Book Giveaway still on until October 9

Mid September and I almost typed, mid August, Lol.  Life moves faster than I do a lot but I keep reminding myself to slow down and enjoy the little things. I love the moments holding my granddaughter and picking the apples and blackberries and walnuts. I love writing books but struggle to move beyond a "level three"  I wish I had bookmarked the article that told of five possible outcomes of self publishing.  I didn't read it all in detail but the description of the results of what was called a "level 3 success" described me pretty closely.  It said this author doesn't make a living and isn't a big seller, but is recognized as a writer among peers and sells a lot to their own community and has a small but wonderful group of fans.  This author is glad to have followed her dreams and made some success but is still searching for how to promote her books to the wider world.  Yes. Pretty much.

so as an incentive to get people to look at my newest books and to possibly get a few 4 or 5 star reviews on Amazon or Goodreads 

I am giving 4 copies away of each book, through Goodreads giveaway program and both links are below. 

If you want to see about al 5 of my books then I am also including the link to my Amazon author page

 https://www.goodreads.com/giveaway/show/106796-moonrise?utm_medium=email&utm_source=giveaway_approved

https://www.goodreads.com/giveaway/show/106794-rainbows-around-us?utm_medium=email&utm_source=giveaway_approved

http://www.amazon.com/Dixie-Dawn-Miller-Goode/e/B004458ES2/ref=sr_ntt_srch_lnk_1?qid=1409941162&sr=1-1

I am also busy going to the local schools and I carry my books with me and the experience of reading them to the classes is really fun. I have the fun of seeing the things kids notice as I read and of interacting with the pictures and words in a playful way that isn't possible alone at my computer.

 both my cat and my artist friend here are victims of having me read the picture books out loud to them.  Yes even the cat, as it is easier to hear how the books read out lout and i worry less about how  I sound out loud with any kind of audience than with my voice echoing in an empty room.

So if you are interested in books to read to infants and preschool and kindergarten children, sign up for the giveaway, and if you are interested on fantasy or historical fiction check out my novels as well on Amazon.  Thank you

Talking about the Writing Process with Peers

On October 28th I posted this on my facebook page

Why are peers so much more terrifying than anyone else? I've talked about my books to classes many times, talked at writers conferences, art fairs and libraries but tonight I'm going to talk to a book club of my friends and coworkers and I'm feeling so nervous I might as well be back in Jr. high facing the dreaded ninth grade speech and presentation. People were so intimidated by that someone called in a bomb threat. Of course that was back when bombs in school were pretty much guaranteed to be a false alarm.

and the next morning this was my report to the Backpacker.com site where I chat with friends

Last night I was really shaking in my shoes, too nervous to eat, feeling like I had in 9th grade with a huge class project on erosion to present to the whole 9th grade.  I've talked up my books at lots of places, but this time 11 woman teachers had bought and read the Oregon trail one, and asked me to talk to their book club.  The whole peer thing was way harder than talking in a class of kids or among other writers.

They loved it, and had a lot of questions about the research and kept asking me to write a sequel when the girls had grown up a few more hers, and saying, it would make a great movie, you need to write a script.

So, relieved. 



So I am going to share some of the things I showed them, that I also talked about with the classes I have visited as an author.  In fact a couple of them have now had me booked to come talk to their classes.

I always knew I wanted to be a writer, and when I go to give a talk about being an author, I share the first books I wrote, including one in pencil and crayon from when I was a ten year old. It is called "The Police Twins on Death Island" and includes lots of death and drama and is bound up with yellow yarn through the holes meant for the binder.

and I showed them the first, small font, cramped, and scribbled on manuscript that I printed out an read to some of my family after doing 50,000 words on it in my first NaNoWriMo,  (National Novel Writing Month) and putting it away until I was no longer sick of it, a year later, and then adding another 38,000 words

And then I explained that back in those olden days it cost me $109 to print out four copies of my finished manuscript an then began the expensive and lengthy and ultimately depressing process of mailing out copies to agents and editor who were already swamped with mountains of unasked for manuscripts.

but fortunately times change and it is easier now to attach a document in pdf form to email and get it where it is going cheaply and that same day.  Not any more likely to be a happy result, but quicker and cheaper.  Now that I am 50 and willing to take a chance as an Independent author, and now that it is easier and friendlier to be your own book publisher and marketer I have found that I delight in the experience.  I love designing a book and writing and editing it and sharing it with people around the world.

I love doodling and outlining and watching those simple beginnings grow into a finished book and then head out into the world.  I find it a lot like raising my children.  Once they leave my home, who they interact with and how they are received may reflect back on me at times, but much of it I will never know about, and the reactions that do find there way to me are surprising. The things I love may be overlooked while things I barely noticed are loved.  It is a discovery and an adventure every moment.

That is OK because the books I have loved and that have shaped me, were only faintly binding me to their authors but more about connecting me to the world as one filled with many people with different stories but all capable of being loved and hurt and worthy of compassion.

So now it is November, and another NaNoWriMo finds me digging into the history of two Volcanoes. The next Double Time book is growing this month, while the third Duffy Barkley takes a rest and waits for me to return with fresh eyes, and a rainbow book of colors is starting to take shape as my first picture book.

I am delighted that the students I met through a teacher in the bookclub are participating in a program called being a writer and are hoping I will guide them through the steps to publishing a class collection in the spring.  Life is filled with surprises and the next generation is discovering that as things change, there is still value in books

I'm a Winner, Thank You, Betty Dravis

Betty kindly chose my Duffy Barkley Series as her Favorite Tween Series in her Act 3 of the Betty Awards.

http://www.bettydravis.com/home/2013/8/9/at-long-last-act-3-of-the-betty-awards-miscellaneous-array-o.html

She read the first book and reviewed it very kindly in January of 2012, and I was trilled with the award but even more honored that she still remembered my books after 18 months.

Betty’s review

http://www.amazon.com/review/R6KBLNWB0CVEE/ref=cm_cr_dp_title?ie=UTF8&ASIN=B004478F5M&nodeID=283155&store=books

And while I am at it, let me link again to two other reviews of these books from Lubna, in India

http://www.booksonmyshelves.blogspot.in/2012/05/duffy-barkley-is-not-dog.html

http://booksonmyshelves.blogspot.in/2012/06/duffy-barkley-seek-well-book-2.html

I still remember Betty's Books and have read and reviewed three of them 

and have enjoyed reading her stories of the many interesting people in and out of her life. 

She has met famous people and written Toon fantasy, and written interviews, and written horror, and written about her family, and written a ton of reviews. 

You should honestly check out Betty Dravis' Author Page on Amazon

http://www.amazon.com/Betty-Dravis/e/B002BLJJIU

And now, let me again say Thank you to Betty, 

and then I have to get back to writing, 

Duffy has a third book at 58,000 words and needs me to follow after him and take notes

Free Kindle ebook version of Duffy, AKA Tales of Uhrlin #1

Once again my first Duffy Barkley novel is free on kindle for today through June first

Duffy Barkley is Not a Dog

 kindle http://www.amazon.com/Duffy-Barkley-Tales-Uhrlin-ebook/dp/B004478F5M/ref=pd_sim_kstore_1?ie=UTF8&m=AG56TWVU5XWC2

Dixie Goode Amazon Author Page will tell you more about it and about my other books

Amazon link:  http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B004458ES2

one of the best reviews that book got was not on Amazon but from a book reviewer in India

http://www.booksonmyshelves.blogspot.in/2012/05/duffy-barkley-is-not-dog.html

I am so grateful to the people who have read my books and taken the time to write a review of course.  I am even more grateful for every time I get to talk to kids about what it means to hold on and pursue a dream.

I hope that if you read about poor, Bullied Duffy struggling with his Cerebral Palsy and his crutches and a school shooting, that you will stick with him until the end when he shows that there is a voice singing in the darkness and it will lead you home.

Free Ebooks for Kindle from Me with update on progress

 From Feb. 26 until March 2nd, there will be two of my books available for free kindle Downloads.

Amazon's Dixie Dawn Miller Goode Page has the links! You can view it at:

http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B004458ES2

 Of course it seems crazy to work for years and then give that work away for free when you only ask a bit less than people would pay for a cup of coffee anyway, but once I heard the quote that says every book copy that you get out into the hands of the reading public is like your own personal ambassador to the world, encouraging good-will and getting themselves seen and getting you in the public eye, I saw the logic behind the trend to give away books.

Book Description For Duffy Barkley Is Not a Dog

Remember being with a group of friends where you felt safer and more included than you had ever felt at home, friends you had always wanted, who made you look around with a lump in your throat, wishing you could stop time? They were a lot like the groups in all the popular stories. They were the reason people love MASH, Harry Potter, Narnia, Friends, The Lord of the Rings , etc. They were a group of imperfect, overwhelmed and harassed people who became winners because they didn't have to face the overwhelming odds, alone. Even in the face of dark wizards, popular girls, bad hair days or War, they had each other's back. When one of them had a weakness, another had a strength to balance it out. When one was a jerk, someone else saved the day, and forgave them eventually. Now times are turning more difficult again. The world needs that kind of support. We need a source of encouragement so that we can find a way to be that kind of support when we are needed. As times are dark, people look for a reason to laugh, love and hope again. Duffy Barkley is not a dog, a middle grade fantasy, gives you those friends, that escape, that voice of hope in the darkness. Duffy is alone, handicapped, desperate. He is picked-on, lost, & yet, never defeated. In the most alien of places he finds friends. In the most dire of emergencies he finds courage. In the most evil of villains he finds compassion and a solution. In giving away what he most needs, he gains everything. Duffy, a 9 year old boy with cerebral palsy, survives tragedy in the form of a school shooting in which his younger sister is seriously injured. Falling into a new world, he regains his health but finds himself the focus of historic prophecy. While trying to deny his place in their prophecies he discovers his own abilities & changes his life & that of others in both worlds. He enjoys being physically strong but must give it up to save the villain, and find his way back to save his sister, Izzy.

Book description for Double Time: on The Oregon Trail

The past and present meet on the Oregon Trail when two girls travel the same trail with the same lap desk 152 years apart. Kenyon is traveling in 2002 from Pittsburgh to Salem, OR. Her mother is pregnant and staying behind to close escrow on the house and then flying west to join the family. Kenyon; her 5 year old sister, Melissa and her father are in a Dodge Caravan, with a trailer hitch. Her Grandfather has given her a plain, black polished ebony wooden lap desk lined with a scented wood that still smells faintly of cedar. The box is filled with thick, creamy paper, envelopes, a calling card, a hand mirror, pens and pencils and a small Swiss army knife, postage and an electronic address book. Her Grandfather is not moving with them but plans have been made for him to fly out in December for a visit. Kenyon strongly resents being expected to entertain Melissa at the motels in the evenings. Her father has decided to take the long way and show his girls some of the wonders of this country and Melissa is excited but Kenyon is determined to not have any fun. Traveling in 1850, Della, age 15, has already traveled from Northern Illinois to St. Louis, then a week by steamboat on the Missouri River. She stopped in Independence, MO to prepare for the journey and meet with the wagon train. She left behind her 60 year old grandmother who feels too old to attempt the trip, but who gave her a gift of a wooden lap desk. The desk is filled with paper, a small mirror, wooden handled pens with steel nibs, a metal letter opener, hair pins and a small sewing kit. Her younger brother, Orville, her father, and her pregnant mother are traveling with her. She has been asked to teach the younger children around the campfire in the evenings. What happens when they open the desk to see the other girls journal?

So if you choose to take advantage of the free offer, I hope you tell others about the books, I'd love it if you post a review on Amazon or Goodreads, I'd be happy if you but the Duffy Barkley: Seek Well sequel and Most of all, I hope that you have as much fun reading them as I did writing them