Showing posts with label Camp Latonka. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Camp Latonka. Show all posts

Happy 68th birthday, Camp Latonka!

Happy 68th birthday, Camp Latonka!

Today (Friday, 6/28), The No-Campfire Girls is being promoted on The Fussy Librarian, an e-book website that can be found here:

https://www.thefussylibrarian.com/

Yes, there's a connection! I don't normally ask you--um, more than once a week--to buy our books. But half the proceeds of this novel continue to go toward the effort to support Camp Latonka, the Missouri Girl Scout facility where Emily camped and then worked for many years. It's listed as a young adult adventure, but I think it could be fun for adult readers, too--and at least the cost is fun, at 99 cents on e-book and $5 in paperback.

If you don't want to subscribe, The No-Campfire Girls can still be found at the same price at, among other places, here:

It's been awhile since I've been able to give Friends of Camp Latonka a donation, and Scout camps continue to get shut down across the country. Please spread the word to everyone you know, especially if you happen to know former Scouts Taylor Swift, Gwyneth Paltrow, Susan Lucci, Abigail Breslin, Dionne Warwick, Katie Couric, Martha Stewart, Mariah Carey, Celine Dion, Dakota Fanning, Barbara Walters, Venus Williams, and Sheryl Crow. They could probably use a fun read, right?
 
 

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Fifteen year old Beth Hamlin is horrified to discover her beloved summer camp must go without campfires this year, due to the fire hazard from a drought. But Beth isn't one to just sit (or swim, or boat, or horseback) around. When her new cabinmate, Cassidy, claims a local Cherokee can do a rain dance, she jumps into action.

All they have to do is trick the Camp Director into letting Running Creek do the dance, avoid the local bully and a flying arrow or two, and keep from getting caught plotting with Cassidy’s firefighter father on a forbidden cell phone. With luck southern Indiana will get a nice, soaking rain, and Camp Inipi can have proper campfires again.

But when things go horribly wrong, the whole area is endangered by a double disaster. Now Beth and her unit may be the only people who can save not only their camp, but everyone in it.
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New Review of The No-Campfire Girls

There's a new review of The No-Campfire Girls up on Amazon:

https://www.amazon.com/review/R39H3834BJOTK7/?_encoding=UTF8&ASIN=B00K3OS35C

I like it, because at no point do they use the term "talentless hack".

Half the proceeds from sales of that book still go toward supporting the Missouri Girl Scout Camp Latonka, and it's only ninety-nine cents for the e-book version, so get your copy right now!

Or, yeah, you could wait until lunchtime, if you're hiding this from the boss. Just don't forget.


Remember, every time you buy a copy, a Girl Scout gets her Fiction Reading Patch. And if they don't make one of those, they should.

https://www.amazon.com/No-Campfire-Girls-Mark-Hunter-ebook/dp/B00K3OS35C

The value of navel lint, or: Girl Scouts cause an e-book breakout

I had a business plan all ready to go when we published The No-Campfire Girls, and it was, if I do say so myself, fool-proof:

First, we tell everyone half the proceeds to go a good and worthy cause, and that much of the other half go toward advertising that good and worthy cause.

Second, we set the e-book price at only 99 cents and, even better, the print book at just five dollars. Hey, you can find 99 cents in your navel lint collection. (It's up to you to dig it out.) Not only that, but these days 99 cents worth of navel lint is worth five bucks, so there you go.

Third, we spread the word among Girl Scouts, since that good cause was to support a Girl Scout camp. There are about two and a half million Girl Scouts in America today. So the Scouts of Camp Latonka would spread the word about this cool new young adult novel to other Scouts in Missouri, who get the word out through the Midwest, and before you know it I'm on Oprah's book list. No, I have no idea of Oprah was a Girl Scout, but she would know a fun read when she sees one.

I do sneak in a book cover, every now and then.
But speaking of Oprah, the next step would be to have The No-Campfire Girls endorsed by famous Girl Scouts. I may only remember a few Taylor Swift songs, but I know a former Scout when I see one.

By which I mean, I looked it up.

 So pretty soon Swift, Gwyneth Paltrow, Susan Lucci, Abigail Breslin, Dionne Warwick, Katie Couric, Martha Stewart, Mariah Carey ... let me take a breath ... Celine Dion, Dakota Fanning, Barbara Walters, Venus Williams, and my favorite, Sheryl Crow, are all telling their fans, "Buy a book and save a camp!" (trademark pending) ... "Oh, and enjoy reading!"

According to my math, these steps would result in 8,914,976 sales. If every one of those buyers likes the book, that in turn will result in approximately 475 book reviews. Since online publicity depends so much on book reviews these days, that many should result in at least another ten billion sales.

I confess, my calculator app froze up a few steps earlier, so that's some quick and dirty napkin calculations that I had to read off my face in the mirror, after an unfortunate chocolate mishap. But I think it's a fair approximation.

So, Girl Scout Camp Latonka is saved, and I see a book series in my future!

Well, I did. The plan stalled along the way, possibly during the "going viral" stage. Or maybe I should have led with, "It's a fun, story--really it is". But I'm working on it.

And, just in case, I've already got a sequel planned out ... maybe I'll put in a cute puppy.



(Oh yeah, I almost forgot, which defeats the purpose: Find The No-Campfire Girls and our other books at www.markrhunter.com or https://www.amazon.com/Mark-R-Hunter/e/B0058CL6OO.)

Girl Scouts, or coffee? I vote books.

The No-Campfire Girls was featured Sunday on the Fussy Librarian daily newsletter; the site's all about books of various genres, and can be found here:

http://www.thefussylibrarian.com/

It costs a few bucks to do the ad, but it did bring sales. The Amazon ranking for The No-Campfire Girls rose from just over three million to 41,341 that day, which is its highest Kindle ranking, so the extra effort clearly did something.

That's especially important because half the proceeds for the book go to support my wife's Girl Scout Camp Latonka, in Missouri. (Not "former" because once a Scout, always a Scout.) This is our second such effort, with the proceeds from another book, Smoky Days and Sleepless Nights, going to the Albion Volunteer Fire Department.

And they don't get charged for the advertising!

This is also why I didn't set The No-Campfire Girls to free: Can't raise funds that way. Not to mention the e-book is already only 99 cents. You can even pick up the print version for just five bucks: That's a lot of entertainment, for the price of an extra small plain black Starbucks coffee.

I'd planned to do a whole promotion thing around the Fussy Librarian appearance, with the idea of getting it as far up the rankings as possible. But my mother landed in the hospital (she's out now) and some other things happened, so now I'm going to launch that effort afterward instead, for about a week. I don't self-promote nearly as much as I probably should, so I think my readers will forgive me, especially when it comes to a good cause.

What will my extra promotion effort entail? In the immortal words of Indiana Jones, I dunno--I'm making this up as I go along. But look for more about the book later, and until then please support the Girls Scouts by picking it up on our website at www.MarkRHunter.com, or over on our Amazon page:
https://www.amazon.com/-/e/B0058CL6OO


New Review of The No-Campfire Girls



Authors live off reviews—we sure can’t live off our writer’s income!—and I got a really nice one of The No-Campfire Girls, to usher in the new year:


This novel, along with Smoky Days and Sleepless Nights, are our books that support good causes beyond my retirement fund. You can, of course, find them in places such as:


Remember, every time you leave a book review, an angel gets his wings … then he flies away and no longer leaves a carbon footprint. Save the planet: Leave a review.


New review of The No-Campfire Girls



I’m a little late passing it on, but I did indeed get a review this month of The No-Campfire Girls. As all fourteen of my regular readers know, half the proceeds from sales of this YA humor-adventure story go to support Girl Scout Camp Latonka in Missouri.

Spoiler alert: I think they liked it.




Campfire Review



We closed out 2015 with a great review of The No-Campfire Girls:
Very nice, and we may see main character Beth and her family in another story sometime soon! I always have plans, see. Meanwhile, don’t forget that half the profits for sales of The No-Campfire Girls go toward the continued operation of Camp Latonka, Emily’s former Girl Scout camp in Missouri. (The other half go toward writing the next book.)
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