Vacation Time and Reflections on 2012

Tip of the Day: I'm participating in a blog hop & giving away a ton of Amazon money and ebooks. Check out the giveaways here and here.

Wanted to let y'all know at the top of the post that Author2Author is going on vacation for the next couple of weeks. Plus, our format is changing a bit in 2013. Instead of hearing from us on a daily basis, we will be blogging only when we have interesting, informative, and fun things to pass on to our readers. You are guaranteed to hear from each of us at least once a month and please email us with and questions or topics you want covered.

Wow, so 2012 was kind of crazy year for me professionally. In January, out of the blue and a total surprise to me, my books kind of exploded. The amount of ebooks I sold in January was half the total of what I sold in the entirety of 2010. Talk about a bit of spike! Sales only continued to climb through April, then held steady until August 6th, when inexplicably, my sales on Amazon were cut in half. I never recovered that high of the first half of the year. In fact, just this past Tuesday, I had my lowest sales day on Amazon in a year.

This crazy rise in sales led to agent interest. Very few outside my inner circle know that I was contacted by some pretty big agents (who shall remain nameless), possibly interested in repping me. It was exciting and scary. But, just like my sales, those fizzled out. Even the one who was most interested in me ended up rejecting me with a form letter. Depressing!

So while you're reading this, you're probably thinking, Gee, Megg, your career was great and now it sucks. Guess you're going back to querying. If you thought that, you wouldn't be the only one. Friends keep asking me the same question. While I've tossed the idea around in my head, I really can't see any advantage to sending out queries now. Look at what I accomplished on my own - and I got to keep 70% of the income. I made more money this year self-publishing than I've ever made at any job in my life. Plus, I'm inching ever closer to that 50,000 sold mark. Not too shabby for a nobody self-pub.

I've got a new book in the works already for 2013. I'm not telling a lot about it now, but if you're interested, you can follow here to get updates.

Enjoy your holidays and see ya in 2013!

Megg, Miss Enchanted ePubber

Merry Christmas!

Tip of the Day: Katie Klein is giving away a copy of The Paparazzi Project on her blog. Go here to enter!

The Paparazzi Project is out and available on Amazon for $3.99! Makes a great addition on those Kindle Fires you're getting from Santa. ;-)

And stop by my blog to enter to win a $25 Amazon gift certificate and a copy of all four of my books plus swag!

Even Santa gets followed by the Paparazzi. Merry Christmas!

Kristina, Miss Author in Action

It's the End of the Year As We Know It (or I Feel Busy But Fine*)

*with apologies to REM

Tip of the Day: Check out THE AGE OF MIRACLES by Karen Thompson Walker for a great adult book with teen appeal (I hope it makes the Alex Award list). The earth's rotation is slowing, making the days and nights longer...will it stop or be the end of life as we know it? (And will it happen to us on Dec. 21??? :))

Happy Holidays, A2A Readers!

Lately I've been swamped with a few things:

1. Christmas preparations, including making the house decent enough for my bro and his wife to stay with me and attending various holiday soirees (aka Festivus).

2. Revising the end of a MG novel I hope to query agents with by February.

3. Reading the Morris Award nominees, some adult novels that may be Alex Award contenders, and two books to review for VOYA.

4. Using up my vacation time at work, while still trying to pull together a teen art opening and reception tomorrow night.

My post today is lacking real concrete content due to said busy times, but I promise in January to recap my top five reads of 2012 out of 200 books read (yes, I will hit 200 by Jan. 1; am at 196 now).

Until then, enjoy the days getting longer and the New Year!

Deena, Miss Subbing for Pubbing

Peanuts for Christmas

Tip of the Day: Make out a wish list for your characters. And a wish list of what they'd like to get that significant other!

Since this is my last post before Christmas swallows me up, I wanted to post about something fun, but I couldn't figure out what. Then I got a text from my brother. "Did you send me a package?" Ha ha, I did. I sent him peanuts.

Thanks to the magic of the Internet, I was able to send him peanuts. The Internet is a wonderful thing.

Probably everyone has a stupid in-joke with a sibling. He used to get me a Chia pet every year. My Chia pets tended to run into accidents, but one did very well and I had it growing for months until I ran out of seeds. He's also bought me past life cards so I could figure out who I was in a past life. Hint: not a Viking, to my disappointment.

Also, we had a wise guy. He was a wise man in our nativity set whose head broke off. We used to carefully balance his head on his neck and ask people to reach for presents we tucked behind the wise man. When his head inevitably fell off, we'd cry that the set had been in the family for generations. I think that's how my husband met my brother.

I think some of us like writing humor so much because we remember and cherish these silly things. My father never let us miss The Grinch Who Stole Christmas. The dog cracked him up every year, and now the dog cracks me up every year. My daughter, on the other hand, has always been terrified of Frosty the Snowman. I'm sure her brother will send her Frosty figurines when he's my age.

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays everyone!

-- Kate, Miss Perfecting the Pages

Secrets Galore!

Tip of the Day: Get your pets Bob Barker'd (for those of you who aren't familiar with The Price is Right - spay or neuter your pets). That's my baby schnauzer, Tanu. She just got spayed on Monday.




I feel like I'm filled with secrets these days. On Facebook I get invited to groups all the time. Probably 47 times a day, if I bothered to count. But within the last couple weeks, I've been invited to two groups, both secret, and I plan to actually stay in them and participate.

The first was started by two of my fellow writers. Peeps I know, but don't know well. Writers I already admired. We chat about publishing in general, but there's no spam. Refreshing.

The second group came about just a couple of days ago. Again, started by a writer-friend I like a lot and totally trust. She wants to find a way for us indies to band together and help each other out. It looks like it might be fun, if nothing else.

Did you know you can create secret boards on Pinterest? I did and I thought it was dumb. What's the point of a secret board? Then I started seeing these great fantasy pics in my Facebook feed and I took screen shots. I thought What will I do with all of these pics? Ding! Ding! Ding! Secret Pinterest board. Why secret? Well, they aren't credited to an artist. I want them for inspiration, but I don't want to get sued for posting something I don't own the rights to. Plus, I now have my inspiration with me at all times via my iPhone, iPad, or iMac. Woot!

It's pretty incredible that it's possible to have secrets online. It seems like everything is open to everyone. Luckily, that doesn't have to be the case.

I think back to nearly 20 years ago when I was just starting college in the fall of '93 and I was assigned an email address. I had no idea what it was - or how it would change my life and the lives of everyone around me. I think that's another reason I'm so into e-publishing. I was learning to program in html and creating websites before most people knew what they were (just for fun - my degree is in medieval history). All of this awesome techy stuff keeps me young. :D

Have a great weekend!!!!

Megg, Miss Enchanted ePubber

Exciting week! Contest Alerts!

Tip of the Day: 11 shopping days until Christmas! Get those online orders in!

It's been an exciting week! On my blog I talked about The Espressologist being purchased for film (yay!) and I'm running a contest for one more day. Check it out. Five winners will received a signed copy of The Espressologist and a $5 Starbucks gift card.

And I'm really excited about The Paparazzi Project coming out on Saturday! And another fun giveaway will launch then. Check back on my blog then and enter!

What are you guys excited about this week?

Kristina, Miss Author in Action

A Songful Reminder (or Driving Music of the 90s)

Tip of the Day: Check out Winter Escapes for free and cheap YA fantasy ebooks as well as other giveaways!

There are certain songs that will come on the radio that immediately take me back to middle or high school. Usually it's because these songs:

1. were in heavy rotation on 90.5 WBER when I first started driving and listened to the radio all the time in the car, or

2. were one-hit wonders on WBER in my early driving years so that is the only association I make with those songs, or

3. were in heavy rotation on 98PXY during middle school when that was the "safe" station for the school bus driver to play.

So, do you all remember:

A. "Wonderwall" by Oasis (my gym teacher would sing this, making a whiny vocal even worse)

B. Marilyn Manson's "Sweet Dreams" (I was a fan of the Eurythmics' original, and when this version debuted, my emo high school self couldn't get enough)

C. The Rentals' "Friends of P" (never a true fan, but always seemed to be playing in the mid-90s)

D. "Johnny Quest Thinks We're Sellouts" by Less Than Jake (the beauty of the jump-around-dance-music -- ska! -- whatever happened to this band?)

And to end with a Christmas song...

E. OK, granted I was only five when this song came out (1984), but it still reminds me of middle school (the 98PXY effect) and would be stuck in my head all day when I got off the bus in the morning for the entire month of December: Band Aid's "Do They Know It's Christmas?" You gotta love Bono's passion in this epic feel good tune.

(For more amusement, also check out "We're Sending Our Love Down the Well," a The Simpons classic, circa 1992 (skip to 1:00).)

What songs take you immediately back to driving around after school?

Deena, Miss Subbing for Pubbing