Exclusive Full Cover Reveal for Crow's Rest on Operation Awesome!

Wow, the full cover for Crow's Rest turned out so gorgeous! You can see it on Operation Awesome today by clicking here.

Happy dance for lovely covers!

Book Trailer for The Watchers Book 1: Knight of Light by Deirdra Eden

I've been paying more attention to book trailers as I've started work on mine, and keeping an eye out for the ones that succeed in getting across their book's tone and plot. That synched up nicely when I was invited to help Deirdra Eden celebrate her book by sharing the trailer! I love the imagery in this one:

The Watchers Book 1: Knight of Light

 In England, 1270 A.D., Auriella (pronounced yurr-ee-ella) flees her village after being accused of witchcraft. Pursued by nightmarish creatures, she struggles to accept the truth about her humanity. Filled with fairies, dwarves, pixies, dragons, demons, and monsters, Knight of Light is an enthralling tale that will capture the imaginations of readers young and old.

The Watchers Series has been described as Braveheart meets Supernatural. The mythology for the series is based on many theological texts from dozens of sects with correlating themes. Ancient writings include The Dead Sea Scrolls, The Traditional Apocrypha, The Pearl of Great Price, and The Kabbalah.

“The Watchers” are supernatural beings in human form whose duty it is to protect and guard mankind from the armies of darkness. Unfortunately, as the Book of Enoch mentions, some of these Watchers go bad. Although the mythology is based on these texts, Deirdra Eden’s The Watcher’s Series is written in a traditional fairytale style with a young girl’s discovery of incredible, but dangerous powers within herself, a cast of humorous side-kicks, a quest for greater self-discovery and purpose, and villains of epic proportions

Amazon  Facebook  Twitter  Goodreads  Wattpad  Pinterest

About the Author

"My goal in writing is to saturate my books with intrigue, mystery, romance, and plot twists that will keep my readers in suspense. I want to see fingerprints on the front and back covers where readers have gripped the novel with white knuckles! Aside from writing, I enjoy jousting in arenas, planning invasions, horseback riding through open meadows, swimming in the ocean, hiking up mountains, camping in cool shady woods, climbing trees barefoot, and going on adventures."
-Deirdra Eden

Find Deirdra Eden and The Watchers Series online on Amazon, Deirdra's website, Facebook, Twitter, Goodreads, Wattpad, and Pinterest.

What Do Pre-Orders Mean for Authors?

 (This post appeared in my slot at the Operation Awesome blog, but I'm sharing here too)

A few weeks ago, my book Crow's Rest showed up on Amazon as available to pre-order in paperback, and of course I had to tell everybody about it. But once the squealing was done, all kinds of questions about what pre-ordering does (and does not) mean for the book and author came up.

Firstly, I had to explain to a few less-publishing-savvy friends that pre-ordering it now means that they still won't get the book until it comes out in May 2015. So the inevitable followup question became "what are the advantages of pre-ordering it then?"

I had some vague recollection of being told publishers use those pre-order numbers for things, but I didn't really have a concrete answer to that question (still learning so much about the actual publishing process!). So I asked around among my fellow Fearless Fifteeners, and got the emphatic answer that yes, pre-orders are crucial for any book! Those numbers are used to:

• determine whether the publisher may be interested in your next book
• determine how large that initial print run should be (and possibly whether they should also print a hardcover version)
• to gauge how much buzz the book is getting, and therefore whether it merits some extra swag or promotional budgeting

The exact explanation from my publicist, Jennifer Allis Provost, on that last point was:

Basically, once you've landed a publishing contract you've convinced someone to invest months (sometimes years) and thousands of dollar in your work, with no guarantee that you will sell a single blessed copy. Yep, that's why it's so hard to make it past the submissions stage; since publishers don't have crystal balls, they have no idea what will take off and what will tank.

What changes their mind? Pre-orders.

Let's say you're a debut novelist, and the publisher has assigned you a publicist, done some marketing, and whatever else is involved in their standard package. You know who the publishers go "above and beyond" for? The titles with hundreds or even thousands of pre-orders. Those pre-orders tell the publisher that the author is willing to do her part to get the word out, and do everything she can to make that title a bestseller.

So as a reader, all that pre-ordering does is reserve a copy for you, and to make sure you get it close to the release date.

But for the author, that pre-order is a really great thing to have on their side! Having a better understanding of how this works has prompted me to go through my Goodreads Want to Read list and actually follow through with pre-orders on the titles I'm really excited about.

Feel free to share some titles you're excited for, that you've pre-ordered, in the comments!

Cover Reveal for Dead Over Heels by Alison Kemper

So I've been sad for a few months that neither of our schedules allowed for me to beta read Alison Kemper's next book, Dead Over Heels. But I won't be sad for long, because this book will hit the e-shelves soon! In the meantime, Alison and Entangled revealed the cover:

Ava Pegg isn’t sure exactly what her parents were thinking when they bought a vacation home in dull-as-dirt Glenview.

Then the cute-but-really-annoying boy next door shows up at her place in a panic…hollering something about flesh-eating zombies attacking the town. Now the undead are walking in Glenview, and they are hungry.

Panicked, Ava and Cole flee into the forest. No supplies, no weapons. But that’s the funny thing about the Zombpocalypse. You never know when you’ll fall dead over heels for a boy… 

Add Dead Over Heels on Goodreads here!
(And this is another cover design by X-Potions Design, who also did my cover and Alison's first book, Donna of the Dead)

Crow's Rest is Available in Paperback for Preorder!

I was stalking my own book on Goodreads yesterday (we writers can't help ourselves) and noticed something new on the Crow's Rest page:

a small note saying other editions (1) led me to click, and to discover that gasp my book has an ISBN!

Some further poking around led me to Amazon.com, where I discovered it's available for preorder in paperback!!!!!
(I write YA and have a literary license to use this many exclamation points; don't try this at home)


Amazon doesn't have the cover up yet, but should soon, and then it will be really shiny. It will start showing up on other retail sites too, and then the ebook will follow.

After I saw all this, it was really difficult to concentrate on the scene I was working on in Crow's Rest's sequel, No Man's Land, but at the same time it's really motivating. If people are getting excited about CR, I'd better get that second book finished so there's no delay in the publishing schedule!

Happy Wednesday, everybody!

News! I'm the new Twitter Diva for our SCBWI Regional Team!

Our local chapter of the Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators, the California North/Central Region, has been bidding a fond farewell to longtime regional team members, and welcoming new ones into their positions.

I'm happy to announce that I'm taking over the Twitter Diva (does a tiara come with this title?) position from Bitsy Kemper, who has done a fantastic job of filling the @SCBWINorthCal feed with useful and entertaining content for our regional members.

So if you're not already following, please do so! :)