Author of Middle Grade novels about friendship, family, and figuring out where you fit in.

Monday, March 14, 2016

The Paperback Is Here, But I Am Not

Since I only announced when the Kindle edition of CAMP NEVER released, I wanted to quickly jump in and say that the paperback is now available on Amazon! You can find it here.

I won't be sticking around to do the usual things that come with a book release. This is the time that I should be promoting my new book on a regular basis, but I won't be.

I'm taking a break from blogging, Twitter, and other media related to my author life. Because...

A) I want to focus on drafting for a little while. The completed, unpublished manuscripts I have right now aren't appealing to me, and I want to draft two or three new manuscripts and see which one I'd like to publish next. But more importantly...

B) My life outside of writing has been very busy. It's not anything secret, but it has to do with my family, which I choose not to share much about on my public social media. But I will say that it's a good, exciting thing and nothing to worry about.

So, I'm going to free up some time to focus on other big things, but I plan on returning to blogging in a few months. I look forward to hearing what's new with everybody.

Take care!
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Saturday, March 5, 2016

The Book That Fought Me

CAMP NEVER is finally out in the world! Well, the Kindle version. You can find it here.

I'm having issues with the paperback version, which is par for the course for this book. Here's a simplified timeline of my fight with Camp Never:

Drafted the manuscript a few years ago. (It's actually a complete blank slate rewrite of an older story.)

Made revisions after several rounds with critique partners, beta readers, reading the MS aloud, and printing it out and reading it.

Formatted manuscript for both e-book and print.

Waited until last minute to test e-book because life is crazy right now.

Found formatting errors in e-book.

Corrected errors and tried to test e-book again, but iTunes acted up, so it took forever to transfer the files.

Found two typos.

Corrected typos and tested it again.

Finally got e-book into shape and submitted it to Amazon.

Meanwhile...

Requested print proof.

Received proof with issues. Ink is too light on some pages.

Contacted CreateSpace to see if it's something on their end, but I just know it's because my book is trying to fight me because it's a jerk.

(But if you're interested, I encourage you to read the book anyway, even if it's a jerk. The main character is a snarky brat at first, so maybe the book is just trying to imitate her and give me a hard time. I would not even be surprised at this point.)

Camp Never:


Amazon

Goodreads


Wattpad preview coming soon!
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Wednesday, January 27, 2016

Cover Reveal for CAMP NEVER

I know I just posted about my upcoming release, but I didn't want to wait any longer to reveal the cover!

Just like my last two books, this cover was created by the amazingly skilled Steven Novak of Novak Illustration. If you're in need of a cover designer, I super highly recommend him!

And now, here's the cover for CAMP NEVER...


(You can click on it for a larger size.)

What's the book about? Here's the back cover summary:

Typer Stockton should not spend her summer at Camp Caspar.

Camp Caspar is a “behavior camp,” full of delinquents. Kids who steal. Kids who beat up other kids. Twelve-year-old Typer may not have made the best choices during her sixth grade year, but she’s nothing like these wacko and hostile campers.

Yet, her parents insist that Camp Caspar is the consequence she deserves, so she’s sleeping in a bleak, nearly empty cabin for the next month. As Typer spends her days trying to earn “smiley points,” while avoiding some of the biggest jerks she’s ever met, she can’t help but wonder:

What is she doing here? How is it fair that she’s stuck at this ridiculous camp where she doesn’t belong?

Or, even worse, what if she belongs here after all?


CAMP NEVER will be released February 25th. (At least that's the plan.) You can add it to your To-Read list on Goodreads here, if you'd like.

Thanks for checking out the cover, guys! I appreciate you stopping by!
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Thursday, January 21, 2016

Excited.

Happy New Year! Not sure if it's still cool to say that this late in January, but I haven't posted in a couple of months, so I feel the need to wish you all a happy one. I have hope that it will turn out to be a good year.

One big thing happening for me in 2016 is a new book release. I have another contemporary middle grade book coming out, called CAMP NEVER. It will be released in February (exact date to be announced soon.)


I'm pretty excited. (Trivia: The title of this post, Excited, follows the same theme as the chapter titles in CAMP NEVER. They are all one word that start with -ed: Wronged, Mocked, Sneaked, etc.)

I'll share more info as it becomes available, such as the cover, a summary, and links to Amazon and Goodreads.

This is supposed to be the time to do lots of promo, but I actually have another big, new thing going on in my life that's non-writing-related, so I don't have as much time to spend on social media lately. I know, it's great timing. But I'm still looking forward to sharing CAMP NEVER with the world, even though I can't do a blog tour and other neat things. Maybe for the next book!

What exciting things are you looking forward to in 2016? Or what things do you hope will happen this year?
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