The Zion Trail by Marsha Ward

Now available in print!

On a hot summer day, young Elijah Marshall stops plowing to give a drink of water to two strangers and invite them to lunch with his family. His neighborly act sets in motion events that will drastically change his future.

The strangers share a new religion, which the family embraces. But the neighbors want no part of Mormons. Multiple acts of unkindness and starvation drive the Marshall family to flee to the Mormon city on the banks of the Mississippi River, Nauvoo.

Then the path of Elijah's life takes perilous detours, with twists and turns he never expected to make.

In a 19th century coming-of-age story ranging from Pennsylvania to the Great Salt Lake Valley, Elijah plunges into harrowing adventures filled with sorrow, danger, and romance.

The Zion Trail by Marsha Ward

Western Religious Fiction
Price: $3.99 (ebook formats)

AMAZON | B&N

Gone for a Soldier by Marsha Ward

Rulon Owen loves two things more than life---his country and Mary Hilbrands.

When Virginia secedes from the Union, Rulon enlists, and finds himself fighting foes both in battle and in his own camp. He struggles to stay alive against all odds, with a knife-wielding tent-mate and a Union army that seems impossible to defeat. It will take every ounce of vigilance he has to survive and, with a little luck, he might make it home to his wife and the son he's never seen.

Forced to live with her parents for the duration, Mary faces a battle for independence. With a mother whispering that her husband won't come home to her and a son who needs her to be both father and mother, Mary has to dig deep for strength to overcome her overwhelming loneliness and the unknown future ahead.

Separated by war and circumstance, Rulon and Mary discover that not all enemies wear the Union blue.

AMAZON | BARNES & NOBLE | SMASHWORDS

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About the Author
Marsha Ward was born in the sleepy little town of Phoenix, Arizona, in the southwestern United States; and grew up with chickens, citrus trees, and lots of room to roam. She became a storyteller at an early age, regaling her neighborhood friends with her fanciful tales during after-school snacks. Her love of the 19th Century Western era was reinforced by visits to her cousins on their ranch, and listening to her father's stories of homesteading in Old Mexico and in the southern part of Arizona.

Over the years, Marsha became an award-winning poet, writer and editor, with over 900 pieces of published work, including her acclaimed novel series featuring the Owen family. She is the founder of American Night Writers Association, and a member of Western Writers of America and Women Writing the West. A workshop presenter and writing teacher, Marsha makes her home in a tiny forest hamlet in Arizona. When she is not writing, she loves to spoil her grandchildren, travel, give talks, meet readers, and sign books. Visit her at either her website or one of her blogs!

WEBPAGE | MARSHA'S BLOG | CHARACTER BLOG

Hodge Podge

Since I've been on vacation this week, I've had a little more time to flit around the web. Following are a few posts I found interesting.

Author Marsha Ward's suggestions for some last-minute gifts for writers.
Funny, but my family never thinks to get me writerly gifts for my birthday or holidays. I wonder what that means.

Deb Vanasse's post over at Self-Made Writer, about how and where to get your book reviewed.

She also has a post about the etiquette and ethics of book reviews. 

I took this picture.

My daughter is a professional photographer on the island of Kaua'i. She had a shoot Friday night at the gorgeous Hanalei Bay (which is a good hour's drive from where she lives). Grampa and I went to keep her company for the long drive there and back. We walked the beach while she worked. Gorgeous sunset, wasn't it?

The water was warm too. Kind of made me feel guilty when I saw the news report for home. Snow.

All right. Not guilty. But I am going to stop thinking about how muggy and humid it is here. There will be plenty of cold winter waiting for me when I return home.

I tried to capture the big waves breaking at the mouth of the bay. I had to blow this up several times. Those waves are much farther away than they appear. Unlike my daughter, I'm not a professional photographer. I even forgot the recharger for my camera so I'm stuck with my cell phone.

The beach at Hanalei has fine, two-colored sand. It makes for an interesting pattern when the waves crash in and out.

So, what would you want as a writerly gift?

What are your thoughts on exchanging book reviews with other writers?

Ever been to Hawaii?

Marketing

Author Marsha Ward and I are members of ANWA (actually she started  it many years ago), and earlier this week one of the members who's a new author posed a question about marketing. Marsha's response was great, and I'm so glad she shared it on her blog, so I can let you folks know about it.

What's the best approach to marketing my book?

So many times, that's a question I hear from first time authors. Here's my answer, and you may not like it, but it's really the truth:

After you have announced your book to your friends via your email contacts, social media sites, and twitter, and have a short "signature" below your name in your email account, the best thing to do in the marketing arena is to write the next book and get it out there.

Yeah, I know that sounds weird, but I cannot emphasize this enough. Too many people with one book available are spending prodigious amounts of time trying in vain to influence sales, instead of writing the next book.

The thing is, the availability of multiple books/short stories/novellas is what seems to drive sales better than anything. And when someone spends all their time drumming up sales for their ONE book (and thus making a pest of themselves), what's the good of it if--when someone reads it and wants more--there is no more work available?

There IS no good that can come of that situation. After the reader exhausts their search engine capacities and their patience and doesn't find anything else by you, your name is then forgotten--once the distastefulness of the frustrating episode fades away.

DO make sure you . . .

Sorry. Go visit Marsha's blog to see the rest.

"Spinster's Folly" by Marsha Ward . . . and a NaNo Update

Ever get little snippets about a book in the works that make you excited to read it? That's the way I feel about Spinster's Folly by Marsha Ward. I'm not usually into western reads, but I do enjoy historical books and (of course) I love romances. 

I'm always game to try new things, so I can't wait to read this one.

Marsha Ward was born in Phoenix, Arizona, and currently lives in a pine forest in central Arizona. Marsha is an award-winning poet, freelance writer and editor whose published work includes four novels, two collaborative non-fiction books on writing, a collection of prose and poetry, and over 900 articles, columns, poems and short stories. Her novels, The Man from Shenandoah, Ride to Raton, Trail of Storms, and Spinster’s Folly have received rave reviews from both readers and reviewers.

I know Marsha because she was the founder of the American Night Writer's Association (ANWA), an organization I belong to and from which I have found wonderfully supportive friends.

Here is the description of Spinster's Folly:

Marie Owen yearns for a loving husband, but Colorado Territory is long on rough characters and short on fitting suitors, so a future of spinsterhood seems more likely than wedded bliss. Her best friend says cowboy Bill Henry is a likely candidate, but Marie knows her class-conscious father would not allow such a pairing. When she challenges her father to find her a suitable husband before she becomes a spinster, he arranges a match with a neighbor's son. Then Marie discovers Tom Morgan would be an unloving, abusive mate and his mother holds a grudge against the Owen family. Marie's mounting despair at the prospect of being trapped in such a dismal marriage drives her into the arms of a sweet-talking predator, landing her in unimaginable dangers.

This fourth book in the Owen Family Saga is infused with potent heart and intense grit.

You can get the book early at Smashwords or wait until Saturday on Amazon.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

I started out NaNo by going to a writers retreat. What an awesome group of wonderfully creative and supportive women! I broke my personal daily record (which isn't impressive, since I'm a bit of a plodder--a couple of women write over 30,000 words each that weekend!), but I managed to crank out 13,000+ words in three days. I can live with that. I'm already sad I can't go next year--dang day job.

As of this posting, I'm at 19,022 words, and I'm having fun with the story, which is a companion novel to my book A Change of Plans that comes out in June with Rhemalda Publishing.

NaNo Update and Award

I'm not doing too shabby so far. I've got 8,548 words as of end of writing on Thursday night. I can live with that. Especially if I can keep it up.

It's interesting as I'm writing because I'll get hung up on how to do something and then I have a duh moment. You see, this is NaNo. I don't have to get hung up on things like I normally would. I can just leave myself a comment and move on.

Award

Author Marsha Ward was kind enough to give me the One Lovely Blog Award. Because of NaNo I'm going to cheat. For some reason everyone is supposed to forward it on to 15 (yes, that's right, FIFTEEN) other blogs. I don't have time. But since many blog awards are satisfied with 7, and this particular award asks for 7 things about me I'm going to stick with 7. Hey, it's good enough for Voldie Baby, it'll have to work for me.

So if you want to be bored stupid you can check a previous post here for some random person tidbits.

Please check out Marsha's blog and say Howdy (she writes Westerns).

And check out these following awesome peeps:

Donna Hosie at Musings of a Penniless Writer
Kristin Baker Przybyla at Fairies and Pirates, etc.
An Alleged Author
The Desert Rocks
J.A. Bennett at A Book, A Girl, A Journey
Angela Brown
Jess at Write, Skate, Dream

Self-Publishing .... Decisions, Decisions

I've talked about self-publishing before (here), so this isn't a new topic for me. But I've been thinking about it a lot more seriously lately, especially after Marsha Ward's blog post here. She raises some issues that, for me, are compelling.

• I'm kind of old to have started on this journey, and I sincerely worry that I could die before I have a chance to publish traditionally.
• I'm not in this for a new career. Because I'm older, I've already got one I like just fine, and I can retire in less than ten years.
• This is supposed to be fun for me. I worry that the whole query/rejection process will suck all the joy out of what I'm learning and doing--recognizing that if I put my stuff out there before it's ready, there will be plenty of people who will be happy to help suck all the joy out of what I'm doing--but that's true even of people who publish traditionally.
• A lot of people believe self-publication is the way to go, including David Farland, who's spoken to this issue in several of his Daily Kicks.

On the other hand, there are some compelling reasons not to self-publish.

• You have to do all your own marketing. I can't tell you how much I hate sales. I realize authors are the true salespeople for their work. Readers don't come to book signings to meet the publisher or the agent or the printer; they come to meet the author. It's just hard for me to consider trying to pimp my own work.
• At LTUE, self-published author Anna del C. cautioned writers considering self-publication to get a lot of books written before beginning. She said she spends so much time now marketing her books that she has little time to write. Considering I have a full-time job and limited time available for writing already, this is a huge concern for me.
• As Marsha mentions in her blog, she thinks she's had success so far without marketing because she has so many finished works and could get them out there quickly, that having several books for readers to select from is a big advantage. I don't have a bunch of books to throw out there. I have one WIP close to being "ready" (I know, define ready), two partial WIPs, and lots of ideas. I've spent a ton of time on this first book because it's my on-the-job training, so to speak.
• Many people who, for good reason, haven't made it out of the slush pile are now publishing and flooding the ebook market with dross. Readers could become jaded about the quality of self-published books, and (assuming my book is not just more dross) mine could get lost in the trash.

My friend Laura Josephsen just bravely self-published her book Confessions from the Realm of the Underworld (Also Known as High School  (I read it this weekend and loved it, but I'll write more about it on Friday).  She's already published traditionally and had a publisher interested in this book, and she opted to self publish. Does it help that she's already published and has a fan base? Is it better for someone like Laura than it is for fledgling beginners?

A comment from the LDSStorymaker conference really struck me. Someone reported that author Larry Brooks said writers are too worried about getting published. What we should be worrying about is getting read. When I heard that, it gave me pause.

So what's a girl to do? 

• What are your thoughts on self publication? 
• Have you ever considered it? If so, what did you decide and why? 
• Do you feel like you'll be taken more seriously as a writer if you have the endorsement of the gatekeepers and stick with traditional publishing? 
• Or do you think self-publication is the wave of the future?