Tweet Your Favorite Author Day!!

Tip of the Day: There is still time to enter my contest for a signed hard cover of Just Your Average Princess. It's easy! Go to my blog to follow me and comment here to let me know.

I've been having a very good e-mail/facebook/twitter week. By this I mean I've been getting super nice notes from fans, parents, and librarians and it's awesome-- many smiles this week. And it made me think that we don't tell authors enough how much we like their work. Sure there are reviews posted on Amazon and Goodreads but outside of dedicated bloggers, a lot of people don't take the time to post a review after they've finished a book. I know I don't do it nearly enough. #Guilty

So, by the power invested in me by, well myself, I hereby declare today,

TWEET YOUR FAVORITE AUTHOR DAY!!

Let's spread some author love. All you have to do is go on twitter and send out a tweet to your favorite author(s), telling them that you love one of their books. Here's an example:

@megcabot, your Airhead series is amazing! Love it!

Need to find YA author's twitter names? Here's some great lists: Mitali's, Mashable, and Reader's Ink. Or just google search your author's name and twitter.

If you want to include a hashtag- #TYFAD.

Go forth and tweet!

Kristina, Miss Author in Action

ALA Youth Media Award Winners (or Silver and Gold Writing Lessons)

Tip of the Day, Librarian Edition: If a library fine of less than $1 appears erroneously on your account, please make sure your freak-out to the library staff is monetarily equivalent. It is hard to take you seriously if you are foaming at the mouth over 50 cents.

Wow.

Just wow.

None of the books that the Printz Club read made it on the Printz list this past Monday, and overall I only read one of the Printz books. I read about 150 teen novels last year -- how could I miss them?

In other news, my TBR pile now has four more titles on it. :)

One of the Newbery Club books made it onto the list, but only two honor books were chosen in addition to the Newbery winner.

You can see here that my predictions and wishes were wrong or not granted.

But congratulations to all of the winners, especially to the authors who books my Newbery and Printz Clubs read:

BETWEEN SHADES OF GREY by Ruta Sepetys (Morris Honor)
WONDERSTRUCK by Brian Selznick (Shneider Award)
OKAY FOR NOW by Gary Schmidt (Odyssey Honor)
INSIDE OUT AND BACK AGAIN by Thanhha Lai (Newbery Honor)

As a writer, I look at the winners above and hope that I can channel the parts I love from them:

--Ruta's historical accuracy and chilling setting
--Brian's daring storytelling techniques
--Gary's emotional truth and complexly layered characters
--Thanhha's powerful brevity and lyricism

Did any of your favorites win? What have you learned from their writing, or what do you hope to achieve?

Deena, Miss Subbing for Pubbing

5 Tricks to a Revising Mood

Tip of the Day: need a good stress relief? Check out some of these aromatherapy products. Cheap and effective!

If you are like me, then you have to be in a "certain" mood to revise. At least revise well. This magical mood makes everything flow better. It not only sparks ideas of paragraphs to move around, but the right words also start coming to you quicker than a Real Housewife can cause drama.

But knowing how to get in that magical mood can be a bit more challenging. Here are my Five Tricks to try when wanting to get in the revising mood.

1.) Get active: a good workout of the whole body definitely encourages the brain to get active as well.

2.) Get calm: my personal choice I mentioned last week: a nice long bath. It not only helps me think, but it calms my mind which makes my revising more productive.

3.) Get sweets. Enough said!

4.) Get focused: one of the best ways I've found to get in a revising mood is to not finish everything in the last revision session. That may seem counter productive, and unfortunately sometimes it is. But usually if I have an idea of what I'm working on when I sit down and have a game plan of how to attack it, things will go much easier. The harder part is knowing just how little you can leave undone that will motivate you to get back to your project later. For me, that's usually only one or two paragraphs of text that needs revised. Once I start that the next time around, I'm in the mood already and its easier to tackle the next forty pages of revisions.

5.) Get your booty in the chair. That's really all you need. Once you've done all the others the last trick is that you have to make time for revising. This is sometimes very hard. Especially when a marathon of the Real Housewives of Orange County is on. But resisting the urge and getting your butt in the chair is half the battle.

(Now if only I could find a booty chair like these, I'm sure I'd be in a revising mood all the time. Because who wouldn't be motivated to sit in one of these all the time? :) )

--Emily, Miss Querylicious

So Not a Morning Person

Tip of the Day: Shameless self-promotion tip: check the story of my acceptance letter for Highlights Magazine at MiGWriters.

So I hate mornings. I hate how early my kids have to catch the bus, I hate that I have to physically drag them out of bed, I hate having to walk the dog in freezing weather. But it seems like I'm the most productive when I write first thing in the morning.

The thing is, I have so many other things to do: clean the house, write blog posts, freelance work, watch the kids, cook, read emails and blogs, look for more freelance work. If I start my day doing "the stuff for other people," it easily fills my whole day. But if I start off with my own writing, then I'm motivated to power through it because of all that other stuff hanging over my head. I'll knock out a scene in an hour or hour and a half, knowing I have lots of other things I need to do in the afternoon.

The only drawback is that I'm so not a morning person. It's easy for me to lie on the couch with a cup of tea, promising myself I'll write after breakfast. Or that I'm too groggy to do anything that requires brain cells. Most mornings, though, writing before I do anything else really works.

Now I just have to figure out how to write for longer periods of time without the "OMG I NEED to do stuff for other people first" syndrome kicking in.

When do you get your writing done?

-- Kate, Miss Perfecting the Pages

Choosing Your Path: Traditional or ePublishing

Tip of the Day: If you're a writer, join Pintrest. It's a great place to find inspiration for far-away settings.

(note: I wanted to originally make this post a quiz, but I couldn't find a good widget for that. If you know of one, let me know because I was quiz-obsessed as a teen. Like quizzes in magazines titled 'What Kind of a Kisser are You?' not math quizzes.)

Before I get too deep into posts about the technicalities of epublishing, I wanted to help you figure out where you belong first. It's not as simple of a decision as you might think. ePublishing is NOT about giving up on traditional publishing (many are still hoping to land an agent who can procure additional venues for their books). It's NOT about making gobs of money (most don't on both sides). It's NOT about  being a control freak (most of us hire out things like covers and editing).

The decision comes down to how to stay true to yourself and your goals. There isn't a right or wrong answer. What I'd really like to do is break down some of the barriers between traditional and epublishing. There's a lot of anger coming from both sides as they spout off about who is better. Guess what? Neither is better - they are just different. Different goals = different path to publishing.

Here are some things to ask yourself:

1.  Is my need to see my book on a bookshelf at Barnes & Noble greater than my need to get my books in readers' hands?

In self-publishing, we can releases books our own schedules. Many traditionally published books take a year, or more, to get to the bookshelf.

2. Do I want to just write, leaving all the extras to the professionals or am I eager to stick my hands in the dirt and manage every aspect of the publication process?

This is really at the heart of self-publishing. There are many writers who just want to write and not be bothered with the minutae of publishing. That's a perfectly acceptable reason to go traditional. There's a ton of work on the business side of self-publishing. Not everyone wants to be bothered with it.

3. Do I need recognition from the establishment or am I content to letting my books speak for themselves?

This may be one of the largest obstacles to self-publishing: how we perceive the quality of our work. Many people think self-published = crap. It's not always true. Bottom line is: You will never please everyone. There will always be someone who doesn't like your book, even if you get the traditional publishing stamp of approval.

I know this isn't a huge amount of questions, but I think that these are really the three most important. There are obviously far more differences between epublishing and traditional publishing. If you're seriously considering coming over to epublishing, you have to be willing to dig in hard, especially where marketing and editing are concerned (not that those are a cakewalk in traditional publishing).

It's not an easy choice for many to make. It wasn't for me. It took me months to come around. Almost one year later, how do I feel about my decision? I wouldn't change one moment of it. I love epublishing!

This discussion always reminds me of the Kia Soul commercial. Who doesn't love rapping hamsters?!




Megg, Miss Enchanted ePubber

Do You Dream of Having a Writing Cottage?

Tip of the Day: Twilight fans, did you know you can get a replica of Bella's engagement ring? 

I don't know what it is about us writers but I think we all secretly want a writing cottage. Fess up, do you? Ever since I first saw Cynthia Lord's cottage in her blog. And Laurie Halse Anderson's too. (Watch it. The video is AMAZING.)

And I've been following Kimberley Griffith Little's construction of her new writing cottage on facebook for awhile now. Click through to her blog here and then click on her journey and you can see the pictures from the very beginning.

Cynthia Lord posted a video of her critique partner's Toni Buzzeo's gorgeous writing cottage. I dare you to watch the video and not call your husband/significant other and beg him to build you one. 


How cute is this writer cottage?

(http://munrojd.wordpress.com/awards/)


Though I might feel slightly like a hobbit. Ooh, now there's an idea-- a hobbit house!

(http://webecoist.momtastic.com/2010/03/15/eco-homes-from-the-earth-7-ways-to-diy/)


Ah, who am I kidding? My best chance is one of these.

Better get the kids to work.

Kristina, Miss Author in Action

My Job is Awarding III (or I Predict Literary Greatness!)

Tip of the Day, Librarian Edition: Keep your email address up-to-date with your public library. It cuts down on library system costs to email you rather than call or send a snail mail notice, and libraries can use all the financial help they can get.

It's award season! While people across the country are discussing who wore what and who won which Golden Globe Sunday night, I'm awaiting Monday, January 23 at 7:45 Central Time to hear the Newbery and Printz winners!

I discussed the Newbery and Printz Club reads, but now to prepare for the official decisions!

Based on a verbal sampling of the kids from both clubs, it seems that for the Printz, they want IMAGINARY GIRLS by Nova Ren Suma to win, but think SHADES OF GREY by Ruta Sepetys will win. And for the Newbery, there is more of a mixed bag but WONDERSTRUCK by Brian Selznick is high on the list.

My personal opinions? For Printz I'd love to see:
1. IMAGINARY GIRLS
2. SHADES OF GREY
3. EVERYBODY SEES THE ANTS by A. S. King (which came out too late in the year to make the Club's short list)
4. HOW TO SAVE A LIFE by Sara Zarr (ditto note above)
5. BLOOD RED ROAD by Moira Young

And for Newbery I'd love to see:
1. OKAY FOR NOW by Gary Schmidt
2. CLOSE TO FAMOUS by Joan Bauer (ditto note above)
3. THE AVIARY by Kathleen O'Dell
4. BIGGER THAN A BREAD BOX by Laurel Snyder (wasn't on the Club's short list)
5. HOUND DOG TRUE by Linda Urban (also wasn't on the Club's short list)

I'd rather see WONDERSTRUCK win the Caldecott for its illustrations than the Newbery for its story (the illos for Rose's story are brilliant).

What are your predictions and/or the books you'd love to see make the lists?

Deena, Miss Subbing for Pubbing