How our first garden grew is a lesson in mistakes. Very little went as planned. You can read about how completely not planned it was in our original post about gardening with kids. Because gardening with kids is a whole other story.

​Let's take a look at what we got...

Oh the weeds! Over half of our plants ended up being weeds.

We put orange sweet pepper seeds into the cups. Instead of orange sweet peppers we got a bunch of 5 foot tall weeds.

My friend, Marla, tells me they are generically known as red root here because they are red at the start of the root.

We did successfully plant and grow peas. They simply died into a shriveled brown vine before we picked the first pod. Come to think of it, there may have only been one pod.

The basil we planted has done very well. I've begun pulling the leaves and drying them. Then my eldest took a pair of scissors to them. Ah, well. This is probably a better container plant than a garden plant.

We were successful at growing tomatoes. Our eldest was always excited to go out and check them for new tomatoes that were red enough to be picked. That enthusiasm waned by the end of the season. We still have to remove quite a few green tomatoes.

The sunflowers grew tall and pretty. But no sunflower seeds. The stalks were not strong enough to hold the heads once the seeds formed and they all snapped in a storm.

We planted this one and the vine grew all over. We saw several watermelons growing but none made it to be picked. The squirrels got every one of them.

A lot of failures in our first garden. We still had a lot of fun. We will definitely be growing another garden next summer.

Forfeiting Adam releases on December 8th on Amazon. Click the cover image below to pre-order for $2.99.

In this excerpt, a partial of Chapter 20, you get a snippet of what Edee does during her Thanksgiving break. You'll also meet Edee's parents, her younger brother, and Grandma Rosie. I hope you enjoy this look into Forfeiting Adam.

Where I was when I signed up for Instafreebie:

• My email list consisted of 2 emails. Yes, two. I knew both of them. 
• I had sold roughly 15 copies of my book while in Amazon in a year.

When I initially signed up for Instafreebie:

• Put up 2 giveaways (1 without opt-in, 1 with opt-in)
• Gained 0 emails from the no opt-in version, but it was downloaded 38 times
• Gained 49 emails from the opt-in giveaway

Then I joined a group of 35 authors to cross promote:

• I switched the no opt-in giveaway to require an opt-in
• I was 1 of 35 authors, all of romance
• The giveaway started on November 1, 2016 -- I had 51 emails on this day when I sent out my newsletter
• Gained 181 emails on day 1
• Gained over 1,500 by day 13
• Over 1,700 people downloaded my book in that time (not all with valid emails)

I was over the moon with these results. Completely thrilled. I did lose subscribers when they unsubscribed from my welcome letter. My unsubscribe rate was 7%. I was still quite happy because I knew that my book might be seen and read by 1,700+ people. 

And that's the most important thing: eyes on your book. Potential readers who may become fans after reading my first book and be interested to read the second.

So, that's the beauty of Instafreebie.

I'm still working through the data and preparing for a second launch. I'll keep you posted on that after I see how the first week goes. Release day is December 8th for my second book, Forfeiting Adam.

In the mean time, have a great week. Enjoy the process. It's slow going for me right now but I'm learning and hopeful for the future as I get better at running this business. 

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