Cover, cover, who's got the cover?

It's the rare book cover that is done entirely by a commissioned artist or has a photo shoot set up for it. Often the cover is made up of stock images, sometimes manipulated. Cases in point:
















Gotta remember to ask my publishers to print my next cover in purple, because Evermore ended up on both the NY Times bestseller list and the USA Today bestseller list!

If you like cover art, check out http://jacketwhys.wordpress.com .

Best Vanity Plate Ever!

And it's even from Oregon!

I wrote a whole series of books featuring a vanity licnese plate verifier (there actually are such people), starting with Circles of Confusion.

My own vanity plate is TUVWXY which no one ever, ever gets. Ever.

Get me redesign!

I've got a new favorite book blog: Book Ninja. Back in October, they challenged readers to rebrand serious books with more sales-friendly covers.

The winner? Ingrid Olson redid The Road, the most depressing apocalyptic book you could imagine, as a parenting how-to.

Click here to see more.

Guess who's written a "sizzling political thriller"?

Guess who's written a "sizzling political thriller" with a "seamless plot that offers a plethora of twists and turns"?

According to Publishers Weekly, Lis Wiehl and I have. [Full disclosure: I'm also referred to as a "mystery veteran," which makes me sound like I've gone to war.] The book in question, Face of Betrayal, publishes April 7.

For the past week, I've been dreaming of seeing the review. In my dreams, I would look on line, but I couldn't find it. Or I could find it, but the words would get blurry when I tried to read it. Reality was much better than my dreams - it was all praise without a single quibble!

Teens were sentenced to bootcamps so judges could get kickbacks!

As anyone who has read Shock Point can tell you, I'm not a big fan of boot camps for teens.

But this is beyond belief. Two Pennsylvania judges who have been charged with taking millions of dollars in kickbacks to send teenagers to two privately run youth detention centers. One girl was "sentenced to a wilderness camp for building a spoof MySpace page that lampooned her assistant principal." Another boy spent months in a boot camp because his FRIEND stole some DVDS.

Read more here.

Come celebrate Oregon's 150th birthday with me!

Oregon turns 150 on Valentine's Day. To celebrate, the Central Library in Portland is having an event February 14, 2:30-4 p.m.! Light refreshments will be served.

Special guests will include:

April Henry, author [AKA - me!]
Barbara Drake, poet
Candy Bertelson, librarian
David Schmitke, reporter
Gabriel Boehmer, author
Helen Raptis, television host
Henk Pander, artist
Janet Irwin, librarian
Jose Holguin, radio/TV personality
Laura Foster, author
Manuel Arellano, library staff member
Martin Gonzalez, PPS schoolboard member
Rocio Rios, newspaper editor
Ross Huffman-Kerr, actor

The speakers are going in alphabetical order by first name - so it's good to start with A!

For more information, click here.

Good publishing news for so many friends!

From Publishers Lunch:
Amanda Marrone's THE MAGIC REPAIR SHOP CHRONICLES three-book series in which a twelve-year old girl takes on an apprenticeship in a magic repair shop, to Kate Angelella at Aladdin, by Wendy Schmalz at Wendy Schmalz Agency (World).

Edgar Award winner Robin MacCready's SNAPSHOT, in which a girl discovers her father has a secret life, to Christy Ottaviano at Christy Ottaviano Books, by Wendy Schmalz at Wendy Schmalz Agency (World).

Author of the NYT bestseller WAKE Lisa McMann's next paranormal stand-alone, again to Jennifer Klonsky at Simon Pulse, for publication in spring 2011, by Michael Bourret at Dystel & Goderich Literary Management (World).

Adrienne Maria Vrettos's untitled NYC mystery, in which a teenage girl wakes up in a nearly empty subway car to find herself in an unfamiliar costume and makeup, with no memory of what's happened to her in the three days since Halloween; it will take her five days to figure out why she only has six days to live, to Lisa Cheng at Margaret K. McElderry Books, for publication in Spring 2011, by Tracey Adams at Adams Literary (US).

The Love that Dares Not be Put on a Shelf

School Library Journal has an interesting article about self-censorship. School librarians only have so many dollars at their disposal. They can't buy every book. So how often does self-censorship factor in: librarians choosing not to buy a book that they feel might lead to parental challenges and protests?

"In the first survey of its kind, School Library Journal (SLJ) recently asked 655 media specialists about their collections and found that 70 percent of librarians say they won’t buy certain controversial titles simply because they’re terrified of how parents will respond. Other common reasons for avoiding possible troublemakers include potential backlash from the administration (29 percent), the community (29 percent), or students (25 percent), followed by 23 percent of librarians who say they won’t purchase a book due to personal objections."

Librarians "tend to be skittish about book purchases for obvious reasons. Sexual content ranks number one, with 87 percent of those surveyed by SLJ saying it’s the main reason they shy away from buying a book. Objectionable language (61 percent) comes in second, followed by violence (51 percent), homosexual themes (47 percent), racism (34 percent), and religion (16 percent)."

Read more here.

I chose to self-sensor a tiny bit with the paperback of Shock Point, after a middle school student in Texas raised his hand at a school visit and asked me why I used "the b word." When I thought about it, the word wasn't needed. The book was suspensful enough whether or not the bad guys said it. So I asked that it be taken out.

The series I'm writing with Lis Wiehl is for Thomas Nelson, so it is squeaky clean. Characters can't even say "Jeez," let alone "the f word." It's frankly more of a problem to think of how a bad guy would talk in those books and not swear.

Happy anniversary to me!

Today marks one year of no nylons, no commute, no boring meetings, no creative briefs, no makeup, and no fixed schedule. No more trying to channel the latest CEO’s not-very-well-articulated thoughts. A year where my life has been my life. A year of trying to make a living as a writer

Sure on the flip side, it also marks a year with no company-provided benefits, no company adding to a pension, and watching our retirement and Teen’s college savings lose about 40 percent of their value.

But I’ve also signed contracts for five books, written three or four (if you add all the pieces up), started running four days a week (in the winter, when I was working, I could only run one or two), and discovered that I’m not lonely (which was one of my big fears).

Would I do it again, knowing the economy was going to tank?

Yes. Shaking and trembling, but yes. Because it was getting to the point that work was soul-crushing.

This pretty much describes my old job.