Recent Promotional Upgrades

I finally got my act together and consolidated some useless single book pages I had created on Facebook long ago into one author page. You can like it at Joan H. Young, Author.

And, amazingly enough, I also managed to put together a video about Dead Mule Swamp, in which I also read chapter one of News from Dead Mule Swamp. Enjoy!



The flurry of accomplishment is spurred by the fact that I'm doing an author takeover for an hour at 8 pm in the Facebook Group "Cozy Mystery Friends." Free to join if you are interested.

Play MYNCT Bingo and Win Books

There are SO many wonderful places on the North Country Trail!

Play MYNCT Bingo and WIN A BOOK. Send me pictures that complete any row of 5, and your name will go in a drawing. 1 copy of North Country Quest, and 1 copy of North Country Cache will be awarded. You do NOT have to have visited these places or taken the pictures personally. You can hunt up pictures on line. However, if you can make a line of places you have actually been to you will get two entries for that card. (Just be sure to tell me.)

Enter as often as you want, as long as you complete a different line (that makes 12 possible entries per person, upped to 24 if you've really been to all those places!) Send entries to jhyshark@gmail.com. Label the pics somehow with the card location. For example T-1 is the Crown Point Bridge, and I might enter this picture for that square. But now you can't steal this one for your own entry- that would be too easy! Deadline for entries April 30, 2020. #myNCTbingo

space T-1, Crown Point Bridge (photo by jhy)

North Country Cache and North Country Quest together tell the stories of my end-to-end hike of the North Country National Scenic Trail. I was the first woman to complete the 4600-mile trail on foot.

Pentwater Library Program

Hanne Kelley (holding book, left of center) is turning out to be a fantastic moderator for author events. Having someone to ask questions and say nice things without the author always being the one to harp on the good qualities of one's books is priceless as far as I'm concerned.

There were about ten people at this gathering, which was a good sized group for the discussion. Not a disappointing evening at all, given the venue.

And afterwards, I was invited to Hanne's house to visit, and we got better acquainted. I think we have quite a lot in common. Fun times. (and her dog likes me too).

See previous Pentwater program

I Am an Author

Someone asked me what I do. Just last month... and I stumbled around saying things about a minimum-wage, dead-end job at the newspaper. Then I smacked myself upside the head. Duh! I am an author. That's what I need to say in response to that question.

So what if I haven't posted in this blog for quite a while? So what if I haven't managed to write as much as I had hoped this past year? I have several books in print and am working on others at the best speed I can manage right now.

I've tracked the things relating to writing that I've done since the beginning of 2017. I'm fairly impressed, given that I know myself well enough to understand that a lot of these things are the pieces I don't like very much.


Here's what I've accomplished since January 1:
  • wrote 3.5 chapters in Dead Mule Swamp Druggist
  • researched and wrote 2 columns for Ludington Daily News
  • attended writers' group 4 times
  • attended 2 meetings to have my books at Shagway Art Barn
  • got 5 of my titles placed at the Book Mark bookstore
  • done promotion on Facebook
  • mailed or delivered 10 book orders
  • ordered more paper copies of the Dead Mule Swamp books
  • kept book sales accounts in order
  • dealt with Google to get the domain for this blog renewed (a major pain)
  • submitted 5 poems for publication in Driftwood
  • asked for a recommendation letter (not received yet)
  • made notes for Dead Mule Swamp Mistletoe

That said, I am trying to bring a bit more discipline to the actual writing.

Back when I wrote North Country Cache, two hours a day were devoted to serious, concentrated writing. It was the focus of my life. Now, however, with the other job, my schedule is not consistent, and life is not focused as well. Since that's my ultimate goal... to bring the center back to writing, I'm working on improvements.

I've managed to write for an hour, two days this week, instead of waiting till I have to have a chapter for writers' group. It's not much, but this week it was the best I could do.

I am an author. Remember that.

Results of the April Promotion

I've been asked by a number of people if I was pleased with the results of my promotional effort during April. The answer is yes. Before I give more details, let me say that the winner of the afghan is Elaine Hull. SueAnn Crawford won a free book, and so did Wendy Nystrom.

There were 133 entries, made by 43 different people, in the contest to win the handmade afghan. My primary goal was well met, and that was to increase my visibility as an author. That happened for sure. I know that a number of people who did not previously know I had written books have now been introduced to my writing.

I also saw definitely increased sales in the one-to-one venue. In other words, people bought physical copies from me personally. Smashwords shows increased sales, but that may or may not mean anything, as those fluctuate quite a bit. Amazon sales were pretty much the same as any other month. I'm totally neutral about this result. Most people don't buy a book the first time they hear about it, so I'm confident that the increased visibility will lead to future sales. I also know that I need to get the next Anastasia Raven book finished to see a big jump in sales.

There was only one place where I was disappointed. I was hoping to increase the number of Amazon reviews of News from Dead Mule Swamp from 42 to 50. That 50 may be a magic number on Amazon, where they will give your book greater visibility. Or not. Amazon likes to do whatever they want and not explain themselves very much. At least I haven't had reviews purged as many authors have. I've made it to 48 reviews for that book. A couple more would be great. Have you reviewed it?

Am I on the best-seller list? No. But my sales rank is in the thousands rather than the millions, which frankly, isn't bad.

People have also commented on the amount of time it takes to make an afghan, and if that was worth it to me. This is a definite yes. I just like to make things. Sometimes I get that irresistible urge to play with yarn. This way, at least scratching that itch had a purpose.

Author Promotion and Birthday Giveaway

Win this beautiful windowpane afghan, edged in the colors of your choice, on my birthday


In progress, made by me, finished size approximately 60" x 75"
Should be done by the end of April

Enter as many times as you like– here’s how
There are 2 parts to each entry: 1- do it, and 2- make sure I know you did it.

How to do it:
any of the following gets you 1 or 2 entries
      1 entry- share something about my books in a public place (Facebook, a blog, at your workplace, etc)
      2 entries- post a review of any of my books on Amazon, Smashwords, Goodreads, B&N, etc
      2 entries- buy one of my books, print or e-book

How to make sure I know you did it:
      Best method- email me at jhyshark@gmail.com
      2nd best method- leave a comment here, on this post
      Not so good method- tell me in person
      Totally unacceptable- assume I saw that you did something

Example: Buy one of my books, write a review and publish it on Amazon and Goodreads; result, you get 6 chances for the afghan.
Example: Buy a book, share a picture of you reading it on Facebook, you get 3 chances
(a previously purchased book would only get you one entry for the share).
Example: Buy two books, get 4 chances
In all cases you MUST tell me what you did and how to contact you- I have no way of knowing who buys my books online, and I may miss something you share.
Many other combinations, or types of sharing will count

You have until midnight EDT April 24, 2016 (my birthday) to create entries.
Drawing will be held for the winning entry on Monday, April 25, 2016.
      1st place- windowpane afghan
      2nd place- one book of your choice
      3rd place- one e-book of your choice


For all books by Joan H. Young visit Books Leaving Footprints

Keeping Web Sites Up to Date

One of the biggest killers of interest in your work is having a web site with wrong information on it- usually because it's out of date.

I'm guilty of falling behind sometimes, too. But it does hurt. I just did some updating on my publishing site Books Leaving Footprints, and I've added two ways to get to know me better to the sidebar here. I've also added them to this blog post.

Here's an author interview with me on "A Cup of Coffee and a Good Book," an excellent show by Jennifer Walker.

Listen to internet radio with Jennifer Walker on Blog Talk Radio

And here's a news video created by the Petoskey News-Review of the day I completed my 4400-mile hike on the North Country Trail.

Book Sales- August 2012

  I've decided to post sales numbers for August, because if nothing else, I hope they will be a benchmark I can compare to later and see the growth.

My goal was to sell three ebooks a day, and I (or the books on their own merits) succeeded. Promotion is such a crap shoot, but I keep trying to get more links and mentions and reviews and...

With all venues together that I know about (North Country Cache is in a number of bookstores on consignment. I won't know those sales numbers for months), here are the August results. All the others are ebook sales.

North Country Cache (paperback only)- 7

Devotions for Hikers- 4
Get Off the Couch with Joan- 1

News from Dead Mule Swamp- 74
The Hollow Tree at Dead Mule Swamp- 1217 (free)
Paddy Plays in Dead Mule Swamp- 39

Total ebooks sold for money- 118

My goal was to have more than 3 sales a day. If I'd remembered to count in the Smashwords distribution sales I would have realized I was already close to that and might have chosen something higher. Nevertheless, I'm pleased. So the overall average of paid ebooks was 3.8/ day. I was thinking I should only hope for 3.5 for September, but now 4/day is looking very possible.

If you are a member at Smashwords, and haven't clicked me as a favorite author, I'd really appreciate it if you would. You can do that at my Smashwords author page. It only takes a minute!

Book Sales- July 2012

  Such a guessing game! Should I post sales numbers so readers will know how few books I sell yet, or should I post them because they aren't too bad for a relatively new self-published author?

I'm going to do it for the past month, because I did make a personal goal, whatever its significance.

With all venues together that I know about (North Country Cache is in a number of bookstores on consignment. I won't know those sales numbers for months), here are the July results. All the others are ebook sales.

Devotions for Hikers- 1
Fall Off the Couch Laughing- 2

North Country Cache (paperback only)- 2

News from Dead Mule Swamp- 43
The Hollow Tree at Dead Mule Swamp- 977 (free)
Paddy Plays in Dead Mule Swamp- 27

Total ebooks sold for money- 73

My goal was to have more than 2 sales a day, and I made that. I've been promoting quite a lot, so my goal for August is 3 sales a day.

Sometimes it's really discouraging. It takes a ton of work to get people to buy, even with good reviews. All of the books now have several reviews by people who are not friends, but how is a potential buyer to know that? How does one continually find new pools of people to promote to?

It's a challenge!

Hey- if you haven't "liked" the books on Amazon, or agreed with the tags, it would be great if you would do that. It only takes a minute!

My Amazon author page

(A month after I made this post I realized that I had not been checking the Smashwords report from their other distribution outlets. So in addition to the above, I sold 16 News from DMS, 2 Paddy Plays in DMS, 1 Toby & Harry, for a total of 19 more books.)

Ivy and Midge Recommend North Country Cache

One of the prizes for a contest on my other blog, My Quality Day, was a copy of North Country Cache. It was won by Ivy in the Philippines, and after 5 weeks in the mail, she finally received it!

The fact that she likes the book means a lot to me, since I have come to count her among my friends, and sure would hope to meet her in person some day. Here is part of what she says:

I got the parcel notice from the post office on Monday, so Marguerite and I went there on Tuesday to claim it. I started reading it right away and couldn't put it down. My initial plan was to get my writing assignments out of the way first before I settled down to enjoy the book, but I made the mistake of sampling just one essay and got hooked.

Her daughter Marguerite (Midge) is posing with the book-- it's quite an adorable picture, don't you think? And she's allowing me to use it for publicity. Hop over to Spinning Lovely Days and see what else Ivy has to say.

North Country Cache Featured at New Author Review

Dave Burdett of New Author Review says, "There are a lot of good authors out there who never realize any amount of success at all, because they think their book will sell itself…..the bad news is that it will get lost in the sea of millions of books."

He's been aggressively marketing his new book, "The Map." While doing this, he has decided to help other under-known authors promote their works.

I'm very happy to announce that he's chosen to feature North Country Cache as the book of the week.

Thanks, Dave!