Category: Paty Jager

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!

Deluge of Life

Ever feel like you will never get something accomplished? Even if it is something that you can accomplish?

That’s where I’m at. November is such a busy month. I have two long writing/book events which will take up two weeks. I have a book I would like to have finished by the end of the year, I have audiobooks I need to upload to make into audiobook bundles, I am learning new things to hopefully get those said audiobooks selling, which leads me to even more things I need to do for the audiobooks.

And then there is life outside of the writing. Hubby is finishing a barn that has had poles in the ground for 15 years. While he is doing most of it by himself, he does need my help for certain things. Like lifting the metal roofing up to him.

Hubby on the roof, the piece of metal against the hay that I lift up.

There is also my desire to decorate the house and soon start baking. Not to mention working on the quilts for the two grandkids graduating in 2024 and Christmas presents. One of my favorite things about Christmas is finding the perfect present for my family and friends. I think even if it’s a trinket or bauble, if it has something to do with their favorite things, it makes them smile.

Today, I didn’t take my usual morning walk so I could sit down at the computer to write this post and get some more words on the Work in Progress- AKA The Pinch book 5 in the Spotted Pony Casino Mystery series. My friend and I spent a weekend at the Chinook Winds Casino and resort on the Oregon Coast last spring so I could research for this book. I’m finally getting around to writing it. And I’ve discovered there were some things I should have researched while I was there. *sigh*

I’ve sent an email to the casino, but I fear they won’t reply because I didn’t ask about staying there, I asked questions about how the place is run. They would rather take my money and have me visit than help me with logistics for my book.

I will continue using common sense and hope I get things right. Or if I really need to get the answers, it might mean a trip to the coast for hubby and me in December. 😉

There are so many things I need and want to get done before the end of the year. I’ll have a tight schedule next year too as I try to get back to publishing 4 books a year and also take a month-long trip to Europe with my oldest daughter and a granddaughter. I can’t wait for the trip, but I have to. It won’t happen until September next year. I’ll have more about it in future posts. As it gets closer and I get more excited, I’m sure I’ll have posts about how we planned and booked everything.

That’s all the dithering I have on life at this time. My next post will be about the 20 Books Vegas conference I’m attending next week.

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.

Southernmost tip of the U.S.

I can now say I have been the farthest south you can go in the United States. On my trip to the Big Island of Hawaii my friend and I went to the southernmost tip of the island. We were told about this spot by a local when we asked her what places we should see.

One morning we got up, had breakfast and packed a cooler with water and snacks and headed south on the Hawaii Belt Road or Mamalahoa Hwy. When we came to the Point Road, we turned down that and found a dirt area at the end of the road where cars were parked and there were porta-pottys and a snow cone vendor.

We walked over to the forty-foot cliff edge and peered down into the beautiful crystal-clear water. I loved the colors and energy of the sparkling ocean.

A man had just jumped in. I took a photo of him. He looked like a native swimming in the water. And come to find out, my friend started talking to the man’s wife. He was from the island and they were visiting from Seattle. She also dove into the water with him down below to help her swim around the point to climb up the rocks. There was a ladder down the side of the cliff, but she was too short to reach the rope that would get her to the ladder.

Another one of their friends jumped. I snapped a photo of him jumping.

There were also to boys fishing from a hole in the lava that was back about 60 feet from the ocean. The hole looked like it went down forty feet to water that washed in and out with the tide.

A young man and a boy were fishing off the edge of the cliff as well. The boy made my friend nervous. He would stand right on the edge as he cast his pole. They had large black garbage bags tied to their lines to pull the hooks out farther into the ocean. They were trying to catch ahi, tuna.

After hanging around there a while, we followed a trail that took us to the southernmost point. It was a beach made up of dead coral. It was sad to see so much bleached coral broken in pieces.

We didn’t take the hike or the drive around to the green sand beach.

Leaving that area, we ended up at Punuluu Bakery also a place the local woman told us to enjoy. We did enjoy the pastries and the lunch we bought there.

And that wraps up another day we enjoyed in Hawaii.

Book Happenings

My latest Gabriel Hawke book, Damning Firefly, will be releasing the end of this month. If you don’t want to miss purchasing it, you can pre-order it in ebook format.

Book 11 in the Gabriel Hawke Series

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 link to pre-order: https://books2read.com/u/bQeBDZ

Hulihe’e Palace

One morning we decided to walk farther north than we had previously. We found more shops, restaurants and a resort. But the fun thing we came across was a summer home of the Hawaii’s royalty.

It was complete in 1938 and became the personal residence of John Adams Kuakini the Governor of the island of Hawaii. It was built by foreign seamen and missionaries. They used resources on the island such as lava rock, coral lime mortar, koa and ohi’a woods.

Walking around inside the structure I mentioned to my friend the walls were really thick. Three feet says the pamphlet. I thought maybe two, by width of the windowsills. It is a beautiful building with tall ceilings and massive furniture. There are two floors come in at 3600 sq feet. there was also a basement with 2 cisterns. The cook house could be accessed through the dining room. There were also other small bungalows on the property when royalty lived there.

The last royal to own the property was an adopted heir of Queen Kapi’olani. the next owner was Mrs. Allen who died a month after purchasing the palace. The home remained vacant for 10 years.

In 1925 the building was purchased by the Daughters of Hawai’i to keep it from becoming hotel development. That is who operates and attends to it as a museum.

There are many items in the house that were purchased or given to the royals. What fascinated me were the long sticks with different shaped, what looked like lamp shades covered with feathers. Because my curiosity was aroused, I asked the woman docent who was there what they were. Feathers were treasured. with all the brightly plumed birds on the islands, the colorful feathers were deemed fit for royalty. Many photos you see that depict the leaders/royalty of Hawaii, they are wearing capes that are covered with feathers.

These feathered “lamp shades” on sticks were carried in front of Royalty when they walked around outside their homes. It was how they were recognized when travelling about the islands.

The lanai of the home has breathtaking views of the ocean across Kailua Bay.

BOOK HAPPENINGS

Starting this week, you can follow the Silver Dagger Book Tour for my new -Cover reveal for the Halsey Brother Series/ Halsey Homecoming tour. There are prizes awarded for following and adding your name to the raffle.

https://www.silverdaggertours.com/sdsxx-tours/the-halsey-brothers-series-book-tour-and-giveaway

Hiking the Edge of a Crater

Our next stop was the Kilauea Visitor Center for the Kaluapele volcano caldera. Here we entered the park and strolled through the visitor center learning about the Kilauea Caldera which is an active shield volcano. Meaning it is a low-profile volcano looking like a warrior’s shield sitting on the ground. It is formed by highly fluid lava. Steady eruptions are what make the dome like volcano due to the slow of the fluid lava.

After leaving the visitor center we drove to a trail that went along the edge of the caldera. There were a lot of different foliage, and we struck up conversations with people from the states as well as other countries. The trail was dirt with lots of roots sticking up to catch a toe on.

We also saw a couple of cracks in lava tubes that ran under the path where we walked.

Looking down into the caldera we could see people walking across the crusty floor of the crater.

See the trail where people hike?

We thought we were going to get to a lava tunnel, but we came to another parking lot and thought maybe we missed the tunnel. We turned around and walked back only to discover we hadn’t missed it. We drove on and found the parking lot that we’d walked to and found the tunnel across the parking. Only there were so many cars there we couldn’t find a place to park to explore the tunnel. So fair warning, when you get to the end of the path from the first parking lot, cross the second parking lot and you will find the tunnel.

I love happenstance.

While my friend and I were vacationing on the Big Island of Hawaii, we’d set a course each day for one place and then stop along the way when we came across something that intrigued us.

That’s how we came across a pretty park with history on the southeast shore of Hawaii. We were headed to Volcano Park when we saw what looked like the remnants of a pier from the highway and a sign that said Whittington Beach State Park. I pulled down into the park and we looked around.

We found two “ponds” of water that came from the ocean but were caught in what looked like ponds. They made good swimming for the people at the park. There was also a woman fishing from the lava along the shoreline and a man taking shade in one of the covered spaces to picnic.

Following our curiosity, we headed toward the poles sticking up out of the water with a few boards still attached. there was also a rock and concrete wall sticking up in a small inlet behind the pier. We wondered if it had once been a navy site during WWII or what. After taking photos and discussing it we headed on to the volcano park.

On our return to where we were staying, we pulled out our computers and started googling Whittington Beach State Park.

The park is located on Honuapo Bay which means Turtle Cove Bay. It is home to the Green Hawaiian Sea Turtle. The park was named for Richard Henry Whittington in 1948.

The first pier constructed in this bay was in the early 1800s. When the Europeans arrived, it was already a thriving fishing village. A drought in the 1840s hurt the economy and in 1868 a hurricane and tsunami wiped out the pier. By 1880, the pier was once again active with shipping island crops via train to the port and fishing. By 1930 the port supported a large sugar cane plantation.

But the remnants you see today happened after the bombing of Pearl Harbor. The U.S. military fearing Japan would see the pier as a way to gain footing in the islands bombed by pier, leaving what you see today.

That was just one of the wonderful things we learned this trip.

A Hawaiian Gift

August, I was gifted with a trip to the Big Island of Hawaii. A person my hubby has helped out a lot offered us the use of their condo in Kona. Unfortunately, the time of year didn’t work well for my hubby. It was the middle of haying season. However, he told me to go and take a friend. He didn’t have to suggest it twice. 😉

We arrived in Kona on August 8th and August 9th we discovered a small coffee plantation and roasting operation. The Kona Le’a Plantation is on the Mamalahoa Highway. We were just out checking the area and my friend spotted the sign for the plantation. While I’m not a coffee drinker, she is.

I learned a lot about a coffee bean, how they are roasted at this operation, and my friend sampled the coffees. She preferred the air roasted coffee to the fire roasted. We were told it would have a smoother less weighty taste and she confirmed it.

She also explained a pea berry. It is the full bean, both halves still firmly connected. When the halves of the bean stay together, they have more oil and more flavor. When a bean is dried and it falls into two pieces, it is drier and will crack in the roasting process. A whole bean stays together during the roasting and holds in the oils, only roasting out the moisture. It is a premium bean.

Air Roaster
Fire roaster

The air roaster is a faster way to roast, cools faster, and gives a smoother taste, it is also easier to set and get the quality of roasting than the fire roaster which can burn the beans if a close eye isn’t kept on the temperature. Also, the fire roaster doesn’t cool down as fast and can end up giving the beans a burnt taste. The longer, darker roast has less caffeine than the shorter roasting time which is the lighter roast.

Coffee Plant

The Kona Le’a Plantation is also all organic. Coffee cherry skins and husks are composted and put back in the ground to give future crops nutrition. Green waste is trucked in and used at mulch and weed control.

Coffee beans. Need to be maroon or deep red before being picked.

The beans are hand harvested. They also roast beans for other small coffee farmers.

While we were there, we were treated to a tasting of not only coffee, but also honey, Hawaii fruit paste, and chocolate covered pea berries. I liked the honey and the fruit paste, but even though the roaster said the wonderful chocolate would temper the pea berry, I tasted more coffee than chocolate.

While I am not a coffee drinker, I can appreciate all the work that goes into making the coffee so any people do drink.