Lots of Good Press coming our way

Dear Readers,

It has been a flurry of activity since Ilyse Shapiro, my excellent publicist, sent out press releases for The Month of Zephram Mondays and The Kids' (and parents', too!) Book of Good Sportsmanship.

Ilyse (Let's Be Direct) sent the first press release on January 5th for Zephram, and the second one on January 12th for Good Sport.

It is so exciting -- I couldn't be sure how the books would be received (especially Zephram, because everyone talks about how hard it is to break into fiction) but I had to order more author copies of the books because I ran out after all the requests for review copies!


Requests from kids magazines, education/teacher newsletters, blogs, newspapers -- even from a tv show -- have come in from all over the country and are slowly being promoted. I'll post the links when I receive them.

In the meantime, I was very, very proud and happy to receive the following review (from another connection) on the Good Sport book from Perry Perkins, a writer and reviewer for the Portland Examiner. If you'd like to read it, just click here. Perry is an author and blogger himself, so you'll be sure to enjoy his column.

In addition to Amazon, Barnes & Noble and The Self Publisher Store, the books are starting to appear in local bookstores and schools, and the bookmarks have been dropped at grocery stores, libraries, pizza parlors, toy stores, and clothing and sports equipment consignment shops. I'm finalizing my first book signing/fundraiser at our daughters' old day care (hoping to work the kinks out in a friendly environment before a couple of others), and working on another fundraising plan.

Plus, I've been posting links all over the web, and participating in several Tag my book on Amazon forums, which really do help to raise your relevance and ranking for key search words.

On the down side, I've hardly had any time to work on my next two books; but I think the biggest push is over and I'll soon have some time to view this all more calmly. Except that I'm thinking about book trailers, and podcasts, too ... there are so many cool (and free or almost free) tools available!

Hopefully I can report next that all this effort has resulted in monster sales for Good Manners Kids Stuff Press! Hopefully.

While I wait for that to happen, I'll be reading the second book in the Percy Jackson and the Olympians series. Just picked up the first book last week and really loved it.

Happy Reading,

Leslie

Almost there! Plus, Harry Potter fan fiction

Dear Readers,

I can't believe how long ago it was since I last blogged! I have a lot to tell you, the most important thing  being that I can't seem to find spell check in this new format on Blogger.  Uh, oh.

First: I have submitted The Month of Zephram Mondays for publishing! I hope within the next week and a half that my e-store will be up and running on Amazon. I've been designing my author page and the real Good Manners Kids Stuff Press site along with the book store page on the Good Manners Kids Stuff site. Hopefully it will all go live at the same time in about two weeks.

Second: I approved my cover artwork and interior layout for my other book. That one will need a little more effort to push it through but it should also be available VERY soon. (It has become a template for a non-fiction manners series so the extra time it has taken to finalize was put to good use!)

Three: Okay, I'm no J.K. Rowling but I (like thousands) had the nerve to try my hand at Harry Potter fan fiction. My fan fic After the Bezoar was just published on http://www.checkmated.com/. It is a missing moment of what might have happened after Ron was poisoned in Half Blood Prince. In canon, we don't know if anything was ever said between Ron and Hermione -- we just know that they became friends again. This is about what might have happened. The reviews I've gotten say that they think it fits into canon AND answers the question -- so I'm pretty excited that people like it and think it makes sense.

Four: I went to the SCBWI (Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators) meeting and lunch last weekend. Met lots of nice people and also got the all important 'get out of the slush pile free' pass from several editors and one agent.

Five: Well, there is some stuff going on for Five but I think it's a little premature so I'll save it for next time.

Happy Reading!

Leslie

P.S. Just read The Blackstone Key by Rose Melikan. I liked it very much.

P.P. Don't forget -- for some reason, spell check isn't working. I've proofed, I swear!