Monday, October 1, 2012

A Little Update


I am certain that I’m not going to be the only one to mention that fact that I CAN’T BELIEVE IT’S ALREADY THE FIRST OF OCTOBER! Time to put on a sweater and sip a Starbucks Pumpkin Spiced latte while watching my kiddos rake the leaves into a pile to jump in (let me be sure to schedule that).

My daughter went to her first high school football game with her posse of friends and had a good time. According to her, EVERYONE was there. So if you’re missing someone, apparently they made their way to the LHS football game Friday night.

On that note, I heard some disturbing news about some girls at another middle school who are peer pressuring each other to burn their skin and rub salt in the wounds to scar. Ouch. Sometimes, it is hard as a writer to walk the fine line of pleasing the gatekeepers and my target market audience (tweens). Adults don’t want to hear about this stuff but it’s real and my view is to write about it. I don’t know about many coming of age books that are all rainbows and unicorns and I know this bothers a lot of the parents out there but growing up is hard work. I know I always appreciated honesty as a teen reader (and actually still do). I always loved Judy Blume’s response to adults who say these topics are too forward (and I’m paraphrasing here), that people who say their growing up was all roses perhaps aren’t remembering very truthfully. I like that…not remembering very truthfully. That cracks me up.

On that note, our schedule is about ready to crack me up for realz. I am usually a complete Nazi about leaving some time just to breathe but we are cutting it entirely too close to the edge. Also, our cat is waking me up at 5am every morning for some cuddle time because, needless to say, it’s the pets that get neglected when we are so busy. Want to know how someone’s life is going? Look at how their pets are doing.

I received a wonderful comment from the mother of a reluctant reader. She mentioned that it is sometimes difficult to get her son to read. OMG, let me tell you, I feel her pain. Hansel’s favorite subjects are recess and lunch. Getting him to read 30 minutes for his school reading log is like, well for lack of better analogy…pulling teeth. No, a root canal. No, more like being forced to watch an episode of Storage Wars while getting a root canal in 100 degree heat. There. That’s it. That’s what it’s like. Unless I bribe him, which I MIGHT have been known to do.

Anyway, when she wrote to tell me her son loved BETWEEN and was waiting on the edge of his seat for APART to come out I was floored. Number one, I’m always pleasantly surprised when I hear about boys reading BETWEEN because the protagonist is a girl. Number two, how much do I love that fact that someone is reading my book, no matter who they are? Number three, nothing will get me more motivated to write than hearing about someone waiting for another of my books to be written.  So thank you for sharing, I appreciate it more than you know! And, I get it. There are authors out there that I would pay to read their grocery list while I’m waiting for their next book to get released. So naturally, I am hard at work on APART.

Also, I decided to re-enroll in Kindle Direct Publishing Select again. This means that BETWEEN will only be offered on Amazon at the moment. At the beginning of September I published BETWEEN on the Barnes and Nobles site to which I received absolutely no sales at all and saw a significant drop in sales on Amazon. Before that about a third of my writing earnings originated from the Kindle Owners Lending Library (not an insignificant amount of money). When I read about the success other kidlit authors were having with KOLL I realized I must go back. I’m not going to lie, I’m in this to make money people so that I can fund my writing habit with more writing. My next step is to get BETWEEN available for print on demand (POD) so that I can get hard copies into the hands of readers. Um. Oh yeah, and also finish the sequel.

So there you have it. A uh, er— little update.