An Appeal to My Readers: Are you interested in meeting me in person?

Hi, everyone.

I’ll be brief here, since I covered most of what I wanted to cover in the video. Basically, I’m looking for people to commit to attending an author event at Beaverdale Books, 2629 Beaver Ave, Ste 1, in Des Moines, Iowa. I was hoping to have the event on the evening of Oct. 29 (a Wednesday).

The fine people at Beaverdale have asked me to try and guarantee that I can have at least fifteen people to attend the event. I am going to be soliciting people to commit to attending the event for the next two weeks. If I don’t have at least fifteen people telling me they can make it to the author’s event two weeks from today, I’ll have to tell them to cancel and that I’ll do an event with other authors at a later date.

Basically, if you want to support me, go ahead and click on the button below (The one that says “Start Survey”) and let me know if you can be in Des Moines in a couple month’s time. We’ll talk writing fiction, The Yank Striker series, and being a writer in Iowa who doesn’t write about farming or those bridges in Madison County. 🙂

While I do appreciate you following this blog, I really would like you to subscribe to my Substack page. By subscribing to that page, you’ll not only be receiving my Substack newsletter, The Writing Life With Jason Liegois (the companion blog to this one), but you’ll also be signing up for my email list. Just click the button below.

Where I (and my books) will be at during the next several weeks…

[PHOTO NOTE: On the road near Des Moines, Iowa, June 2023.]

The book tour (such as it is) for my new book The Yank Striker: A Footballer’s Beginning continues later this week. You can also find additional reminders of these upcoming events on my other platforms, including Substack Notes, my Facebook author’s page, and my Instagram author’s page.

On the Calendar:

  • My next appearance will be at the Authors on the River Walk event from 12 to 4 p.m. this Saturday, June 17, at the Hampton Inn & Suites, Downtown Capital Meeting Room, 120 SW Water St., Des Moines. I’ll be part of a wide variety of authors from different genres, so come check us out.
  • From 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., Saturday, June 24, I’ll be appearing at a community book fair at Gävle Hall on the campus of Augustana College, 639 38th St, Rock Island, Illinois. The Midwest Writing Center, of which I was a member when I lived in Muscatine, is hosting the book fair as part of its annual David R. Collins Writers’ Conference.
  • At 1 p.m. on Sunday, June 25, I’ll be back in my hometown of Muscatine, Iowa, for an appearance at Musser Public Library, 408 East 2nd St. Muscatine. It’s not the old library where I spent good portions of my weekends and summers when I was a kid reading away, but it is a very fine facility and a good successor to the other buildings bearing the Musser name. I look forward to seeing you there.
  • My Official Launch Party for The Yank Striker will be at 1 p.m. Saturday, July 1, at Chocolaterie Stam, 2814 Ingersoll Ave., Des Moines. By the wayyyyy… All those who buy a book at my launch party will be eligible for a gift drawing that evening. I hope everyone can make it there.
  • From 12-6 p.m. Sunday, July 9, it appears that I will be one of the area authors participating in the Northside Market event in the Highland Park business district in Des Moines. I’ll be based at The Slowdown Coffee Co., 3613 6th Ave.
  • I’m very excited to have been invited for a book talk at one of Des Moines’ top independent bookstores, Beaverdale Books, 2629 Beaver Ave # S1, at 6:30 p.m. Wednesday, July 26. This is the first time I’ve had any bookstore invite me in for an event, and I could not be happier. If anyone can make it out to Des Moines that evening, I would absolutely appreciate your support.
  • I’ll be participating in the Iowa/Regional Authors Book Fair sponsored by the Iowa City Book Festival from 11 a.m. – 3 p.m. Sunday, Oct. 15 at MERGE, 136 S. Dubuque St., Iowa City. This will be my first year participating in the event and I’m really excited to do this in Iowa City, where I lived on and off for four years during my time at the University of Iowa.

At all of these locations, I will have advance copies of The Yank Striker for sale, as well as copies of my first book, The Holy Fool.

However, speaking of Beaverdale Books, they are one of three independent book stores here in Iowa where you can actually find my books. They include:

  • Beaverdale Books, 2629 Beaver Ave # S1, Des Moines.
  • Pella Books, 824 Franklin St, Pella.
  • The Book Vault, 105 S Market St, Oskaloosa.

All three of them are great places for a day of book shopping.

If you are not sure where my links are for not only my Facebook and Instagram pages, but my links for The Yank Striker, either go to my author’s page on Substack or the Link in Bio Page on my WordPress. You’ll find it all there.

Quick Update on my Book Tour, 4 June 2023

[PHOTO NOTE: On the road near Pella, Iowa, 3 June 2023.]

The modest book tour I’ve set up for my new book The Yank Striker: A Footballer’s Beginning that I’ve released this month is continuing as we speak. Although I jokingly called this a summer tour, some of the events I’ve either confirmed or am trying to confirm will extend into this fall.

I’ll also be giving some additional reminders of these upcoming events on my other platforms, including Substack Notes, Substack Chat, my Facebook page, and my Instagram author’s page.

The following is a list of the appearances I have confirmed I will be at as of this writing. One of the biggest changes so far is I have set a confirmed time and location for my official launch party. Even though the paperback version of The Yank Striker is already out, I want to have an official party not only celebrating that release, but the release of the ebook edition of that book in late June.

On the Calendar (AKA Liegois’ Summer 2023 tour):

  1. My next appearance will be at the Authors on the River Walk event from 12 to 4 p.m. Saturday, June 17, at the Hampton Inn & Suites, Downtown Capital Meeting Room, 120 SW Water St., Des Moines. I’ll be part of a wide variety of authors from different genres, so come check us out.
  2. From 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., Saturday, June 24, I’ll be appearing at a community book fair at Gävle Hall on the campus of Augustana College, 639 38th St, Rock Island, Illinois. The Midwest Writing Center, of which I was a member when I lived in Muscatine, is hosting the book fair as part of its annual David R. Collins Writers’ Conference.
  3. At 1 p.m. on Sunday, June 25, I’ll be back in my hometown of Muscatine, Iowa, for an appearance at Musser Public Library, 408 East 2nd St. Muscatine. It’s not the old library where I spent good portions of my weekends and summers when I was a kid reading away, but it is a very fine facility and a good successor to the other buildings bearing the Musser name. I look forward to seeing you there.
  4. My Official Launch Party for The Yank Striker will be at 1 p.m. Saturday, July 1, at Chocolaterie Stam, 2814 Ingersoll Ave., Des Moines. My thanks to Terri Cooper for helping arrange the event. If you can only make it to one of my events, I would love it to be this one.
  5. From 12-6 p.m. Sunday, July 9, it appears that I will be one of the area authors participating in the Northside Market event in the Highland Park business district in Des Moines. I’ll be based at The Slowdown Coffee Co., 3613 6th Ave.
  6. I’ll be participating in the Iowa/Regional Authors Book Fair sponsored by the Iowa City Book Festival from 11 a.m. – 3 p.m. Sunday, Oct. 15 at MERGE, 136 S. Dubuque St., Iowa City. This will be my first year participating in the event and I’m really excited to do this in Iowa City, where I lived on and off for four years during my time at the University of Iowa.

At all of these locations, I will have advance copies of The Yank Striker for sale, as well as copies of my first book, The Holy Fool.

There’ll be at least a few more additions in the days and weeks to come, so keep posted. However, if you want to find my books online, just click on the buttons below. Hopefully, I might see you around, anyway.

There’s Going to be a Book Tour This Summer

[PHOTO NOTE: Since I was on the road the other day in Des Moines, I thought this picture was appropriate.]

You might have heard that I’m releasing a book this summer. I also want to get out and about and talk to people about my new book, The Yank Striker, and about my other work[1].

Well, this week, I’ve started getting in contact with people and talking about making some appearances. And I’ve already started to book some dates.

I truly don’t want to keep doing repetitive blog posts on my “touring” schedule, however, so I’ll probably do one weekly “update” post, but also post some notices on my other platforms, including Substack Notes, Substack Chat, and my Facebook page. I have puttered around with Instagram, off and on, for a few years, and two days ago I broke down and decided to set up an Instagram author’s page[2].

So, the following is a list of the appearances I have confirmed I will be at as of this writing. I am planning to add to this as much as possible. As soon as I know something, you will know something.

On the Calendar (AKA Liegois’ Summer 2023 tour):

  1. From 9 a.m. to noon on Saturday, June 2, I’ll be at Pella Books, 824 Franklin St. Pella, Iowa, as they act as one of the hosts for the Great Iowa Road Trip.
  2. I just found out that I’m going to be part of the Authors on the River Walk event from 12 to 4 p.m. Saturday, June 17, at the Hampton Inn & Suites, Downtown Capital Meeting Room, 120 SW Water St., Des Moines. I’ll be there with a whole slew of other authors, so I’m hoping for a good crowd.
  3. From 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., Saturday, June 24, I’ll be appearing at a community book fair at Gävle Hall on the campus of Augustana College, 639 38th St, Rock Island, Illinois. The Midwest Writing Center, of which I was a member when I lived in Muscatine, is hosting the book fair as part of its annual David R. Collins Writers’ Conference. While I’m not planning on attending any of the workshops this year, I have gone to it in years past and it is a great conference that I learned a lot from.
  4. At 1 p.m. on Sunday, June 25, I’ll be back in my hometown of Muscatine, Iowa, for an appearance at Musser Public Library, 408 East 2nd St. Muscatine. It’s not the old library where I spent good portions of my weekends and summers when I was a kid reading away, but it is a very fine facility and a good successor to the other buildings bearing the Musser name. I look forward to seeing you there.
  5. From 12-6 p.m. Sunday, July 9, it appears that I will be one of the area authors participating in the Northside Market event in the Highland Park business district in Des Moines. I believe I’ll be based at The Slowdown Coffee Co., 3613 6th Ave.

At all of these locations, I will have advance copies of The Yank Striker for sale, as well as copies of my first book, The Holy Fool. I hope to see you there at one of these appearances, at least. There’ll be at least a few more additions in the days and weeks to come, so keep posted.

Also, please let me know if you do use the pre-order button and something doesn’t work correctly. It’s the first time I’ve ever tried something like this before.

Footnotes:

  1. This is where I want to apologize if, during the next few months or so, I begin to sound a bit repetitive when it comes to book promotion. However, if I don’t say something about it, nobody is going to hear about my work. I don’t have a public relations guy working for me. I’m it when it comes to selling my work.
  2. I’ll try to take more photos as a result. You might even see a few here.

Writing Journal, 22 February 2023: Decent numbers and another plug for my upcoming event because I would love to see you there

Hi once again.

I wound up having decent numbers this week. Would I have preferred to have an extra hundred words over what I made it to, or maybe an extra hour or so of revisions? Maybe, but I am appreciating how I am keeping consistent week by week. The more I get those weeks under my belt, the better writing year I’m going to have.

I wanted to take a second to let you know about me making a public appearance you may or may not know about. Anyway, you can find out about it below.

Shameless Plug for my Public Appearance Starts Here

Usually, I don’t want to use this blog just to promote something that I’m doing. However, there is an event that I’ll be at this weekend I wanted more people to come to, even though I have discussed this here on the page before.

I’ll be participating in the Local Author Fair at the Johnston Public Library, Saturday, February 25. I’ll be one of many other area authors there waiting to meet people from 2 to 4 p.m. that day. I’ll bring myself and copies of The Holy Fool for purchase, and I’ll also be there to talk about my upcoming series The Yank Striker.

Once again, thanks to the Johnston Public Library for the invitation, and I look forward to meeting old friends and new acquaintances there.

Plug’s Over, Let’s Get to the Numbers

Here’s the stats for last week.

Writing statistics for the week ending 18 February 2023:
+4,003 words written.
Days writing: 7 of 7.
Days revising/planning: 3 of 7 for 210 total minutes.
Daily Writing Goals Met (500+ words or 30 minutes of planning/revisions): 7 of 7 days.

Again, I could have used an extra hundred words, but I’d never be mad at those numbers if I get them again.

As usual, what follows is my plug to sign up for my Substack page and thus join my email list. The more I build my list, the more I’m building up a little online community and share my writing as well.

While I do appreciate you following this blog, I really would like you to subscribe to my Substack page. By subscribing to that page, you’ll not only be receiving my Substack newsletter, The Writing Life With Jason Liegois (the companion blog to this one), but you’ll also be signing up for my email list. Just click the button below.