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!
We now take a break from our regularly scheduled travel blog to bring you a cover reveal! A few months ago I was asked by fellow ACFW young adult author J.C. Morrows if I’d help her celebrate the release of her book. Today I’m helping her reveal the cover of her book so here it is. What do you think?
I’ll have more info later (including a book trailer video), but for now I’ll simply tell you that the premise sounds very intriguing!
And if you’re stopping by for the first time today and you enjoy reading travel stories, be sure to check out my recent blog posts. This one is coming to you from Florence! I’m in the middle of a three and a half week trip through Italy and Spain.
So far I’ve taken Italian classes, cooked Italian meals, stood within a few feet of Ben Stiller, been rendered speechless by a Swiss Guard, had amazing encounters with God in beautiful churches, and all sorts of other crazy adventures!
This week on the Spin Cycle, Ginny Marie is asking for our summer reading lists. Here are a few things on my Kindle app that I’m hoping to get read this summer.
1. Capturing Today by Jess Evander–I read the first book in the series (Saving Yesterday) last year, and I’ve been really looking forward to the sequel, which just came out. It’s about a girl who discovers her blood holds a secret; namely, that she can time travel. In fact, she needs to time travel because the very existence of our planet depends on it.
2. Implanted by Heather Letto–This is another sequel to a book I read last year. You can see my review for Impervious here. Think YA dystopian but with a Christian allegorical slant.
3. Storm Siren by Mary Weber–Okay, I’m behind on this series. The sequel just came out, and I haven’t even read the first one yet. But doesn’t that cover look super cool? The sequel cover is just as gorgeous.
4. Worth the Time by Laura Jackson–This has been on my to-be-read list for a while now. I don’t read a lot of straight contemporary stories. I’m more of a mystery and fantasy sort of girl, but this story looks cute.
5. Sisters of the Last Straw by Karen Kelly Boyce–I just heard about this one recently, but it sounds kind of cute. It’s a middle grade mystery involving nuns that get involved in capers. And how can you not love nuns that get into capers?
What’s on your summer reading list? Click on the link below to see what others are reading this summer. Or link up your own blog post!
On Memorial Day, I guest blogged on Seekerville and talked about how authors can throw themselves a book launch party on Facebook. I thought I’d run a recap of that blog post here as part of the Spin Cycle’s “summer rerun” writing prompt.
So maybe you’ve got a new release coming out. Or maybe you’ve spent years hoping you’ll have a book to promote . . . someday. Either way, when the time arrives, you’ll want to be ready to throw yourself one fabulous celebration!
Build up your Facebook author page.
If you don’t already have an author Facebook page, do so pronto. This article explains very clearly why you don’t want to use your personal page as your author page. Long before your book releases, you’ll want to build up your audience. Reach out to friends and fellow writers and let them know you have an author page. To keep them coming back, post interesting content daily so that people stay engaged.
Set the date and time for your party.
Pick an evening during the week when people are likely to be free. The great part about a Facebook party is that people can participate on their smart phones while doing other things. During the launch party for my young adult novel Angelhood, I had one friend participating during her daughter’s fencing lesson! Also, don’t forget to list all the different time zones on your party page! I had people from four different time zones at my party, and you don’t want someone not showing up because they had the wrong time.
Decide on your prizes.
Most authors give away copies of their book, bookmarks, gift cards, and other author swag, but try thinking outside the box, too. For my party, I reached out to my fellow YA authors to see if any of them would be interested in donating copies of their book(s) as prizes.
This turned out to be a win-win for all of us. I was able to introduce these other YA authors to the fans who showed up at my party, and these authors advertised my party on their own social media accounts, so a lot of their fans got to learn about me.
Create cute graphics for your prizes.
Because I was partnering up prizes, I used picmonkey.com to create cute graphics for each prize pack. These graphics became a fun way to advertise the party ahead of time on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and Instagram.
Type up your script ahead of time.
Your Facebook party is going to fly by! You don’t want to waste time composing and typing out your posts during the party. Simply, create a Word document with an entire timeline of already composed posts. For example, I typed out:
8:15 Game 6
My main character’s younger sister Cecille is a ballet dancer. I took ballet lessons for only a few years but really enjoyed our dance recital in which we performed a ballet to a song from a popular opera that takes place in the Far East. Can you guess the opera?
The prize is a Jamberry nail wrap gift basket, including a sheet of the ballet slipper style like I’m wearing tonight and a copy of Cynthia T. Toney’s Bird Face, a great story about overcoming bullying.
This script was a lifesaver! It was so easy to just cut and paste the posts at the necessary times. This left me free to read people’s comments on the posts and respond to them.
Gather your friends for help!
I had a team of about six women helping me out. We staked out a spot at a local Starbucks, made sure we had plenty of caffeine, and fired up our laptops and tablets.
The women took turns watching the entries on the games. Each time a new game went up, one of them would take all the names of the commenters and enter them into random.org. As soon as the game was over, they hit the “randomizer,” and the top name became our winner!
We were getting around 50 comments per post, so having a lot of eyes on the party helped tremendously.
Have a place to write down the winners’ names.
At the end of my Word document script, I listed all the prizes (by the way, I definitely recommend numbering your games and prizes!). As soon as the winner was picked, I typed in the name and posted it in the comments section of that game. When the entire party was over, I listed all the prizewinners in a single post.
Have fun with it!
My friends and I all dressed in our “Angelhood blue” t-shirts, so we’d stand out at the Starbucks. My sister-in-law (who makes customized jewelry) even made necklaces for us with my book cover design on it. When the two hours flew by, we couldn’t believe it! Over 100 people had joined our party, and it was so much fun reading their comments.
Have you thrown or attended a Facebook launch party? What did you think? Do you have tips for others on how to make it a success?
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Claim your FREE preview copy of Angelhood here.
Want to learn more about my book Angelhood? Check it out on . . .
Amazon Kindle ($1.99), Amazon Paperback ($10.99), Barnes & Noble Nook ($1.99), and iBooks ($1.99),
Want to see other entries in this week’s Spin Cycle? Click on the button below.
With all the book launch craziness going on lately, I haven’t had much time for blog posts, but I promised my launch team friend Ginny Marie that I’d get back on this blogging business! This week’s Spin Cycle topic of teaching seemed like a good time to do so.
I certainly know something about teaching. I’ve been doing it for . . . well, never mind how long I’ve been teaching. I was just excited today when my sixth graders found out I’ve been at our school for eight years, and one of them said, “Really? I didn’t think you were that old!” I’d give the kid an A for that comment, but he’s already getting one! 😉
I’ve debated quite a bit about what exactly to say. On a recent guest blog post, I’ve already talked about how my careers as a writer and as a teacher have overlapped, so I thought I’d take this topic one step further and talk about what exactly has been happening lately.
The regulars around here know that last month my young adult novel Angelhood was released by Vinspire Publishing. It’s been an exciting time, but I haven’t been sharing it with my students. Some have wondered why not. Aren’t they my target audience? Couldn’t it create some teachable moments?
I have, in the past, shared some of my writing successes with my students. For example, several years ago, I had a Highlights magazine article published about a former student and the experiment he had on one of the final space shuttle missions. It was a perfect story to share with the students because it was about one of their peers!
When I was published in a Chicken Soup for the Soul book two years ago, one of my coworkers insisted on printing out the local newspaper article and having it hung outside the school office. To be honest, I cringed a bit. The story itself had nothing to do with school and was really aimed at a more general adult audience. Nonetheless, there was nothing inappropriate in the story, so I let it go.
Now, however, I have a young adult novel published. It’s the story of a troubled girl who finds herself in the position of being a guardian angel after her own tragic death. Since it deals with guardian angels, it’s filed under the category of “Christian fiction” on Amazon. Since it deals with difficult topics such as suicide and drug use, it’s definitely more “young adult” than “middle grade.” For those two reasons, I am not discussing the book at my public middle school with an extremely diverse student body.
I treasure my role as a teacher. When I’m there, it’s my job to help my students reach their potential. It’s not my job to sell books when I’m at school. I’m there for my students, not to toot my own horn.
Nonetheless, you can never underestimate the Googling abilities of middle school students. I’m not sure who started it, but somebody found me . . . perhaps on Instagram or Twitter or Facebook. Or maybe they just found this website. Either way, there are murmurings at school about my book.
A few students have been bold enough to come right out and ask about it. Sometimes I have a little fun with them when they ask something like, “When is your book coming out?” and I respond, “Oh, you mean my Chicken Soup book? That came out two years ago.”
And other times, when I feel like they’re asking just to change the topic in class, I say, “We’re not talking about that right now. We’re talking about your writing. Now let’s get back to it.”
Lovely gifts from some lovely students for teacher appreciation week!
Teaching is a really special career. It can be frustrating, demanding, and heartbreaking, but it can also mean lots of wonderful moments watching kids blossom in ways you’d never expected or finally seeing that light bulb go on over their head. I wouldn’t want to do anything to take away from that. Therefore, when it’s appropriate, I’ll discuss my own writing in class, and when I feel it’s not, then I’ll hold back. In the end, I’m going to do what’s best for my students, and that means focusing on their writing, not on mine.
Did you know I have three giveaways going on right now? Enter to win!
And if you just can’t wait to read Angelhood, don’t forget that all ebook copies are still only $1.99. You can find it on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and iBooks.
First, thanks to everyone who turned out for the Facebook party and Twitter contest last Thursday night. I had a blast! I’ll be blogging about the experience on the Seekerville blog on Memorial Day, so stop by then to find out a bunch of behind-the-scenes workings of a Facebook party.
In the meantime, the blog tour and giveaways continue! Here’s a roundup:
Coming up this week:
And still more to come!
Some of you may remember me talking about Heather Letto’s book Impervious a while back. Well, the sequel is now up for pre-order, and Heather asked me to share the news with you all.
If you haven’t read Impervious yet but were thinking you might be interested in it, now’s a good time to try it out. If you pre-order the sequel Implanted, you can get the original for free! Check out the deal in the banner below.
In addition to the Fabulous Facebook Book Launch Party on April 30 (you are coming, aren’t you?), we’ll be holding a Twitter contest that night as well. To be entered to win an autographed copy of my young adult novel Angelhood, simply send out tweets with #Angelhood any time between 6-9 p.m. CDT on Thursday, April 30.
The more tweets you send, the more entries you’ll receive. Let’s see if we can’t get #Angelhood trending Thursday night!
Here are some tweets you can use. Or feel free to make up your own. Just remember the #Angelhood hashtag!
For an autographed copy of my book, enter my Goodreads giveaway:
Enter to win an ebook copy of Angelhood during my Facebook party on April 30.
