Archive for publishing
November 2, 2007 at 8:07 am · Filed under publishing, book reviews, books
There’s an interesting article up at Publishing Trends that discusses the traditional method of dispersing ARCs, or Advance Reader Copies of newly published books. No more are these books going out only to professional reviewers. Now, real people are getting ARCs via a number of different programs (one from LibraryThing). I’m a big believer in word of mouth, and tried to get my first book publisher to send out ARCs to a select list of readers (to no avail, I might add).
I daresay that the internet plays a big role here. With so many people blogging, there’s a much grander audience for those real readers when they really like a book. Not only do they tell the ladies at the salon, but they’ll blog about the book and probably link to the book, creating a real live “book meme” as blog readers follow the link trail to learn more if the book looks interesting, and then blog about it themselves. What do you think? Would publishers be including real readers in their marketing plans without the internet? Should publishers (or those marketing for publishers) pay for blog posts about a book?
October 31, 2007 at 6:10 pm · Filed under publishing, books
I can’t quite recall how I came across this blog, but I am loving the heck out of just how much first time author (and Gluten Free Girl) Shauna James Ahern is enjoying her book touring.
October 31, 2007 at 12:24 pm · Filed under colonial america, stuff to make, publishing, curriculum, history, books
Robin recently mentioned that she’s going to be using my book, Great Colonial America Projects You Can Build Yourself to supplement her upcoming unit on colonial America. I just thought I’d mention that the book is available as a FREE download, here. Seriously. Free. What are you waiting for?
October 30, 2007 at 3:57 pm · Filed under My Musings, publishing
Thanks to those of you who have visited me over at my other blog, Great Solutions to Team Challenges, for What Else Wednesdays and other stuff.
Today, I had my 100,000 hit.
Cool, yes?
October 1, 2007 at 6:24 am · Filed under publishing, book reviews, books
The lovely folks organizing the 2007 Children’s and Young Adult Bloggers’ Literary Awards - otherwise known as the Cybils - are now accepting nominations! I won’t be participating this year, but I feel it is my duty to keep you all informed about the opportunity to give a shout out to your favorite books of 2007. Anyone can nominate a book (try that with Oscar!), though you are limited to one nomination in each category. To nominate a book, you’ll need to go here.
September 28, 2007 at 11:54 am · Filed under My Musings, publishing
Kids are funny. Being a book author is NOT very impressive to 3rd, 4th, and 5th graders. However, having your NAME on the cover of a book is decidedly more impressive.
Here are just a few of the questions I was asked today:
- Do you know what was Shakespeare’s first book? (asked by a very serious student who was slightly disappointed that I didn’t know the answer)
- How did they make jewelry during ancient times? (asked by a group of four very hip, bejeweled girls)
- Are you … famous?
- Do you know where the free bags are?
- Do you have anything I can have?
Note to self: next time bring either free stuff, ride in on a fire truck, or bring a dog like to police department did.
September 20, 2007 at 5:37 pm · Filed under publishing, books
Amazon has a new tagging feature that allows visitors to “tag” a book, helping to place it in appropriate categories. If you own (or are familiar with) any of my books, would you do me a favor and head on over to Amazon (just click the covers in the sidebar) and tag the book(s) with whatever tags you feel are appropriate? The tagging section is about halfway down the page. Thanks!
September 20, 2007 at 4:03 pm · Filed under My Musings, publishing
Well, it’s valentine season in magazine land. So, while everyone else is thinking back to school and Halloween in the no too distant future, I’m playing with hearts and flowers to create some fun valentine crafts. Hey, that’s even worse than Christmas items showing up in stores in September, isn’t it?
Meanwhile, check out the October issue of FamilyFun for my article Ready, Set, Play! It features five energy burning games for kids. Also in the October issue are some very cool Halloween costumes which I had absolutely nothing to do with.
August 15, 2007 at 11:26 am · Filed under publishing, books
I just found out from my publisher that Team Challenges: Group Activities to Build Cooperation, Communication, and Creativity is off for a second print run! Woohoo!
July 28, 2007 at 4:41 pm · Filed under publishing, fun stuff, book reviews, books
I finished the seventh book in the series yesterday. Wow. I was sad at the end, not because of the deaths (well, maybe a little) but because it was over. The whole series. No more looking forward to the next one, no more waiting to find out what happens, no more fighting between kids and adults to read. To READ! People are fighting over the chance to read because of J.K. Rowling. Many people have critiqued her for not being an excellent writer, and yet she crafted a story and an entire world that inspired people to pick up a book (or seven). I have to wonder who will fill those shoes.
Like Tim, I do wish that Hogwarts had played a larger role in the story. I found a couple of chapters to be slow and almost dispensable; tThe first one-third of the book was a little slow for me. The latter portion was exciting though, and I was surprised more than once.
A few fun Harry Potter things to note, and then I’m moving on:
The current issue of Muse magazine has an excellent article on the whole Harry Potter phenomenon worth checking out. Some factoids:
400,800 trees were needed to make the paper for the initial print run of HP. According to Eco Chick (warning - spoiler), Scholastic saved 200,000 trees with the US printing by using eco-friendly paper.
J.K. Rowling earned $75,000,000 in 2005.
The Deathly Hallows audiobook will run 21 hours long.
Mugglenet, a HP fan site created by a (then) 12-year-old homeschooled boy by the name of Emerson Spartz averages 1.5 million hits per day. A site with this kind of traffic can generate as much as $4500 per DAY.
Play Harry Potter Hangman or try your hand at a HP crossword.
Harry Central at Kidsreads.com features the aforementioned spellbook, a Harrypedia, and free bookmarks.
Finally, in response to the Harry Potter spoilers and the gargantuan efforts made by the publishers to avoid them, Seth Godin writes:
My solution? A hybrid. Publish the first edition of the book without the last three chapters….Every purchaser then gets access (hey, everyone gets access) to the last three chapters on launch day.
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