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Friday, 21 March 2025

SURREAL - I'M BEING READ ALL OVER (THE WESTERN HEMISPHERE)!

SURREAL - 
I'M BEING READ ALL OVER 
(THE WESTERN HEMISPHERE)!



I'm not one to boast. I'm a modest person. Don't like to show off. Never have been. I've been told umpteen times that it's time to tell it as it is. Okay.

It feels surreal and I'm highly bemused. All those people (not just friends and family) globally (UK, Canada and the US - it might as well be all over the world) reading the words I created in response to an idea I formed in my teens as a result of the lack of decent roles for women in westerns.

Very strange feeling, all those readers.

I began writing over intermittent periods between starting my family forty years ago, until a year and a half ago. With the help of my brilliant PA hubby, I self-published Alias Jeannie Delaney - Book 1 - Go West, Girl!. A year later I published Book 2 - The Outlaw's Return. I'm currently editing Book 3 (doing well so far) which will be launched this summer. 

We - PA hubby, daughter and son - knew the story would sell, but not how well it would sell. They knew that I would sell to family and friends out of the kindness of their hearts, and a smattering of readers through Amazon, and maybe manage to sell two hundred and fifty copies, which seems to be the average number that self-published books manage, but when I reached well over a thousand readers...  Plus I have a growing number of reviews, most of them five star. I should be/am bloody proud of myself. 

My writing has improved immeasurably over the years - I jolly well hope so! 😄 I look back at my writing from when I first started and it's good but so... school girly (my apologies to all schoolgirls). Even only a few years ago I was still improving. The truth is it never stops. One's writing improves every time one puts quill to parchment or fingers to keyboard. 


My successful author daughter writes period corset rippers and has made US best seller lists (Americans love British history!). We're delighted. It felt surreal to us that she had made it as an author. So imagine how I feel now that my novels are reaching the sweaty palms of readers in the western hemisphere. Surreal doesn't cut it. I'm bemused, mostly. 

We've been using Facebook advertising and my reader number continues to rise. I'm incredibly pleased (not when I'm mentally down, which is frequent, but I'm working on that) because my very nich-ey subject matter won't appeal to everyone. Of course it won't. A life story of a dynamic pants-wearing cowgirl whose gun is the fastest west of the Mississippi, and who is a magnificent lover to both men and women, isn't going to hack it for a whole lotta people. Not their mug of snake bite indeed. 

Traditional westerners who like their male heroes leaving their women toiling at home are highly likely not to enjoy it. People who don't approve of my subject matter won't like it. Never mind. On the subject of negativity, Oscar Wilde quoted: "There's only one thing worse than being talked about, and that's not being talked about." 😄 Love it! I can also use that negativity to my advantage, marketing wise. There are thousands of people who do enjoy it. People who identify as LGBTQ+, women who love and crave a strong female protagonist, particularly in a western, lovers of westerns with a twist. And so forth. But no - we didn't expect it to reach these dizzy heights. 

Several things have contributed towards its success. Apparently a quality read (so my editor told me - the first professional to assure me of that). Striking cover designs. I'm an artist so collaborated with my designer, and the illustrations are based on images I'd created to visualise Jeannie. Book 2 - The Outlaw's Return used an image I made in my school's common room between O'Level exams (as they were then) back in 1969, the year Butch Cassidy & the Sundance Kid came out in cinemas. (Incidentally that film was a huge influence to me, providing humour and a great story. Another reason I seem to be doing well is consistent promotion. Hubby and I also have the advantage of maturity, experience and wisdom. He was a businessman and I worked in advertising studios. 

The story covers half a lifetime and each novel is lengthy (don't ask me how long, I was too busy writing to think about that, but they're about an inch thick). Slowly and surely I'm gaining exposure. It will take time and I'm not patient. I've been featured in a couple of blogs run by acquaintances - one's a writer, the other is an all-round creative. The other feature is on a Reader's Magnet Festival of Storytellers YouTube clip. The links are below.

On that note, thank you so much for dropping in! 



 


A WILD WEST LIVING HISTORY 
EVENT MANY YEARS AGO -
MEAN & MOODY.



Dynamic pants-wearing cowgirl Jeannie Morgan is tomboy beautiful and the fastest gun west of the Mississippi - her snake strike speed and aim are legendary. Her extraordinary sexuality is as fluid as a miner's whiskey, and men and women alike enjoy the magnificence of her love making.

Jeannie must navigate the grit and sweat of the wild frontier and face her desires and identity through deadly confrontations as she seeks acceptance in this big, bad world and kill or be killed. She takes on roles deemed only suitable for men, but her powerful persona and lethal gun make her the perfect candidate. Will she find what she seeks - acknowledgement and acceptance? Or will her tomboy beauty, her powerful persona and her lethal gun finally be the death of her?

IF YOU'VE READ & ENJOYED THE STORY SO FAR, I'D BE INCREDIBLY GRATEFUL IF YOU COULD LEAVE A POSITIVE REVIEW ON AMAZON. THANK YOU SO MUCH!



Book 2 The Outlaw's Return



MY ORIGINAL DRAWINGS OF 
JEANNIE







TWO CHAPTER SAMPLES
BOOK 1 



















BOOK 2 










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