The Story Behind Six-Gun Salad

by Richard Prosch

From an everyday greeting as people pass each other on the street, to organized community efforts, small town America often overflows with an abundance of kindness and generosity. But like anywhere else, it can be rife with contention, often hidden, often held tight just below the surface until one wrong word or action sets off a powder keg of enmity. 

When guns are involved, bad feelings can turn deadly in the space of a heartbeat.

You don't have to follow the news closely to know there's been a lot of media coverage about racial tension. 

Students of history know this is nothing new. 

The countries of origin may change, but even in the old west, old-country grudges kept new generations at each others' throats.

All of these thoughts came together writing my new Jo Harper story, SIX-GUN SALAD from Painted Pony Books. Community picnics, but arguments in the street. Individuals working to get along while others held to old their old cultural bias. 

Guns to bring destruction. Or guns to bring justice.

It all got tossed together in the bowl and served up as danger for Jo, Frog and Abby, and hopefully, a reminder of the best and worst of our natures --qualities that often aren't what they might first seem to be. 

Working through the contradictions is important for young and old alike. Another reason I like to think of these stories as good for all ages.

Blurb

Would you cry over spilled potato salad? Would you risk your life for it? Jo Harper can't contain her frustration when a determined Danish lawyer and a hard-headed German farmer get ready to square off with guns over just that.

It's an Elizabethan tragedy-in-the-making unless Jo, Frog and Abby can unravel the threads of a dangerous plot that threatens to tear apart not just two families, but the entire town of Willowby, Wyoming.

Excerpt

"Karl! Karl, that's enough."

To his credit, Svensen listened to his wife and backed away from Schultz. But not before delivering another rotten threat.

"Stay away from us, Kraut. Stay away from my family, away from my house and business. We don't need your kind."

But Schultz wasn't having it.

He stood up with a clumsy stagger and, brushing himself off, delivered a counter-threat.

"You are all mouth and all knuckles because you are bigger than me. But how are you with a gun, counselor? Let me get my gun and we'll see who is better."

Jo thought she saw where Mr. Schultz was going, and though she was an innocent bystander, she was also Abby Drake's deputy constable. She ran between the men.

"Go home, Mr. Schultz. Go home, before you say something you'll regret."

"Stay out of this, Jo," said Svensen, reaching out to brush her aside.

Jo sidestepped the lawyer's reach and again tried to appeal to Schultz.

"Think of your family, sir. Think about Buster. You don't want to do this."

For the first time that night, Schultz seemed to see Jo, really see her, and the look in his eyes didn't belong to a bleary-headed drunk, but to a hurt man hoping to regain his pride.

"I have to, Jo. Sometimes, a man has to do these things."

Jo let Schultz gently push her aside. He stood tall and, in front of her and Mrs. Svensen, said, "Tuesday morning. Seven o-clock in front of the Filter Building. Find a weapon, you scurvy Dane. Find a weapon and prepare to pay the price for your insults."

It wasn't going to be such a quiet week, after all.

Schultz had just challenged the lawyer to a gunfight!

 Leave a comment for a chance at a free copy of Richard Prosch's Six-Gun Salad.

 Buy Links  B&N Nook   Amazon   Smashwords    Kobo

Meanwhile, the first book in the Jo Harper series, WAITING FOR A COMET, is free for Kindle until August 14.

After growing up on a Nebraska farm, Richard Prosch worked as a professional writer, artist, and teacher in Wyoming, South Carolina, and Missouri. His western crime fiction captures the fleeting history and lonely frontier stories of his youth where characters aren’t always what they seem, and the windburned landscapes are filled with swift, deadly danger. Read more at www.RichardProsch.com

VALENTINE'S DAY NEW RELEASE AND GIVEAWAY OF HIDDEN TRAILS by Cheryl Pierson

I’ve got a new release that hit the shelves last week just before Valentine's Day! Hidden Trails is my latest western historical novella. This was a fun little novella to work on because it was something I hadn't dealt with before. Though I write a lot of stories with heroes who are of mixed heritage--half white/half Indian, or half white/half Hispanic, I've never written a story with a heroine quite like Valentine Reneau.

Valentine's mother was a slave, a beautiful octoroon, whose cruel master sold her off in a fit of drunken pique--luckily for her! She is able to marry and make a new life for herself, but there is always the uneasy fear that her former owner might find her--even though the Civil War has ended, and she is free. When Valentine is old enough to understand, her stepfather explains it to her, and so begins her burden of constantly looking over her shoulder, as well.

Now that Valentine's on her own, she has to protect herself. The old fear is there, and it's very real. But Valentine isn't alone any longer.

Levi Connor rides into her life with a bullet in his leg, half dead from cold, hunger and blood loss. Once Valentine saves him, will he ride on, or will he stay and help her face her nightmare-turned-reality--the man she must acknowledge as her father?

Valentine intrigues me because I don't know where she came from in my imagination. I "met" her walking along the road in the blizzard, carrying a wounded collie pup. I just knew she was the one for Levi. Have you ever read a story with an unlikely love match that stuck in your mind? I always am curious about what makes one person fall madly in love with another--especially when the odds are stacked against them.

There's lots of excitement and action—and a Valentine’s Day hope for new love in this novella! Leave a comment to be entered to win a copy of HIDDEN TRAILS today!

BLURB:
Levi Connor has never run from anything in his life, and he doesn’t intend to start now. After killing the two bandits who’d followed him into Indian Territory, he finds himself wounded and riding through a blinding February snowstorm. With no purpose ahead of him and no past to guide him, he discovers a reason to exist—the beautiful mixed-blood girl who takes him in and heals him.

Valentine Reneau lives in fear that her father will find her someday in the heart of Indian Territory and force her to return to Mississippi to take her mother’s place—in every way. She knows her time has run out when a stranger shows up on her land with two hired guns—and the devil in his plans.

With some unlikely help, Valentine must try to escape the slave’s fate that her mother left behind so many years before. Will Levi kill for a woman he barely knows? The chips are down, the guns blaze, and everything finally comes clear along these HIDDEN TRAILS…but who’ll be left alive?

EXCERPT:

She pulled the covers away so she could see his leg. Without saying anything more, she took the lantern from the nightstand and turned up the wick, holding it close to the wound.

“I better get to this,” she said under her breath. Then, she glanced up to meet his gaze. “How long have you been carrying this bullet? And what are you running from?”

Levi grimaced as she turned her attention back to the wound and prodded at it.

“Three days. And I ain’t runnin’, ma’am. A Connor don’t run.”

“And you are a Connor, I take it?”

“Levi Connor. Didn’t get a chance to introduce myself earlier,” he muttered, letting go a sharp breath as she laid a warm, wet cloth over the wound.

“Need to get it cleaned up,” she said. “I don’t want to hurt you, but it can’t be helped. Taking out a bullet is always painful, but when it’s been in there for three days—”

“I know.” He waved a hand dismissively. “I’m just obliged to you—and I’ll make it up to you—for bein’ such a bother.”

She shook her head. “No bother. Truly. My father was a doctor, so I do know a little about what I’m doing.”

Levi breathed a slow sigh of relief. This wasn’t his first bullet hole. But thank God, he’d ended up here, with a beautiful young woman who seemed capable of treating him. There had been times before when he would have prayed to be in this circumstance, rather than some of the ones he’d found himself in.

Gentle hands ministered to him, but he suddenly remembered the very delicate location of the bullet hole and tried to re-cover himself.

“Mr. Connor, I’ve seen everything you have—and many others just like it,” Valentine said matter-of-factly. “I can’t very well remove a bullet from a wound I can’t see.” She snatched the covers from his hand and threw them back to his side. “You’re making it harder for me to be able to do what I need to.”

“In a week or two, I’d pay money for you to flip those covers away like that,” Levi answered.
She bent a long, hard look on him. “I’m not for sale, Mr. Connor. Not at any price. You want to keep riding?”

Levi shook his head. “Forget I said that, Valentine. Just the pain and the…damn humiliation talkin’. I didn’t mean it.”

A slow smile quirked her lips. “I can’t imagine you ever being embarrassed.”
“Believe it or not, I was raised a gentleman, ma’am.”

“I believe it, Mr. Connor. I do believe it.” Her voice was soft and sincere, and full of loss for things Levi didn’t understand.

But just then, she pulled the wound open and probed for the bullet, and the pain stripped everything else away from him. There was nothing in Levi’s consciousness but Valentine and her tweezers, delving into the bloody hole in his leg. He swallowed back the cry that threatened to bring the roof down, forcing it away.

If you can't wait to see if you won, here's the Amazon buy link!
http://www.amazon.com/Hidden-Trails-Cheryl-Pierson-ebook/dp/B00T235K92/ref=pd_sim_kstore_2?ie=UTF8&refRID=16D3YSJFEK4WEP34SH6V

Self Publishing 101 - Getting Your Book to Sell

You’ve written a wonderful novel, but it’s not selling.  Sound familiar? There are several things you can do to get your novel or novels to sell better.

Have you overpriced your ebook? There are several

schools of thought on this. One, you want to be taken as a professional, so you don’t want to give away your book, but until you have a name, you’re not going to sell very many $6.99 or $8.99 novels. The sweet spot for e-book prices seems to be $2.99.  This keeps your profits in the 70% range, but it’s easily affordable to readers.

 

Now you have several books for sale at $2.99, you know they’re good books, but they’re still not selling like they should.  First you’ll want to be sure to list all your books in the back of the books with links.  Make it easy for the reader to buy more of your books.  Now slash the price of one of those books to 99¢.  Yes, your profit will drop considerably per book, but you’re trying to drum up readers. At 35% profit at that price you may not make a lot on this book, but you will sell many more books.  If readers like your work, they will then start buying that $2.99 backstock. WF recently did this with Frank Roderus’ Leaving Kansas and the results have been fantastic. This week we’re adding Clay More’s Double Dealing at Dirtville to the 99 cent list. A great bargain for a fun western. If you want to be extra kind, give him a review when you finish. Authors need those reviews.

Okay, you tried the 99 cent trick, but you need more reviews and readers for your other books. There is one more price trick you can try. Make the book a Kindle Select, which means you won’t be able to sell it as an e-book anywhere else, but you can schedule it for free 5 days out of every 90 days.

Now you’ve done this and your sales have increased, and you even have 10 or more reviews. Things are looking pretty good. There is one more trick. There are several book promotional sites you can now use.  Some charge a flat fee while others charge according to how many books you sold. WF recently used EReader News Today which charges according to sales. We dropped the price to 99 cents on West of the Big River: The Artist by Jackson Lowry. When the book had 10 reviews, we put an ad here and sales jumped considerably. 

Right now we have Wind River by James Reasoner and Livia J. Washburn which picked up it’s 10+ reviews during its 99 cent level and is now an Amazon Select and free through February 4th.  We advertised Wind River at BookBub during this giveaway. BookBub charges a flat fee, but a friend recently gave away 19,000 copies of one of his books.  That increased the sales of his other books considerably. Go get your free copy of Wind River by following the link on the book title.

These are just a few tips for getting the word out that you have a novel you think readers would like.

What else can you do?  Get your name out there.  Facebook, blogs, guest blogs, giveaways, Twitter, Goodreads, Yahoo Groups, comment on others.  Get that name in the public eye.  You want reviews, review books yourself. If I read a book I really like, I try to give it a review.  Amazon won't always allow me to since I publish so many people, but I try.  And I'll talk about their books elsewhere.  Even if it's just a comment on Facebook.  Talk up others, and they'll be more likely to remember your name when they're looking for a new book to read.  Let's face it, some of the biggest readers are writers.  We love books.