Friday, May 4, 2012

Shell Games doing great!

Hi, all!
     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

2 comments:

  1. I can't wait to read your children's book. I loved Shell Games! Keep writing!

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  2. Hi, Jeffrey Copeland -- I loved Shell Games! I don't want to give anything away to readers, but BOY, what an ending!!! My brother-in-law gave me your book after hearing you speak at Illinois Chautauqua. I spoke there, too, another year, about my book, A Rare Titanic Family. It's about my great-uncle, who survived the Titanic. I knew him well and heard the story firsthand many times.

    I wonder if Pearl and my great-uncle may have crossed paths. My great-uncle was Albert Caldwell, and two years after the Titanic he spent two years going back to school at Iowa State. He was there from 1914-1916. He, like Pearl, was in education. It was known around Ames that he had survived the Titanic. I wonder if they knew one another? I don't know what kind of records Pearl left, but I thought I'd ask if she happened to mention him.

    Here's my book's web page: https://sites.google.com/site/raretitanicfamily/

    I'm hoping to find your e-address. I see this blog is somewhat old, and I worry you won't be checking it. I'll see if I can find that e-address. My school address at Samford University is jjwillia@samford.edu.

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