The Cowboy’s Baby is getting a book launch party next Saturday night at the Lockhart library and you’re invited. From 6-7 pm August 7 some of my friends and family and the Dr. Eugene Clark Library will help me celebrate the publication of my first novel. Our party is open to the public. This is in Lockhart, Texas, mind you. We’re close to Austin and San Marcos and Luling and Bastrop. www.lockhartlibrary.org.

We’re serving tasty snacks (including delicious cupcakes from the Baker’s Rack), giving away some twenty hard copies of chapter one, giving away a few free books and maybe even a Kindle. (How do you give away free copies of an electronic book, I hear you ask. Well, we pay you to buy it and take it on your honor that you will. It’s only $2.99).

We’re showing off the book cover poster Molly made for us. And we’re displaying the Kindle application downloaded to three of the library’s computers. The Cowboy’s Baby is right there to read, along with Pride and Prejudice and Treasure Island and more. They look fantastic. There will be no readings and no speeches. Think cocktail party without the booze. Roxanne wants us to set up our Kindle DX and have the computer read TCB to us while we smooze. I don’t know about that.

This book launch party is an example of what a writer’s life entails, and it’s also part of my marketing strategy, which is part of how I wrote and published my first e-book. Generally a book launch would include book signings. Well, this is an electronic book, so there’s nothing to sign.

Honestly, I don’t expect anyone to want my autograph next Saturday, but I’ll sign a piece of paper if wanted; after all, I’m the little girl who once asked for the autograph of the uncle of one of her grade school friends just because he was a soldier. Combat was a hit TV show at the time (this was the sixties) and I was army-crazy, even had the helmet and mess kit set from the show. (Wish I still had them). So I’ll take a pen just in case. This type of marketing used to be handled by traditional publishers, but more and more of  it is now the responsibility of the author on her own, and in the case of a self-published electronic book, it’s all the author’s responsibility.

Writers get out there and sign books and talk to readers. The emergence of electronic books requires some creative thinking to get the same results. Hence the launch party, and the blog, and the new Twitter account. Both The Cowboy’s Baby and I are just getting started. Come out next Saturday and meet us.

The photo in this blog was taken by Roxanne Rix.

This week I read Blockade Billy by Stephen King. It was really short. If you like baseball you’ll like it better than if you don’t. It’s good. www.amazon.com/Blockade-Billy-ebook/dp/B003HKR18Y

I’ve waited a long time to slap the title Rix Cafe American on something of mine (Casablanca, you understand), and as you can see, it’s undergone a bit of a change–it’s Texican now.  This blog is to be mostly a writer’s blog.  Sorry, but it has nothing to do with restaurants or bars (more about that later). It will be about how I write and why, and what I write and read; it will be about the writer’s life as I see it. The level I am at as a writer (in my estimation I’m about second from the bottom of the totem pole of experience and success, there being about five levels) will be relevant to many of you. 

My blog will also be about the Scare The Dickens Out of Us ghost story writing contest and library fundraiser that my sister Roxanne and I originated and coordinate for the Friends of the Dr. Eugene Clark Library.  Our library in Lockhart, Texas is the oldest continuously-in-use library in the state and is an architectural gem. Our contest is in its second year and offers a $1000.00 first prize for the winning ghost story, plus several other money-winning categories. Check it out at www.clarklibraryfriends.com. 

And, from time to time, I’ll blog about things unrelated to writing, like good places to eat in Central Texas (the Cottonseed in Martindale) and interesting things to do (you just missed the corpse flower blooming in Houston, Texas, but the Magic exhibit is still there). There will be guest blogs from other writers and maybe some book give-aways. For grins, go to www.freekibblekat.com. 

All the photos you’ll see here were taken by Roxanne Rix. My sister’s goal is to eventually win the State Fair of Texas photography contest, or die trying. At any rate, it gives us an extra excuse to go to the State Fair each year, something we have not done regularly since we were teenagers or younger. 

Let me introduce myself. I am Gretchen Rix, and Gretchen L. Rix, and Gretchen Lee Rix and I have written a Kindle novel The Cowboy’s Baby. 

www.amazon.com/The-Cowboys-Baby-ebook/dp/B003UYUVZC. 

Really good book I read this week–Revise The World by Brenda W. Clough. 

 www.amazon.com/Revise-The-World-ebook/dp/B002VWLLYO