Twin Cities Book Festival

I am so honored to have been selected to be an exhibiting author at this year's Twin Cities Book Festival, which will be held this Saturday from 10:00 am to 5:00 pm.

If you are in the area (St. Paul State Fair Grounds), I'd love to see you. Stop by and say hello, sign up to win a free book, and wander through the premier literary event in the upper Midwest. It's all free, including the parking!

Maybe you'll even meet a famous author (here's a list of who'll be speaking) or find a great new book to read this fall or winter.

Written Wednesday...

I sold four books today. That's nice, but in itself not why I'm blogging.

At the end of the day, I felt blessed not by the purchases themselves, but the various routes people took to get their hands on my book.

Book #1: A good friend and colleague had asked for a copy several weeks ago, so I slipped it into his box at work. He showed up this morning, requesting a signature on the book for his nephew and a second book for himself. Having such support from a person I see nearly every day, whom I count among the reasons I love my day job? It's proper cool.

Book #2: My mother met me in Willmar to help me set up a table at the regional Education Minnesota (Go union!) Fall Drive-in. I wasn't allowed to sell books, but I could give out information to teachers about Skyping with me, getting free Kindle versions of the books for classroom use and discounts on class-set purchases, and such. The very first woman to approach our table squealed in glee, "Oh! I just bought that book from Amazon and it arrived this week!" (So she was the one, I thought.) We had a nice chat about how she'd heard of the book, which was a conversation she'd been in where others told her it was a wonderful read and recommended it to her. I blushed. I felt humbled. And proud. Random people in Morris are chatting about this little project on which I embarked a few years ago... And they liked it. Wow.

Book #3: Meanwhile, the mother of a current student, who is "me" for all intents and purposes at a neighboring district as she teaches the same curriculum there as I teach here, asked me to slip her a copy surreptitiously and vowed to send a check along tomorrow via the aforementioned student (her daughter). She is an amazing teacher -- one for whom I have so much respect and admiration. I don't know how people do my job and always have a perfect haircut and run marathons and raise families, but they do. And they do it well. She is such a person.

Book #4: The phone rang after 9:00. My first thought was, this will be a phone solicitor. Do I even want to crawl out from under the covers to check? On the off chance that it was NOT a phone solicitor, I did manage the crawling bit, and was delighted to see a local number on the caller i.d. Turns out it was a retired teacher who wanted a copy of the second book for her grandson in North Dakota. She offered to drop off a check at the high school in the morning if I'd leave her a copy in the office.

So. I've done a fairly meager amount of marketing, resulting in fairly meager sales. But each sale is a story that I enjoy hearing and making happen.

PS I tried having a nonpublicized "free" Kindle day last week, just to see the difference between the first free day, on which 238 copies of the book were downloaded, and what would happen when I didn't do any promoting. In other words, I wondered approximately how many of the first free day's "sales" were random ones from Kindle owners trawling the free books list and nabbing whatever sounded interesting. Turns out that number is 40. This means that most -- 200ish -- of my giveaways on the first day were from loyal friends and supporters. How cool is that?

Unveiling Cover #3!

Ryan and Sean (and I) have been working on and off for 5-6 weeks developing the design for the third and final volume of my series, Super Power of the Day: The Final Face-Off, which will (fingers crossed) be officially published in January of 2013.

Drum roll...

I have to say, this is the most fun project. I love working on it, talking about it, and sharing my journey with friends. So many life-hacking-type websites encourage people who want to be successful, or be happy, or whatever, to just DO whatever you want to do. We are living in a moment where, for writers at least, that is more possible than ever in history. Literally. And I don't use that word hyperbolically.

I am glad the stigma of self-publishing is slowly fading. Over a fourth of Amazon.com's current top Kindle sellers are self-published. Wow. That's a lot of happy people!

Open House

Thank you, Montevideo Public Library, for hosting my open house book signing! It was a pretty low-key affair, but I enjoyed the company of many beloved people and met a few fans...

This was my favorite part:

Nephew Ethan ("E" on the volume #1 dedication page) proudly sported my Chase Cooper super cape all evening, flying around the room helping people to free bookmarks and stickers. Doesn't he look like the cover illustrations?

I think the $5 I offered him to be the official mascot of the night, which he renegotiated up to $5.50, was money well spent.

How To Get A Free Book

Tuesday, August 28, to celebrate the publication of Super Power of the Day: The Hero Chronicle Continues, I am giving the kindle version of the first volume (Origins of a Sixth Grade Superhero) for 

No tricks or gimmicks. If you have a kindle, just shop as usual and the price will be $0.00

If you don't have a kindle but DO have a home computer (windows or mac), smartphone, or tablet, you can download a free kindle reader app and join the party. I'd love for you to have my book for free as well. 

You may be thinking, "That's silly. Why are you giving it away for free, Ann?"

The thing is, amazon uses a book's sales to determine how visible the book is to customers. If I "sell" a lot of books (even for free), my sales rank goes up. Then, when a random person searches for a book like mine, my book will show up on the 1st search results page instead of the 10th. Although I have to admit, my book does show up on the first page for this search: book for sixth grade boy. Probably because of the subtitle.

My goal is to get at least 30 downloads of the book on Tuesday. Please help?

Thanks!

Our Local Paper Rocks!

For the second time in a year, the local paper has placed a wonderful story on my novels on the front page, above the fold, with a colored picture. I feel so blessed to live a such a supportive community.

Here's what it looks like:

Thank you Montevideo American-News and thank you journalist Martin Christenson!

Continued Good News

Two posts in one week. I must be cramming in posts before The Day Job officially takes over every waking moment of my day.

First, check this out:

That's from amazon.com. Nice.

Second, check this out:

That's volume #1 and a PRE-ORDER page for book #3! I haven't been able to crack the pre-order code on the major sites until now. They must be getting info from Bowker (the ISBN regulatory company), which means the pre-order page should also show up for volume 3 over at amazon, at some point.

Good thing we're working on the cover for book #3. The "Image Not Available" thumbnail is rather sad, don't you think? But easily fixable.

The absolute best part is that I now have a firm deadline on the third book. I'm pretty good with a deadline. And it helps that volume 3 is written, designed, and in final copy edits. It'll need proofing, too. But I'm pretty happy with the text already. It's fairly clean. And fun to read. If I do say so myself.

Here We Go!

Drum roll...

And here it is:

Book number 2 in the series is officially on sale at amazon.com! I know it says "temporarily out of stock," but it is available. Trust me. If you order it, amazon will contact my distributor and they will contact the printer and... voila! You'll get your book. It's Print on Demand. They'll never actually have the book "In Stock."

This is actually a nice thing. It means there will never be a stack or box or pallet of my books gathering dust in a warehouse or getting remaindered or shredded, which is good for the environment overall. Fewer wasted trees and all.

I'm not seeing the book at barnesandnoble.com yet. It seems to take them a bit longer to get the information from the distributor. If you are a bn fan, be patient. It'll show up eventually.

I'm quite pleased with the book. The blues of the cover are especially striking--more than the thumbnail can accurately portray. Fingers crossed that my initial order arrives before the big open house and book signing on TUESDAY, August 28, 7:00-8:30 p.m., Montevideo Public Library. All are welcome!

Thanks, John Green!

A shout-out to fellow author John Green (she wrote, presumptuously). Thanks to his inspiration, I am now the owner of a treadmill desk. Voila!

Although I plan to continue most of my writing and editing on the desktop mac down in the office/library, this new toy in the guest room will be my go-to location for web surfing and such.

Maybe I should add some desktop flowers. Seems to be the thing to do.

I guess one flower is appropriate. I've got the one book available for sale...

But as of 08/20/2012 at 16:48:26 the second volume of the series is officially done and available.

Yeah!

We all just have to be a little patient for it to show up at the retailers. I'll post a link as soon as it can be ordered online. (FYI: That will be somewhere between now and two weeks from now.)

The Art of Writing

These words from Chad Harbach's The Art of Fielding have been haunting me for a week:

It was easy enough to write a sentence, but if you were going to create a work of art, the way Melville had, each sentence needed to fit perfectly with the one that preceded it, and the unwritten one that would follow. And each of those sentences needed to square with the ones on either side, so that three became five and five became seven, seven became nine, and whichever sentence he was writing became the slender fulcrum on which the whole precarious edifice depended. That sentence could contain anything, anything, and so it promised the kind of absolute freedom that, to Affenlights' mind, belonged to the artist and the artist alone. And yet that sentence was also beholden to the book's very first one, and its last unwritten one, and every sentence in between. (54)

I was recently asked, "What's the hardest part of writing for you?" There's only one answer: letting it go.

I officially finished Super Power of the Day: The Hero Chronicle Continues last week. After uploading the file to my printer, I spent several days spying on the traffic outside my door, anxiously awaiting the overnighted proof copy. At first I was annoyed that UPS defined "overnight" as 5+ days (August 8th to the evening of the 13th.) But I'd spent the time happily copy editing volume 3, so the delay hardly mattered.

Here's the problem: I decided to actually read the proof copy before approving it. So far, no mistakes. Oh, there's a hyphen that should be added on page 22, but the work is otherwise technically fine.

Still. No matter how many times I've copy edited and proofed the work, I find sentences that need "to square with the ones on either side" better. I can approve the work as is, guaranteeing availability next week when the local paper's coverage of my second book being published happens. Or I can make it right.

On one hand, I should just let it go and save the $40 it will cost to upload a revised file.

But I don't think I can. Let it go, that is.

Does that make me a true artist?

Fan Club

Last weekend I had a wonderful morning coffee with my good friend Dan and his family. Now, Dan and I have known each other since kindergarten. Somehow we stayed friends despite both of us moving away from our original elementary neighborhoods. Somehow we stayed friends through those crazy junior high years. And somehow we ended up in the same close-knit group of high school buddies.

I blame marching band.

Dan is currently administering an American school overseas, so I am rarely afforded the chance to sit down face to face and talk to him. When I realized he was in town and he messaged me to find a time to get together, I was over the moon. The time and place were set. The coffee was hot and yummy. We hugged and smiled and...

I have to apologize profusely.

I am so, so, so sorry, Dan, that I spent 95% of our precious and fleeting time talking to... your kids. Your wonderfully smart, interesting, well-read children.

Doesn't Cam look just like Chase Cooper?

The title of this post is "Fan Club," not because Dan's kids are fans of my book series (although they both read volume 1 in short order and gave it thumbs up). It turns out I am a huge fan of kids/teens and talking to kids/teens about books.  I guess I'm in the right professions -- teaching and writing -- for the right reasons.

Literature for younger readers is fast becoming one of my top passions. I've read 17 of the 18 most popular young adult books (see npr's list) and almost half of the books that made the top 100. Meanwhile, I've become the dreaded adult book club member who confesses to having not finished the assigned book and mostly shows up for the snacks, wine, and good company.

Volume 2: Uploaded!

After two days of splitting hairs over the smallest of details, massaging that one sentence that just wouldn't work itself out until it gave in, and second guessing myself silly over dozens of hyphenates and compound words, I just uploaded S.P.O.T.D.: The Hero Chronicle Continues to my printer (LSI).

Good thing, too. My annual college alumni "who's doing what" letter just arrived and announced to the whole world (well, all my college alums) that the book was finished. I must have sent my update on an optimistic day!

It amazed me each time I reread the (so-called) final design proof and found more errors. Let me give an example. On page 107 the word crumbled was mysteriously just "ed." No "crumbl". I have no idea how it disappeared on me. Dramatic irony is to blame, I suspect.

This time, I worked on the kindle edition right away. Instead of 25 hours to educate myself, convert the file, reformat, check everything, and get all the hyperlinks and anchors in place, it only took about 5 hours. And there were no tears. I think I'll wait until amazon has listed the paperback and created its page before I upload the digital version, as the ISBN of the volume 1 paperback seems to work better on a search than the new ISBN I assigned for the digital version and I don't want to risk having the opposite be true for volume 2.

What's next?

Work continues on cover #3, and copy editing begins in earnest as well. Although the text is written, I have three pages of details I'd like to double check and small changes I'd like to make. I'll be adding more suspense and danger to the ending, and connecting Chase's final heroic moment to the opening of volume 1 more directly.

And then, of course, it will be time to split hairs over the small details, massage the knotted up sentences until they give in, and second guess myself silly on the hyphenates and compound words.

All in all, it's time for an Ann Leap, which is my happy dance.

Sneak peek at cover #3

Sean Tiffany and I have finished our collaboration on the cover art for Super Power of the Day: The Final Face-Off.

Drum roll...

I had a lot of feedback from kid readers that they wanted to see more characters than just Chase, so we added Kat and Johnny. What do you think?

Kindle Edition Finished!

Tears were shed.

About halfway through the process of reformatting the print version of Super Power of the Day: Origins of a Sixth Grade Superhero to create a Kindle-friendly file, I thought I was done. I tried a test version of my text in the Kindle previewer and found that only two chapters looked the way I expected them to look. I wanted single spacing, with extra breaks in the same places as the print version. But most of the chapters were not listening to the laboriously entered manual formatting I'd just spent two full days entering into the doc.

I fiddled with the text. No luck. I fiddled some more. No luck. I just couldn't see where my formatting was wrong.

For some reason, perhaps because so many online bloggers and guides recommend formatting the htm version of a text, I finally decided to search the code for a reason my formatting was so off. Mind you, I don't code. But I can look at code and WYSIWYG side by side and understand/read the code. After all, two chapters formatted themselves correctly. All I had to do was compare the proper sections to the messed up ones and see what was different. So I saved a copy in htm, turned on Dreamweaver, and went on a hunt.

The answer was way at the top of the coding, in the definition of normal style. It would take more time, but I knew how to fix that.

The tears dried up.

In retrospect, the tears probably happened half because of my frustration and half because I went camping this week.

Our site (tipi #6) at Upper Sioux Agency State Park

The camping itself was wonderful. My attempts to sleep while camping in the extreme heat and humidity we've been enjoying? Not so wonderful.

By the way, the kindle version of the book will be available shortly. I'll let you know.

A Puzzle of Words

I finished the final edit of volume 2 in my Super Power of the Day series about an hour ago. (Fingers crossed.)


Whew!


It's astonishing to me that I can find genuine mistakes after so many read throughs. A Sunday that I called a Saturday. A sentence missing the word "of." A logical place for an emotional moment that I breezed past. These have been fixed.


Of course I found myself tinkering and tinkering with words as I puzzled out the perfect sentences. One hang up I have is accidental repetition of particular words on a given page. Another is compound words. And I'm always testing the feel of the words for elementary level speaking (my main character's voice) and reading (my audience) levels. 


Whenever I was unsure of my word choice and a suitable alternative didn't pop into my head, I switched from InDesign to Word, typed up the offending word, and right clicked for synonyms. By the end of my edit, I had a fun list of typical words, some kept and some changed, from The Hero Chronicle Continues. Reading them is like peeking into the text...


Here they are:

rustle hand me down spray paint spider web tackle box viscera crow bar mine find shove push shuffle stride move alive axel axle venue awe indelibly offer wonder if consider look gradually carefully cut gash unison malfunction problem issue evil brokenness emerge carcass videogame make force tell order 

See if you can puzzle out the plot!

Throw it all out!

I'm back to work finishing Super Power of the Day: The Hero Chronicle Continues after a lovely vacation to Ireland, Scotland, and England. These first pictures are indelibly tied to craft for me.

One of my mentors, author Sandra Scofield, once told an entire class of aspiring authors who were finishing their (our) first novels, "Throw it all out! Start from scratch!"

I sat up. What? You can't possibly mean me? My work is wonderful! I may need a tweak here or there, but it's working. Who would toss out all their hours of attentively worked prose in one fell swoop?

Sandra would.

Oh.

Still. I scoffed.

John Lennon did.

Huh?

Loads of canonized writers did, habitually.

Wow.

And Sandra was right.

One of the most fun parts of this particular trip to the British Isles was visiting...

The Dublin Writers Museum

The Writers' Museum (Edinburgh, Scotland)

and

The British Library, with their exhibit...

Wastelands to Wonderlands

Each venue displayed original manuscripts and first edition copies of seminal English literary texts, edit marks often included. Joyce, Shaw, Yeats, Swift, Stevenson, Burns, Austen, Dickens, the Brontes, Hardy, Wordsworth, Wilde, Blake, Eliot, Coleridge, Keats, Forster, Kipling, Conan Doyle, Milne, Auden, Orwell, Conrad, Woolf, Tolkein, du Maurier, Lewis Carroll, Ishiguro, Kureishi, Ted Hughes, Plath, John Lennon, Gaiman, and J. K. Rowling.

Pardon my name dropping. I spent a lot of time gasping in awe. Literally, I would walk up to a displayed text and let out a gasp of recognition and astonishment.

While some authors did indeed tweak a word or two here or there, quite a few squiggled lines through and crossed out entire pages of text, sometimes leaving a mere sentence for the final draft. Sentences I know by heart, having read and studied them with admiration and, quite often, love.

While I refuse to toss out an entire draft of a piece and start over with a blank doc, when I have a paragraph or section that just refuses to come together, the solution is usually to throw it all out. To start from scratch.

Case in point, my revising this morning. I'm about a third of the way through the 7th or 8th edit of volume 2, an edit I originally thought would be a final proofing as the design work has been done. But fresh eyes are picky eyes, and fresh ears hear glitches well. I thought I was done "writing," yet this is typical:

The last paragraph of page 54 wasn't working. I tossed it. I started over. It's working now.

I've learned my lesson.

Skype-tastic!

This week I Skyped as a "visiting author" for the first time. It was with a class of YME fifth graders whose wonderful teacher was my wonderful student teacher last fall. The kids were full of excellent questions. Questions, I might add, that were asked between licks on their last-day-of-school lollipops.

Carrie reports they were all abuzz for the rest of the day over seeing the cover of volume #2.

Unfortunately, I was having such a great time engaging with the kids, I forgot to take any screen shots. You'll just have to imagine the moment. It looked a little like this, only without the Star Wars tee shirt and freshly scrubbed face.

Also, this week I ran into a few of the Monte kids with whom I'd visited face to face a few weeks ago. There was recognition. There were waves. And there was one joyous, running across the entire gymnasium to give me a waist hug moment.

I think I like this rock star treatment!

Classroom Visit Success!

I received this amazing letter from teacher Karinda Groothuis (multiage grades 1-3 teacher) a while ago:

Dear Ann,
     In the beginning, I was a little worried -- Bloody Mary and bra descriptions seemed a little more mature than what first graders should hear. I kept reading and the children kept listening. With each super power, more predicting took place. The students were as curious as Kat and Johnny. They even learned the meaning of serendipity.
     Something amazing happened after I read the last page and closed the book. The children applauded! That has never happened before. They loved your book Ann, and they want to read more.
     I know your schedule is busy, but we would love to have you visit us. Let me know if it is ever possible.

Your friend, Karinda

Well, today was the day.

Ann Wachtler and Super Teacher Karinda Groothuis

While my own dear ones were rocking the Advanced Placement Literature and Composition Exam, I jumped buildings and had my first classroom visit for Super Power of the Day. It was wonderful. What great kids!

Except for the burning pain in my quads from squatting down to get to elementary kid level, I could get used to this visiting author gig.

Check Me Out

Super Power of the Day: Origins of a Sixth Grade Superhero is now available through the Pioneerland Library System. How cool is that?

I recently watched YA novelists John Green and Maureen Johnson discuss used bookstores and libraries. I am in complete agreement with them -- I'd much rather have an audience than "countless riches." Or even hundreds of dollars. Although I do appreciate the hundreds, as they are currently funding the cover art and design costs for the next two books in the series.

An Excellent Question

I've been answering questions for hours.


Kris Quinn Christopherson has graciously offered to interview me for a feature in an upcoming Stories for Children ezine article (sfcmagazine.com). I'm glad I said yes. Her questions are thought provoking in the best way.


I find it especially enjoyable to reflect on the writing process and to share my love of stories, especially my love for middle grade and young adult fiction, with others.


Here's one of her clever questions along with my response.

Q: When growing up, did you have a favorite author, book series, or book?

As a young reader, I found a shelf at the library that held chapter books that were fictionalized biographies of great Americans. I’m pretty sure I read them all. 

End papers for an Alfred Hitchcock and the Three Investigators mystery.

I loved the Alfred Hitchcock and the Three Investigators series and saved my money to buy them one by one at a local bookshop called Boreen Books. 

I borrowed The Bobbsey Twins, Nancy Drew, and The Hardy Boys books from friends. And of course we all checked out Judy Blume novels, though that meant waiting patiently for our turn at the school library. 

There were three adventure books that I reread often: Jean Craighead George’s My Side of the Mountain, Gary Paulsen’s Hatchet, and David Kherdian’s It Started with Old Man Bean. I hadn't realized until now that these three novels are adventure stories where the heroes survive in the wild on their own. 

I'll probably contribute to the genre myself someday. Possibly soon.

Then in sixth grade I found Stephen King and J.R.R. Tolkein, and that was pretty much the end of my children’s lit days.

A Task

Having finished the final design work and proofing of S.P.O.T.D. volume 2, I've set before myself the task of rereading volume 1, followed by a similar read of volume two in its (hopefully) finished form.

It should be a lovely day.

Although it's hard to "let go" of the writing and not re-edit in my head as I read, I truly love the story and characters and usually get wrapped up in it like a reader even when I'm supposed to be objectively distanced.

I can predict the distractions that will rear their heads: a new Netflix DVD sitting on the counter, the urge to sew up a new duvet cover (fabric from Mood in NYC), my former student Kristen Brown's memoir, Spider Solitaire, and a recipe from my new Taste of Home Heartwarming Soups cookbook (it's raining).

Friends in High Places

It turns out that former colleague Connie Stennis is buds with Betty Horvath, veteran writer of children's books. Connie shared SPOTD volume 1 with Betty recently. I was touched by Betty's succinct and kind response:

I think kids will love this. She has captured the voice and lingo of 6th graders and it should sell like hot cakes. Good luck to Ann Wachtler.

Betty's work reminds me of the books I loved to check out from the public library as a child. Doesn't the cover artwork take you back? I love that in this particular text, there is a treehouse with a ladder, dog, cat, and three friends... Very SPOTD.

Another Review That Makes Me Smile

Another Johnsrud has reviewed SPOTD volume one.
Grandma Nancy is lucky to have such wonderful grandkids.
And I am happy to know Grandma Nancy!

SUPER POWER OF THE DAY REPORT

By Jonas Johnsrud

Super Power of the Day was about a kid who woke up one morning and found that he had a superpower. Every day he had a new superpower. Some were to his advantage and some were not.

Johnny was my favorite character because he had a lot of new ideas and was pretty funny. What I also liked was that he helped Chase out with the list. That is why Johnny was my favorite character.

My emotions about the story were that it kept me interested and it was funny. It kept me interested because of how some of the superpowers he would love to keep and some he hated and he wanted to get rid of.

I would most likely want to be friends with Johnny because it seems he would be fun to hang out with. It would be fun to hang out with him because he is funny and adventurous. He is also very daring. That is why I would most likely be a friend with Johnny.

These are a few reasons I liked the book. The book kept me interested and was very adventurous. I like how she came up with a whole bunch of nicknames for the characters. Super Power of the Day was a very well written book.

Kindle Edition?

I attended the March meeting of MIPA this past week. Yeah, it was tiring to drive three hours each way (to and from downtown Minneapolis) on a Wednesday (school night), but well worth the time. I am more than ever committed to converting SPOTD series books to digital format for sale at amazon. It hasn't happened yet, but it will.

In addition to the marketing possibilities available by expanding my books' formats, there is the little matter of consequently needing a Kindle myself, to test the formatting. I'll just HAVE to go shopping for one of these shiny toys. Ah, shucks!

And after that, perhaps the formatting for other devices. Sorry, nook and other reader fans. You'll have to be extra patient!