A Winter's Day in 1939 is now an e-book...

So a while back I said I had a wee sekrit. The wee sekrit can now be revealed cos it's on Amazon where everyone can see it!! My latest title with Scholastic, A Winter's Day in 1939, is now available as an e-book. You can go see it here, or even better, you might like to buy it :) It has had some very nice reviews (you can see some here or here). Yay!!

And I have been reading some interesting things on the net over the last few days - Barry Eisler's take (at Joe Konrath's blog) on the choices available to authors in today's publishing environment. This ruffled a lot of agent and traditional publisher feathers after they took exception to his suggestion that the only real advantage traditional (legacy) publishers could offer authors was print distribution. All very interesting stuff. I am not opposed to legacy publishing, agents, or self publishing although I also think none are perfect either. But there are two things I do to help myself - 1) keep informed and 2) try to avoid casting anyone as the enemy. An adversarial approach in publishing is no good for anyone.

Then Nathan Bransford took a closer look at the state of e-book sales and pointed out that these aren't declining as has been reported elsewhere. I always cast a jaundiced eye over statistics and try understanding the agenda behind their use and the people using them. It's a bit like the man showing off his 14 year old McDonald's hamburger, which doesn't look a day over 24 hours old, and saying this is why we shouldn't eat junk food. Does anybody ever try keeping any conventional food or home food with salt and sugar in it and say we shouldn't eat that? What about oil or dried fruit? I bet I could keep a box of weetbix for 14 years or even a homemade scone. And just because its appearance is little altered doesn't mean it is edible. And frankly if my appearance didn't deteriorate over 14 years I would be pretty happy (just don't check out that painting in the attic....). Just saying.... that 14 year old burger is not a particularly robust experiment.

And finally in my little trilogy of internet surfing I give you another treatise by Sara Sheridan on what author's really earn. This topic is a perennial favourite with me, partly because I feel most folk persist in having a mistaken belief that authors earn a good deal of money. I do not yet reach the median figure Ms Sheridan quotes in her article. In fact not even half that and yet I have had at least one new title out every year for the last three years and I have kept busy with school visits, workshops, public appearances and other events. And of the money I do earn most does not come from the sale of books. If we seem desperate for funding, its because, well, we are. And we are not thumb twiddlers resting on our fat laurels. The authors and illustrators I know are hard-working people, usually reliant on some secondary method of supporting themselves.

The Selfish Giant...

I thought Nathan Bransford's post on the Goodreads acquirement by Amazon was interesting. He might be a little optimistic about Amazon and it's intentions but he seems more rational than some other folk who believe this signals the end of the world as we know it. We are all selfish creatures at heart and if Amazon's ownership of Goodreads might affect your business bottom line then I guess you might spit the dummy somewhat. Those people however who suggest that readers and/or authors are somehow stupid, responsible or likely to suffer horribly as a result aren't necessarily thinking about the interests or welfare of authors or readers at all. Hugh Howey of Wool fame had this to say. He's biased I guess but I don't think any commentator isn't, one way or another.   Either way you see it, fighting against it seems futile. Authors have been finding ways to work within systems not of their making for years (centuries even) - and we will keep doing so. As writing is not a choice but a compulsion, being able to adapt seems wise.

I had another nice review for A Winter's Day in 1939 here which made me happy. And there was this one in the Magpies Magazine a few weeks back which was also rather nice.

And in less than two weeks I will be launching the book in Wellington at The Children's Bookshop Saturday April 13th at 3pm. I'm feeling pretty excited about this. Love Wellington. Love the Wellington Children's Book crowd. Love The Children's Bookshop.

I don't mind what you say as long as you talk about me...

I have been following this story with interest. The story of how a bad review revealed something very interesting about an author and her fans. It is instructive on how not to behave if you get a bad review. Justine Larbalestier has been writing a series of posts on the topic of handling reviews: good, bad and indifferent, and they are full of good advice. Start here and work forward (there is an earlier post called 'What to do about cranky authors'but it is quite far back - check out the 'recent posts' column).

But author Larbalestier has also explained why bad reviews really ain't that bad. Read that explanation here. I am still too green to feel anything but stung when a reviewer dislikes my writing. After all I am not trying to write bad stuff that someone will hate. But as Larbalestier says, getting reviewed at all means someone is reading your book and feeling strongly enough about it to tell others. That is a good sign. Sometimes when I look at the reviews of the bestsellers (50 Shades anyone??) I am a) amazed that they are all talking about the same book and b) I am struck by the fact that sales don't seem that influenced by the number of stars on the reviews. What seems to count is just the sheer volume of discussion about the book. The more people talking about it the more people want to check it out for themselves. No surprises there really I guess but there are no guaranteed pathways to getting enough people to talk about your book. That is the dilemma that everyone in the book industry wants to crack (like Fermat's Theorem or finding a unified theory for everything in the Universe).

So when people unexpectedly talk about my books, especially in a very public forum I can't help but feel excited. Yesterday on National Radio they were discussing my book/app The House That Went to Sea (at around 3.15pm I think). They were saying some nice things about it and discussing the model of having the book complement the app and vice versa physically and in sales. Colour me happy indeed.

I also received a selection of cover designs from the publisher for the new novel - even though I have been working on this for so long it all feels like its happening so fast now that we are getting to the sharp end of the process. The cover, blurb, tagline decisions are thrilling. Of course now the pressure is on to go through the Editors revisions ASAP. I have also had some roughs (b&w and colour of one spread) for the next picture book. They are completely different to my other books and I can't wait to see more. It is all go in the muppet labs!!

And just in case you need a good laugh go check out this GIF about the business of being a writer over at Nathan Bransford's blog. This is the funniest thing I've seen in ages. That's me running the hurdles!!

Still here ...

I am still head down, rear in the air, working on a few things, so sadly I am neglecting you all horribly. I feel bad. It has turned August and August is full of busyness as well so I am going to be even more distracted. The Storylines Festival is coming up and I am in Christchurch for the family day on the 19th and will be giving a workshop on 'Plotting' in Auckland on the 25th and will be at the Auckland Family Day on the 26th.  Come and say hello as that is the funnest part of the Family Day's. We really do have the most wonderful Children's Book Community and there is nothing quite like celebrating it. It will be a little strange without Margaret Mahy this year but the children's book community in New Zealand has been colluding and we are having a nationwide read of Margaret's work in libraries all round the country on the morning of August 11th. Check out if your local library is involved. Take a look at the link above if you want to take part. It is lovely to read tributes to Margaret such as these from the writing community around the world. Did we ever really truly know how lucky we were to have her?

In the meantime I am still trying to keep an eye on the book world and monitor changes and developments to pass these on to you. Things aren't changing so much as they are being chewed, digested and reformed. These two posts caught my eye. The first (thank you to Graham Beattie for the link), an article by Ewan Morrison in The Guardian, dishes on why social media doesn't extend your reach as far as you think it does when you are promoting yourself. The cynical bottom line is that all these social media tools have a bottom line and it invariably isn't about the users or the consumers, it is about the business owners. More on this topic soon I hope. The other post is from the notable Mr Nathan Bransford on how the sands are shifting under our feet.

Now I am going to hop into bed with my trusty laptop and knock off some more pages :) Oh and take a look at this - one of my books is an app

and this, a new book just out by my fabulous author friend Tania Hutley. It is VERY good!

Last chance...

If you have not already entered my fantabulous giveaway of 2 signed copies of The Half Life of Ryan Davis, and you still want to - THIS IS YOUR LAST CHANCE!!! You have been warned. Here are the instructions again, in case they fell out of your head and broke on the pavement.

 The Half Life of Ryan Davis (was) Book of the Week over at Pear Jam Books and in conjunction we are running a giveaway of two signed copies. To enter the giveaway just tell me (in the comments) which book was the first Pear Jam title to be published (Hint, this super book was created for a very special reason and was published in the record quick time of just one month). All correct answers will go in the draw!!


I will be drawing the winners tomorrow.

I am currently massaging a picture book manuscript into shape and reconfiguring a novel for intermediate readers so today's blog is short and sharp. In the meantime, I am rather liking this post here by Nathan Bransford - a nifty list of ten commandments for editing someone else's book. This is very good advice. In fact I think you should apply it to your own book as well. Standing back from the nitty gritty is necessary to see the global problems, issues and fixes needed before you can get back to fussing over individual words.

We are all lemmings...

Christmas is a season of immense joy and intense stress. Suddenly the end of the year is upon us and despite the fact that this happens EVERY YEAR we still act like a pack of lemmings (who should also know better by now) and throw ourselves off the cliff in a frenzy of what on earth should I get for all these people half of whom I barely know (secret Santa may very well be synonymous with bad Santa) and how much food and beverage can I get through toasting a season that is really all about the birth of the baby cheeses not a festival of shopping. January is the month of regret. And knowing what I know I am still able to be smug about the fact that my Christmas shopping is almost done (although I still have a boat load of food to buy, prepare and consume). I was stressed out a week ago but I'm feeling much more zen now.

As it is a time of giving, my gift to you today is some lovely links. The first is sometime agent/author/blogger Nathan Bransford talking about networking, or more to the point, networking without networking. This is kind of my philosophy too and one I didn't appreciate until the friendships I had made for the sake of friendship and kindred-spiritedness had unexpected and lovely repercussions. The beauty of this accidental networking is knowing that these relationships have been founded on mutual respect and interests, without a thought for personal gain and that the benefits go both (or multiple) ways. Oh, that more of the way the world works was founded on principles such as these.

And if you have ever loved the movie The Lost Boys I give you this lovely and most encouraging post by the Rejectionist - its a little bit uplifting, feisty, retrospective, introspective and heartwarming all at once.

Whatever the other purists say (I am a long time fan) I am looking forward to seeing Tintin on the big screen.