E-Pub Excellence (or Electric Feels*)

*with apologies to MGMT

Tip of the Day: Time Warner is now carrying Showtime again -- get ready for Homeland Season 3 on Sun, Sept. 29 @ 9PM! It is a great lesson in character development, plot twists, and cliffhangers.

When I bought my Nook in December 2011, part of my excitement was that I could easily purchase and read self-e-pubbed books. And since then I've read some really great ones -- including those by my critique partners (Theft of the Star Tracker by Lisa Tiffin) and my A2A Misses (Paparazzi Project by Kristina Springer and Sleepers by Megg Jensen). Today I'd like to mention some and here they are, in no particular order:


I read Shana's first traditionally pubbed book, SOMETHING TO BLOG ABOUT, when it came out in 2008 and found it hilarious. Earlier this year I read The Rules of You and Me and wow, Shana has grown as a writer with this beautiful realistic tale that fans of Sarah Dessen will enjoy.





I've read traditionally pubbed books by both Cyn and Mandy, so when I saw this book written by both of them for only 99 cents, I couldn't pass it up and I'm glad I didn't. Getting Caught is a clever school story of girls who have been best and worst friends.










I won a copy of Dolphin Girl from the author and put off reading it for a bit because I thought it was a paranormal romance. Not so! It is another lovely contemporary YA school story with a great setting and well developed main character.







I'd heard Megg mention Wool numerous times on Facebook and I finally purchased the first installment -- and flew through it. I immediately bought the whole omnibus. While it has been bought by a trad publisher for its print book form, Hugh's work was originally an amazing self-e-pubbed adult novel with an intriguing sci-fi setting and captivating chapter endings.




I know there will be many more great self-e-pubbed works in my future! Which ones have you read and loved lately?

Deena, Miss Subbing for Pubbing
www.deenalipomi.com

Adult Children (or I Don't Want to Grow Up, I'm a Year 2000 Kid*)

*with apologies to Toys 'R' Us

Tip of the Day: See author Erin Dionne's blog post about How "Homeland" and "The Walking Dead" have made me a better writer. Great points and things to think about when developing characters and plot elements! I'll be looking at LOST when I write my thriller sequel.

FaceBook, Twitter, texting, emails, blogs...with the turn of the century came the turn of communications to one even more heavily based on technology, where face-to-face dealings aren't required for the exchange ideas.

Techno world is also, apparently, the prime place for whining. Why? Because whiners have an entire audience "following" them, people who will "listen" to their grief, people who will "pay attention to them" even if in real life they would never announce the same things they do online or through electronic means.

And these people are adults.

How is this related to writing for kids and teens?

Well, in some ways it's not; I just wanted a public forum to whine (ha ha!) about the whiners who clearly just want attention.

In other ways, it totally is related to kidlit. Just pull up your FaceBook account, skim through your Friends' posts, and stop at the ones that sound passive-aggressive, whoa-is-me, or inappropriate for a public forum (such as posts made during work hours that make derogatory comments about said workplace). Then borrow those for future manuscripts about teens who use technology.

Or hell, just keep the characters who act that way as adults. Contemporary realistic YA fiction is coming back, right? Let's just keep it real.

Whine away!

Deena, Miss Subbing for Pubbing