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November’s news ~ #51

December 1, 2017 by Patricia Sands Leave a Comment

Bon weekend, everyone! In case you haven’t read my November newsletter, it’s posted here for your convenience. Enjoy! Enter the giveaways! Bonne chance!

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Newsletter #51                            November 24, 2017

Bonjour Patricia

This letter will probably arrive as the long American Thanksgiving weekend is drawing to a close. Is everyone resting today?  I trust you all enjoyed a memorable time ~ either with family, friends and fine food or quietly at home in your comfy clothes or perhaps serving a meal at a homeless shelter. In whatever way you spent your Thanksgiving, I hope that it was a good day with an attitude of gratitude prevailing.

Our Thanksgiving in Canada is celebrated in October and it’s my favourite holiday. When we asked the question of you last month, it seemed that Thanksgiving was the winning response there too.

With December on our doorstep, we all know what’s coming next. I’m not sure I’m ready, are you? I see a lot of decorations up already!

But one thing I am ready to do is send off my 2018 calendars. All the orders have been placed. We should have signed calendars ready to mail in two weeks’ time, to those who ordered them.

As usual, I’m also offering a chance for five people to win a calendar. If you would like your name entered in the giveaway, follow our usual procedure and send an email to patriciasandsauthor@gmail.com with the words “Calendar Giveaway”. Good luck!

I’ve been working on a new photo essay of Nice which means I’ve been spending many happy hours (in between writing) sifting through my albums. I thought I would share a few shots in this letter.  The header photo is of the rooftops of Vieux Nice. As much as I love to take photos of doors (see today’s post on my blog) and windows in France, I also have a thing about rooftops. Do you?

This entrance to an apartment building is on a street in Nice I often walk down. It’s on my way from the train station to the Promenade and it makes me smile.  It’s a perfect entrance for a writer, don’t you think?

And here are a few more random shots in Nice. It’s the perfect town for strolling and photo ops are endless.

Okay, enough dreaming for me. Back to the letter!

Congratulations to the October giveaway winners of print and ebooks:  Kay Simmons,  Tanya Grygaski, Kathleen O’Donnell, Debbie Scarpari,  Carol Luciano, and Petrina Bennett.

Betty Apsley is the winner of the French market gift box! Félicitations!

Amy Cooper, my indispensable right hand, is always on top of things so I’m certain you have all heard from her by now. If not, please let us know.

Here are the tempting giveaways for this month. Good luck everyone!

#1 ~ Ho! Ho! Ho! Women’s fiction author, Judith Keim is kicking off the holiday season in our giveaways this month with two signed copies of Christmas at the Beach House Hotel. A hybrid author who both has a publisher and who self-publishes, Judith writes heart-warming stories of strong women who face challenges and find love and happiness along the way.

Originally from Elmira, New York, Judith now makes her home in Idaho with her husband, their long-haired dachshund, Winston, and other members of her family. Connect with Judith here.

A brief synopsis: Ann and Rhonda are fed up with the way the new, majority owners are changing The Beach House Hotel from the small, elegant hotel they once owned and operated into a tacky, South Beach wannabe property. What’s their only recourse? Buy back the property to save it from getting even worse. And with the new management ruining Ann’s daughter’s plans for a Christmas Eve wedding, they have to get to work right away to regain control of the hotel. Facing a number of challenges along the way, including rumors of Vaughn’s dalliance with Ann’s old nemesis, Lily Dorio, Ann and Rhonda work to make it the best-ever Christmas at The Beach House Hotel.

Amazon review: “I could not put this book down… as a matter of fact I read it in one day.”

#2 ~ To keep up with the holiday spirit, Andrea Hurst is offering two ebooks of her delightful new release Christmas on Madrona Island.

Not only a successful women’s fiction author, Andrea is also a literary agent. When not visiting local farmers’ markets or indulging her love for chocolate, Andrea enjoys writing stories that take readers on a journey to another place and leave them with an unforgettable impression. Her books deal with friendship, family, and the power of love.

She lives with her little dog in the Pacific Northwest, on an island much like the fictional Madrona, with all of its natural beauty and small town charm. Connect with Andrea here.

Here’s a brief synopsis: With challenges mounting, will the true meaning of Christmas prevail and make this the merriest season of all?

 This holiday season, enjoy the most wonderful time of year with the residents of Madrona Island in this heartwarming novella from the Amazon Bestselling author of The Guestbook. This Christmas story takes place a few years after the end of the third book, Island Thyme Cafe, in the Madrona Island series. However, this book can be read as a standalone. 

Amazon review: “A heart-warming Christmas story about family (both 4 footed and 2), friends, giving, and the bustle of the holiday season. Take time in your schedule to read this and recharge yourself.”

#3 ~ Next, attention all foodies! Fellow women’s fiction writer, Peggy Lampman is offering an ebook of her delicious new release, The Welcome Home Diner , and a print copy of her first novel, The Promise Kitchen. Trust me, Peggy’s writing is equally as scrumptious as her recipes!

From Birmingham, Alabama, after graduating from the University of Michigan, Peggy moved to New York City, where she worked as a copywriter and photographer for Hill and Knowlton, a public relations firm. She moved back to Ann Arbor, her college town, and opened up a specialty foods store, The Back Alley Gourmet. After selling the store, she wrote under a weekly food byline in The Ann Arbor News and MLive. Connect with Peggy here.


Here’s a brief synopsis for The Welcome Home Diner: Betting on the city of Detroit’s eventual comeback, cousins Addie and Samantha decide to risk it all on an affordable new house and a culinary career that starts with renovating a vintage diner in a depressed area of town. There’s just one little snag in their vision.

Angus, a weary, beloved local, is strongly opposed to his neighborhood’s gentrification—and his concerns reflect the suspicion of the community. Shocked by their reception, Addie and Samantha begin to have second thoughts.

Will the neighborhood open their hearts to welcome them home?

Amazon Review for The Welcome Home Diner: “The first thing I have to say about THE WELCOME HOME DINER by Peggy Lampman is this story will make you so hungry!!!! With mouth-watering descriptions of food throughout, I could almost taste the rich pancakes drizzled in maple syrup, so my advice is make a cup of tea and have a lovely piece of cake to hand when you settle down to read this touching novel.”

Brief synopsis for The Promise Kitchen:

Shelby and Mallory couldn’t be more different. But through their shared passion for food, they form an unlikely friendship—a bond that just might be their salvation.

This heartwarming and lyrical tale reminds us that family isn’t necessarily whom you’re related to—it’s whom you invite to your table.

Amazon Review for The Promise Kitchen: “This is a wonderful book that has a uniquely southern voice and food is one of the main characters, as it is in many of our lives.”

As always, to have your name entered for the random draw for each giveaway, send an email to patriciasandsauthor@gmail.com. This month, please let us know the name of your favourite holiday story or song. Good luck with the draws! Bonne chance!

With the giveaways in my newsletter, I hope you enjoy meeting authors who might be new to you and connecting with those you already follow. Savour their books, find out more about the writers and pass along their information to your friends. The best way to hear about a good book is by word of mouth from dedicated readers like you.

If you have time to write a short review on Amazon and Goodreads, even better, and always appreciated. Trust me … I didn’t realize this until I became a novelist. Before that I had never written a review. Now, it’s the first thing I do when I finish reading a story.

The holidays are a great time to give books as gifts, so I will be doing a Goodreads giveaway for five print copies of Drawing Lessons in December. As soon as we know the dates for this, I will send a quick announcement out to all of you. I wouldn’t want you to miss it!

While I was going through my Nice photo files, I kept coming upon photos of pan bagnat. This traditional Niçoise sandwich is often described as salade Niçoise in a bun … and that’s about right! We often pick one up from a boulangerie to have for lunch or go to the market for the ingredients and go home and make one. They are delicious! And apparently I enjoy taking photos of them too! So here’s one for you.

Here’s a good recipe for this easy to make meal. I’m pretty sure I’ve written about these tasty treats in an earlier newsletter, but I couldn’t resist it again when Nice is on my mind! Bon appétit!

Stay well, my friends, be kind to one another, read a lot and appreciate every single day. Profitez de tous les jours! I’m reminded on a regular basis that the best part of being an author is hearing from readers. I value the messages I receive from you. Thanks also for sharing my books with your friends and for the reviews you write. It’s all most appreciated and inspiring. See you next month!

À bientôt!

If you have read Drawing Lessons and can find a minute to leave a short review on Amazon and Goodreads.  I thank you in advance.

AmazonUS | AmazonCA |  AmazonFR  |  B&N  |  iTunes

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Filed Under: Author Promotion, Blog, Uncategorized, Writing Tagged With: authors, books, France, giveaways, newsletter, November, Patricia Sands, readers, recipe

A brief retrospective

July 21, 2017 by Patricia Sands 10 Comments

If it’s Friday, it must be France …

How was your week? Our Women’s Fiction Fans Summer Party on Tuesday evening was an enormous success. We were blown away! And we’re so grateful to all of our enthusiastic readers who joined in the fun. We can’t begin to thank you enough!

Congratulations to all of the winners. Books, bags and macarons! Those were just some of the sought after prizes!

If you haven’t had an opportunity to join our group, just go to this page and click on “joined”.  It’s as easy as that!  The aim of this friendly group of authors and readers is to share thoughts and comments about books or simply reading in general … or anything else that’s on your mind. Ask us questions, enter our giveaways, enjoy our special events and, by all means, please invite your friends!

Right now I’m awaiting the final sign off on the manuscript for Drawing Lessons. We are eager to have the book available on Net Galley for everyone who is interested in writing a review. Stay tuned! I will let you know the minute it is there.

In the meantime, Drawing Lessons can be pre-ordered right here.  This just means that the day the book is published, you will receive your copy. Great service! And thanks!

I’m also working on my July newsletter tonight, so with all that going on, I’m going to leave you with a few of my favourite shots from May and June in the south of France. Enjoy! Profitez!

Villefranche-sur-Mer ~ How many times am I going to take a photo here? Year after year, the view is simply too irresistible.

It was hot, hot, hot! There were few breezes through the narrow streets in the towns and villages of Provence. Shutters were closed to keep the cool inside. The cicadas hummed.

The little yellow house with the blue shutters. I’m writing about one now. 🙂

Chilled rosé (extra special because it comes from a friend’s vineyard ~ Jean-Marc Espinasse, husband of the delightful Kristin) + delicious nougat + strawberries so sweet they taste like candy.

A favourite shot ~ on one of my daily walks to the marché. Can’t you almost taste the colours?

The Women’s Travel Network’s 12-day tour of the south of France, based on my Love in Provence series. Sixteen fabulous women who made each day an absolute pleasure.

Ten days with two BFFs ~ 4 in Antibes and 6 in St. Remy. Girls’ getaway. Friendship is priceless.

The garden behind the 12thC former monastery and asylum of Saint-Paul de Mausole. Vincent van Gogh spent May 1889 to May 1890 here, one of his most productive periods. Van Gogh and this setting also feature in my new novel. This is truly a peaceful, spiritual place.

The delicate beauty of poppies is symbolic in Drawing Lessons. I wanted to take photos for marketing and graphics for the new novel. The poppy season was almost over but then we got lucky and voilà!

I hope you have an excellent few days planned. Bon weekend!

 

 

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Filed Under: Blog, France, If it is France..., Uncategorized Tagged With: books, Patricia Sands, readers, travel photography, women's fiction fans, writers

“Go forth and review!” ~ Rosie Amber’s good advice

August 9, 2016 by Patricia Sands 6 Comments

For anyone who has ever felt intimidated about writing a book review, here’s some excellent advice reposted from “Reviewer Extraordinaire” Rosie Amber on her fine website. Click here to get to know more about Rosie and her reviewers.

4 Quick Ways To Write A #BookReview And Overcome Your Fears #MondayBlogs

POSTED ON JULY 25, 2016 BY ROSIE AMBER

 

Authors WANT  Reviews

Make an Author's Day

Simple! How many times have you read pleas on social media for readers to write reviews? – Probably Loads.

Does the thought of writing a book review send you racing to the hills? – I can see plenty of you nodding in agreement.

WHAT holds you back?

Reading Soft edge

6 common replies:

I can’t write.

I can’t write paragraphs about a book.

I don’t know what to write.

I’m afraid of what people will think of my review.

I’m an author and don’t want a backlash on my own books.

I don’t have the time.

Let’s turn this around

I can’t write – I bet if you can read, you can write.

I can’t write paragraphs about a book – Good News, Amazon accepts one sentence reviews now as do many other sites.

I don’t know what to write – Ah! Quick Question – Why did you like or Dislike the book? Got an answer? Then you have a starting place.

I’m afraid of what people will think of my review – Facing fears is part of life, it is hard, but I bet you’ve faced much harder challenges. Authors LOVE reviews, other readers also like to read them to see if they agree or disagree. Every reader will get something different from their experience. An honest review from someone who genuinely read the book IS REALLY APPRECIATED.

I’m an author and don’t want a backlash on my own books – This one STOPS TOO MANY AUTHORS from writing book reviews and it shouldn’t. In fact if you are an author, one way to hone your writing skills is to READ, READ, READ and from this you will be noting what works, what doesn’t and you will have all the skill sets to write a review. IF YOU WRITE WITH HONESTY AND COMPASSION I can’t see an author would want revenge or to be labelled a TROLL, these are far and few amongst the millions of authors who GENUINELY WANT A REVIEW.

I don’t have the time – time is what you make of it and those who have this as their reply probably won’t have time to read this post, so we’ll say no more.

So BE BRAVE – make a promise that the next book you read you will write a review.

Not sure which star rating to use? Read more here

Goodreads Ratings                                                                                                                                                          

GoodreadsAmazon

Amazon Ratings

4 Quick Ways to Write a Review

  1. Go to Goodreads or your Amazon account. Start with a one liner. Can you include the genre? The lead characters? The setting? Say “I really enjoyed this book” or “The book didn’t work for me”.
  2. As above, this time write 4 sentences. Keep them honest and make them about your own thoughts from the book.
  3. If you wrote your review for Goodreads, copy and paste it to your Amazon account. Or vice-versa.
  4. Really, really stuck for something to say? Read some of the other reviews for the book, they might jog your memory about a point, but still make your own review honest and genuine.

Finding yourself in a loop of reviewing friend’s books, just so they review yours? Review swaps are never a good idea, they become shallow and very obvious to other readers and you will only end up feeling guilty if you can’t be honest. Draw a line, perhaps explain that you don’t wish to review books for friends and you won’t ask them to review yours in turn unless either party truly wishes to read the book. But that no one should feel obliged to review as a swap. You can still support them by buying a copy of their work, this way their reviews will be from REAL readers who have found and bought their books and in the long term will be the reading audience of tomorrow.

Check out my simple book review templates, written to encourage those NEW to reviewing who need to boost their confidence.

There is NO SELL BY Date on writing a review – read a book a while a go that you ALWAYS MEANT TO WRITE A REVIEW FOR? Feeling guilty that you didn’t write a review at the time? No Problemo! Write this in the opening line “I read this book a while ago.” An author will be SO pleased to get an honest review that they won’t mind if there was a time delay on your side.

Minstrel Loveheart

Go. Go forth and review.

As an author AND an avid reader, I thank you for this, Rosie!

And to support Rosie’s post, here’s one from Barb Taub (on her always entertaining website) announcing that August is “Write An Amazon Review Month”. 

Before I became an author, I had never written a book review. Now, it’s an automatic part of my reading routine. How about you, dear blog readers? How do you feel about writing reviews?

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Filed Under: Blog, News, Uncategorized, Writing Tagged With: Amazon, August reviews, authors, book reviews, Patricia Sands, readers, Rosie Amber

The countdown is on! July 12th is the day!

July 10, 2016 by Patricia Sands 1 Comment

13592660_10210078334373485_1451616694865539855_nWe’re looking forward to chatting with you!

Looking to win a library of great books? Don’t miss this very special Facebook party.

On July 12th I’m joining seven other bestselling authors for a summer party with you. Since this is a virtual, world-wide event, park yourself in a comfy chair and wear whatever you please. You could be just waking up or you might be thinking about putting on your pjs.  Stop by at 2 – 4 PM Eastern Daylight Time or 7 – 9 PM Eastern Daylight Time or both times  … why not? You’ll have more chances to win great prizes! We chose those two time slots to allow readers in many time zones to participate.

Come along to chat and mingle with some of the finest women fiction authors working today:

USA Today bestseller Bette Lee Crosby weaves heartwarming stories with a Southern flair;

Experience the delightful and quirky characters in the inspiring stories by Christine Nolfi;

Visit with Barbara Hinske, awarded “Best in Women’s Fiction” by BookBub;

Grace Greene enthralls readers in two genres—Women’s Fiction and Romantic Suspense;

Chat with Andrea Hurst, the captivating author of the Madrona Island Trilogy and a highly regarded literary agent;

Award-winner Dete Meserve writes uplifting stories, and also works as a film and television producer;

And Ashley Farley, the award-winning author of stories about women facing real-life issues.

To join in the festivities, please accept your invitation to the July 12th Facebook party here: https://www.facebook.com/events/1554639554841535/

ce4b26769ca3c4b19f107d90250a29db

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Filed Under: Blog, News, Writing Tagged With: authors, books, event, giveaways, readers, Summer Book Extravaganza

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