Wisconsin is blessed with a number of small towns and villages that have a unique heritage.  Among them is New Glarus Wisconsin in the south west area of the state.  New Glarus was founded by a number of Swiss families because it reminded them of their European homeland and they could transplant their unique dairy farming to Wisconsin.

I spent this past Sunday in New Glarus at their summer art festival.  As I’ve come to expect in Wisconsin the weather refused to cooperate and the book sale was relegated to the basement of the Swiss United Church of Christ while the main event was located in a park across the street.

The book sale organizers placed handmade signs all around town but directing traffic into the church basement was a noble yet futile cause.
In terms of weekend book events this one was brief 10am to 3 pm.  In early afternoon one potential book buyer asked where the used books were located.  I didn’t understand the question but was able to learn that the local library was having a used book sale at the same time.  Had I known there would be competition from the local library I would have passed on the event.

In the five hours I sold two books.  The $30 table fee was a donation for the church’s mission in Salvador – so the cause was worthwhile.
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This event was my third in the last four weeks and I’m beginning to question the effort.  Has anyone else had experience with book sales events?  

In May I threw in the towel with my hobby as a beekeeper when my bees swarmed to parts unknown the first day after I placed them in my backyard bee box.  My beekeeper friend had the same thing happen after just a week.

We still had the hive we nursed through the Wisconsin winter.  We checked the bee boxes several times during the summer and each time the verdict was tenuous at best.  We moved the boxes several times to fool the bees into producing “brood” baby worker bees.

Without much hope we added the “super” to the hive in early July.  The super is a smaller box designed to hold just ten frames and it put at the top of the brood boxes.   The purpose of the “super” is to have the bees fill it with honey to use through the winter while the bees live in the brood boxes below.

A week ago we noticed the bees were working hard to fill the “super” with honey – we could only hope they would create enough honey by the end of August to allow us to harvest some.  When you harvest honey the amount of water in the honey is critical – it is best to be 18% or below.  We tested two weeks ago and the honey was about 21% water and we decided to bide our time.

Finally, this past Sunday decided the moment had arrived.  We pulled six frames that were full of honey and left four frames for the bees to continue to fill up.  Those six frames gave us 15 pounds of honey.  A miracle!
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We’ve decided to limit our harvest to this single event.  The bees need time to replace the honey in the six frames and to continue to fill the remaining four frames.  That will give them a supply for our harsh Wisconsin winter.
There’s nothing better than a dollop of fresh honey on hot oatmeal on a frosty Wisconsin winter morning.
 

I have been fortunate to have book sell outs three times.  The first was at the Irish Book and Music Celebration in Chicago when I had one book to sell.  In Chicago the crowd was good and a high percentage of book readers.  Plus I had a book review from Frank West in the Irish American News which I displayed on my table.  Everybody at the Chicago Irish American Heritage Center knows Frank and having his book review helped.

The second time was at the Oshkosh Irish Festival and again I had one book to sell.  That Saturday the heavens opened and it rained very hard.  The result was the festival goes flocked to the Cultural Tent where I was selling books.  I was also the only author at the event.  I made up order forms on the spot, people paid up front and the Monday following the Festival I mailed books from my stock at home.

This past weekend (Aug. 17-19) I attended the Milwaukee Irish Fest who boasts having 100,000 attendees.  In many ways the weekend was fraught with frustration beginning with a two hour drive to Milwaukee in a torrential downpour often driving 50 mpg.

Arriving at the hotel the Festival registration desk had no idea I was to participate.  There was no packet and no hotel reservation.  The Hyatt Regency hotel staff was excellent and found me a room in minutes.  The registration staff gave me a parking passes and a generic nametag.  I learned that another author named Sexton had cancelled and they confused me with him.  Owens and Sexton are obviously very similar surnames.

At the Cultural Tent the wrong book covers were posted.  The organizer explained she didn’t know how to print the images I had sent her two months previously.  She also had recorded the wrong pricing for my books.
What was different about this SELL OUT was that it was the first time I was selling the three book Irish Troubles Series.  Even priced at 3 books for $30 I worried customers wouldn’t take a risk of buying three books from an unknown author.  Friday night of the Festival my fears came true.

Saturday morning my fears were shattered.  I had four sales of all three books in the series to start off my day.  By Sunday morning I had only 10 books remaining with the first book sold out on Saturday.  Would customers buy just books 2 & 3?  They did.

At 2:00 pm Sunday afternoon the bells rang – I SOLD OUT.
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I learned a lot of lessons about the strategy of selling books this past weekend.  I put in 21 hours over three days sitting in the Cultural Tent.  It’s a hard way to sell books. 

Just yesterday I posted that my second novel, Out of Darkness, had not arrived from the printer.  This morning before 7:00 am my publisher, HenschelHAUS Publishing emailed me that books were delivered to their office.  I learned that delivery to my home would have taken another two days.

Kira Henschel is meeting me tomorrow in Milwaukee to give me a full case of Out of Darkness and I will now have plenty of books of the Ian Murphy Irish Troubles Series to sell at the Milwaukee Irish Fest on August 17-18-19.

You can't imagine how relieved I am.

My publisher, HenschelHAUS Publishing, offered to re-publish my first two books – Murphy’s Troubles and Out of Darkness to improve their appearance and create the Irish Trouble Series.  The third book in the series, Dead Reckoning, was under separate contract (published April 2018).

At the time we signed the contracts in January 2018 I had already accepted an invitation to attend the Milwaukee Irish Fest August 17-19 – the largest Irish Fest in the Midwest.  I will be in the Cultural Tent during the Fest selling my books.  The organizers of the Cultural Tent suggest bringing a minimum of 50 books to sell during the weekend.  A friend of mine participated in the Cultural Tent last year and sold 135 books.

The contract calls for the books to be published by June 30 or no later than 6 months after contract signing – or July 24,2018.  I received one box of Murphy’s Troubles on August 8th.  As of August 15th I have not received any copies of Out of Darkness. 
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That means I will not have the complete Irish Troubles Series available to sell at the largest Irish Fest in the Midwest.

The LaCrosse Irish Fest will be held on the bank of the Mississippi River at 615 2nd Street – North .  Friday August 10 at 3:00 pm to Sunday August 12 at 5:00 pm. I will be speaking twice:
 
                                               Art Tent
 
                                       Saturday August 11
               12:45 pm  Where Art & History Meet – Historical Fiction
 
                                        Sunday August 12
                1:15 pm   Where Art & History Meet – Historical Fiction
 
                                             Cultural Tent
I will be selling books from my Irish Troubles Series, stop by for a chat and buy a book(s).  I will autograph all books and write a personal message for the buyer.

So far I’ve had six book events to launch the third book, Dead Reckoning, in the Irish Troubles series.  One of the most common questions I receive is – what are you going to write your fourth book about?

I understand people would be curious.  All writers are different; some have the next book plotted out in their imagination and are ready to write.  I am not that writer.  I honestly explain to the audience that I have no idea what my next book will be, I don’t even know the genre for sure.

Audience members are satisfied with my response, even if disappointed.  However, the question nagged at me.  I want to write the draft and have it edited next year with a goal of publishing again in 2020.  I have a publisher so the challenge of sending out query letters and searching for a publisher is, thankfully, completely gone.

I toyed with the idea of changing genres.  I’ve had a great notion of writing mystery – not the thriller version – the brainy, quirky detective type – Poirot.  Of course that’s been done so I dropped that idea.  Next I considered writing a political thriller – there’s just so much raw material available now.  Then Paterson and Clinton released their book, The President is Missing.  I could never compete with that.

I really wanted to get away from another Irish story but I decided to return to the tried and true.  A friend once suggested I write a novel about William Butler Yeats and his unsuccessful love life.  I did a little research and didn’t find it interesting myself.  The Irish American News had a story about a mass grave of children found in a small village in West Ireland.  The story is intriguing but too dark.
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Finally I returned to IRA history.  There is one larger than life character that has had a number of biographies – but not fiction.  Michael Collins was the father of the modern Republic of Ireland.  Now there is a story.     
   

• Merriam-Webster definition:   
  
  

Definition of fickle
: marked by lack of steadfastness, constancy, or stability: given to erratic changeableness
 
Three days ago I received an email from one of my long time friends and writing instructor she had received an email from another mutual friend.  My dear friend and author Marshall Cook and his wife Ellen were driving to the State of Washington for a vacation to visit family.  Somewhere in South Dakota they were involved in a terrifying car accident.  Ellen received face lacerations and may need eye surgery.  Marshall has several broken ribs and was unconscious when taken to the hospital.

When events like these occur I don’t find myself asking how it happened.  It doesn’t matter how it happened, the outcome is the same.  I don’t know how this will affect their health and lives but it is tragic.

The truth is when you get up in the morning you have no idea if you will be able to lay your head down safely in your own bed at night.  When I was younger I would respond with anger to events like this.  I don’t know why.  I am now beyond the age of anger.

My feeling now is more of awe.  In an instant an event could change your life and completely alter the ability to carry on as you have to this point in your life.
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Knowing this to be a truth alters how I live each and every day. 

Last week I shared my story of having the blues because the folks I chose to receive Advance Reader Copies (ARC) of the third novel in the Irish Troubles Series – Dead Reckoning hadn’t turned in a review in more than two months.
I sent out the reminder emails and that nudge resulted in a trickle of responses – two to be exact.  I had lunch with one of the advance readers and learned there was legitimate confusion.  Because   Dead Reckoning was published on April 6th he thought it was too late to send a review that could be printed on the book cover or inside pages.  He had a legitimate concern.  I should have explained that my publisher planned a future release of the book and the reviews would be included.

The mystery to me was that once the review was written he didn’t consider posting it on Amazon.  Oh well.

I received a review from one of my first writing teachers, coach, and friend Christine DeSmet that took my breath away.  I quote from a portion of her review:
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“The wisdom and tone—including much humor—in Dead Reckoning place it solidly on the shelf with popular novels such as Plainsong by Kent Haruf, A Man Called Ove by Fredrik Backman, and the entire Mitford series starring Father Tim and written by Jan Karon. I highly recommend Dead Reckoning.”
 
Are you kidding?  Christine compared me to Kent Haruf!  Kent Haruf is one of my favorite authors.  His final novel, Benediction, may be the perfect novel – it is for me.  I was not familiar with the other two authors but researched them and I am among the best and am humbled.
 
What is the best book review you ever received?
 

​I chose twelve people to send an advance reader copy of my latest novel, Dead Reckoning.  I sent them by mail or personally delivered them the week of April 9th.  I checked with my publisher and of the twelve only six had returned comments.  Really? 

I asked my publisher if I should send reminder emails to those holding advance reader copies and she agreed it would be a good idea.  Of the ten emails I sent only three responded.  One said she would read the novel and respond within a week.  One responded “sure” when asked to forward comments to the publisher.  The third said she had a stack of books to read first but had given my book to her husband to read.  Seven readers didn’t reply to my email.

The advance copy readers are all people that I know very well, for years.  I cannot understand why they have been so slow to respond.  I am disappointed.  I have the advance reader copy blues.
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Have you struggled to get book reviews?