Sisterhood

We have a very special guest post by Holly McDowell today, where she introduces an important theme from her new serial novel series, King Solomon's Wives.  We are also revealing her impressive and striking cover!  But first, Holly:

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In my new serial novel series, King Solomon's Wives, a clan of women descended from King Solomon's harem live together as fugitives in the modern world. They aren't related by blood, but shared threats and joys, and centuries--old genetic memories--make them feel close. They call each other "sister." As with most complicated familial relationships, sometimes they help each other and sometimes they treat each other as enemies.

I don't have a sister, but there are a few celebrities I'm a hundred percent sure would be like sisters to me if only we had the chance to hang out. (Madonna and Gwyneth Paltrow, for instance.)

I also have real-life friends who I consider to be family. While writing the first episode of King Solomon's Wives, one "sister" or another did the following for me:

·         Took me late-night dancing.

·         Baked me cookies.

·         Read my freshly-written pages and told me how to make them stronger.

·         Listened to me go on and on about [dramatic personal social situation].

·         Introduced me to a new friend or two. Or eighteen.

·         Offered opinions on how to finish a jacket I'd designed and tried to sew.

·         Bought my dog a new toy.

·         Helped me move.

·         Invited me to start a creative collaboration.

·         Led me away from vegetarianism forever by introducing me to bacon-wrapped dates.

·         Inspired me with photographs of Paris and the French countryside.

·         Introduced me to a lascivious but glorious addiction to Frye boots.

Here's my sister-like friend, Kelly Swails, and me at a literary event in Chicago last December:

And here's Jean-Leon Gerome's The Terrace of the Seraglio, which shows King Solomon's harem in a rather comfortable setting. In my story, I speculate a less romanticized situation. What if their lives were not filled with pleasurable moments but with difficulties? (Let's be honest--that was probably the case.) My story asks: What if they felt oppressed by their plight and bonded together like sisters to fight it? What if their struggles caused genetic consequences that bound them as fugitives for many generations, even into the modern world?

Image courtesy of wikipedia

Do you have sisters of any sort? Is your relationship simple or complicated, and what have you done for each other lately?

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Now that Holly has you completely intrigued, be the first to take a peek at her gorgeous cover:

Is your interest not piqued???

MOMMIES, GOD & A REAL HOUSEWIFE OF NEW JERSEY

How a thirty minute social media marketing consultation with Joanna and Kathleen led me from ‘like’ to ‘love’.

I’ll admit it. I want to be liked.

‘Like’ in the facebook sense of the word, of course. But not just for validation. Because I’ve experienced the Power of Like.  

Actually, if it weren’t for social media, my project, Boy Sees Hearts wouldn’t exist.   My heart collecting mission started a year ago when I began photographing hearts in nature, food and garbage. When I shared them on facebook, I started seeing more, posting more and making art.

And then others started seeing hearts.

The response blew me away: Features on Extreme Makeover: Home Edition, Aha Life, Beliefnet and others inspired Boy Sees Hearts to grow from something interesting to something that impacts lives: Charitable giving, meaningful elementary school visits and a children’s book project repped by the inimitable Joanna Stampfel-Volpe.

Recently--when my social media platform started to plateau--Joanna suggested we enlist the expertise of social media empress (and Nancy Coffey Literary & Media Sub-Rights Director and Agent), Kathleen Ortiz.

That brainstorming conference call thirty days ago jolted me from social media stagnation to new levels of Tweet Cred:

First a church.

Then a Real Housewife of New Jersey.

Then, the Mommies. 

(Hearts discovered by Boy Sees Hearts facebook fans)

My revamped social media outreach inspired a connection with Marie, a new facebook fan who informed me that her pastor recently led a Boy Sees Hearts-themed sermon at First Lutheran of Blooming Prairie in Minnesota.

Soon after that, a twitter shout-out from Real Housewife of New Jersey, Fabulicious Theresa Guidice:

Then, two prominent Mom-Blogs, Design Mom and Cool Mom Picks featured Boy Sees Hearts in a twenty four-hour period.

Oh, and my stats skyrocketed. Within thirty days of our brainstorming session my facebook ‘likes’ increased two thousand percent and my twitter followers more than doubled.

By no means am I a social media guru, but here are five tips I’d love to share from my thirty day Extreme Makeover: Social Media Edition:

1.     Talk to people.

Tell your friends what you want to do. Brainstorm with them.  Implement the best ideas.

2.     Do what you’re doing, better.

Are you truly connecting with your audience? Kathleen made a really insightful comment: ‘You’re replying with one-word answers.’ Start a dialogue.

3.     Do what you’re doing, elsewhere.

Joanna liked what I was doing on tumblr and urged me to do more. “Why not try flickr?”  Awesome tip. Kathleen suggested foursquare, where I could post hearts for others to discover. Another great idea.

4.     Step out of your comfort zone.

Find small ways to reach new audiences. I discovered that a slight expansion of my sphere of influence paid off big time.

Have you resisted contests and giveaways because they seemed tacky? Maybe there’s a way you can do them elegantly.

5.     Give your fans a reason to like you.

Create compelling content.…and give away free stuff.

The Boy Sees Hearts Sweepstakes generated a significant number of likes and followers. I found that Wildfire is a great contest app that can be incorporated into facebook and twitter.

Aside from escalating likes, steadily-increasing followers and housewives (Real and otherwise)--for me--the best thing about social media is how it encourages collaboration. If executed well, social media can not only create dialogue, but foster the creative process.

What are some social media practices that have worked well for your platform? I’d love to hear your ideas.

After all, I don’t just want to be liked.

…I want to be loved!

Boy Sees Hearts on facebook

Boy Sees Hearts on twitter

Boy Sees Hearts on tumblr

Boy Sees Hearts on flickr

www.BoySeesHearts.com

Enter the Boy Sees Hearts Sweepstakes

UPDATE NOTE: In the week since this was written, he is gained another 1000 followers!!! - JoSV

A Writer's Guide to Comic Con

Hello All!

I'm back from Comic Con, and it was tons of fun.  But really? It's boring if I talk about Comic Con.  Better to hear from one of our lovely clients, who can describe it much better than me (writer and all).  Merrie Destefano is the talented author behind FEAST and AFTERLIFE.  You can read more about these books and buy them here.  You can also read more about Merrie at her website.  But wait to do all that.  First read her blog post about the Con!

The Road to Comic Con

The road to Comic Con is paved with superheroes, movie stars and cartoon characters. For someone like me—who spends 24/7 immersed in a world of sci fi and fantasy—it’s a tiny bit like heaven. Every year I get to spend 4 days with fellow geeks and nerds. And for once in our lives, we’re actually the cool kids in the crowd. Nobody laughed at the Viking-sized guy whose centaur costume had fully-functional, motorized hind legs. Instead, we stood in awe. Whether you came as a professional, like I did, or as a participant, there’s always plenty of time to play fan girl (or boy).

If you’ve never been to Comic Con, here are a few of my favorite things:

1. The author panels:

Panel subjects range from Magic & Monsters to Immortality: An Obsession With Youth to Writing the Apocalypse. This year’s authors included Kim Harrison, Richard Kadrey, Sherrilyn Kenyon, Carrie Vaughn and more. It was a great opportunity to hear your favorite authors talk about their books and their creative process. On top of that, there was almost always a book signing right after the panel. This year, I spoke on the No Damsels in Distress panel with Marie Lu, Sherrilyn Kenyon, Carrie Vaughn, Kathy Reichs, Chloe Neill and Jeanne Stein. It was a lot of fun, especially once the audience started asking questions.

2. The movie star / TV star panels:

Morning to night, the Comic Con universe is star-studded. Iconic figures from film and television fill the panels, with topics that range from existing TV shows like Big Bang Theory and Vampire Diaries to movies-in-production like Snow White And The Huntsman and (last year’s) Cowboys And Aliens. Fans sometimes wait in line for hours to get in to the panel they want. Here’s a trick I learned last year: If you want to see a really popular panel (like Vampire Diaries), get in line for the event held an hour earlier in the same hall. You can stay in the hall for as many events as you want, plus you can move up to better seats between events.

3. The costumes:

This is one of the few times in your life when you can dress like a kid and get away with it. At Comic Con, every day is Halloween and no costume is too outrageous or silly. Granted, some of them look pretty uncomfortable—like the Spiderman full-body suit that even covers your face—but I’ve never seen anybody complain. Well, okay, I did see a Disney princess get irritated when a guy standing behind her on the escalator trampled on her gown. But in reality, she did a good job of staying in character and barely batted a glittering eyelash. My favorite costume this year was a zombie superman that I saw at the Marriott. Cool note: People weren’t the only ones who got dressed up. The Marriott dressed up too. Take a look at the elevator doors below.

4. The freebies:

There’s almost no end to all the swag you can find at Comic Con. From signed movie posters to ARCs to tote bags, you’re going to be tempted to take it all. Just remember, you also have to carry it all and you won’t get to sit down very often. Comic Con is a standing room only event, where crowds swarm from one end of the convention center to the other—but they almost never stop and they rarely sit down. There just aren’t enough chairs. So, I waited until the last day to gather up my swag and I focused almost entirely on books. ARCs I snagged include: Daughter of Smoke and Bone by Laini Taylor, Forbidden by Ted Dekker and Tosca Lee, Unleashed by Nancy Holder and Debbie Viguie, Dark Inside by Jeyn Roberts and Infinity by Sherrilyn Kenyon. (I’ve already started reading!)

5. The Comic Con bag:

Nothing compares to the amazing Comic Con bag, given freely when you register at the entrance and get your badge. One side of the bag displays a popular television show like Fringe or Vampire Diaries or Big Bang Theory, and the bag can hold an unbelievable amount of swag. This year’s bag was phenomenal—it could be used as a super-long tote bag or it could be configured into two different styles of backpack or it could be folded in half to look like a woman’s handbag. I’m definitely keeping my bag and have already used it for errands.

Was Comic Con fun, exhausting, like an adventure to another world? Yes. Will I go again next year? You better believe it! This is one event I don’t want to miss.

A RITA is born!

Kaki Warner's PIECES OF SKY won the 2011 RITA Award for Best First Book.

Are we excited? You bet! Surprised? Not at all. Joanna has told me several times how she felt when she first found Kaki's query, and then when she read the manuscript: "I remember reading the query--it made me laugh. Kaki is so good at having you on the edge of your seat, then crying the next minute, then laughing in the next, and the first time you see that is in her query. When the manuscript finally came in, I read it that night. In full. Until the wee hours of the morning. Brady and Jessica's romance and the setting of RosaRoja just swept me away. I came in the next morning with the manuscript hugged tight to my chest, and said, 'Nancy, you've got to read this one. Now.'"

And Kaki's latest, HEARTBREAK CREEK, was reviewed by Eloisa James today on the Barnes and Noble blog.

Kaki will be doing a guest blog here next week, so you'll get to hear more about her and her books soon!

Congrats, Kaki!!

My Rotten Book Signing (Guest Post: Allan Woodrow)

What if you throw a party and no one comes? I think everyone has that fear, whether you’re throwing a keg party in the backyard or doing a book signing. I kept imagining reading from my book, The Rotten Adventures of Zachary Ruthless, with two or three employees of Barnes and Noble watching to be polite. One of them claps to make me feel better. The sound echoes through the empty store. In the back, the person behind the coffee counter burps. I buy a couple of books just to sell something, because I feel guilty. The store manager shakes her head out of pity.

So when B&N said they bought a couple of hundred books for my signing, I felt even more pressure. What were they thinking? Were they going to make me buy 195 of them myself?

So, it was a bit of relief to see about 40 kids sitting around my chair waiting for me to read my first chapter during my launch last week. The manager handed me a microphone, and I was off. It’s a big store, but I guess you could hear my voice throughout (the microphone was pretty loud). I’m glad I didn’t know that until later.

Kids, of course are a great audience. They gave me their best evil laughs, and a boy named Jacob did a great hiccupping hyena-laugh for us (you’ll have to read the book to know how that fits into the story). And I don’t think I mispronounced any words. I tend to be a serial mispronouncer, so this was a big accomplishment even though I practiced reading the chapter 46 times at home.

Then I sat behind a desk with a  big bowl of gummy tarantulas, gummy internal organs, gummy blood, and gumball eyeballs … all perfectly evil in keeping with the evilness of my book. Barnes & Noble assigned numbers to people wanting me to sign, so they announced over the loudspeakers, “People with numbers 15-30, please get in line for Allan Woodrow’s autograph,” etc. Pretty surreal, actually. It took about 80 minutes to get through everyone’s books.

Then I was home, no longer a big time author person but someone who had to clean the fish tank. The goldfish don’t care I have a book, apparently. But neither will anyone else unless I write another one just as good.

Signing is over. Time to go back to work. 

National Book Awards

So we have interns. And by "have," I mean, "couldn't survive without." In addition to all the work they do, they are also lovely, fun people who help make this a very happy place to come to everyday. And, of course, they love publishing.

Today, I am introducing you to Intern Rick.

Rick, blog readers. Blog readers, Rick. In the picture above, Rick is on the right. Which I feel should be obvious since he is the only guy in that picture, but just in case you thought I had slapped a picture of random strangers we don't know onto the blog, I thought I should tell you.

Actually, you might remember Rick from that time he and Joanna were almost hauled off by a tornado.

There are no tornadoes in today's post. This is about something less Well-hey-I-wonder-where-I'm-going-to-live-tonight, and more actually fun.

The National Book Awards held their annual extravaganza this Wednesday. Although Rick couldn’t attend the actual awards ceremony, he did get to go to the NBA House Party, hosted by the Young to Publishing Group at Random House. About 150 people showed up for the drinks, the prizes, and the auction to support Literary Partners.

You can click here to see all the NBA finalists and winners.

Pictures from the House Party can be viewed thanks to Pixable.com

And now...

Rick's Rundown:

1. I was one of the few to receive a special story card that I could turn in for a prize if I found a gal with the matching card. While searching, I met a lot of people, including another guy with the same card as mine! Desperately competing against each other, we never found the girl, but we got prizes anyway. Mine was a pocket square from Robert Redd, while his was a cap. He wanted to trade. I did not.

2. They served mini-hamburgers with fries. They went fast.

3. I got a free Square. Featured in Time's 50 best inventions of 2010, it hooks into your iphone and reads credit cards so you can process payments on the street or from your friends. The future is now!

4. Many generous individuals bought tickets for the auction for Literacy Partners. Prizes included a Staycation and meeting Arianna Huffington.

5. We had a live feed of the NBA awards, which was cool. I had been really excited about the YA category, but somehow I missed it. I'm glad that Mockingbird won, even though I was rooting for Ship Breaker.

6. They had a DJ and a dancefloor, but practically no one danced.

7. Like all young publishing get-togethers, there were a lot more women than guys. I’m not complaining.