Posts Tagged "books"

This is a point that isn’t addressed in any detail in books on writing or book promotion. That’s a shame because it puts authors in the awkward position of not knowing how to act when it comes to book reviews. Years ago, book reviews were printed only in publications read by professionals or if one was lucky in a newspaper’s book review section. When an author received a good review she might celebrate by popping the cork on a bottle of champagne or calling her mother. A bad review might lead to throwing pillows around the living room or placing a different sort of call to her mother. Times have changed. Professional review publications are still around and so (at least for the moment) are newspapers. However, the internet has multiplied the...

Few outside of the book industry are even aware of the existence of book bloggers let alone understand what it is that they do. Unfortunately, far too many folks in the book industry don’t really appreciate our respect book bloggers. So, this post is an appreciation of that marvelous creature known as the book blogger. Book bloggers as you probably could have guessed are individuals who blog about books. They post book reviews, interviews with authors and favorite book lists. Like other blogs, book blogs each have their own style and format. Many list review policies and the genres they prefer. Of course, this description only scratches the surface of what book bloggers do. To an author, book bloggers are heroes. They champion authors. As a debut author,...

Esteemed young adult author Walter Dean Myers was recently selected as the new National Ambassador for Young People’s Literature. The choice of Myers was hardly a controversial one considering his large body of work and the numerous awards he has won. That said, the New York Daily News ran a story last week titled, “Against Walter Dean Myers and the dumbing down of literature: ‘Those kids’ can read Homer” almost immediately Twitter was abuzz with responses to the article. I’m not going to dissect the article. You can read it for yourself and form  your own opinion. I’m only going to take issue with one teeny, tiny part of the article. The writer claims, “the purpose of literature is to elevate. Not to...

To go along with my New Year’s resolution of being better at this social networking thing, I decided to get a jump start on it by creating a Google+ page for my novel Popular. Yes, Popular has been out for 7 months, now. So, I am a bit late on this, but in my defense there was no Google+ when Popular first came out. Also, I reason that this will be good practice for creating a page for my next book, Ferocity Summer. A couple of weeks ago a friend of mine who is way more tech savvy than me, sent me a link to a post by Evo Terra that explained why authors should create a Google+ page for their book. It was one of those things that I sort of mentally filed away, and said I would get to when I had a few spare minutes. I managed to squeeze it in last week. I...

I’m very excited to be able to share the newly revised cover for my next book, Ferocity Summer. Artwork-wise there has been no change, but it does include blurb from author A. S. King: I am grateful to A. S. King for this blurb and am truly honored by her kind words. In case you aren’t familiar with her and her work, she is a super-talented YA author. Her debut The Dust of 100 Dogs blew me away. Then she came out with Please Ignore Vera Deitz last year, and I was not at all surprised when it was awarded a Printz Honor. I just finished her latest, Everybody Sees the Ants. It’s one of those books you will want to stay up all night reading. It’s a serious book, that has all these laugh out loud funny parts and a wonderful collection of quirky...