The quarantine has changed the way we do things this year, and one of those changes has been having my kids at home. All. The. Time. It's been nice to spend so much time with them, but we had to find things to do inside the house, which has included a lot of Netflix and Disney+. 
While my daughter and I finished all of Supernatural, my son and I went with a slightly younger and, well, cheesier direction by watching a LOT of Disney Channel shows.
Tomorrow night we'll finish Hannah Montana for the umpteenth time, and tonight I was thinking about why people wouldn't figure out Miley Stewart and Hannah Montana aren't the same person. Sure she has the wig, but people would see through that as well as her dad's mustache and Lola's bright colored hair.
Right?
No?
So then I thought about other characters who have two identities.

You get the picture. (Get it? Because there were pictures. Ahem. Sorry). Anyway, the more I thought about it, the more I realized that it wasn't about the wig or the glasses on Clark Kent. 
It was everything.
They hold themselves differently. They dress differently. Hannah loves bright colors, glitter on everything, tiny skirts, flashy jackets, and so on. Miley does her best to stay in the background and survive high school. She's silly, gets into all kinds of trouble, and is completely awkward. SOMETIMES Miley will sneak into Hannah, but it doesn't usually go the other way around.
Hannah is her brand to sell her music, and a way for Miley to remain "normal," which in turn is MILEY'S brand. 
Superman and Clark Kent are the same way. Sure, Superman can lift buses, fly, and stop bullets, but really Clark can do that as well. I mean, they're the same person, right? So what is it that keeps people from knowing they're the same person?
It's not the glasses.
No, really, it's not.
Think about it again. Superman is not afraid of anything, man of steel. Clark is nervous, stays in the background, and even though he can scoop everyone else on the Superman stories, he stays unpopular with the chief because he doesn't show that he'll be more than a simple photographer. 
Superman is the brand everyone knows, but Clark is his own brand. It's his 'safe' brand.
Hulk? Well, he's a whole different story. Got hit with gamma rays so he comes out when Banner is mad, yada, yada, yada. BUT there's still something there for me. I watched all three recent Hulk movies. Know which one I loved? Well, they're in the above pictures, so I assume you can probably guess. Mark Ruffalo brought humor and sadness to the Hulk and helped me love him when I never thought I could. Especially after the countless nightmares I had of a giant hulk coming after me when I was a kid. *shudder*
So what does that have to do with us as writers/bloggers/people in general?
Think about it for a second.
You don't want to annoy your friends and neighbors with your books, so you sit silently waiting for someone—anyone to find it among the thousands. If you're NOT that person, congratulations, you win the world. No, seriously. I'm impressed. For the rest of us, we have to figure out a way to get our name out there while still being the introverts that no one seems to see.
Is it just me that feels like that? Maybe.
Sooooo. Let's change that.
Let's hulk up, pull on our capes, and grab our sparkly microphones. We're going to make ourselves a brand. 
Yes, you. I'm talking to you especially.
You wrote a book. I can guarantee most of your friends and neighbors can't say the same thing. And even if they can, who cares? We're talking about you. That book is your baby. You've worked countless hours agonizing over it, editing it, finding the perfect cover. So do you and your book a favor and show it off!
Please  PLEASE understand I'm not telling you to spam everyone on your friend's list. The fastest way for me to delete a friend is to have them try to sell me their products through messenger. 
What I'm trying to say is, use your inner sparkle. Or cape. Or, uh, Hulk up if you want. Find the person YOU are and make a statement.
Love bright colors? Sweet. Use them. More of a fan of pastels? Those are awesome too.
Love bold fonts? Good. Love curly fonts? Those are awesome too. In fact, find a little of both. It'll help.
Textures, colors, images that remind you of YOU or your books. Anything that says YOU.
Now comes the fun/hard/important part. Use them everywhere. When you send out newsletters, use those colors and fonts and pictures that are YOU. That reflect you AND your books. Have those same colors on your website. When you share things on social media, try to find away to tie them together.
Why?
Because those are how you show YOU without having to sell your soul for sales. People will see those colors and fonts and images and think of you. That's what you want. And the more they see it, they more they think of you, and the more they look up your products.
But Jaclyn, what happens if I grow out of that brand? Well, person I don't know, I'm going to tell you my own story, but first a Hannah Montana story.
When Miley and her dad decided to create Hannah Montana, she was young. Twelve, I believe. It was the easiest way to keep her out of the spotlight, and it worked. But by season four, Miley had changed. Real life things were beginning to happen. A boy who was caught between Miley and Hannah, college admissions that wouldn't take her because she hadn't done extracurriculars—even though she was selling out stadiums. You get the picture.
When I started writing, I was all about four leaf clover everything. My books were about leprechauns, so I went all out with the green, including my hair. But then I started writing other series, and broke into the romance genre where it didn't feel quite right. A year later, I decided to split into two people. Yes, I AM two people. Jaclyn Weist, YA fantasy and romance writer. Jaclyn Hardy, Romance writer. 
I HAD to break them up. It was too hard for me to brand my fantasy without bleeding into the romance and vice versa. It's been SO nice to have two completely different pen names because they're two completely different worlds.
But then. 
I started a Pinterest class. And even though I'd learned branding countless times before, I couldn't figure out how to make me ME I didn't know what I liked. I was even shocked when I realized half my friends thought my favorite color is blue! It's not! My hair is just that color half the time, and that's what I wear if I'm not wearing black.
I think that should have been my first clue...
And then suddenly this happened:

And you know what? For the very first time in the seven years since I published my first book, I felt like ME. For both of them. I found the fonts, the colors, the images that were ME. I could have cried. (Okay, I probably did. I mean, I just cried during Hannah Montana).
For the first time, I stepped away from my awkward introvert me and grabbed my sparkly microphone, cape, tiara (Hey, it's mine), and okay, so I didn't turn into Hulk, but it's ME. I can now share those images everywhere and people will see them and think of ME. 
Anyway, my point is, things can change. And that's okay. Make them subtle so you don't blindside your readers. Change your colors or fonts to match who you've become. It's okay. I may not use four leaf clovers in everything I do now, but my hair is still blue/green, I still get all St-Patrick's-Dayed up (totally a word) every March, and people still know me for that. I've just morphed into who I really am and what best represents my books.
Now, go forth and conquer!

It's already halfway through June, and all our school sports are up and running. With precautions of course. I have a son in marching band, a son in football, and a daughter in volleyball. And that's just my high schoolers! My two youngest made their state soccer teams. AND we just found out our oldest may get a college scholarship for gaming and basketball at a school back east. It would be a dream come true for him if it happens, but we're still waiting!
We also had news that Steve (my hubby) would be let go at his job due to cutbacks from all the economic fun. But he has a few interviews this week, so we're hopefully he won't be jobless for long. 
Meanwhile, I started a page on Redbubble with T-shirt designs and became a Tupperware consultant. If you love Tupperware, I'm actually doing a party right now hosted by Kirsten Osborne. You can join it here. 
But don't worry, I'm also writing! Between setting up those things, getting my Pinterest site all pretty, and chasing kids, I've been writing The Grocer's Bride. I've had two readers keeping up with editing while I write and they're loving it, so that makes me happy! 
I'm hoping to have it done by the end of the week so edits can happen. I'd love to have it out by the end of next week. Let's hope no other wrenches get thrown in my way!!
So what about you? What have you been up to this summer? What books are you reading? What is your favorite movie you've seen this year? What show are you bingeing on Netflix? I'd love to know! 
Me? I'm busy collecting books from my childhood. Well, from high school Do you remember these?

​These and another series are the reason I fell in love with romance books (pun intended). They're SO good! And they had some awesome history in them, which was even cooler. They had everything. Love, conflict, having to decide between two loves. Anyway, I found some for about $3 on alibris.com, so I grabbed four of them with my royalties last month. I can't wait to reread them. 
This one is my absolute favorite book and part of the other series I'd devour. I read it I don't know how many times in high school, and when I went back to my high school to see if I could get the title and author so I could buy one, the librarian gave it to me! 

Nothing gets to me like being told something won't work, when I know there has to be a way to make it happen. It's a trait I learned from my mom and her family line, and it's one I hope I never lose.

So when I couldn't find anywhere that would teach me how to allow a Weebly or a Wix site to be synced with Pinterest and especially how to make rich pins, I was determined to learn. It took several hours to figure out Weebly, but as soon as I plugged in the code correctly, I was able to add the pins to all of my other pages within an hour. If you look through my site , that's a lot of pages... Anyway, then I tried the same thing with Wix for our arts council website and it was even harder to find. Every site I went to said that Wix doesn't support it, and I knew there *had* to be a way. So I figured it out!

All right, here we go! (If you want Weebly's instructions, I have a blog post for that as well!)

First, you want to be in your Pinterest settings and click on Claim website. It will have you upload HTML. Grab that code, and then move over to your Weebly site.
​
Sign in to your account and go to your dashboard. Once there, Scroll down to Settings. 

Scroll down to where you get to tracking and analytics.

In the right hand corner, click on + New Tool and then you want to click on Custom.
You're going to paste the code from Pinterest where it says 'paste the code snippet.'
You can name it as "claim site" or whatever, but I just left mine as custom for this one.

Once you've entered it, publish your page. Then go back to Pinterest and hit Submit. Then Pinterest takes care of the rest for claiming your site! Easy peasy, right?
Now on to rich pins.
I searched through the whole site, checked all kinds of web pages that said Wix can't have rich pins, and then I poked around on the site before finding where I could enter the code.
And guess what? When I went back to do the tutorial, I realized that it's actually easier than I thought it was when I did it the first time!!
As in, take everything I just wrote for claiming your site, rinse, and repeat! Go into your dashboard, settings, tracking and analytics, then +new tool.

Here's where it changes. This time you're going to enter different code. When I got the code from Pinterest I was really confused until I experimented and put my own info into the code and boom. It worked! I wanted to jump and cry and evil laugh because I did it!
 
<meta property="og:type" content="article" />
    <meta property="og:title" content="My Secret Crush Box Set 1-3" />
    <meta property="og:description" content="Three fun holiday stories of new love" /><metaproperty="og:url"content="https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B087BJCQYK?tag=jachar-20/> <meta property="og:site_name" content="amazon.com" />
    <meta property="article:published_time" content="2020-04-19T00:01:56+00:00" />
    <meta property="article:author" content="Jaclyn Weist" />

1. Where My Secret Crush Box Set 1-3 is, you're going to put the title of your book or article, etc into that spot. Make sure to keep the quotation marks in the code!
2. Where it says 'three fun holiday stories of new love' is you'd put a short description of your book or article (Keep the quotes!)
3. Where my amazon link is, you'd put your link (Amazon, your article, whatever - keep the quotes!). 
4. Amazon.com would become wherever you want them to link to (usually Amazon unless you have your own store on your site).
5. published_time was the date my book was published on amazon. You can put that or the day your article was published, etc.
6. And of course, the author would be you.

Okay, now your code is set! I named this set of code "rich pins" so I'd remember what it was, then chose the pages I wanted to have set as rich pins. Since this was for my arts council page, I wanted to make sure all the directories, events, and branches had rich pins for them. And you want the code to be in the header code.

Once that's done, click apply. 

Last step and it's a big one. You want to make sure those pins worked!
Go to this site here to validate your pins. You're going to put the link to one of the pages you added the rich pin to into that bar and click validate. And voila! You have rich pins for Wix!

​Questions? Feel free to ask!

Nothing gets to me like being told something won't work, when I know there has to be a way to make it happen. It's a trait I learned from my mom and her family line, and it's one I hope I never lose.

So when I couldn't find anywhere that would teach me how to allow a Weebly or a Wix site to be synced with Pinterest and especially how to make rich pins, I was determined to learn. It took several hours to figure out Weebly, but as soon as I plugged in the code correctly, I was able to add the pins to all of my other pages within an hour. If you look through my site , that's a lot of pages... Anyway, then I tried the same thing with Wix and it was even harder to find. Every site I went to said that Wix doesn't support it, and I knew there *had* to be a way. So I figured it out!

First I'll set up Weebly since that's the site my author pages are on. Then I'll do another for Wix.

All right, here we go!
First, you want to be in your Pinterest settings and click on Claim website. It will have you upload HTML. Grab that code, and then move over to your Weebly site.
​
Sign in to your account and go to edit site.
​

Go to your Settings tab at the top of the page and click, then go to your SEO setting on the left hand side of the screen.

Scroll down until you see the header option and enter this code: 
<metaname="p:domain_verify"content="8819539de7a198fe1d8a3d7e0bab1bdb”/>
Hit publish.
 Once you've hit publish, go back to Pinterest and click submit. Pinterest will then check to make sure everything is correct. And your site should be good to go! If there's an issue, go back and make sure you have the correct code uploaded, etc.

Now that your website is claimed, you want to set up your rich pins. These are great to have because they are YOUR pins, they look nicer, and Pinterest likes them better than other pins. And we want that! 
​
Once you're on the dashboard to edit your site, click on pages, then go to the page you want the rich pin for (I did all of mine, but I'm an overachiever ...) and click on SEO settings under the Header.

We're going to scroll down in those settings to where the header option is (I don't know why the header is at the bottom, but whatever).

Now here's where I was REALLY confused, but it turns out it's actually super easy! Pinterest provides this code, but then I experimented and put my own info into the code and boom. It worked! I wanted to jump and cry and evil laugh because I did it!
 
<meta property="og:type" content="article" />
    <meta property="og:title" content="My Secret Crush Box Set 1-3" />
    <meta property="og:description" content="Three fun holiday stories of new love" /><metaproperty="og:url"content="https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B087BJCQYK?tag=jachar-20/> <meta property="og:site_name" content="amazon.com" />
    <meta property="article:published_time" content="2020-04-19T00:01:56+00:00" />
    <meta property="article:author" content="Jaclyn Weist" />

Okay, so there's one more step, but really, it's that easy. I did it on every page since each page is a different book. Pinterest SHOULD pick up all of your site with one pin, but again I'm an overachiever AND I'm super paranoid so I wanted to make sure they all worked.

Anyway, go to this site here to validate your pins. You're going to put the link to one of the pages you added the rich pin to into that bar and click validate. And voila! You have rich pins for Weebly!

Questions? 

We survived January! It's a miracle! And the craziest part is that we're already halfway through February! 
Basketball is now done, and while I'm sad not to go to anymore games, Ashley is quite happy to go straight home after school and chill on the couch. She and her two brothers will start club volleyball very soon, but we'll enjoy the quiet for a little while longer!
We also had our very first snow day!! I grew up in Idaho where we'd have a few each year, but here in Utah, they haven't had one since 1994!!!! Let's just say the groundhog was VERY wrong, and we got out the next Monday. It was crazy! I spent the day writing, which is pretty much the best thing ever. My kids enjoyed playing video games—except my poor oldest who was stuck pushing carts at Walmart. But money is money!
And the funnest part about Valentine's Day is all the new romances! Okay, I can think of a few other things. Like the awesome dragon egg bath bomb my husband got me. I can't wait to see what ring I got. Or the Valentine's Day boxes my kids come up with. 
But I digress. I wanted to share my newest book with you! My Secret Valentine just released yesterday! 

Sigh . . . I love it so much! 
And if you're worried that I'm only writing YA romance novels now, don't worry! I have two more mail order bride books coming out along with a few others. 
Speaking of my mail order bride series, I just approved the audiobook for The Rancher's Bride! She did such an awesome job with it, and I can't wait to share it with you! 
Enchanted Heart was also just finished, and her British accent is amazing!
I'd better get going. My kids may be excited for their various Valentine's Day parties, but it's another workday for me! Have a wonderful weekend!
Jaclyn

Christmas has come and gone, and now we're on to preparing ourselves for the new year. It's mind-blowing, really.
This year was awesome, hard, crazy, frustrating, and amazing. I put out eleven books (holy cow!), met the Supernatural cast in Vegas, went to Disneyland with my family, watched my son graduate, leave for what was supposed to be two years but ended up as two months (darn anxiety), watched my daughter play varsity volleyball AND basketball as a freshman, and got a new job at the high school. Not bad!
What about you? I'd love to hear about your year!
I mentioned in last week's email that I would be releasing my first teen romance. Guys, I love it. So much. My betas loved it too, and I'm so happy! It's the start of a new series that will have book two releasing just before Valentine's Day.

So, what's next? I'll be rereleasing The Hopeful Heart as Testing His Heart, and The Blushing Bride as The Farmer's Bride with some new content in each of them. And the new covers?

It's October! One of my very favorite months! Halloween has always been a favorite holiday of mine, and I always look forward to this month.
This year, things took a slightly different turn. I still look forward to trick-or-treating with my kids and all that fun stuff. But we learned we had to deal with another monster. Anxiety. It's one I've fought for years, and it's been worse over the last few months.

This time it went after my son. It's hard to leave home. Go to a new place where you know no one. My son not only left those things, he left the coping mechanisms he'd created for himself without even realizing it. So in a small town in Indiana, he had to fight anxiety, lack of sleep, and fleas. So many fleas in his house. It was finally decided this last weekend that he needed to come home to heal and get help.

So this October, I got my son back. He came home on Tuesday while I was at my daughter's volleyball game. Oh man, she did awesome. As her game was nearing an end, they showed up and I ran around the track to hug my boy. 

Man, he's grown. I'm pretty sure he grew another two inches! And where he was getting 2 hours of sleep max in Indiana, he was able to sleep last night. I haven't heard his voice through the floor yet tonight, so I assume he's sleeping today as well. The flea bites have started healing as well.

And my family is back together. Anxiety is still there. We're going to get him some help. And maybe, just maybe, we'll get me some too. But for now, I'll just enjoy every second of him being home. 

So yeah, that's been my week!  How has yours gone? Have you read or watched anything lately? I just finished watching Lucifer for the, oh, third time, and I'm back into Supernatural again. Just in time for Halloween. :)

And I'm excited to announced that The Prospector's Bride is out! And I apologize to those who usually review for me. BookFunnel isn't behaving for me right now, so I have no way to send you the file. Sadness! But you can check it out here, and as usual, I could use the reviews! 

   Minnie's last tie to her hometown is gone, leaving behind her and her two brothers. With all of their possessions being taken by the bank, Minnie knows it's time to move on. When she learns that she could have her own land and a fresh start as a mail order bride, she follows her heart and her mother's dream to head out west.
   Matthew loves nothing more than working in the mine, which doesn't leave much time for a family. But time is ticking, and he knows that if he wants to start a family, he'd better do so soon. Following his brother's examples, he decides to take a mail order bride.
   What Matthew wasn't expecting was that his new bride would arrive with two young brothers in tow. While their chemistry is immediate, Minnie's desire for a career goes against what Matthew wants for his family. Will they learn to love each other for who they are, or will their differences be too much to overcome?

Remember how I mentioned that I love the Fall but it was still waaaay too hot here? Well, the weather listened because right now it's cold and windy. AND I LOVE IT! I froze tonight at my daughter's soccer game and loved every second of it. :)
Sports are in full swing around here, and this week is our school's Homecoming. My son has a poster waiting for him from the cheerleaders wishing him luck, and he doesn't know what to do with the attention! He'll go on his first date this weekend with a super cute girl, and I'm so excited for him!
Ashley is playing JV volleyball and having the time of her life. Tonight she got three blocks in one play!!!! I missed it so I could be at her sister's soccer game, but luckily her dad got it on video! 
Not too much has happened on the writing front. Stress has not been my friend lately and it's my poor writing that has struggled. I DID get to teach a class at a writing conference in Arizona, so that was awesome. SO HOT, but I had a really good time. ​
I also started a FB group for those who want to hang out on Facebook with me. :)
Check it out here! I better take off. Steve and I are off on a hot date. And by hot date, I mean a trip to the grocery store for food. :)  We live glamorous lives!
Have an amazing week!
Jaclyn