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?