Did you get an ereader for Christmas?

Did you get an e-reader for Christmas? Do you like it?  [Full disclosure: I would love to have an i-Pad, but right now that falls under the category of "wants," not "needs."]

Anyway, if you are looking for some inexpensive books to load on your e-reader, I have an immodest suggestion:  mine! All five that I've put up were originally traditionally published and got good reviews. Learning to Fly and Buried Diamonds originally came out from St. Martins.  The other three came out from Harper Collins.  I'm pricing them all at just $2.99.


Learning to Fly: A Novel has been optioned for film twice, translated into three languages (I actually made a ton of money in France), and went into four printings.  It was a finalist for the Oregon Book Award and the PNBA award, and got got two starred reviews. It's about a pregnant 19-year-old girl named Free who hates her life - and then she walks away from a multi-car accident with a dead woman's ID and a bag of cash that originally belonged to a drug dealer.


Circles of Confusionwas my first published book (the fourth I wrote, though).  Claire Montrose inherits what might be a long-lost Vermeer painting.  A Booksense pick, and a finalist for both the Agatha and the Anthony awards.  I went to a lot of banquets the year after it came out, and let me tell you, it's impossible to eat while you wait for them to announce the awards.


Square in the Face was the second in Claire's adventures.  Claire helps her friend track down the child she gave up to a secret adoption agency.  Finding the girl is the only chance for a bone marrow match for a younger sibling.  This was inspired by an experience that happened to my brother's friend.


In Heart-Shaped Box, Claire goes to her 20th high school reunion.  At the beginning, a cheerleader is found strangled to death.  In her hands is a hand carved wooden box with her photo in it.  Claire and a number of other women at the reunion have also received boxes.  Next to Circles of Confusion, this is probably the most popular book in the series.


Buried Diamonds explores a 50-year-old mystery - and reveals the hidden past of Claire's roommate.  This was a darker book.  It was a worthy end to the series.

Here's a link to all my books on the Kindle.

All these books should be available on any e-reader platform (I went through Amazon for the Kindle and Smashwords for everything else).  Don't have any e-reader?  There's a free Kindle app available for both Macs and PCs.

Cynthia Leitich-Smith gets me to spill the beans

New York Times bestselling author Cynthia Leitich-Smith has what has to be the best-read blog in all of kids' lit.  It was a dream come true when she asked me to write about how to turn up the tension in any kind of book.

Bad books!

Have you read any of these bad books?

- The Joy Luck Club
- The Name of the Rose
- The Pillars of the Earth
- The Hot Zone
- The Giver
- The Things They Carried

Those are just few of the "bad books" listed by PABBIS.org - Parents Against Bad Books in Schools.  [Full disclosure:  I think of it as Pablum.org].  People have gone through books and looked for any instance of sex, sexual innuendo, violence, swear words, and mentions of God that aren't prayer.  And then these books, with a handful of cherry-picked words or sentences, are labeled "bad."

In case you were wondering how The Hot Zone, a non-fiction book warning about exotic viruses, ended up on the naughty list, here's what's wrong with it, according to PABBIS:  "Has graphic detailed descriptions of the effects of the Ebola virus on the body [really?  in a book about viruses?  How dare they!];  4 uses of the f-word, 16 uses of the s-word, 4 SOB’s, 1 bastard, 2 Christ’s/Holy Christ’s, 1 GD; Brief mentions of pimps/prostitutes, how someone’s [testicles] swelled up “like a blue monkey’ and a statement of how a man infected his wife through sexual intercourse."

The whole idea makes my blood boil.  Check it out here:  http://pabbis.org

To learn more about book banning, click here.

What world are these folks living in?  In my world, a girl who goes to my daughter's school was given a box of 300 condoms by her mother for her 14th birthday.  An f word or an s word or GD is not going to ruin kid's ears (or eyes).

In the Bible, Lot had sex with his daughters.  Or how about "Your breasts are like twin fawns of a gazelle"?  And don't get me started on all the violence in the Bible.

Buy a gift (even for yourself) and help Bridget kick cancer!

This is Bridgett Zinn and Barrett Dowell in February, 2009, the day they got married at Emanuel Hospital in Portland.  It was at Emanuel that Bridget was diagnosed with Stage Four colon cancer.  I had met Bridget and Barrett just a few months before, at an SCWBI meeting

After receiving treatment in Portland for 18 months, Bridget and Barrett are now traveling to Phoenix one week every month for innovative treatment at the Cancer Treatment Centers of America. Not all of their costs for this promising treatment are covered by insurance. Bridget and Barrett's friends and family are rallying to help them pay the bills so that they can focus on Bridget's health and kick cancer. Artists, authors, and other friends and acquaintances have donated items in the spirit of love and hope.

The Bridget Kicks Cancer: Season of Love and Hope Auction is off and running. Between now and December 4, you can place a bid on 114 items and services. Get a unique gift for a loved one (or even yourself) and do a good deed at the same time.

There's:
- Jewelry
- Portrait photography
- Tutoring
- Personalized animation
- A beach house rental
- Original artwork
- Professional manuscript critiques (including one by me!)
- and of course books, books, and more books, most signed by the authors!

We've already raised about $2,500 for Bridget.  It's amazing what love can do.

To view and bid on items, visit the auction site at http://bit.ly/bridgetauction and follow the instructions for bidding.

The action ID is: bridgetkicks and the password is: cancer. (People will need this information if you send them a link to a specific item, or if they use any link other than the one above.)

Another reason to hate James Frey

I already disliked James Frey for screwing up books being a regular feature of Oprah show.  Now there’s a new reason to hate him:  he’s got a work-for-hire fiction factory to churn out YA books - and it has to be read about to be believed.

In a story in New York Magazine, a MFA graduate who was considered for one of the projects Frey was offering explains the terms:  “This is the essence of the terms being offered by Frey’s company Full Fathom Five: In exchange for delivering a finished book within a set number of months, the writer would receive $250 (some contracts allowed for another $250 upon completion), along with a percentage of all revenue generated by the project, including television, film, and merchandise rights—30 percent if the idea was originally Frey’s, 40 percent if it was originally the writer’s. The writer would be financially responsible for any legal action brought against the book but would not own its copyright. Full Fathom Five could use the writer’s name or a pseudonym without his or her permission, even if the writer was no longer involved with the series, and the company could substitute the writer’s full name for a pseudonym at any point in the future. The writer was forbidden from signing contracts that would “conflict” with the project; what that might be wasn’t specified. The writer would not have approval over his or her publicity, pictures, or biographical materials. There was a $50,000 penalty if the writer publicly admitted to working with Full Fathom Five without permission.”

This is a pretty raw deal.

Read more about Frey’s scheme here.

And YA author Maureen Johnson explains in more detail why this is so wrong.

Bridget still needs you!

Remember Bridget, this beautiful young writer who lives in Portland? Three things happened to Bridget in 2009:
1. She got a two-book offer for her young adult novel.
2. She got married.
3. She found out she has Stage Four colon cancer.

Here is the latest from Bridget:

“Everyone must be thinking, Bridget, come on, aren’t you done having cancer yet? I am totally with you. I'm ready to move on to something more fun. But cancer doesn't seem to be quite done with me yet.

“Over the past year and a half, I've had chemotherapy every two weeks, almost non-stop. There was that little "vacation" for surgery. I've been over a range of treatments. On some of the less harsh treatments (chemo is no joke-less harsh does NOT mean easy), we've had glorious little stretches of a few days, sometimes even a week at a time when we could almost pretend that things were normal. And there were some chemo regimes that didn't really give us much of that. But we found joy where we could and Barrett and I are talented at finding joy. The “Summer of Love” celebrations back in Wisconsin, all of the book signings, fifth Fridays and social gatherings we were able to attend back home in Portland were extraordinary high points.

“But we reached a stopping point with my treatments at OHSU--we had a setback but no real options left to turn to in Portland. So we decided to try Cancer Treatment Center of America in Phoenix, AZ. They showed us a good eight options to try and that was just the beginning. They are committed to providing options for their patients and their motto is "care that never quits" so they never give up on you. This, along with their survival rate for people with my type of cancer being statistically higher than the national average, really helped nudge us in this direction. This first treatment was a little rougher on me than they expected but they're going to help us continue to plan and move forward with something that works on the cancer and allows us as many of those glorious stretches of normalcy as possible.”

How can you help? It’s simple. In the spirit of Bridget and Barrett’s Summer of Love,” let’s keep it going with an online auction, “Bridget Kicks Cancer: Season of Love and Hope,” from November 22-December 4. Please consider donating an item to the auction (and bidding on items once the auction is underway). Items that have been popular and successful in previous auctions include:

· Author and writer services: critiques, help with social networking
· Autographed books
· Handcrafted jewelry
· Local services: wine tours, house rentals, wine packages
· Original Artwork: perhaps design an 8 x 10 -12 x 24 around the theme of “Season of Love” (paying homage to Bridget’s “Summer of Love”), offer to commission a piece of art, or donate an existing piece
· Handcrafted greeting cards

I am donating a manuscript critique that would be perfect for anyone who writes YA, mysteries, and/or thrillers.

If you would like to donate, go to http://bit.ly/bridgetkickscancer. Donations must be in by November 19, 2010.

Items will be listed in an online auction at http://32auctions.com/ beginning Monday, November 22, 2010. Donors will be responsible for shipping their item to the winning bidder. Since this is around the holidays, send items as soon as possible after we notify you that payment has been received. Thank you!

If you would like to follow Bridget's blog or just find out more about her, you can do so at http://www.bridgetzinn.com.

How long before someone stages an intervention?

My Kajukenbo class is the most challenging - and yet fun - physical activity I have ever done. I grew up uncoordinated, the girl who pulled straight As except for Cs in PE. I could not dance to Winchester Cathedral. I nearly broke my knee on the pommel horse. I was so skinny that I sank rather than floated in swimming. I once managed to swing the bat in front of the softball I had just hit, so it bounced back and hit me in the eye.

One of things we do in class is practice getting out of all kinds of holds and grabs. I'm starting to wonder how long it will be before someone hands me a card for a women's shelter.



Last night the Kajukenbo instructor tried to get me over my fear of sparring by putting me in the bullring with every other person in class - one after another.

I actually landed a few punches and kicks. Probably wincing the whole time.

But watch out world, I'm learning. Better not mess with me.

Anyone can write a book! (with some help)

New York Post's Page Six has an interview with the ever-articulate Hilary Duff.

"“I wrote a book, so it goes to show you that anyone can write a book if they have an idea,” says Hilary Duff, who’s not exactly “anyone.” The newlywed, 23-year-old pop singer, “Lizzie McGuire” star and fashion designer just came out with “Elixir” (Simon & Schuster), the young-adult novel she wrote with Elise Allen."

Yup! All she needed was an idea and someone to turn that idea into a book!

Of The Hunger Games, she says, "I’m going to do a terrible job of explaining it because, like my book, it’s very complicated."

About Eclipse, she says, "it’s so genius."

Click here to be inspired.

Dead parents in books for teens

Editor - and author herself - Leila Sales takes issue with the number of dead parents in books for teens.

For the record, I’ve had written teen with parents (Shock Point), teen with older adoptive parents (Torched), and one dead mom (Girl, Stolen. The dead mom is barely mentioned - the step-mom gets more air time. And she’s nice) (although I guess another character has a mom who took off).

She thinks writers who create characters with dead parents are guilty of lazy writing - because they don’t have to show their relationships, because it creates instant empathy, and third because grownups are boring (although I don’t quite follow why that is lazy writing).

And I think she undermines her own argument when she says, “Adult characters put a damper on the kid-only adventures that make children's books fun. But there are solutions to this problem other than just killing them off. Set the book at boarding school, summer camp, or another parent-free zone. Create parents who are clueless or uninvolved, à la Harriet the Spy. Fade their role into the background.” This is the only part that bolsters her argument about laziness. “Write parents who actually have something to contribute to the story, who aren't just a barrier between the kids and fun.”

I think one reason there are so many dead parents is because the teens need to fix things on their own. No parent or parents means one less person to interfere.

You can read her article here.

What do you think about the issue of dead parents?

Why a brush with death triggers the slo-mo effect

A scientist who had a brush with death as a child wondered why during such times time seems to slow down. He came up with a hypotheses - but first he had to figure out a way to test it.

NPR reports: ""We went on all of the scariest roller coasters, and we brought all of our equipment and our stopwatches, and had a great time," David says. "But it turns out nothing there was scary enough to induce this fear for your life that appears to be required for the slow-motion effect." But, after a little searching, David discovered something called SCAD diving. (SCAD stands for Suspended Catch Air Device.) It's like bungee jumping without the bungee."

Read “Why A Brush With Death Triggers The Slow-Mo Effect”.

I bet these two authors had a sinking feeling...

It's every authors worst nightmare: you spend years writing a book with an unusual angle - only to find out that someone else is coming out with a book covering the exact same thing. Even though the two books will probably be quite different, is there space in people's limited attention spans to remember both?

What it you could taste something that is not normally associated with taste - like a word or an emotion? Two authors, both with books out this summer, explored the same unusual premise.

In Bitter in the Mouth: A Novel, 30-something Linda has the ability to taste the words she hears. This is "lexical-gustatory synesthesia," which according to Wikipedia "is one of the rarer forms of synesthesia, in which spoken or written words evoke vivid sensations of taste, sometimes including temperature and texture (e.g., for lexical-gustatory synesthete JIW, 'jail' tastes of cold, hard bacon)."Despite its starred review from Publisher's Weekly, I think the book is going to have a hard time finding traction because of:

The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake: A Novel. PW says, "Bender's narrator is young, needy Rose Edelstein, who can literally taste the emotions of whoever prepares her food, giving her unwanted insight into other people's secret emotional lives—including her mother's, whose lemon cake betrays a deep dissatisfaction."

The cat who came in from the cold

Yesterday around 1 in the afternoon, I went out to get the mail. And who comes trotting up the driveway?

The cat.

The stray cat.

The stray cat I took to Multnomah County Animal Shelter on Friday.

The shelter is 30 miles away. It's not even in Multnomah County. And there's a river in between us and the shelter. Plus two freeways.

The cat did not look any worse for wear.

I grew up reading my parents' Readers Digest. So immediately I knew: I could parlay this into one of those "Amazing Animal" stories about pets who find their owners even after they move out of state! It was a miracle! A miracle that might earn me $2 per word!

I picked her up and called the shelter. While I waited on hold, I opened a can of tuna. Albacore tuna. Because I had given all the cat food we bought to the shelter. .

Me: I dropped off a cat there on Friday and now it's at my house again.
Shelter: What's your name? (Tap, tap, tap) No, the cat is still here.
Me: What? I'm holding her right now.
Shelter (somewhat patronizingly): Maybe it's a different cat that just looks like the cat we have.
Me (could the cat have a twin? Is there a whole litter of identical cats out there and I'll have to bring them one at a time to the shelter?): I grew up with cats and I'm pretty sure it's the same cat.
Shelter: Let me go back to the cattery. (long pause while I wonder if I am going crazy): Oh. It looks like the owner just picked it up.
Me: Owner? Then why is she so scrawny?
Shelter: Our records show that she is old, has broken teeth, and a heart murmur. Sometimes when a cat is old, it loses weight.
Me: But she's got fleas. And no collar.
Shelter: Hm.

The shelter also gave me the address for the owner, which is about a block away. Ever since the cat has been back, she's been living in my driveway again.

Okay, now if you loved your cat, would you:
- let her live outdoors?
- where the street is busy?
- and there are signs up warning about a mama coyote and her pup stalking cats in the area?
- without a collar or chip?

I guess I'll stop feeding her and I won't put back out the bed we made. She hasn't gotten the message though. She still thinks she belongs here.

I would let her live here, but there's the little matter of Spouse's inability to breath.

Super Sad True Love Story

Gary Shteyngart third novel, Super Sad True Love Story: A Novel, is a black comedy set in a futuristic America. A future that is drawing ever nearer -- where books don't exist, the economy has collapsed, and the only two televisions stations are Fox Liberty-Prime and Fox Liberty-Ultra. I'm not sure I've ever seen another book get stars across the board - Kirkus, Booklist, Publishers Weekly.

I was lucky enough to see Gary at Powells on Wednesday. And even though I came 15 minutes early, it was already a standing room only crowd. He waited for his entrance right in front of me, so I got to hear the unconscious noises one makes when one is being talked about to a crowd.

His reading was incredibly funny, complete with gestures and accents. The question and answer period was even better - he so sharp that sometimes you didn't even realize he was joking. Like one guy said he had just been reading The Shallows: What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains, which talks about what the Internet is doing to our brains and our attention spans. As the man was still asking his question, Gary started a bit, pulled out his iPhone and began to say, "Uh huh, uh huh," as he tapped away on the tiny screen. We're so used to this kind of half-assed attention that it took a few seconds for everyone to begin laughing.

The line for getting a signed copy was long. Two people ahead of me, the guy had several books, with weird instructions for each: "Write something random in Russian, but don't tell me what it says." "In this one, draw a stick figure." Gary gamely complied. The guy ahead of me brought a Kindle and a special pen so Gary could sign the back. There was some debate as to how large he should make the signature (since it was the first of presumably many) and then some fumbling as Gary tried to take a picture with his iPhone while simultaneously signing.

Read and hear more about the author and the book here - including an interview with NPR's Terry Gross.

I take it all back - Kirkus rocks!!

Did I ever say Kirkus could be kranky? Did I complain about the review in which I changed sex?

Well, I didn't mean it.

Not one word.

Not after this review from Kirkus for Girl, Stolen.

"This can't-put-it-down crime thriller unfolds through the viewpoints of both victim and criminal. Sixteen-year-old Cheyenne , blinded in an accident that killed her mother three years earlier, has pneumonia. As she sleeps in the back of her stepmother's car, Griffin steals it, inadvertently kidnapping her. Once Griffin 's car-thief father learns she's wealthy, he decides to demand ransom. When the hapless Griffin realizes his dad and cronies will kill the girl to protect their identities, he tries to protect her. Clearly, the author did extensive research on blindness and its challenges. Her realistic depiction of the coping strategies and the strengths developed by the blind greatly enhances the novel, lifting it above the level of a mere escapist thriller. Characterizations make an impact, with both Cheyenne and Griffin becoming quite appealing; much suspense revolves around Griffin 's divided loyalties. The slightly ambiguous ending highlights Cheyenne 's ambivalent feelings toward Griffin . Although Cheyenne 's multiple problems might feel overdone in less skilled hands, Henry handles them deftly and makes her choices work. Constantly interesting and suspenseful. (Thriller. 12 & up)"

All you authors out there know how much this means, how you wait and wait for reviews, feeling slightly sick to your stomach, knowing how much a bad one stings. This is so good I can't take it in!

Adopted girl finds out mother is murderer

27 years ago this week, Diane Downs said a bushy-haired stranger shot her and her three kids, killing one of them. The shooting occurred about 90 minutes from here, and I still remember the terror that swept the state. Such a horror. I also remember looking at the composite drawing and thinking about the words "bushy-haired stranger" and feeling a little bit of doubt.

She was ultimately charged with the shootings. The motive was thought to be a new boyfriend who didn't want kids. At the trial, Christie Ann Downs, who was 8 at the time of the shooting, and who suffered injuries that affected one arm and her speech, testified that her mother shot her and her siblings. Cheryl Lynn Downs, 7, was killed. Three-year-old Stephen Downs was paralyzed from the waist down. In an odd twist, Christie Ann and Stephen were adopted by the prosecutor.

Ann Rule wrote a book about it called Small Sacrifices: A True Story of Passion and Murder (Signet).

Downs was pregnant at the time of her sentencing, and gave birth to a girl a few days later. Now Glamour magazine has the story of the girl Downs was pregnant with - Rebecca Babcock. "Rebecca Babcock always knew she was adopted, but at 16 she was rocked by the discovery that her birth mother, Diane Downs, was a murderer, convicted of shooting her own children."

The story is co-written by Eric Mason. The article says he is now a PI, but used to be a TV reporter. Eric interviewed me - twice! - about my books. It's a small world.

Read more about Rebecca here. While she is seeking a co-writer for her life story, I think it would be a great starting point for a novel.

Look what I found!

This past week, I have seen the strangest assortment of stuff while I've been running:
- a dead mole
- 2 dead rats (I'm starting to worry about bubonic plague)
- 2 pairs of women's panties (in different locations)
- in someone's garage, a Christmas stocking hanging next to a (presumably model) human skull
- amazingly beautiful flowers
- and this! an actual library checkout card! (for May Bird Among the Stars: Book Two)



I didn't know they still used library checkout cards. For me, they bring back so many memories. When I was a kid, you could only check out six books at one time, but the librarian wisely decided the rule didn't apply to me. And my first job was at a library, where I often typed out new cards, as well as filed them when books were checked out.

Making new cards was probably a kind of penance for another memory I have of library checkout cards, which used to be made of a thicker card stock than the one I found. When I was a kid, we were pretty poor.

How poor, you ask?

So poor that we got one pair of shoes per school year and knew we needed to make them last. Seeing as how we bought our shoes at Leeds or Kinneys (cheap chains that probably have long since bit the dust), they didn't. I would get holes in the sole of my shoes. And library checkout cards were the perfect thing to put in the bottom.

A commercial for Kinney Shoes:

Local Children's Author Pleads Guilty to Possessing Porn

Luckily, I never met KP Bath, the author of two middle-grade books - The Secret of Castle Cant, and Escape From Castle Cant - even though he lives less than 10 miles from me. [In a rather creepy coincidence, the ad displayed on the Amazon page says I can find Portland-area babysitters. Trust me, this guy is not someone you would want watching your kids.]

Yesterday he pleaded guilty to possessing child porn. And not just any child porn. "Prosecutors have alleged that some of the images were of infants, toddlers and prepubescent children, some of whom were bound and appeared to be the victims of sadistic and violent behavior."

Little Brown dropped him after he was arrested. He was supposed to have a new book out last fall. It's possible I would have reviewed it for the Oregonian.

The full story.

I'm not a believer in the death penalty, but it's hard to think that a person like this could ever be rehabilitated.

Bribery works!

A couple of years back, we did something that seemed kind of radical for Teen. We stopped giving her a flat allowance and started paying her to read and play musical instruments.

I always felt a bit defensive about it. But now comes some scientific proof that that sort of thing works. A researcher studied five different ways to improve student performance. For each method, there were matched control schools. Success was measured by performance on standardized tests.

The most successful method: “Paying second-graders to read books significantly boosted their reading-comprehension scores on standardized tests at the end of the year — and those kids seemed to continue to do better the next year, even after the rewards stopped.”

Other efforts had more mixed success. These including paying for better grades, better test scores and better behavior.

Adults are motivated by money. Would many of us work at our jobs if there was no pay? Why should kids be any different?
Read more about the study here.

The path to success

I've been reading The Art of War for Writers: Fiction Writing Strategies, Tactics, and Exercises, and really enjoying it.

One thing I especially liked was this:


It is, I believe, a diagram of a realistic path to success.

From the bottom up
At the bottom are people who "want to" write, maybe write a very little, but abandon it and don't move on to the next level.

Next up are people who are trying to learn something about writing, through books, conferences, classes, critique groups.

And some from that group will actually finish their novels.

And while they try to find a publisher for that finished novel, they start a new one (or ones), because most people don't have their first novels published. (For me, it was my fourth book. It sold in three days. It was like a seven-year, overnight success.)

If they persevere, if they keep learning, keep writing, then eventually they get published.

And if keep at it, they are multi-published. (Are there times when your career might seem dead, when you can't get anyone to bite, even after you are published? For me, yes, there have been times. But I always figured the only one who could take me out of the game was me.)

And James Bell's diagram shows that having a breakout hit is not something you can really control. Every now and then the Ferris wheel dips down and picks you up and carries you off. I had that happen last year when Lis Wiehl's and my first book together showed up on the NY Times bestseller list.

Want to read my next book - Girl, Stolen?

Want to read my next book - Girl, Stolen?

Come on, you know you do. ;-)

Here’s the description: “In Girl, Stolen, 16-year-old Cheyenne Wilder is napping in the back of the car while her stepmom fills her prescription. Before Cheyenne realizes what’s happening, someone is stealing the car - with her inside. Griffin hadn’t meant to kidnap Cheyenne; all he planned to do was take the car. But when Griffin’s dad finds out that Cheyenne’s dad is the president of a powerful corporation, everything changes - now there’s a reason to keep her. How will Cheyenne survive this nightmare? She’s not only sick - she’s blind.”

Girl, Stolen comes out in October. But I’ve been hearing from some enthusiastic readers/bloggers/reviewers who want to get their hands on an Advanced Readers Copy (which looks just like the real book, except done as a softcover, not a hardback). I feel terrible I can’t send ARCs to every one of you. But I do have two I can share, and I’d like to launch them on a whirlwind trip.

What I'm proposing is to send my ARCs off on a cross-country adventure. Each of my two ARCs will make stops at the homes of interested readers, who will then send it on in turn.

Would you like your home/office/school to be a pit stop on the road trip for Girl, Stolen? Then leave your email address in the comments.

That means you - yes, you! - will get to read Girl, Stolen months before it comes out. The only catch is that you’ll have to send it on to the next reader after you’re finished, which means you have to pay for postage. And since there will be more readers waiting after you, you have to swear on a stack of Bibles that you won’t let it lie around, gathering dust.

If this sounds like your kind of deal, just leave me your email.

Doing the Monster Mash (up)

Time magazine looks at the latest mashup, from the guy who brought you Pride and Prejudice and Zombies. He wrote that book in two months, it sold more than a million copies, and now it's being made into a movie starring Natalie Portman.

"The conceit of Abraham Lincoln is that Grahame-Smith — his very name is a mashup! — has come into possession of Lincoln's secret diaries detailing his life as a stalker of vampires. As a frontiersboy, Lincoln loses his mother to the undead and swears lifelong vengeance. A giant among men — he was 6 ft. 4 in. (1.9 m) tall — Lincoln adopts the ax, that most American of edged weapons, as the tool of his trade, hiding it inside his signature long black coat."

Read the rest of the Time article here.

And, in a rather unlikely mash up, you can listen to a radio program that featured:
- Seth Grahame-Smith, author of “Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter,"
- Elizabeth Richmond-Garza, professor of English and teacher of a course called “The Uncanny,” which explores how the bizarre and unexpected feature in the art, music, literature and film of the last hundred years, and
- Doris Kearns Goodwin, Pulitzer Prize-winning historian and Lincoln biographer.

You can hear the show here.

The Happiness Project

I recently read and enjoyed The Happiness Project: Or, Why I Spent a Year Trying to Sing in the Morning, Clean My Closets, Fight Right, Read Aristotle, and Generally Have More Fun.

The author, Gretchen Rubin, focused on a different area of her life each month. But she didn't forget her goals from the previous month - she rolled them forward so that by the end of the year she was trying to be happy in 12 different areas.

To begin with, she developed 12 personal commandments. They were:
1. Be Gretchen.
2. Let it go.
3. Act as I want to feel.
4. Do it now.
5. Be polite and be fair.
6. Enjoy the process.
7. Spend out.
8. Identify the problem.
9. Lighten up.
10. Do what ought to be done.
11. No calculation.
12. There is only love.

She also came up with what she called the secrets of adulthood:
The days are long, but the years are short.
Someplace, keep an empty shelf.
Turning the computer on and off a few times often fixes a glitch.
It's okay to ask for help.
You can choose what you do; you can't choose what you LIKE to do.
Happiness doesn't always make you feel happy.
What you do EVERY DAY matters more than what you do ONCE IN A WHILE.
You don't have to be good at everything.
Soap and water removes most stains.
It's important to be nice to EVERYONE.
You know as much as most people.
Over-the-counter medicines are very effective.
Eat better, eat less, exercise more.
What's fun for other people may not be fun for you -- and vice versa.
People actually prefer that you buy wedding gifts off their registry.
Houseplants and photo albums are a lot of trouble.
If you're not failing, you're not trying hard enough.
No deposit, no return.

If I was going to add one for myself, it would be:
- If you have a nagging feeling that maybe you shouldn't send an email or post something or comment on something - then WAIT. (following this rule would have saved me a lot of grief over the years)

What would you add?

I've got a new website!

http://aprilhenrymysteries.com

What do you think?

How to have a successful reading

Over at Shelf Awareness, author Chuck Thompson lists six rules for better readings:
1. Don't Read for More Than Five Minutes at a Time. Ever!
2. Get the Crowd Involved [He has some really interesting ideas]
3. Easy on the Visuals [I have to say that after doing school visits, I've come to think Powerpoints are a good idea - he disagrees]
4. Hand Out Gift Certificates [I've never done gift certificates, but I've had drawings for other books]
5. Cut Off the Q&A Early [Not too early, but his point, when you read it in full, is a good one]
6. Don't Be Afraid to Say Something Stupid

Read the full post here.

And here's a cautionary post about what happens when you don't follow the rules.

The Things That Keep Us Here

You know how I love my apocalyptic novels! There’s a new one for your list: The Things That Keep Us Here.

About the book
A couple on the brink of divorce struggles to keep their family alive as a deadly pandemic sweeps across the world, food grows scarce, and neighbor turns against neighbor in grocery stores and at gas pumps. Orion in the UK and Wunderlich in Germany pre-empted rights to The Things That Keep Us Here and Buckley's next book, and Random House has purchased audio rights.

What the critics are saying
"A very credible premise . . . operating both as a psychological profile of a family under duress and as a scary, gripping look at the effects of a pandemic."
—Booklist

"With crisp writing and taut pacing, Buckley spins a convincing apocalyptic vision that's both frightening and claustrophobic."
—Library Journal

"Utterly engrossing."
—New York Times bestselling author Lisa Gardner

"A brilliant debut."
—New York Times bestselling author James Rollins

About the author
Carla Buckley was born in Washington, D.C. and has worked in a variety of jobs, including a stint as an assistant press secretary for a U.S. senator, an analyst with the Smithsonian Institution, and a technical writer for a defense contractor. Carla is the Chair of the International Thriller Writers Debut Program and currently lives in Ohio with her husband and children.

I asked, Carla answered
A. What's the scariest thing that's ever happened to you? Bonus question: have you ever used it in a book?

C. When my youngest child was a toddler, she and I accompanied my older daughter to a pool party. One of the girls offered to take my little one into the pool, which was surrounded by a big iron fence, so that I could join the adults on the patio. I agreed. As I was standing there, chatting with the other mothers, I glanced toward the pool and saw the older girl in the deep end, playing with her friends. I didn’t see my daughter. I glanced toward the shallow end and there she was, fully immersed, her arms raised and just the tips of her fingers poking through the surface of the water. Seeing her frozen and helpless like that, and knowing I had to get around the fence in order to save her, was the most paralyzing moment of my life. She was easily rescued and has no lingering phobias, but I did not stop trembling for twenty-four hours.

I have not yet written about this event but the helplessness of a mother unable to save her child is a theme in my work.

A. Mystery writers often give their characters an unreasoning fear - and then make them face it. Do you have any phobias, like fear of spiders or enclosed spaces?
C. Although I’m not physically fearless, my biggest fear has more to do with being unable to take care of my children. I constantly dream about forgetting one of them somewhere, or letting one of them wander off into danger. My main character in The Things That Keep Us Here is driven by this fear, and forced to face it as society crumbles around her. Having lost a baby early in her marriage, she’s terrified she’ll lose one of her daughters, and that panic propels her through the story.

A. Do you have a favorite mystery book, author, or movie?
C. How many may I list? I began with Nancy Drew, progressed through Ngaio Marsh and Agatha Christie, moved on to Sue Grafton and Tony Hillerman when they were just starting out. I pore through awards nominations for new writers, which is how I discovered CJ Box and Marcus Sakey. I’m a huge fan of William Kent Krueger, and stalk Laura Lippman and Jan Burke, at conferences. Please don’t get me started on movies!

A. At its heart, every story is a mystery. It asks why someone acts the way they did - or maybe what will happen next. What question does your book ask?
C. My publisher summed it up this way: how far would you go to protect your family? As a pandemic rages around them, my characters are forced to confront their own humanity in order to save themselves. Really, the heart of my novel is about what a mother will do in order to keep her children safe.

A. Is there a mystery in life that you are still trying to figure out?
C. The one mystery that truly confounds and haunts me is how a parent can break the sacred trust they have with their child.

Is free really a good price?

he New York Times says, “Earlier this week ... the No. 1 and 2 spots on Kindle’s best-seller list were taken by “Cape Refuge” and “Southern Storm,” both novels by Terri Blackstock, a writer of Christian thrillers. The Kindle price: $0. Until the end of the month, Ms. Blackstock’s publisher, Zondervan, a division of HarperCollins Publishers, is offering readers the opportunity to download the books free to the Kindle or to the Kindle apps on their iPhone or in Windows.... Publishers including Harlequin, Random House and Scholastic are offering free versions of digital books to Amazon, Barnes & Noble and other e-retailers, as well as on author Web sites, as a way of allowing readers to try out the work of unfamiliar writers. The hope is that customers who like what they read will go on to obtain another title for money.”

The thing is, I don’t think anyone knows if this is a good idea or not. A sample of a new corn chip in Costco may whet my appetite and encourage me to buy a whole bag [which I will later regret, but still]. But a whole book? Does it really encourage buyers? Or does it cause people to further mentally devalue ebooks, meaning they won’t want to pay much for them and see nothing wrong with pirating them?

In Blackstock's case, the two books cited were part of a series, so the corn chip analogy might apply.

I have downloaded free (and legal) versions of Beautiful Children: A Novel (still not read) and a Suze Orman book (read, mostly, although I felt chided). Neither download has caused me to buy the book or more books from the author.

You can read the whole NY Times article here.

Has Barbara really been gone three years?

I can't believe my friend Barbara Seranella has been dead for three years. I still have some of the last emails she sent me, while she was waiting for a liver transplant. You know, the kind of email you keep because you have a bad feeling you might not get another one.

Barbara was one of a kind. She ran away from home at 14 and rode with The Heathens motorcycle gang. She learned how to fix cars when she lived in a hippie commune in Haight-Ashbury. She was also a heroin addict, and did the kind of things that people do to support their habit. By the time she was 21, she had been jailed 13 times. Somehow, though, she got sober, became a mechanic (she had great stories about some of the celebs she had helped, including Alan Alda), and then a best-selling author.

She was the most generous woman I've ever met. When I was first published, she introduced me to important people at Amazon and Borders. We toured Oregon and LA together. I gave her feedback on her last book.

But even though she had been clean for years, she had Hepatitis C from a dirty needle. I remember getting together with her in Portland. She was complaining that she had some kind of weird adult-onset acne. It was really broken capillaries from her failing liver. She fought back, and she fought hard, with Interferon and two transplants. She was waiting on a third when she died.




Barbara and I at the 2002 Left Coast Crime. Back when she was healthy. We both did stand up comedy. The picture does not show the very famous mystery writer to my left. Although we sat at the same table, she acted as if we weren't there at all. Of course Barbara, being Barbara, knew all the gossip about her and the pretty young man who was with her.

God, I miss her.

How putting my old books on the Kindle let me buy a new raincoat

I thought I would report back on my Kindle experiment. About a month ago, I started putting some of my out-of-print adult books on the Kindle. YA and children's books tend to be given longer to prove themselves and to stay in print longer. With books for adults, if you don't continue to sell well, you're out.

It’s hard to think that a book you loved and labored over is now forgotten except for the occasional library reader.

Then I heard about how out-of-print books could have a second life on the Kindle. I started by putting my best-reviewed book to date, Learning to Fly, on the Kindle. Then I added four books of my series in order: Circles of Confusion, Square in the Face, Heart-Shaped Box, and finally, Buried Diamonds.


I priced them all at $1.99. For each one, Amazon gives me 70 cents. Amazon just announced a new plan that will go in effect June 30. If you list your book at a price that can be as low as $2.99, you'll get about 70% instead of 35%. So at that point, I will raise my prices and make about $2 a book.

To read more about how to do this yourself: http://aprilhenry.livejournal.com/660518.html



So far, I've made enough to buy this:

A book reading that looked painful

A guy was in town the other night to read from his first novel. I’ve been seeing it praised everywhere, so I decided to go. There was a good turnout, probably 30 people. He had been written up in the paper that day. As far as I could tell, there was no big contingent of friends - just people who wanted to hear more about his book.

He began by saying, “I’m going to read from Chapter 12.” And that’s just what he did. He didn’t set the scene at all. You had no idea who the characters were. The chapter was made up of two scenes of two people talking. I thought the first two had once been in a relationship, but I think they might have been brother and sister. Sometimes there would be four or five exchanges with no dialog tags or “He set down his coffee,” and the author didn’t vary the pitch of his voice, so it was a little hard to follow who was speaking.

Still, it was well-written.

When he was done, he looked up and said, “Does anyone have any questions?” He let about a second go by and said, “Well, since no one does I guess I’ll...” Then someone raised a hand. He tried to call it good three or four more times. By this time the whole audience had realized he was intensely nervous. A few of his answers were fascinating, but I think he was so anxious he just had trouble letting his real self shine through.

I looked on his Web site and Portland was only his second reading. The first had been in his home town. Should you ever find yourself in similar situation:
- Tell the listeners what the book is about.
- Share some interesting stories about how you came to write it.
- Seriously consider reading the first chapter or part of the first chapter, which doesn't require any set-up.
- Although this guy didn't, I think reading for longer than five or ten minutes is probably too long.
- Think about starting the question and answer period - if no one has any initially - with “One question people have asked me is...” to prime the pump. Remember that it might take folks a minute to raise their hands.
- It might help just to begin by admitting that you are very nervous.

I still bought a book, and just today I saw another outpouring of praise for it.

Putting my out-of-print books on the Kindle

I’ve been published since 1999. Which means that, like many authors, some of my books are out of print. You can buy them used on Amazon or half.com, or you could break into my basement and steal a remaindered copy or two.

It’s hard to think that a book you loved and labored over is now forgotten except for the occasional library reader.

But now out-of-print books can have a second life. I started by putting my best-reviewed book to date, Learning to Fly, on the Kindle. Today I added Circles of Confusion, which has yet to sync up with the print version (but it did eventually with Learning to Fly).

What you need
-An Amazon account, which you already have if you have bought something from Amazon.

-The words. With luck, you still have the Word file that you submitted to your publisher. And again, with luck, they had you make changes on the file and re-send, rather than someone at the publisher someplace making changes. I’ve been proofing my old Word files before I post them on the Kindle. Nothing like not looking at something for five plus years to see typos.

And if you don’t have the words? You can scan in the book or manuscript. Lee Goldberg told me he scanned some of his out-of-print books using Omnipage 17 software. For one book, I used blueleaf-book-scanning.com and because I didn’t ask for anything fancy and didn’t ask for my book back, it only cost $12.15, plus $4.75 to mail them the book. Then they emailed me a word file.

-A cover image. My husband made me some new ones, using photos from istock.com. The photos were inexpensive, and my husband worked for free.

-Proof that you own the copyright. I just held up my “reversion of rights” letter from St. Martins to my Web cam, snapped a photo, and emailed it to Amazon. (Wait until they ask you for proof to do this step.)

-The ISBN of one of the print editions. When you are filling out the form to put your book on the Kindle, use the ISBN of your printed book. This will link it up with all your old reviews, both from readers and from publications.

What you get
-Probably not a ton of money. At least I haven’t yet. I’ve heard from other authors that their lower-priced books sell more copies than when they had a higher price. So I priced mine at $1.99. I figured more folks would take a chance on me. Amazon and I split that, 65%/35%. So I get 70 cents, which is still 70 cents I wouldn’t have had otherwise. So far, I’ve made under $100.

-More readers. More readers for books I loved but no one could buy anymore, except for the occasional used copy changing hands. More readers who might be willing to pay more to read Kindle books my publisher holds rights to, or even my newer print books.

For more info
Here’s where you need to go on Amazon to get started. They have a lot of information about how to do it.

This is Lee Goldberg’s experience.

And while I doubt anyone else has had JA Konrath's success, here’s part of his story.

How about you?
Got more info than what I have, or know a blog that does? Know how to put books on a Sony E-reader or a Nook? Let me know.

More of the covers my talented husband designed for when I put the books on the Kindle