The past few weeks have been so much fun. I've been watching the Best Seller rankings via Amazon.com, and Shell Games continues to be on the list in its category! It has gone up and down in the rankings, depending upon spikes in sales. It has been as high as #5 and as low as #80 (boo hoo). It has been mostly somewhere between 10-25 for the past several weeks now, and this has been so much fun for me to check this out. As a matter of fact, I've checked this so often I may have to be de-programmed! Interesting fact (at least to me!): The book sells much better in the morning than it does in the evening hours. Wonder why? It has just been so much fun having a book out there that people are enjoying. I feel so lucky - and blessed.
Yesterday afternoon my editor sent along the first review of the book. This particular review source typically doesn't do anything more than "just the facts," but I'm still very pleased by the tone of what they had to say. I'll list it here for you:
Got this descriptive blurb from BookNews yesterday:
Shell games; the life and times of Pearl McGill, industrial spy and
pioneer
labor activist.
Copeland, Jeffrey S.
Paragon House, c2012
978-1-55778-899-3 HD6079 $21.95
(pa)
Pearl McGill was an early-20th-century labor union activist in the small
town of Muscatine, Iowa, once the button manufacturing capital of the
world.
McGill's union activities drew the attention of Helen Keller, who
offered
McGill a scholarship to go to teaching college. McGill taught for ten
years
before she was murdered in 1924 by an unknown assailant. In this account
of
her life, Copeland (languages and literatures, University of Northern
Iowa)
adopts the voice of Pearl McGill as the first-person narrator to tell the
story of her early life and her decision to put her own dreams of
education
and teaching aside to fight for the rights of workers. An epilogue
speculates on her murder. B&w historical
photos are included.One thing about working as a writer: A person can't take too much time to bask in the afterglow of publishing a book. There is always another project looming..... My next book will be a children's book that will be published in late fall. I'll provide information about it in an upcoming post. In the meantime, I hope all of you are well and having fun as the warmer weather approaches.
Take care!
Jeff
