I first met Danielle (though not immediately in person) when I signed up for my initial blog tour. The book was Jumpstart the World, and Danielle was one of the bloggers who signed on to host a tour stop. I made it a point to follow all the tour bloggers on Twitter. That’s how I learned “the big coincidence,” though I don’t remember when, or how it first came out. In the international setting of the online book world, Danielle lives less than 45 minutes from me, a couple of towns down the road. So she joined me in one of my workshops, and we’ve met a couple of times to exchange information, books, etc.
When it comes to helping get the word out about my novels and other news, or even standing up for me online when I faced opposition, I couldn’t ask for a more supportive friend.
Her blog There’s a Book has won awards and garnered a great deal of respect. If you’re not familiar with it, this is your chance.
Now. Danielle. Your blog is devoted to juvenile literature, but that’s a wide field. You review books that are appropriate for your own pre-schoolers, and also books like Jumpstart, that are geared toward the mature high school age—or older—reader. Is it ever hard to bridge this gap? Do you ever have doubts or fears that a cutting edge YA review might seem discordant to someone who came to the site to read about picture books? Or do your readers seem able to appreciate the full range?
My first experience with Brent was a simple one. He sent me an email, asking if he could review my forthcoming (at the time) Young Adult novel Jumpstart the World for his blog, The Naughty Book Kitties. I contacted my Knopf publicist, had a copy mailed to him, and that was that.
Except it wasn’t.
Just days later, a Facebook friend left a post on my wall. It was about a teen book blogger who’d gone viral with his criticism of school and public librarians and their handling of LGBT literature. For those who haven’t read the post, I’ll offer the short version. When Bent was in middle school, he asked his school librarian where all the LGBT titles were hiding. She told him: “This is a school library. If you are looking to read inappropriate titles, go to a book store.”
(Or better yet, read the whole post HERE.)
Two incredible bloggers (and by that I mean they have great blogs and are great people, both), Adam of Roof Beam Reader and Lauren of Shooting Stars Mag, are holding a giveaway and a blog hop for bloggers.
According to the announcements on Adam's and Lauren's blog, these events are inspired by, and intended to celebrate the work of...me.
This kind of blows me away, to put it mildly. They are giving away prize packs, at least
Photo by Marco van Hylckama VliegAmazing how much I think of Pam—creator of the popular Bookalicious blog—as a friend, considering we’ve never met face to face. But we’re only three hours apart by car, so I expect this will happen eventually. Meanwhile, when I needed more exposure for my books, and Pam put together a scavenger hunt giveaway on four popular books blogs, that sure was being a good friend. (By the way, the link was just so you can see how cool it was. Sorry, the contest is over.) This to me is a great example of how helpful bloggers can be to authors, and why authors are wise to hold them in high regard and treat them with respect.
Hell, with a following like Pam’s, even a retweet on Twitter can be a great boon. Which is not to suggest that I only love bloggers for their retweets. More that I like the fact that those of us in the book business really can be a community and help each other out.
So. Pam. A few questions to help my readers get to know you better.
Me: Will you start by briefly explaining the difference between Bookalicio.us and Bookalicious.org?
My horse, Union RagsAnybody remember The Bet from last year? It started with my Twitter bud Brian Farrey musing on the Stephen King article in the Atlantic, in which King reveals that the short story "Herman Wouk is Still Alive" was written to satisfy a bet.
Apparently that's all you have to tell four crazy writers. Brian (With or Without You), Kimberly Pauley (Sucks to be Me), Andrew Smith (Stick, The Marbury Lens) and I went crazy and created The Bet, which shall heretofore (how's that for a fun word) be known as The Bet #1. We each chose a horse in the Kentucky Derby. For the purposes of The Bet, our horses were only running against each other, not the field as a whole. In other words, it didn't matter if my horse won. He won if he came in ahead of their horses.
Here we go again. I'm guessing this will not be getting tedious for my readers, as, if I'm going to keep repeating myself, the repetition should be something along the lines of, "I've got more free stuff for you."
The US ebook of my novel SECOND HAND HEART just went on a 5-day free promotion. (Sorry UK readers, UK editions belong to Transworld/Random House Group--love them, but can't give their stuff away.)
If you're in the US, just go get one. Easy. And everyone who wants one can have one.
But while we're at it, I want to do another $25 Amazon gift card giveaway for reviewers. This is fairly simple as well. Grab a free copy of the
When I last blogged about the ebook edition of my novel WHEN I FOUND YOU, it was just about to go on a 5-day free promotion on Amazon.
I'm pleased to say that promotion went well. Amazingly well. I mean...you could have knocked me over with a feather. That well.
It hit #1 in Kindle Free, with over 81,000 copies downloaded. When the promotion ended, it climbed up to #12 in Kindle Paid. The combination of the free downloads and actual sales numbers created a “popularity” rating of #3 in the Kindle store as a whole, #5 on all of Amazon books. I was hovering between two Hunger Games books on the Kindle main page. It was a heady experience.
Somewhere in the neighborhood of 100,000 people have downloaded the WHEN I FOUND YOU ebook.
My mom passed away on Wednesday the 21st. Just last week. Needless to say, it's been a very rough few days. But I wasn't planning to say much about the situation on my blog.
But today the obituary I wrote for her, with the photo I sent, came out in our local paper. Not the way I wanted it to. The photo was supposed to be my mom on shipboard in the Mediterranean Sea. It went along with the text depicting her as a woman who remained hugely adventurous well into her 80s. They cropped it down to nothing but a head shot. With no advance warning that they planned to do so.
And I'm...upset.
I usually try not to share too much upset on my blog, but when you mess up someone's mother's obituary, even in a small way, there's just no do-over on that. Everybody only gets one. And besides, I'm sure you understand that anything involving my mom is likely to pull big emotional strings right now.
What can I do? Well. This. I'm creating my own do-over. Here's how it was supposed to look:
I first learned about Swati and her fabulous young adult novel SPLIT when her editor at Knopf (we share the same YA publisher) asked me if I’d consider reading it with an eye for writing a blurb. It was her debut novel, and I know how important the launch of that first book can feel. And be. Which doesn’t mean I would blurb any book if I didn’t love it.
In the case of SPLIT, no problem. I loved it.
Funny how often an author and I will go on to be friends (or at least good Twitter/Facebook/email acquaintances) after a bonding experience like that one.
So, Swati…thanks for visiting my blog, and here goes:
Swati: Thanks Catherine. It has been a privilege to get to know you and, as I’ve been a fan of yours for a long time, it is particularly meaningful to have your name on the back of SPLIT.
Me: Let’s start with getting your name right. Easy enough in print, but let’s get it right in the readers’ minds, too.
Swati: I appreciate that. Phonetic pronunciation is: SWA-thee Of-US-thee. It’s an imperfect rhyme. The only other perfect rhymes are with other Hindi words, like “chapati” and “hati”. Hmm… maybe that’s why I like bread and elephants.
Barry Eisler and I have a common denominator, a reason our paths keep crossing. That commonality is the amazing and talented Laura Rennert—my agent, Barry’s wife. That makes Laura almost as important to Barry as she is to me. So…Barry and I have shared a few conferences of the Andrea Brown Literary Agency variety, at that hideout lodge in the redwoods of Big Sur. And I definitely knew he was a writer, but I have to admit this: at first I was walking around with my head up my ass and not getting that he was this sort of…Mega-Writer…this legend in the industry. Probably just as well, because now he knows how I’d be treating him if he weren’t. The same. Basically.
I remember my first impression of Barry, as shared with Laura. I said, “He’s funny.” She said, “Yeah. He is funny.”
But somehow this has to morph into an interview, so I’d better start to pressure it in that direction.
Me: Barry, I still remember the day I read that initial conversation between you and Joe Konrath (which you later titled Be the Monkey, and made available for free download). It was shortly after you’d walked away from all that money at St. Martin’s, an event I still refer to as “The Shot Heard Round the World.” I read the whole thing, every word, then closed the web page and thought, “I’m saved. Everything is going to be all right after all.” I was in that classic author’s bind—I had the name, but not the right sales numbers in the right order, and the US publishers (I’m doing fine in the UK) weren’t wanting to take a chance, no matter how much they loved the books, and the industry was falling apart, and goddamn it this is how I pay my mortgage. I was in a box I thought I might never break out of. I wouldn’t have thought of Indie, because of its stigma. But you erased the stigma in one act. In one day. You leveled the playing field, making Indie an option for those who seek it, not just for those who have no other choice. Wow. Listen to me running off at the mouth, and I haven’t even found a question yet.
Here’s the question: I know you took, and continue to take, a lot of crap for the decision to go Indie—and the subsequent decision to go Amazon—with The Detachment. In fact, you seem to take a lot of crap in general, which I interpret to mean you’re flying high enough to draw some anti-aircraft fire. But do you also get sincere appreciation from authors (other than me) for changing the landscape in which they live and work?
Barry:
We have to do an interview? I was so enjoying all the nice things you were saying about me!
At least let me return the favor: when I first met you, all I knew was that you were the writer whose manuscripts Laura devoured in a sitting or two; the ones where she had to make a second pass wearing her editor’s hat because the first time she was completely seduced by the story; the ones where, when I heard her crying over a manuscript, I’d say, “Ah, that must be Catherine’s new one,” the ones she would hand me tearfully saying, “You have to read this passage. It’s gorgeous.” And she was right. And I knew you’d written something like 18 books, and that one, Pay It Forward, had been made into a big movie, so I think I was semi-expecting a diva, and instead you were totally down to earth and funny and fun to hang out with.
Jeez, this is making me miss the Big Sur Writer’s Conference. We need to get back there.
But okay, your question… yes, I’ve taken a certain amount of criticism for some of my business decisions, and I think the reactions are interesting on several levels. First, I think it’s fair to say that my moves haven’t been welcomed in the legacy publishing world, but the reasons for that are pretty easy to understand. The more options authors have, the more competitive companies will have to become if they want to remain viable publishers. When every legacy publisher offers authors the same 17.5% of the retail price of a digital book, authors have to take it. When authors can make double that or more being published by Amazon, when they can make a whopping 70% per unit self-publishing, it puts pressure on legacy publishers to adapt and up their game. And, because they’re composed of humans, and because humans are inherently lazy, legacy publishers would prefer to avoid real competition and instead go on subsisting on monopoly rents.
Cheryl is one of the authors I might not know if it weren’t for the literary corner of the Twitterverse. As it is, I feel as though we’re old friends, trading books and dog pictures and keeping up on each other’s career. And there’s always the retweet, that simple click of a button that authors can—and do—use in support of one another.
I first became interested in Cheryl’s groundbreaking YA novel SCARS when I clicked through a Twitter link and watched Cheryl in a TV interview. That’s when I learned that Cheryl was herself a victim of unimaginable ritual abuse as a child, and was…as the old writers’ saw goes…writing what she knows. That’s even her arm on the cover. I’ve always been deeply impressed by all forms of emotional honesty and emotional courage (often one and the same) and I knew this was a book I had to read. I’m also halfway through Cheryl’s new paranormal YA novel HUNTED, which seems to be getting another great reception from her readers and fans. So nice to see success come to authors who deserve it!
Recently I've had two long trips plowing through my older blog posts. One was in search of travel posts to pin on Pinterest. (Yes! I'm on Pinterest now! And if I may be allowed to say so, I think my boards are starting to look somewhat cool.) The other was to add share buttons on the posts that still feel relevant.
Here's what I discovered: there are quite a number of posts that have fallen back into the archives, where they are unlikely to be found by any but the most diligent and non-busy surfer. And they might be relevant, and might interest more recent readers/followers of this blog.
And so I thought, There must be a way to organize these older blog posts to make them easier to find.
Then, for the eleventy-millionth time, I discovered I can make this website do lots of things I never knew it could do.
Too late for long story short, but I've added both a blog index widget on the right sidebar of my blog, and an actual Blog Index page. The widget allows you to access older blog
Suffice it to say that Anne and I go way back.
No, I take it back. That’s hardly saying enough.
Anne and I live about 40 minutes apart on the Central Coast of California. I recently figured out that we’ve been fast friends for at least 14 years. Because that’s how long I’ve had my only tattoo, a sword from the Ryder Tarot deck wrapped around my right wrist. I got it when I was…well, let’s not get into too many age specifics. Let’s just say I remember when I got it. And it was 14 years ago. And Anne was hugely supportive and encouraging. And not everybody was.
It was a treat (for me—perhaps less so for Anne) to be her friend during the times she
I may have mentioned it briefly on this blog before, but my next reader slideshow is all Pay It Forward. It's a way of showing the world the faces behind the (growing by leaps and bounds!) Pay It Forward Movement. This year is looking to be a "tipping point" for Pay It Forward, so the time to do this is now. The Movement is about people, so let's get a look at them. See how varied and wonderful they really are.
I made the video I'm embedding below as a "call for submissions." I wanted you to hear the Pay It Forward song I'll be using (by permission, of course). It's by Mark David Miller
Brian Farrey is one of my “Tweeps” (translation: Twitter pals). He’s also one of the four people who participated in (and, irritatingly, won)
The Bet. Yet, bizarrely, these are not his main claims to fame. Some actually find it more important that he is the debut author of the terrific YA novel
WITH OR WITHOUT YOU (which…I just have to say…please let me know if that book doesn’t pull in most of the major LGBT awards in its category so I can go hurt someone for being on the take) or that he is an editor at Flux books. Or that he has a middle grade novel tentatively titled
THE VENGEKEEP PROPHECIES due out this year. People and their priorities, huh Brian?
It's officially here, folks. If you sent me a photo of yourself for my third reader slideshow, check yourself out. Music is courtesy of my good friend Jude Johnstone...and it's a song about a writer. What could be better than that?
I have an announcement about reader slideshow #4: it's going to be all Pay It Forward. This doesn't mean I don't want photos of you with my other books. It just means that I'm going to put together one whole slideshow devoted to Pay It Forward, and then go on to another mixed slideshow. I'll also reuse several good Pay It Forward photos that were sent to me for previous shows.
