While I’m still a huge fan of traditional publishing, I’m also all for the opportunities that are now available for those who want to go it alone. And as an editor, I’m impressed and admire those indie authors who go the extra mile to make their books professional.
Megg Jensen
Megg Jensen is one such author, which is why I’m happy and excited to talk about her new book, which is coming out in January.
Megg writes young adult fantasy, and if you haven’t tried it yet, you should check out her Cloud Prophet Trilogy. Anathema, the first book in the series, is great fun.
Her latest book, HIDDEN, is the first in the Dragonlands series. Here’s the synopsis:
The mystery enshrouding Hutton’s Bridge is as impenetrable as the fog that descended at its borders eighty years ago. Each year, three villagers enter the mist searching for answers. No one ever returns.
Then a dragon falls from the sky to the town square, dead—the first glimpse of an outside world that has become nothing more than a fairy tale to Hutton’s Bridge. Except to Tressa.
Tressa grew up with Granna’s stories of the days before the fog fell. When Granna dies, leaving Tressa without any family, Tressa ventures into the fog herself, vowing to unravel the foul magic holding Hutton’s Bridge captive.
What she discovers beyond the fog endangers the lives of everyone she loves.
Sounds fun, huh?
If you want to win an eARC of Hidden and a swag pack, leave a comment on this post and one lucky reader will be chosen randomly. Add the book on Goodreads and tell me about it below for more chances to win. The winner will be decided on Dec. 13 and prizes will be sent out after Dec. 20.
Today I’m featuring author Kimberley G. Little, author of the middle-grade mystery novel WHEN THE BUTTERFLIES CAME, who’s giving away a copy of her book and some swag (see below). Told you she was wonderful.
This book is her sixth for young readers, and it tells the story of young Tara Doucet dealing with love, loss, family and magic. Here’s the description:
Everybody thinks Tara Doucet has the perfect life. But Tara’s life is anything but perfect: Her dear Grammy Claire has just passed away, her mom is depressed and distant, and she and her sister, Riley, can’t agree on anything. But when mysterious and dazzling butterflies begin to follow her around after Grammy Claire’s funeral, Tara knows in her heart that her grandmother has left her one final mystery to solve.
Tara finds a stack of keys and detailed letters from Grammy Claire. Note by note, Tara learns unexpected truths about her grandmother’s life. As the letters grow more ominous and the clues harder to decipher, Tara realizes that the secrets she must uncover could lead to grave danger. And when Tara and Riley are swept away to the beautiful islands of Chuuk to hear their grandmother’s will, Tara discovers the most shocking truth of all, one that will change her life forever.
Sounds so enchanting! I can’t wait to read it.
I asked Kimberley four quick questions. Here’s what she said:
What inspired you to write WHEN THE BUTTERFLIES CAME?
So many things! The magical world of butterflies . . . spooky Louisiana swamps . . . old plantation houses . . . treehouses on an island in the South Pacific . . . and a girl who is connected to all those things through her Grammy Claire.
I love mysteries and wanted to try my hand at writing a mystery that didn’t have ghosts or paranormal elements. I took the prettiest girl at school (also a character from my book, CIRCLE OF SECRETS), but gave her a brain along with her silky, waterfall hair.
Tara begins receiving secret letters and keys from her scientist grandmother whose sudden death was untimely, and who imparts her secrets from beyond the grave through these letters so Tara can figure out who/what is trying to destroy the unusual butterflies her grandmother was researching in Micronesia.
It was fun to write about a very smart and very cool grandmother because I never knew my own grandmothers — and I hope I can be a very cool grandma too someday!
What were your biggest challenges?
The biggest challenge was putting the pieces of the mystery together and having it all make sense. Plotting out a book often gets convoluted. I use 3×5 cards to help me piece it together. It’s helpful to spread them all out on a big table or the floor to make sure the puzzle *fits*.
Learning about the island of Chuuk in Micronesia was also a challenge — without spending my life-savings to travel there. After exhausting the Internet and books and YouTube, I came across two people who’d lived there and was able to interview them. I adore the cool tidbits you learn through research and incorporating them into the story.
Did anything surprise you about the process?
I *love* unexpected twists, and there is a marvelous twist at the end of this book that didn’t come to me until I was part way through the first draft.
Are you working on anything else now?
I just turned in the editorial revisions for my next novel to my editor at Scholastic for Summer, 2014. It’s called THE TIME OF THE FIREFLIES and is about a girl who lives in an antique store with a cursed doll.
I’m also doing final work on my YA debut with Harpercollins Fall 2014. It was pitched as the YA version of The Red Tent and sold in a huge deal to Harper. The story is about the roots of bellydance in the ancient Middle East, goddess temples, tribal warfare, and a delicious romance.
A firm title is still forthcoming so keep checking my website for details and keep up with me on Facebook and Twitter where I’m pretty active. 🙂
Thanks, Kimberley!
And active is right! You can find Kimberley online at all these places:
Website: KimberleyGriffithsLittle.com, where you can find Teachers Guides and Mother/Daughter Book Club Guides for free download, plus her book trailers
To celebrate the release of the trailer for her Writing Young Adult Fiction For Dummies book, writer/editor Deborah Halverson is giving away a critique of the first 20 pages of a manuscript. It must be fiction of any genre, but no picture books.
It’s a good deal. The first few pages of a book are perhaps the most important. If you don’t yet have an agent, those pages are the ones you’ll use to suck them in. If you’re trying to entice an editor, they’ll look at the first few pages too. And even after a book has been published, beyond the cover and jacket copy, the first page could mean the difference between a sale and the book being placed back on the shelf.
Deborah knows a thing or two about these first pages. She was an editor for many years and is the author of two fiction books and the nonfiction YA writing guide. I reviewed the book when it launched and found it to be a good how-to.
So, make sure your first pages are the best they can be by entering Deborah’s contest.
Lots of fun publishing news out the last couple days, so I thought I’d compile it for you:
Thomas Nelson has launched its science-fiction fantasy Chaos series for young adults with Invasion by Jon S. Lewis. Here’s the jacket cover:
When sixteen-year-old Colt McAllister’s parents are killed in a car crash, he learns it was no accident — his mother, a journalist, was writing an expose of the powerful biotech corporation Trident Industries. Now, Colt has been targeted, and he and his friends Oz and Danielle find themselves battling the same sinister forces that took his parents’ lives. A gateway between worlds has been opened, and Earth is in mortal danger.
Thomas Nelson says Invasion has “crackling plot twists, cliffhanger chapter endings, cyber attacks, alien invaders, and an undercurrent of teen romance.” As a sci-fi fan and writer, sounds good to me!
New York Times best-selling author Emma Walton Hamilton has launches the children’s writers’ salon Children’s Book Hub, a membership-based forum to provide information, resources and support for aspiring and established children’s book authors. There is a fee, $19.95, and members will reportedly have access to regular teleseminars with authors, editors, agents and other members of the children’s book industry. The site also will offer monthly newsletters, a members’ forum and lists of publishers that accept unsolicited manuscripts, among others. The industry has lots of other places to get info and support, but another can’t hurt.
And in September, I wrote about the MeeGenius contest. They’ve now picked their winners:
Grand Prize: Pajama Girl by Sarah Perry and Ingvard the Terrible
1st Runner Up: The Cat Just Sat in the Chair by D.T. Walsh
2nd Runner Up: Floppity Phillip Flaut, words by Gary Guthrie, illustrations by Sunyoung Kim, characters by Taylor Lewis Guthrie
3rd Runner Up: Who Is the Most Beautiful Bird in the Barnyard? by Sharon Mann
and 4th Runner Up: The Little Green Bubbles by Kevin Malone, illustrated by Lee Hadziyianis.
If you haven’t seen Scholastic’s Storybook Treasures line of “read-along DVDs,” they’re a great blend of books and screen. Scholastic animated some of its best children’s books, along with award-winning titles, and put them on a DVD with the words so children can read along.
I’m all for anything that encourages children to read. Scholastic could have just made animated versions of all these books, but it’s wonderful (not too mention a smart business move) that they included the words of the books so they are read-along DVDs. Children who grow up with these with hopefully read books too. I’d say there’s more chance with these than for kids watching other children’s DVDs.
Anyway, my day-job website, www.discdish.com, is giving away huge bundles of Scholastic’s Storybook Treasures DVDs right now.
Among the books on the DVDs in the contest are Where the Wild Things Are, Wheels On the Bus, The Ralph Mouse Collection, Curious George, A Very Brave Witch, Corduroy and Harold and the Purple Crayon. Here’s a review of one of the DVDs, the Treasury of 100 Storybook Classics 2.
DiscDish.com is giving away four bundles of these DVDs, the biggest valued at $685.
So, get over there and try out for your chance to win. You can enter every day, plus put up links to the page to get more entries.
The Bookmuse is celebrating 1,000 followers by offering five five-page critiques, two first-chapter critiques and a three-month mentorship with author Angela Ackerman.
Freelance editor Cassandra Marshall is offering a whopping contest for a free substantial edit of an entire manuscript of up to 100,000 words! One word: WOW!
Authors at The Longstockings blog are offering feedback for 25 pages of a teen, tween or middle-grade novel. Yay!
And children’s book app maker MeeGenius is running a contest to celebrate the launch of its new app platform. MeeGenius is looking for books for children ages 3 to 8 that include illustrations. One winner will get an Apple iPad and four runners-up will get an Apple iPod Touch, and all will get their manuscript published as an ebook and receive 30% of the sales.
As part of the book launch for her novel Losing Faith, author Denise Jaden has a contest on the Class of 2K10 blog for a query critique with her agent, Michelle Humphrey at ICM Talent Agency.
To enter to win the critique, you just have to upload a logline for your novel in the blog post‘s comments section. The best one will win the critique. (You’ll see mine on there. Go add yours.) The contest ends on Sept. 14.
The post also includes a quick interview with Michelle, in which she says what she’s looking for and how to submit to her.
Good luck!
And, if you’re into non-fiction, School Library Journal is hosting a free webinar on non-fiction children’s books. Here are the details.
Manuscript update: 4,954 words. Had a pretty good session yesterday. Today, I’m procrastinating with this blog post. 🙂 But then I’ll knuckle down. I think I’m behind if I want to meet my goal of finishing the first draft by the end of May.
QueryTracker is hosting a pitch contest today with literary agent Chris Richman of Upstart Crow Literary.
To enter, you must have completed the manuscript you’re pitching and pitch it in 25 words or less. You can enter as many times as you want, but you must be a member of QueryTracker and follow the site’s blog. More details are here, along with a link to a page for help in writing pitches.
The contest is open just today.
I can’t find anywhere what the prize for the contest is, but if you’ve got a completed manuscript that’s ready to go, it can’t hurt to get a pitch in front of a great agent.
Manuscript update: Still nothing new as I’ve been too busy with http://www.discdish.com. But I’ve got lots of ideas for I get back to the book.
Some quick agent news:
Bree Ogden has been made an associate agent at Martin Literary Management. She will represent children’s, young adult and graphic novels. Here’s some info on Bree, and she’s agreed to answer a few questions for DayByDayWriter, so stay tuned for that.
And Devin McIntyre has opened his own shingle: The McIntyre Agency. He has been an agent with Mary Evans Inc. since 2002 and reps childrens books, graphic novels and adult genres. Here’s his AuthorAdvance page and his Publishers Marketplace page.
And some quick contest news:
The Next Big Writer (sounds like a reality show, doesn’t it?) is running a Strongest Start Novel Competition for the best first three chapters of a novel. You can enter if whether you’ve completed the novel or not, as long as you’ve got the first three chapters and they’re polished. Oh, and you have to be a member of critique network The Next Big Writer. Here’s the rundown from the contest:
If you’ve been working on a novel, or have one written already, polish your first three chapters and consider entering this competition. TheNextBigWriter is an online workshop. By entering, you receive feedback on every chapter you submit. This is a great opportunity to have your work-in-progress reviewed, and you may even win! You do NOT need to have completed your entire novel, so this competition is open to those who have started or are working on their novels.
The grand prize is $500 and a $2,500 self-publishing deal from CreatSpace and feedback on every chapter.
$100 cash prizes will be given for sci-fi/fantasy/horror, romance and memoir/non-fiction. And the deadline is June 8.
Now, this contest has entry fees, and they increase by $5 if you submit after May 14 and by $10 if you submit after June 1. You can enter in the following categories:
Inspirational writing (spiritual/religion)
Memoirs/personal essay
Magazine feature article
Genre short story
Mainstream/Literary short story
Rhyming poetry
Non-rhyming poetry
Stage play
TV/Movie script
Children’s/young adult
I don’t endorse either of these, as I don’t have any experience with either.
Entering your work in contests is a great way to get noticed, not to mention all the cool prizes. There are plenty of bigger contests out there, but many blogs are offering smaller contests for free with a critique from an agent as the prize — always invaluable. Andrea Brown Literary Agency‘s Mary Kole has had a few contests like these, as has Curtis Brown agent Nathan Bransford.
The great thing about these contests is that even if you don’t get one of the prizes, you can still make a name for yourself with the agent. That happened with me last year. I entered a contest and got a lovely email back from the agent giving the contest saying that although I wasn’t a winner, the agent wanted to see my manuscript for representation consideration.
Jump on these contests as opportunities, always following the rules, of course, and making sure your work is in the best shape it can be before you submit. Everything helps to get your work out there.
The latest such contest is from the Guide to Literary Agents blog. Chuck Sambuchino is running his second Dear Lucky Agent contest, this time for writers of young adult and middle-grade books.
To enter, writers must have a completed manuscript and send in their first 150-200 words by end of day Feb. 21. Jennifer Laughran of the Andrea Brown Literary Agency is judging and will give the prize winners critiques.
Good luck to all!
Also, check in tomorrow when Laura Cross will be here answering your questions about ghostwriting. Laura also will reveal the winner of a PDF copy of her book, Complete Guide to Hiring a Literary Agent: Everything You Need to Know to Become Successfully Published.
Know of any other contests? Or have a good story from a contest? Tell us about them in the comments.
The mystery enshrouding Hutton’s Bridge is as impenetrable as the fog that descended at its borders eighty years ago. Each year, three villagers enter the mist searching for answers. No one ever returns.
So many things! The magical world of butterflies . . . spooky Louisiana swamps . . . old plantation houses . . . treehouses on an island in the South Pacific . . . and a girl who is connected to all those things through her Grammy Claire.
Samantha Clark 