Tag Archives: podcast

Happy New Year!

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Good heavens! I just realized … I haven’t updated this blog since 2025!

Becka and the kids and I had a very happy and laid back holiday season, and relaxation continues for a little while longer. The kids don’t start back at school until January 5th, and my UDM classes don’t begin until the 12th. But you know me … I don’t know what to do with myself if I don’t have work or some sort of project to do, so I’ve still been busy.

I recorded two episodes for “Indie Reads Aloud,” which is Diana Kathryn Penn’s podcast where she briefly interviews writers before and after they read a selected passage from their book. Here’s a link to the YouTube video for Episode #271, where I read from Blood Game:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FUJxrda8gXc

We also recorded a video for Crying Call, but that episode (#283 I think) doesn’t come out until February 4th, the day after its official release date. However, a little bird told me that if you’d like to hear it early, you might find the audio-only version on Spotify. See below.

Other updates? Well, Becka and I broke 97K words on the first draft our romance/thriller, about 85% done or so, and I just broke 41K words on the first draft of Drawing Dead (about 45% done).

If you check out my website, you’ll see a lot of reorganization underway, most of which is finished, but Becka will be helping me with some flashy stuff over the next few days. Expect the Blood Game banner to soon be replaced by an equally cool Crying Call banner.

Another big additions is an “Appearances” page accessible from the main menu. It contains Spotify links to most of my podcast appearances, including the two mentioned above. Here’s a link for your convenience: https://jeffe.boats/appearances/

I’m redid my “Books” page and am working on each individual book page. I’ve added more songs to the Drawing Dead playlist (a song for each chapter, as I write them). But the biggest addition is the “Free Stuff” page, where buttons are available to take you to the first few chapters of all my books, plus I’ll be adding a few other writing samples now and then, just for fun. Here’s the link: https://jeffe.boats/free-stuff/

That’s where I’m at. Less than five weeks to Crying Call’s release on February 3rd. My next blog post will come out early next week, and it’ll contain an “early bird” discount code for anyone who’d like to get the book early.

The Ground Game

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Yesterday was the day I found out that Barnes and Noble will officially NOT be carrying any hardcover or paperback copies of Blood Game in any of its brick and mortar stores. No explanation provided. Probably not much thought put into it either. You have to apply for brick and mortar placement when you’re independently published. And from what I understand, there’s usually no point doing so. But I tried anyway — it’s my policy to try everything I can.

This result was easily predictable, but still disappointing. Rather than put one stack of my books on a display table, they’d rather have 30 stacks of Onyx Storm instead of 29. I can’t say I blame them. Corporations base their decisions on good profit margins, not good art.

I’m not a proven quantity yet, so stores won’t place me, and without store placement, it’s pretty hard to sell books and become a proven quantity.

So it’s the ground game or nothing, as expected. I still have a few mass media appearances coming. The podcast “Moms Talk Autism” took an entire episode interview me, about my book and about my childhood and parenting experiences, and that should drop next week or the week after. And I’ll be recording a podcast of “Poker In the Ears” which should run in early April. But other than those, it looks like I’ll be taking the fight to the trenches.

I plan to attend a number of book signing festivals and writing conferences every year for the next several years, and my first one will be the Third Coast Book Fest in Grand Haven, MI on March 22nd. I’m quite looking forward to it!

I’ll also be submitting Blood Game for consideration for a few awards. Not sure what my odds are, but I’m staying with the policy of trying everything I can. If nothing else, you learn more that way.

Mostly what I need is word-of-mouth, and the best way to get that is to go out and meet the readers. Or as they say in politics … I need to develop my ground game. So if you can see this, go tell all your friends to check out my book! And if you still haven’t read it for yourself yet … you know what to do …. 😉