Looking Sideways

This week I have spent a lot of time staring out through car windows as we have traveled the length of the North Island. We don’t usually travel this trip in mid winter and the familiar summer landscape morphed into unfamiliar with ice and snow touches which generated lots of interest inside the car. The volcanoes looked spectacular and we detoured to give the kids an hour playing in the snow.

My reward for driving the tricky mountain icy road and taking lots of pictures of my snow loving family was to spend a good hour chatting with my fellow FaBo writing team member Kathy White as we plotted dastardly twists that we could put into the next FaBo story...heheheheh.

Fabo 3 gets underway next week, so tell a child near you to check it out. Nine writers...a story that twists and turns...and a challenge to KIWI KIDS to try an outwrite us every week for prizes and fame...and coz we might need some ringers when we need a break....

Today I have been thinking about the marketing options writers have with movies....I hear you all saying WELL DUH! but it is bigger than that. Popular teen authors have this whole movie buy in sorted. They get their fans to come up with dream casting of their favourite characters... promote and discuss these...and if they have a film option generate hype for every little piece of news...this of course feeds into the books...with competitions for best fan book cover, best fan book cover for movie tie in...movie poster art with your dream cast...etcetc. What makes this a marketing mania tour de force is that the books titles are constantly being talked about in a sort of sideways move.

Today Cassandra Clare, having a keen finger on the fan pulse, had a pivotal piece of news to share with her fans on the casting of a major character in the City Of Bones movie. She told her fans she wouldn’t reveal it until they made it a trending topic in Twitter. One hour later it was the worldwide trending topic and she had to spill the beans. Cassandra is generating huge hype for the movie but at the same time those books are getting pushed in front of everyone. Not bad when she has two more books to go to wrap up two series and launch a third.

Catherine Ryan Hyde, she of Pay It Forward fame, talks about what happens when Hollywood gets hold of your book and then rewrites it...how does an author cope...

Both of these posts look at author marketing in a slightly different way. The next two links help you to understand what is going on. Betty Ming Liu teaches social media in her journalism class and she has put together the guide to the best way to use Twitter. This is how I use Twitter and how I tell others to use this tool.

Catherine Ryan Howard talks Google and SEO which is something that authors need to understand...especially Metadata. How does a search engine even find your book?

LJN Dawson reminds us that this whole book explosion thing is recent and nobody has a handle on Metadata...but we should.

Chuck takes a look at 25 Bad writing behaviours....(warning It’s Chuck...so be prepared to have your hair stand up! You will nod and laugh sheepishly at the same time tho.)

Laura Hazard Owen talks about the new publishing kid on the block for women writers...you pay but they vett...an interesting model that may well point to the way of the future!

Agent Rachelle Gardner talks about 7 ways that writers give up their power and why this is not a good thing.

For the illustrators out there Debbie Ridpath Ohi has the most magnificent helpful collection of blogs for writers...but she is a talented kids book illustrator. She has started a blog just for kids book illustrators...which you should check out!

In the craft section

K M Weiland talks about tone...do you struggle with it?

Janice Hardy talks about filtering...that is words that distance the reader from the POV character.

Agent Mary Kole talks about a common problem she sees often in manuscripts...when the problem is too difficult...the characters become unbelievable...

Writer Unboxed has a stand out post on the curse of the middle book..that is the one in the middle of a trilogy...How do you get it to stand on its own when everybody knows it’s the middle book!!!

To finish,

Ollin Morales always has an interesting blog and this piece on the ten rules of grammar all writers need is an inspiring reminder to look at rules sideways.

maureen

pic is from this cool tee shirt on line shop

Passing The Hat

This morning I have been thinking about Creative Tribes and their power.  

When the tribe idea was first being kicked around I blogged about it ...yes way back then...and this grew into a series of posts around the 1000 fans concept that same year. Just type 1000 fans into my search box.

This week I have been struck by the power of the Tribe in funding creative projects. 

Amanda Palmer is having a block party in New York as I write this, because she raised over $1 million in her Kickstarter campaign for her creative project. She didn’t set out to do this. All she wanted was $100,000 but her Tribe got the word out and all through the month of May she has broken every Kickstarter record.

Yesterday my friend Fifi Colston put up her request for funding an Art Exhibition of her work here in Wellington on the New Zealand site Pledge Me. Within 24 hours she had reached her modest target. 

The reward system that Kickstarter and Pledge Me use is interesting. Think of it as buying the product or experience before it is made. I don’t know if anyone has bought Fifi’s offer for a personal portrait of themselves but that would be worth having...she is so talented.

Fifi’s comment when she reached her target...

Whatever I earn goes straight back into the business of being a freelance creative. I am currently trying to have some money in reserve to enable me to work on my next book project. It will be months of writing, illustration and photography to get it done. And it will be a stunner. So thanks for all your support to me and everyone in the arts...

Around the blogosphere this week there was a lot of comment on The New York Times article on writers slacking if they ony write one book a year.... Most of the comment was on the ‘brutal’ regime of writing 2000 words a day but there were lots of other red flags being waved at writers through publishers comments in the article.

Kristine Rusch examines this article and some of the flags raised, including the current publisher asks of short form novella ebooks effectively for love as a marketing tool for publishers and what it means to a writers career. This is a great and timely article and a good heads up for people.

Elizabeth S Craig has another take on the N Y Times article about being a writer who puts out 3-4 books a year and what it means for her.

As always, I urge you to read the comments of both these posts...for extra information and insights.

Writer Unboxed had two posts this week that got everybody talking.

What Authors Seem To Forget About Marketing and

Tawny Stokes On The Bandit Creek Series.

The Bandit Creek series is written by a writers collective, who write stories based on the fictional town of Bandit Creek, as a cool self publishing experiment for themselves outside of their traditional published roles. 

You all know how interested I am in writer collectives, this is a really interesting model and with FaBo 3 in the planning stages...it could morph (just kidding Fabo team....)

James Scott Bell has a great post on 5 things every author needs to know before going the self published way.

Catherine Ryan Howard finishes up her month of blog posts on self publishing by looking at the best way to use Amazon.

In the Craft section

James Killick has a post on why writing a treatment before you write the novel is a good idea.

There is a great post on storytelling the Pixar way

A group taking storytelling into the business world is doing some great stuff - take a look.

And for those who like pretty pictures, here is the periodic table of Storytelling!

For those of you into numbers...

Galley Cat has an info graphic on how many kids are reading on electronic devices.

Roz Morris has help for you on doing your Taxes.

Rachelle Gardner takes a look at what a publishing contract should contain.

This week I have been finalising details for a group doing a writing course at Karaveer Writing Retreat.

Writing retreats are great for an all out focus on your work. I get huge hunks of work done when I am on a writing retreat because there are no interruptions from kids, phone, internet, kids.... You get the picture.

If you can’t get away to Karaveer you could look down this list of inexpensive ideas for a writing retreat for yourself. Of course if you want to take a trip up North...and get some hands on tutoring from one of the best romance writers in the world, well Karaveer could be just the place.

I leave you with a fun comic on critiques by Inkygirl who’s website is well worth a look around.

maureen

Wild Things

Today has been a wet miserable day...Autumn looks like it skipped on out without saying hello and Winter's wild weather arrived, bringing the rain in horizontally.

So in an effort to warm up in the last few days I turned to Twitter and checked in on what is happening around the blogosphere because as everybody knows a good story will while away the hours so you don’t notice the weather.

Over the last week Amanda Palmer and the huge amount she made in a short time on Kickstarter have been on everybody’s radar. My first thought, when I saw the project going live on Twitter, it helps if you are married to Neil Gaimen. That is me coming from a children’s writers perspective and knowing that Neil has over one million followers. But John Scalzi puts it into perspective. She has worked her butt off to build a following for over a decade. She has fans that love her and support her and that she gives back to...and if you look at what she is doing for the money...it aint no easy thing. And in the end isn’t that who we are writing for...our Fans?

Joanna Penn has a great guest post from John Yeoman asking Is it worth it to be an author...?

Lately the great Mike Shatzkin, prophet to traditional publishers, has been noticed spending more time in his blog posts looking at the digital marketplace. This is not a that is marketplace going away...so what should you do for the future.

Writer Beware is also taking a look at the digital marketplace specifically contracts that are now being written and in particular those nice little reversion of rights clauses...the ones when the publisher has to have a book out of print for 6 months before the author can write and get their rights back...Authors you need to read this post.

If you have all your rights and you want to exploit them then Catherine Ryan Howard's post Read this first -How to sell self published books is the post for you along with Joel's Guest Skype interview with Bookbaby on common book design mistakes he see’s all the time.

Bookbaby is a print on demand service that is quite nifty. There are a few companies like this around who are offering authors a reasonable way to get their books printed and distributed...but there are scammers so always do your homework.

Mark Coker of Smashwords has been doing his homework lately and has been analysing Smashwords data for the last nine months trying to figure out what makes a book a success. Mark has a great post on Digital Book World telling us what he found out.

Taleist is always a good blog to pop into and they have a cool infographic telling you what you should spend your money on... Editing or Proofreading.

Roz Morris has a helpful guest post on Jami Golds blog about writing back cover copy blurbs.

Authorculture has a good post on tips for offline marketing.

SciFi Novelists have got a geat post on pacing fight scenes...and an hilarious example to show you what to do...or what not to do...gotta bookmark it.

Novelrocket has the 5 must haves on the writer’s desk and then there is the 24 Free Online creativity tools to help you think up ideas along the way

Seth Godin has had another idea...and he is keen to tell you about it in his new manifesto...but most of all in this blog post he wants to tell you how to use tools that don’t make you look indie, cost hardly anything and spread ideas....

The King of the Wild Things, Maurice Sendak died yesterday. His loss was widely felt through the children’s book industry and many tributes to one of the giants in the picture book world were written. This tribute was referenced by Judy Blume on Twitter who remembed Maurice fondly as they shared many memories of being on banned book lists together.

Next week I’ll be attending the New Zealand Post Children’s Book Awards our top awards for children’s books...There are no banned books in the list but there is lots of talk about the emergence of graphic novels...placed in the Picture Book Category so it will be an interesting night.

Weaving the strands

Last week was a fairly tough one in the family with a family funeral to deal with so there was no weekly blog post looking at the hot topics in the publishing blogosphere.

This week I am trying to pick up the threads and get back into the warp and weft of the publishing world.

Just when you think Amazon has every thing stitched up as the biggest book retailer in the world there is a thread ready to be yanked which could cause some unravelling...

Amazon has been negotiating (dictating) new pricing terms to book publishers this year. When the Independent Publishers Group rejected their terms all the Amazon buy buttons were disabled for all books represented by them. (Two years ago Amazon did this to Macmillan and Macmillan won. IPG are much smaller and their members risk going out of business entirely.)

The stand taken by IPG has lots of support from across the blogosphere as different ways to buy IPG books get promoted on websites and other online book retailers.

IPG Authors are stuck as they watch entire catalogues disappear...5000 authors are affected by this and there is much pessimism. When the largest book retailer on the planet refuses to stock your book...what do you do?

Mike Shatzkin as ever has the long view with his article on two questions that loom over the trade publishing business...In the end what will Amazon become and do we really want this?

Seth Godin has problems with Apple refusing to carry his latest book because it has links to buy books he quotes from Amazon...He questions whether the book retailer should have such a sensitivity to book content....

Crafting a successful children’s book requires the manipulating of many strands. Marketing is one important one as you want people to want to own your creation.

Lindsay Buroker has compiled a list of links to check out to help new writers tackle the marketing questions.

Author media shows how a purple cow can help you in your marketing efforts and Susan Kaye Quinn puts all your sweat equity into perspective when you market your work.

In your quest to make your book glow with subtle colour and texture you need a strong cover. India Drummond continues her examination of book covers. This is a must read post as India explains the contract and price work sheet she uses with clients when she designs book covers.

Along with subtle colour you must have strong threads to hang everything off and Warrior Writer have a post on story structure using Finding Nemo...Warrior Poet has one on using a Hollywood trick to outline....(hmm lots of warriors out there)

Jody Hedlund has finally read Hunger Games and she has an interesting post on riveting readers using Death as the main theme...Death by another name as the great antagonist.

There are 10 pieces of rotten writing advice...read and don’t follow....

Catherine Ryan Howard has an interesting piece of advice for you to try with your book if you are brave enough....

Liza Nowak wants to enlist the help of all writers of Boy Books out there. She has an interesting proposition for you.

Agent Kristin of Pub Rants has been experimenting with Friday video blogs and she has one examining the different levels and word counts of Mid Grade my favourite genre.

Time to tie off the ends with Publishers Weekly and their blog post on whether teens are embracing eBooks...Yup right after they address the digital divide between those who can afford e readers and those that can’t and that is where the libraries come in....

maureen

Time Travel or Can I Have This Day Again?

Over the last couple of weeks I have spent my time being distracted by the internet, the start of the school year and the intricacies of preparing a book for print. 

Selecting the right internal font knowing how to arrange it on the page and front matter.... This is all completely different from e-publishing which strips out all this detail. 

If you want to use a particular font be prepared to swear at the computer as you try to get it formatted onto a print page. 

Of course when I want uninterrupted time I don’t get it and then when I have got that time and spent 6 hours swearing and wiping a fevered brow...my husband comes along and says something like... did you know if you saved the document as a PDF you wouldn’t need to change all that formatting stuff you are doing.... 

About that time you think about throwing the whole project at the wall, eating serious chocolate...and time travel... so you could get back the wasted day!

Then the family hit the wall of reality that school is back, a few projects that you put off from last year rear their heads and life gets complicated....

So diving into the blog round up I go for solace. (I just have to lose myself in social media for a while and forget about all that other work screaming for my attention.)

Things that caught my eye this week.

If you are learning about the secret world of book design you must visit Joel Friedlander’s book design blog. Here I learned about x height and why it is so important but also here is where my vague idea of using print copies as promo review...prizes etc etc was crystallised when I read this interview... Are print books the new vanity publishing? Joel also has a run down on front matter for books.

Mike Shatzkin has taken a look at the war heating up between the Book Sellers and Amazon and summed it all up in a beautiful piece entitled Clever Moves In The Chess Game. This is one of those must read pieces to make sense of what is happening at the moment in publishing and what it means for you the writer.

In the last couple of weeks everywhere I look there seems to be a reference to book covers and how important they are. Jody Hedlund has been asking her fans to choose a design for her latest book and the winning design is up along with an in depth look at how elements for the cover were selected.

Social Times takes a look at 3 creative ways to promote the book...take a look at the comments...also the amazing how to create a book cover video!

Joanna Penn has written a post about being in love with Scrivener...This is a novel processing programme designed for writers that has legions of fans all over. Check out the post for why she thinks writing your novel on this programme takes the hard work out of writing....

If you want to know more about the dynamo behind The Creative Penn website check out an interview with Joanna on Ollin Morales Courage 2 Create blog.

Catherine Ryan Howard has been asking opinions on grammar especially which and when we should use American English and British English and Irish English and...This is an interesting post with diagrams and comments from her survey. It is especially interesting if you have characters and setting from different countries...what trips you up in the reading? If your biggest audience is in America should you write the whole book using American English?

The Great Jane Friedman has a cautionary post on blogging your book. Should you do it...well yes...and no... it all depends....

Janice Hardy has a neat post on leaving breadcrumbs behind you.... This is the Craft Tip Of The Week. Asking the right story questions...Read It!

Writers Fun Zone has an interesting post on pitching. How do you define the log lines and memorable answers to the question... What’s the book about? Ezra also has a great post up today about creating a metadata file...That’s the file that has all your different bio’s headshots links etc etc....

Today is the first gorgeous day here for a while in the not-summer-as-it used-to-be southern hemisphere.... Bring back those long hot days where you biked to the river and threw yourself in to cool off ...Hot Dead Grass and ice creams you had to lick fast because they’d melt in under a minute. Ahh Time Travel....

maureen

Decorative Links

Holidays, the chance to go away from your usual busy life, explore new country, meet new people and try out new things.

Coming back through the front door always triggers the best moments of the holiday for me.... It is my last ditch effort to hold holiday mode around me as I stare at the mess left and the long list of catch up jobs, mail and end of the school year craziness. This morning, five minutes before leaving for school, one child announced they needed cardboard tube inners, wrapping paper and lollies...for making crackers.

Last week on Blog day I was traveling down the middle of the South Island staring at the back country and alpine scenery and pointing out likely film spots from the Lord Of The Rings. It helped that we knew The Hobbit was being filmed on location in some of the places we were going through. New Zealand=Middle Earth.

Holiday memories are getting squished to the back of my mind as this is the week before Christmas...a time that heralds that frantically busy period when you realise you have not sorted out the Christmas day menu or the in law presents or even found the Christmas tree decorations...

However I have a box of Blog Christmas tree decorations...

50 blinking lights....or 50 simple ways to build your platform in 5 minutes a day.

12 Great Big Golden Baubles....or 7 Lessons about Self publishing I learnt in 7th Grade and (from the wonderful Catherine Ryan Howard) 5 things I am always telling self publishers.  

Every tree needs special ornaments that trigger great memories. Here is a nice idea from the Teaching Authors Blog.

In the pretty ornament category we have three really sweet posts.

A new Y A Publisher in Australia from Publishing Perspectives.

How to get your writing ready to win a Pulitzer....

A great craft check list on characterisation that will save you a few years of hard slog to learn.

There are always a couple of ornaments that you know you have to put on the tree but are always challenging as to where they go....

Amazon has brought out a Children's Publishing Imprint, what impact will this have...

An Australian Agent talks about why they are so different from U.S. Agents and why....

In the new ornament category check out this pretty nifty advice from Lisa Schroeder...Let Good Reads Ads be your friend. (This one should be in the middle at eye level!)

Find the Christmas Star or Angel of your fulfilled writing resolutions....(ok still making mine...) and stick it on the top.

Next week you may even get a present to stick under the tree....

maureen


pic from here

And Now For Something Completely Different.

The week has been full of change.

I went away for three days writing...that was a change.

I am tweaking my website...warning change can be addictive.

I am reading about writers who are making big changes in the way they publish, market and portray themselves online.

6 prescriptions to cure the heartbreak ofbeing published....Yes, you read that right. Ruth Harris looks at the downside of the newly published...one of which is when you hate the cover the publishers gave you.

Shelftalker, an indie children’s booksellerhas a rant on book covers that are coming out. I must have missed the tween goth revolution...but all the covers for this age group look like YA covers and they all only use vampire palettes...

Mary Kole from Kidlit.com interviews Daniel Nayeri, kids lit author, on the off the wall marketing he does to promote his books...and the fact that his latest book is a collection of novellas. Even the book trailers...commercials break all the rules (were there any?)

The wonderful Catherine Ryan Howard has become my latest must read blog. Catherine has built a steady following self publishing while waiting for the big publishing deal and her blog details her journey. This week she examines why she might not ever print publish again.  

And then... 

Sarah Billington said ‘I want to give away a copy of my new midgrade eBook....’

A midgrade eBook?!That’s new...So I asked Sarah some questions and we cooked up a little competition for you.

Everybody is talking about eBooks. Writers are being encouraged to look at self publishing their work as the eBook phenomenon turns the print publishing industry upside down. When did you decide to dip your toe in the water and why?

I had been hearing about eBooks for a little while, since the start of the year really (2011), hearing the astounding success stories such as Amanda Hocking and J.A Konrath, how big name authors were turning their backs on 500k publishing deals in order to self-publish their work. The royalty rates offered by ebook distributors like Amazon and Smashwords are SO MUCH higher than traditional publishers are capable of offering due to the overhead costs involved in running such large businesses. Plus there are only so many slots available in any given publisher’s schedule. This means that there are SO MANY great books languishing in drawers and on hard drives, not because they aren’t brilliant and readers would love them, but because there just isn’t room for them in the print schedule.

And there are so many genres that don’t sell in big enough numbers to make it worth a publishing house’s investment, but certainly have an audience who want to read it. Now authors of niche topics can get their books straight to their readers. Like short story writers!

I am currently studying a Bachelor of Writing & Publishing and as part of my course this year, we had to do a major project on a form of digital publishing. I decided what the heck. It gave me the perfect opportunity to teach myself how to create an ebook. I planned to make one short story ebook for the assessment. Instead, I made 5.

How did you decide which of your stories would be best as an eBook? Did length play a part?

As initially it was just an experiment, length definitely played a part in my decision. Even as an indie author now, I dream of being traditionally published because I do still believe there is a future in it and they can reach a much broader readership than I can on my own, so I decided to first off only publish short stories. And they sell. I am amazed that I am earning income from 1,500 word short stories. I now too have an upper middle grade novel for sale, Life was cool until you got popular which you can win here today! (Details below).

What I choose to write for e-publication is definitely being influenced by the trends I am finding with my sales figures. For instance, my thriller The Runaway (which can be found under my pen name, Edwina Ray) outsells all of my other stories by 10-1 so I am keen to write more thrillers. I do love writing comedy, though. And though it sells well in print books, the IT genres in the ebook world are definitely thriller and paranormal romance. If you write those, then ebook publishing is a good fit for you!

What has been the most satisfying aspect to producing an eBook?

Seeing positive reviews of my work from book bloggers, friends and colleagues I admire and random happy readers! I always ask for an honest review, regardless of whether I know the reader or not and am thrilled that people are enjoying my work.

What has been the most difficult thing about preparing an eBook?

Finding the time to do everything – write, design a cover, format, come up with a blurb, promote, change tactics if something isn’t working. I haven’t received any income from my works as yet, partly because the international banking requirements sound like an absolute nightmare and I keep putting it off. J Yet something else I need to do!

There is definitely less writing time available, as an indie author.

You worked on your covers yourself, What was the most important thing that you learned about cover design for an eBook?

Cover design for ebooks require very different things to print books. At a bookshop, your book needs to stand out from the crowded shelves, and have an eye catching cover. For ebooks, yes these things are important, but the most important thing is that you use a large font for your title and author name. Why? Because readers see ebooks as thumbnails on their computer screens. If the title and author name are not legible when the cover image is so small, then you’re unlikely to have potential readers click through to view its blurb, reviews and buy it.

In the print world the print publisher may (if you are lucky) have a publishing campaign around the release of the book. What do you do when you have an eBook?

You do it all yourself! Getting book reviews are key to the success of an ebook. They don’t have to be glowing 5-star reviews, actually a couple of 2-3 star reviews add a bit of credibility to all reviews! Cold-emailing book bloggers, organizing book tours, blogging about the topic of your book (my blog post about the different types of zombie is my most popular blog post EVER – buy I, Zombie today! J) and getting people involved are key. Constantly tweeting or Facebooking how awesome your book is and that everyone should buy it is a complete turn-off to readers though. I am a reader, and I get annoyed by these overzealous authors so I simply don’t do it.

Also, run giveaways, as we’re doing here today! The point is not to make any income from the experience, but to reach new readers who might tell their friends, or pass it on to others. Like traditionally published books, exposure, letting readers know that you and your book even exist is essential.

You have a range of different genres that you play in...Zombies, Young Adult, MidGrade, Do you have eBooks in all of these genres?

I do. J I can’t help it, I love them all. I like variety and write every other project in a different genre lately, to keep me on my toes. However, so as not to end up with a twelve year old fan of Life was cool until you got popular reading I, Zombie (a rather gruesome black comedy told from the zombie’s perspective), and assuming it would be appropriate for them, I publish my darker works under my pen name, Edwina Ray.

Ebooks are rapidly gaining ground but mostly in the adult fiction market, Do you see a trickle down effect to the younger ages? How do you market a book to the younger reader?

I do believe there will be a trickle down effect to younger readers, as more and more receive ereading devices for Christmas and birthdays. Childrens and middle grade ebooks at the moment mind you, are definitely not the big sellers. I like to think that I’m getting in on the ground floor. Marketing ebooks to younger readers is a difficult one. Young adult fiction readers are different, as young adults and adults who read YA scour book blogs and book communities, but children – not so much. To be honest: I haven’t figured that part out yet. At present, I think it is much easier to get a traditionally published middle grade or children’s book in front of kids, through bookshops, libraries and book fairs.

Will you release print versions of your eBooks?

I do have plans to, yes. Definitely Life was cool until you got popular is in the works. I have hired a graphic designer to make a sparkly new cover for a print version. I won’t be publishing the short stories individually as print books, but once I have enough in the same genre (eg. thrillers, or comedy etc) I will think about creating themed anthologies.

Tell us a little bit about your midgrade eBook...

Sure! I have been told that my middle grade and young adult fiction writing style is very reminiscent of Louise Rennison, who writes the super-hilarious Georgia Nicolson series (though you won’t need a glossary in the back to understand my terminology). I am thrilled beyond belief to be compared to Louise.

This is what Life was cool until you got popular is about:

Thirteen year old Kaley’s best friend Jules is an alien clone. That has to be it. Because Jules wouldn’t dress like that or act like that…and she definitely wouldn’t be friends with Meg-a-bitch.

Kaley can't wait to start at her new school with her best friend Jules. Jules was away in Europe all summer (worst summer of Kaley's life!) But it's cool, now school is starting and everything is going to be awesome. However as the school bus pulls up on that first day, Kaley barely recognizes the silky hair and glossy lips as Jules gets off with the cool kids and with their arch-nemesis Meg, the popular girl (God only knows why) who made Kaley and Jules's lives miserable in elementary school. In Europe, Meg had somehow won over Kaley's best friend and Kaley finds herself frozen out.

Life was cool until you got popular is a first person novel told through Kaley’s eyes, chronicling the initial pain and incomprehension of what happened to destroy their friendship. But that doesn't last long. Kaley decides that underneath the bleached blond clone with the personality transplant, Jules is still in there. Somewhere. And she is going to get her best friend back!

Life was cool is available through:

Amazon

Smashwords 

ITunes 

And wherever else you might find it!

You can find Sarah at

Facebook: www.facebook.com/SarahBillington

Twitter: twitter.com/SarahBillington

The Sarah Billington Blog: sarahbillington.blogspot.com

How To Win

Halloween is happening in a few days so...Here is how you can win a copy of Sarah’s eBook Life was cool until you got popular

Add a great Zombie Name in the comments...and the best ones will win...simple.

Maureen

aka Brains R Fried.