Birthmarked
The Secret Club
I venture to say that for writers, a mystique persists around publishing, as if all the published writers and people in the business were part of a secret club where they shared special handshakes and insider knowledge. I suspect it has something to do with rejections, and the polite but impersonal way editors and agents say no to projects they must decline. Writers outside the circle might well wonder why they can’t get in when the rules of admittance seem so capricious. To make it worse, there’s… Continue reading
Both of Us, Night and Day
I can spend an hour at night laboring over the composition an email or a blog post only to wake up the next morning and find it’s weirdly uppity or just plain pointless. Because of this, I have a hard and fast rule about never sending any emails that might actually matter at night. What’s strange is that I can’t uncoil myself from the snare of writing the insidious late night drafts, even knowing I’m needlessly embroiled. It’s like I’m processing, letting my illogical, instinctual side out… Continue reading
Writing Secret Duds
I need to park my main work-in-progress for a period so that I can return to it with fresh eyes, which puts me in one of my rare lulls where I’m forced to stop thinking about what normally obsesses me. I can’t not write, because I become prickly and discontented if I stop, so instead, I’m kicking around ideas for something else. I’m throwing noodle possibilities together to see how they stick, rereading old favorite books to see why I liked them, daydreaming, staying up late, and nibbling… Continue reading
Do Goodreads Giveaways Make a Difference?
Sure they do. As far as visibility for a book goes, Goodreads clearly exposes a novel to new readers. Whether readers go on to remember the novel, buy it, or read it is anybody’s guess, but since discovery is a key step before any of the rest of that can happen, visibility can’t hurt.
Here’s a case in point. Though Birthmarked came out in 2010, the audio books for the series have just been released this month, and my audio publisher wanted to highlight them. Tantor… Continue reading
Chatting It Up on Blog Talk Radio
I had a lovely chat last week with Cindy Wolfe Boynton, the host of Literary New England Radio Show, which airs Monday nights through Blog Talk Radio. The show focuses on writers in New England, so it feels like it’s happening in my own back yard, yet it has a broad audience with listeners as far away as the U.K. Cindy interviewed me about the Birthmarked trilogy, from how I came up with the first ideas, to how the trilogy became audio books this month… Continue reading
A New Cover for Promised in the UK!
Promised (Birthmarked #3) will be released as an ebook in the UK on Thursday, February 7th, and Simon & Schuster Children’s Books UK has come up with a third cover to complete the series. Isn’t this striking and mysterious? The copy reads: “When the cost of the freedom of others is your own future, would you pay the ultimate price?” Put that way, it sounds heart-wrenchingly difficult. It fascinates me to see what elements are distilled out of a story to be highlighted on… Continue reading