After writing six novels, I thought it was time I did something I’d seen on social media and read about in all the books/articles on advice for authors — mainly independent authors. I decided to solicit ARC readers. (No, solicit has a bad connotation); I decided to invite readers to become part of my launch team.

I prepared the Google form, sent emails to my list and also on social media. I was ecstatic when the responses began to trickle in. Two months before the release, I had secured fifteen ARC readers. Not bad for the first time. I used Book Funnel to send the manuscript to the respondents. Everyone, except three, downloaded their copy. I thanked them for taking the time from their busy schedule to help me with my launch and told them how anxious I was to read what they thought of the book. I also opened a Facebook page, posted some activities, and invited them to join in. While, I received a lot of views every day, there was no engagement, so I had no way of knowing if any of the views came from my group.

The week of the release, I sent out three mailings to my ARC readers — I didn’t want to bombard them with too many emails, everyone gets too many — reminding them of the upcoming release date and where they should post their review. To date, three days following the release, I have received just one review. Thanks to that person.

But I’m still hopeful. After all, it’s only been three days. And release day was Valentine’s Day. Who wants to write reviews on Valentine’s Day? So, I sent them another email, this time mentioning the importance of reviews, giving them a few prompts to help them get started, and I gave them the link to post the review.

I have received reviews (not a lot) on all the other books I’ve written without a launch team and without begging for reviews, and not one of my reviews is below 4 .0. I consider them all to be honest reviews from readers who purchased my books and liked what they read.

So, will I invite ARC readers for my next book? Absolutely. I understand that reading takes time, and many people sign up for more than one book. If they haven’t written their review yet, they will eventually. Are reviews important? You bet they are. I wouldn’t buy a vacuum cleaner without first reading the reviews, and while books cost a lot less than a vacuum cleaner, you do invest a lot of time reading it, time that could have been spent doing something else.

Reviews do help to sell products, so when you write a review, you are not just helping the creator of that product, you are also helping the consumer in making a buying decision. So, if you sign up to be an ARC reader or you purchase a book, please follow through and write a helpful, honest review.

Angela is the author of five Christian fiction books and two non-fiction books. Her latest release, Harmonizing Hearts is now available on Amazon for 99c. for a limited time only.

Can two hearts harmonize when fateful events threaten to tear them apart?

This is a question I posed in my last post, relating to the protagonists, Trudy and Mark, in Harmonizing Hearts. If you read the post, you would have seen some of the challenges they face, and now in just four days, you will see how they met, and overcame, those challenges.

So much for the characters. Now, what about the author’s challenges? Let me give you an honest glimpse into my life as a writer — a behind-the-scenes look, if you will. One of my flaws is comparing myself to others. Oh, I know it’s not right, but I do it all the same. When I see authors releasing a book every month, I ask myself, why can’t I release a book every three months at least, or maybe every six months?

While I don’t want to make excuses for myself, I have to admit that I face some real challenges, one of which is health issues. Over the past two years, I have been plagued by health issues, which have sapped my energy and maybe even my motivation. I ought to wake up earlier to get more writing done, read more, even exercise more to stimulate my brain cells. Time spent in doctors’ offices also took away from my writing time. I even questioned whether I was too old to be writing. I thought maybe it was time to throw in the keyboard.

Apart from these personal challenges, I sometimes had difficulty structuring the plot so it flows seamlessly. Fortunately, Word allows us to move passages around — which can sometimes be confusing — so I was able to ensure some continuity in the plot.

Keeping track of characters’ physical features, ages, family members, dates also posed a daunting task. I learned to compile each character’s profile in my Book Notes, so I could refer to them when necessary. Word’s Find and Replace feature also came to my rescue when I gave someone the wrong wife or the wrong husband.

But the biggest challenge of all were the days when the words just wouldn’t come. I don’t call it writer’s block, because I knew where I wanted the story to go, but setting the scene, expressing it creatively, and letting the ideas flow in a nice, cohesive way instead of a jumbled mess sometimes made me want to give up.

But I didn’t. I kept going. With the help of my critique group, who would fact check everything, find that missing (or wrong!) punctuation mark, or weak verb, and point them out — sometimes not so kindly —I was able to make it to The End. So now, I’m eagerly awaiting RELEASE DAY, Feb. 14th, which is also Valentine’s Day.

So, what better gift to give someone you love than a gift which was a labor of love from me to you? Harmonizing Hearts is still on preorder for 99c.

After just over a year of working on this novel, I am pleased to announce that Harmonizing Hearts, sequel to Making Music Together, is now on preorder. Yes, it took a while, but the journey was worth it. I learned a lot about so many things — music, illness, relationships, and yes, writing. With six published books and hundreds of articles under my belt, I’m still learning, still evolving, still growing as a writer.

So now, I invite you to once more accompany me on my journey with this, my latest work. Like me, my characters in Harmonizing Hearts are also growing — in their careers, in their relationships with others, and with God.

If you read the first book, Making Music Together, you would recall that Abigail, Mark’s first girlfriend, caused him a lot of trouble. And now she’s back. Does she still have her sights on Mark? How will Trudy react to meeting her for the first time?

Trudy has retinitis pigmentosa, an illness that affects both her night vision as well as her peripheral vision. Mark wants to have a family. Trudy is afraid that any child she has might inherit her illness.

Trudy’s dream is to become a world-class vocalist. Would having a family stand in the way of her dreams? Can these two hearts harmonize when fateful events threaten to tear them apart?

Order your copy of Harmonizing Hearts now while it’s still on preorder and see how this loving couple’s faith helps them cope with fateful events while chasing their dreams.

If you enjoyed this post, please leave a comment in the box below. Want to learn more about me and my other books? Please sign up in the form below to join my newsletter.

In a previous post, I wrote about the hardest thing about being a writer. Looking back at that post, I realize I didn’t mention marketing. It’s not that I forgot — how could I? — it’s just that I may have thought that marketing was too much of a weighty topic to include in that post.

And I’m right, marketing is weighty, but it does bear results, if done the right way. I have to admit, I don’t do it the right way. And the reason is lack of time, as well as lack of knowledge. But I’m getting there. Just as I had to work at becoming a writer — I’m still working at it — in the same way, I’m working at becoming a marketer. After all, what’s the point spending hours writing a book if no one ever hears about it.

This brings me to the header for this article: Get a free copy of my book. It’s part of my marketing strategy, because as you know, nothing is really free. You have to do something in order to get something. And in order to get a free copy of my book, I’m asking you to become part of my launch team.

If you’ve never been part of a launch team before, the requirements are quite simple. You must be able to tell others about my soon-to-be-released book, Harmonizing Hearts, sequel to my romance novel,  Making Music Together. The easiest way to do this is via social media. You can also post on Goodreads and on the release day, you post to Amazon.

If you read  Making Music Together, you may be interested in following up on the lives of Mark and Trudy Crandall, protagonists. Harmonizing Hearts is a contemporary, Christian romance with a pregnancy trope. The novel focuses on the couple’s musical career, and features themes like forgiveness, love, survival, family, hope and others, which you will pick up when you read the book.

If you would like to be a member of my launch team, please fill in the form below, return it and I will send you an ARC (advanced review copy) with further instructions.

If you enjoyed this article, leave a comment in the box below. Also, please sign up for my newsletter so you can receive updates about me and my books and those of other authors.

https://forms.gle/oTwqNc3A95PpS9E46

In my last post, I wrote about the hardest thing about being a writer. About coming up with great ideas, crafting memorable characters, and expressing yourself in ways that will hold your readers captive from the first word right down to the last.

I ended up talking about believing in yourself. All of it sounded, well, pretty hard. Then why do I do it? Why do I spend hours plugging away at my keyboard from day to day? The answer is obvious: I like it. No, I love it. Have loved it from the first day my elementary teacher read my essay to the class. From that day, I decided I wanted to be a writer. Why?

To have my work read, of course. It’s no fun if you spend hours working at something and no one ever sees it.

So, yes, I wanted my work to be read. I wanted someone to tell me that my story, essay, poem touched them in some way. But more than that, I enjoy crafting stories that give me pleasure to read. If I can’t feel that I enjoyed developing my characters, that I want to meet them again and again, that I wonder how they are coping with whatever challenges they faced during their first adventure, if I don’t feel any of those things, then I think I may have failed.

In other words, if I can forget about them after I type The End, then I’d expect my readers to forget about them as well.

In addition to crafting memorable characters, I like the flexibility of being a writer. As any writer would tell you, we get to choose our hours, how much or how little we want to work, and even what we want to write about.

When I first began writing, I worked mostly on fiction — short stories, then novels. Later, I began writing health-related articles (I worked in the healthcare field) for a number of companies, and this helped supplement my income. But my joy remained writing fiction.

However, freelance writing opened me up to a whole new world of knowledge. I learned to research and present my facts with proper journalistic accuracy. Even in my novels, I aim to follow this principle. Which brings me to another point about what I like about being a writer.

Over the years, I have met a lot of kind and interesting people, in person and online. Some of these people are members of my critique group. They are some of the most wonderful people in the world. They not only assist me with the mechanics of writing, but also with the content. They will not let me get away with anything that’s incorrect, even though it’s fiction.

Finally, what I like about being a writer is being able to touch people’s lives. When a writer leaves a review that says the story touched her in a special way, I feel I’ve done my duty.

I like being a writer because it gives me the freedom to write what I want to write, when I want to write, and how I want to write it. I get to touch people’s lives by crafting plots and memorable characters they can relate to, and I’m helped in doing this by associating with other writers in a way that is beneficial to all of us.

If you are a writer, I’m sure you have your own ideas on the hardest thing about being a writer. Or, as a reader, when you read books by your favorite authors, you may have wondered

How did the author come up with such great ideas?

How did he/she develop those ideas so they read as smooth as silk?

How did he/she create such memorable characters that you feel you would recognize them at your local supermarket?

Fact is, writing — creating content that is engaging, exciting, and memorable — is hard.

But before we think about the hardest thing about being a writer, let us look at what is entailed in writing a book that people want to read.

First, you must have a story inside of you. A story so compelling you must tell it. Then you must tell your story in ways that are creative, engaging, and unique.

But before you do all that, you must know who you are writing for — who your target audience is. Who will want to read your book?

Once you know who your target audience is, you must know where to find them! And having found them, you must know how to keep them.

Last but certainly not least, you must believe in yourself. Putting your thoughts and ideas down on paper can be a daunting task. If you don’t believe in yourself, when the plot begins to sag or the characters don’t behave the way you expect them to, your writing falters, and you may give up. Don’t! Press on. Have your writers’ group or beta readers look at it, but don’t give up!

For me, coming up with the idea for a new book is never difficult, but writing the beginning is my pain point. I struggle with my opening. I rewrite, and rewrite, and rewrite. And I hate to say it, but I’m usually never satisfied with my beginning. But I continue writing, and by the time I get to the middle, I’m full sail ahead. My confidence soars, the words pour out of me, and I make it to the end.

And then I go back to the beginning …

So, what is the hardest thing about being a writer? I would say it’s about believing in yourself. If you feel called to write that story, do it. Make a start, and everything will fall into place.

In my latest release, Making Music Together, I almost gave up because it’s a romance, and I’d never written romance before, but I kept at it, and now I’m on to the sequel, Harmonizing Hearts. To learn more about this and my other books, please fill in the form below to join my newsletter.

Angela is a blogger and author of Christian women’s fiction and Christian romance. Her latest release is Making Music Together.

If you read books or watch movies with any elements of romance — not just romance novels — you are sure to fall in love with some of the male characters. They become your best book boyfriends or great book boyfriends. Books and movies usually paint larger-than-life characters for just that reason — to get you to keep watching or turning the pages and reading through the series just to see what your best book boyfriend will do next.

As I did some Google searches, I came across some adjectives to describe great book boyfriends: swoon-worthy, handsome, sensitive, charming, over-protective, funny, “touch her and you die” — you know what that means — so on and so forth.

As I read, I couldn’t help comparing Mark, my last book boyfriend in Making Music Together, with some of the descriptions people wrote. I’ll talk about some of the above and add a few of my own.

Swoon-worthy – I would lump swoon-worthy and handsome together because that’s how they fit in romance novels. The lead male is always handsome, which makes women swoon, right? Mark, the protagonist in Making Music Together, is handsome. He is Native American and Gullah mixed, has straight black hair, straight nose, a strong jaw, and his clothes fit him in a way that would make the manufacturer proud. Women can’t take their eyes off him. It’s instalove between him and Trudy, but they face some hurdles.

Sensitive – definitely. I would also pair this with over-protective. Trudy has a disability, and this brings out Mark’s over-protective instinct. He is sensitive to her needs, ensures she is safe at all times.

Charming – This goes with well-mannered in my opinion. A great book boyfriend must display old-fashioned good manners, and that makes him charming. Mark gives her flowers, compliments her on her outfit, opens the car door for her … you get the point.

Funny – A man who can make me laugh captures my heart any day. Even though Mark is a tech guy, he says things to make Trudy laugh: “Alaska? Not a bad idea. We could spend our days fishing and skiing and our nights snuggling on a bearskin rug in front of a roaring fire.” She laughed. “Sounds heavenly. I think I’m ready to go.” (On another occasion) “I think I’ll trace my ancestry one of these days,” Trudy said.

“I don’t need to trace anything,” Mark said. “I’m mixed up enough as it is.” – referring to his mixed ancestry mentioned above.

Family-oriented – the way a man treats his family can tell you a lot about the way he will treat you. Mark is loving, kind, and enjoys spending time with his family, and they enjoy having him around.

Faith-filled – In a Christian romance, a great book boyfriend will rely on his faith to help him overcome challenges. He will live his faith by participating in church activities. Mark is a youth director, sings in the choir and takes part in other church activities. Definitely a man to love.

Who are some of your best book boyfriends? What qualities do you look for in a great book boyfriend? If you’ve read Making Music Together, does Mark exemplify some of these qualities? If you haven’t yet read the book, why don’t you pick up a copy today by clicking here?

Angela is a blogger and author of Christian women’s fiction and Christian romance. Her latest release is Making Music Together.

As Black History comes to a close, I decided to write this post about the beginning of Black History Month. Have you ever wondered how this annual observance came about?

It was through the efforts of Carter G. Woodson, teacher, historian, author, and publisher, who later became known as the father of Black History. Woodson, son of former slaves, had worked as a sharecropper, miner, and did other odd jobs to help support his family. Despite the fact that young Woodson could only attend school on rainy days when it was impossible to work on the farm, he later earned his bachelor’s and master’s degrees at the University of Chicago before entering Havard.

In 1915, after attending a national celebration of the 50th anniversary of emancipation in Chicago, Woodson was inspired to do something more to honor the achievements of African Americans. Before leaving Chicago, he helped found the Association for the Study of Negro Life and History (ASNLH) —  (which later became the Association for the Study of African American History).  

Woodson sent out a press release announcing the beginning of Negro History Week in February 1926. He chose the month of February as it contained the birthdays of Abraham Lincoln and Frederick Douglass. A year later, Woodson singlehandedly launched the Journal of Negro History, in which he and other researchers highlighted the achievements of Black Americans.

He also helped create Negro History and Literature Week in 1924, but was not satisfied with one week being allocated to the study of black history. Efforts began to expand the week-long celebration to a longer event, however, Woodson died suddenly in 1950 before this could be achieved. 

Much later, in 1976, on the 50th anniversary of the first Negro History Week, younger members of the ASNLH succeeded in getting the organization to change the celebration to Black History Month. 

President Gerald Ford issued the first proclamation in 1976.  Ronald Reagan in his first Black History Month proclamation stated that “understanding the history of Black Americans is a key to understanding the strength of our nation.”

The efforts of one man, born into humble beginnings, brought about Black History Month, which we look forward to celebrating every year. Let us continue to understand and appreciate “the strength of our nation” not just for one month but every month of the year.

Angela is a blogger and author of Christian women’s fiction and Christian romance. Her latest release is Making Music Together.

In this digital age of text messaging, email and AI, very few people take the time to sit down and pen a letter. Letter writing may be seen as a lost art — something that went out with corsets, carriage rides, and black-and-white movies.

I remember the first time a high school classmate told me she had a pen pal. At that time, I had a budding interest in writing and the thought of writing to someone overseas filled me with great excitement. I followed my friend’s instructions and was soon communicating with my pen pal from a foreign land. So now you know, I come from an era when people did write letters, either for fun or out of necessity.

Some very famous letters are those written by the apostles in the Bible, letters from the French emperor Napoleon Bonaparte to his wife Josephine, and letters from Celie to God and her sister Nettie in The Color Purple. These letters still have purpose and meaning today and are widely read or referred to.

Let’s look at some of the benefits of writing letters.

1. Self expression – Sometimes when we try to express our feelings to someone we become tongue-tied. Writing a letter allows you the freedom to state those feelings in a way you might not be able to if the person were sitting across from you at the dining table, for example.
2. Tangible – Letters, like paperback books, are tangible. Ebooks, email, ecards have become the norm in our digital age, but they don’t give us the tactile satisfaction that a handwritten letter or a paperback gives. Letters that have been passed down through a family carry great sentimental value. Imagine the memories and the emotions evoked by holding a letter from an ancestor who has long passed on.
3. Therapeutic – Writing a letter can be therapeutic to the writer as well as the receiver. As the writer puts his thoughts on paper, he releases feelings he didn’t realize he had and is able to express them with more clarity. The receiver also gets a better understanding of the person’s feelings.
4. Handwriting – You get to practice your handwriting when you write a letter. Whenever I sign an important document, I notice how much my handwriting has deteriorated. I attribute this to typing more and writing less with a pen.
5. Connections – Last but not least, letter writing helps us connect with our loved ones and with strangers. During COVID, letter writing got a boost as people wrote letters to friends and relatives. I recently came across an article about a letter-writing campaign to encourage readers to write letters to the authors of banned books letting them know how much they appreciate their work. What a lovely gesture!

Letter writing has many benefits, and, as you can see, it does not have to be a thing of the past. We can still write letters today — if only to improve our handwriting!

You may wish to read some of the letters mentioned above as well as this one written by a character from my debut novel Coming Out of Egypt.

My dearest Cicely,
I know you must be wondering why I haven’t called or come to see you. It pains me to
say this, but after you told me what your father had done to you, I realized we could no longer
have a relationship. You know my feelings about things of that nature. It appalled me to hear
about the Garcia girls, and it sickened me to know the same thing had happened to someone
so precious and important to me. Maybe if I had heard it from you first it would not have
been so shocking.
Cicely, for what it’s worth, I want you to know I still love you. I don’t think I can ever
stop. Part of me will always belong to you. But, my darling, how could I stand at the altar
and watch you walk up on your father’s arm, and have him give you over to me? It would be
a sacrilege. A life for us is now impossible. Even though I don’t blame you for what happened,
I cannot, will not have such a man for a father-in-law. Just remember this, I love you and
always will.

If you haven’t read this book yet, I encourage you to get your hands on a copy. It will captivate you as it has done many others. When you are done reading, please drop me a line and let me know what you think.

Angela is a blogger and author of Christian women’s fiction and Christian romance. Her latest release is Making Music Together.

Three years ago, I wrote a blog post titled Abortion: A Sensitive Topic. The post began like this:

Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who passed away a few days ago, was best known for her forceful stance on women’s rights, particularly abortion rights, and equal treatment of women under the law. Her name is usually linked with the landmark 1973 case Roe v Wade that made abortion legal in the United States …

Now that she has passed away, there is a lot of concern about the future of Roe v Wade and abortion rights. Far be it from me to attempt any legal or political discourse. I am not a lawyer nor a politician, but as a woman and a writer of women’s fiction, I understand the reasoning behind the passage of Roe v Wade.

As we now know Roe v Wade has been overturned by the US Supreme Court and women’s abortion rights have been returned to the states. Since then, the national conversation has focused on abortion and with the US presidential elections just eight days away, abortion has become not just a sensitive topic but a hot one.

Fifty years after Roe v Wade became the law of the land, women have lost their reproductive freedom and are even losing their lives because they can’t receive proper care when it is needed. The situation is very complicated and I’m not prepared to go into details here. Just listen to your television any day and you will hear more on this topic.

However, as a mother, grandmother, fiction writer and as a Christian, the topic of abortion concerns me a great deal.

In my debut novel Coming Out of Egypt, set in the 1980s, the protagonist Marva and her sister June Garcia were both sexually abused by their father. Marva became pregnant and her father instructed her mother to perform an abortion on her. In a scene following her birthday party, Marva recounts to June what happened:

“I had to have an abortion because of Daddy. He made Mama do it to me. The pain was so bad he gave me a shot of gin to dull the pain. And it helped. That was my first drink. After that, I dropped out of school. I knew the teachers were talking about me. It was horrible. I don’t want the same thing happening to you. I don’t want anything to stop you from finishing your education and making something of yourself.”

June yawned. “I want to finish my education.”

Marva’s eyelids felt heavy. She lay down and pulled the covers over her. “Good. So be careful. Don’t let Keith, or any boy, talk you into doing … you know what.”

Silence. “Sister …”

“Mm hmm?”

“I’m glad you told me what you just told me.”

Here’s another scene in which Marva’s former teacher discloses to a detective what she knows about the abortion:

“As I was saying, one day the younger sister June came to me and said that Marva was in the bathroom, bleeding. I told another teacher and we both went and found her groaning and writhing on the floor, her clothes all soaked with blood. We got her cleaned up and gave her an aspirin. I asked her what caused her to bleed so much. She began to cry, but wouldn’t say anything. Mr. Sampson, the vice principal, and I took her home in his car.”

David’s face was expressionless, and Cicely continued, “They lived near the river, and we had to take a little, narrow track off the main road to get to the house. As we turned onto the track, Marva told us to stop the car and she would walk from there. Mr. Sampson refused and drove right up to the house. We didn’t see Garcia.”

“What about her mother?”

Cicely kept her voice low. “She was a frail-looking little lady who seemed as scared as her daughters. She didn’t speak much English. We told her who we were and why we’d brought Marva home. We offered to take her to a doctor, but the mother started to cry and wring her hands and say something in Spanish. She begged us not to tell anybody. She kept shaking her head and saying, ‘No, no, no.’ That convinced us that Marva might have had an abortion and her father was probably responsible.”

“Did you inform the police?”

Cicely nodded. “Our principal advised us to file a report in case anything happened to the girl, but he warned us that nothing would come out of it. Marva never came back to school and I left Egypt Village shortly after.”

David stared into the distance then fixed her once more with his penetrating gaze.

“What did the police say?”

“They said we had no evidence that the girl did have an abortion or that her father was sexually abusing her. And even if we did, the country has no laws against incest.”

To learn more about Marva and June, go to this link where you will see the other books in the Egypt series, all just 99c. for a limited time only. If you are in Kindle Unlimited, you can read the last two books In the Wilderness and In the Promised Land for free. 

Angela is a blogger and author of Christian women’s fiction and Christian romance. Her latest release is Making Music Together.