The Hard Years Is Out!

Thanks to a lot of hard work by my three proofreaders, Terry, Judy, and Roberta, by cover artist Elizabeth Mackey, and by book formatter Scarlett Braden Moss, early yesterday evening I was able to upload the e-book version of The Hard Years, the fourth book in the Tinder Street family saga, to Amazon for purchase or to read through Kindle Unlimited.

Amazon always says it can take up to 72 hours for a book to go live, but it’s been my experience that it usually happens much faster than that. In this case it took exactly one hour. I hit the Publish button at 7:13, and the book was live at 8:13. I think that was the second-fastest time ever, the first being 45 minutes on a previous book.

There is a lot going on with the McNally family as they weather the difficult days of the Great Depression. There are losses, there are tears, and there is despair. But just as in real life, there is also happiness and joy even in the worst of times. A new generation of babies is being born, one character finds a love they never expected, and through it all, the family bonds remain strong.

I love weaving history into this series and I learned some interesting things that I share with readers in the book, including Prohibition-era gangsters, how the Depression changed life for so many people, and violent labor strikes that earned such infamous names as the Ford Massacre and the Toledo War. I hope you enjoy reading The Hard Years as much as I enjoyed writing it, and I would appreciate it if you would tell your friends about the new book.

What could make the day I release a new book even better? How about one of Miss Terry’s delicious homemade treats? Check out the strawberry cream cheese scones she made yesterday. As delicious as they look, they tasted even better!

With the new book out, now I start the promotion work. I will be sending out my free author’s newsletter to my subscribers today, sending links to the new book to several review sites, posting announcements in several readers groups on Facebook, and updating several online lists of my books.

We also have to go to our accountant today to pick up our tax returns and get them mailed off, and while we are out, we might even go to Goodrich Seafood so Terry won’t have to cook.

And finally, here’s a chuckle to start your day from the collection of funny signs we see in our travels and that our readers share with us, courtesy of Jim Harper.

Thought For The Day – Old people at weddings used to always poke me and say, “You’re next,” so I started doing the same thing to them at funerals.