Fifty for Friends of the Smokies!

First, a big THANK YOU to everyone who commented on the post below; there were 39 valid comments (and one not-so-valid comment that has since been deleted!). I've decided to round up the dollar-per-comment total to an even $50 to Friends of the Smokies. Again, thanks for the thoughts/cheers/overall great vibes. I am blessed.

And, a thought for the Mad Men fans out there: as the characters on this amazingly written show demonstrate, everyone is a mixture of good and bad. In order to keep us rooting for these characters, we have to see more good than bad. But in order to keep watchers watching (or, in our case, readers reading), there HAS to be plenty of (believable!) bad. It's hard to get those good characters into tight spots, but we have to do that - get them dirty, have them make horrible, questionable choices, have us wonder how they can get out of these scrapes with dignity, grace, and above all, hope. Your characters have bad traits, just like every other person in the world. So, what are they? Do dish! ;-)

What I’ve learned in my first year as a published author

As of today, October 14, 2009, Autumn Winifred Oliver Does Things Different (Delacorte) has been out exactly one year. Here’s what I’ve learned over the past 365 days:

-Your friends and your family will be your top salespersons. They will pass your name and title along to their bookstore/library/teacher. They will come to your booksignings. They will review your book on Amazon and in other places. We love them for doing this. Remember to say thank you. (Thank you, friends and family! J)

-At any given moment, it will be difficult to know how many books you’ve sold. Royalty statements come out twice a year. Too, publishing houses have four months to compile and mail these statements. So for my book that came out last October, I’ve received one royalty statement, reflecting sales between October 2008 and December 2008. But if you have an awesome editor (as I just so happen to have!), you can ask her intermittently for an update.

-The rankings on Amazon are as addictive as caffeine and should be avoided as such. I say this as a raving coffee addict. But seriously, they reflect only the ranking of your book as it relates to sales of other books IN THAT HOUR. There are sites that track your Amazon ranking over time, but these appear to take your average sales rank by day, not your top rank of the day. Stay *away* from the sales rank. If you can.

-Speaking of Amazon, many, many readers prefer to give their business to local, independent bookstores (yay, indies!) Support your indies by asking them to host your launch parties (see more below) and visiting and purchasing from them often. Too, link to www.indiebound.org on your website – give your site visitors the option to purchase from whomever they choose.

-Bad reviews sting and good ones make you feel like a superstar. You have control over neither.

-Book bloggers rock. They live to read and discuss books. Find them and talk books with them (and not just yours!). They are wondermous.

-Social networking sites rock. These are FREE outlets that help you promote your book and (more importantly) connect with others in the kidlit community. Utilize them. They are worth your time.

-Things that have not been worth the time (as far as I can tell):

---Mailing postcards to bookstores and gift shops in the area in which the story is set (but note here – contacting them in other ways, like via email, has been fruitful).

---Contacting media in areas in which you are doing a signing UNLESS this is done early enough to get on the community calendar (in other words, don’t expect the paparazzi at your signings).

---Agreeing to/trying to do too much – as in all areas of life, spreading yourself too thin means nothing gets your full attention.

-Getting your book into specialty stores is time-consuming, but can be worth it. Autumn Winifred Oliver Does Things Different is an historical fiction account of the beginnings of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. I’m grateful that the book is now available for sale in the park bookstores. But getting there took months of review and a unanimous vote from the buying committee. Be prepared for specialty stores (like tourist attractions and gift stores) to take a lot of time if you wish to break into them. Too, the salespeople within your publishing house have little if any time to devote to a location that *might* purchase 8 copies of just your book (understandably), so you will likely be doing much of this legwork yourself.

-Doing more than two bookstore signings in any one community might stretch your audience too thin. The first two signings I did in each community were well-attended; the third rarely was.

-BUT: do more than one launch party, if you can. I did two in my hometown, and one in the town where I grew up. All were wonderful; all sold out. I’m blessed with wonderful friends and family (see point one).

-Librarians rule the world. They love writers; I have yet to meet one who doesn’t. You can track your book in libraries throughout the world by visiting www.worldcat.org and clicking through individual libraries to see if your book is checked out! Too awesome.

-School visits are exhausting, but are so totally worth it. Kids love meeting authors, and you will never feel more like a rock star than when you do school visits. If possible, see if you can sell books at the visit, though honestly, many schools frown upon this (which is understandable – it’s difficult when not every child can afford a new hardback book). Always bring postcards to the visit (enough for each child in your presentation, even if that’s hundreds) and ask teachers to put these in the backpacks to send home. I’ve had many parents thank me for doing this; they want to buy the books of the author who visited their school, if they can.

-You can always do more. It can really stress you out at times, thinking of all the things you COULD do to promote your book. Be creative, have fun, but don’t let it sweep you away from the important things.

-All the work? It’s worth it when you get emails that say things like this:

---“I am by no means a professional book reviewer, but coming from someone who reads a lot of books for this age group, I LOVED your book! I started to tear up when Autumn heard those 53 bell rings and kept crying right up until the end!” Fourth-grade teacher from Kentucky

---“I really love reading your books and I really like the front cover.” Third-grader from a school at which I did a school visit

---“I like to write and thought that one day I might be an author like you. I have written a few stories. I have been wondering if you and I could keep in touch. I really liked your book!” Girl from a school at which I did a school visit

---“i loved your book autumn winifried oliver does things different….I loveeeeee tennessee, and i understand you live there. My mom grew up there and half my family lives there, but guess what i'm stuck here in georgia!!!!!" 10-year-old reader (my favorite part – look at how “Winifred” is spelled! :-) )

I love this job. I hope I am blessed enough to do this forever.

And NOW: in celebration of Autumn Winifred Oliver Does Things Different’s one-year anniversary, I will make a $1.00 donation to Friends of the Smokies for EACH VALID COMMENT I receive in the comment section of this post between now and October 31. GO! :-)

Thank you again, friends and family.

Photos from the 2009 National Book Festival

I'm honored/delighted/ecstatic-to-the-point-of-obnoxiousness that Autumn Winifred Oliver Does Things Different was selected by the Tennessee State Library to represent the State of Tennessee at the 2009 National Book Festival in Washington, D.C.! My dear friend Lauren Trew and her beautiful daughters Bess and Emma took these photos for me:

Above is the Pavilion of States, which housed all 50 states. Each state chose a single children's book to represent their state. Autumn keeps glorious company; my friend Hester Bass's book, The Secret World of Walter Anderson, was selected to represent the State of Mississippi.

And there she is! Autumn, hanging under a glorious "Tennessee" banner! I am a native Tennessean, and I still reside here. I am so honored that Autumn was chosen as its ambassador!

Keeping a To-Do List for Your Novel

When you write - especially, I assume, when you write often - you develop work habits unique to you.  At least, I *thought* that making a to-do list for my novel was my own little neurotic way of making sure all those plot strings got snipped or tied or woven somehow.  But in a recent #kidlit chat via Twitter (find past transcripts here), I discovered that others do this, too. 

It’s a handy revision tool, a to-do list, and it reads like, well, my Saturday afternoon chore list might.  So presented below, part of the to-do concocted when going through the first round of revisions for Autumn Winifred Oliver Does Things Different (there were four rounds total).  What’s interesting to me is that some of this content never made it into the book, and other parts were edited out completely.  For instance, I decided against having Autumn be a “ghost child” – that is, having her brush with death scare everyone.  It detracted too much from the focus of the plot.  But other parts most assuredly made it in, and some of them are my favorite scenes in the book.

Autumn to-do list

-2 new chapters:  both, bridging the gap between pro-park and anti-park. 

-Next chapter:  list (see white notebook sheet) and write Rockefeller. 

-Chapter after that:  town meeting, under schoolhouse.  (See nrw notes)

-beef up ending: 

-but these old mountains aren’t as strong as they used to be.  Airplanes, weathered down

-no panthers, no chestnuts, no Cherokee, no gramps…maybe this place is changing, after all

-perfectly preserved as a pickle (see synopsis here)

-looking at gravesite – knowing right and wrong didn’t seem to take.  Can’t always tell what’s right and what’s wrong. 

-aunt Lydia still mad at me for leaving her in the dog trot

-mention cody’s rock collection at least one more time, and earlier

-after tilly’s proposal – have other widows in crowd mad cause they didn’t think of it first.  Gramps is kinda a big shot around here, being a widower and his dealings on the park.  Will likely be rich someday.  A good catch

-play up autumn being a “ghost child” more – not everyone knows she’s still alive.  Have them pinch her, etc.  when they see her

-look to increase the struggle over the move in with gramps – maybe mama doesn’t want to move to Knoxville…

-play up the food scene with gramps to show more of mama’s relationship with him.  Gramps eats during prayer.  Katie in here, too – show some likeability

-end of star scene – maybe take autumn’s approval of cody out?  She’s quick to judge him.

-hint earlier – park going awry, autumn is only one who knows.  She suspects col. Earlier?

-make col. More evil by having him break one of the superstitions.

-look back at earlier version (chapter 26, then) when cody has fit over gramps’ treatment of peter…add back in? 

-emphasize the chestnut trees disappearing…

-make gramps feel responsible for losing everyone’s homes, though no one blames him.

-double-check that FDR was standing in 1934.

-include picture of pine trees in Gramps’ coffin

-make sure there are markets in nyc on 53rd

-beef up letters chapter – see nrw notes – more scenery, etc. 

-eliminate all mention of “donation” in end notes

-last few chapters – keep her worried about jobs, homes!

-Introduce lawyer – Gramps hires with his own money to fight for everyone.  Spends his entire savings. 

-(chapter 16)HERE:  NEED GRAMPS TO GATHER AND SELL STUFF TO SAVE HIS FAMILY NAME; PAY FOR FANCY LAWYERS, GIVE TO FOLKS TO PAY BILLS, ETC (second part below…).  INTRO LAWYER HERE.   

-be sure and include that they don’t know what’s going to happen, or when.  They might get to stay there forever, or they might get kicked out next week.  The hard part was not knowing. 

Whew!  Looking back, that looks like the whole book! J  Once I completed the item, I crossed it off in my computer using a strike-through over the font – very satisfying!  Every one of those items was crossed off in some manner.  I used this same technique for the upcoming Selling Hope.  I’m starting a new novel now, and looking at the list above reminds me just how much work (and fun!) lies ahead.

So, do *you* keep a to-do list for your works-in-progress?  If so, care to share a snippet or two from it?  

Autumn Comes to Life!

My talented and uber-supportive illustrator friend, Alison Davis Lyne, does "Visual Book Reviews" - she reviews titles by illustrating scenes that appeal to her from the text.  And totally cool - she reviewed Autumn Winifred Oliver Does Things Different!  Click through here to see Autumn brought to life!  

Thank you, Alison!  What a fantastic idea, and how truly wonderful to see Autumn in all her messy glory!  :-)  

Check out the rest of Alison's site here.  Her paintings are so detailed, and the colors pop right off the scene.  Alison, you have a true gift.  

WHY "show, not tell"

I was recently reading a short story that just didn't keep me interested, and I finally figured out why:  the story was full of TELLING details, instead of SHOWING details.  I'm (kinda) paraphrasing here, but the protagonist thinks at one point, "I'm sad that I hurt my wife.  She deserves better."  

Anyone who has ever read a book on the craft of writing or attended a writing conference has likely heard the piece of advice, "show, don't tell."  For instance, the sentence above *could've* been more along the lines of, "Thinking about what I did to her... no!  I can't even think about it.  It makes me sick to my stomach."  We understand through showing details that he feels remorse. 

But why is showing more powerful than telling?  It occurred to me, when I read this story, that no one is so in touch with their emotions that they can pinpoint what they are feeling at any given moment.  In other words, when your spouse leaves a coffee cup half-filled with coffee in his office for three days >ahem!<, you don't think to yourself, "I'm so angry at him!"  No, instead you think, "Honestly?  Does he know where the sink is?"  

Showing is more honest, and honesty in fiction is power.  Showing allows us to *be* the main character, rather than *hear* him/her.  Showing doesn't hit you over the head with an emotion ("I'm sad."), it allows you to feel that emotion.  And nothing rewards your readers more than that.  

Deciding What to Work on Next

I'm on the second round of edits for SELLING HOPE, and *should* have them back to my editor this week.  But then, what next?  I've been researching two stories simultaneously, one a middle-grade road trip tale, the other a nonfiction picture book.  I've concentrated more on the mg story to this point, because, well, it's what I know - I lurve middle grade historical fiction.  (This one is half contemporary/half historical.)  My heart is in this project, but I'm currently struggling with the plot. Sometimes that can be good - some of my best solutions have come only after wrestling with the plot.  And authors are constantly told that writing 3 or 4 books of a similar type (ie, middle grade historical) is smart in order brand oneself.    

But my head says that the picture book can be researched faster (yes, even though it's nonfiction) and I have a very good feeling about its marketability (in other words, I think publishers will really like the idea.)  And it's not that I'm totally emotionless about this book - far from it.  The idea of it, and how I picture it being executed, gives me that itchy writer's feeling of "Yes! That must be written!"  And, too, maybe it would be nice to change gears for awhile - you know, get the sparks flying from a different piece of flint.     

So - which one to work on next - the heart or the head? The sloppy, messy, heart-driven book, or the practical, marketable change-of-pace?  How do *you* decide what to work on next?  And by all means, voice your opinion on my next project in the comments section!  Please?  ;-)