Winnie the Pooh on Nintendo DS

Done today: Chapter 1 (four pages)

Revision remaining: 165 pages

Daily pages needed to be finished by end of November: 3.5

Finally got down to some good revision this morning. Phew! Does it feel good to be working with the book again.

We’ve read that children’s books have been doing better than some other segments in this recession. Borders even took floorspace from CDs and DVDs to expand children’s books. However, in today’s culture, kids have so many more things calling out for their attention, and the most popular is videogames.

That’s why I LOVE what Egmont is doing. Britain’s Telegraph reported that Danish publisher Egmont (which has a U.S. division, Egmont USA) has signed a deal with EA Games to put children’s books on Nintendo’s DS handheld videogame console. The Telegraph reports that Penguin is involved in the deal too.

The ebooks will be known as Flips and will include Enid Blyton books (a favorite of mine was I was a tyke) and boys’ book Too Ghoul For School.

Egmont owns the rights to Winnie the Pooh (still a favorite of mine), the Mr. Men series (I love Mr. Tickle!!), Thomas the Tank Engine, Wallace & Gromit and Rupert the Bear, so I’d guess it’s only a matter of time before these are on the DS too.

Ereaders and ebooks have been gaining in popularity. The blogosphere and Twitter have been all, well, atwitter with discussions about them. Are they the future? Who knows. I personally don’t think paper books will ever go away completely, but maybe that’s my nostalgia talking.

But the interesting thing about ebooks is the opportunity to attract kids. Kids lock onto gadgets and new technologies faster than anyone, and what better place is there for a book than a handheld videogame console kids carry around all the time?

The key is making the ebooks as fun as the videogames, which could be a challenge with so much less interaction in a book. In the Telegraph article, Egmont’s Rob McMenemy said ebooks won’t be popular with kids until they have color and moving imagery. The Flips will have an interactive element.

I think he’s right. And my hope, is that kids who gain a love for these moving, interactive ebooks will grow up to enjoy the paper kind — or at least regular old digital kind — of stories only books can deliver.

What do you think? What’s the future?

Write On!

Day for bookstores and other links

Current word count: 44,261

New words written: 1,553

Words til goal: 0 / ? words a day til the end of September I finish

Got through most of the story climax today. Just have one more adventure part then the final wrap up chapter. I will DEFINITELY be finished by the end of the this week, I think.

I browsed through some emails today too and found some great links I wanted to share. First, a great idea from Publishers Weekly: National Bookstore Day. The day to celebrate book-selling and the culture of bookstores is Nov. 7, so get ready to party.

Writers Digest is holding a conference right now and, lucky for us, blogging about every minute. Check out the Official Writers Digest Conference blog. I haven’t had a chance to look through it all yet, but there’s plenty to chew on.

Finally, if you want to find out Dan Brown’s secret to success, Slate offers up an interactive Dan Brown plot generator that will give you a plot so you too can write a Dan Brown book. Have fun.

What have you been up to?

Write On!

Save the libraries

Wordcount: zilch, nada, zero

I’m too tired today and my brain was barely working today when I sat down at the computer. After 30 minutes of realizing it just wasn’t going to happen, I quit. But I do have some good news: Driving later, I put the story in my head and a fun idea for my current scene popped into my head quickly. So, whoopee! I’m all ready for tomorrow morning’s writing session.

But enough of that. Today I’m writing about libraries, the places I hope will one day carry all the words I wake up early to write every morning. There’s a tragedy taking place, in case you haven’t heard: All the libraries in Philadelphia — let me repeat that: ALL — will close after the end of business Oct. 2 because they no longer have the necessary budgetary legislation to keep them open.

Libraries are the places that so many readers became book lovers. I know I did. When I was a kid, my local library was my favorite place to go. I loved that I could go in there, give them a card and take home a bunch of books, new, old, beautiful books. I didn’t even mind much that I had to return them, because I could always get more, and I could always take out the same ones again if I wanted. It was like Christmas every day. I loved it.

Today, I mostly buy my books, but I do still love to visit the library. There’s something wonderful about seeing all those shelves just stuffed with books, old, new, tattered, loved.

Editorial Ass reminds us that libraries also are essential for the publishing industry. Publishing houses rely on library buys to help make first print runs. And if publishing houses can’t make their first print runs, they won’t be publishing as many books, which will lower the opportunities for those of us who are already book lovers and those who have yet to discover their wonder.

If libraries close, children, especially those in inner-city areas, will have less access to books, and that’s not a good thing. A book can inspire a child, comfort a child, teach a child, and help a child find ways to deal with the problems he or she deals with every day. Books are important, and so are libraries.

So, do whatever you have to, talk to whomever it may concern, but save our libraries, those in Philadelphia that are destined to close and any others that could be in the same dilemma.

Write On!

Making the dream come true

Current word count: 33,200

New words written: 1,317

Words til goal: 6,800 / 252 words a day til the end of September

On Tuesday, I overslept and didn’t write, but the other days have been slow but I’ve kept up my goals. My day-job has been busy and frying my brain, though — hence no blog posts all week. Sorry!

But today, we have a treat on DayByDayWriter. I am thrilled to have a guest post from Joy Preble, debut author whose Dreaming Anastasia launched in stores Sept. 1. I haven’t read it, but it sounds awesome, and I just love the cover.

Like many of us, when Joy wrote Dreaming Anastasia, she was balancing a dream of writing with a day-job, family and all the other things life throws at us. But, like us, she pursued her dream and now it has come true. Joy didn’t have any special contacts or anything to give her a leg-up in her publishing career. Like us, she had an idea for a story and a desire that wouldn’t quit.

Here’s Joy discussing her inspirational journey to publication. One day I’ll be posting yours!

Preble

So here’s the dirty little secret about writing as a career. It doesn’t initially pay the bills. Okay, there’s Stephenie Meyer. But then there’s the rest of us. And the truth is, I know some people who just take the leap, quite their day job and go for it. Well, I’m not one of them. So what I’m doing instead, is what most writers I know are doing – attempting a precarious balance of writing, other job, family, and personal life. Some days, I think I’m crazy. Mostly, I just don’t think about it too hard. Because the truth is, I’m besotted with happiness that I’m getting to do this thing that I’ve wanted to do forever. Someone is paying me money to write, and I get to have a real book on a shelf in stores all around the world. Can you think of anything better?

Five years ago, I was in my class room after school one day, getting ready to leave. It was a mediocre day in a less than mediocre teaching year, and I was in an equally mediocre mood. Okay, scratch that. I was scraping emotional bottom. I’d been toying with picture book writing and getting the occasional article published here and there, and I was the mom of senior in high school and I was angsty about the whole impending college thing. I’d been writing my whole life, but I’d never really pushed myself. I’d start and stop and start again.

Which was probably exactly what I would have done with this story idea that came into my head that afternoon when it suddenly started raining so hard that I decided to stick around until it let up a bit. The muse didn’t leave me much that day, but she gave me what would eventually become Anne Michaelson, my main character. Anne was smart and funny and snarky and not particularly happy. She knew more than her teachers, and she seemed to want something bigger than what she had. And somehow from there, a story emerged. What if, I wondered, she bumped into someone who could change her life? What if he was handsome and mysterious and had his own problems? What if he told her that she had powers beyond what she imagined? That she could change history? Would she believe him? Would she do what he was telling her she needed to?

And okay, here’s the funny thing: Lots of things changed in that moment. Not the least of which was me.

Let me interject here that it wasn’t quite that easy. I really was having the mother of all horrible school years. I really didn’t know what I wanted to do with my life. And I didn’t just sit down and start writing, the story pouring out of my head all inspired and gooey and oozing with brilliance. In truth, I actually decided to look for another job. Yes, I was just that stubborn about the whole thing. But eventually, for whatever reason, I discovered that this time, the story just wouldn’t let go.

And so I wrote and wrote and wrote. In the fall of 2005, I had a first draft. By the summer of 2006,  I’d signed with an agent at Andrea Brown Literary. And in 2007, Dreaming Anastasia – then titled Spark – sold to Sourcebooks. In between, there were many, many rounds of revision. There was a miraculous moment when two of the agents I’d e-queried during half time on Super Bowl Sunday requested partials. And an equally life-changing moment when my then-agent Michelle Andelman chose to pull me from the slushiest of piles and represent this story that ultimately went on to become a genre-bending combination of fairy tale, fantasy, history, and romance. It was, I suppose, an act of faith for everyone involved.

In between then and now, Michelle left for other work in publishing. I’m now repped by the intrepid and wonderful Jen Rofe. The editor who’d acquired my novel also went on to work elsewhere, and I was placed in the very capable hands of Dan Ehrenhaft. Things could have turned out differently. But they didn’t. Dreaming Anastasia got a totally kick ass cover, and an amazing team of copy editors, and I learned the rest of what goes into making a manuscript into an actual book. (Hint: a lot!)

Dreaming Anastasia has been capturing people’s attention, and as I type this, it’s just a week until release day on September 1st. And mostly what I have learned is that sometimes even dreams you push aside for a very long time, can come true.

Launch day for Homer’s Odyssey

Current word count: 27,525

New words written: 1,122

Words til goal: 12,475 / 347 words a day til the end of September

I got a lot of words done this morning, but I’m working on a tricky chapter and I’m not sure how it’s turning out. We’ll see in the revision. My full word count compared to yesterday’s doesn’t match the new words written today because yesterday I went through the first chapter to get it ready to take to my critique group for last night’s meeting, and I ended up cutting a couple paragraphs. My critique group really seemed to like the first chapter and the premise for the story, though, so that’s really exciting.

Today is the launch day for Homer’s Odyssey by Gwen Cooper, a friend of mine who you might have read about on this blog. Homer is Gwen’s eyeless cat, who has been an inspiration to Gwen and is now an inspiration to the readers who’ve already read this book. If you didn’t catch my earlier posts on Gwen’s new book, here’s one about her cool website and another with the book trailer. I’m so excited for her. A wonderful day.

Gwen has a great story behind her publication of this book, which you can read more about in her article on Open Salon yesterday. She’ll also be on Day By Day Writer with Sept. 11, with a special tribute guest post about her experience with Homer and her other cats on Sept. 11, 2001 (they live in New York City, and the cats were trapped in her apartment) and how she brought that into Homer’s Odyssey.

Later, we’re also going to do an interview with Gwen about her road to publication with her first novel, Diary of a South Beach Party Girl, and now Homer’s Odyssey. It’s a great, inspirational story, so stay tuned.

If you like animal books, and especially cats, check out Homer’s Odyssey. The book has already gained a solid fan base, as Gwen has been giving out some earlier ARCs to cat-loving fans. Check out the great reviews on Amazon.com.

You’ll be celebrating your launch day soon enough. And I’ll be happy to write about it.

Write On!

Guest blogger – Bettina Restrepo on her road to publication

Check-in: Between yesterday and today, I finished the current revision of my first novel. Yay! Now I just need to find some beta readers for it. But my next writing goal is back onto novel number 2, which I’ll be hitting hard to still keep my goal of finishing by the end of September.

Today, I invited Bettina Restrepo to guest blog. Bettina’s debut book, a picture book called Moose and Magpie, was launched recently, and it’s really cute. She did some great innovative things with it, blending a fun story with factual tidbits. Check it out when you get a chance.

As I always find it fascinating to hear about authors’ stories of perservance to publication, I asked Bettina to give us hers. So, without further ado, here’s Bettina:

I believe writing is art and publishing is business and the two mix like oil and water.

My publication path involved writing for magazines, beginning a novel in 2002 (then submitting it about 15 times when it wasn’t ready), being involved with great critique groups, attending as many conferences and classes as possible and reading voraciously. 

It also involved life.  I needed to grow.  I needed patience.  When I first entered this vocation, I wanted everything NOW and TODAY.  I wasn’t ready and thank goodness it didn’t happen.

I landed an agent.  Mr. Wrong.  I got rejected everywhere.  I wrote a second novel.  Mr. Wrong stopped talking to me, so I fired him.  I dove into depression.  I wrote more magazine articles.  I rewrote novel number one.  I went to TLA and make a joke to a publisher about a moose and wrote a picture book.

They said yes.  I nearly pee’d my pants, but I got to work.  I didn’t want this to be my only book.  I wanted to finish my novel.  I needed a website.  I needed to build a school program.  I needed to figure out how to market a book. 

These things took almost two years.  TWO YEARS!!!!  

MOOSE and MAGPIE was born.

I hit the ground running.  In the mean time, I landed the agent.  Ms. Lioness-of-Gold.  She asked me the best questions, I revised.  I signed.  We sold – to Harper Collins.  We’re now revising my second novel, with the third in the works. 

With complete confidence.  I have a new sense of purpose in the writing world.  My moose gave me a push to get things in motion that I had been working on for years.

It took me years to figure this out because I come from a business background where we described things in QUARTERS, and NOW, and TODAY.  Here are a few ideas I think are handy. 

Tips about publishing:

1. The average wait time from acceptance of manuscript to publication is about 3 years.
2. 98% of manuscripts in the slush pile won’t get more than 3 minutes of look time.[1]
3. Many publishing houses will not answer your mail or your phone calls.  (it’s not that they don’t like you.)
4. You need an agent to get the best deal.
5. It’s harder to get an agent than to get a deal.
6. Yes, you need connections and to go to conferences.  But, the work must speak for itself. 
7. Re-read #6.  It’s not about the personality. 
8. Learn that time has no relevance until you get your editorial letter (about a million years from now).  Then, everything needs to be done YESTERDAY.
9. Treat your business and your art as two separate entities.  Spend carefully.  Cultivate wisely.
10. Keep working and revising.  You never know when you hit pay dirt.   

Moose and Magpie, Sylvan Dell Publishing, debuted this summer.   You can reach Bettina at Bettina@bettinarestrepo.com

[1] From the accurate methodology of drunken editors in very loud bars being asked this question over ten years.  I value my objectivity and mathematical prowess.

Author Gwen Cooper’s new website

Current word count: 17,348

Words written today: 526

Words to goal: 22,652 / 371 words a day til the end of September

Additional writing: revised chapter 20 of first novel; 12 left

I’m all about promoting new authors on Day By Day Writer. You’ve probably noticed that many of the authors I’ve interviewed here are debuting authors or those on their second books; they’re not necessarily recognizable names. Not that I wouldn’t turn down J.K. Rowling if she said she wanted to be on this blog , but there’s something great about being able to spread the word about authors who aren’t as well known.

So, today, I’m showcasing Gwen Cooper’s new website, which I think is really cool.

Gwen’s second book, Homer’s Odyssey, will be on shelves on Aug. 25. (I wrote about the book’s trailer in June.) The book is about Gwen’s life with Homer, her fabulous cat who has no eyes. As a friend of Gwen and her husband, I’ve heard fun stories about Homer and am looking forward to reading more in Homer’s Odyssey (love that name!).

The website looks great, and I think it’s a good example of what a good author’s website should be, at least according to a recent blog post on literary agent Nathan Bransford’s blog. According to guest blogger Jordan McCollum, a writer and Internet marketing guru, the top 7 things an author’s website must have are: a blog, social media, search engine presence, professional design, an about page, examples of the writer’s work and a contact page. Gwen has all of these except the social media links, which I don’t think is a crime; there are still plenty of people who don’t regular haunt Facebook and Twitter.

Have you got a website? Whether you’re a published author or aspiring, here’s an opportunity to promote it by posting it in the comments. I’ll make up a page of author websites that will include all the ones you tell me about. And if you’d like to promote your favorite author websites, do that too. Blogs are allowed as well. These are essential marketing tools and useful to look at, so the page will become a good reference tool for all of us. Post away.

Write On!

P.S. Day By Day Writer will be interviewing Gwen on Sept. 11, so stay tuned for that. Maybe we’ll get her to talk about the creation of her website, among other things.

Book trailer for Homer’s Odyssey

A friend of mine’s second book is debuting on Aug. 25, and Random House has issued a fun trailer.

The book, Homer’s Odyssey by Gwen Cooper, is about Gwen’s cat, who has no eyes and manages to roam around as though he has no handicap at all. In the video, Gwen talks about how this adorable cat has inspired her own life. And Homer himself is shown wandering all over Gwen’s New York apartment. Awwww!

Bravo to Random House for doing this video and posting it onlne.

And kudos to Gwen for writing the books. I can’t wait to read it.

Got any fun book trailers you’d like to share?

Write On!

Blog readers and iGoogle

For anyone interested in writing, reading blogs about writing can help in many ways. As well as gaining useful information about the craft of writing and the publishing industry, reading blogs also can help inspire writers and remind us that we’re not alone.

I became an avid writing-blog reader when I got serious about wanting to write fiction full time. Mainly I wanted to suck up whatever information I could. But along the way, I realized that on days that I’m tired or busy or blocked, reading a blog can help me get back on track by simply keeping my mind on track — on writing.

For me, though, unless the blogs were in front of my face, I’d rarely go to them and would forget which ones I liked. That’s when I discovered iGoogle, and I wouldn’t be without it now.

There are many types of blog readers, and iGoogle might not be for you, but as that’s the one I know, that’s what I’m going to talk about and why I think it’s useful. A blog reader is simply a technology that allows you to see the titles of the latest posts of a number of blogs in one place, then you can click through to the blog post and read it on the blog if you’re interested. If you’re into children’s book, the networking site JacketFlap also offers a blog reader.

I use iGoogle because I wanted to have the blogs on my home page and I wanted to also have a Google search bar handy. There’s also a Google search bar in the top right corner of the Web browser, but for whatever reason, I like having the one on my home page. Google is my prefered search tool, so that’s why I went with iGoogle.

The cool thing about iGoogle (and this might be the case with others) is that you can set up the page pretty much any way you’d like. There are loads of widgets you can put on your iGoogle page with your location’s weather, the time and date, the current time in other countries and news feeds from CNN, BBC, etc. I’ve got all those in my right-hand column.

Also, I should point out, all of this is free.

My left two columns are writing blogs, mostly agents and editors because of where I am in my writing right now, but also some writers, and I regularly add new ones and move them around. I put the ones I read the most and find the most useful at the top and the others below, where I have to scroll to get to those. Those are the ones I read maybe a couple times a month when I have time. The ones at the top, I read whenever they post something new.

The other fun thing about iGoogle, which I particularly like as an inspiration tool, is that you can choose out of masses of themes to decorate your iGoogle page, and you can change them whenever you want. I just changed mine yesterday to images from the Hubble, and they rotate all day. I’ve had cartoons, beach pictures, lots of things.

I’ve set my iGoogle page as my home page for my browser, so when I open Internet Explorer, it’s the first page I see and I can immediately see if any of the blogs have posted new items. I’ve also got my daily weather, some news headlines and my Google search bar. So, from there, I can do whatever I want.

A while ago, I was talking to a friend about staying in touch with publishing and writing and how it helps you get motivated to write even in the difficult times. She didn’t have a blog reader, so this past weekend, I set up an iGoogle page for her and put on it a bunch of blogs, including this one, of course.

If you’re interested in doing this, I highly recommend it. I find it very useful to keep up to date without spending a lot of time. And you can find out some really great stuff.

If you’d like to try iGoogle, go to www.igoogle.com and click on the Get Started link under the search bar. It’ll ask you to select your interests, a theme and your location. Then it’ll give you a basic page based on what you clicked. Once you have your page, click on Add Stuff in the top right corner to search for and add widgets like a clock or a to do list, whatever you’d like. On the Add Stuff page, you can also add blogs. Use the Add Feed or Gadget link on the left hand side about half way down the page. Paste the URL of the blog you’d like to add in the window that pops up when you click the link and hit enter. Add as many cool writing blogs as you’d like, then click on Back to iGoogle Page at the top left hand corner. You can move the blogs around on your page by clicking and dragging. Make this your browser’s home page, and keep up to date with your writing news every time you go online.

Got any other tech tips?

Write On!

Retailers are an author’s friends

I know. I was AWOL last week. Sorry.

Actually, I was in Oahu promoting the Sir Newton Color Me Hawaii book. It was an impromtu trip, so I didn’t have time to set up too many events and get good marketing around them. But I did do two retailer events and spent the rest of the time visiting other retailers, both who carried the book and didn’t.

I did signings for the launch of the Sir Newton Color Me Cayman book, the first in the line, and they were successful. But this time, I wanted to do something that I thought would show off the nature of the book more — coloring activities. I made up two sheets featuring coloring pictures from the book then presented them to the kids and their (paying) parents, showing them that there’s more fun, activities and information in the book. The kids got to choose which sheet they would like to color, then when they were done, I gave them the other sheet to do at home plus a sticker of the book’s host, Sir Newton. All of the kids at both sessions seemed as though they had a great time, although I have to admit, I think they liked the sticker best of all. Go figure. The main thing is that the book got some exposure — and some extra sales — and the kids and my husband and I had fun doing the sessions.

The rest of our time in Oahu, my husband and I visited retailers who are already carrying the book, telling them thanks for the support, giving them my business card and letting them know we’re available to help them in any way they might need. One store manager seemed a little resistent when we first went in, as though he was bracing himself for expected complaints. I can’t be sure if this was really case, but when I said we just wanted to come in and say hi and thank the store for its support, he seemed genuinely surprised. And by the end of the conversation, he actually looked happy I had come in, which was a contrast to his first expression. I had asked if he gets a lot of authors coming in the store and he said, “Yeah, every day,” and the way he said it, he didn’t make it sound very pleasant. So my immediate thought was that he had had complaints from authors in the past. Again, I can’t be sure, but if that’s the case, it’s a shame.

The truth is that authors like us need retailers. We need them to stock our books, display them on shelves and recommend them to customers. Because without readers, we’re not authors. Sure we can be writers, but an author is someone who publishes books, and to publish books is to sell them, to have an audience that reads them. And to sell them, we need to promote them, but we also need the help of retailers.

As authors, retailers are our friends, and expressing your appreciation for their support and making yourself available to help them sell your books is good. Retailers will thank you for it. The ones I met did — every single one of them. It was worth it.

The other thing we did in Oahu (we didn’t have time to visit the other Hawaiian islands) was scout out stores that weren’t carrying our book that we thought should be. Although local residents can be entertained by our book, it’s geared toward tourists. And my husband and I found a number of tourist-styled stores that were not carrying our book. We took the book around with us, showed it, explained its benefits for their customers, and we got names that we can pass on to our distributor to close the sales.

So, get out and visit the retailers in your area. If they carry your book, tell them thanks. If they don’t, show them your book and explain why they should. Make friends with them. Retailers and authors need each other.