We used the Underground to get to Westminster Station this morning, and the view that greeted us when we emerged from below was stunning. Parliament! Oh, and that huge clock tower some refer to as Big Ben.

Today’s tour of Westminster Abbey proved the former Benedictine monastery has grown into Great Britains’s most hallowed hall. The site for coronations, weddings, and funerals, the abbey is also the final resting place for hundreds of aristocrats, scientists, literaries, and anyone who was deemed important enough. Charles Darwin and Isaac Newton are both buried there.

There are also many who are simply acknowledged with plaques or tiles or reliefs. Can you find Jane Austen among those in the “Poets Corner”? It’s a modest plaque for a modest woman just to the left of William Shakespeare.

The biggest surprise? How many women are featured! I expected Elizabeth I, of course, but James I, who succeeded her, had a chapel built for his mother, Mary Queen of Scots, on the opposite side of the abbey, so she’s here as well. As are aristocrats’ wives, Florence Nightingale, Elizabeth Warren and dozens of others.

The majesty of the abbey is best represented by its Gothic structure, so the ceilings are amazing. Just a reminder that sometimes you have to look up to see the artistry. Ta-ta for now!

On any trip, we need to spend one night splurging on an exceptional dinner. Tonight was that night as we made our way to the “Walkie Talkie”, a building that houses the Sky Gardens as well as several restaurants and bars on the 35+ floors.

Fennchurch Restaurant is at the very top, but to get there, we passed by the greenery that gives this space its name.

Since we’re traveling alone, we elected to make our reservations for the bar, where seating is side-by-side. Give our reservations were at 7:30 pm, there weren’t very many patrons—once it gets dark, though, this place fills up fast, as does the City Garden Bar below.

Dinner offerings include an eight-course tasting menu, or a limited menu featuring fresh fare done using unique recipes. The wine cellar must be immense, because the list was huge (although it’s not hard to choose a glass of wine, as there were only a few pages of those). We elected the Eroica Reisling from Chateau St. Michele. Our starter was asparagus with crab on toast, although we were pleasantly surprised by a first course of a pastry-wrapped anchovy.

Our main dish was lemon sole with mussels and a spinach purée sauce.

We ordered dessert to complete off our meal, but we were surprised by inbetween courses—an orange sauce topped by lemon fluff topped by white chocolate as well as a dish of airy chocolates. Dessert was thinly sliced pineapple topped with coconut sorbet—an excellent and fruity finish. The mint tea was amazing. Our request for honey was quickly granted, making this after-dinner drink a perfect ending. And given how late it is, this is where we’ll end this post. Ta-ta for now!

After an “English Breakfast” at my hotel, we grabbed our Oyster card and headed to the nearest tube station.  If you’ve ever ridden any kind of public transport, you’re already familiar with how the tube works. We just weren’t prepared for all the options. The network of tubes below London is immense, and operates on several levels, making for some interesting trip choices. We managed to make it to the Tower Hill Station on the first try.

Armed with a ticket arranged by our tour operator, Across the Pond Vacations, LLC, we made our way into the entrance of the Tower just past its nine o’clock opening.

We opted to do the wall and upper walks first, a tour that takes you up into the towers and atop the connecting walls. There isn’t much to see in the towers as very little of the furnishings or effects remain, but you occasionally come across a treasure.

Besides the crowns not featured in the “Crowned Jewels” display (where no photos were allowed), there are some coins, seals, armaments, artillery and evidence of the forbearer to backgammon, a game called Tables.

Ravens still guard the battlements and are apparently rather ornery.

The White Tower holds the armory, including all manner of weaponry and armor. There are also 204 stairs.

The chapel is in one of the turret towers, and since the Tower of London is made up of lots of towers, they come in various shapes.

Despite the growing gloom—the sky was cloudless when we started but was threatening rain as we took our leave—there were spots of color throughout.

We headed for the tube station for our next stop, but made sure to walk along the Thames. Tower Bridge is a sharp contrast to the newer buildings that line the river. We’ll be in one of those later tonight for dinner. Ta ta for now!

Three airports and two continents in seventeen hours? That’s how we spent yesterday getting to London. A quick trip from Cody, WY to Salt Lake City was followed by a slight delay due to mechanical issues before the uneventful flight to Detroit. Watching Ron Howard’s “The Beatles: Eight Days a Week” on that flight was a great way to transition to hearing British accents. Detroit to Heathrow allowed us to write as well as sleep and eat (the food on that Delta flight is fabulous, as were the drinks). Once we made it through customs, though …

When we started planning this trip to England, we had several—make that many—sites  we wanted to explore, especially in London. Given the traffic, we had no desire to hire a car (rent a car) and were assured the public transport would get you where you need to go. Just fill up an Oyster Card  with 10 quid and ride any bus, underground train or even a boat. Even better? Hire Dave Cannell of Bespoke Taxi Service & Sightseeing Tours.

Dave’s services were arranged by Across the Pond Vacations, and although he offers a standard two-hour tour after picking you up at the airport, he certainly exceeded expectations on today’s tour—once we had the twenty miles to London covered (with lots of interesting background information on Chiswick) and Dave understood our desire for more information on Georgian and Regency-era sites,  the fun began. We did a drive-by of Kensington Palace, stopped at the Royal Albert Hall (currently undergoing some restoration work), and drove through Hyde Park (that’s the Serpentine in the photo with the body of water).

Just inside the Marble Arch entrance to the park is where public executions used to take place. It’s hard to imagine thirty-thousand drunken Londoners convening to witness hangings, but this was their entertainment. And the reason they had hangovers the following day.

Once we were out of the park, it was onto the city streets and around the squares. Since one of the characters in my books lives in a townhouse in Cavendish Square, we got this quick shot.

Gunter’s Tea Shop, once located at Numbers 7 and 8 in Berkeley Square, is still an eatery.

The bow window at White’s in St. James Street is the same as when it was added over two-hundred years ago. That window and who’s behind it will feature in my next book, The Honeymoon of a Viscount.

Dave pointed out several businesses which are the oldest of their kind. He’s in front of the oldest shoemaker London, just down the street from the oldest wine merchant, oldest hat maker, and oldest barbershop.

The largest squares in London are all sized to perfectly accommodate an Egyptian pyramid (should one ever be dropped from the sky). There are smaller squares, though, including Pickering Place. The original gas lamp is still hanging above the entrance.

Since most historical buildings in London are protected from demolition—they have to retain their original appearance—some have three hundred years of paint on their facades.

Over in Jermyn Street, several shops from the Regency era are still open. Floris sells perfumes but was also known for their combs and hairbrushes.

This vantage of the National Portrait Gallery and St. Margarets is virtually identical to how it appeared two centuries ago.

Horse Guards Parade Grounds now features modern seating, but the buildings are unchanged from when they were featured in several of my books.

Today’s tour also took us to Trafalgar Square, Pall Mall, and Piccadily Circus as well as the Seven Dials (once the slums of London but now gentrified) and Covent Gardens.

So what’s next? Now that we’re checked into The Bloomsbury Hotel,  a nap! Ta-ta for now.

In mapping out the plans for our next two series of England-based books, we discovered an issue. Although it’s easy to determine how a particular locale looks today—there are any number of online tools and search engines that can display images or satellite photos—it’s harder to determine what they looked like (or if they even existed) two hundred years ago. Was the land covered in forest? Or was it farmland? What were the buildings like? Who lived there?

Old maps help. We own an entire series of maps of the United Kingdom going back at least two hundred years. So does all the genealogical research our mother has spent the last forty-five years collecting into a huge database and dozens of binders. But there comes a time when you realize it’s time to take a trip. Time to simply put boots to the ground and do the research yourself.

As a subscriber to Anglotopia -The Website for Anglophiles, we knew about Across the Pond Vacations.  ATP Vacations LLC plans tours for individuals and groups. Their expertise is travel in the UK—they only arrange tours for UK-bound travelers, so we knew they would know their stuff. We submitted a list of locales we figured we needed to visit (those where our current books have been set as well as where we were considering setting future books), provided a general budget and timeframe, and paid a $75 downpayment for a proposed itinerary. When they contacted us, the first question was, “Have you seen all these men without their shirts on in person?”

We realized right away that Anne Marie, one of the tour operators at ATP Vacations, had checked out our website, www.lindaraesande.com, and that she was referring to the men who grace the covers of our Regency romances. We had to admit that we had, indeed, seen a few of them in various states of undress, but not all. There are a few we haven’t even met (yet).

After a few more serious questions, she started her work. A proposed itinerary followed, one that included every single city, village, castle or attraction we had requested except for one (Lindisfarne Castle, very remote and currently under renovation). Once we accepted and signed the contract, ATP VAcations made reservations, lined up vouchers, arranged accommodations, and put together the final itinerary. Here’s the map of where we’ll be going. We’ll be sure to post more about the trip while we’re doing it!

Every new century seems to force at least one society to undergo a complete overhaul, and the beginning of the nineteenth century was no exception. In Great Britain, it meant a shift in the population as people moved into the cities, an increase in trading with both the Far East and the new United States, and the development of new technologies that ushered in the Industrial Era. On top of that, England underwent a complete renovation both in fashion, especially for women, and in architecture.

What didn’t change was sex outside of marriage, especially by men.

The Georgian Era, which essentially includes the nine years that make up the Regency, was a time when society allowed men to employ prostitutes without reprisals. Maintaining that sex was considered necessary to relieve tension, men turned to “ladies of the evening” in their various incarnations rather than subject their wives to their carnal appetites beyond what was necessary for procreation.

So, who was satisfying those appetites?

In 1802, London was the largest city in the world with two million denizens, yet it was a city of the not very young and not very old. Most were under thirty and had come from all over the British Isles to the thriving metropolis in order to find employment as servants, shopkeepers, dockworkers, and laborers. Around ten percent of the girls  (either 50,000 or 62,500, depending on the study) had to take up prostitution in order to survive, either because they were tricked into it by unscrupulous bawds or by simple poverty. Is it any wonder that fifty-percent of the babies born in 1802 were illegitimate?

Most of those girls didn’t choose their profession, but for the lucky few who made their living as a mistress, the higher class version of a prostitute, life could be quite comfortable, and in some cases, lucrative.

Wealthier gentlemen and those of the aristocracy openly employed their mistresses. An aristocratic man’s ideal of “love and lust”, a mistress allowed him to have an intimate relationship, one where he could choose a woman to pleasure him without duty to his station in life being a deciding factor. If he wanted exclusive rights to his mistress, he would form an alliance with the woman based on negotiations performed by mutual friends. Typical financial arrangements included a private townhouse, let on the woman’s behalf, where the couple could be together without risk of interruption. Staffed with a few servants, this love nest, along with an allowance to pay for gowns, fripperies, jewelry and sometimes even a carriage, was provided in exchange for sex and conversation. The mistress would always be on call, at her protector’s convenience.

For the man, it wasn’t just about the sex with the mistress; it was about finding a woman who was everything his wife wasn’t. If he tired of her, he could move her out while he was on the lookout for her replacement. And if he didn’t tire of her, the mistress could become his lifelong companion. They could share love and even children, but due to societal class rules, they had to do so outside the bounds of marriage.

So, where does the wife fit in?

When a gentleman was around the age of twenty-seven (the average age of marriage for men back then), it became his duty to select a wife. At the very least, he needed an heir, both to inherit title and entailed properties as well as to continue the family lineage. He might also need to marry in order to form an alliance between two families or find a wife with a substantial dowry in order to pay off debts.

Since a woman, even a lady of the gentry or aristocracy, possessed very little independence, she was essentially the property of her parents until she married. Then she became the property of her husband. Parents settled their daughter in what they hoped would be a good match, opting for security over love because, in a time when divorce was considered scandalous, marriage was a lifetime commitment.

For the man who married for fortune or to form an alliance, he could only hope that love would come later, at which point he would end his relationship with his mistress. If a marriage were more of a business relationship than romantic in nature, a man would simply elect to keep his mistress. And the wife? She was free to take a lover once she had fulfilled her obligation to provide an “heir and a spare”.

Now it’s time for the surprise.

Despite all the conditions under which an aristocrat married in the early 1800’s, he usually did so because he felt affection for his intended! And his wife felt affection for him! No wonder marriages in the Regency were as diverse as they are today!

In the book, THE SEDUCTION OF AN EARL, a newly minted earl is forced to find a wife because his childhood sweetheart, who has already borne him a son, refuses to marry him. She understands the societal rules that prevent her, a farmer’s daughter, from marrying into the aristocracy. Although she was never a prostitute, her status becomes that of a mistress upon the earl’s marriage to a woman who simply wants children.

When the new countess arrives with her large dog, she explains why she’s so tolerant of her husband’s mistress. “Men have no regard for their wives and only ever love their mistresses,” she claims. Having grown up in a household with a father who employed mistresses and a mother who busied herself with charities, she knows of what she speaks. The words are a surprise to the earl’s mistress—she expected the countess to banish her and her son from the earl’s life—but those words may also make it harder for her to give up the position she no longer wants and accept a completely different offer.

Where else can you take an 1880s Train Ride through the Black Hills…

Attend a PRC Rodeo in Deadwood…

See Mount Rushmore…

See a Ghost (and get your fill of amazing appetizers!)

…and see more ghosts in an historic cemetery…

Head out on a Pub Crawl…

And get books signed by 50 of your Favorite Authors!

Wild Deadwood Reads! Reader Registration is only $5 in advance, which allows you to sign up for all the weekend events, some of which are FREE!

Check out our website https://wilddeadwoodreads.wordpress.com/extra-event-sign-up/

Our Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/groups/1330472326972227/

…Then Come Have Fun in Deadwood this Summer!

NORAD Alert!

As a young child living in snowy and cold locales like Wyoming, Iowa, Missouri and North Dakota, I was always assured of a white Christmas. It wasn’t the snow that my brother and I looked forward to on Christmas Eve, however, but rather the report that Santa was on his way.

As my father drove us to Christmas Eve candlelight services in our Ford station wagon, the car radio would be tuned to whatever channel was playing Christmas music. My brother and I would listen for the break between songs when the broadcaster would report that the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) had spotted a sleigh pulled by eight tiny reindeer leaving the North Pole. Imagine our excitement when after church services were over and we were back in the car, the NORAD Santa Tracker had updates claiming the jolly man was “somewhere over Nova Scotia”, which we only knew as somewhere in Canada.

NORAD first reported of Santa’s incursion into US airspace back in 1948. The Associated Press passed along the report to the general public as news. Santa’s location wasn’t reported again by the agency until several years later, though.

The NORAD Santa Tracker program began in 1955, supposedly when the Sears department store in Colorado Springs ran an advertisement claiming children could place a call to Santa. The number included in the ad was was one digit off, however, and children who called reached the Continental Air Defense Command (CONAD). Some claim the calls came into a “red telephone” hotline that connected CONAD directly to the Strategic Air Command (a rather unlikely scenario, since hotlines weren’t accessible from outside).  The crew commander on duty told those answering the phone to give all the children who called in a “current location” for Santa.

Given the public relations opportunity for the agency, as well as queries from the Associated Press and United Press International, Santa’s whereabouts were reported by CONAD, and later by its replacement, NORAD. As the years passed, the reports became more elaborate, with tales of Royal Canadian Air Force planes escorting the sleigh to its next destination.

Today, children can track Santa at the NORAD Santa Tracker website, which includes activities, a Santa village, and a countdown clock. Santa Cams show CGI images of Santa Claus flying over landmarks. There’s even a Twitter account, @NORADSanta, for the service.

NORAD continues to provide updates to news agencies every Christmas Eve and uses volunteers to answer the phones when children call to ask about Santa’s whereabouts.

Now that you have your files organized and have an online presence on a number of social media sites, it’s time to take the next step in promoting your brand and your books as well as to protect your assets.

Newsletters

Almost all authors who are successful at promotion have achieved that success through the use of a newsletter. Before you can have a newsletter, though, you have to have a list of subscribers to send it to!

Building an Email List

Acquiring email addresses takes time, but it’s well worth the effort. You’ll need a place to keep the email addresses, so start by setting up an account at MailChimp, Constant Contact, Campaign Monitor or other email service provider. You can usually start free and even send out newsletters for free until your list reaches a certain size.

From where can you acquire email addresses? Well, remember that newsletter signup on your website? Set it up so the addresses go directly to your email service provider. If you ever need to get a list for some reason, most providers offer the means to download the list directly to your computer. Many authors offer a free book as an incentive to get sign-ups. You can also gain addresses from online promotions, such as Facebook parties, and from raffle basket entry forms at book conventions. When you’re just getting started, ask another author in your genre if you can borrow theirs—and then offer a cross-promotion opportunity.

The only time you’ll collect anyone’s snail mail address is if you’re needing to send a contest winner or a beta reader SWAG (stuff we all get), paperback books or greeting cards.

Promote Using a Newsletter

The email service providers offer a number of templates to use when authoring your newsletter. Take a look through the offerings and find one that’s the best visual representation of you. You may find one that’s close and that with a bit of tweaking, will work for you. Add your branding graphics and then start writing. Include an image of your latest book cover, a short blurb about the book (remember, some people will be reading your newsletter on their mobile device), and links to the buy sites. Add an article or feature that’s related to your book. Content types can include photos, data, recipes, comics (be careful of copyright infringement), and blog posts. Give your audience a compelling reason to subscribe, share and return.

How often you send out a newsletter depends on you and how much information you want to share with your list. Some authors only send newsletters when they have a new release while others send out one every week (be careful not to spam). Do what works for you.

Promote Using a Blog

There are so many blogs out there, it’s hard to get discovered. A blog requires regular postings, so if you decide to write one, work with other authors to provide content. Then cross-post with their blogs to extend your readership. Create content that’s consistently interesting, useful and engaging to your audience. Sometimes that means you have to think outside the box.

Promote Using Social Media

If you’re constantly trying to sell-sell-sell your books in social media posts, you’ll find you’ll quickly lose those who “Liked” your page. When you have a release, do send out tweets, post the announcement on your Facebook author page and the book’s page (even if it doesn’t have any “Likes”, people who find the page will see the release information), post a pic of the cover on Instagram, and share your Pin. Take advantage of the cross-promotion opportunities using a ThunderClap or Headstarter campaign. There are a number of Facebook groups you can join to help with these  endeavors—you support their campaigns in exchange for them to support yours to help you reach the required threshold of participants. As a result, you may find authors with whom you can do future cross promotion.

Promote Using Email Promoters

When you don’t yet have a large email list or want to reach potential readers who may not yet know about you, consider “renting” a list by employing an email promoter.

There are so many email promoters who claim to have a large subscriber list, it’s hard to know which one to use and if what you’re paying is worth it. Some are better at free and 99¢ promotions—BookBub Featured Deal rules in  this particular arena, especially for those promoting a 99¢ book—while others don’t require a discount to feature your book (The Fussy Librarian). Costs range from free to $1000 depending on how many subscribers they have in your genre. Most won’t take a book priced higher than $4.99.

Here are just a few to consider:

• BookBub Featured Deal (hard to get, expensive, but well worth it)
• Ebook News Today (ENT)
• kBoards (Chute Technologies)
• The Fussy Librarian (your book has to have 10 reviews of at least 4 stars, but once you’ve had one featured, you can do new releases with no reviews)
• Choosy Bookworm
• Read Freely
• Freebooksy/Bargain Booksy/Red Feather (Written Word Media)
• Hot Zippy (Bargain eBook Hunter, PixelScroll, Romance eBook Deal)
• All Romance ebooks (Featured Titles and Deal of the Day)
• Book Gorilla
• Book-a-licious
• Booktastik
• eBook Soda
• eBookDealoftheDay (UK)

Remember the note about stacking ads? To get the most out of your promotion dollars, use these services to do just that. Schedule several over a period of a couple of weeks and then keep track of your daily sales to determine which ones work the best for you. On the next release (or 90 days later), use just the services that worked the best for your first book and do it again.

Promote Using Advertisements

Since print magazines are slowly disappearing, more and more book advertising is being done online. If you decide to try advertising in an online magazine, focus on the publications your audience reads. Target specifically to people with particular interests, because you’ll want to a high return on your investment (ROI). And be sure your advertisement looks professional! If it looks the least bit amateurish, consider hiring your book cover artist or another designer to do your ads. Remember, you’re promoting your book as well as your brand.

Promote Using SWAG

Some authors will tell you that SWAG never sold a book, but others swear by the fact that people rarely toss bookmarks or the useful freebies they collect at book signings and conventions. Whatever you give away should include your brand. Although it can be specific to a book, you still want your brand front and center. And remember—book-specific SWAG won’t be as useful for the next book, so you may want to come up with a giveaway that will work for you and your brand no matter what book you happen to be promoting.

Now that you have a handle on promotion, it’s time to work on protecting  your work.

Protecting Your Copyright

Although your book is technically copyrighted the moment you started writing it, take the next step and register the copyright. Got to http://copyright.gov. A simple copyright currently costs $35 while a standard copyright (necessary if you’ve included an excerpt to another book in the back) is $55.00. Try to do this within three months of publishing your book.

Fighting Piracy

Argh! Book pirates are out there, posting your books on sites that supposedly allow anyone to download them for free (or in exchange for giving your credit card information). The “legitimate” sites offer DMCA forms you can complete so that the links to your books will be removed, but it’s a bit like playing Wack-a-Mole since your book may come down from one site and then appear the next day on another. You’ll be spending way too much time filling out forms rather than writing if you try to fight every instance of your book appearing on a pirate site. Not all the sites even have your book—most just have a link to a server where your book might or might not be present.

If you’re concerned about piracy (and you should be), a better option is to hire a firm to do the sword fighting for you. DMCA Force and MUSO offer anti-piracy services for a nominal fee, freeing you up to spend your time writing the next book.

Backing Up Your Data

Digital assets are valuable! You’ve spent days, weeks, months—maybe even years—writing your manuscript. Invested time in tracking expenses and royalties, doing research, creating e-books. All it takes is one computer crash, or a lightning storm, or a fire, or a stray cosmic ray for you to lose it all. Don’t take chances!

Set up an automagic backup for your entire computer or tablet.

• Time Machine on the iMac (just requires an external hard drive)
• Windows Backup and Restore
• Employ a cloud-based backup

Manually back up files onto a thumb drive or an external hard drive and store it in a fire-proof box or in your safe deposit box. Swap it out with an update on a regular basis. That way, if the unthinkable happens, you’ll be able to restore your business and get back to writing.

Last Thoughts

Writing is a business, whether you do it as a hobby or to make a living. If you look and act professionally, other will perceive you to be a professional. Mind your P’s and Q’s. Reciprocate. And, finally, when you finish a book, start another.

Be sure to leave any questions in the comments section. We reply quickly! Happy writing!