Just a couple days ago, an author friend told me about a seven-day reading challenge called BookTubeAThon. It’s happening over on YouTube, but if you watch this video, you’ll hear about my list of books to be read in a week. (Ha! Not going to happen.)
Over the last few weeks, I’ve been doing a lot of research on how to use Pinterest as an author, and a number of my author friends have asked me to share what I learned. Because Pinterest is a visual medium, it’s a lot easier to show you what to do rather than tell you, so I created a video.
Last May, I threw a book launch party for my young adult novel Angelhood. I’m not going to lie. It was a ton of work. But totally worth it!
I didn’t find great resources on the web, so I thought I’d save all my fellow authors out there some trouble and time. Here’s how to throw a book launch party that brings you massive sales!
Finding a place to hold your party can be kind of hard. A lot of websites I found claiming to tell you how to throw a book launch party said they just held the party in their home with a few of their closest friends.
Um. No.
They said the point of the party wasn’t to sell their book.
Um. Sorry. No again.
The point of your party is two-fold: to celebrate your awesome accomplishment of getting your book published *and* to market your book. People aren’t going to buy a book they’ve never heard of, and in today’s flooded book market, it’s going to take some effort to get your book noticed.
So don’t hold the party at your home. Hold it someplace public. Here are a few options:
Think about who will be coming to your party. What’s the best time for them to be available? Since my book came out in spring, I knew a lot of people would be busy on Saturdays with graduations, First Communions, and sports. Week nights can be hard for people after work. I chose a Sunday afternoon. It seemed to work well for my group, but consider your potential guests when picking your date and time.
If you’re doing your launch party at a business that sells food (e.g. restaurant, tea shop), ask if they might provide some drinks and simple snacks. If they won’t donate the goods, ask about purchasing something simple from them like my friend who just ordered a giant plate of cookies and a simple beverage through Panera.
If you’re having it at a venue where you have to rent space like I did, ask first if you can bring in your own food. Friends might help chip in, or you can do what I did and go to CostCo with a friend and just load up!
You probably want your guests to stick around for a little while, so give them a few reasons to do so. Here are a few options:
Think about who’s going to talk at your book launch.
Hire a band. I hired the lovely two-person band Finding Free. They did an awesome job of setting the tone for my party.
Everybody loves good raffle prizes, so have some at your party. What can you raffle off?
How to award prizes? Everyone who shows up to your party gets one raffle ticket. If they buy your book(s), they get more raffle tickets. If they already purchased your books online and brought them to get autographed, give them another ticket.
Do the drawings for the raffle about halfway through your party. You want to give people enough time to show up, but you don’t want to wait too long and people start leaving.
I had all the prizes displayed and then let people drop their raffle tickets into the prizes they were most interested in winning.
Oh for the love of all that’s good. Don’t do this on your own! I had a whole committee of awesome friends helping me out.
There’s a lot to do at your party, so divvy up the work as if it were your wedding party and you were giving out tasks to your bridesmaids. 🙂
Invite people to your party in as many ways as possible. The more you throw your party out there in front of people, the more likely they will remember to show up. Here are some ways to invite people. Use them all!
Send out postcard-style invitations.
Here are just a few things to keep in mind the day of the party:
After you’ve done any speeches and given people a chance to buy your book, start the book signing! Have a separate table for this. Have a friend nearby with a pad of post-it notes. As people get in line to have your book signed, your friend will ask if they want it autographed to anyone in particular. They’ll write the name on the post-it note (double checking the spelling with your guest) and then place the note on the purchased book.
Why do this? It makes things easier and faster for you! You don’t have to ask each person to whom you should address the autograph and then ask, “And . . . how do you spell Jehosephat?” Plus, it will save you from that embarrassing moment when someone you know but don’t remember their name (because you’re terrible with names like me!) comes up and wants an autograph.
You tell me. I had nearly 100 people show up at my party, and over 100 books were sold. The day my book came out on Kindle, it hit #1 on Amazon for Christian teen fiction on social issues. My publisher was so happy, she wrote a press release, which can be seen here.
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Claim your FREE preview copy of Angelhood here.
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Join us at TeaLula tea shop in Park Ridge, Illinois, tonight for a book signing party! TeaLula has graciously offered up some free light refreshments for anyone who stops by. Plus, I’ll have copies of Angelhood and Chicken Soup for the Soul: From Lemons to Lemonade on sale at discounted prices.
Hope to see you there!
Long-time readers of my blog know I usually review middle grade and young adult books on Monday, but every once in a while, I review something for adults, too. Today is one of those days! 🙂
I’ll be very upfront and tell you I may be a bit biased about this book as it’s written by my cousin and godmother Joan Aubele. 🙂 But even without the family connections, I think anyone who has endured a devastating cancer diagnosis in their family will be able to relate to Joan’s experiences and find comfort and inspiration in her story.
Title: The Dance: A Story of Love, Faith, and Survival
Author: Joan Aubele
Genre: Memoir
Synopsis: At the age of twenty-nine, Joan Aubele is diagnosed with acute lymphocytic leukemia (a.k.a. “childhood leukemia”). She is told to say good-bye to her husband and three young girls and to prepare for her funeral, but she and her husband Carl decide to fight the cancer anyway. It’s not an easy fight. Time and time again, Joan and her family are warned that death may be near, but their faith in God keeps them moving forward, and somehow miracles (one even worked through a prayer intention brought to the Blessed Mother at Medjugorje) seem to save her from the brink of death.
My mom is Joan’s godmother, and one of the most striking parts of this book for me is how similar their stories are. Both my mom and Joan were diagnosed with cancer when they were married and had small children at home. Both worried that they wouldn’t live to see their kids grow up. Both have endured “mini strokes” (TIAs), but both have now lived at least 25 years since their first cancer diagnosis (my mom has had numerous kinds of cancer), and both have lived to see their children and their grandchildren. Most importantly, both have a very strong faith in God. I truly believe it is their Catholic faith that has seen them through these harrowing experiences.
At a little over 100 pages, The Dance is a quick read, but in that short time, it will leave a lasting impression on your heart. These are unforgettable people enduring extremely trying hardships. If you or someone you know is facing a cancer diagnosis, this lovely memoir will help them remember that they are not alone.
I promised on Facebook that one day I’d write a blog post about why I’m such a Star Wars geek.
Well, be careful what you promise on Facebook. 🙂
Ginny Marie of Lemon Drop Pie saw my post and decided to use it for this week’s Spin Cycle prompt. This week we’re talking about what makes us geeky, and for me that’s definitely Star Wars. But why?
These are my action figures. Not my brothers’ actions figures. 🙂
My students already know part of the answer to this. Every spring in my sixth grade reading class, we end the year with a fantasy/mythology unit that asks the big question: “What makes someone a hero?” And in this unit, we talk about how Joseph Campbell, a renowned anthropologist, studied the myths and tales of cultures around the world. After years of comparing what tales had been told century after century, he discovered that all cultures have hero stories, and those hero stories have a lot of similarities.
He came to the conclusion that all hero myths could basically be combined into one “super myth,” a monomyth that incorporates all the major events that have occurred in hero stories around the world for as long as stories have been told. Campbell then wrote about this theory in his book The Hero with a Thousand Faces. In it, he describes the seventeen key elements that are in hero stories (although not all hero stories have all seventeen elements).
George Lucas had studied Campbell’s work and used it to create the plot of Star Wars. If you’d like to read about how Star Wars fits into Joseph Campbell’s monomyth, you can read my blog posts about it here, here, and here.
So part of why I’m such a big Star Wars geek is that I love a great hero story. I love hearing about a character who is brave enough to leave his own safe homeland in order to fight evil in a dangerous world far away. This also explains my love of Harry Potter, by the way.
However, I think there’s more to my Star Wars love than just the fact that it’s a great hero story. It’s also a story with great characters. I mean, who doesn’t love a feisty princess who can shoot a gun and handle a smart-alecky pilot? And who doesn’t love a smart-alecky pilot who also has a soft spot?
And what about the wookie? I mean, what is a wookie? I don’t know, but I love him! And I admit to liking Ewoks, too. I know some people thought the Ewoks were a bit childish, but I like ’em! They’re cute but tough.
And who can resist two droids who bicker all the time but are really best friends and would be lost without one another? (Does anyone else think Carson and Mrs. Hughes from Downton Abbey are a little like C-3PO and R2-D2? There was always something of the British butler about 3PO.)
And then there’s the setting! See, the trick about taking the old hero story and turning it into something new is finding a way to make it really fresh for the audience. Lucas accomplished this by making what is called a “space opera” or “space western.” He grew up in the age of cowboy movies, so to him, Star Wars was basically an old cowboy movie set in outer space.
But how great is that?!? Take what we’re really familiar with (a princess, a bad boy who’s really good, a good boy who tries but fails, and a villain clad in black with a mysterious past) and put them into a situation we’ve never seen before (space stations as big as planets) and with characters we’ve never met (alien creatures that can actually tug at our heart strings). This is what makes a winning story! This is why the same basic hero story can be told time and time again. As long as the writer does something new with it, the whole story feels new.
One last reason I’m a Star Wars geek: it’s a story with a lot of heart. I love stories that move me. I want to care about the characters. I want them to feel like friends I’ve known forever. I want to root for them when they’re down and cheer for them when they finally succeed. I think Lucas succeeded with this because he made the core of his story a family story. In the end, Star Wars is about a family–a father and his twin children, all mourning the death of the mother–who follow very different paths but wind up together in the end!
For those reasons, I’m completely geeking out over the new Star Wars movie that comes out in December. I’ve got pretty high hopes because director J.J. Abrams did a really nice job when he tackled the Star Trek franchise. He seems to be a big Star Wars fan, and from the glimpses I’ve seen it looks like he’s going to stick with the kind of storytelling that made us all fall in love with the original trilogy.
Also, he’s brought back a lot of the old cast. One of the reasons I think the Star Wars prequels that came out 15 years ago or so didn’t do so well is that we were missing out on the characters we had grown to love. C-3PO, R2-D2, and Yoda were the only characters tying us back to the originals. But in this new movie, we’re going to get Han, Leia, Luke, and Chewbacca back again. It’s like getting to see old friends that you’ve been parted from for a long time!
How about you? Are you as excited about the new Star Wars movie as I am? Or is there something else you geek out about?
Find out what others are geeking out about on this week’s Spin Cycle. Click the link below to discover more geek stories.
During the Mi Piace, Mi Gusta tour of Italy and Spain, there were several times when I was trying to find information online and couldn’t get it, and I thought, “Someday I’m going to write a blog post about this to save some other poor traveler from my frustration!” Well, today’s the day!
When I researched getting from Rome to Siena, all the info I could find online said it was best to take a bus. This is unusual because often a train is the best way to get between European cities that are too close to warrant a flight. However, there’s no good train that goes to the small hillside town of Siena.
So what bus do you take? And where do you get that bus?
Well, today’s your lucky day! Here’s how you get the bus from Rome to Siena!
The bus line you want is the Sena bus line. Here is their website. However, I found their website a little confusing, so I asked my Italian landlady if she knew much about it. She only spoke Italian, so between the website and my limited ability to understand spoken Italian, I was able to piece it together. She also suggested I take a trip out to the bus station to purchase the tickets ahead of time and figure out my way around. I’m glad I did because the bus station in Rome is large! Here’s the scoop to make it easier for you.
The Sena bus line can be found at the Tiburtina station. This is on the northeast end of Rome. This is not the big Termini station in the city center, but it is a very big station nonetheless. In fact, at the Tibutina station, you’ll find Metro lines (the subway system in Rome), regular city buses, “big” trains (like the high-speed ones between cities in Italy), and a whole bunch of coach buses like the Sena one you’ll want for Siena.
Step 1–Get to the Tiburtina station. If you don’t know how to get there, I suggest using the MoovIt app on your smart phone to help you out. In fact, I used MoovIt many times in Rome, Florence, and Madrid to help me navigate public transportation systems in Europe.
Step 2–Find the Sena buses at the Tiburtina Station. I’m not going to lie. This is a little easier said than done. I had taken a regular city bus to Tiburtina. It let me off in front of the station (along with a half dozen or so other city bus lines that ended at Tiburtina). I walked inside the huge station and found Metro lines downstairs and a whole slew of inter-city trains upstairs. The station went on and on. It has shops, restaurants, and washrooms insides. But I couldn’t figure out where the Sena bus line was. Finally, I went back to the entrance and asked a guy at a news stand where the buses to Siena where. He told me to go “across the street.”
Okay, so here’s the deal. If you’re facing the Tiburtina station and your back is to the spot where all the city buses drop you off, you’re going to want to go to your left. You’ll see a street that runs under some highway roads.
In this photo, the Tiburtina station is to your right, and the city buses would be to your left. You want to walk straight ahead.
Walk under those highway roads you see up ahead. Cross the street that runs under them, then turn to you right.
Go across this street. You won’t see any buses at first. You’ll see bushes and trees on the other side of the street. Turn to your right and walk a little ways. You’ll soon see a whole bunch of coach buses. Believe it or not, you don’t want those buses either!
On your left, you’ll see this sidewalk with a blue canopy cover. Walk all the way through that canopy-covered sidewalk.
You don’t want the buses on the right side of this photo. Instead, walk under the canopied sidewalk on the left of this photo. You’re almost there!
On the other side, you’ll see a bunch more buses! The Sena bus to Siena was at “Stallo 5.”
Your Sena bus at Stallo 5!
Across from each “stallo,” you’ll see a bunch of little ticket offices with sliding doors. Go to the one directly across from Stallo 5. It should say Sena on it somewhere. Sena is connected with some other bus lines, so you’ll probably see a sign that looks like this:
Go inside and buy your tickets. You can purchase them ahead of time or right before (assuming there are still seats available). The bus will be at Stallo 5 right across from where you just bought your ticket.
Here’s a map to help you find the Sena bus stop (marked by the yellow star) when you get dropped off by a city bus (marked by the blue arrow) in front of the Tiburtina station.
When you get to Siena, you’ll probably want to get off at Piazza Gramsci. This popular bus stop is just north of the city center (Plaza del Campo) by about a 10-minute walk. You won’t find another bus stop that gets you closer to the city center.
And remember that Siena is a hill town, so wear your good walking shoes! Have fun!
One of my favorite things to read is a middle grade mystery with puzzles that the reader can play along with, and Chris Grabenstein delivers just such a treat in his Escape from Mr. Lemoncello’s Library. (And seeing how I’ve just returned from a trip to Italy where I partook of a bit of limoncello, this book seemed like the perfect choice for my next Monday book review. 😉 )
Title: Escape from Mr. Lemoncello’s Library
Author: Chris Grabenstein
Genre: mystery
Age group: middle grade
Synopsis: Kyle Keeley loves playing all sorts of games, especially board games designed by his hero Luigi Lemoncello. After Mr. Lemoncello designs the new town library, Kyle wins one of the 12 coveted spots to participate in a special “library lock-in” to celebrate its opening. However, Mr. Lemoncello has created a special game for this lock-in. The kids have to solve a series of riddles and puzzles in order to get out of the library. Whoever gets out first will star in a commercial for Mr. Lemoncello’s next board game!
I really enjoyed how much the reader can play along with the puzzles in this book. To me, a mystery isn’t fun if you can’t play detective along with the main character. Author Chris Grabenstein does a nice job of making many of these games “playable” with Kyle. I also enjoyed how he integrated many popular children’s book titles into the games and into Mr. Lemoncello’s speech. Grabenstein made use of classic titles like Anne of Green Gables (you know I’d like that!) and newer books I love like When You Reach Me.
The one little thing I wish were different about the book is that I wish there were more at stake than starring in a commercial. As an author myself, I’ve read many times that you have to decide what “terrible thing” will happen to your character if he does not succeed in his goal. Otherwise, why do we care? For that reason, the beginning of the book felt a little slow to me. I didn’t know why I should care if Kyle won this game or not. When I found out that the only thing at stake was starring in a commercial, it seemed a little shallow. Perhaps, if there’d been a financial prize, and Kyle’s family needed the money to keep their house or something, then I might’ve felt a bit more invested.
Fortunately, the riddles the kids have to solve were fun enough to keep a book lover like me entertained. Also, the library that Lemoncello (or really Grabenstein) dreams up is very cool, and I’d love to visit a library like that someday.
If you (or a kid you know) loves to read and solve puzzles, I’d definitely recommend this book. There’s even a fun puzzle-within-the-puzzle for the reader to solve at the end of the story.
Did you know the expression “Holy Toledo” came from the hilly town of Toledo, Spain? It was one of the few places Jews weren’t persecuted in Europe. They thought of it as a holy town . . . hence, holy Toledo!
Well, holy Toledo, it was hot in that little town today! Katie and I took the high-speed train out from Madrid to Toledo. The ride only lasted 30 minutes, but Katie and I almost missed it. We had bought tickets for the 10:30 train and had stopped near Puerta del Sol for some breakfast first. We had planned to take the underground Metro to the high-speed train, but the nice people at the breakfast place told us about a faster train (Renfe), which would get us to the high-speed train in only one underground stop. Good thing because by the time we figured out where to catch the Renfe and then where to find the high-speed train we were running between stations with only minutes before our departure.
Murphy’s Law was in action as our train was, of course, on the very last track (Number 16, thank you), and our reserved seats were on the very last coach. We sat down in our seats just moments before the train took off.
Thirty minutes later, we were in Toledo. If you’ve been in any of the small hillside towns in Italy (Assisi, Siena, San Gemignano), you’ll have at least an idea of what Toledo is like.
It’s that old medieval town with the wall around it and narrow, winding streets that are easy to lose your direction in.
After grabbing a quick coffee for me and juice for Katie, we headed off to the cathedral. Toledo used to be the capital of Spain, so its cathedral was of upmost importance. Hence, it is extremely impressive and took over 200 years to build. Katie and I used the free audio guides that came with our admission tickets.
I love this statue of Mary with Jesus!
There is so much detail in every piece of artwork in this church that it’s hard to fathom how many people spent thousands upon thousands of hours creating everything for this church. Everywhere you look is something amazing to gaze at and contemplate.
After our cathedral visit, we stopped at a place Katie used to go to when she was a student here in Madrid. We had a light tapas lunch with a sangria-like drink and then snacks that included fries with ketchup and mayonnaise as well as little ham sandwiches.
When we walked out of the bar, it was so incredibly hot it felt like we were walking through walls of heat. According to our calculations, we believe the Farhenheit version of the temp we saw displayed outside was 106 degrees. Katie wanted to take photos of a bridge she remembered going over the river, but we couldn’t stand walking along the river for long with the sun beating down on us.
Finally, we decided to try another Rick Steves’s suggstion and take a city bus that looped around the city and offered views of the gorge around it. The bus stop was nearby so we hopped on, glad to have abandoned the heat for a bit.
Before long, we had circled most of the city and had traveled a bit south. We looped around a hospital and then started back on the route we had come down. One other girl had gotten on the bus at the hospital. Other than that, Katie and I were the only other two people on the bus.
In Spanish, the bus driver yelled back at us, “What stop are you getting off?”
Katie explained that we wanted to go right back to where we had started and that we were just taking pictures of the city. The bus driver made us each pay for another ticket. We only spent a total of 30 minutes on the bus, but had to pay twice!
After our bus ride, we decided to visit the Santa Cruz museum. It was another way to escape the heat. Sadly, only half of its exhibits were actually open, but we did get to see some more El Greco paintings (we had seen some in Madrid yesterday).
Then we got ice cream and did a little shopping. We tried to go to a Rick Steves’s suggestion for dinner, but it wasn’t open. Then we tried to find a monastery where they sold mazapan, but they were closed.
Hot and exhausted, we found a coffee and tea shop open and each had some iced tea. Then we tried the recommended restaurant again. The automatic door slid open when Katie stepped in front of it, but there was only one man seated at a table inside. There was a hostess standing near the back.
“Abierto?” (Open?) Katie asked.
Yes! They were open! As a bonus, the hostess spoke both Spanish and English, and we got a really good deal on a yummy tapas dinner with wine and dessert. A really nice final dinner for our trip!
Another 30-minute high-speed train ride, and a short Renfe ride, and we were back in the heart of Madrid.
It’s back home to Chicago tomorrow! I’ll have some wrap-up and bonus posts when I return.
Thanks to everyone who’s been following along!
I don’t have the words to describe today, so instead I will just list what happened.
1. On our way to find breakfast, we saw Kermit the Frog walking through the Plaza del Mayor. I should have known right then that it was going to be a strange day.
2. We had breakfast. I ordered in Spanish: “Numero quattro. Cafe con leche.” (Breakfast #4. Coffee with milk.)
Numero quattro with cafe con leche
3. As we walked through Puerta del Sol, we saw Homer Simpson. (Maybe he should go hang out with Kermit.) A few minutes later, a bird po0ped on me. We went back to the hostel for me to clean my clothes and to wash my hair. Again.
4. We went to the Prado Museum. I didn’t know we couldn’t take photos until after I took this one of Fra Angelico’s depiction of the Annunciation. Interestingly, no one stopped me from taking this photo, but a few minutes later, when I was reading about a different painting from the Rick Steves’s book on my iPhone, a woman who worked for the museum came up to me and said in Spanish (Thank goodness for Katie’s translation) that I should hold my phone down near my waist while reading so that it doesn’t look like I’m taking a picture and then the guards watching on the video walkie-talkie her to stop me.
The Annunciation by Fra Angelico
5. After miles of art, we stopped at a bar for more coffee (we needed itto refuel for the next museum) plus some cake (I ordered the “pudding cake” recommended by a local. Note to self: always get what the locals recommend.)
6. Then we got to the Reina Sofia museum of modern art, where I was stumped once again as to why Picasso and Dali are so famous.
7. Then we followed one of Rick Steves’s recommended tapas routes. We went to three of his spots, but only one was good!
Calamari and sangria
8. Then for some unknown reason, we went to an Argentinian ice cream place he recommended. It was a twenty-minute walk away. We passed several other ice cream shops along the way only to discover the one Rick Steves recommended was closed, even though the sign said it was open. Third fail of the night, Rick Steves!
This store doesn’t look open. The sign lies.
9. We headed back to our hotel and stopped at a frozen yogurt spot along the way. It was actual yogurt, not the sweet stuff we think of as frozen yogurt.
Ugh!
