Tag Archives: Ink Exchange

Hi! Bye!

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Ok, fastest blog update ever. I’ve missed blogging the last few days. Really, I have! But I’m in the home stretch. My first law school final is Friday. *eek!* So I’m trying to focus.

Honestly, I can’t tell you how excited I am for this summer due to the fact that I’ll be able to get in a ton of much needed and much desired writing (slash-reading). 

There is still a lot I want to share about Agent/Editor Day and I plan to. But, as I realized, those posts require (a) brain power and (b) time, both of which are in short supply. 

The one break I did take this weekend, I filled not blogging, but doing something I think y’all can all appreciate–meeting Melissa Marr. 

The author of Wicked Lovely, Ink Exchange and now Fragile Eternity was signing  books and doing a Q&A session at Book People this weekend in Austin. How cool is that? I bought Fragile Eternity and had it signed and now have it waiting for me as a reward for when I finish with school. 

In addition to continuing to share Agent and Editor insights I’ll blog a bit about what I learned at the Q&A session regarding the writing process. 

In 2 weekends I’ve met the coolest writing-related people and I’m discovering just listening opens up whole new worlds of thought for me. I know these experiences will help me develop as a writer and I’m glad I’ve been able to seek them out offline now as well. 

The plan for now, though, will be an updated blog–but with shorter blog posts. I’ll have some interesting discussion questions that I’ve been pondering and hopefully y’all will keep stopping in.

Recommend Responsibly Part 2: A Book for Everyone

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As promised, we’re discussing what books to recommend and to whom. Reading isn’t one size fits all and, as writers (or readers) who want to support the book industry, we know we need to recommend responsibly. We do that by encouraging so-called  ”non-readers” to read and thus, hopefully, converting them into at least occasional book-buyers. But, we can’t do this by impressing non-readers with our love for dense, flowerly prose or by insisting that they’ll love whatever genre we write in. Or by peddling every book we love. We recommend books like we give presents–we think of the recipient.

Rule Number Two: We ditch the snobbery. A lot of writers aren’t fond of celebrity authors. Who can blame them? Here we are working our bums off, fighting through rejection, and in walks Lauren Conrad with a three book deal. But BIG books, like these celebrity books sell. People like them. We *want* publishers to make money so they can take risks on other manuscripts. So, if you think your Aunt Matilda would like to read Maureen McCormick’s new book, then get it for her, or recommend it! No worries.

Ok, so I’ll need y’alls help making this list, but I’m going to try to start thinking of types of people and what types of books they like. When it’s done I’ll add it to the books I recommend page.

 

Middle School girl: Beacon Street Girls, Savvy by Ingrid Law, The Floating Circus by Tracie Vaughn Zimmer, Gallagher Girls series by Ally Carter

Middle School boy: Zen and the Art of Faking It by Jordan Sonnenblick, The Wishlist by Eoin Colfer, The Giggler Treatment by Roddy Doyle, Antsy Does Time by Neal Shusterman, The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkein

High School girl: Girl, Hero by Carrie Jones, The City in The Lake by Rachel Neumeier, Shift by Jen Bradbury, Wicked Lovely by Melissa Marr, The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks by E. Lockhart

(If looking for non-edgy-Hattie Big Sky by Kirby Larson)

High School boy: Thirteen Reasons Why by Jay Asher, Ink Exchange by Melissa Marr, Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkein

College girl: The Undomestic Goddess by Sophie Kinsella, Story of a Girl by Sara Zarr, Wicked Lovely by Melissa Marr, Bergdorf Blondes by Plum Sykes, Magic Lost, Trouble Found by Lisa Shearin, Kitty and the Midnight Hour by Carrie Vaughn, Are You There Vodka? It’s Me, Chelsea by Chelsea Handler

College boy: Foundation by Isaac Asimov, Lolita by Nabokov, John Adams by David McCullough, Blink by Malcolm Gladwell, Freakonomics by Stephen Dubner

30s-40s-50s women: The Mermaid Chair by Sue Monk Kidd, Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen, A Lotus Grows in the Mud by Goldie Hawn, Stephanie Plum series by Janet Evanovich, The Sinner by Tess Gerritsen

30s-40s-50s men: American Sphinx: The Character of Thomas Jefferson by Joseph J. Ellis, Marley and Me by John Grogan, Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln by Doris Kearns Goodwin

 

For the Southern fic reader: Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd

For the no-nonsense, none of that fantasy junk reader: Sophie’s Choice by William Styron

For the historical fiction lover: The News from Paraguay by Lily Tuck

For the hopeless romantic: The Notebook by Nicholas Sparks

For the woman growing up: Eat Love Pray by Elizabeth Gilbert

For the why-would-I-read-fiction-unless-I’m-learning-something reader: Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett

For the vampire lovers (adult): Interview with a Vampire by Anne Rice

For the vampire lovers (young adult): House of Night by P.C. and Kristin Cast

For the celebrity gossip lover: Confessions of An Heiress

For the lawyer: One L by Scott Turow

For the guy searching for the meaning of life: The Zahir by Paulo Coelho

For the I-Miss-Harry-Potter reader: His Dark Materials by Philip Pullman

 

Ok, wow, that was exhausting! I’m sure I’ll think of more later. But help me out!

Book Review: Ink Exchange

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I read Wicked Lovely this past summer and loved it. I hadn’t been dying to read Ink Exchange, though. No particular reason except that there were other books on my “To Be Read” List calling my name. So I put off reading Melissa Marr’s second book. That is, until I started reading her blog.

Melissa has a fascinating section on her website called “Writing Chatter,” which gives a lot of insight into her writing process, what she thinks about while writing, etc. I checked it out along with some of her blog archives.

No doubt most of y’all have heard of the “sophomore slump.” Authors have years to write their first published book and then they are forced to meet a deadline and, well, sometimes it’s difficult to reproduce the magic of the first book.

Melissa says about writing Ink Exchange, “I spent a lot of time looking at Ink Exchange & being pretty certain that it would fail, that Wicked Lovely was a fluke…”

It wasn’t a fluke. I finished Ink Exchange last night. Mainly because I read on Melissa’s site that it was more the book of her heart than Wicked Lovely and that it was the darker book she had wanted to write. And I loved it.

I thought the actual writing was much better. It’s the same voice and style–very straight forward, no nonsense–but that’s the only style I can picture the subject matter in. What impressed me most were a few of the action/fight sequences. Her imagery is beautiful and pacing spot on. If you’ve read the book or are planning on reading it, look for the scene where Bananach meets Niall in an alley to see what I mean. I’m planning on re-reading this scene several more times before I get into some of the fight scenes for my own book proposal.

Coming in a close second–or maybe tied?–for the element that most impressed me in Ink Exchange is Melissa Marr’s appeal to all five senses. Ink Exchange is a sensual experience in every sense of the word. I rarely see an author focus on taste, smell, and touch to the same degree that he or she draws the reader’s attention to sight and sound.

One thing I did wonder as I read was: Is the author trying to be dark for darkness’s sake?

At times, I found myself trying to decide whether the violence, sex, and drugs were a bit gratuitous. In the end, I decided No. I did my test: Will the story work without that element? Here, the answer was no. I will say, though, that this is not a book for young teens. It’s definitely pushing the envelope for even upper YA. But something came to mind as I worried about the appropriateness of the content for teens. Maybe y’all remember the scandal surrounding Dakota Fanning’s “rape scene” in the recent movie Hound Dog. I am constantly impressed by that girl’s apparent maturity. But when people criticized her mother for allowing her to be in the movie, she responded head on, saying “You have to prepare your children for things that happen in the world. Everything isn’t rosy.”  For me, that seems to sum up Ink Exchange nicely. To those recent critics of YA who seem to think that the category talks down to its readers, hinders them from learning, and is an utter waste of a tree, I might suggest picking up Ink Exchange and then getting back to us.

 

To read my review of Melissa Marr’s first book, Wicked Lovely, set in the same world, click here.

I’m Back.

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With finals over for the semester, I’m back to my regularly scheduled blogging. Hooray!

Looking forward to posting about all sorts of topics and I also have some great books to review.

I went to the Austin Public Library yesterday and picked up Melissa Marr’s Ink Exchange, Laurie Halse Anderson’s Twisted, and Scott Westerfield’s Uglies. I’m certain I’ll get through more than just these books this winter break, so any other suggestions would be much appreciated. Ten points to anyone that can suggest a non-YA book that I’d love.

You may be wondering why I didn’t start writing yesterday, the first second I got.  After all, I was so excited last week to begin. Still am. Well, I don’t know about how y’all work, but I need creative nourishment. I hadn’t read something for pleasure all semester! That’s a long time for me.

So now I’m gorging myself on work that I respect in the genres I write, not because I want to mimick another author’s voice or get plot ideas from another book, but because I need to feed my creative energy and inspire myself to write better. To remind myself what an amazing book looks and feels like. And to remember why it is I write in the first place.

Status: Thankful I no longer have to query agents, but still struggling to write a pretend query letter to myself. More on that tomorrow.

Topical Tuesday: Brand Yourself

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Before you reach for the hot iron and sear your forehead, I’m talking about making your name into a brand.

Stephen King, James Patterson, Nora Roberts, Janet Evanovich, Tom Clancy–These are authors whose names are now recognizable brands. Anything they put their name on sells. While we might not become mega-brands over night, we can’t get started down the path with a few simple steps.

Yesterday, Allie Boniface offered some great tips on promotion. Today, I’ll add to her great suggestions while still keeping with the theme of book/author promotion on a budget.

1. Join online writers’ groups. Absolute Write is the forum in which I am most involved. But, professional organization such as RWA and SCBWI usually have boards to which you can belong. Verla Kay Blue Boards are great if you are a children’s writer. While most of the time you don’t meet these people face-to-face, you begin to feel like you “know” them. I have felt compelled to buy several books from Blue Board writers. Moreover, other writers on the site tend to want to promote their own. A lot of support was thrown behind Melissa Marr’s Wicked Lovely and Ink Exchange as well as all of the Jennifer Lynn Barnes book by their fellow Blue Boarders.

2. Email Signatures. Put a standard signature in your emails about your book and a link to where people can find more information. This way, you don’t give yourself the option to pick and choose who you will tell about your book. You’re emailing your college professor? Ok, well, he knows about it now. Don’t be embarrassed. People are curious and will probably take the time to check that link.

3. Blog. I have been persuaded to buy books because of author blogs. The only reason I picked up Lisa Shearin’s books was because I read her blog daily. I feel invested in what she has to say. Don’t discount the importance of a blog just because it seems like everyone is doing it.

4. Don’t be afraid to ask for help. Ask you friends to provide a link to your site or a blurb about your book on G-chat or on their Facebook status. Word-of-mouth is a huge component of book and author success. Widen your radius.

5. Your book can have a Facebook Page. No, faces are not required to belong to facebook. Make your book a member and then add as many people as possible as your friends. Also, on your own facebook account, how many people on facebook are friends that you actually chat with daily? Yeah, probably a minority, right? Start a group and invite everyone to belong to it. When the random person you went to middle school sees the group they are probably going to be like, Wow so-and-so wrote a book! And then you pray that random middle school person is curious enough to run out and buy it.

6. Contact your local newspaper. Most newspapers don’t have a problem with running a ”Local girl pens novel” story. Send them a media package.

7. Run a contest for Amazon reviews. Lisa Shearin did this recently. Every person who posted an Amazon review was entered to win prizes on her blog. Amazon reviews matter when it comes to Amazon rankings. Remember that.

8. The Internet is your friend. Book trailers on YouTube and Google Video. Twitter. MySpace. LiveJournal. Do them all.

9. Ask for interviews. Most of the time, people are not going to come beating down your door asking for an interview. It’s ok to ask someone whose blog you like to host you for a day. What is the worst that could happen?

10. Have a cyber launch party. Avoid the costs of a real live launch party and have a cyber one. You can even wear your PJs. Places like Enduring Romance host online parties for book releases and, if you have doubts about their effectiveness, they bring in TONS of comments from readers!

11. Cheap promotional giveaways. Want to send some gear to conferences or be able to provide goodies for prizes. Consider having your book title/logo put on a few goodies. There are a ton of places you can have this done. A Cheap Giveaways you can get pens with a logo on them for $.31 a pop. At the minimum of purchase of 428 pens, that will cost you $132. Not too bad.

12. Write Great Books. That’s the most important. And Guess what? The cheapest! Though the most time consuming. Look at The Shack, a book that is currently topping the bestseller list. $300 used to promote it. But, it’s a good book and, through word-of-mouth, it spread like wildfire.

 

 For last week’s Topical Tuesday on Ideas and Execution in Book Packaging click here.

Status: Today I’m cracking down. My goal is to finish between 12-15 pages of script today. I’m working toward that July 18th deadline of getting our proposal together to submit. The query letter is almost done. I’m waiting on some artwork. I’ve been chipping away at the script. And, I just downloaded a trial version of Comic Book Creator 2 because I think I am going to do the lettering for at least the first 15 pages in order to submit. I’m debating whether or not to purchase the software, but at $50 I think it is probably worth it.