Mystified M.D. Wins ACFW Carol Award!

By now many of you have probably heard that A. K. Arenz’s The Case of the Mystified M.D. won the 2010 Carol Award at the ACFW awards banquet in Indianapolis Sunday night! Alice got to go up on stage to receive her plaque and make a speech. And she did a terrific job! In the meantime, the rest of us Sheafers who were present were sitting in the back jumping up and down and celebrating, as you can imagine. Unfortunately . . . none of us had cameras with us, so I don’t have a picture to post. If there’s anyone who took one, please send it my way!!

Last year Alice finaled with The Case of the Bouncing Grandma. Just making it into the final round two years in a row is quite an accomplishment, and receiving the award this year was the icing on the cake. I am so proud of all Alice has accomplished and how she has grown as a writer, and I am especially proud of her newest release, Mirrored Image. I have a feeling it’s going to at least final next year as well. All I can say is, you go, girl!

It was also extra special nice to receive an award as the editor. We don’t often get recognized for the work we do—don’t expect it—but that was kind of a grace note for me. I’ll admit it lifted me up and felt really good. And now I have a lovely plaque to hang on my wall too!

The conference turned out to be the best one for me both as a writer and a publisher that I’ve ever attended. I made all the connection I wanted to make, plus some I didn’t expect. But having one of our Sheaf House authors receive this kind of attention was the highlight. I had reservations about taking the time off and spending the money to attend, but now I’m glad I did.

And now that I’m back, I have a pile of work on the agenda, including editing several projects with tight deadlines and preparing for the prestigious Southern Festival of Books, which runs from October 8 through 10. We signed up for a booth this year, and 2 of our authors were chosen to participate in author events. Jen Stephens will be on an author panel beginning at 3:30 on the 8th, with a book signing to follow. And I’ll be doing a solo presentation in the Capitol Library from noon to 1 on the 9th to talk about book 3 of my American Patriot Series, Wind of the Spirit, also with a book signing following. Plus, I signed Sheaf House up for a booth, and we’re really excited about the potential for spreading the word about our books and authors. Mega thanks to both Jen and Penney, who worked hard to get us in on this event!

Of course, this all means more work. LOL! Thankfully, we’ve just acquired three interns to help us. I have a production intern coming aboard this weekend, and Penney will have a publicity and a marketing intern to help her extend our marketing and promotional efforts. I’ll post more information on each of them in upcoming posts and bring you up to date on everything that’s been going on.

And now it’s late, and it’s been a long day, so I’m going to hang it up for the night. Will be back at it early in the morning. I’ll update again as soon as I have a moment to breathe! Stay tuned!

We're Growing Again!

We’re highly blessed to have three new team members to introduce! First up is Angela Breidenbach. Mrs. Montana International 2009, Angie works with Hope’s Promise Orphan Ministries and the Jadyn Fred Foundation. She serves as the American Christian Fiction Writer’s publicity officer and is a multi-award winning inspirational speaker and author, writing freelance and inspirational non-fiction.

Angie also teaches online classes in personal growth and powerful living as a CTA certified life coach. She has additional certifications in Logos Youth program, mentor/peer counseling as a Stephen Minister, and is an assisting minister for her local congregation. Not only did she walk the hard line of deciding to donate her mom’s brain, but she is also listed for brain donation at the Brain Bank-Harvard McLean Hospital. She is married and has a combined family of six grown children and one grandson. Her nonfiction women’s study, Gems of Wisdom, with an accompanying workbook, will release in Spring 2011.

Next is Ellen Edwards Kennedy (aka EEK), who calls herself a “Southern-ized Yankee.” That means she knows how to use “y’all” properly, but never drops her g’s. Born in Alabama, Ellen grew up in far northern New York State and has lived with her husband and children in communities across the South and West. This has given her a deep love for these areas and a sharp ear for regional accents.

Through high school and college, Ellen performed in summer stock, briefly nursing the vain dream of becoming a Broadway musical star, but eventually made a career as an award-winning TV/radio advertising copywriter. Her recent experiences as a high school substitute teacher make her uniquely qualified to translate obscure adolescent dialects into understandable English. Along with her Miss Prentice mysteries, beginning with Irregardless of Murder (2012), she is the author of a Christian romance novella, The Applesauce War in the Harvest Home anthology (Barbour Books). She lives with her husband near Raleigh, NC.

Our third new author is Lynne Wells Walding. Early in her marriage to her pastor husband, Lynne helped fill the gap in small church salaries through her clock repair skills. The daughter of a clocksmith, she has published numerous articles on horology and wrote and taught an advanced course in clock repair. A pianist and songwriter, Lynne also served on the praise team of each church she and her husband pastored and penned much of the music used in their services.

Lynne now enjoys writing Christian novels full-time, deriving inspiration from over twenty-five years in the ministry. Her first novel, women’s fiction titled A Handful of Demons (2012), is based on first-hand experience with the destructive work of Satan and the restorative power of Jesus Christ.

Lynne’s greatest joy—after Jesus—is in her son, a granddaughter and two great-grandchildren. A dedicated animal lover, Lynne works closely with area wildlife rehabbers and is sometimes called on for advice on nurturing opossums—her specialty. An avid reader and a member of ACFW, she works her craft and maintains a blog from a delightful cottage in the Piney Woods of East Texas. There she enjoys a blessed life with her husband, Dee, and their two dogs, Sarah and Hooch (and an occasional foster-dog). You can find Lynne at lynnewellswalding.blogspot.com.

Please give a warm welcome to our very talented new authors, Angie, Ellen, and Lynne! We’re thrilled to have you ladies aboard!

New "Do"

As you can see, we have a clean new look for the blog. A standard template, yes, but it coordinates better with our Web site. And I kinda like those exuberant birds . . .

Let’s face it, you need to freshen up your look once in a while—hairdo, purse, shoes, accessories, blog. A woman’s gotta keep folks guessing, and I’m doing my best. LOL!

Sad to Say . . .

Because of the amount of spam comments I’m getting on all my blogs, I’m reactivating comment moderation. That means your comments won’t appear until I have time to go in and approve them. Just another little task to add to my day.

The problem nowadays is Asian-language comments. If I can’t read the language, then I have no way of knowing what’s being said, and it more than likely isn’t nice. I figure if you can read my blogs, which are in English, then you’re capable of making comments in English. And if you don’t want to do that, then you’re not going to be allowed to add a comment at all.

As usual, all we good folks are going to be inconvenienced because of the evildoers. A pox upon your house, I say! Find something productive to do and leave the rest of us in peace!

Jumpin' and a'Shakin'

Things have gone from a simmer to a full boil here at Sheaf House. I keep intending to update you all, and my schedule has been just unreal, so as usual I’m way behind. I’ll try to bring everyone up to speed in as few words as possible . . . Oh, well, I have good intentions, but you know how wordy I am!

As of a couple of months ago, we acquired a marketing and publicity director, and she’s been shaking things up. Please join me in welcoming Penney Carlton aboard!

Penney is an independent TV producer who was the associate producer on Tanya Tucker’s TLC reality series, Tuckerville in 2005-2006. She’s been a freelance marketing consultant for numerous authors and small businesses and was writer and co-producer on a pilot reality show, Indieville. She also wrote and produced a one-hour documentary on Nashville’s homeless community, The Invisible America, that ran regionally and for which she’s written a companion book with the same title She is the founder of a non-profit corporation to aid the homeless, 20for1: The Journey Home. She has a number of television series and documentaries under development. She’s one busy lady, and now she’s working to get the word out about Sheaf House authors and books!

One of the first things Penney did for us was to get Beth Shriver onto the Lifetime Television program The Balancing Act. They’re down in Pompano Beach, FL, taping her segment today, and the show will appear sometime in September. For regular updates and the final date when the program will appear, stop by the Peace for Parents of Teens fan page or the Sheaf House Web site.

Beth and her daughter Madison, whose struggles as a teen prompted Beth to write the book, are appearing together on The Morning Show, a local program on WSFL-TV (SFL), a Miami-Fort Lauderdale network, at 7:20 a.m. And from 6 to 9 that evening they’re doing a meet-and-greet at Jacob’s Ladder, a large Christian Bookstore in Margate. So they’re having lots of fun, and Penney told me it’s actually cooler there than it is here in Nashville! Sheesh! They’re really sacrificing, as you can tell by this view from the hotel window . . .

On the home front, this week I have an amazing young woman, Katie Pedlow, interning with me. She’s an English lit major at a Christian college in California, and I simply couldn’t ask for a better fit for the work I need her to do and also personally. I’m going to adopt her! And her family too!! We’re working hard but also taking off time to play. I’m really going to miss her when she has to head home!

Then next week John Robinson and Deb Kinnard are coming in to do some author events in the area, along with Jen Stephens and Diane Moody. We’ve scheduled some meet-and-greets so far, and Penney is working on lining up more events and media coverage. Plus I want to take them to meet our sales and merchandising director at APG, Cary Johnson, and hopefully get a tour of the warehouse. And we just simply need the face time for Penney to meet them in person and for us to talk about further promotions and their upcoming releases. So it’s going to be a busy few days.

Also among many, many other things Penney is working on is getting a booth for Sheaf House at the Southern Festival of Books, which takes place at Legislative Plaza in Nashville October 8-10. Jen Stephens got the ball rolling, and she and I were chosen to participate on an author panel during the event, which will hopefully publicize our books and the SH booth and result in some good book sales. We tried to get Diane Moody on the panel too, but apparently Confessions of a Prayer Slacker doesn’t fit into their focus for this year. Boooo, hisss!! But if we have good results this year, we’ll try again next year.

Joy DeKok also clued us in on the Twin Cities Book Festival, an all-day book exhibit and festival in the Minneapolis area October 16 this year. We definitely want to participate in that one too. These events will help us determine whether book festivals are worth the time and effort as far as sales are concerned.

Going Kindle. One thing I’m having my intern, Katie, work on is transferring to the Word files the final corrections that were done in Quark for our 2010 releases. After looking at how are sales are growing in Kindle, and considering that Amazon has increased the amount of the royalty payout, I’m going to convert all our fiction to that format. Not sure yet about our nonfiction issue titles, especially the devotionals. How well do devotionals sell on Kindle? And for them, it’s too expensive to convert the graphics because they have to be input by hand one at a time, so we’d lose those elements. I’m thinking that some titles, like Confessions of a Prayer Slacker, are a more natural fit for Kindle than devotionals would be. So I’ll have to think about that.

New Team Members. We have some new team members to introduce, and I’m going to do that in my next post since this one is already waaaayyy too long!

That’s all for now. Check back soon!