McQuestionable Musings

What I was doing 40 years ago today:

2012-01-16T10:15:00.001-06:00

Chances are, I'll be having cake today as well.

Have a good Monday, everyone!

Cheers,

Karen

The First Blog Post of 2012

2012-01-05T11:54:00.009-06:00

So, after writing a post about the importance of blogging on a regular basis, I stopped blogging. I have excuses, of course, don't we all? But none of that matters now. It's 2012 and with the New Year comes the opportunity to wipe the slate clean. I'll get caught up and move on.

First of all, we never did decorate the tree. The holidays snuck up on me. I'm not sure if it was because they fell on a weekend or what, but Christmas and New Year's Eve caught me completely off guard. Luckily I have old kids who mostly wanted money and gift cards or I would have been sunk. The only Christmas cookies we had were gifted to us. (They were delicious, by the way, if any of the bakers are reading this.) I sent out very few holiday cards, most of them to people out of state. To summarize: I failed to prepare properly for Christmas and nothing bad happened.

Early in December I finished a book and sent it to my editor who claimed to love it. Have I mentioned how much I like my editor? :) We're still working on the details, but it will be a 2012 release, hopefully in time for summer reading. I was calling it The Road Trip but that may be changing. I had thought it was the perfect title until someone in my editor's office assumed it was a comic romp ala The Hangover. It is not. It does have some humor, but nothing too zany, and I don't want people to buy the book thinking that's what they'll get. Titles can be difficult. We'll see, I guess.

Buy this book. It's free!

I also have a short story, Turning A Corner, on Kindle. For the next five days it will be free, which is everyone's favorite price. If you get a chance, I'd appreciate a click. I wrote the story several years back, so it's somewhat different than my current style. The story is about a group of high school students from Wisconsin who travel to Germany. This is the description: When a group of Wisconsin high school students visit Germany in 1978, everything goes as planned until Saturday night, when their teacher, Frau Heller, allows them to go out without a chaperone.

Coincidentally, I was part of a student group who went to Germany in 1978, but the story is fiction, or at least that's the way I'm telling it. I was a junior in high school at the time and I paid for the entire trip with money saved from my job at Treasure Island. Now Treasure Island may sound like a really fun theme park, but in actuality it was a discount store owned by JCPenney. Maybe sort of like a Kmart? I worked in the record department, which was without a doubt, the coolest department in the store. I wore a powder blue smock with a pin-on name tag. When I arrived at work, the outgoing employee would hand over the key to the diamond stereo needle drawer. The key was attached to a spiral lanyard wrist band. Very official and important. If anyone wanted to buy a new stereo needle, they had to go through me. And then I had to escort them to the checkout to make sure they paid for it. It was a lot of power for a sixteen-year-old, but I handled it well.

I looked for a photo of a Treasure Island online, and all I could find was the picture below--a closed, abandoned store. Certainly not the thriving, blue-smocked metropolis I remember. The store was known for its distinctive zig-zag roof line.

If I had known Treasure Island would eventually close, I'd have taken some photos myself. I thought they'd be around forever.

This month I'm also working on putting together a PowerPoint presentation because I have a few school events lined up and kids love visuals. My first school visit will be next week via Skype. I am terrified, but everyone (all the people who won't be doing it) assure me it will be easy and I'll do fine.

And lastly, I started another book. I'm trying to get as much done as possible before I get the notes back from my editor for The Road Trip (title may change, because it's not a comic romp). This new one is a complete departure for me, which will make the marketing department at Amazon Publishing gnash their teeth. What can I say? I like to mix it up.

So, now you know everything that's new with me, and all about my first paycheck job as sales clerk in the record department at Treasure Island, the coolest department in the entire store. If you have a minute, share some details about your first job. Enquiring minds want to know.

Cheers,

Karen

Happy Holidays, Everyone!

2011-12-22T12:59:00.003-06:00

Just like my mom once predicted, time has sped up as I've gotten older. When I was a kid, the space between Thanksgiving and Christmas used to stretch endlessly before me. Now I'm like, "Holy guacamole, is Christmas really this coming Sunday?"

Yes, it's really on Sunday.

Our tree is up, but so far it only has lights and ONE ornament, the ornament gifted to us by a co-worker of my husband. Each Christmas this man's family (consisting of a lovely wife and four kids), makes ornaments and then distributes them in person so the kids have the joy of creating and giving. It's the kind of thing I thought I would do when I had kids, but never did. This year's ornament is a gingerbread man, and I really want to eat it. It looks delicious.

Anyway, this is my evil plan for the tree. I am going to do nothing. That's right, nothing. I set the darn thing up, put the lights on, and vacuumed up the fake needles which fell off in the process. If no one else in the family makes a move to finish decorating it, this will be how it will look on Christmas morning.

A terrible photo taken with my son's phone, since I'm having camera issues.

If the tree doesn't get decorated, it'll confirm my long-stated assertion that I have to do everything around here. On the other hand, if the family comes together unprompted, and joyously finishes the job, I'll have to admit that I'm just a big whiner. I'll keep you posted.

The time has gone by so quickly that I never got around to mentioning the really nice post featuring me on the Otherworld Diner blog. Just prior to Thanksgiving, writer Brenda Nelson-Davis asked if I'd be willing to list a few things I'm grateful to have learned on the path to publication.

This is what I came up with (probably only of interest to other writers):

1.Not everyone will love my books. In fact, there will ALWAYS be a certain percentage of readers who don’t. Negative reviews used to devastate me ... until I noticed that all of my favorite books had at least a few one and two-star reviews. Once I realized some people out there hated To Kill a Mockingbird, it got easier. My take on it is that I always do my best, which is the only part of writing a novel I can control. Ultimately, people will have their opinions. So be it.

2.The importance of writer friends. I love all my friends, but writer friends come in handy when I want to talk shop or celebrate something writing-related. When I first started hanging out with other writers, I had this immediate strong feeling that these were My People. Turns out I’m not as weird as I thought, or at least I’m weird in a way that makes sense.

3.There’s no competition. I can envy another writer for his or her rich use of language, or New York Times bestseller status, but when the day is done, writers are not in competition with each other. Like literary fingerprints, each author writes the book only he or she can write. Besides, there are an unlimited number of slots to be filled and new readers are born every day.

4.To trust the process. Partway through writing a novel I always reach a point where I feel like I’ve painted myself into a corner and I become convinced there’s no way to get the book to work. It's a scary place to be, considering the time and emotional energy I’ve already sunk into the story. At some point, I realized this is part of my writing process and there’s no need to panic. I still do panic (a little bit), but it’s reassuring to know I’ve worked through this problem before, and I probably can do so again.

5.That nothing matters except the work. Not the reviews, not the rankings, not the sales. Many deserving books never get their due. There’s a lot of heartbreak out there for writers. If you really love writing, that will carry you through.

Now I'm off to do some wrapping. Happy holidays to all of you. I wish you the best, now, and in the coming year.

Peace,

Karen

10 Tips for New Bloggers

2011-12-12T19:16:00.016-06:00

Recently two different people asked my opinion concerning blogs. Are they necessary for authors? What to write about? How to get followers/traffic?

I'm far from an expert on the subject, but I get more traffic now than I did when I started out in 2004, and I've picked up a few ideas along the way. First of all, I don't believe blogs are absolutely necessary for authors. If keeping a blog feels like working on your taxes, don't do it. Life's too short. But if you do want to blog, the following tips may be helpful:

1) Content: People read to be entertained or informed, so if your blog posts manage to do one or the other (or both), you've done it right. How you do that is up to you. But beware-- if all of your posts are blatantly self-promoting, it's off-putting to readers. In my case, I believe my blog primarily attracts writers since my most visited blog posts include those on publishing on CreateSpace and tips for marketing ebooks. That's fine with me. I'm glad to help out other writers, and my blog still helps me maintain a wider web presence for those readers who Google my name or search for the titles of my books.

2) Frequency: There's no hard and fast rule about how often bloggers should post. I believe it's important to do it regularly, whether it's once a month or once a week. I try to do it once a week. Sometimes I manage it, sometimes not. I don't lose any sleep over it.

If you get on a tear and write three blog posts at once, space them out so that they post, say, once a week for three weeks instead of three days in a row. Some hosting sites, like Blogger, allow you to upload numerous posts at the same time and schedule future release dates and times.

3) Visuals: People love visuals--photos, embedded videos, book covers, graphs etc. Don't overdo it, but if you can insert a relevant image to break up a large block of text, it's probably a good idea.

4) Titles: You can title a post whatever you want, but remember that certain words are optimal in search engine results. Thus, it's better to title a blog post "Karen McQuestion wins the Pulitzer Prize," than "Hey guys, I won a really big prize!"

5) Length: Short is fine. I've had blog posts consisting solely of a photo with a caption. Determining the right length for longer posts is trickier. Unless it's really compelling reading, I'd stay under 800 words. Keep in mind that your audience is reading off a screen.

6) Appearance: Make sure your font is a readable size. Avoid dark backgrounds or anything that would make the reading experience difficult. The population is aging and so are our eyes.

7) Identify: A short bio at the top of the page is helpful. Oh, and a link to your website, if you have one, should be in the same area. Don't make people hunt for information. They may lose interest and wander away.

8) Interact: You can post a poll or ask a question of your blog readers. Part of the fun of blogging is finding out who's reading your blog and hearing their thoughts. Make sure your blog doesn't make them jump through too many hoops to leave a comment. Again, people will wander away...

9) Links!!! This is my number one pet peeve when I visit other people's blogs. I'll click on someone's name in the comments and it will take me to their blog. I'll read a post about their book and it sounds interesting, but if there's no link, I often let it go at that. That's a lost sale for the writer. If you have a book, make it easy for people to find your book. If your blog has the capability, put your book covers on your blog as clickable links, like I do in the right hand margin. If you can't do this, put clickable links at the end of each post. And when you mention a book in the body of a post, like for instance, Easily Amused, make it a link, and be sure it's an obvious link. Make it a different color, or bold it if you have to. And every single time you mention the book (Easily Amused) link it again. It seems redundant, but on a subconscious level, it makes an impact.

And since we're talking links, I think that when you link to other sites/blogs it's important to include the name of the author and the site name in the link, instead of just saying something like "here's an interesting article." It's nice for Google purposes and it's also good to give credit where credit is due. Your blog is not an island.

10) Numbers: If you're doing a listing, people seem drawn to numbers, especially a nice round number like "10." See if you can work that in somehow.

And that's everything I know about blogging. Does anyone have tips I may have overlooked? Feel free to chime in with a comment.

Thanks!

Karen

Interview with Dave Thome author of Fast Lane

2011-12-04T16:09:00.004-06:00

Sadly, I've neglected this blog, and a lot of other things as well. The good news (for me, anyway) is that I've finally finished a novel called The Road Trip. Yes, it's true and I say it proudly. I even typed "The End" on the last page, even though that's a complete dork-move. It felt good though, typing those words. Very satisfying.

I realized, once I came out of my writing vortex, that I'd promised my friend Dave Thome that I'd post his interview about his new book, Fast Lane, quite some time ago, and then I didn't because I was in a self-absorbed, have-to-finish-this-novel haze. Now I'm going to be seeing Dave this coming Wednesday and we'll be spending at least two hours in the car as we drive to and from a Wisconsin Screenwriters Forum meeting, and the conversation could get really awkward if I still haven't posted his interview by then.

Here's the description of Dave's novel Fast Lane:

Lara Dixon is determined to bring down billionaire Clay Creighton, because she believes his Fast Lane media empire, promoting “fast women, fast cars and fast living,” helped bring down her marriage. She convinces Gina Wray, feminist owner of HardCoreGrrls.com, that someone should infiltrate Clay’s empire—and to her surprise, Gina says Lara should be that someone.

Lara’s mission: become part of The Rotation, three gorgeous women who attend Clay 24/7 in his lavish lifestyle. Every six months, Clay boots the most senior member and replaces her with fresh meat. Lara tones her body and her lying skills while a Fast Lane insider talks her up to Clay. When she finally meets Clay at his notorious Malibu play house, they hit it off immediately. It’s not long before Lara finds herself in The Rotation—and quite possibly in over her head.

For nothing at Fast Lane is what it seems. The empire’s Bambi-eyed C.O.O., Sushma Vishnuveda, viciously stalks Lara's every move. Taequanda, the senior Rotation member, is friendly but hides a secret, while Corynne, the other member, plays fast with the truth. Lara finds herself second-guessing everyone, even her perky personal assistant Tiffany.

And Clay…Clay is nothing like what Lara expected. She’s surprised as she learns what he thinks and feels. She’s startled at how much they have in common. And she’s drawn to him in a way she never dreamed possible, as he treats her the way she’s always wanted to be treated. She’s falling in love, but is he?

Pressure builds on Lara from all sides. How can she deliver the expose she promised Gina? How long can she keep her secret from Sushma? And what if she confesses all to Clay? Will he help her—or will Lara become just another woman booted out of The Rotation?

So without further ado, here's my conversation with Dave about his new book, Fast Lane!

K.M - What prompted you to write Fast Lane?

D.T. - My wife, Mary Jo, and I had been self-employed as advertising and journalism writers for ten years in late 2009. When the bottom dropped out of the economy, our accounts receivable got low and new work slowed to a trickle. Mary Jo knew a woman who was regularly publishing “erotic” romances online and thought she could break into that while waiting for business to spring back. That genre is not what I would expect her to write, but she was being pragmatic. So I thought, “If she’s man enough to do that, I should be, too.”

I had a bunch of ideas that could easily be adapted to the erotic romance genre. Plus, I’d read Penthouse Form when I was nineteen, so I thought I could write erotic romance. Honest-to-god, erotic romances written for women now read like male-oriented porn that women would have reviled and scorned thirty years ago. The only difference is that erotic romance is from the woman’s point of view.

So I started writing Fast Lane, but after twenty or so pages I realized that since there was no sex, it wasn’t an erotic romance. But it did have the makings of a romance novel, so I continued writing it as a cotemporary romance.

K.M. - I confess to not reading a lot of in this genre, so maybe it’s me, but is there always so much sex in romance novels?

D.T. - Hard to answer. Sex is the whole point of the previously mentioned erotic romances, so I guess they have to have a lot of sex. But I don’t think there’s been more sex in the romance novels I’ve read than in any other genre.

There seems to an idea in our society that sex and romance should not be related. But I think they can be as related as an author wants to make them--or as a couple in real life wants them to be.

A couple of romance authors who do a good job with sex are the queen, Jennifer Cruisie, who usually incorporates a lot of humor into her scenes. Face it: Sex is kind of funny lots of the time, and should be fun most of time--not just serious and breathy. The other is Donna McDonald, whose specialty is older people in new romances showing they can keep up with whippersnappers in the bedroom.

K.M. - Your blog is called Man Writing A Romance (ManWAR http://manwritingaromance.blogspot.com/). Why do you think there aren’t more men writing romances?

D.T. - Couple of reasons. First, I think a lot of guys think writing romance is unmanly. Which is kind of strange, since there’s usually a guy involved--and what’s more manly than getting a woman? Men are always thinking about romance. Listen to classic rock radio. How many songs are about guys pining away for love or whatever?

The second reason, I think, stems from the first. Sure, men can easily, in their minds, stick themselves into romantic situations. But romance novels--because the audience is going to be almost entirely women--pretty much have to be told from the heroine’s point of view and explore her thoughts, feelings and personal growth. I hate to think the cliche that men can’t empathize is a reason men don’t write more romance fiction, but it’s probably true. The thing is, if you’re a writer, you absolutely have to empathize with your characters so the readers will, too. So if you’re not a spy and you write a spy novel, you have some empathizing to do, right? If you’re not a woman and you write a woman’s novel...

It may be a stretch for a man to empathize with a woman--but so what? Stretch.

K.M. - You have a background in (among other things) writing screenplays. Any chance Fast Lane will someday be a movie?

D.T. - Oddly, it probably has a better chance as a novel than if I had written it as a screenplay. I’m not being cynical here. Right now it seems Hollywood is less interested in spec scripts and more interested in adapting materials that have a track record. That includes novels, graphic novels, short stories published on websites that have a handful of readers, You!Tube shorts. So the better Fast Lane sells as a novel, the better chances it has of being a movie.

K.M. - Thanks so much, Dave! It was a pleasure having you on the blog, and I wish you and Fast Lane ( $2.99 on Kindle) the best of luck.

Secrets of the Magic Ring - new book trailer

2011-11-17T14:21:00.001-06:00

Bill Buckley, of the Mooresville Public Library in Mooresville, Indiana, emailed me recently to let me know that he produced a book trailer for my new book, Secrets of the Magic Ring. I've never met Mr. Buckley, but this is the third time he's done a trailer for one of my books, and I'm enormously honored.

Mr. Buckley's video is terrific. I'm posting it below, along with the other trailer done by illustrator Vincent Desjardins. I love seeing two different people's vision for the story.

Interview with Maria Murnane, author of It's a Waverly Life

2011-11-07T15:26:00.004-06:00

I'm in the vortex right now, an expression I borrowed from Louisa May Alcott. It just means I'm sucked into my current writing project and am finding it all-consuming, but in a good way.

In the meantime, I thought I'd share an interview I did with author Maria Murnane. She has a book coming out tomorrow, as do I (Secrets of the Magic Ring!). Maria's book is called It's a Waverly Life and features Waverly Bryson, dubbed by fans as "the American Bridget Jones."

Without further ado, let's start the interview!

K.M. - It’s a Waverly Life is a sequel to your popular book, Perfect on Paper: the (Mis)Adventures of Waverly Bryson. I understand that you also have a third book in the works. Did you plan to write three from the start?

M.M. - You are correct! I haven’t announced it yet, but I recently finished the first draft of the third Waverly book- yay! If all goes according to plan, it will come out next summer. (The working title is Honey on Your Mind, and it picks up a couple months after It’s a Waverly Life ends.) As for whether or not I planned to write three books from the start, the answer is no, definitely not. In fact, when I was writing Perfect on Paper I never imagined that I would one day write a sequel, much less two. It wasn’t until I realized how much readers connected with the Waverly character and truly wanted to know what happened to her after the last page that I decided to continue her story. In a way I was curious as well to find out where life would take her!

K.M. - How would you categorize your books? What’s your target audience?

That’s a great question, and I’m still not sure how to answer it. While I think the majority of my fans are probably women in their 20s, 30s and 40s, men and women of all ages (I mean from 15 to 75) have told me they read the book in one sitting and/or stayed up until the wee hours with Waverly. A male friend of mine who is married with three little kids—and is a partner in a big Boston law firm—told me he locked himself in his office one morning to finish it because he just couldn’t wait until after work to see how it ended. My older sister’s father-in-law said he was up until 2 a.m. for the same reason. In a way I think my books are a bit like Seinfeld in that they’re filled with stories about everyday life that people can relate to, because at some point they’ve been there too. I like to say they are novels for anyone who has ever run into an ex looking like crap. (If that has never happened to you, you’ve lived a charmed life, and I hate you. Ha.)

K.M. - Please share the joys and challenges of writing books with recurring characters.

M.M. - I enjoyed writing It’s a Waverly Life because I got to immerse myself in her world again, and it was fun reconnecting with the main characters. Crafting dialogue and story lines was easier, because of this, as I was already familiar with Waverly, McKenna, Andie, Jake, Scotty, etc. and how they would act. On the flip side, writing a sequel was a little stressful because the pressure was on to write something that people would love as much as Perfect on Paper.

K.M. - What plans do you have after the third book?

M.M. - I have no idea. Hmmm…I guess I need to start thinking about that! Actually, given how much I’ve learned in the process of becoming an author, I’ve begun giving workshops on publishing and book marketing (they are also available as on-demand webinars my website: www.mariamurnane.com). I’ve also launched a line of products based on the books at www.honeynote.com. I’ll probably focus on those things for the next few months, then jump back into writing in early 2012. I may do another Waverly Bryson book, or I may try something new, as you have done with your books. So stay tuned!

K.M. - You got your start in self-publishing. What advice would you have for other writers just starting out?

M.M. - If you want to get a traditional publishing contract, be prepared for the fact that it may not happen. It hurts, but rejection is the name of the game. However, if you love writing and believe in what you’re doing, keep going! No matter how your book is published, there’s nothing quite like holding a copy in your hands.

K.M. - Thanks so much, Maria!

Maria Murnane's official bio: Maria Murnane had a successful career in public relations for nearly 10 years before deciding she needed a change. She left for Argentina for what was supposed to be a two-week solo trip and ended up staying in Buenos Aires for a year. While there, she played semi-professional soccer for one of the most famous clubs in the world and wrote the romantic comedy “Perfect on Paper.” After being turned down by several publishing houses, she self-published and marketed the novel on her own, with great success. Eventually, “Perfect on Paper” was chosen by Amazon out of more than 10,000 self-published titles for its venture into traditional publishing and was re-released by AmazonEncore in 2010. A sequel, “It’s a Waverly Life,” is scheduled for a November 2011 release. Murnane has also launched a line of products called Waverly’s Honey Shop that is based on “Perfect on Paper’s” main character, Waverly Bryson. Murnane was a Regents’ and Chancellor’s Scholar in English and Spanish at UC Berkeley and has a master’s degree in communications from Northwestern University. She currently lives in New York and offers author consulting services on publishing and marketing in addition to working on her third novel. www.mariamurnane.com

Home Again, Home Again...you know the rest

2011-11-02T14:52:00.002-05:00

If you're new to the blog, you might not know that I recently went on a road trip to follow the route my characters take in my novel-in-progress which is tentatively titled, The Road Trip (clever, huh?). Two thousand miles later, I'm back. I took a lot of notes and scads of photos (of questionable quality). I still need to get myself organized, but I'm so glad I went because I think the experience will benefit the novel. Now I just need to dive back into the manuscript and get to work.

An upcoming blog post will go into the details of the trip, for those who might be interested. I will say that my husband Greg did 95% of the driving, which was wonderful. I'm exhausted right now sitting in my recliner at home, so I have no idea how he's functioning at work. Fueled by coffee, no doubt.

While I was gone, the talented artist Vincent Desjardins, who did the illustrations for my new kids' book, Secrets of the Magic Ring, updated his site. The majority of the drawings on his Black & White page are from that book. If you get a chance, take a look. I think he's very talented.

Also while I was away, the ebook anthology, Indie Chicks: 25 Women 25 Personal Stories was released. The Indie Chicks in question are independent writers of varying backgrounds and ages. At the moment, this book costs only 99 cents and proceeds go to the Susan G. Komen Foundation. I was honored when the organizer, author Cheryl Shireman, contacted me to ask if I'd write the foreward. She suggested that a blog post I'd already written would nearly fit the bill, and with a few changes it was good to go. Cheryl wrote about how this project came to be on her blog. I'm so happy to be included in this book and can't wait to read it. Thanks, Cheryl!

Writer friend and carpool-to-Madison-when-going-to-WSF associate, Dave Thome posted an interview with me on his site, ManWAR. He calls it an "exclusive interview." I say, sure, why not.

And last, but surely not least, Book Trends gave Celia and the Fairies a five-star review. Don't tell the other books, but I have a soft spot in my heart for Celia and this review makes me very happy.

Until later,

Karen

Road Trip!

2011-10-29T12:00:00.000-05:00

Just for the record, this post is being written in haste. I'm actually supposed to be packing right now to go away. My husband is in the bedroom filling a suitcase as I type this and I should be doing the same, but I begged for a few more minutes to update my blog. I'm not sure if that makes me dedicated or just really pathetic. Heh. In any case, please forgive any typos or awkward phrasings in this post

I haven't posted in a really long time, probably because I have been hyper-focused on finishing a novel I've been calling The Road Trip. The basic premise is that four women, strangers at the beginning of the book, wind up going on a road trip together. Hence, the title. No one has seen any of it yet, and I have this fear that it's really terrible. Hopefully my first readers will help me whip it into shape.

Besides my writing, I've also been busy converting my daughter's old bedroom into my home office. It's been repainted, with a new light fixture (and dimmer switch!), and all new furniture. Someday soon, when everything's in place, I'll post photos.

But back to The Road Trip. I was so happy to reach the end of the story. Good, bad, or something in-between, it always feels great to know I've completed a book. When I said I was (sort of) done, a friend said, "So can I read it?" and I was like, "Are you kidding? No!" The reason being that throughout the manuscript a reader would encounter things like: Put something here about what they're seeing out the car window. I figured I'd do some research later--make a few phone calls, look up video footage, and still photos online. I've been on car trips and I've even driven along part of the route in the book. I thought I could wing it.

But somewhere along the line, this idea was brewing that I needed to go on a road trip and follow the route of my characters. It seemed like a good way to layer authentic details into the novel. It's the wrong time of year, and I don't know three strangers willing to come with me, but a good part of it would be the same.

So my husband and I are heading out today. We're only doing half of the trip. The second half of the trip the ladies powered through the night to get to their destination, and I know how to describe nighttime driving, so we're cutting the trip short.

I'll post photos when I return.

Wish me luck!

Karen

Interview with Laura Schaefer, author of the Planet Explorers series

2011-10-11T17:35:00.003-05:00

I met author Laura Schaefer in 2009, after the release of her first middle grade novel, The Teashop Girls. She was the featured speaker at an SCBWI workshop in Madison, Wisconsin, and I was an attendee soaking up her publishing wisdom. After that, we crossed paths several times at various book events. She may have thought I was stalking her, but honest, I wasn't! The writing world can be a small one at times.

Since our first meeting, she's released a new book, The Secret Ingredient, a sequel to The Teashop Girls. Both books were published by Paula Wiseman Books, an imprint of Simon & Schuster.

Laura achieved success in the traditional publishing world, but do you think she stopped there? No, she did not. Because she's a new millenium woman, she's also branched out into, yes, you guessed it--the ebook world, this time with a series of non-fiction books for kids.

So now she's the founder and publisher of Planet Explorers, travel guidebooks for kids. I loved the concept and invited her to answer a few questions for the blog.

K.M.: What led you to write travel guides for kids?

L.S.: Planet Explorers came about as the direct result of three different (seemingly unrelated) conversations. The first was an email exchange with my friend Brian, who is a library director in Verona, Wisconsin. He mentioned a few years ago that parents were coming in and asking for travel books geared for readers in elementary school. It seemed incredible to me that this sort of thing didn't already exist, but when I looked into it I found a lot of travel books written for parents traveling WITH kids, not for the children themselves. I also found strictly educational books about states and countries that included information a place's history (but also it's major exports and crops...not exactly scintillating stuff for tourists). I got pretty excited and started contacting every major travel book publisher pitching the idea of kids' travel guides with me as the series author. Some of them were nice in their responses but all of them said no.

To be honest, I moved on to other projects and completely forgot about it.

Then last year, I bought an iPhone and got giddy about apps. My younger brother works in the theme park industry, so when he and I started gabbing about our magical little phones and the concept of "augmented reality," my mind churned and I began talking about developing an app for kids. I have an education bent because I've done a lot of curriculum writing through the years, and my thought was, "wouldn't it be cool if kids could use a phone to learn about a locale's trivia while they're actually there?" I envisioned writing up a fun little quiz for all the major sites in Madison, like the capital, Bascom Hill, the arboretum, etc., etc. But the thing about apps is they require programmers, and I had a budget of zero for that.

Finally, about six months ago, I realized that authors such as yourself and Amanda Hocking were having huge success with ebooks and I could make this concept of "in-the-moment learning" and "kids' travel guides" a reality all on my own. I wouldn't need the help of a publisher OR a programmer. I remember clearly that I was in my car when it all came together in my mind and I almost had to pull over I was so giddy. Planet Explorers was born.

K.M.: You are the author of The Teashop Girls, and The Secret Ingredient, middle grade novels traditionally published by Simon & Schuster. What made you decide to self-publish your travel books as ebooks?

L.S.: I was already interested in ebooks because of all the buzz and I loved, loved, loved the idea of completing a guide and having it published and ready to go a week later. I'm a hugely impatient person and even though I love working with Simon & Schuster and hope to continue to do so, it is really nice to burn through projects at my own pace. The waiting game is a big part of traditional publishing, and to be honest, it just about gives me an aneurism on a regular basis. I can't get used to it. I want action and progress and sales NOW.

The other advantage is the low price point I can offer parents as a result of my choice to self-publish. Planet Explorers guides are $2.99. There is no way a traditional publisher would be able to offer a price that low. I know that the category of "children's nonfiction" is not a big segment of the ebook market yet, but I have faith it will be. It just makes sense to have a guidebook on your smart phone or Kindle. Who wants to carry around the weight of a regular book when you're about to ride Splash Mountain?

K.M.: Your travel guides are filled with fun facts. Can you share a few with us?

L.S.: Sure! Here are some of my favorites.

From Planet Explorers New York City:

*One of the past directors of the Natural History museum was Roy Chapman Andrews, whose expeditions into the Gobi Desert and Mongolia inspired the movie character Indiana Jones.

* The art deco spire on top of the Empire State Building was originally planned to be a mooring mast for blimps (once called dirigibles, zeppelins, or airships). After a few attempts, the idea was abandoned because it was too windy to safely transfer passengers up there. Some say the whole idea was really only a publicity stunt.

From Planet Explorers Walt Disney World:

* The Swiss Family Treehouse is six stories tall and has 330,000 fake leaves attached to it. The Spanish moss is real.

* Some say Pirates of the Caribbean is haunted by a ghost named George.

K.M.: So far you have six travel books in the Planet Explorer series: Chicago, Philadelphia, New York City, Walt Disney World, Disney Cruise Line and Disneyland. How many more are you planning to do?

L.S.: My dream is to do a hundred guides, for both large and medium-sized cities around the globe as well as all the major theme parks. To meet this dream, I'll probably need to work with some additional writers! I am daunted by the potential size of this project, but also really excited about it. I'd love to see the guides evolve to become more and more interactive and visually interesting. I can also foresee writing fiction companions to each of the guides wherein young characters use knowledge and trivia they have about a particular city or theme park to solve a mystery. Wouldn't that be cool? I wish there were more hours in the day!

Thanks so much for interviewing me, Karen. You're the best. :-)

K.M.: You're very welcome, Laura! I wish you every success. :-)

Planet Explorers official website

Planet Explorers on Amazon

Planet Explorers on Barnes & Noble

Planet Explorers on iTunes

Planet Explorers on Smashwords

Planet Explorers on CurrClick

Laura's official bio: Laura Schaefer began her writing career as a book review editor at the University of Wisconsin's student paper The Daily Cardinal. She went on to write regularly for The Princeton Review and Match.com.

Laura is the author of The Secret Ingredient (Simon & Schuster 2011), The Teashop Girls (Simon & Schuster 2008) and Man with Farm Seeks Woman with Tractor (Thunder's Mouth Press, 2005). She is also the founder and publisher of Planet Explorers, travel guidebooks for kids. The first four titles in the series are Walt Disney World, Disneyland, New York City and Chicago.

Visit Laura online at www.teashopgirls.com or www.planet-explorers.net. You can also follow her on Twitter (@teashopgirl).

Laura lives in Madison, Wisconsin.

My novels in Sam's Club

2011-10-05T16:55:00.007-05:00

A few weeks ago my editor told me that two of my books, Easily Amused, and A Scattered Life, were going to be carried by Sam's Club. At that point, I didn't hear any specifics--didn't know when they'd be showing up, or if they'd be in all the Sam's Clubs or what, but still this was very big news.

And then, one evening, my friend Paige, who lives in Alabama, called me to tell me she had stopped at Sam's Club on her way home from work. She said, "Honey, they have your books here and I'm looking at them right now."

I told her she should point to them and say really loudly, "I heard that these are really good books!" but she declined, saying that no one else was around just then.

Of course, after that I had to make a reconnaissance trip to my own local Sam's Club to see for myself. I only had one problem: I'm not actually a member. So I called the Sam's Club in Waukesha, Wisconsin and talked to Mike, one of the managers. I explained who I was and that I wanted to come in and see the books, and also take some pictures, if that would be okay. There was a really long pause. I don't think Mike gets this kind of call very often. But he was gracious and said yes, that would be fine and that I should check in at the desk when I arrived.

I enlisted my partner in crime--my mom--and we set out. It was a Saturday.

A lovely woman named Donna greeted us at the door. When I explained why I was there she enthusiastically shook my hand, which really warmed my heart.

We checked in at the front desk and got the all clear, then headed back to the book section. This is what it looked like:

The book section at the Sam's Club in Waukesha, Wisconsin, in September 2011

As I got closer I was thrilled to see that my two books occupied four spots:

Count 'em! Four spots.

And that I was surrounded by the likes of Ann Patchett and Stieg Larson. Good company!

I was going to talk my books up, but just like the day Paige was there, no one else was around. So I took some photos and then Mom and I toured the store. I couldn't believe all the stuff they sell. Furniture--did you know they sell furniture at Sam's Club? Recliners and dining room sets and futons. Everything looked pretty nice too. I marveled over the cheap office supplies and boxes of granola bars and neon signs for businesses that say "Open," and "Closed." I was tempted to buy a set and hang them in my kitchen, but since I'm not a member of the club, it wasn't an option.

All in all it was a fun outing.

Ta da! A book trailer for Secrets of the Magic Ring

2011-09-25T10:41:00.005-05:00

The short video below is a trailer for my book, Secrets of the Magic Ring. I asked the illustrator, Vincent Desjardins, if he'd be interested in creating a trailer for the book and luckily for me, he was willing, and he also had time in his schedule to do the work. The illustrations are from the book and he also shot all of the background photos and the video. All of it was put together using FotoMagico and iMovie. I was thrilled with the end result.

I don't know how effective book trailers are as marketing tools, but I know that kids love visuals and I hope this will generate interest in the book, (which by the way, comes out on November 8th).

Writing for the movies - The story of how I wrote screenplays that didn't set the world on fire.

2011-09-18T11:03:00.008-05:00

Over the last year I've written a kids' book, and a good portion of an adult novel (adult meaning for grown-ups, not because it has objectionable content) and it doesn't seem like I've accomplished much unless I also give myself credit for writing blog posts and emails and promotional stuff and two screenplays.

The screenplays were a surprise, even for me. When A Scattered Life was optioned for film at the end of 2009, someone asked me if I was going to write the screenplay and I was like, "Are you kidding? I can't do that!" And that's just how I felt at the time. Writing screenplays was a whole different thing from what I was used to doing. Novels are words on a page, screenplays create images on a screen. And then there's the formatting and the whole "FADE IN" and "FADE OUT" and "MOS" and other lingo that seemed like secret code to me. The thought of writing a screenplay intrigued me, but that's where it ended.

I'd just gotten used to the idea that people wanted to read my books. It seemed presumptuous to think I could write a screenplay.

But an interesting thing happened then. I attended a social event hosted by RedBirdRedOak in Milwaukee (a reading by various writers at a coffee shop) and someone there said, "You really need to meet Dave Thome. He's had screenplays optioned," and so we were introduced and I found out that Dave had a lot of great stories about the movie industry. He's had meetings with producers in L.A., had scripts optioned, won prizes in competitions. No movies yet, but he's had some serious stuff happen. Far more than most writers ever see. And he said to me, "You should join the Wisconsin Screenwriters Forum." He told me about the organization and I explained that I wasn't a screenwriter, but he seemed to think that wouldn't make a difference.

I was intrigued, but didn't do anything for several months. During that time I had a conversation with another writer friend, Gail Grenier, and we were talking about a screenplay she'd written and her attempts to get it produced. I told her she should look into the Wisconsin Screenwriters Forum and she knew all about it, in fact she was a member, but she'd never gone to their monthly meetings in Madison.

To make a long story short, the three of us have been carpooling to the Madison meetings since then. I missed one month and the next time we drove, suddenly Gail and Dave had private jokes about things that happened during THE ONE TIME I missed, and I felt like the odd man out, which is ironic since they would never have met if not for me. It was sixth grade all over again.

I've been writing for a long time, and have gone to a lot of writers' critique groups, workshops, conferences etc. over the years, but WSF was like nothing I'd ever experienced. First of all, the members are serious, goal oriented writers, dedicated to the craft and determined to help each other succeed. Secondly, mirroring the movie industry, the majority of the members are men. No one differentiates or discriminates at WSF, this is just something I observed. For me, it gives the group a different sensibility.

Only slightly off topic, if anyone reading this is interested in writing screenplays, the Wisconsin Screenwriters Forum is not limited to those living in Wisconsin. They have members from all over the world and there are some nice benefits to belonging, even if you can't attend the meetings.

I became interested in writing a screenplay after attending a few meetings. To prepare, I read dozens (hundreds?) of screenplays online, read numerous books about the craft of writing for film, and bought the necessary formatting software.

It was exciting to learn something new that would take my writing in a different direction.

And then I wrote a screenplay, an adaptation of my book, Favorite. I thought it was pretty good, but then Dave read it and gave me notes indicating it needed work. "Too much chit chat," was one of the things he said. So I revised the thing and wound up cutting nine pages. I guess there was too much chit chat. I didn't make all of Dave's suggested changes, probably because I'm too attached to the book's plot. That can be a problem for writers adapting their own work, I've heard.

Since then I've also written another screenplay, an adaptation of my book, Celia and the Fairies. I've made countless revisions along the way and this one, I think, is better, but I've learned that writers are often not good judges of their own work, so who knows--maybe both screenplays are terrible. I hope not, of course, but you never know.

And then, I attempted to get my screenplays into the hands of someone in the film industry, and you know what? It's almost impossible. No one cares that I wrote a screenplay, and I say that with no bitterness, it's just the way it is. The studios and production companies usually only look at things submitted by agents and agents only consider things by referral. There are smaller production companies and lesser-known agents who may be open to unsolicited queries, but I didn't feel savvy enough to navigate that terrain. A lot of writers get their foot in the door via contests, but contests charge fees and take months to make decisions (understandably) and some of them don't accept adaptations of other work, which was a problem for me.

You think it's hard to get a book published with a traditional publisher? Try getting a script made into a movie.

Of course, I'm always up for a challenge. I sent email queries to a bazillion production companies and agents. None of the agents responded, and only a handful of the production companies got back to me. One producer took the time to tell me why my project wasn't for them, which was exceptionally nice, given all the emails they get.

I realized that seeing this thing through could be time consuming, if done correctly. And I really wanted to concentrate on the novel I'm currently working on.

So I decided to upload both my screenplays to Amazon Studios. I had wondered if the fact that my books are with Amazon Publishing would make this a problem, but I read the rules and nowhere does it say that I couldn't enter. My understanding is that all the scripts are judged by blind reads, anyway, so a screenplay has to stand on its own merit.

Going with Amazon Studios ties up my work for eighteen months, but you know what? Eighteen months goes pretty fast for me, nowadays. And in each of those eighteen months they'll be eligible for monthly prizes. Some of the scripts on the site will be optioned by Amazon Studios for $200,000. Most will not, of course. Most will be up on the site for a year and a half and not win anything or get optioned. Nothing will happen at all, kind of like what the screenplays were doing stored in my computer before I uploaded them.

I like the concept of Amazon Studios and I enjoy the site. I haven't posted on the message forums yet, but I get a kick out of reading the discussions. I like the fact that other people can review your script and that you can then make revisions and upload a new version. I also appreciate being able to read other people's screenplays, especially the ones that have placed in the monthly contest. It gives me some insight into what the judges want (so far, none of them are like mine), and which ones stand out.

I told my husband that doing this feels like the early days of Kindle for me. Back then I had a "here goes nothing," attitude, that eventually led to everything I've gotten so far. It's always risky putting your work out in the world, but it's worth doing. You never know until you try, and even if it doesn't go well, at least you have your answer. Obscurity is far worse, to my mind.

If you're curious about my screenplays you can read them here. Even better, read some of the winning scripts. When they're made into movies you can say you knew about them way back when.

Internet Friends

2011-09-13T06:05:00.003-05:00

Internet friend and fellow author Barbara Taylor Sissel sent me this charming photo of a fairy house in her garden. She just had a feeling I'd love it, and I did.

One of the nice bonuses of getting my books out into the world is "meeting" a lot of great people. Author Barbara Taylor Sissel first came into my life when she reviewed A Scattered Life and interviewed me for the website Boxing the Octopus. Via email, we shared publishing stories and found out we had a lot in common. Like me, she experienced numerous near misses when trying to get published.

There's a lot of heartbreak out there for writers. Or at least there used to be a lot of heartbreak. Now there are options. Put your work out there and let the market decide, is my rallying cry!

And that's just what Barbara did. Recently she made her novel, The Ninth Step available as an ebook. If you read the excerpt on her website you can decide if the book is your cup of tea. I can tell you right now that it hooked me. One click later, I'd bought her novel and was good to go. Lately I've been stocking up on reading material. Winter is coming and I want to be ready.

Speaking of nice people I've met online (whoa, now that was a smooth transition!) I'd like to give a shout-out to Tiffany Lovering, author of Tamporlea, the first book in a planned trilogy. She's gone on record as saying I'm one of her favorite authors. Isn't that nice? It's the kind of thing you dream about when you're writing novels--wouldn't it be great if someday someone said I was one of their favorite authors? So thank you, Tiffany, for making that a reality for me.

If you watch Tiffany's tour of her bookcase you'll see that I'm in very good company. You'll also see Tiffany's daughter, the charming Allison, who like her mother, loves to read.

Bookstore Event Successful Despite Universe Conspiring Against Author

2011-09-11T15:13:00.008-05:00

In the past year I've given workshops, spoken on panels, been the invited author for book clubs, and given talks to community groups, but until last Thursday night, I'd never been a featured author for a bookstore event.

If you've read my previous blog post, you'll know that the date chosen, September 8th, turned out to be a problem. To start with, I found out that it was the first game of the season for the Green Bay Packers, and if that wasn't bad enough, someone reminded me there was a presidential address that evening. I was a little panic-stricken that no one would show up and I was starting to regret all the times I didn't go to my friend Michelle's when she had product parties. I've always hated those things.

Also, one friend had a dance lesson and another had tickets to see a production at the Milwaukee Repertory Theater. Who knew I had such interesting friends?

The plan that evening was for my mom and I to drive down and pick up my husband from work along the way. Greg had carpooled with a friend that morning (the friend drove) so this worked out perfectly. As we headed down I94 East there was a definite snag in traffic right before....the Stadium. Yes, there was also a Brewers game.

Argh.

When we arrived at Boswell Book Company one of the staff said that if not many people showed up, I shouldn't take it personally. She said they'd even had to change the time of an upcoming Jeffrey Eugenides visit so it wouldn't coincide with the Packers-Viking game. We're in Wisconsin. That's just how it is.

At about twenty minutes before the hour there were only a handful of people there, but bit by bit more and more came until finally there was a respectable turnout--maybe 25 or so? A good many friends came, including Michelle, who apparently doesn't hold grudges, and quite a few people I didn't know showed up too. Stacie from Boswell introduced Judy Bridges, who introduced me (I'm still blushing from all the nice things she said), then I read, and I'm happy to say it went well. The audience laughed at the humorous parts. The Q&A morphed into a really fun group discussion. As far as I'm concerned, the evening was a success.

Greg got home in time to see the second half of the game and the Packers defeated New Orleans 42-34. So that was good. (Unless you're a Saints fan, in which case--good game and better luck next time.)

Today I read on the Boswell and Books blog, written by owner Daniel Goldin, that my novels Easily Amused and A Scattered Life, occupied two spots on his list of store bestsellers for the week. Woo hoo!

Next week there will be a different list and my books will probably not be on it. But that's okay. For now, it's all good.

Come see me at Boswell Book Company on Thursday, September 8th at 7 p.m.!

2011-09-07T10:12:00.003-05:00

"The more that you read, the more things you will know. The more that you learn, the more places you'll go."

— Dr. Seuss (I Can Read with My Eyes Shut)

When my publicist from Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, the lovely Megan, set up an author event for me at Boswell Book Company in Milwaukee tomorrow night at 7 p.m., neither of us realized that the date would coincide with the first Packers game of the season, and the evening of the presidential address. Throw in a natural disaster and we'll be good to go.

But seriously, if you're in the Milwaukee, Wisconsin area and you can make it, I'd love to see you. Bring a friend.

Boswell Book Company is the kind of bookstore where you can spend many hours and a lot of moola, and every second and every dollar would bring you supreme pleasure. I've been to many events at the store and can tell you it's a first class outfit.

The lovely Judy Bridges, writer, teacher, author of Shut Up & Write, and founder of Redbird Studio will do the introductions for my event. Then there will be a short reading, followed by questions, if any (I'm prepared to ask myself questions if the audience comes up short), and then there will be a free drawing for two $25 Boswell Book Company gift cards. And a signing too, of course, because no book is complete without my signature.

And to think that Sister Carmina gave me a "D" in handwriting in second grade. Maybe I should practice.

This is the turnout that Judy got for her appearance at Boswell. I was there, of course, never dreaming that someday I'd be on the other side of the podium reading from my novels.

So come if you can, and if that's not possible, GO PACK GO!!!

Below is the press release for the event. Having a press release makes it official:

Hartland author Karen McQuestion spent nearly a decade trying to get novels published without success. In July 2009, she uploaded her manuscripts to be available as ebooks on Amazon’s Kindle. From the start, sales were good and supportive readers gave her books positive recommendations and reviews.

As a result, one of her novels, A Scattered Life, was optioned for film in November 2009 by Hiding in Bed, a L.A. production company. The same book became a Kindle bestseller, topping the list at number five.

Two of her novels, Easily Amused and A Scattered Life, were acquired by Mariner Books, a division of Houghton Mifflin Harcout, and released in trade paperback in August.

On Thursday, September 8th at 7 p.m., McQuestion will appear at Boswell Book Company, 2559 N. Downer Ave. in Milwaukee, for a reading and book signing. In addition to the presentation, a free drawing for two $25 Boswell gift cards will take place. This event is free and open to the public.

Interview with Illustrator Vincent Desjardins - Part Two

2011-09-03T09:16:00.006-05:00

This is the second part of my interview with illustrator, Vincent Desjardins, the artist who did an amazing job illustrating my book Secrets of the Magic Ring (Now available for preorder. It would make a great gift for kids ages 7-10 and the holidays will be here before you know it!).

I'll give the floor to Vince now:

K.M. - Do you draw from memory?

V.P.D. - Not entirely. I usually do a rough layout sketch of where I want the figures placed and then I use various types of guides to help me flesh things out. For example, I will often Google images of plants and animals to use as drawing aids. Sometimes I will even Google things like women’s hairstyles. For the dog, Clem, in your book, Secrets of the Magic Ring, I looked at photographs of a breed of dog called an Otterhound. While I was working on the illustrations that featured Clem, I found several images on the internet that I kept open on my desktop while I worked.

Also, for reference, I used a program called “Poser,” * that allows you to pose and set up human and animal mannequins in three dimensional space. You can even change the lighting on them to use as an aid in creating your shadows. That program was an invaluable tool on this job, especially for the illustrations that required unusual perspectives, like the scene where Paul is climbing up the ladder and sees Henry standing above him. For filling in simple background details, for example, the objects you might see in a laundry room, I usually just use my imagination and memory.

K.M. - Can you tell us about some of your influences?

V.P.D. - I have a lot of favorite artists, all of whom I guess could be considered influences. For the black and white work I did in this book, I was heavily influenced by the works of Erik Blegvad, N.M. Bodecker and Louis Darling. Blegvad has illustrated tons of books including Mary Norton’s Bed-knob and Broomstick, Judith Viorst’s The Tenth Good Thing About Barney, and Marjorie Winslow’s Mud Pies and Other Recipes. As I mentioned before, Bodecker illustrated the Edward Eager Books, as well as other books that he himself wrote, like Hurry, Hurry Mary Dear, which is a wonderful book of his nonsense poems.

Louis Darling illustrated a number of children’s classics, including Beverly Cleary’s Henry Huggins and her Ramona Books. I was saddened to learn that Beverly Cleary recently gave the publisher of the Ramona books, permission to update the illustrations for that series, meaning that in new editions of the book, you’ll no longer be able to see Darling’s charming illustrations. Darling also illustrated one of my childhood favorites, Oliver Butterworth’s The Enormous Egg. I could go on talking about influences for pages. In closing, I’ll just mention that I have also been influenced by people like Mary Blair, Gustav Tenggren, J.P. Miller, Tibor Gergely, John Schoenherr, David Small and many more.

K.M. - How old were you when you knew you wanted to be an artist?

V.P.D. - I knew I wanted to be an artist from a very young age. I had asthma as a kid and my mother would often keep me inside. I was also somewhat sickly and would stay home from school a lot. My mom encouraged me to draw. She was a frustrated artist herself and had lots of talent which unfortunately, once she started raising a family, she didn’t get to use very often. Before she had my older brother, she had enrolled in the Famous Artists Correspondence school. As part of that course she was sent three large art instruction books. The books covered everything from drawing basic forms, to human anatomy. Even though she never finished the course, she kept the books and when I showed an interest in drawing, she gave them to me. I spent a lot of time looking at those books, which I still have by the way, and would often copy images out of them. I guess I’d have to say that those books were my first drawing teachers.

K.M. - You took a drawing I’d thought was perfect, redid the scene from a different angle and made it even better. Can you show us the before and after, and explain what you did and why?”

First version of a drawing of the kids watching the pool being dug. I'd thought it was perfect and couldn't imagine that the scene could be depicted any better than this.

V.P.D. - This image was somewhat of a challenge. I had to try and figure out a way to show the two children, Paul and Celia, and the dog Clem while they were sitting inside their house watching a swimming pool being dug outside their window. I know that kids, especially little boys, seem to like pictures of digging equipment and trucks. Because of that, I wanted to make the backhoe somewhat prominent. Because the children were sitting in the house I had two choices: I could show the children from behind and have the backhoe in the background, or I could have the backhoe in the foreground and the two children could be seen inside the house in the background.

Because I didn’t want to show the backs of the children, I decided to go for the second option. But since they were going to be in the background, that option meant the children were going to be quite small. I completed that illustration, which I think was perfectly fine, but after showing it to my critique group, they pointed out to me that since this was to be the first illustration in the book, the children should be the main focus. So I went back and redid the illustration from a different point of view. I did end up showing the children from the back, but instead of having them looking out the window, which would have meant you’d only see the backs of their heads, I had them looking toward one another which allowed me to show their faces in profile. It was a perfect compromise. I was really happy that I decided to re-do it, because I think it turned out to be a much stronger illustration.

Final version of an illustration of the same scene. I have to agree with Vince that this one is a big improvement. Lesson learned: alway defer to the artist. He knows best.

Thanks for the interview, Vincent! I loved hearing about your life and work.

* Here's a link to a blog post where Vincent shows how Poser, a 3D modeling computer program, aids artists in creating drawings. As someone who is hopeless in the visual arts, I found it fascinating.

Vincent’s website: http://www.vincentdesjardins.com/

Vincent’s blog: http://vinpauld.blogspot.com/

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

My books: A Scattered Life / Easily Amused

For teens: Favorite / Life On Hold

For kids: Celia and the Fairies / Secrets of the Magic Ring

Interview with Illustrator Vincent Desjardins - Part One

2011-09-01T06:14:00.009-05:00

This past summer, my publisher hired the very talented artist, Vincent Desjardins, to do the illustrations for my kids' book, Secrets of the Magic Ring (due to be released November 8th). I was doubly excited about this because Vincent was kind enough to let me weigh in during the process, something that is rarely done in the publishing business. Our exchanges consisted mostly of him sending sketches via email, and me emailing back to say I LOVED them and couldn't believe a human being could create such perfect visual representations of my story. For instance, the first illustration I saw was this one of Paul and his dog Clem in the garage after opening the box containing the magic ring:

I loved the way he depicted Paul and all the little details too--the spider web in the background, and the dog wagging his tail. My daughter commented that he'd drawn the dog, Clem, exactly the way she'd pictured him, which is just what I'd been thinking. An amazing likeness.

I interviewed Vincent for the book page on the Amazon site, but unfortunately they had space issues and couldn't post the whole thing. My blog has no such issues, so I'm sharing the interview in its entirety, but doing it in two parts.

Today I give you part one:

K.M. - True confession—before I knew for sure that you’d be doing the artwork for my book, I secretly stalked your website and blog and was so impressed! The examples of your work show very diverse styles. How did you become so versatile?

V.P.D. - First off, thanks for the compliment. I’m always thrilled when someone tells me that they were impressed by my work. As far as my versatility goes, I think in order to compete in today’s competitive illustration market, an illustrator needs to be versatile. But actually I think any versatility that I may have achieved is probably due to my career-long search for a style. As an aspiring children’s book illustrator, I’ve heard over and over again how important it is to develop a personal style. I’ve always worried that my work was too “all over the map” and that I didn’t have a style. I’ve been doing my work digitally for over twenty years, and in the digital realm it’s much easier to explore and take risks. If you make a mistake you can “undo” it and you can save multiple versions of the same image. I also have so many different illustrators that have influenced me that I often find myself creating challenges to see if I can do something in their style. I suppose I could say that’s how I stumbled upon any versatility that you may or may not see in my work.

K.M. - When my editor told me you were available to do the illustrations for Secrets of the Magic Ring I was over-the-moon thrilled. How did you prepare for the project?

V.P.D. - Well, first off I read the manuscript straight through. Then I went back over it for a second pass and underlined all of the passages that I felt had visual potential. When Terry Goodman, your editor, forwarded me one of your emails where you said you were a fan of N. M. Bodecker, the illustrator of Edward Eager’s books, I went to our public library and checked out all of his books so I could study the illustrations. Bodecker has a wonderful style, he was especially good at using patterns and stylizing things like trees and plants, but the one thing I didn’t particularly like about his illustrations, at least in the Eager books, were that almost every person that he drew was done in profile. But I did learn a lot from looking at his work, especially when it came to drawing backgrounds - trees, plant detail and that sort of thing.

K.M. - With publishers tightening their belts, fewer middle grade books are now illustrated. What are your thoughts on this?

V.P.D. - Of course as an illustrator this is something that directly affects my profession so it makes me sad. As an avid reader of children’s middle grade fiction, it also makes me sad, especially when I browse the books in our library’s children’s classics section and I see the beautiful pen and ink illustrations that filled so many of the books from the 1940s, 50s, and 60s. I know that when I was a child, I would always go for the books that had pictures in them. When starting to read a book, I would find and look at all of the pictures first because then I found it fun to search for the accompanying text while I was reading. When I would get to the text that was being illustrated, I would always go back and forth between the picture and the text to see how the artist interpreted the author’s words. I still do that.

K.M. - We had a fun back and forth via email while you were working on this project. At one point, you showed me a preliminary drawing of Aunt Vicky falling into a pool. I realized then that I hadn’t done a very good job describing her appearance. After explaining that Vicky was a glamorous aunt, I added more description to the text, and you made changes to the illustration. Are you willing to share the initial sketch and the final illustration?

V.P.D. - I’d be happy to share the original sketch. I was glad that you commented on my original drawing of Vicky because looking at my original drawing now, I can see that I made her look too generic. When you mentioned the name of a particular celebrity as an idea for how you imagined she should look, that was a big help. I even Googled that celebrity to see how she wore her hair, so that I could give Vicky a more glamorous looking hairstyle.

Original sketch

Final illustration with glamorous Vicky

(Note from Karen: I'd mentioned that I pictured Vicky as an Angelina Jolie type, and I think Vincent definitely captured that.)

Stay tuned for part two!

Thanks,

Karen

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

My books: A Scattered Life / Easily Amused

For teens: Favorite / Life On Hold

For kids: Celia and the Fairies / Secrets of the Magic Ring

Want to Sell Books on Kindle? Keywords are your friends!

2011-08-28T21:18:00.026-05:00

Whenever another Kindle author asks how they can amp up sales, I always say (or email), "Have you thought about changing your Keywords?" And then, because I'm so enthused about the power of Keywords, I tend to expound on the subject, suggesting words or phrases they can use and urging them to do it right away.

They almost never follow my advice. I'm not sure why. Adding or changing Keywords is easy, takes only minutes to do, and can potentially make a huge difference in the number of readers who come across your book. It seems like a no-brainer to me, but what can I say? I have three kids. I'm used to people not listening to me.

The topic came up again recently when I had an email exchange with another author, Karen Dionne, and I realized that maybe I hadn't done a very good job explaining about keywords in the past.

I received an email from Ms. Dionne announcing that her internationally published thriller, Freezing Point, was available on Kindle for $0.99. Even though I'd already read it in paperback, I bought it for Kindle because--hey, it's 99 cents! Plus, I always like to support a fellow author.

Then next thing I did, nosy person that I am, was to scroll way down to the bottom of the book page to see what Keywords she'd chosen. This is what I saw:

Under "Look for Similar Items by Subject" is a list containing the Categories (in caps) selected for the book, and below that, the chosen Keywords, all of which are entered when the book is first uploaded to Kindle. Up to two Categories can be picked from a predesignated list. Keywords of the authors choosing are entered at the same time.

This part of the process is completely optional and some authors gloss right over this step, thinking it doesn't make much of a difference. Other authors pick Keywords that are specific to their book--things like character names or the fictional town where the novel takes place. To me, these authors are missing the point.

Karen actually had a pretty good list, but I thought I'd offer some suggestions on how she could improve it. I emailed to ask if she wanted some buttinsky advice offered in the spirit of being helpful, and smart woman that she is, she welcomed my thoughts.

***

In my email I said: One of my strategies for getting visibility for books on Kindle involves making full use of the allowable Keywords and Categories that Amazon has you enter when you first upload the book. You can change them after the fact at any time. I haven't uploaded a book recently, but the last I knew, each book was allowed two categories and ~~twenty~~ (edited to correct number--seven) keywords. A Keyword can be more than a single word--it can be a name or phrase or whatever.

The reason Keywords and Categories are so crucial is that this is how people who are looking for your type of book find yours when they enter a search word or phrase. The idea is to use keywords that people are likely to use, but not such common keywords that everyone is using them, because you want your book to show up within the first few pages of results.

The one at the top is a category. You only picked one--ideally you should pick another as well. It ups your chances of getting on more lists as the book sales start to pick up. The next seven below are your chosen keywords. You need to correct the spelling of Antarctica--unlike Google, the Amazon search engine is non-forgiving of typos. Also, you can take out your own name, since the book will automatically come up when people search for your name. That's a slot that could be used for another search word. Thriller is good. Eco-thriller is even better, because there are likely to be fewer results for that term. I'd also suggest keywords like: cheap kindle, new release (although in this case, maybe not-I'm assuming it was in Kindle before?), suspense, action adventure, suspense thriller, scientific thriller, disaster movie, etc. and so on.

***

I then mentioned that this would make a great blog post, but that she shouldn't worry that I would put her on the spot by using her name.

To backtrack a bit, you should know that Karen has a history of being generous to other writers. She is the cofounder of the online writers community Backspace, and organizes the Backspace Writers Conferences held in New York City every year. Knowing this, I wasn't surprised when she responded that she had no problem with me using Freezing Point as an example on my blog.

She also noted that it took several readings of my email to see exactly what I was talking about, because at first she had looked at the wrong place on the Amazon page and thought I was referring to this:

This is a common misunderstanding. These are tags. Tags are added after the book page has been created. Anyone can add tags and anyone can check existing tags if they agree they are relevant to the book. A lot of writers spend a lot of time adding tags, and getting other people to check the boxes next to their tags. Tags, schmags, that's what I say. I never bothered with them, and as far as I can tell, they don't have much bearing on readers finding books. But I could be wrong. As I said, I have three kids and they can tell you that I'm wrong on a regular basis. :-)

If you're a Kindle author, I hope you find this information helpful. Go forth and reassess your keywords. You never know, there may be room for improvement.

Later,

Karen

Edited to add: I've had a few people ask exactly how you would change the keywords on an existing Kindle book. I noticed the question also came up on Karen Dionne's Facebook page and author Steve Lehto answered it so well, I'm going to borrow his response:

Steve Lehto - Go into the Kindle account and then hit EDIT on each book. The keywords are on the first of the two pages that contain the details for the book in the Kindle system.

Thanks, Steve! You said it more succinctly than I could have.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

My books: A Scattered Life / Easily Amused
For teens: Favorite / Life On Hold
For kids: Celia and the Fairies / Secrets of the Magic Ring

Announcing the winners of the Secrets of the Magic Ring book giveaway!

2011-08-25T19:11:00.007-05:00

The commenters who won the paperback ARC of Secrets of the Magic Ring are:

1) Joannie

2) Sean McCartney

3) Mary Michela (from Facebook)

Thanks to all who left a comment. I'm tickled to know that so many would love to win a copy of my book.

For those who are interested in self-publishing, I just revamped the FAQ page on my website to include links to blog posts on the subject. Scroll down to the very bottom and you'll find it all spelled out.

My next post will reveal my super secret, magic weapon for getting greater visibility (and thus, sales) for Kindle books--namely Keywords! Everybody knows about them (okay, I guess it's not that much of a secret), but not everyone grasps their importance and how you can use them to great advantage. I know this because every time another writer complains about a lack of sales, and I say, "Have you thought about changing your keywords?" I don't get the kind of reaction I think keywords deserve.

I will divulge all in a few days.

Until then,

Karen

Secrets of the Magic Ring book giveaway!

2011-08-17T13:12:00.073-05:00

It's always a happy day when I get the ARCs (advance reading copies) of a new book, as was the case recently when I received a box filled with copies of Secrets of the Magic Ring. This is how it usually works: the doorbell rings and I go to the front door just in time to see the UPS driver sprint back to the truck after leaving a box on the front stoop. I look down at the address label and realizing what it is, my heart fills with joy. And when I open the box and actually hold a book in my hand? Oh my word. I'm impossible to be around. Everyone who comes by the house has to look at the books and sufficiently admire them. Luckily for my family, this phase passes fairly quickly.

This time around, the experience was tinged with a teeny, tiny bit of disappointment because the timing didn't work out to include the illustrations in the ARCs. Bummer. (<--does anyone say "bummer" anymore? I just looked at that and realized I hadn't heard it in like forever).

The book is so beautiful that I can't really complain, although I guess I just did. The good thing is that when the book is released on November 8th, it will have all fifteen of Vincent Desjardins' beautiful illustrations. And I mean beautiful. When I was a kid I loved poring over the illustrations in chapter books. I can still vividly recall the black and white drawings in the Little House books and Charlotte's Web and (my personal favorites) the books by Edward Eager.

I was at the bookstore recently, looking at some of the newer releases and realized that very few middle grade novels are illustrated anymore. Publishers are cutting costs, obviously, which is a shame because I think artwork enhances a book in a big way. I'm a grown-up and even I like photos, maps, and drawings in books. The truth is that our society has become increasingly more reliant on the visual as people read the news online etc. Illustrations in a kids' book seems like an obvious solution for reaching reluctant readers. I'm fortunate that my publisher was on board with the extra expense for this book.

As I page through the advance copy of the book, the spaces where the illustrations eventually will be are marked with captions and the phrase "Picture to Follow." A promise of things to come. I've already seen the artwork, so when I read "Jasmine watches the party from a tree" on page 52, I can imagine this:

Isn't she pretty? And look how well she blends in with the tree! No wonder there are so few fairy sightings. They're like chameleons.

In honor of the delivery of the ARCs, I'm hosting a free book giveaway. The same rules apply as in the past.

1) Leave a comment at the end of this blog post. Any nice comment will do. Also leave a way I can reach you in the event that you win.

2) In one week's time I will do a random drawing and three people will be chosen to receive a paperback copy of Secrets of the Magic Ring.

3) You can live anywhere in the world and still enter.

4) Previous winners of my contests are welcome to enter this one.

That's all there is to it!

I'll be offline for the next few days, working feverishly on my novel, so I may not comment right away, but I will be back.

Later,

Karen

Q&A with Karen McQuestion

2011-08-13T07:58:00.009-05:00

At the beginning of summer a publishing website contacted me to ask if I'd do a Q&A for their blog. I said yes, the guy sent the questions, I answered and emailed my responses, and that was it. Literally, that was it. I never heard back.

It slipped my mind until recently, when I woke up from a sound sleep in panic mode. What if he never got my email and thought that I hadn't followed-up? I pride myself on being reliable, if nothing else. So to ease my mind, I emailed to double check and the guy assured me he had indeed gotten my interview, and that in fact, he'd already posted it on the site.

Ummm.... Call me confused because I looked and it wasn't there. I'm not sure which one of us is mixed-up here, but I didn't want to belabor the point. And since I hate to waste anything, I'm posting it here. ツ

Q&A with Karen McQuestion

What is your latest book about?

I’m currently working on an adult novel, but the book that will be released next, in November, is titled Secrets of the Magic Ring. It’s a follow-up to my middle grade novel, Celia and the Fairies. This time around the main character is Celia’s friend Paul.

What inspired you to write it?

At the end of Celia and the Fairies, Paul and Celia watched as a work crew dug an enormous hole in his backyard in preparation for an inground pool. I hadn’t planned on writing a sequel, but one night when I was nearly asleep the thought hit me—Paul was going to find something really cool in the hole! The story went from there.

How is ebook technology changing things for you as an author?

Without ebook technology, I wouldn’t have a career. Two years ago I was a wannabe novelist with a backlog of adult and kid’s books languishing on my hard drive. In July 2009, I uploaded my books to be available on Amazon’s Kindle. This was before the Nook and iPad. I’d never seen an ebook device except as an image on my computer, and I wasn’t sure what to expect. I was shocked when the books sold and delighted when word-of-mouth on the Amazon message boards boosted my books to bestsellers.

As a result of these sales, and good reviews, one of my books, A Scattered Life, was optioned for film and I was offered a publishing contract with AmazonEncore. on August 23rd, two of my books, Easily Amused and A Scattered Life, will be released in trade paperback by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.

In short, because of ebook technology, I can now make a living writing fiction. And believe me, it’s so much more fun writing when you know other people will be reading your books.

What advice do you have for other aspiring authors?

The usual advice applies: perfect your craft and write compelling stories. If you decide to self-publish, take the time to do it right. It’s important to have the manuscript well edited. Your description, formatting, and cover image should be on par with those done professionally (or as close as possible). Use a low price to entice readers.

But most of all: don’t give up. Everyone gets discouraged on occasion. When times are tough, remember why you were drawn to this in the first place. Words have power. As writers we have the capacity to entertain or touch people through our work. And writing is fun! It doesn’t get much better than a good day at the keyboard when you’re in the flow and the words come almost effortlessly.

When you’re trying to get published (or are frustrated because your ebook sales are sluggish), it’s easy to forget the joy of writing. Do what you need to do to get that joy back. Write the weird book that doesn’t fit neatly into a category, or the quiet, touching novel that lacks a great marketing hook. Trust me; if it’s a good story that’s well written, there are readers out there who will love it. Keep the faith.

Announcing the winner of the book giveaway...

2011-08-13T07:25:00.003-05:00

Regular commenter Sean McCartney has won the drawing for Gail Grenier's ebook, Dog Woman. Watch your email inbox, Sean. It's coming your way!

Dog Woman by Gail Grenier - An Interview and Kindle book giveaway

2011-08-06T14:00:00.019-05:00

I met Gail Grenier more than ten years ago when I took her creative writing class at Waukesha County Technical College. She's a terrific teacher--encouraging and enthusiastic--and best of all for me? She made writing fun.

We kept in touch, and years later we reconnected because we both belong to a screenwriting organization, Wisconsin Screenwriting Forum, or WSF, as some members call it. (Or WTF, if you're in a really silly mood, and Gail and I are often in silly moods.) Later, Gail asked me for advice when she was preparing to upload her novel, Dog Woman, to Kindle. We'd completely switched roles--now I was the teacher.

And so the student had become the master...

I invited Gail to talk about her novel, Dog Woman, on my blog because I found her unconventional path toward writing this book fascinating. I mean, come on now--who covers a story for a newspaper, thinks about it for twenty years, writes it as a screenplay, and then converts it into a novel? Read on to get the deets (as the kids say).

Oh, and after you're done reading her answers to my very insightful questions, leave a comment to be entered in a drawing to win the Kindle version of Dog Woman. A name will be randomly drawn one week from today, on August 13th. Make sure you leave a way to be contacted, or else check back next Saturday to see if your name is chosen.

Q. Dog Woman is inspired by a true story. Tell us how you came to find out about the original dog woman and why you decided to fictionalize the story.

A. In 1990, a woman's bones were found in a field in my village. I was a newspaper writer at the time, and my editor gave me the assignment. He asked me, "How does someone get to be a skeleton in a field in Menomonee Falls, Wisconsin?"

I got the idea for the novel from the three months I spent investigating the life of the woman whose bones were found. When she was alive, she kept 33 Siberians and wolf-Siberian hybrids on her rented farmstead. She lived a reclusive but fairly happy life until a corporation kicked her off the land.

When I learned the ultimate answer to my editor's question (“How does someone get to be a skeleton in a field in Menomonee Falls?”), I could never get the story out of my head -- for more than 20 years. Every time I drove by her old property, I imagined her running through the woods there with her animals. I always felt sorry for the dog woman. I thought her struggle and tragedy would make a great movie.

At first I wrote the story as a nonfiction screenplay. But people who test-read the script said it was too depressing. One animal lover friend said she wouldn’t read any story or go to any movie where anything bad happened to an animal.

I was ready to give up. Then one day I was at a Cajun dance gathering and I danced with a storyteller named Reid Miller, who is from Madison, Wisconsin. I had never met him before. As we danced, we talked. He asked me what I was up to. I told him I was trying to write a screenplay. He asked me what it was about and became really interested in the story.

I told him I was stuck because the story was too harsh and horrible for my test-readers. The dog woman wasn’t a sympathetic character for them. Reid suggested bringing in a child to befriend the dog woman, to soften her character. I knew immediately that this was a perfect idea. Reid’s a storyteller, after all.

Thus, 11-year-old George Woods was born, as well as a fictional world surrounding what remains the mostly-true story of a real person who just didn’t fit in.

Q. You wrote the screenplay for Dog Woman first, and then converted it into a novel. What was your writing process like? Did you make any changes along the way?

The screenplay took me four years to write (and rewrite, and rewrite). When it became obvious that it was going to take a long time to sell, I decided to convert the story into a novel. Perhaps if the novel sold well, someone would be interested in it as a movie. I was inspired by you, Karen, when your self-published Kindle book “A Scattered Life” was optioned for a film.

I was on break from teaching creative writing at Waukesha County Technical College, so I locked myself in a trailer for two weeks and wrote from five to seven hours every day.

[Okay that sounds more extreme than it is – it’s a cozy old house trailer on a lake about 75 miles north of home. My husband and I bought it in 2009 and I envisioned it as my “writing shack.” August 2010 was the first time the trailer really became my writing retreat. It was heavenly to be able to write without the duties, distractions, and joys of being home among family and friends, laundry and lawn, volunteer work and telephone.]

My writing process was this: I had the script lying next to me as I wrote on my laptop. I used the dialog I had already written and just had to plump up the external description and inner thoughts of the main character – George.

I sat at a desk at the front window of the trailer. When I stopped to think, I could look out at beautiful Little Green Lake and the island sitting not far offshore. I could wave at my retired neighbors. They’d drive by daily and wave; they were like my guardian angels and I thank them in the book acknowledgments. When my back got tired from sitting at the desk, I typed while sitting in a recliner.

When I needed a break, I walked my dog. She got a lot of walks. I ate a LOT of peanuts and dried fruit while I wrote, and I gained five pounds. Grr.

It was hard for me to “plump up” the script, because for four years I’d been training myself to be brief and to convey everything through dialog. I think it would be easier to convert a novel into a screenplay. I’m a journalist by training and we like to get to the point. My plumping up didn’t make the book very fat – it’s under 200 pages. My body plumped up more than my script did.

Eventually I enjoyed being inside George’s head. It let me re-live my own very happy childhood. I felt a freedom in going where George wanted to go – imagining shapes in clouds, walking on curbs, reading and dreaming.

The biggest change in the novel as compared to the script is more backstory that you just cannot fit in a screenplay. I enjoyed including that backstory – details about my beloved Wisconsin fields, forests and rivers; Cajun history that I find fascinating; religious and ethnic roots that I never get tired of exploring.

Q. Although it’s not necessarily a kids’ book, some educators have expressed an interest in having their students read and discuss the book. What themes in the book make it a good choice for classroom discussion?

A. I’m going to let Diane Harley speak here. She’s been a middle school language arts teacher since the 70s and plans to read Dog Woman to her students this fall. She gave me permission to quote her. This is what she said:

“I loved loved loved the book. I would love to have this book for a read-aloud or have students read the book. It has such good lessons, and situations so realistic for kids today, that could lead to great discussions. The book touches on a lot of things: nontraditional blended families, drinking, sports put-downs, bullying, kids not fitting in. I loved George’s persistence. He never was afraid to be himself or see what he could accomplish even though he was mocked so many times. He didn’t let anybody get him down; he did what he knew he should do. I thought the portrayal of junior high kids was great, how they speak and act and insult each other. I loved the sharing of the Big League gum. I loved the relationships - so many relationships. I really cried at the end – I guess that’s a sign of a good book.”

Q. Give us a quick story synopsis.

A. It’s 1989. George Woods is eleven years old and lives with his widowed mother, his divorced uncle, and his cousin. His mother still grieves for her husband and pays scant attention to her son. George is small for his age and doesn’t fit in with the sandlot gang, especially two bullies who are older and bigger than he is. He envies his cousin, who is one year older, a lot taller, and the only girl on the team.

George learns that there’s more to life than baseball after he meets a Romanian immigrant named Bibi. She’s a reclusive neighbor who keeps and breeds 12 Siberian huskies and one wolf-dog. Bibi is notorious for the strange human-sized wood carvings she creates and sets up all over her yard. The neighbor kids refer to her as “the witch of the woods.”

After the dog woman lets George into her secret world, he discovers the sad story behind her distrust of humans. She teaches him how to carve wood, how to care for dogs, how to be a friend. Most important, she teaches him to stand up for what he believes.

Bibi shares a dream with George: that someday dog parks will exist so people can let their animals run free, like her dogs do every day. When tragedy befalls his friend, George confronts the bullies, a corporation, village trustees and citizens to create a memorial to her – a memorial the likes of which has never before existed.

Q. When will the paperback version of Dog Woman be released?

A. I don’t know. A writing friend is helping me get it published through CreateSpace. I’m crossing my fingers for this fall.

Q. How can we order Dog Woman on Kindle?

A. Click on this link: Dog Woman by Gail Grenier ($2.99)

Q. Anything you want to add?

A. For readers curious about the real-life dog woman, you can find photos and my original newspaper story on my website. Click on:

http://www.gailgreniersweet.com/dogwoman/newspaper-stories.html

My blog, a light-hearted look at life, inside and out:

http://gailgrenier.blogspot.com/

Thank you for your interview, Karen! I was an interviewer/reporter for 20 years, and it’s odd being on the “other end of the microphone.” It was hard for me to go in depth with my answers but then I remembered how much my readers liked it when my interview subjects “went deep.” I think when people have the courage to open up and reveal what’s inside, everyone relates – because we’re all the same person deep down.

Another opportunity for writers -- ACX -- Audiobook Creation Exchange

2011-08-04T15:44:00.005-05:00

I have an interest in how emerging technologies create opportunities, so I was fascinated to read about something called ACX -- Audiobook Creation Exchange. It's a concept that couldn't have happened a few years ago, not for lack of books or voice talent, but because the technology wasn't there yet. It is now, and I predict ACX will revolutionize the audiobook industry in the same way e-books have changed publishing.

From the site:

ACX is a marketplace where professional authors, agents, publishers, and other Rights Holders can post fallow audiobook rights.

At ACX, those unused audio rights will be matched with narrators, engineers, recording studios, and other Producers capable of producing a finished audiobook, as well as with audiobook publishers.

The result: More audiobooks will be made.

Too many authors have been left out of the quickly growing and culturally repositioned digital audio market. Until now.

ACX puts you in the driver’s seat. If you’re a Rights Holder, you choose how you produce your audiobook—whether on your own or by engaging a Producer on ACX—and you choose among two royalty models.

One of the royalty models is set up so that the Producer (narrator) won’t earn money up front, but will instead share in the proceeds from the sale of the audiobook fifty-fifty.

What does this mean for writers? Assuming you own the rights for your book, you can have an audio book created for no upfront cost. It's another way to get your work out in the world, and another potential revenue stream that wasn't accessible before.

If you're interested, visit the site, or watch the video, which explains it far better than I could. Oh, and if you decide to do this, I'd love to hear about your experience when all is said and done.

Secrets of the Magic Ring

2011-07-27T09:51:00.012-05:00

I have a new book coming out on November 8th, a follow up to my middle grade novel, Celia and the Fairies. This time around the main character is Celia’s very energetic, occasionally-annoying friend Paul.

I'd always envisioned the Celia book as part of a series, but I hadn't planned on writing this particular story. I thought I'd write the story of Celia's grandmother (also named Celia) and her encounter with fairies when she was a little girl, and then I'd write a book about Jonathan, Celia's father, when he was a boy. That way each generation would be covered. I liked the idea of a trilogy too, the magic that comes with the number three.

At the end of Celia and the Fairies, Paul and Celia watch as a work crew digs an enormous hole in his backyard in preparation for an inground pool. I hadn't conceived of writing a book with Paul as the lead, but one night when I was nearly asleep the thought hit me—Paul was going to find something really cool and magical in the hole! The story, now titled Secrets of the Magic Ring, practically wrote itself. That almost never happens.

I made sure that the book works as a standalone title, something that was important to me.

With each of my books, my publisher, AmazonEncore, has had me fill out a questionnaire asking for a summary of the story, the author bio, who I believe the target audience is, etc. I always have a lot of fun filling out these questionnaires. They'll ask something like, How is this book different from others of the same genre? and my answer will be that, unlike the others, I wrote this one. Ha ha ha. And then I go on to answer seriously. I like to think they appreciate my efforts to liven things up, but maybe not.

When the questionnaire asked for my input on the new cover, my response was: I would love it if the book cover is similar enough to the Celia and the Fairies cover that it's obvious they go together. How the artist decides to do that is up to them. It could be the coloring of the cover as opposed to the images being alike.

Frankly, I had no idea how they'd manage this, but I was fairly certain they'd pull it off. I've been delighted with all of my covers so far.

When I got the email from my editor, Terry, with three proposed covers attached, I liked all of them, but I loved one the most. It was nearly perfect. Luckily, Terry and I each had some thoughts for the cover designer and after a few minor tweaks, the nearly perfect cover came out just right.

Secrets of the Magic Ring (available for preorder!)

Nicely done! I am pleased. I'm even more pleased because this time around my publisher hired an illustrator, the very talented artist, Vincent Desjardins, to do the interior illustrations. In a future blog post I'll talk about how the artist was paired with the project, and give you a sneak preview of some of his absolutely beautiful artwork.

Cheers,

Karen

A Flying Cat and The Lost Book Reports

2011-07-23T07:52:00.007-05:00

True confession: I Google my own name. I'm not sure how often I do this--it could be as much as every day but really, who keeps track of these things? (I know I could set it up to do Google alerts, but for some reason that seems way too deliberate. This is a casual addiction on my part.)

So one day in June, I'm Googling my name, purely for professional reasons, of course, and I come across a book blog, titled The Lost Book Reports (subtitled "For All the Book Reports I Didn't Do in High School"). Such a great name for a book review blog. My name came up on the site because the blogger had a post titled "Want Want Want Wednesday" in which she mentioned three books she really wanted. One of them, I was thrilled to see, was my novel, A Scattered Life.

This is the kind of thing that makes me stop and think. You see, I actually have a stash of my own books here at home. When I give talks I do drawings for book giveaways. I also donate them to libraries on occasion and send them to book bloggers for review. So I could easily send one to this blogger, but will it seem creepy and stalkerish?

I decide to take a chance and email the blogger to ask if she'd like a copy. She emails back and says yes! I'd noticed on her blog that she reviews a fair amount of young adult fiction, so as I'm sending the package out, I add another book, my young adult novel, Favorite. Part of me does this because I'm afraid she'll think A Scattered Life is a little too pedestrian. I mean, I don't think it is, but not everyone agrees. You know what they say: some people like chocolate ice cream, and some people like vanilla...

Fast forward to some time later. I'm Googling my name again (yes, I know...) and I come across a Youtube video. It's the blogger showing what came in her mailbox that week! She's cute and enthusiastic and even when her cat does some weird flying thing in the background, she quickly recovers and keeps going.

Her cat really cracks me up.

I'm glad to know the books arrived and I keep my fingers crossed that she likes at least one of them.

And then, good news! KThomas (that's her profile name) finally posts her review of Favorite, and it's a good one. :) I like the way she breaks down her review by listing a summary, and commenting on Plot, Characters, Pros, Cons, and Final Thoughts. A very organized way of doing it, and visually very clean. The last line of her review says, "Plus, the play on words with the word Favorite and name, were a very, very, nice touch." I'm impressed since this is an aspect of the story that no other reviewer has commented on.

So I'm really glad she had positive things to say about Favorite. I decide that if she doesn't like A Scattered Life, I'm still good.

So yesterday, KThomas posts her review of A Scattered Life, and whew! to my relief and complete joy she loves it, she really does, and she says some truly wonderful things about it. For "Cons" she says that there aren't any and the final line of her "Final Thoughts" is: "All I can say is Simply Beautiful! READ IT! READ IT! READ IT!"

Oh, happy day! It doesn't get any better than that.

Moral of the story: don't be afraid to Google your own name. Also, book bloggers rock.

Have a nice weekend. Get away from the computer and do something fun!

Later,

Karen

Author Christopher Herz on Writing and Life

2011-07-18T13:05:00.006-05:00

The Last Block in Harlem

In spring 2010, I went to New York to attend the big publishing convention, the Book Expo America. My publisher had set up a book signing for A Scattered Life, my debut novel, which would be released that August.

That same week, I went out to dinner with several members of the publishing team and three other AmazonEncore authors, one of whom was Christopher Herz, author of The Last Block in Harlem. We've kept in touch since then, comparing notes about our book publishing experience and the differences between living in the Midwest and the East Coast.

Just recently, I mentioned in an email that my mother was going through a health crisis. Just a mention, nothing more. The next thing I knew, a package had arrived. Christopher had sent my mom a letter and some Black and White cookies. Wasn't that unbelievably nice? Neither my mom nor I were familiar with Black and White cookies, a New York tradition. The cookies were delicious and the thought behind it was greatly appreciated.

Not too much later, I heard that Christopher was having a tough week--a death in his family occurred at the same time he and his wife were moving house. Now I had the opportunity to reciprocate with a Wisconsin tradition. I sent Christopher and his wife a Kringle.

A long time ago, we'd talked about Christopher guesting on my blog, but he was busy writing his second novel, and I was doing some other stuff and the idea got lost in the shuffle--until now.

Christopher sent me the long awaited post just yesterday, in the form of a letter to me. There's nothing conventional about Christopher, I can tell you that much. If you love the style of writing in his blog post, you'll love his fiction and should buy his book, The Last Block in Harlem. It's currently on sale, so if you're inclined to buy it, do not tarry. Also, don't wait too long.

And without further ado--I'll let Christopher take over:

Dear Karen,

I’ve been trying to write this blog post for you for over a month and each time it comes out so wrong that I crumble the piece of paper from my typewriter and toss it on my floor.

In my head, I’m always writing on a typewriter.

I keep trying to figure out a way to show how our books, though so different, have a common theme. A connection. I keep looking for that connection. As we both know, sometimes looking for a way to make it all happen is the worst way to make it all happen!

Then, magically, you sent me a Kringle in response to the Black and White cookies I sent to your mother.

Now right there – right there people from Wisconsin and People from New York are asking themselves: What’s a Kringle? What’s a Black and White cookie? Though part of the same union, we don’t know all that much about each other.

Like both of those fine pastries, the ingredients are pretty much the same. Once we eat, we can tell exactly what went into the cooking. If they are any good, love of course, is the main ingredient.

It just has to be.

I guess the same can be said for literature. Though our covers are different, each book for the most part is just words on the page. They wrap around the reader and hopefully exhaust the voice that has been rattling around in our souls looking to leap into the lives of others.

I remember when we met over a year ago. Both of our books were about to get re-released to the world. For you, A Scattered Life was going to the lead the charge of your arsenal of stories, and for me, The Last Block in Harlem was going to make Harlem accessible to all.

We drank and talked about our neighborhoods, our books, our families and our journeys. We drank some more and slipped into our regional accents and drifted into what we were really all about. I remember sitting in that hotel bar and just watching people go by with you and the rest of the writers and marketing folks. Putting stories inside of their movements and making up conversations.

Afterwards, the realization of how the same we all were was warming. It may have been the vodka tonics, but I’m pretty sure it was the connection. Over this past year, we’ve written back and forth and talked about a Wisconsin / New York exchange program – A program where people get to live inside the worlds of places they don’t know.

Sometimes I look out over the city and wonder how to make such a thing happen and then, the other day, I realized:

The program already exists. In our books. It is through literature that people can leave their blocks, their neighborhoods and their daily routines and experience the lives of others. This is why the art of story is so important.

It allows us to open a stranger’s refrigerator door and peek into what is left-over from a family meal. Or what take-out was dialed up after a long day at work.
I’m not sure why I’m constantly looking for such connections to strangers. Perhaps that’s why I write the way I do: Looking for answers from my readers. Looking for, perhaps, an invite to their family table to eat what love is being cooked up in the kitchen.

Recently, I was working on a project called #Sundaymorningstory where people from all over the world sent pictures in and I created a narrative from that. Not surprisingly, or I guess most surprisingly (whichever way you are looking at the world), Wisconsin had the most participants week to week (Australia was a close 2nd).

I’m thinking of making t-shirts that read: Everyone should live in Wisconsin once in their lives. On the back it would say: Or you’re not living!

To go further with that, we should all have the opportunity to sit on porches, stoops, windowsills, rooftops, front lawns and living rooms around the world. However, until that lighting train free of charge to take us to these spots comes into existence, the traveling source will have to be literature.

Proud to be driving some of the trains with you.

-CH

Being a Mom and a Writer

2011-07-11T06:16:00.009-05:00

When my husband and I started a family it was decided (mostly by me, now that I think back) that I would stay home with the kids and he would be the wage earner. This was not the easy way out for either of us. Greg had the stress of being the sole provider and also had to come home to a wife eager for adult conversation, just when he wanted to quietly decompress. And I had my own troubles being home with one, then two, then three little kids, all needy, messy little jumping beans, more adorable in photos than I remember them being at the time.

I loved being home with my children, and wouldn't have had it any other way, but it left little free time for either of us.

Throughout the baby and toddler years, I thought about writing. I thought about it a lot, actually, but I never did it. Not once. It seemed that if I had a child age three or younger in the house I couldn't write.

Around this time I remember reading that John Grisham used to work his crazy attorney schedule AND get up at dawn to write for two hours before work. Later I read about Stephen King's writing routine in his book, On Writing. He's very disciplined and writes 2,000 words a day, no matter what. Both John and Steve made me feel like a complete loser. I had more free time than either of them, and yet, I couldn't manage to do one tenth of what they were doing.

But then I realized that neither of them was doing what I was doing either.

Time, energy, and money. All three are finite resources. Kids are notorious time suckers, and they do a number on their parents' money and energy too. If you've got kids, you don't need a hobby--you're covered.

When my youngest was in preschool, I finally made the time to write. I took a non-credit class at the local tech college one night a week, and I also joined a critique group that met two evenings a month at the Hartland Community Center. It kept me on track with my writing, because I knew I had to bring pages to the next meeting. I still felt a little guilty spending money and taking time away from my family, but I felt, selfishly maybe, that I needed to do this, so I did it anyway.

Later, when I began freelance writing, especially during the time I got regular assignments from the community newspaper, I was able to justify my writing time because I was getting paid. I couldn't say the same for my novel writing, but I snuck it in anyway--it was my heart's desire. I'd always thought of myself as a writer, even during those long years when I wasn't writing a word. Now that I had a chance, I was going to do it every second I could.

I can only speak for myself, a mom of three who was home full time and whose husband worked long hours. Writing under those circumstances was difficult if not impossible. Personally, I need balance in my life to write. And silence. To work on a novel I need to immerse myself in that fictional world and I'm not able to do that if I'm sleep deprived or my kids are in crisis. And when your kids are little that describes most of the time. Seems like someone is always teething, or needs to be quizzed on their multiplication tables, or is sad because they weren't invited to a birthday party or whatever. Shoes get misplaced and field trip permission slips vaporize and a person can spend hours trying to get caught up. Added to that, if you're a writer of fiction, you probably have an acute sense of empathy. Taking on the joys and sorrows of your kids can be both emotionally draining and energizing. And that wreaks havoc on the balance I was talking about earlier.

When I first started writing this blog post I thought it was going to be about the importance of carving out writing time for yourself. I was going to say that I should have been more selfish in those early years. I should have just told my husband that I just needed every Saturday morning for writing, but you know what? The more I think about it, I'm not sure that's right. Even if I could go back in time and change my sense of entitlement, my circumstances would have been the same. It wasn't uncommon for Greg to have to work into the evening or on the weekends. Some years we only had one car. And frankly, by the time the kids went to bed, I was spent. That's just the way it was.

Even now that my kids are ages 16, 19, and 23, I still have to set time aside for them on occasion. This past spring, my daughter Maria had her wisdom teeth removed. She's legally an adult and her boyfriend Sam took off work to go with her. In theory, I could have handed her the insurance card, wished her luck, then headed out to the library with my laptop. I never would have done that though. It's a mom thing. It doesn't matter how old your babies are, when they're going through something, especially a medical something, you want to be there.

(It went fine, by the way, and it was nice to have both Sam and me there--afterward he kept Maria propped up by the exit, while I went to get the car. On they way home, through her gauze-filled mouth, she told us, rather loopily, that she hadn't been to the zoo in a really long time. She was quite sad about it. "The last time I went to the zoo, the bats weren't there. We couldn't see the bats at all..." Later, she had no recollection of this conversation, but she did confirm the part about the bats.)

This struggle to find time to write when you're raising kids is an age-old problem. And if you work outside of the home, it's far worse. Writer friends who have other, non-writing jobs have the stress of their career on top of everything else.

Sometimes it seems the world is conspiring against you.

But if you wait, it gets better.

Unless it doesn't because something else happens.

I know, I'm not much help. What I can tell you is that having kids adds another emotional layer to your life, one that you can tap into and use in your writing.

Another thing I'd like to add is that it's okay to say no to other non-family, non-writing related requests. This may seem like obvious advice, but as a people-pleaser it took me a long time to get to that place. It's true that if you don't plan your time, other people will be happy to do it for you. So feel free to just say no! And if that's too difficult, you can always use my mom's classic line for taking a pass, "Sorry, that won't work out for me."

And most importantly, if you want to write, set aside time to write. But if life truly interferes, don't beat yourself up for it. Stephen King may write 2000 words a day, no matter what, but his wife, Tabitha, is also a writer and I'm willing to bet she has a different story.

A Few Shout-Outs

2011-07-01T21:45:00.015-05:00

So after ten years of having a do-it-yourself website, I hired a professional design company to give it a makeover. My new website was created by Mike at KTF Design. KTF specializes in "intelligent web design for writers." I loved working with Mike and am thrilled with the finished results. The old version is gone forever and can only be seen where it belongs--on the Wayback Machine.

Here's a cool thing for readers of YA novels. Help your favorite book make it onto the Amazon.com Essential Books for Young Adults List by nominating your selection and entering to win a prize! If your choice happens to be Favorite or Life On Hold, that would be great, but as always, it's best to vote from the heart.

Another new thing? I did my first Skype interview ever and you can find it at Taleist, a site for writers who are interested in self-publishing. Interviewer Steven Lewis was in Australia, I was in Hartland, WI, we talked, and now our conversation is available for anyone online to see and hear. This crazy, wonderful world of technology never ceases to amaze me. If I could go back in time and tell my teenage self this would happen someday it would have blown my mind.

I want to take a moment to recognize all the book bloggers in the world. The ones who've reviewed my books are my favorites, of course, but I have admiration for all of them. Week after week, book bloggers do hours of work for free (and the few who get paid don't make nearly enough), because they don't consider it to be work. They read and review books for the sheer love of reading and sharing. Authors and publishers can hire publicity people, but there's no substitute for sincere and enthusiastic word of mouth.

I've been the lucky recipient of several reviews and blog interviews. These are the most recent. My thanks to all:

Mrs. Melissa - A Wisconsin bookworm who loves Wisconsin books and Wisconsin authors (and other books too)! at Eating cheese curds in the library gave my novel, Easily Amused, high marks. She also gave A Scattered Life a touching review on Goodreads.

Laura at A Novel Review did a lovely review of A Scattered Life, and went to the time and trouble to ask me a few questions as well.

Teens Read and Write gave Favorite a positive write-up, and asked me some great interview questions too. The last one is a must read--I think it may qualify as the best interview question ever.

Night Owl Reviews did a wonderful job summarizing and reviewing Favorite and Life On Hold. I also noticed that they're open to new reviewers, if anyone is interested in checking that out.

Jessica at Cracking the Cover says, "Take a chance on McQuestion's Favorite." Yay!

Mostly Reading YA had good things to say about Favorite as well. Much appreciated. :)

At BookRoom Reviews, Christina Zawadiwsky wrote a detailed, thoughtful review of Easily Amused. She really, really liked it!

And last, but certainly not least, Barbara Sissel at Boxing the Octopus reviewed A Scattered Life and had some wonderful things to say about the characters and the story. She finished her review by saying, "A Scattered Life was an altogether warm and thoughtful read." Thanks so much, Barbara.

If I've forgotten anyone, my apologies. Please know that I read and appreciate every blog review.

Have a great weekend!

Karen

The new Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Covers for EASILY AMUSED and A SCATTERED LIFE

2011-06-25T09:21:00.004-05:00

Two of my books will be released on August 23rd as Houghton Mifflin Harcourt titles. As such, they have a new look: new covers, new formatting, and as an added bonus-- the author will wake up on that day and find herself completely done over as well--ten years younger and twenty pounds thinner. That's what I'm hoping for anyway. ;-)

I saw the new covers some time ago, but wasn't sure if I could post them. Now that I'm seeing them crop up elsewhere on the Internet, I'll assume it's fine. Here they are:

Aren't they gorgeous? I really love them both, but especially Easily Amused, something that surprised my editor. He thought that since I was so attached to the original cover with the feet that I'd be resistant to the change. Ha! Little does he know how adaptable I can be.

I'm thrilled with what they did with A Scattered Life as well. They managed to give the impression of an old house, which is perfect since the story takes place in a neighborhood of older homes. The novel is about three very different women in a friendship triangle, so if I had to guess the reason why shoes are shown I'd say:

A) the different types of shoes represent the women
B) the shoes are "scattered" which would play into the title
C) women really like books with shoes on the cover.

Or maybe it's something else entirely. Regardless, I think it's a very appealing image and it says women's fiction, which is the important thing.

Later,

Karen

A Tale of Endless Revision

2011-06-19T09:03:00.006-05:00

FAVORITE

The post below, written by me, originally appeared as a guest post on author Jenny Milchman's site. Jenny's novel, Cover of Snow, was acquired this past May by Ballantine, a division of Random House.

~~~

I rewrote my young adult book, Favorite, many times.

Many, many times.

It started out as an adult novel-- a sort of women’s fiction with a mystery element. The main character, Angie Favorite, was in her mid-thirties and had a father who’d disappeared when she was a child. Events in the book give clues as to what had happened to him. There was a crazy cast of characters, including her ex-husband--a rock guitarist named Elroy, her smart teenage son, Jason, and her brother Bob and his selfish wife, Carla. After I finished writing and revising it, I had several writer friends review it and make notes, then I made some changes and polished it up.

I got an agent for the book. He was new to the agenting game, but enthusiastic about the book. Under his guidance, I did two rounds of revisions. The manuscript was submitted to twenty -some editors with the title Finding Angie. Two of them liked it well enough to take it to their editorial committee, where it was promptly shot down by the marketing people. Shortly thereafter, that agent wound up taking a different job dealing with foreign rights, so we amicably parted ways.

I sent the book out on my own, but there were no takers. One editor sent me extensive notes suggesting ways to improve the story, but her ideas would have required a lot of work. By that time I was tired of the book, so I just moved on.

A few years later, I got the idea to rewrite it as a young adult novel. This required making Angie a teenager. Her ex-husband became her father, her mother became her grandmother, and her son, her brother. The missing parent was now her mother. I made other changes as well. I dug out the letter from the editor who’d given me detailed notes. She’d disliked the ambiguous ending, (which I’d thought was true to life), so I scrapped it and completely rewrote it. Following her advice, I deleted numerous clever metaphors because although they delighted me, they were distracting and unnecessary. I also eliminated the Bob and Carla subplot, because really, who cared?

I queried agents for this new YA version and one called me with interest. We talked and she said she wanted changes. Her assistant sent notes with terrific suggestions for improvement, and I wrote my heart out for three weeks. I sent the manuscript back and heard nothing for weeks. Finally, she sent back a terse email saying it wasn’t for her, but thanks anyway. I was disappointed and puzzled. About a month later, she left her agency and started her own. I like to think that maybe she was caught up in the process of starting a new business and didn’t have time, but I’ll never really know.

I started to think it was just a weird book.

Another writer friend read it and she pointed out some incidences where I’d done more telling than showing. I fixed this problem and added 4000 words in the process.

In November 2009, on the advice of my mom who said it was her favorite of all of my books, I self-published the manuscript to be available as an e-book on Kindle. I found a great image on istockphoto.com and gave it the title, Favorite. Based on sales and reviews, it was acquired by Amazon’s publishing division, AmazonEncore, last year and rereleased on April 1st. Going with a publishing house required two rounds of editing, but this time around it was fairly painless.

I can’t wait to send a copy to the editor who was so helpful so many years ago. She may not even remember me or my manuscript, but I want to let her know that her efforts to help a new writer made a difference.

I’m happy Favorite found a publishing home with AmazonEncore, but I’m even happier that it’s now out of my hands and I can’t make any more changes.

Enough already.

On Writing

2011-06-12T08:27:00.012-05:00

I don't usually have rough first drafts of my books, not because everything comes out perfectly the first time. In fact, the complete opposite is true. I am someone who is constantly rewriting. I barely get a sentence out and I feel the urge to tweak it. There always seems to be a better way to phrase something, a more exact noun, a stronger verb. I'm not sure my writing is all the better for this obsessiveness--sometimes I'm just spinning my wheels. And it takes away from the joy of writing. Too much worry, not enough creativity.

Dean Wesley Smith wrote a terrific article on the benefits of writing quickly. He disputes the long held notion that slow writing equals quality and vice versa. I read his thoughts on the subject and it wasn't just a light bulb moment--for me it was a sunrise moment.

Ironically, I just finished writing a sequel to my book, Celia and the Fairies, where I'd unknowingly tested his theory (this was before I'd read his article). I'd been struggling with writing the manuscript so I decided to just write the thing already. Enough with the over-thinking it. I deliberately chose to write fast and furiously and not look back. I was comfortable doing this because I knew the manuscript would be fairly short by book standards. Knowing I might be making a mess of 120 pages was less scary than possibly screwing up 300 plus.

Once I turned off the analytical part of my brain, the creative side kicked into high gear and the pages flew. I had no idea if the story was any good, but after awhile I didn't care because I was almost giddy with the ease of it. When I was done, I gave it some time before I read it from start to finish. My biggest worry was that most of it would be complete rubbish, but you know what? Only about 10% of it needed work, and even that wasn't truly appalling. Just not there yet. And easily fixed, which isn't always the case.

This was a revelation for me. I'm a plodder, worrier, constant-tweaker. But knowing I don't have to be and that there are actual advantages to writing quickly, empowered me. (Thanks Dean Wesley Smith!) I can't imagine I'll ever be one of those writers who cranks out six books a year, but now I give myself permission to throw words out there and trust it will all work out. It may not, of course, but at least I'll have fun along the way.

I'm working on a novel now and it's humming along. When I'm not sure about a detail, I leave a blank and figure I'll fill it in later (I believe I first read about doing this in Stephen King's book On Writing--a really terrific book that every writer should read). So if a character says something about visiting their grandfather in another state and I haven't quite worked out which state that would be, I leave space. Doing this saves me an incredible amount of time. In the past, every time I stopped to research a minor detail I pulled myself out of the story, making it hard for me to get back into it.

So thanks, Stephen King! Of course I didn't need permission from Steve to leave blanks in my work-in-progress, but knowing the master does something a certain way is validating.

Every writer has their own methodology. Some need to work out the plot in advance. So far that's not been something I enjoy doing. Outlining fiction turns it into drudgery for me. I can imagine sitting down to write and thinking, okay, today I'll write the chapter where he finds out she lied about Tuesday night when she said she went to book club... Bleah, where's the fun in that? I don't want to know ahead of time. I want to experience the story along with the character. I want to find out where she was Tuesday along with him and feel what he feels. Writing fiction (for me) is largely about discovery.

That's not to say I don't have any control over the events in my books. Sometimes I'll write myself into a corner or stall out completely. When that happens I often thumb through The Writer's Journey by Christopher Vogler, a book that discusses the underlying mythic structure of stories. I don't necessarily follow the story structure as detailed in the book--I use the book as a way to brainstorm possible plot points. Something about reading how others have done it gives me ideas. Usually one idea will feel right and I'll be off and running again.

No two writing days are ever alike. Every book has its own unique challenges, joys, and frustrations. By necessity I'm always evolving as a writer. The only thing I know for sure is that I don't know anything for sure. Next month I may be writing a blog post on the joys of outlining. I don't think I will, but you never know.

Later,

Karen

Rex Kusler ~ Author of the Mystery Novel PUNCTURED

2011-06-02T20:17:00.010-05:00

Some time ago I connected online with a writer named Rex Kusler when we discovered we'd had a similar publishing journey. For many years, we each wrote books which seemed like they might get published only to have the carrot snatched away in the eleventh hour. The only thing that saved both of us from complete and utter failure was self-publishing on Kindle and ultimately getting publishing contracts with AmazonEncore.

When I found out Rex was going to be attending the Book Expo in May, and staying at the same hotel, and attending the same party, I looked forward to meeting him in person. And then I went and never once laid eyes on him. Yes, we managed to miss each other entirely. I'm thinking it was like in the movies where one person gets on an elevator while the other person exits the one next to it.

During the time we kept missing each other in New York, Rex's first novel, a mystery titled Punctured, was released.

Here's the premise: Jim Snow and his sister Karen have never been very close. In fact, they haven’t seen each other since their mother’s funeral two years ago, despite living just three miles apart. But then Snow gets a panicked phone call from Karen telling him that her estranged husband has been murdered and she is the number-one suspect. Snow agrees to help, seeing as he’s the only family she has left. Plus he is a Las Vegas homicide detective—or at least, he was until he quit the force to become a full-time poker player. But while his crime-fighting skills may be a little rusty, even he has to admit Karen is a likely suspect. She stands to collect on her dead husband’s life insurance, which is quite the coincidence considering she’s been living on her first two husbands’ insurance for years. Snow isn’t sure whether or not his sister is innocent, and there’s only one way to find out. He joins forces with feisty cocktail waitress-turned-cop Alice James and together they set out amidst the glittering lights of Vegas to solve this witty and entertaining whodunit.

Rex graciously agreed to answer a few of my questions. Read on to find out how he once gave up on writing and threw away four of his novels. Yipes.

And if you have any questions about writing, Las Vegas, poker, or publishing, Rex said he'd be happy to answer in the comments.

Tell us about your path to publication.

I started writing short stories in 1983. After some success placing a few of them with regional magazines, I decided to write a comedic road novel. No one was interested in it, so I wrote a suspense novel, and that drew the interest of my first literary agent. While he was sending that around, I finished a private eye novel. I thought that was stronger than the suspense novel, so I sent that to him. He didn’t seem interested in it, and after a few months he still hadn’t read it—so I moved on to my second agent.

This agency specialized in private eye novels, and the woman running it liked what I sent her, so she started sending it around. In fact, she began sending all three of my novels out to anyone who would look at them.

After about a year of this, I began to wonder if she had the necessary talent to represent my work—since she had taken over the agency after her husband’s passing—and hadn’t been working as an agent for very long. So, I moved on to my third agent. He spent the next four years sending my private eye novel around (by then I had finished the sequel to it). And though it was a near miss at Berkley Books (PI novels were in a downtrend), he finally gave up on it—several years after I had given up writing.

For years I kept the floppies that contained the WordPerfect files for those first four novels. Eventually I no longer had the software to open the files, and I was sure I would never have any use for them, so I tossed the floppies in the trash. All I kept was the thick stack of correspondence from agents and editors as proof that I had actually written four unpublished novels.

For the next thirteen years I told myself I could always write another novel if I came up with something unusual. And in 2003 I finally did. I wrote Angela in seven weeks. Nobody was interested—it didn’t fit neatly into a category. I considered writing a mystery for my sixth attempt; instead I gave up writing for the second time.

In the summer of 2009 I received an email from Amazon recommending a novel I might like, How I Became a Famous Novelist by Steve Hely. It’s an entertaining book and for some reason just reading about all the inadequacies of the publishing industry made me want to take a stab at one more novel. This one was a mystery based on the sale of my travel trailer for cash. The first chapter in Punctured actually happened, except I didn’t get murdered. I finished that in six weeks. And, like all the others, I sent queries out to every legitimate agent I could find. There were no takers so I gave up again.

A few months later I learned about Amazon’s self-publishing platform in the Kindle Store. I uploaded both Angela and Punctured. Sales were miniscule for awhile, but gradually began to increase for Punctured. During the summer of 2010, without any promotion on my part, it climbed into the top 100 in the Kindle Store and stayed there for 29 days.

On September 14, 2010 I received an email from an acquisitions editor at AmazonEncore. At that point a new story began—and this one is looking pretty good.

What genres most appeal to you as a reader and a writer?

As a reader I prefer nonfiction, because the books are about events that actually happened, and that makes them more interesting to me. In fiction I prefer comedy and mystery/suspense, although it became harder for me to enjoy fiction after I started writing (which was a long time ago), because I tend to analyze what the author is doing. Only a very unusual novel will draw me in sufficiently to suspend disbelief.

As a writer I’ll probably stick with mystery/suspense. It’s easier for me to concentrate on putting the puzzle together, and that way the characters and their problems seem to show up without me forcing it.

Your novel, Punctured, is set in Las Vegas and features Jim Snow, a former Las Vegas homicide detective turned full-time poker player. Why Las Vegas? Why poker?

Las Vegas was an easy choice. It has always been my favorite city. I like the desert, and I’ve had an interest in gambling all my life. I started out a horseplayer, and progressed to counting cards at blackjack. During the spring of 2010 a few months before I started writing Punctured I considered playing poker in Las Vegas as a means of supplementing my future retirement. I began playing short-handed limit Texas Hold ’Em (six players or less) on the internet. I played a total of 160 hours over a six week period. The limit was $5-$10 and the streaks were unbelievable. I’d be down almost $2000, come back up to being ahead over $2000, then back down, then up. Finally I had a horrible losing streak that destroyed my confidence. I’d get four aces and lose to a straight flush. I’d draw a king-high straight flush and lose to a royal flush. It got to the point where I hoped to get lousy hands so I could just fold. The rake (what the casino takes) was too high at that level I realized, so I would have to move up to a higher limit, but there weren’t enough players at the higher limit tables on the internet. But that final losing streak completely destroyed my interest in poker.

And that is where Jim Snow comes into the picture. It was easy for me to project my failure at poker and loss of interest onto him. Of course in subsequent books in the series, poker is seldom mentioned.

Take us through your writing process.

Before starting a new mystery I come up with a crime and a perpetrator, and maybe a few other characters. This could stew in my head for a long time. Usually it comes to me while I’m still working on the previous book. Then I come up with the initial scene and write that. At this point I always feel that I’m doomed to complete failure with the project and nothing further will come to me. But something always does: the next scene. I always develop an outline and descriptions of the current and future characters as I write. That way I can keep track of everyone in the book and what’s going on. For the first half of the book, the outline never gets ahead of the writing. But by the time I get half finished, the outline takes off, and I have trouble keeping up with it, for fear of forgetting details and subplots. I also keep a timeline to make it easy to remember who did what when. I have to be organized because my memory is lousy.

Ashes to Dust, your sequel to Punctured, comes out in July. What happens next for you as an author?

I’m currently working on the sequel to Ashes to Dust. The title is Desert Drop and it takes place in Las Vegas and also Silicon Valley. It’s about 30 percent finished, and I’m getting excited about it, because of the way it has come together for me. I have everything figured out all the way to the end, including the final scene, and if I had ten days off in a row, I think I could finish it. So it’s just a matter of when I take my next vacation (or quit). It’ll be finished no later than July.

After that, I think I’ll take a short break from the Las Vegas Mystery Series and write a suspense novel. The second book I wrote during the 80’s has been coming back to haunt me and I can’t stop thinking about it. I don’t have anything but a small memory of that book, but I’ve been expanding and improving it in my head. The title for that one will be Family.

I consider myself a pulp writer, nothing deep, just pure entertainment, so I write pretty fast. Once I ditch the day job, I’ll be churning out a lot of mysteries and suspense novels. Somewhere between three and twelve per year. I think my best work is still years away.

A recap of my trip to New York to attend BEA

2011-05-27T21:24:00.013-05:00

I went to the Book Expo America in New York and have returned to tell the tale!

For those not familiar with the Expo (or BEA as some of us call it), it's a huge book publishing event, a convention center filled with people pitching, and handing out (free!) books. The attendees include librarians, teachers, booksellers, bloggers, authors, and publishing folk. This year, I, along with all the other AmazonEncore authors, was invited to attend as a guest of Amazon. Who says big corporations don't have heart?

I flew into La Guardia on Monday of this week. I shared a limo from the airport to the hotel with Aric Davis, (author of the book Nickel Plated) and his wife Megan. We'd never met, but I recognized Aric by the AmazonEncore logo he had tattooed on his knuckle, something I'd read about in his blog. Aric and Megan were very nice and didn't seem to mind sharing the ride with me. There were decanters of liquor and soft drinks in the limo, but none of us opted for a drink at that point.

When we walked into the lobby of the hotel, we were greeted by a group from Amazon who gave us gift bags containing all kinds of goodies. One of the things in my bag was a large shortbread cookie decorated to look like my book, Celia and the Fairies.

We stayed at this great hotel: Ink48. Have you ever heard of it? Me neither, but it was seriously cool.

This is what my room looked like from two different angles.

When I turned on the TV, this is what I saw.

Yes, the TV greeted me by name. Here's another shot, close up:

I could have gone home right that minute and felt I got Amazon's money's worth, but no--there was more. That evening there was a cocktail party where I mingled with all the other authors and the team from Amazon. It was a little overwhelming, to be completely honest, but in a good way.

This is the only photo I have from that evening. The party took place in a lounge on the roof. The view was incredible. Too bad these people are blocking it.

From left to right: Raymond Bean, author of the Sweet Farts series, Maria Murnane, author of Perfect on Paper, Me, Sarah Collins Honenberger author of Catcher, Caught, and Neve Maslakovic, author of Regarding Ducks and Universes. Ray's lovely wife took the picture, for which I am very grateful or I'd have no record of the party at all and might think I'd imagined the whole thing.

There were delicous hors d'oeuvres and drinks and a photo booth and books and big TV monitors with a slide show of all our books. And lots of incredible conversation. I reconnected at one point with Christopher Herz, author of The Last Block in Harlem. We'd met last year and kept in touch via Twitter. Christopher is one of those people who just exudes positive energy. When he talks to you, he makes you feel like what you're saying is fascinating. Plus he adores his wife and is a really funny guy and terrific writer. It was big fun to talk to him and hear about his new novel. I can't wait to read it.

I also met up with Laurie Fabiano, whose book Elizabeth Street is doing really well, especially with book clubs. Culled from her own family history, it's the true story of the Italian immigrant experience at the start of the twentieth century. A fascinating book.

The next day I headed out with a few of my fellow authors to the BEA. Here's a shot of Neve and I taken by some random booth.

And here's a photo where you can kind of see Florence Henderson. She was done with her signing at that point and getting ready to leave.

Below is a picture of the area set up for authors to sign books, just to give you an idea of what it looked like:

It wasn't too crowded at that point, but later it got crazy busy.

On Wednesday, I left all my new friends and returned home to Hartland, Wisconsin where my wonderful family greeted me at the door with a gift bag full of goodies.

Ha! Only kidding. There was no gift bag, although they did save some laundry for me to do so that I would feel needed. They're thoughtful like that.

And to finish off the week, today I was interviewed via Skype by Steven Lewis of http://kindleselfpublishing.com/
He's located in Australia. At the time of our interview it was 9 a.m. on Saturday his time, and 6 p.m. Friday night for me. When we were done talking he told me to have a good evening and I told him to have a good day. Too funny.

And that's all the excitement I can stand for this week.

Later,

Karen

Linky Wednesday

2011-05-18T08:15:00.007-05:00

Every now and then you need a blog post just to wrap up some odds and ends, and this is that kind of post.

First up, translation rights to my novel, Favorite, sold to the German publisher Boje last year, and will come out in German in September. The cover is the same, but the new title is Die Lilienvilla. I know that the "Die" in the title means "The," but despite several years of high school German, I'm stumped by "Lilienvilla." Online translators are no help either. If anyone out there has a clue, I'd love to know. And if the translator, Sabine Bhose, reads this, I'd love to hear from her. Email me, Sabine!

Next--regular commenter to the blog, writer Joshua Grover-David Patterson is doing a great series of posts on his blog Everybody Thinks They Can Write regarding film making. I have a new interest in screenplay writing and movies, mostly in that I've been trying to write a screenplay and am finding it challenging. What I have learned though, is that studying story structure in films is helping me with my novel writing. So if you write any kind of fiction at all, you might want to check out Joshua Grover-David Patterson's site.

Lastly--I recently signed up for something called VYou and discovered that the resolution in my laptop webcam is terrible. Regardless, VYou will soon be embedded in my site. The basic definition of VYou is "conversation video." Basically, it enables people to visit a site and type in a question for someone. That someone will then record video responses which can be accessed by anyone. The official description is:

VYou combines the intimacy of one-to-one conversation with the reach of broadcast. Send messages to users and get personalized video responses, or browse pre-recorded responses to messages submitted by others. Develop an engaged fan base by encouraging others to follow your responses. Share video responses via Facebook and Twitter, or embed a VYou profile on your website or blog.

The easiest way to understand it is to see it. My profile is here, if you want to check it out.

And not related to writing at all--my sister recently sent me this Youtube video saying it reminded her of me. I have no idea why that would be. Hmmm....Maybe because I can kick really high?

That's it for now.

Later,

Karen

I'm going to the BookExpo America!

2011-05-16T10:56:00.004-05:00

Next week I'm going to New York as a guest of AmazonEncore to attend the BookExpo America. I'm flying in on Monday morning, going to an Amazon party that night, then attending BEA Tuesday, and coming home the following morning. This is HUGE for me. The party worries me a little bit because the invitation didn't say what kind of party. I'm thinking I definitely need to dress up, because it's New York, but I don't want to overdo it because it's not the Academy Awards or anything. I don't want to go too far in the other direction, though, because if I'm too schlumpfy I'll perpetuate the Wisconsin stereotype. Then I might as well show up in a Green Bay Packers t-shirt, baggy shorts, and a fanny pack.

Oh, what to wear? What to wear? Guys have it so easy.

Anyway, I'm looking forward to meeting a lot of the other Amazon Publishing authors, including Helen Smith, the author of the novel, Alison Wonderland. She's coming to the event from England and seems to really have it together. I'm sure she's not worried about what to wear to the party.

Helen recently interviewed a few authors on the topic of the Book Expo on her blog and one of them was me. Thanks, Helen! If you go here and scroll down, you can also read interviews with authors Connie Brockway and Charlie Williams.

Apropos of nothing, my great grandmother on my father's side was named Helen Smith. No relation, I'm sure.

Switching the subject--my house just emptied out after five days of houseguests. They weren't even my guests, they were friends of my older son--guys he met playing an online game. This was the third year of what has become an annual event. The first year, I was a little worried about having strangers from the Internet stay overnight at our house. They didn't murder us in our sleep that year or the next, so I'm pretty okay with it now.

In fact, these young guys (there were five at one point, including Charlie) took my husband and me out to eat as a thank you. Plus, they were quiet, and considerate, and neat. And one of them gave me a bouquet of flowers as a gift, something my son thought was overdoing it, but I thought was great.

They stayed in our basement, when they weren't off doing other guy stuff like Frisbee golf and God-knows-what-else. One day when they were out at Buffalo Wild Wings (young dudes LOVE the wings), I took pictures of my basement to show you. One is the gaming area, and one shows part of the sleeping area.

They were ideal guests, but I'm still glad to get my basement and refrigerator back.

Now I'm off to double check my closet and worry about shoes.

Happy Monday!

Karen

Help a book out: 10 things you can do to spread the word

2011-05-10T09:57:00.017-05:00

Let's say you've just finished reading a book so great you wonder why the author isn't a household name. You'd love to help get the word out about this author and his/her book, but really, what can one person do?

Funny you should ask. Let me tell you a little story illustrating the power of one person.

After I uploaded my novel, A Scattered Life to Kindle, and it had been out a short time, a woman named Alice started conversing with me on the message boards. Alice loved A Scattered Life and talked it up on the forum. I mean, she really talked it up. Soon others read it and reported back that they'd enjoyed the novel as well. I would turn on my computer in the morning and read whole conversations about my book, the one no publisher had been interested in acquiring. It was unreal. There were times I could barely read the words through the tears.

Shortly thereafter, a film producer in L.A. contacted me interested in obtaining the film option for the book. He'd found out about the book due to the "buzz" on the message boards. Yes, the buzz had started with Alice--one woman from the East Coast, someone I'd never met. My story had resonated with her and she went to the time and trouble to share her enthusiasm with others.

And so, a career was made. Thanks, Alice!

As a reader and person who has Internet access, you have more power than you know. For anyone who is interested, I've come up with a list of ten things you can do to help a book reach other readers. Most of my suggestions are free to do, and all of them are (fairly) easy.

Here goes:

1) Buy the book. How does this get the word out? Ongoing sales tell the publisher and author that there are readers for the book,which leads to more of a marketing push. And if it's an online sale, it raises the ranking, which is a quantitative sign of the book's popularity to other potential buyers.

2) Click the "Like" button in the orange box on the book's page on Amazon. You have the option to share the recommendation via email, Facebook, and Twitter. But trust me, even if you do nothing more than click the link, the fact that the number went up will make the author very happy.

3) Write a positive review and post it anywhere you can think of including Amazon, Barnes & Noble, your blog, Goodreads, LibraryThing, or Shelfari.

4) Email your local library and ask if they'd consider buying a copy of the book.

5) Better yet, email your library and ask if they'd be willing to add the book to their collection if you would buy and donate a copy. If they say yes, do so.

6) Suggest the book for your book club. And if you aren't in a book club, mention it to people who are.

7) Post on Twitter or Facebook. Something as simple as, "Just read a great book--The Invisible Wall by Harry Bernstein," will suffice. If you enjoyed the book, there's a good chance your friends/followers will too.

8) Go on the message boards on Amazon and recommend the book to other readers. Make sure to include a link.

9) Talk about the book. In everyday life, conversations abound. Instead of the usual chatter about gas prices and the weather, talk about your new favorite book. I've found out about some terrific books this way.

10) Donate money to your local library. There's no guarantee they'll buy your favorite books/authors, but it's all going to the common good. And that benefits everyone.

I hope this helps. Have a good day!

Later,

Karen

Happy Mother's Day

2011-05-08T19:57:00.000-05:00

Happy Mother's Day to all the moms, stepmoms, grandmothers, and other caring, maternal women. You matter!

Seven Things About Me

2011-05-01T10:35:00.011-05:00

Karen Wojcik Berner, author of A Whisper to a Scream awarded me a Stylish Blogger Award, making it the first time anyone has ever called me stylish. Thanks, Karen!

For this award, I have to share seven things about myself, so here goes:

1) I went skydiving once when I was in my early 20s. I was never so terrified in my life. Once the chute opened, it was incredible. The view was fantastic and I loved the sensation of floating down to earth. As I got closer to the ground, I felt like I was dropping way too fast and became terrified all over again. (Just for the record, you hit the ground a lot harder than you'd think.)

2) Unlike a lot of women, I hate shopping. If I could order everything online, I would.

3) Speaking of things I hate--talking on the phone, what's the deal with that? Phones are great for conveying messages, or speaking with people who live out of state, but other than that, I could skip phone calls completely.

4) I didn't know asparagus was good until I was in my 30s.

5) I've lived in Wisconsin my entire life and I don't mind saying so, even though it makes me sound like a rube.

6) I sometimes wash and reuse ziplock bags.

7) I'm not a very good cook, but I do like to bake. My apple pies are legend.

Does your family read your writing?

2011-04-25T09:09:00.007-05:00

Mine doesn't, at least not so much. My mom has read all my books, but in my immediate family, only one of my kids has read any of them and that would be my daughter, Maria, who read Celia and the Fairies. My younger son Jack, who reads voraciously, attempted one of my novels, and just couldn't get into it. "Nothing personal, Mom," he said. "It's just not my kind of book." Since his favorite books include The Stand and World War Z, I didn't take it to heart.

My husband has read every word of my nonfiction, including interviews, but he hasn't read any of my fiction. In all fairness, I can count on one hand the number of novels I've seen him read in all the years I've known him. The books he's chosen in the past are nothing like the books I write. I'll admit it--I'm no Tom Clancy or John Grisham.

My older son Charlie came back from getting his hair cut recently and told me about a conversation he had with his stylist, Sarah. Sarah cuts my hair too, and has read all of my books, bless her heart. She started discussing them with Charlie and was surprised to find out he hadn't read them.

"It's not that I don't want to read them," he said to me. "It's just kind of..."

"Weird that your mother wrote them?" I said.

"Yes," he said. And then he went on to tell me that Sarah said that one line in one of the books reminded her exactly of something I would say--that she could almost hear my voice saying it.

The fact that my family doesn't read my books used to bother me. If one of them wrote a book, I'd be all over that puppy. I really believe that reading someone's writing is a glimpse into their soul, so to speak. And since I'm incredibly nosy, I'd welcome a chance to have that glimpse.

But at some point the whole thing became a non-issue. My husband and three kids are not my target audience, after all. And they are supportive and proud of me, so there's that. If they prefer not to read them, I don't want them to do it just to please me. My books shouldn't be like homework assignments.

I've heard that Stephen King's wife is his first and ideal reader for all of his novels. That seems to be working out for them. In an interview, author Christina Schwarz said her husband reads and critiques every word of her novels. I'm pretty sure I wouldn't like that arrangement, but again, it works for them.

At a book signing I attended years ago, Wisconsin author Jane Hamilton said that her son (who was a teenager at the time) had never read any of her books and said he probably never would. Maybe he has by now, but my guess is that his statement stemmed from the fact that a book written by his mom could be an emotional landmine. It's hard to disassociate your mother from the words she's written, even when it is fiction. The potential embarrassment factor is huge. Better not to look.

So I've made peace with the situation. There are plenty of readers in the world. Just recently, one of Maria's friends left this Post-It note for me:

She's read all my books and would like more! Every time I read this note, I smile. A really big smile.

So here's a question for all of you writers out there--does your family read your writing? And how's that working out for you?

I'm nosy and I'd love to know.

Kindle and AmazonEncore News

2011-04-20T11:46:00.012-05:00

A new press release from Amazon announced that Amazon will be launching library lending for Kindle books. As a fan of libraries and Kindle, and as an AmazonEncore author, this makes me very happy.

To mark the release of my two young adult novels at the beginning of this month, copies of Favorite and Life On Hold were sent out to reviewers. I've been the lucky recipient of many terrific reviews and I don't take any of them for granted. The most recent, at BookRoom Reviews, includes reviews of both books, and an interview with me, written by writer and poet, Christina Zawadiwsky.

Christina asked a lot of thoughtful questions including this one:
CZ: You’re obviously interested in the family, as each novel has had families with missing components and its characters have to grapple with those losses. Do you think that the root of this is sociological – that nowadays there are far more families that have lost various members (through divorce, illness, or tragedy)?

Whoa! I'd been hoping no one would notice all the missing parents in my fiction, but you can't get anything past Christina. To see how I answered that question (and more), visit BookRoom Reviews.

Yesterday The Denver Post had an article titled, The new way we read: 10 ways digital books are changing our literary lives. Years ago, when I was first trying to break into print, The Denver Post published one of my humorous essays, so I was tickled to see my name included in this piece. I was listed as being one of the "authors as famous for their aggressive self-promotion as for their books." Far be it for me to question the The Denver Post, but just between us blog friends? I'm not all that aggressive. Sometimes when I'm at the deli counter waiting for my half pound of ham and they give me a pound by mistake, I just take it rather than start something.

And saving the best news for last--I found out earlier in the month that AmazonEncore sold the trade paperback rights to my two adult novels, Easily Amused and A Scattered Life, to Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. They will be released as Houghton Mifflin Harcourt titles later this year.

At first when my editor told me this news, I didn't quite get it. I felt like my parents had called me into the living room and said--start packing, you're getting a new family! But then my editor explained that this is a very good thing for everyone involved.

To put it in perspective, Jeff Belle, v-p, Amazon Publishing, said that the deal with HMH will extend the reach of its authors’ works. “Houghton has a great team and we’re thrilled to be working with them to bring our authors to a larger print audience,” Belle said. “Our goal is to maximize opportunities for all of our authors.”

I'm excited to become a part of Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, a venerable publishing house with an impressive list of authors and books.

Nothing stays the same in publishing anymore, does it? I've given up trying to predict what's going to happen next.

Later,

Karen

Publishing a Book Using CreateSpace

2011-04-18T13:39:00.025-05:00

This is yet another blog post based on a handout I used when giving self-publishing workshops. This one describes the process of self-publishing in paperback. The information here is based on something I did in December 2009, so keep that in mind. Things change, and your mileage may vary.
.
To format the text of the book I used Microsoft Word, something I was familiar with and already had. Some people believe you get better results using software such as InDesign. That may be the case, but I wanted to do it as economically as possible.
.
When I went to create a paperback version of my Kindle book, Celia and the Fairies, I decided to go with CreateSpace, an online publisher which uses P.O.D (print on demand) technology to fill orders for books.
.
From their website: "You earn royalties every time we manufacture a product to fulfill a new customer order placed on Amazon.com, your eStore, or through distribution outlets within the Expanded Distribution Channel.
.
Your royalty is the list price you've designated for your book, minus our share.
.
How much will it cost to set up my book? There are no set-up fees for your book; before making it available for sale, we do require you to purchase and approve a proof copy of your book. We'll also provide you with a free CreateSpace ISBN (International Standard Book Number—an identifying number necessary to sell a book commercially) if you don't already own one."
.
I opted for something CreateSpace calls their “Pro Plan,” which allowed me to earn higher royalties and reduced the cost of ordering my own copies. It also allows the book to be part of the expanded distribution plan, which means bookstores and libraries can order it.
.
This was the breakdown of my costs in producing my children’s book, Celia and the Fairies:

Pro Plan $39.00 (yearly renewal fee of $5.00)
.
Proof Copy $9.34 ($3.15 for the book plus $6.39 shipping)
.
Second Proof Copy $9.34 (found an error and had to redo it)
.
Cover Image $20.00
.
Paid my daughter to do the cover design $20.00
.
Total cost: $97.68

The process of creating a paperback using CreateSpace:
.
Ultimately two files will need to be created and uploaded: the cover image and the interior of the book.
.
Before you can do either one, you need to select the trim size for your book. There are 13 different choices for trim sizes for a black and white book (black and white referring to the interior pages only). I chose my size based on similar books in the market. Knowing the trim size is essential in formatting the interior and also in creating the cover art.
.
To create the interior file, the actual pages of the book, I needed to resize my manuscript pages to match my chosen trim size. I did this while it was still a Microsoft Word document. After opening the document, I clicked on Page Layout=> then clicked on Size. The program didn’t have my exact size (5.25 x 8 inches), so I found the closest one (5 x 8 inches) and changed the number manually by clicking on it and just typing in the numbers.
.
I found it easiest to view the manuscript using the “Print Layout” setting, although it’s a personal preference. What you see on the screen is exactly how it will look in the book, so if the print is tiny or the lines look crowded, you’ll want to make adjustments.
.
Following the format of a traditionally published book, the very first page had the title of the book centered. The second page, which would be the other side of that first page, I left blank.
.
The third page has the title with the author’s name below it. The fourth page is the back of that page and will be the copyright page, usually with ISBN, but you don’t have that yet, so don’t sweat it.
.
The fifth page is the dedication page, and the next, the sixth, is again blank.
.
The seventh page is the actual start of the book. This is where the page numbers will begin. Again, look at a traditionally published book in your genre for guidance in formatting your book. I decided to start about halfway down the page, and to NOT have a chapter heading (i.e. “Chapter One”) for the first chapter. Some books do have a chapter heading for the first chapter; it’s entirely up to you.
.
I opted to start the first word of the first chapter with what’s known as a large dropped initial capital letter, something you often see in traditional publishing. To learn how to create that effect, click on the “?” in the upper right hand corner of your screen when in Microsoft Word and type in “dropped initial capital letter” in the search box, to receive instructions.
.
I also chose, for the sake of ease, to center my page numbers on the bottom of the page. To make them look less bare I put a tilde (~) on either side. Again, do as you want.
'
In a book, the inside margin, the one closest to the binding, is called the “gutter.” It will always be slightly wider to allow for space needed for the binding. For my book, I clicked on Page Layout in Microsoft Word and then Margins, then went all the way down and clicked on Custom Margins. A box titled Page Setup popped up and when I clicked on Margins I was able to set them up like this:
.
Top: 0.8” Bottom: 0.6”
.
Inside: 0.7” Outside: 0.6”
.
Gutter: 0.1” Gutter position: Left
.
The pages were set for “Mirror Margins.”
.
Going back to the Page Setup box, there’s another tab titled Paper where you need to insert the width and height of your trim size.
.
Going back again to the Page Setup box, there’s yet another tab titled Layout. Under Headers and Footers on that page I had the Header set at 0.5” and the Footer set at 0.1.”
.
As far as general formatting goes, make sure each chapter starts on a new page.
.
I changed my line spacing from double spaced to 1.5, but do what works best for you. I didn’t want it to look crowded, but at the same time, it was in my best interest to have as few pages as possible, since CreateSpace sets a minimum price based on page count.
.
The last page of my book says “THE END” because it’s a children’s book. This is not the norm for other types of books. I decided against an additional page for acknowledgements or information about the author. Again, a personal choice.
.
Once the document is formatted to your satisfaction, convert it to a PDF file and it’s ready to upload.
.
Now, your version of Microsoft Word may be different than mine, but the tools are basically the same. To get more detailed instructions, read “How to Lay Out a Book Manuscript in Microsoft Word,” an excellent article by Kaz Silvestri on eHow.com.
.
Now the cover:
.
The site has templates to help in creating the cover art. In my case, I purchased an image from istockphoto.com, making sure that it was permissible to use as a book cover. My daughter then used Adobe Photoshop and the CreateSpace template to embed the text on the front cover, back cover and spine. The CreateSpace website says you can use any software that will allow you to open a JPEG file and save as a PDF file.
.
You’ll also need a JPEG of just the front cover for your Amazon product page.
.
Once you have the finished cover as a PDF file, you’re ready to upload on the CreateSpace site. You’ll be filling out information pertinent to the book on several screens—things such as the title, author name, book description, author bio etc. The site actually does a pretty good job of walking you through the process. If there is something you’re unsure of, the “Help” function will explain.
.
Two things that were issues for me—I wanted to put the price of the book on the back (above the blank space where the bar code went), and I also wanted to include the ISBN on the copyright page. The problem was that CreateSpace sets a minimum price based on page count and I had calculated it incorrectly. Also, I didn’t find out my assigned ISBN until I uploaded the file, and of course, then it was too late to add it. As luck would have it, I found a major typo on the very first page and opted to make adjustments and reload both files. The second time around I was able to change the price listing, add the ISBN, and fix the typo.
.
Once the proof is ordered and you’ve inspected and approved it, you can go ahead and publish. If I recall correctly, it took a week or so for the whole Amazon page to fill in and for the book to be available for purchase.
.
That’s it! The manuscript is now a book.
.
I hope this information is helpful.
.
Later,
.
Karen

Ebooks: Could You Be the Next Self-Published Star?

2011-04-09T11:08:00.002-05:00

I was on ABC news this week and wouldn't have known if not for Twitter. Elisa Lorello, author of Faking It and Ordinary World, tweeted that each of us were featured, she in the print article, me in the video clip. The footage was part of an interview I'd done with ABC last fall.

When I went to thank Elisa for alerting me to this link, she said she'd heard about it from R.J. Keller, author of Waiting For Spring. R.J. Keller told me she heard about it from a Facebook friend. And so it goes on the Internet: one thing leads to another which leads to another, and then another.

This was the title of the article: EBooks: Could You Be the Next Self-Published Star? I'm not fond of titles posed as questions, but I loved the phrase "go rogue" in the subtitle: With New Publishing Platforms, Authors Skip Traditional Publishers and Go Rogue It makes it sound so dramatic. Really, all writers want is to create stories, have people read them, and get paid for it. But if we have to storm the castle to accomplish this, that's what we'll do. ;-)

Published a book? A promotional "To Do" list.

2011-04-07T22:14:00.008-05:00

So you self-published an ebook on Kindle/Nook or Smashwords.com. Maybe you also created a paperback version using CreateSpace or Lulu or one of the other print-on-demand self-publishers. You've done everything right: your story, cover, description, and formatting are top notch. You've priced your book low to entice readers to sample and buy. You chose the appropriate keywords, categories, and tags on Amazon and B&N.

Now what?

Besides obsessively checking your rankings and sales page (and believe me, I speak from personal experience here), there are other things you can do.

If you don't have a website or blog, establish one. Pronto.
Write a one-paragraph author bio in third person. You'll need it, not just for your Author Central page on Amazon, but also for future promotional purposes. Every time you send out a press release, offer to do a speaking engagement, or email a book store or blogger, you'll want to supply a professionally-worded author bio. It gives you cred, and who doesn't need cred?
Create a user/shopper account on Amazon.com and bn.com You probably have one already but if not, you'll want to do this. You'll need it to do the next two things on the list, and also to buy and review other people's books. Good karma and all that. :-)

Buy your own book to generate a ranking. How can you start obsessing if there isn't a ranking? For those not in the know, book rankings are like golf scores--the lower the number, the better.

Create an Author Central account on Amazon.com. Lots of options here and easy to do. From the site, "a free service provided by Amazon to allow authors to reach more readers, promote books, and help build a better Amazon bookstore."
Solicit a positive review for your book. People always balk at this, but I think it's important. I'm not advocating filling your page with fraudulent reviews. What I am saying is that you must have at least one friend or family member who genuinely loves your book. Politely ask if they'd be willing to leave a review. Potential readers are reluctant to buy a book without reviews. Help your book by making sure there's at least one there from the start.
List your book on Goodreads.com, Shelfari.com, and Librarything.com. If you have a blog, add it to your author page on these sites using an RSS feed
Use social networking to get the word out: Twitter, Facebook, blogging etc. But don't be obnoxious about it. People read to be informed and/or entertained. They don't enjoy being slammed with self-promotion. Figure out a way to be interesting/ informative, and be part of the community. Make your book information available, but don't push it on people. A subtle approach is more effective than a hard sell
Leave blog comments on heavily-trafficked blogs. Put your book title or website in as a link in the comment. Go here to find out how to do so: http://bloggeruniversity.blogspot.com/2007/01/post-link-in-comments.html Not every blog is set up to allow this, but many, including Blogger, do. As long as you're leaving a legitimate comment, no one should mind.
Guest blog on other people’s blogs and reciprocate on yours.
Submit your blog feed to Feed Burner: www.feedburner.com If you're using something like TypePad, Wordpress, or Blogger, you likely publish a feed automatically. Otherwise, this is a good option.
Send a press release out announcing the release of your book: www.pr.com The reason you want to do this is not because the news media will rush to interview you (although it would be great if that happened). The reason to do this is because Google gives press releases precedence over other types of content. Make sure your press release contains the necessary information about you and your book, including links to your website/blog and your contact information. Look at examples of press releases online if you're not familiar with the format. Try to include a great marketing hook if you have one. Self-publishing via ebook is currently a hot topic in the news, so if nothing else, that could suffice.
Create a Youtube.com video, either a book trailer or interview. Not everyone has the skills to do this, but if you know a teenager, you know someone who could help.

***

These are just suggestions. You don't need to do all of these things (or any, for that matter), and you can do the ones you choose at your own pace. With P.O.D. and ebooks, your book's availability is endless and infinite. It's not going out of print anytime soon so there's really no hurry.

Promotional efforts like these are cumulative. Done daily, a half hour of marketing can build and build and build. And since its done online, it's out there forever.

Do these things sell books? No one can say with complete certainty, but I believe if you start with a good book, and do everything else correctly, the things on this list can only help.

Good luck!

Karen

My 15 Seconds of Fame ~ Entertainment Weekly

2011-04-03T15:25:00.017-05:00

If you buy this week's Entertainment Weekly, the one with the Governator on the cover, you'll find that Arnold Schwarzenegger is returning to the movies! And if that's not enough (and it well could be), on page 63, in that very same magazine, you'll find my name.

I love that they used "DIY." I know it was in reference to Amanda Hocking, but it definitely applies to me as well. I was honored to be included in this list of authors--all of them pioneers in this new e-book world.

Plus, I had no idea I might be scooped up soon.

And if that wasn't enough excitement for one week--I also had two books come out on April 1st under the AmazonEncore imprint. Both of my young adult novels, Favorite and Life On Hold were released that day in paperback and Kindle.

In honor of two books coming out in one day, a few sites are doing book giveaways:

J The book review blog, Tic Toc, is having a giveaway of both books. Leave a comment with your email address and you'll automatically be entered in a drawing on April 6th.

J The website, Freebookfriday.com is also having a giveaway of my two teen novels. Just visit the site from now until April 8th, and fill out your name and email address for a chance to be chosen.

J At I Am a Reader, Not a Writer, you can leave a comment and your email address from now until April 28th to enter a drawing. You can also read an interview with some out-of-the-ordinary questions and some goofy answers. I was in a silly mood at the time.

J And last, but certainly not least, author Jenny Milchman, invited me to her site, Suspense Your Disbelief, to tell the story of how I came to write my novel, Favorite. Besides giving me space on her site, Jenny is also giving away a copy of Favorite to one lucky commenter.

That's all for now.

Later!

Karen

Helpful sites for self-publishers

2011-03-28T18:42:00.004-05:00

I'm a big believer in not reinventing the wheel. If you want to do something, almost anything, chances are someone has done something like it before.

When I decided to upload my books to Kindle in July 2009, I went on a mission to learn everything I could about e-books and self-publishing. It was early days for Kindle, but I was lucky because an author named Joe Konrath had paved the way for me (and thousands of others). His site was a font of knowledge and I soaked it all up.

Over the next year and a half, I found other helpful sites that aided me in my self-publishing journey. I collected the links and shared them with the attendees of the self-publishing workshops I gave around the country (but mostly in Wisconsin). Now, I'm sharing the links with you.

http://jakonrath.blogspot.com/ A Newbie’s Guide to Publishing/ Author J.A. Konrath’s fascinating take on all things publishing and ebooks in particular. It's a treasure trove of information. If you could only go to one site for information, this would be the one.

If you have a lot of time, it's fun to read his blog right from the beginning and see how his views on self-publishing evolved as things changed.

www.fotoflexer.com Foto Flexer, an excellent, EASY, free way to design book covers. I'm very enthused about this site as a means for creating a JPEG cover. Fotoflexer.com lets you upload your own photo (either one you've purchased or one taken with your own digital camera) and crop it, add text, and use special effects to create a professional looking image. If you want to practice first, they have sample photos on the site for that purpose. I'm not tech-savvy at all, and I found this site to be very user friendly. For those who like visuals, they have video clips to walk you through the process.

www.istockphoto.com http://www.dreamstime.com/ www.bigstock.com
A few of the many places where one can buy stock photos and other images (including really cool artwork!). Make sure you read the fine print to determine if you have permission to use the image as a book cover.

The Library of Congress - Prints and Photographs Online Catalog --Thousands of images that can be used for free for book covers or book trailers.

http://www.publetariat.com/ Publetariot—People Who Publish/ a wealth of information on various aspects of self-publishing.

http://www.cheapindieauthor.blogspot.com/ Indie Publishing on the Cheap/ Author K.L. Brady gives advice on economical self-publishing, including how she got her book into chain stores.

Youtube.com video on How to Publish on Kindle (by Amazon)

www.pubit.com Barnes & Noble’s site / to make your e-book available for the Nook

http://www.smashwords.com Smashwords is an ebook publishing and distribution platform for ebook authors. From their site, “We offer distribution to major online ebook retailers such as Barnes & Noble, Sony and Shortcovers, and to all major smart phone platforms via app providers such as Stanza, Ereader, Shortcovers, Aldiko and Word-Player.”

http://www.kindleprocessor.com/ Kindle formatting conversion for 99 cents. I heard about this on Kindleboards.com. Some of the posters on the message board used it with good results.

https://www.createspace.com/ CreateSpace--a P.O.D. (print on demand) book publisher. My own personal choice.

To enter the wonderful world of self-publishing on Amazon's Kindle https://kdp.amazon.com/self-publishing/signin

Lulu http://www.lulu.com/ A P.O.D. book publisher. Well regarded.

www.kindleboards.com A wonderful message forum for e-book enthusiasts. Visit the Writer's Cafe and you'll find a generous community of authors who share information on everything pertinent to self-publishing ebooks.

Marketing Tips for Authors Author Tony Eldridge shares marketing strategies for authors. Check out the book cover for his Kindle novel, The Sampson Effect. He used fotoflexer.com (he got the idea from me!). I think it turned out great.

Amanda Hocking's Blog Just because it's fun to read about someone finding success in a big way. Yay, Amanda!

Self-Publishing Workshop Update

2011-03-23T14:20:00.009-05:00

This coming Saturday, March 26th, I'll be giving a class on self-publishing at The Power of the Pen Writer's Conference in Neenah, Wisconsin. It will be the last time I ever give this particular workshop and probably one of the last times I give a workshop/class period.

Over the past year, I've done a lot of these workshops. I think they went well--at least that's what I've been told. It was great to meet with other writers and share what I know, but like most things, it came with a price. And for me, the price was time: hours of preparation, hours of travel, and my usual block of time spent (unnecessarily) stressing, because that's how I'm built.

I just turned a new manuscript in to my editor--a sequel to Celia and the Fairies. Celia and the fairies play a part in this new book, but it's primarily the story of Celia's friend Paul. Paul has some pretty incredible things happen to him, which made the book fun to write. My editor said he likes this new one even better than the Celia book, because it has more humor. I'm thrilled that AmazonEncore has agreed to publish it.

But something about the whole exchange bothered me. I signed with AmazonEncore a little more than a year ago, and all I've written since is one children's book? Where did the time go?

I'd spent a good part of last summer on copyedits, promotion, and family time. Still, that was only three months. Also, I wrote a screenplay, an adaptation of my book Favorite, but that was sort of a side project, maybe equivalent to a month's work.

I knew I'd been continuously busy, I just couldn't figure out with what.

And then I did my taxes. I tallied all my expenses and mileage and realized, holy moly, I've been getting around. Not getting around like some authors who go on book tours and are gone for weeks and weeks at a time. My events were more intermittant and the majority of them were within driving distance. Still, I'd done far more than I realized.

I don't regret doing any of these events, but I've decided to be more focused from now on. I love writing and I want to spend the majority of my time working on a novel. I'll still talk to groups if I'm invited, but I'm going to eliminate doing self-publishing workshops. Once I'm finished with Saturday's event, I'm going to post all of my handouts from the workshop on this blog, one at a time. And then I'll put links to them on the FAQ page of my website. That way, anyone who is interested will have the information, and nobody will have to give up a Saturday afternoon.

And in other news, I was in Barnes and Noble a week or so ago and they had copies of my books!
A big thank you to Shawnee Griffin for bringing this to my attention.

When I first signed with AmazonEncore I doubted that any bookstore, but especially B&N, would EVER carry AmazonEncore titles. Weren't the two camps mortal enemies? Seeing my books on the shelf in Barnes & Noble made me feel all warm and fuzzy inside. I took it as a sign that the two sides have finally made peace.

Also new, I recently redid the inside of my e-book, Lies I Told My Children, gave it a new cover and dropped the price to $0.99.

It turned out pretty good, if I do say so myself, although daughter Maria thinks she can improve on it, so the cover might get tweaked sometime in the near future.

That's it for now. We're expecting freezing rain here in Wisconsin, which means spring is finally here!

Later,

Karen

Speaking to groups

2011-03-15T09:02:00.012-05:00

Just for fun, I check in with Susan Miller's Astrologyzone.com every month. I don't live and die by her advice, but I'm always impressed by how often her words click with what's going on in my life. This is what she had this to say about me and my fellow Capricorns this month:

You've had a lot going on in your life, and you've been undergoing a number of major lifestyle changes over the past two years. A steady set of eclipses have shaken up your routine and have likely changed the course of your life.

Man, did she hit the nail on the head! (Of course, my son Charlie is also a Capricorn and this doesn't apply to him at all, but we're talking about me here. :)

My life, in many ways, is exactly the same but completely different from two years ago. The day to day stuff hasn't changed. The laundry still gets done, my husband and I go out every Saturday night, I have the same friends etc. But there's another layer that's all brand new to me. Since my novel, A Scattered Life, has been optioned for film, and I received a publishing deal for five of my books with AmazonEncore a little more than a year ago, I've gotten a lot of requests to speak and do workshops, most of them on the topic of self-publishing. Everyone loves the story of an underdog, and writers especially love to hear how someone got ahead of the game so they can apply that knowledge to their own situation.

So for the past year I've spoken countless times--at libraries, book clubs, women's groups, and writer's events. I've driven all around the state of Wisconsin and been at the airport multiple times to fly to events out of state. Three different times I flew somewhere one day, did my shtick, and flew home the next. Traveling like that does weird things with your sense of time. Once I passed a kiosk at the Milwaukee airport on my way to my departing flight and the next day, when I returned, I saw the same guy working there. Immediately I thought, he's still here! And then I realized that it was more likely he'd gone home after his shift the day before and returned the following day. Duh.

The first event I did was for a non-profit organization a few hours drive from my house. The woman who contacted me, I'll call her Emily, was absolutely lovely and very enthused about having me speak to her group. She said they'd pay me this very generous amount, and even though it sounded excessive, I didn't argue the point. Every few weeks she'd email to touch base and give me an update. About two weeks before the event I got a phone call from a guy who also worked for Emily's organization. I'll call him Mark. Mark said, "I believe Emily contacted you about appearing here and she agreed to pay you X dollars?" His voice was strained and I thought it was about the money, but the next thing he said was, "I'm sorry to have to tell you this, but Emily died."

He went on to tell me that it was a sudden death and they all were grief-stricken and stunned. She was middle-aged and not ill. She'd run the organization almost single-handedly and they could not access her email. On her calendar she'd written my name and the amount they'd allocated for a speaker's fee. Mark had Googled my name to find out who I was. I asked if he wanted to cancel my talk, and he said no, they definitely wanted me to come, but I had to fill them in on the details.

The day of the event, I wondered if I should bring up Emily's death when I spoke. I didn't want to make people sad. Of course, if I didn't mention her, I might appear heartless. I worry about things like this. Luckily, the person who introduced me brought up the topic first, which eased the way.

The event went well, considering. I donated half of what they paid me back to the organization in Emily's name. In retrospect, I probably should have donated all of it.

That was the first event I did. Fortunately, my speaking gigs after that were not as tinged with sadness.

One of the out-of-state events put me up at a hotel that didn't look like a hotel. I arrived at night. It was dark and snowing. When the taxi pulled up to what looked like apartment buildings, I said, "Are you sure this is it?" The driver said yes, he was positive. He pointed to a sign that said "Office," and said that was where I should check in. The whole thing had a horror-movie feel to it.

When I walked up to the office door it was locked, but a young guy came right away. Opening the door, he yelled, "We've got a late arrival." They gave me keys to a suite on the second floor, and it was an actual apartment with a full-sized kitchen, two bedrooms, a living room and a big bathroom. The inside of the door looked like this:

I called home to my husband and said, "I'm not sure, but I think I'm in a bad neighborhood." All night I dreamt that I was in someone's apartment and they were angry I was there.

The next morning, in the light of day, the neighborhood looked fine. I'm still not sure what was up with all those locks. Better safe than sorry, I guess.

My favorite groups tend to be libraries. Librarians are organized and love books, both qualities I admire. I've spoken at several libraries and it's always been a wonderful experience. Their audiences are made up of readers, some of whom are writers, and they're always courteous and interested.

The Waukesha Public Library does a really cool thing. The Friends of the Library buys ten copies of a different book every month to be available to be checked out en masse by book clubs.They did this for my novel, A Scattered Life, so when I went to speak there a good number of the attendees had read the book. I'm sure other library groups do the same thing, but this was the first I'd heard of it and I thought it was a terrific idea, especially in this economy.

Public speaking is completely outside of my comfort zone. Overall, I've enjoyed it and appreciated the opportunity to get the word out about my books. But I always stress out prior to these events and I'm happy when things go well and it's behind me. Writers by nature crave solitude and I love being home alone, but when a steady set of eclipses shake up your routine and change the course of your life you sometimes find yourself doing things far beyond the norm.

Winners!

2011-03-11T18:51:00.001-06:00

The winners of Linda Pischke's book, The Women of Block 12, are:

Jools Sinclair

and

Wanda G.

Please email me at kmcquestion @ wi.rr.com with your mailing address and I'll get the books out ASAP.

Thanks to everyone who entered!

Karen

The Women of Block 12 by Linda Pischke ~ Book Giveaway

2011-03-07T11:26:00.003-06:00

Friend and fellow writer, Linda Pischke, recently released her book, The Women of Block 12: Voices from a Jail Ministry. The book is available on Kindle and in paperback through Linda's site.

THE WOMEN OF BLOCK 12 is a journey into the world of incarcerated women, a world of broken childhoods and shattered dreams, a world of chaos and utter despair. It is the story of the more than 200,000 non-violent female offenders who occupy beds in America's jails and prisons. But it is also a story of great courage in the face of adversity, the resilience of the human spirit, and the hope that springs eternal through faith in Jesus Christ. Author Linda Pischke reveals how God teaches us to love the unlovable when we open our hearts to serving him.

Linda agreed to answer a few questions, and she's given me a book for a giveaway. To enter the drawing, leave a comment at the end of this blog post. On this coming Friday, March 11th, a winner will be chosen at random to receive the book. Please leave a way to be contacted, or check back on Friday to look for your name. It makes it difficult if someone wins and then I can't reach them.

And with that out of the way--I'll turn the floor over to Linda's interview.

1. What led you to write The Women of Block 12?

About nine years ago, I was introduced to a gentleman named Joe Wanner, a retired priest and chaplain of our county jail. The inmates called him “Papa Joe.” He was a remarkable man with a passion for the incarcerated. Through a series of what appeared to be “chance” events, I became involved in Joe’s ministry and found myself teaching a creative writing class for female inmates in Cell Block 12.

I soon learned there is no such thing as coincidence when God has a plan for our lives. From the very first meeting I was fascinated with this group of women and the circumstances that brought them to the jail. They all had stories to tell. As a writer, I felt compelled to give them a voice.

2. Why did you decide to self-publish, instead of seeking traditional publication?

That was not an easy decision. Self-publishing is difficult, time consuming and expensive, but the more I read about it the more I realized I wanted to be in control. A standard publisher can hold on to your book for several years and never bring it to light. I wanted to decide such things as design and retail cost. I wanted to make the book affordable so more people would read it.

3. Your personal story in the book is combined with life stories contributed by women you met doing jail ministry. How did you decide who would contribute and what they would share?

The first section of the book is actually a memoir of my meetings with the women over the last eight years. In it I revealed how my opinion of offenders evolved over this period of time. I came to the jail with preconceived ideas about men and women who break the law and I had a life-changing experience.

The second section is eleven stories written by the women themselves. I can only say each one of them was a gift from God. They came, at random, from inmates who had been in Block 12 and others who heard about the project. Each story is written exactly as given to me and each fit perfectly into the book.

4. What do you hope readers take from the book?

I want readers to hear the women’s voices, to gain some insight about the circumstances that lead to incarceration. Part Three focuses on what we can do to help.

5. You are offering to sell your books at a deep discount to charitable organizations to resell for fundraisers. Tell us about it.

This is another reason for self-publishing. Prison and jail ministries, as well as other charitable organizations are always in need of funding. I believe this ministry has a two-fold purpose, to inform and support those willing to help others.

If your name is here, you're a winner!

2011-03-04T18:43:00.001-06:00

The winners of my book giveaway are:

Tina (from Goodreads)

Helen (from Goodreads)

Imogen Rose

bizzzymom

Sydney

Col

merrilymarylee

Please email me at kmcquestion @ wi.rr.com with your mailing address. Oh, and if you'd also include the title of the book you'd prefer it would make it easier for me.

Thanks,

Karen

Making Money With E-Books ~ An Interview

2011-02-28T13:42:00.011-06:00

Last week I was a guest, along with author Tony Eldridge on the Blog Talk Radio program, The Publishing Insiders, hosted by Penny Sansevieri and Paula Krapf. This segment of the show was entitled, "Smart Self Publishing: Part 3, Making Money with Ebooks." I wondered what we'd talk about for a whole hour, but it worked out fine. When they're not being radio hosts, Paula and Penny work with authors doing book promotion and they're very knowledgeable about the publishing industry. Between the four of us, we were able to have (what I think was) a great discussion.

If you're interested in the topic, there's a wrap-up of the show here or you can download the interview and listen to it here. Personally, I'd rather read than listen, so I'd go with the first option. :-)

I've done radio interviews where I had to go down to the studio and wear the big headphones and it's all very official, but most of the time it's set up so I call in from home. It's always pretty funny to me when the host says, "We'd like to welcome guest, Karen McQuestion, to the show..." as if we're sitting across from each other.

This is how a radio interview usually works for me: I'm given a date, a phone number, and a time to call in. Most often this is set up weeks in advance. I'm always worried about missing something live, so I have reminders in my Dayplanner and regular calendar, plus a Post-it note on my computer monitor. Sometimes, if I'm really feeling stressed, I dream about calling in on the wrong day or too late or whatever.

When the time comes, I go into my home office and put a sign on the door letting the rest of the family know they should keep out. I make sure I've visited the bathroom and have a bottle of water right next to me. Then I worry about spilling the water and debate if I should NOT have water. Then I decide, no, the water might be necessary, so I keep it, but put it on the far edge of my desk, so I can't accidentally bump it.

I dial *70 first, so Call Waiting can't interrupt the interview. Once I'm on the line, I'm greeted by the host or producer and they give me the lowdown on what to expect. Then there's a pre-recorded countdown, and a pre-recorded intro and then it begins. Sometimes it's a call-in show and sometimes there are multiple people being interviewed. I always feel like I sound like the Colin Firth character in The King's Speech, but people tell me I do fine.

When it's over, I'm always relieved and also a little stoked that I did something outside of my comfort zone. Afterward, I often get emails from other writers who say they heard me on the radio and it inspired them to self-publish on Kindle and they've never been happier. I love hearing that. So it's all worth it.

Another Book Giveaway!

2011-02-26T14:02:00.008-06:00

This week the mailman left a box of books on my front porch, and not just any box of books--one filled with books written by me!

Yes, I received the advance reader's copies for my two young adult novels, Favorite, and Life On Hold. What a thrill to have them finally arrive. I know I'm a little biased, but believe me, they are absolutely gorgeous. If they were children, they'd be the smartest and best-looking kids in their class. (And I just know they wouldn't embarrass me in public by lying down in the middle of the shoe aisle in Target because they're "tired.")

After opening the box, I inexplicably felt compelled to go into the bathroom and take a photo of me holding them, fan like, in front of my face. Very mysterious, I think.

To celebrate, I'm having a drawing and am giving away six books--three of Life On Hold and three of Favorite. Here are the rules:

Leave a comment at the end of this blog post, saying which book you'd like. The winners will be chosen in a random drawing on Friday March 4th, and the names will be posted then. It will be the winners' responsibility to contact me with a mailing address.

The giveaway is open to anyone on planet Earth, even if you've won a book on this blog in the past.

And that's it. Easy as pie, but not as sweet. :-)

Life On Hold: Fifteen-year-old Rae Maddox’s mom, Gina, is a big fan of fresh starts. Gina thinks of them as an adventure, but for Rae, each move is just one more friend lost, one more chance to feel like an outsider. But when they arrive in Wisconsin, Gina promises to stay put until Rae graduates. Cautiously optimistic, she wades into the social whirl at Whitman High School, making a few friends and even earning a chance at love. But when the vice principal pairs her with fellow newbie Allison Daly, Rae’s tentative happiness is jeopardized. It seems Allison was orphaned after her parents died in a suspicious house fire, leaving their daughter to bounce between relatives’ homes. When a sleepover at Rae’s house goes terribly wrong, Rae sees a troubling side of Allison—and learns a few secrets about her own mother in the process. Suddenly Rae is at risk of losing everything and everyone she cares about—unless she steps up and takes charge of her life once and for all.

Favorite: Five years have passed since Angie Favorite’s mother, Laura, disappeared without a trace, and Angie still hasn’t recovered. Sure, things look normal on the surface—she goes to school, works her summer job, and argues with her older brother Jason—but she can’t shake the feeling that Laura didn’t leave by choice. Angie’s dad does the best he can, but his work as a musician keeps him on the road and away from home, where it’s up to Angie’s grandmother to keep an eye on the kids. She can’t be with them all the time, though, and she can’t help Angie when she is snatched from a mall parking lot by Scott Bittner. The girl narrowly escapes, and Bittner is arrested, but he takes his life in jail before he can offer an explanation for his crime. When his mother contacts Angie, begging forgiveness on her son’s behalf, the girl agrees to meet with her in hopes of finding answers to the seemingly random attack. But when she arrives at the massive Bittner estate, she is overcome by an unshakeable sense of foreboding…

Part thriller, part coming-of-age tale, Favorite is an engrossing young adult novel in which nothing—and no one—is as it seems.

Good luck!

Later,

Karen

Free Book Friday Fiction features A Scattered Life

2011-02-26T13:56:00.002-06:00

The website , Free Book Friday Fiction, is featuring my novel, A Scattered Life, and giving away five copies at the end of this week!

I'd never heard of the site before they contacted me and I have no idea how I missed it. Each week they give away signed copies of books in four different categories. Entering is free and easy. Now that I know about it, I'll be going back week after week to check out the offerings.

Besides giving away books, Free Book Friday Fiction also features interviews with the authors. I love hearing the story behind the story, so this is right up my alley.

If you love reading and like getting free stuff, I'd encourage you to check it out!

Sample Sunday ~ FAVORITE

2011-02-20T21:10:00.005-06:00

Hi everyone! Have you heard of #SampleSunday from Twitter? It's a new way for authors to share snippets of their work. Frank Drury suggested I post a section from the first chapter of my young adult novel, Favorite, (currently out in Kindle--the paperback version will be released by AmazonEncore on April 1st).

Here's the premise: Sixteen-year-old Angie Favorite's life so far has been defined by the disappearance of her mother on her eleventh birthday. Since then, she and her older brother Jason have been raised by their grandmother, while their father tours with his rock band. When Angie is attacked by a complete stranger, the crime seems random, until she meets her attacker's wealthy mother, Lillian Bittner, and discovers nefarious connections between the Bittners and the mother no one has heard from in five years.

And the sample:

No one was in sight at the drycleaners when I walked in, but I sensed movement in the back of the building. The loud head-banger music coming from the rear reminded me of the heavy metal thumping I’d heard so often from Jason’s room.
.
I tapped the bell twice. A girl came out, took my receipt without comment and pushed the button to turn the rotating rack of clothes. Her eyes were still on the receipt when she returned, hanger in hand. “Hey,” she said, as she hung the dress on the rod in front of me, “your last name is ‘Favorite.’ That’s kinda cool.”

I nodded. I’ve heard it all by now—I must be everybody’s favorite, maybe I’m nobody’s favorite, was I my mother’s favorite? That one always made me want to cry.

“And your first name starts with ‘A.’” Her head bobbed in approval. “A Favorite.” She said it slowly, as if trying out a foreign phrase. “Way cool.” She punched a few buttons on the register and ran the scanner over the tag. “Kind of like you’re going through life as a chosen one. Like in the Bible.”

Now that one I hadn’t heard before. “Yep, that’s me,” I said. “The chosen one.” A strand of hair had escaped my ponytail. I tucked it behind my ear before handing her a twenty-dollar bill. If I wanted to I could have kept the conversation going by telling her that my first initial “A” actually stood for ‘Angel,’ but I decided not to go there.

She rifled through the register drawer and gave me my change in one lump. She said “You have a good day now,” in a really happy way.

It wasn’t until I was out in my car that I looked at the wad of cash in my hand and realized she gave me the wrong amount. Math was not my best subject, but I knew if you paid someone with a twenty, and you got a twenty, a single and some quarters in return, something wasn’t adding up. My first thought was to just let it go. I sat for a moment, staring at the cash and thinking of the girl’s earnest face and her friendly voice, then sighed. I had to take the money back. I didn’t want her to get into trouble because of me.

I tossed my wallet on the front seat of the car and got out with car keys and money in hand, not even bothering to lock the door. The Honda was the only car in the lot and just twenty feet from the front of the store. I figured it would only take a minute.

I was almost to the curb separating the parking lot from the storefront sidewalk when I glanced up, startled to see a dark-haired man coming toward me. He didn’t appear menacing at first. Just big. At least a foot taller than me, he had the bulky look of someone who wrestled professionally. He stepped off the curb as I approached. I mumbled a hello, but he didn’t seem to notice.

The next part I remember as if I’m watching a movie and seeing it happen to someone else. I’m lost in my thoughts, money clutched in one hand, the car keys in the other, and I’m walking toward the dry cleaners as if pulled by a string. The spell was broken when my arm was grabbed from behind. Shocked, I turned toward the guy whose vice-grip had stopped me.

I blurted out, “What do you want?” and looked to see if there was anyone else around, but we were alone. When I first passed him I hadn’t noticed anything but his size. Now I saw that his forehead was slick with sweat, and his sunken brown eyes were so dark in color they looked like two big pupils. I thought maybe he’d mistaken me for someone else until he grunted three words, “Come with me.”

It all happened so fast—I’ve heard people use that expression before, but I never really knew what it meant until right at that moment. Because it did happen that fast. In an instant I thought of the girls you hear about in the news, the ones who were abducted and raped, and how they tell you never to go anywhere with an attacker, unless you want to end up dead.

“Let go.” I tried to scream the words, but they came out as a strangled cry. I pulled away from him, but he held fast. I always wondered how I’d react if I were attacked. Now I knew. I had assumed I’d scream loud enough to rile the dead, and would kick or punch his eyes, neck or groin, like they tell you to do, but I didn’t know it was going to be like this. I couldn’t get away from him and I was afraid. Scary movies, roller coasters, nightmares—nothing compared to the heart-pounding terror I felt at that moment.

“You need to see something,” he said, his voice flat. “Come with me.”

Sunday Links

2011-02-20T15:13:00.009-06:00

My husband and I just returned from vacation. We were in a hotel elevator in Texas, when a man got on, sized us up and said (to Greg), "I see you're having a really good year."

Color me confused! I immediately thought, does he somehow know Greg is married to a successful self-published e-book author? And then I realized he was referencing my husband's Green Bay Packer baseball cap, and the whole universe spun around and put me in my place. Compared to the the green-and-gold Super Bowl winners, I am as insignificant as a dust mite. Ha!

As vacations go, it was wonderful, but now we're back and resuming our usual routine, plus doing a lot of laundry. Our kids, who I thought would miss us desperately, only missed us a teensy bit. Still it's good to be home, even if the snow is flying fast and furiously as I type this. In Galveston it's 68 degrees, with a slight breeze, not that I'm dwelling on it or anything.

In my absence, my friend Christopher Herz followed up with his Sunday Morning Story (also known as a Literary Mash-Up). I contributed one of the photos--the one from Hartland, Wisconsin with all the snow. Since today is Sunday, he's doing it again. Look at my previous blog post for directions on how to participate. Speaking from personal experience, it was fun and easy. If you're reading this and it's too late, he's doing it every week, so there will be other opportunities.

And another good friend, Linda Pischke, has a book out called The Women of Block 12. I'm really excited about this book release, because I was there from the beginning. Linda was called to do this book--seriously, she was called. Her book is profound and insightful and uplifting. I think everyone should read it, it's that good. I'm hoping Linda can work me into her schedule and do a guest post on my blog in the very near future. In the meantime, she's having a book giveaway on her blog from now until February 26th.

So go and check out Christopher and Linda's sites, if you're so inclined. While you're doing that, I think I'll go and switch some clothes from the washer to the dryer.

Later,

Karen

The world on your computer screen

2011-02-09T12:49:00.002-06:00

Have you ever felt like you'd like to be part of something bigger than yourself? To see the world through other people's eyes? Do a bit of performance art without leaving your comfort zone? If so, I have just the thing for you. Seriously, this is cool.

Christopher Herz, author of the novel, The Last Block in Harlem, thinks we can collectively save the world. The last two Sundays he's hosted a worldwide party on his blog and everyone was invited. And he plans to do it every week for a year. He calls it a Global Literary Mash-up.

In his words, this is how it works:

1. Take a pic of what you are seeing in front of you on Sunday.

2. Post that pic, along with your location using Twit pic - use the hashtag #sundaymorningstory and place it in my twitter timeline @herzwords

3.If you don't have twitpic or a similar device to upload files to twitter, you can email me the picture and location to: herzwords@gmail.com

4. I will compile all the pics and locations, then post the literary mash-up #SundayMorningStory later on that week.

The thought here is: By the end of the year, we'll have a compilation of stories told by the world. It's an experiment in mash-up literature I'm very excited about and one that everyone can be involved in.

Again, the more we read about each other, the less likely we are to drop bombs on one another.

Feel free to email Christopher with any questions (herzwords@gmail.com). Spread the word!

Go here to check out last week's compilation of photos. And make a note to send in a picture next Sunday.

Later!
Karen

Book Marketing and Publishing Webinars with Maria Murnane

2011-02-04T11:53:00.004-06:00

Last fall I had the pleasure of meeting fellow AmazonEncore author Maria Murnane at a publishing shindig in NYC when we both appeared on a panel discussion about self-publishing. I talked about breaking in via e-books and she was the expert who spoke about promoting a hard copy book. In marketing her book, Perfect on Paper, Maria came up with some innovative strategies that were truly impressive.

Now she's sharing her wisdom in two different webinars, Want to Become a Published Author? on February 17th (registration link here) and How to Market a Book on March 3rd. If you're interested but those dates don't work for you, not to worry--Maria says that in addition to being available live, both are available on-demand as a recording anytime thereafter.

If you sign up, tell her Karen sent you! J

Thanks,

Karen

Blizzard 2011

2011-02-02T10:56:00.003-06:00

If you came to my house today, this is what you'd find. Luckily, it's nice inside.

Stay warm!

Karen