Changemaker

How an Education Bill Changed the Story for Women

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Trekking down a paved path: Education for Women

Do you have women in your family who have gone to college? What about any doctors, lawyers or other ceiling busting women? If so, you have Representative Patsy Takemoto Mink to thank.

Fifty-one years ago, Rep. Mink authored a bill and got Congress to pass this landmark piece of legislation. The Title IX of Education Amendments of 1972 prohibits discrimination on the basis of gender in educational institutions and programs that receive federal funding. 

Education Reform

This legislation was groundbreaking for a number of reasons. For the first time women were entitled to an equal education on every level. No more could colleges turn away women from entering particular programs of study!

It also paved the way for sex equity in school sports and other school sponsored extracurricular activities. 

Ultimately, The bill was renamed the Patsy Takemoto Mink Equal Opportunity in Education Act in 2002 to honor her contributions to civil rights, and economic and social justice.

An interview with Rep. Mink in 2002 shared her personal motivations for authoring the bill.

“I have a very personal connection with Title IX because while I was wanting to go to medical school and I had written to a dozen or more medical schools to seek entry, each one of them turned me down by saying that they did not admit women to their schools. It came to me as quite a shock that in America it was not a person’s grade, aptitude, tests, recommendations that got the person into the careers of their choice, but that it had to do with one’s gender.”

Luckily, we have come far from those ceiling-inhibiting days. What is something you’re grateful you were able to accomplish as a woman in your lifetime that your mother could not?

Can’t get enough of Joyana Peters? Here are more posts you may enjoy.

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Women Revolutionary War Heroes

Female Revolutionary War Heroes

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We hear about the Founding Fathers, but what about the Founding Mothers? Check out this book list about Women Revolutionary War Heroes!

Revolutionary War

Let’s Talk About Women Revolutionary War Heroes!

We will soon celebrate the 250th anniversary of the Revolutionary War and the men who fought for our country’s freedom. However, some incredible women shaped our history as well. In a year fraught with debate over so much when it comes to the true meanings of liberty and independence, it seems more than ever that it’s important to take a deeper look at what brought us here.

We ALWAYS hear about the Founding Fathers and the brave men involved in the Revolutionary War. Paul Revere’s Ride, George Washington’s brilliance, Hamilton’s essays, etc. But you know how the saying goes, behind every great man there is a….? Even more amazing woman! Sure enough, there were some absolutely pivotal women revolutionary war heroes as well! Let’s do as Abigail Adams once said- “Remember the Ladies!” Check out this book list below to celebrate these ladies!

Founding Mothers by Cokie Roberts

From #1 New York Times bestselling author, Cokie Roberts, comes New York Times bestseller Founding Mothers, an intimate and illuminating look at the fervently patriotic and passionate women whose tireless pursuits on behalf of their families—and their country—proved just as crucial to the forging of a new nation as the rebellion that established it.

Historians have written plenty about the men who signed the Declaration of Independence, battled the British, and framed the Constitution. But history’s paid little attention to the wives, mothers, sisters, and daughters they left behind. #1 New York Times bestselling author, Cokie Roberts, brings us women who fought the Revolution as valiantly as the men. Drawing upon personal correspondence, private journals, and even favored recipes, Roberts reveals the often surprising stories of these fascinating women, bringing to life the everyday trials and extraordinary triumphs of individuals like Abigail Adams, Mercy Otis Warren, Deborah Read Franklin, Eliza Pinckney, Catherine Littlefield Green, Esther DeBerdt Reed and Martha Washington— proving that without our exemplary women, the new country might have never survived.

Revolutionary War- Founding Mothers by Cokie Roberts

Revolutionary War: A Founding Mother by Stephanie Dray

A Founding Mother & My Dear Hamilton by Stephanie Dray and Laura Kamoie

Historical fiction powerhouses Stephanie Dray and Laura Kamoie have given us two incredible ways to immerse ourselves in the lives of the Revolution’s most formidable women. Whether you are looking for their brand-new release or a beloved fan favorite, these two novels make the perfect collaborative reading set:

The New Release Spotlight: A Founding Mother: A Novel of Abigail Adams

Released in May 2026— just in time for the 250th anniversary—this sweeping biographical novel brings Abigail Adams out from the margins of history and firmly places her at the center of her own story. It tracks her journey from a fiercely independent woman raising children in war-torn Boston to an indispensable ally executing parlor politics in the early American republic. Meticulously researched using thousands of letters, it reveals a spiky, clever, and radical visionary who was often steps ahead of the famous men surrounding her.

The Epic Companion Novel: My Dear Hamilton

“Not since I read Erik Larson’s Dead Wake have I had such an edge-of-my-seat immersion into historical events. […] No study of Alexander Hamilton would be complete without reading this book.” — Karen White, New York Times bestselling author

This haunting, moving, and beautifully written novel uses thousands of letters and original sources to tell the story of Elizabeth Schuyler Hamilton—a revolutionary woman who, like her new nation, struggled to define herself in the wake of war, betrayal, and tragedy. It reveals Eliza not just as a general’s daughter on the perilous frontier or a wronged wife at the center of America’s first political sex scandal, but as a crucial founding mother who fought to preserve Alexander’s legacy and shape an American legacy in her own right.


Women Heroes of the American Revolution by Susan Casey

Every schoolchild knows about Paul Revere’s 20-mile ride to warn that the British were coming. Far fewer know that 16-year-old Sybil Ludington rode twice as far to help her father, Colonel Ludington, muster his scattered troops to fight a marauding enemy. Few know about Martha Bratton, who blew up a supply of gunpowder to keep it from approaching British troops and boldly claimed, “It was I who did it!” Susan Casey gives Ludington, Bratton, and 18 other remarkable girls and women of the Revolution the spotlight they deserve in this lively collection of biographical profiles. Drawing on interviews with historians and descendants as well as primary source material, this is an invaluable resource for any student’s or history buff’s bookshelf.

Women Heroes of the American Revolution by Susan Casey

Founding Friendships by Cassandra A. Good

Founding Friendships by Cassandra A. Good

“When Harry Met Sally” is only the most iconic of popular American movies, books, and articles that pose the question of whether friendships between men and women are possible. Cassandra A. Good, in Founding Friendships, shows that this question was embedded in and debated as far back as the birth of the American nation. Indeed, many of the nation’s founding fathers had female friends, but popular rhetoric held that these relationships were fraught with social danger, if not impossible.

Elite men and women formed loving, politically significant friendships in the early national period that were crucial to the individuals’ lives as well as the formation of a new national political system, as Cassandra Good illuminates.

Abigail Adams called her friend Thomas Jefferson “one of the choice ones on earth,” while George Washington signed a letter to his friend Elizabeth Powel with the words “I am always Yours.” Their emotionally rich language is often mistaken for romance, but by analyzing period letters, diaries, novels, and etiquette books, Good reveals that friendships between men and women were quite common. At a time when personal relationships were deeply political, these bonds offered both parties affection and practical assistance as well as exemplified republican values of choice, freedom, equality, and virtue. In so doing, these friendships embodied the core values of the new nation and represented a transitional moment in gender and culture.

Northern and Southern, famous and lesser known, the men and women examined in Founding Friendships offer a fresh look at how the founding generation defined and experienced friendship, love, gender, and power.


Poor Richard’s Women by Nancy Rubin Stuart

“An engrossing look at the human side of Benjamin Franklin . . . Using a post-feminist lens that’s critical of gender essentialism, Stuart rescues these women from obscurity . . . This is a terrific read: poignant, provocative, and probing.”
—Library Journal, Starred Review

A vivid portrait of the women who loved, nurtured, and defended America’s famous scientist and founding father.

Everyone knows Benjamin Franklin—the thrifty inventor-statesman of the Revolutionary era—but not about his love life. Poor Richard’s Women reveals the long-neglected voices of the women Ben loved and lost during his lifelong struggle between passion and prudence. The most prominent among them was Deborah Read Franklin, his common-law wife and partner for 44 years. Long dismissed by historians, she was an independent, politically savvy woman and devoted wife who raised their children, managed his finances, and fought off angry mobs at gunpoint while he traipsed about England.

Poor Richard's Women by Nancy Rubin Stuart

Weaving detailed historical research with emotional intensity and personal testimony, Nancy Rubin Stuart traces Deborah’s life and those of Ben’s other romantic attachments through their personal correspondence. We are introduced to Margaret Stevenson, the widowed landlady who managed Ben’s life in London; Catherine Ray, the 23-year-old New Englander with whom he traveled overnight and later exchanged passionate letters; Madame Brillon, the beautiful French musician who flirted shamelessly with him, and the witty Madame Helvetius, who befriended the philosophes of pre-Revolutionary France and brought Ben to his knees.

What emerges from Stuart’s pen is a colorful and poignant portrait of women in the age of revolution. Set two centuries before the rise of feminism, Poor Richard’s Women depicts the feisty, often-forgotten women dear to Ben’s heart who, despite obstacles, achieved an independence rarely enjoyed by their peers in that era.


Hope these empowering list of books about Women Revolutionary War Heroes provides you some inspiration this summer.

Looking for other book recommendations? Here are a few more booklists you may enjoy!

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Three Kings Nativity

Myrrh Meaning- the Truth Behind the Three Kings’ Gifts

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What better history to research during December than the frankincense and myrrh meaning and guests of the Nativity?

We Three Kings- we all know the song and to some extent we all think we know the story- Jesus is asleep in the manger and the three kings follow the star of Bethlehem to visit and bring gifts to the newborn king. But from there the story gets fuzzy. Who were these three kings and why did they bring these particular gifts? What even is Myrrh, let alone what was the myrrh meaning?

My son is a huge questioner and asked me this Christmas season. Going online I found the answers hard to find. But my sister, an acupuncturist in California, surprisingly had an interesting explanation. Here’s her proposal in explaining the origins of the Three Kings Names and Gifts. 

Meet the Men: 3 Kings Names and Gifts

For starters, the names of the three Kings are believed to be Melchior, Caspar, and Balthasar. But, this is a guess because there is very little known about the actual kings. They are only mentioned in the Bible as wise men who traveled from the East. However, we’re not even completely sure how many kings there were. Theological scholars have determined over the years that there were three. Some believe this was because of a symbolic significance- (to demonstrate the three ages of men) others came to this determination because of the fact there were only three gifts mentioned. 

myrrh meaning

The gifts mentioned were gold, frankincense and myrrh. The gold feels pretty self-explanatory- since Joseph and Mary were literally holed up in a barn, gold would probably come in handy. But what were these other gifts?

The general explanation offered is they were very expensive, fragrant smelling oils and the gifts were meant to bestow a great honor. This was the explanation I remember being offered in my own Catholic school days. This was also the explanation my son received which left him asking these questions. His exact words, I believe, were, “Why would these “wise” men bring gifts that had no purpose except to smell good? Why would Jesus have needed that?” Touche.

The other explanation I’ve found feels almost “woo-woo” to me. Myrrh was an oil used for burying the dead and the wise men were so “wise” that they were foretelling the future and Jesus’s future crucifixion. Hm, not sure how I feel about “fortune-telling” in the Nativity story.

Tidings of Comfort and Joy

Here’s where my sister enters with what honestly feels like such a common-sense explanation. According to Chinese medicine, myrrh and frankincense were often used in combination. Their purpose? To promote healing, in particular, to reduce swelling, alleviate pain and heal bleeding, etc. I.e., it was a common herb used after childbirth. 

So, this would mean that these wise men were indeed “wise” in bringing extremely valuable and useful gifts for the new mother, not the new baby. Seriously, what better gifts could there be than helping poor traumatized Mary heal from giving birth in a barn?

I know I felt like I’d stumbled upon an “aha” moment upon hearing this myrrh meaning and more and I hope it brings you some joy and clarity this holiday season as well. Thank you to my fabulous sister- Keri Peters for her resources and insight for this article. Please feel free to reach out to her at HERE for any other herbal or acupuncture questions in the future.

Feeling festive? Here are a few more posts you may enjoy!

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Toni Morrison

Toni Morrison: First Black Woman Nobel Laureate

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On October 8th, 1993, the world of literature shifted. That day, Toni Morrison became the first Black woman to be awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature—a monumental achievement that forever cemented her status as a literary giant and global changemaker.

This wasn’t just a win for her; it was a win for every voice that had been told their story was too niche, too specific, or simply not “universal” enough. Morrison didn’t just write novels; she fundamentally changed what the American story was allowed to be.

She Didn’t Just Write Books, She Built the Shelf

Born Chloe Wofford, Toni Morrison had a profound understanding of language, but she was a changemaker long before she got the call from Sweden. In the 1960s, she took a job as an editor at Random House. That job was a battlefield.

She worked tirelessly to overcome the industry’s outdated stereotypes—the ones that constantly underestimated Black authors and Black stories. As an editor, she was a one-woman literary movement, bringing revolutionary works by authors like Angela Davis and Gayl Jones out of the shadows and onto the national stage. She advocated for a diverse canon while secretly pouring her own genius onto the page.

Toni Morrison

Her first novel, The Bluest Eye (1970), dropped like a truth bomb. Her writing was lyrical, tough, and centered unflinchingly on the Black experience, especially Black women’s lives. She never softened her prose or explained her characters for a white audience. She basically said, “This is the story. Understand it.”

A Voice that Demanded Listening

By the time 1993 rolled around, Morrison had given us masterpieces like the epic Song of Solomon and the devastating, Pulitzer Prize-winning Beloved. Her novels don’t just tell stories; they use myth, history, and raw emotion to grapple with trauma, memory, and what it truly means to survive.

When the Swedish Academy announced the Nobel, recognizing her work for its “visionary force and poetic import,” it was a watershed moment. It wasn’t just validating one woman; it was validating an entire body of work and a cultural perspective that had long been marginalized.

Morrison didn’t shrink from the spotlight. She used that platform to talk about everything that mattered: the power of language, the danger of racism, and the necessity of literature that makes you uncomfortable. She traveled, taught, and championed the idea that when you finally center stories about women and people of color, the entire literary world gets stronger, richer, and more honest.

What She Left Us: A Legacy That Won’t Quit

Morrison’s impact did not end with the prize. She continued to write, publish, and teach for decades, serving as a revered professor at Princeton University. Her work became mandatory reading in schools and universities across the world, establishing a new standard for American literature.

She paved the way for countless writers who followed, proving that a writer could be intensely focused on a specific cultural experience and yet achieve universal acclaim. She was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2012, and her funeral, upon her death in 2019, was attended by leaders and artists, all acknowledging the seismic shift she created. She had an all-star honor guard of ten great works, each one a monument to a life dedicated to literature.

Toni Morrison’s journey demonstrates the profound power of using one’s unique voice—a voice that, once raised, can change the entire cultural landscape.

Find more ways to spoil your inner bookworm!

Check out the Amaryllis Co. Shop, fully stocked with custom designs perfect for every book loving Amaryllis Girl! From shirts, mugs, wine glasses, and more, I have curated a shop with all of my favorites! SHOP HERE! You can also find my collection of bookish merchandise on Etsy.

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Salem Witch Trials

The Salem Witch Trials: Historical Fiction Brought To Life

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The Salem Witch Trials have always been a time in history that intrigued me. The first time I really became acquainted with it all was during a field trip I took with my girl scout troop in junior high. We went to Salem during October for their Haunted Happenings festival. It was amazing! They had spooky haunted houses, museums and reenactments, magical tarot card readings etc. I was hooked! This festival still occurs every year and if you get a chance to check it out, I strongly encourage you to do so. It’s a great time!

However, even back then it was not lost on me that these spooktacular Halloween events were tied to real history and people. I was already becoming a history and historical fiction nerd. So, what did I do? I started researching and devouring all the Salem Witch Trial books I could find. 

The Salem Witch Trials really are a frightening example of the power of Mob Mentality. When I taught The Crucible to my 11th graders we even compared it to the divisive nature of politics over the years.

Magic, Children or Politics: The Start of the Salem Witch Trials 

It all began in colonial Massachusetts in the early 1690s. A minister named Samuel Parris had earned a reputation among the people of Salem for being inflexible and greedy. There were folks who were beginning to question him and a chasm was growing. However, Parris blamed the quarreling on the work of the devil. 

Then in January 1692, Parris’s daughter, Betty, age 9, and his niece, Abigail Williams, age 11, started suffering from “fits”. They screamed, threw things, uttered nonsense and contorted themselves into unnatural positions. A local doctor arrived and blamed the supernatural. Soon another girl, Ann Putnam, began experiencing the “fits” as well. By February, local magistrates came and under their pressure, the girls blamed three women for casting spells on them. The women named were Tituba, a Caribbean woman who was enslaved by the Parris family, Sarah Good, a homeless beggar, and Sarah Osborne, an elderly poor woman. 

Salem Witch Trials

The trials began in March. Osborne and Good professed their innocence, but Tituba confessed and claimed the Devil made her do it and there were other witches in Salem. All three women were declared guilty and paranoia spread. Soon, accusations were flying wildly.

Salem created a special court. Cotton Mather, a respected minister, stepped forward and implored the court to disallow the use of “spectral” evidence- dreams and visions. However, the court refused and instead the hangings began. Ten people were hanged that summer followed by eight more in September.

By October, Mather’s father, Increase, then president of Harvard, stepped forward to repeat his son’s request to denounce “spectral” evidence. He was quoted as saying, “It were better that ten suspected witches should escape than one innocent person be condemned.”

Motivated to End the Salem Witch Trials

This time, Governor Phips, whose own wife was now being accused, prohibited further arrests, dissolved the special court and disallowed the use of “spectral” evidence. 

By May of 1693, Phips went one step further to end the hysteria. He pardoned the remaining prisoners accused of witchcraft. But the damage had already been done. Nineteen men and women had been hanged on Gallows Hill. One other had been pressed to death when he refused trial, and five others had died in prison while awaiting trial. 

It took many years for true restitution to occur. Judge Samuel Sewell, who oversaw the special court, and accuser, Ann Putnam, came forward to admit error and guilt in the hysteria. In 1702, a Massachusetts court declared the trials unlawful. And in 1711, the colony passed a bill restoring the rights and good names to the accused and paid a restitution to their heirs. But it wasn’t until 1957- more than 250 years later- that Massachusetts formally apologized for the events of 1692.

Like me, many continue to be fascinated by the strange events and hysteria surrounding the Salem Witch Trials. Scientists and historians continue to explore explanations for the “fits” the girls suffered. These so far range from food poisoning by fungi, to a reaction to church politics, family feuds and hysterics. But it is still a cause of much debate. And every year, the Salem Witch Museum and the town’s Haunted Happening festival continue to be one of the most-visited spots in the United States.  

Salem Witch Trials Booklist

If you find yourself captivated by this intriguing period of history, here are a few of my favorite Salem Witch Trial Books

The Heretic’s Daughter

by Kathleen Kent 

Salem, 1752. Sarah Carrier Chapman, weak with infirmity, writes a letter to her granddaughter that reveals the secret she has closely guarded for six decades: how she survived the Salem Witch Trials when her mother did not.

Sarah’s story begins more than a year before the trials, when she and her family arrive in a New England community already gripped by superstition and fear. As they witness neighbor pitted against neighbor, friend against friend, the hysteria escalates — until more than two hundred men, women, and children have been swept into prison.

The Heretic's Daughter

Among them is Sarah’s mother, Martha Carrier. In an attempt to protect her children, Martha asks Sarah to commit an act of heresy — a lie that will most surely condemn Martha even as it will save her daughter.

This is the story of Martha’s courageous defiance and ultimate death, as told by the daughter who survived.


Salem Witch Trials

Beyond the Burning Time

by Kathryn Lasky

When young Betty Parris contracts a mysterious ailment that spreads to other girls in her Puritan village of Salem, Betty and her family must confront the deadly superstitions that will change their lives. 

This is a nostalgic one for me! This was the first book I found and read after my junior high visit to Salem. I still have it on my bookshelf today.


A Break with Charity

by Ann Rinaldi

Susanna desperately wants to join the circle of girls who meet every week at the parsonage. What she doesn’t realize is that the girls are about to set off a torrent of false accusations leading to the imprisonment and execution of countless innocent people. Susanna faces a painful choice. Should she keep quiet and let the witch-hunt panic continue, or should she “break charity” with the group–and risk having her own family members named as witches?
Reader’s guide included.

I love this first person narrative and this one really gives you an insider perspective and feel for the hysteria and moral debates as the hysteria ensues. 

I love this first person narrative and this one really gives you an insider perspective and feel for the hysteria and moral debates as the hysteria ensues. 


Salem Witch Trials

I, Tituba, Black Witch of Salem

by Maryse Conde

This book is a fascinating read. I always questioned Tituba. Why would she confess? Did she not realize she was the last inciting match that burst this hysteria into flames? Did she not care? Conde goes deep into the character of Tituba and creates a believable history and story for what Tituba endured. An overall fabulous book!

This wild and entertaining novel expands on the true story of the West Indian slave Tituba, who was accused of witchcraft in Salem, Massachusetts, arrested in 1692, and forgotten in jail until the general amnesty for witches two years later. Maryse Condé brings Tituba out of historical silence and creates for her a fictional childhood, adolescence, and old age. She turns her into what she calls “a sort of female hero, an epic heroine, like the legendary ‘Nanny of the maroons,’” who, schooled in the sorcery and magical ritual of obeah, is arrested for healing members of the family that owns her.

Maryse Condé brings Tituba out of historical silence and creates for her a fictional childhood, adolescence, and old age. She turns her into what she calls “a sort of female hero, an epic heroine, like the legendary ‘Nanny of the maroons,’” who, schooled in the sorcery and magical ritual of obeah, is arrested for healing members of the family that owns her.


Hour of the Witch

by Chris Bohjalian

Boston, 1662. Mary Deerfield is twenty-four-years-old. Her skin is porcelain, her eyes delft blue, and in England she might have had many suitors. But here in the New World, amid this community of saints, Mary is the second wife of Thomas Deerfield, a man as cruel as he is powerful. When Thomas, prone to drunken rage, drives a three-tined fork into the back of Mary’s hand, she resolves that she must divorce him to save her life. 

But in a world where every neighbor is watching for signs of the devil, a woman like Mary—a woman who harbors secret desires and finds it difficult to tolerate the brazen hypocrisy of so many men in the colony—soon becomes herself the object of suspicion and rumor.

Hour of the Witch

The Physick Book of Deliverance Dane

The Physick Book of Deliverance Dane

by Katherine Howe 

Harvard graduate student Connie Goodwin needs to spend her summer doing research for her doctoral dissertation. But when her mother asks her to handle the sale of Connie’s grandmother’s abandoned home near Salem, she can’t refuse. As she is drawn deeper into the mysteries of the family house, Connie discovers an ancient key within a seventeenth-century Bible. The key contains a yellowing fragment of parchment with a name written upon it: Deliverance Dane. This discovery launches Connie on a quest-to find out who this woman was and to unearth a rare artifact of singular power: a physick book, its pages a secret repository for lost knowledge.

As the pieces of Deliverance’s harrowing story begin to fall into place, Connie is haunted by visions of the long-ago witch trials, and she begins to fear that she is more tied to Salem’s dark past then she could have ever imagined.

Written with astonishing conviction and grace, The Physick Book of Deliverance Dane travels seamlessly between the witch trials of the 1690s and a modern woman’s story of mystery, intrigue, and revelation.

If you enjoyed this selection here are a few more you may be interested in!

Find more ways to spoil your inner bookworm!

Check out the Amaryllis Co. Shop, fully stocked with custom designs perfect for every book loving Amaryllis Girl! From shirts, mugs, wine glasses, and more, I have curated a shop with all of my favorites! SHOP HERE! You can also find my collection of bookish merchandise on Etsy.

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Holiday Ready

Authors, Are you Holiday Ready?

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It is so hard to believe it is August and we have less than four months left in 2025. Where did the time go? 

The holiday season is met with such excitement and anticipation, but for small business owners it can become a paralyzing business obstacle. That obstacle generally becomes clearly visible around now, when the end of summer back to school chaos is kicking off. It is followed by a parade of fall and Halloween festivities, which runs into Thanksgiving mayhem and suddenly the you are staring a giant Christmas hurdle straight in front of you.

Sales Report

What is this hurdle? It is increased marketing campaigns, Christmas promotions, extra events and festivals, and juggling customer service expectations. You have probably noticed from the Halloween decor that began popping up in stores in June, each holiday season seems to begin earlier. 

Hopefully, you are feeling excited and motivated to jump into a busy season of sales, but if you are not feeling as prepared as you would like, here are a few tips to get preparations underway.

Create a Plan…and stick to it

In my author business plan I discuss setting realistic goals. Your marketing campaigns, events, and product development should all feed into accomplishing this goal. In the holiday mayhem it is easy to drift off course. Accepting invitations to events that don’t align with your goals can place unnecessary stress on you and your business. Make sure you have clearly defined your goals and only take on projects and events that will feed into reaching your goal.

Building Motivation

It is not uncommon for me to have a discussion with an author at this time of year and have them express frustration that they have fallen short of their goals for the year. Instead of fueling them to finish the year at full speed, this can cause frustration and a lack of motivation. I understand the disappointment missed sales goals can cause but it is important to remember, historically book sales peak during the holiday season. 

Also keep in mind, goals can be adjusted.  Sometimes the goals we set and unknowingly unrealistic. Economic changes or unforeseen obstacles may impact consumer spending. It is okay to say this was my annual goal, but after assessing performance my adjusted goal to close out the year will be….

Do not let low sales quarters define your business and remember, goals help guide our business strategy and will never be met if you quit. 

Organization leads to success

Do you remember hearing your teachers say that as a child? Time to dig that gem out.

If you don’t have a spreadsheet or calendar highlighting events you want to participate in, events you are participating in for at least the next two quarters (although I would encourage you to aim for an annual plan), you are selling your business short. 

Opportunities will present themselves last minute, in fact I just added an Amaryllis Author Collective event for September, yes, it is merely a month away. However, the majority of your events should be strategically scheduled in advance, plan today for tomorrow’s success. 

Managing Inventory

Inventory is something I am asked about a lot. 

How many books should I have at a festival? Should I add more products to my inventory?

My answer is most often….It depends.

Having an event and not having enough product is frustrating, you loose out on sales. When you have to turn a customer away or encourage them to order a product instead of buying now, you increase the potential to not convert interest to a sale. 

With that said, having to load products you didn’t sell back into a vehicle is extremely frustrating. Carrying the financial cost or products you have paid for an haven’t sold can be taxing on a business. 

There will likely be a learning curve on what events work for your business and ones that don’t. Admittedly, I have participated in events with high expectations only to learn that in the future this event is not my audience. I keep track of sales, and events that aligned with my business goals and ones that didn’t. Try and research events, study the audience, and make inventory adjustments accordingly. Also, keep in mind your established budget. Be careful not to financially overextend yourself on product until your understand your sales metrics.

If you aren’t feeling prepared for the 2025 holiday season, don’t panic, take a deep breath and dive into planning, NOW. 

Start planning and preparing to execute your holiday marketing campaigns. If you are in the Northern Virginia area, the Amaryllis Author Collective has a limited number of spots open for a few of our holiday events. Hold on tight, it’s going to be a busy four months!

What is your most successful holiday event?

Find more ways to spoil your inner bookworm!

Check out the Amaryllis Co. Shop, fully stocked with custom designs perfect for every book loving Amaryllis Girl! From shirts, mugs, wine glasses, and more, I have curated a shop with all of my favorites! SHOP HERE! You can also find my collection of bookish merchandise on Etsy.

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