"Roundheads and Ramblings"

SALE

A Pre-Holiday Bargain for Early Shoppers

Posted on Friday, October 16, 2015 3:03 PM

On August 28, 1861, approximately 500 men of the Pennsylvania Roundhead Regiment boarded a train (a first for most of them) and rode for 50 miles to reach Pittsburgh. They arrived in the evening and took a supper break provided by a local welcoming committee. Each man received a slice of buttered bread, a hunk of sausage, two pickles and a cup of coffee. Then they marched out to the local fair grounds, where they were sent to bed down in one of the livestock barns. One soldier described them in their stalls, "kicking at fleas, bed bugs, and many other awful creeping things which existed only in imagination."

Those are the kind of details you need to know if you are researching events during the Civil War. But they are not the details you find in most history books. “A Scratch with the Rebels,” first published in 2007, draws its information from newspapers and official military papers, as well as the letters, diaries, and family keepsakes of two Civil War soldiers: a Pennsylvania Yankee and a South Carolina Confederate. These two inexperienced young men joined up in late 1861 and spend the next several months waiting for a chance to see action. They met only once on a battlefield outside of Charleston in June, 1862. And for one of them, it was the last action he would ever see.

The chapters trace their training, their shortages of food and equipment, the weather and scourges of disease, the rumors, and the hardships and the delights of camp life. The 186-page book contains forty-three maps and photographs of the people and places mentioned. Endnotes provide full documentation for academic purposes, and the extensive bibliography fills some nine pages.

I have just learned that the original publisher of this book is getting out of the book publishing business entirely. Given the chance to save the books from a rubbish pile somewhere, i have agreed to purchase the remaining stock, in hopes of eventually finding a new publishing opportunity for it. But in the meantime, I will be able to offer these 67 first-edition volumes to you at at $6.00 a copy (plus shipping), which is an 75% reduction from the original price of $24.95.

There is something here for everyone:

(a) If you are planning to participate in the Military Writers’ Gettysburg Retreat in May, (or if you only wish you were), this little book can provide you with a fundamental understanding of what life was really like for a Civil War soldier. Neither of my subjects fought at Gettysburg, but those who did shared similar backgrounds and experiences.

(b) If you are a descendant of a Pennsylvania Roundhead, or a member of the Society of the Roundheads, you will want to add this book to your library. Your ancestors may well be caught up in these pages.

(c) Members of the Society for Women and the Civil War will find fascinating details about the mothers and sisters of these young soldiers — their worries, their efforts to supply the men with needed goods, and their amazing visits to the camps and battlefields.

(d) Civil War enthusiasts of all sorts will find much to enjoy.

I will be setting up a webpage to allow you to order one of these books online, with payment either through PayPal or by regular credit card. I will post the URL as soon as the shipment of books arrive. In the meantime, you may want to visit my Pinterest boards to see some of the maps, settings, recipes, and people of “A Scratch with the Rebels.” Available at https://www.pinterest.com/roundheadlady/

Pre-Orders Now Available on Kindle as Well as Other E-Book Retailer Sites

Posted on Thursday, October 08, 2015 7:55 AM

Why You Will Want to Pre-order This Book Now

Yankee Reconstructed won’t be available until January 3, 2016. Why would you want to order it now? Well, first, there’s the simple matter of forgetfulness (and that’s something that happens to everybody, not just us seniors.) Between today and January comes that whole holiday season, with all of its distractions. And when January arrives, you’re going to be exhausted, even if not hung-over. Will you remember to order my book on January 3rd? Probably not. But if you have pre-ordered it, it will arrive, just in time to fill that empty void that follows the holiday season.

Here a few other advantages to pre-ordering:

1. Most pre-orders carry a reduced price tag. My “Yankee Reconstructed” is available for pre-ordering at $3.99 on all major e-book retailer sites: Apple iBooks, Barnes and Noble, Kobo, and Kindle.. On January 3rd, the price will be $5.99, so you’ll save $2.00 by ordering now. What’s even better, you don’t have to pay a thing until the book ships. So order it in October, and by the time your bill arrives in January, you won’t even notice that you’re paying for it.

2. Forward to me a copy of the confirmation e-mail you receive when you place a pre-order (on any site) and I’ll enter your name into a “Happy New Year” drawing. One lucky winner will receive an autographed trade paper version of the novel, complete with matching bookmark.

3. Let’s suppose you have a history-loving friend who enjoys historical novels, and you want to give her a book for Christmas. She might really enjoy my novel set in the period of Reconstruction, but it won’t be out in time for Christmas. With a pre-order, you can ask me to send her a Christmas card that will announce the “gift-to-come.” It will have a picture of the book, the date of arrival, and include your name as the giver. Problem solved, and you don’t even have to wrap the gift.

But let’s be honest. I get more out of a pre-order than you do, at least in the short term. And to understand why, you have to understand the methods by which “Best-Seller” lists are compiled. Every company has its own algorithms, but the idea is the same. The more copies a book sells, the more copies it will sell in the future. And since most of these lists are compiled every week, if not every day (or in the case of Amazon, every hour), the most recent sales take on an enormous importance.

Here’s how pre-orders are counted.. They don’t get charged — or paid for — until the day of publication. So for several months, the pre-orders can pile up. And if a whole lot of people have pre-ordered the book, it will zoom to the top of its category ratings on the day that those sales all hit the cash register at the same time. Pre-orders have the ability to create instant best-sellers. So WHEN you buy a book matters more than the simple act of buying it. That’s why pre-orders are so important. They are some of the kindest gifts you can give your favorite author.

Read an E-Book Week

Posted on Sunday, March 02, 2014 10:09 AM

Welcome to the 2014 Smashwords Read an Ebook Week promotion, taking place March 2-8 2014. For one week only, thousands of Smashwords authors and publishers will provide readers deep discounts on ebooks, with coupon code levels for 25%-off, 50%-off, 75%-off and FREE.

At one minute past midnight Pacific time on March 2, the special Smashwords Read an Ebook Week promotion catalog went live on the Smashwords home page. Readers can browse the catalog and search by coupon code levels and categories. At the stoke of midnight Pacific time at the end of the day on March 8, the catalog disappears.

The coupon codes only work at Smashwords, not at retailers served by Smashwords.

Here's a direct link to my book page or my author page:

https://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/Roundheadlady

You'll see that five of my books are participants in this sale. To purchase The Road to Frogmore at at whopping 75% off, simply click on the title and include this code: REW75 when you make your purchase.

The other four books are all on sale at 50% off, so for any of them, use the code REW50. You'll get any one of them for just $1.50.

Or, you could get all five of them for just $7.00. You can hardly get a good cheeseburger for that! And books last much longer than a cheeseburger. So go ahead, click now on https://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/Roundheadlady and have a book feast while we endure another winter storm.

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SALE

A Pre-Holiday Bargain for Early Shoppers

Pre-Orders Now Available on Kindle as Well as Other E-Book Retailer Sites

Read an E-Book Week