservation but went straight into the Marines from high school and from there straight into the Oregon State Police, living off the reservation. He as he is aging and seeing an end to his career as a trooper is returning to his culture. Which again, allows me to learn more and bring it to my readers through his eyes and emotion.

The third series, Spotted Pony Casino, is set on the Umatilla Reservation in a fictional casino. My main character grew up on the reservation but with a White mother and she believed a Hispanic father. While she was around the culture, they didn’t embrace it in their home. Once again, I can show the reservation life and the culture through this character’s eyes and the secondary characters in her life. For this series I also subscribe to the reservation newspaper as well as I have contacts that I use to help me keep the lifestyle and culture as accurate as I can while not living there or being of the culture.

Today is a day where we recognize and appreciate the Indigenous People of this continent. But it shouldn’t happen on one day. It should be something that is honored and recognized every day. Their beliefs in nature and how they are trying to preserve it along with their family values are something many of us have lost.

I hope you read a book or watch a movie with Native American characters or discuss this day and keep learning about their cultures today.

The End of Summer

As we come to the end of summer and September, I feel like we dashed over summer and fall isn’t going to get much time to change leaves and enjoy the warm afternoons. The last few days here have felt more like winter is sneaking in fast.

Does it feel like that where you are?

Going on my morning walks this week, I’ve had to wear my head warmer headbands, a warm sweatshirt and gloves. Just the week before I was in a t-shirt and cap. Poor Nia doesn’t like the change of weather either. She doesn’t have a lot of hair to keep her warm. Though just like a kid, if she’s outside playing, she doesn’t seem to mind the cold and wet.

I feel bad I haven’t ridden my horse all summer. At the beginning of summer, his old body wasn’t looking very good. I kept him on full feed and he is looking much better now. A granddaughter used him for Horse 4-H but that’s all the riding he’s had. Every morning I tell him, “Tomorrow we’ll ride.” Then something comes up that I feel I need to take care of and I neglect my horse and my me time. Possibly Sunday, I can ride. Hubby will be home. He doesn’t like me riding when he isn’t here.

With the end of summer, I only have two more book/writing events left for the year. The first week of November I’ll be in Las Vegas at the Horeshoe Casino for an author promotion and marketing conference. I really have to get the word out about my audiobooks. On the last day of the conference is a RAVE (Reader Author Vegas Event). I’ll be selling some of my books that day along with 300 other authors. If you live in the area or are passing through on November 10th, let me know if you need a specific book and I’ll have it there. I’ll be reading from Murder of Ravens at 11:10 am at the RAVE event.

Then three days after I get home from that, I’ll be headed to Portland and the Portland Holiday Market at the Expo Center. I’ll be working in NIWA’s traveling book booth. I’ll have book bundles for sale there.

After that my year ends quietly. I can do with some slow, quiet time.

Right now I’m working on a Christmas novella. I hope to have it published the first of November. We’ll see!

I hope you are all staying warm and looking forward to the rest of 2023.

Tamkaliks Ceremony

The third week of July, I attended the Tamkaliks Ceremony held in Wallowa, Oregon. My brother, sister-in-law, and I arrived Saturday morning before the horse procession. This is where members of tribes who once lived in Wallowa County ride horses around the dance arbor. A riderless horse is led by one of the riders. This symbolizes the ancestors who have passed and any tribal members who were lost the past year. They ride slowly around the arbor, and begin singing, until they finally dismount and enter the arbor.

Every time I witness this procession it makes me emotional. The reason I write the characters I do, is to show the world how the Native Americans revered the land that gave them life and how resilient they are to be proving they are the stronger people.

That morning we joined in the Friendship dance and watched the naming ceremony, passing of the pipe ceremony, and gift giving ceremonies from the families of members who had passed since the last Tamkaliks celebration. The princesses who were at the celebration ranged in age from 6 to teens. I enjoyed hearing each of them tell us about themselves in their language and then repeat it in English. I love that the young people are learning more and more about their culture that had been stolen from the grandparents and great grandparents.

Around noon we headed to the Wallowa Historical center to look up information I wanted for the current work in progress. Then we had to go to the Josephy Center in Joseph for my brother to pick up his artwork and that of his daughter and wife that had been on display.

That evening we went back to Wallowa and watched them honor the veterans and the contest dancing. The beautiful regalia was breathtaking. The young men put on a show, with their bobbing, stomping, and twirls. The women’s dresses and shawls were colorful. Many dresses were made of the beautifully tanned deer and elk hide adorned with shells and elk teeth.

A wonderful thing happened that I had hoped for when I decided to go Tamkaliks. That was meeting someone who would guide me with my Native American characters. While sitting and watching the ceremonies in the morning, there was a woman below us who answered questions and taught a young couple how to say her dog’s Nez Perce name. I felt she was so willing to teach non-Indian people her culture she might be a good person to ask about helping me. When I finally got up the nerve to talk to her, she was open and willing to work with me. She said her new job was working with people like me to understand the Nez Perce culture. I gave her my card and she gave me her name, email address, and phone number. I’m excited to start working with her.

It was a wonderful weekend, gathering information for my books and immersing myself in another culture.

The Making of a Book Trailer

As I mentioned earlier in a post, my hubby and I found a wood box trailer that I envisioned as a traveling book trailer for some of the events I attend in eastern Oregon. This post will show you the journey of the box trailer into my finished book trailer.

I and hubby had been watching the online selling sites for over a year trying to find a trailer I thought would work for my book trailer. I finally found one on craigslist and it happened to be not very far from where our oldest daughter and her family lived. While visiting them in December we looked at it and our son-in-law towed it to their house.

It was a simple wooden box trailer that had been built on an old camper frame. Nothing pretty but I could see the possibilities. I wanted wood so it would be easier for us to make changes to the body. It had a drop down back door, which we changed.


The inside had makeshift shelving and the fenders needed to be caulked around. The above photo is of the inside before we went to work on it.

Once the trailer arrived at our place we started cutting out the side windows and taking off the back door, making the opening taller.

One window cut out.
The doorway cut higher and you can see we pulled out the shelving.

When the windows were both cut out and we had more light inside, we made the new shelves that covered the fenders and made space to keep the totes that hold the extra books.

It took a bit of thinking on hubby’s part to come up with the way we would hold the windows up. And yes, we had many people tell us we look like a food vendor cart.

That is the apparatus we used but it was more refined by the time we finished.

We framed the inside of the window flap to make it look more finished and make it close tighter. We also put plywood on the inside of the trailer to make it look more finished.

We screwed slats to the outside of the trailer to give it the bat and board look. We both wanted to make sure the trailer had some character. Not just a square box.

Hubby thought hard and long and finally came up with a workable solution for the steps into the trailer. He wanted them sturdy but not too heavy that I couldn’t put them on if there wasn’t someone to help me. I had wanted a ramp for people in wheelchairs or pushing baby buggies, but the ramp would have been too steep to keep it from sticking out in the way of people passing by. As it is, there are only two steps and they are short steps. We also put hand bars on the sides of the opening so people can use that to help steady them. Many of the people I didn’t think would walk up the stairs did and they grasped the bars readily. I was happy about that!

I wasn’t sure what colors I would paint the inside but after finding the fabric I wanted to cover the shelf where the totes would be stored, I went to the paint store and picked up several of the sample cards. Then my friend and I went over them and I came up with these colors.

And with the curtain added… It made me happy to look inside of the trailer.

After the inside was painted it was time to do the outside, after I put a fresh coat of tar on the roof. I wanted a color on the outside that looked rustic but not old. It still needs another coat which I will do in the next couple of weeks. But the one coat works for now.

I almost forgot the doors! You can see how we glued tongue and groove pine together to make the two “barn” doors in the back. Hubby made metal braces that we bolted on and then we added the hinges and the latch.

The floor and stairs were painted with a gray floor paint.

What it looks like hooked up to hubby’s pickup. He took it to Sumpter for me since it was the inaugural run and he wasn’t sure how it would go. He pulled it there, helped set it up, and then came back on Sunday and hooked on to it and brought it home. We are putting some better jacks on it to stabilize and level it out better.

Note the flaps over the window to keep the rain from coming through the cracks when the window is open.

And this is what it looks like all set up and ready for a fun weekend of selling books! Mary kept saying she felt like a Queen. We didn’t have to worry about our tent blowing away when it ripped a canopy out of the ground and when it rained our books stayed nice and dry without us having to moving them to the center of the tent. We were definitely happy when we didn’t have to set up or take down a tent.

All set up and ready to sell books!

I am excited about how well this trailer turned out and how many compliments we received at our first outting.

After the Book Tour

Well, the book tour was fun and I enjoyed sharing my Gabriel Hawke books and my writing process with more readers. I also had a good time sharing that information through a “conversation” Dwight Holing and I did at each store. My friend who attended most of the events with me said we did a good job of playing off each other’s comments and carrying the information along further.

The first stop was Ashland. Bloomsbury Books was a charming independent bookstore with two floors. We were set up in the upper area to give our presentation. We had ten people sit through our presentation and talk with us. One of those people was a writer who had been a guest on my Ladies of Mystery blog but I had never met. I was pleased to meet her and put a face to the name.

Dwight talking as I listen.

The next day on my way to Central Oregon for our two stops there I drove through a snowstorm. I crept along happy I didn’t have to be anywhere at any specified time. It was the one day we didn’t’ have an event. As I drove, I listened to Dwight’s audio version of The Demon Skin. It’s his latest in the Nick Drake series.

The snowstorm.

I arrived in Bend and did a little shopping before continuing on to my friend’s house. The next day we had an event at Paulina Springs Books in Sisters, OR. Beth, the event coordinator, was easy to work with and had us set up in a newer part of the store. We had 8 people attending. Four of which were my family and friends. It was good to see our oldest daughter and granddaughter.

Reading from Bear Stalker at Sisters

The next day I had a niggling feeling I needed to get to Barnes and Noble in Bend early. While I had talked to the manager when he’d set up the event, I’d never heard back from any emails I sent. Sure enough., I arrived and no one had clue we were to be there. The manager had been called away on an emergency and forgot to tell anyone. They found the posters I’d sent to advertise the event and someone quickly set up a table. That night we had 6 people, 5 of them were my friends. We did our presentation and talked with the other writers and answered questions.

The setup in B&N.

Friday, we were at Grass Roots Books in Corvallis, OR. The owners, Jack and Sandy, were very nice, had us set up in the middle of the store and worked hard at bringing in more people. We had the largest crowd that night and they asked the best questions. It was an enjoyable night. My friend and I capped off the night eating marionberry pie with a friend who lives in Corvallis that I hadn’t seen in a while.

I like to talk with my hands.

Saturday, other than walking through the Beaverton Saturday market it was a bust. The store put us outside on the sidewalk and only a few people even stopped to talk with us. I sold one book.

Sitting outside Jan’s Books in Beaverton.

Dwight and I determined that book tours at bookstores are no longer a thing readers tend to do. He is going to work on doing Zoom with book clubs and invite me to join him when he gets it perfected. Me, I’ll stick to doing the Sumpter Flea Market, bazaars, and the few bookstores that ask me to come back. I enjoy meeting readers but not when it is exhausting and expensive as this last one for so minimal a chance to connect with readers.

Getting Ready for a Book Tour

I’m late! I was hacked on Facebook last month and I have felt behind since because I am constantly trying to find a new way to connect with readers. Because of the hack, I lost my personal account which was connected to my author account and I can’t get into the author account anymore. Which leaves me without all of my contacts. The only reason I started up a new personal account is to see posts from family members. But if you wish to friend me (I’m not allowed to friend people on the new account) it is Paty Jager.

I have a weeklong book tour the first week of May with author Dwight Holing and I’m limited in my ways to tell my readers, due to the lack of my author page on Facebook. So you are getting the skinny on my tour here. 😉

I’ll have Bear Stalker, Stolen Butterfly, and Murder of Ravens with me for the events. I ordered enough that I shouldn’t run out. If you are in the area of one of these events, I’d love to meet you in person. I always carry lots of goodies with me. This trip I have my Gabriel Hawke keychain flashlights and pens. And lots of bookmarks.

At every stop except Jan’s in Beaverton Dwight and I will be talking about how we came to write our series and what challenges we’ve faced in writing books with Native American characters. We’ll answer questions and sign books.

I purchased a new way to get my books, swag, and everything else to a signing. My author friend Carmen Peone was using this system when we had an event together at the first of the month. I loved the idea and headed to Home Depot to get my set.

It’s on wheels and is very sturdy.

I separated the pieces and took photos of each one. And as I did that, I realized I probably won’t be able to lift the bottom one full of books into and out of my car…

This is the top one with the promo stuff.
This is the middle one with the flashlights, tablecloths and book stands.
This is the bottom one note even filled all the way and too heavy to lift.

In the next week before I leave, I will most likely pack, unpack, and repack these several times before I am happy with how I plan to use them. But I do love the fact they stack and lock, making it easier to handle them. I don’t know how many times I nearly lost or did lose totes off a pile on a dolly I bought. Even when I had bungee cords on them. These all lock together on the sides.

Hopefully, the next post on here will be about an awesome Book Tour. And then I’ll have a post on the transformation hubby and I made of a wooden box trailer into my new book mobile. Stay tuned for that!

Don’t forget you can purchase my print books from my website. Just go to https://www.patyjager.net and click on the “Shop” tab and select the series you are interested in. The books are marked down and there is no shipping cost.