Member Sonja Anderson is pleased to report that her Luna Crane, Papa Plane has been named a finalist in the MeeGenius Author Challenge 2014! MeeGenius creates interactive e-picture books for kids ages 0-8. The grand prize winner will be announced in mid-September, and Luna Crane, Papa Plane, which is about a young whooping crane who is migrating to Florida with her family for the first time, will be produced in 2015. Congrats, Sonja!

Calling all authors! You read it right here!

Bloomsbury Spark, a global digital imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing, has flung open its virtual doors, seeking fiction e-books in the teen/YA/New Adult genres.

For all the details and conditions, please click here. Here's hoping someone in our chapter will submit, and we can post their good news sometime soon. Go for it, writers!

Angelina Hansen's debut novel

Angelina Hansen, who served on AdCom from 2010-2012, released her debut novel Julius Caesar Brown and the Green Gas Mystery on Friday, July 12 under the pen name of Ace Hansen. The book currently exists as an e-book, available online at Amazon, MuseItUp, Kobo, and Barnes and Noble; the hardcover version launches this fall.

Congratulations, Angelina!

Stacey R. Campbell's YA debut out today

Anacortes author Stacey R. Campbell's debut YA novel, Hush (Green Darner Press, a new imprint of Gemelli Press), releases today as an e-book, and the paperback will follow in mid-January. Please see her website for more details and information about Stacey, as well as her Facebook fan page.

The first in a planned series of Lakeview books,
Hush begins the story of a quest to find a missing heir to one of Europe's thrones, from the exclusive grounds of a boarding school to the United Kingdom. And it begins the story of Blakely and Max, and how their paths cross in the search for the truth.




Congratulations, Stacey! 

Grief in Fiction book from Denise Jaden

After presenting on the topic of Grief in Fiction at a recent Pro Series meeting, YA author Denise Jaden has compiled and expanded her notes on the subject, included exercises and key points, and is releasing it as a new author's resource in ebook and paperback.

In her first nonfiction book, Writing With A Heavy Heart: Using Grief and Loss to Stretch Your Fiction, Jaden explores the stages and outlets of grief and how to implement them into your fiction to create more interesting characters and a more engaging plot. Some topics of this book include: grieving before the loss, spiritual matters, and how grief affects different ages, personality types and gender.

Writing With A Heavy Heart: Using Grief and Loss to Stretch Your Fiction is available at the following links:

The paperback version is available at Create Space, as well as through Amazon. (The price is the same on both, $6.99)

The e-book is available for $2.99 at:

Amazon

Smashwords

Kobo

Diesel

And it will be coming soon to Barnes & Noble, iTunes, and Sony (but you can pick up a copy that will work on pretty much any electronic reading device through Smashwords.)

Note: It is a workbook, including exercises, but all versions of the book and e-book include a link where you can print the exercises for your own use.

Help Denise spread the word, and if you get something out of it, she'd love to hear about it! Find out more at http://www.denisejaden.com

Interesting Article

Thanks to Jim Whiting for sending this New York Times article! The article talks about how the kids of e-book-loving adults still prefer paper for their own books. It also brings up the subject/debate about if anything is lost by taking a picture book and converting it to an e-book.

A great piece to check out!

Published Pro Think Tank Summary

By Sara Easterly

Nearly 50 PAL (published and listed) members attended the second quarterly Published Pro Think Tank, held Monday, July 11, 2011. Gauging by the incredible interest, the topic, eBooks and Self-Publishing for Traditionally Published Authors, was timely and resonated.

Today’s publishing landscape is changing quickly, and the stigma that once loomed over e-books and self-publishing is being lifted. In fact, many authors who’ve already hit the big time with traditional book publishers are turning to self-publishing.

Earlier this year, for instance, New York Times best-selling thriller author Barry Eisler turned down a $500,000 publishing deal from a mainstream publisher in order to self-publish his next book. Last fall, acclaimed writer Seth Godin, author of about a dozen books including PURPLE COW, told the Wall Street Journal that he “now has so many direct customer relationships, largely via his blog, that he no longer needs a traditional publisher.”

Janet Wong, Kevin Emerson, Chris Eboch, and P.J. Hoover are a few of the pioneers following suit in the children’s book industry. Together with Milos Vasic (Vasic Books) and Laura Rennert (Andrea Brown Literary Agency), they joined the Think Tank from four U.S. time zones—in person or via Skype—to share their personal paths into ebooks or self-publishing. They dished about things like doing the math to make profits work… the logistics of selling e-books through online bookstores… when it makes sense to self-publish and when it doesn’t… and how and when to talk about it with your agent.

Janet Wong has published 21 books through traditional publishers, appeared on The Oprah Winfrey Show, and spoken at the White House, but says her proudest accomplishments are two ebooks that she published herself this year: ONCE UPON A TIGER and POETRY TAG TIME. Her move into the ebook arena was driven by a desire to respond to teacher requests for more affordable poetry books—definitely possible when priced as an ebook at $0.99 or $2.99.

Janet was joined by Milos Vasic, her book designer, who shared details about the technical side of things, such as which programs to use and how to upload .mobi files for the Kindle store or .epub files for the Nook store.

Kevin Emerson has published seven novels for middle grade readers: CARLOS IS GONNA GET IT with Arthur A. Levine Books, and six books in the OLIVER NOCTURNE SERIES, the first five published by Scholastic. Kevin recently self-published the final book in his OLIVER NOCTURNE series after Scholastic changed editors—and course—on him, wanting to meet his fans’ desire to see the series to completion. With the help of his author friends in town, Kevin produced a final novel— written, designed, and printed entirely in Seattle, the place he and his supernatural universe call home. The result is the final Oliver book, THE TRIAD OF FINITY. Kevin said he sometimes feels nervous and apologetic when talking about his foray into self-publishing, but has found the experience liberating and fun.

Author Chris Eboch began her children’s writing career with successes such as THE WELL OF SACRIFICE (still in print from 1999) and writing for the Nancy Drew series. But after her editor was fired, she decided to self-publish the last book of her HAUNTED series as well as a middle-grade manuscript set in Egypt. Chris’s agent thought it was a wise idea and was very supportive, and continues to pitch other manuscripts to traditional publishers. As it turns out, the HAUNTED book may be published traditionally after all, but Chris has EYES OF THE PHAROAH and an adult romance in the self-published market now.

Middle-grade author P.J. Hoover decided to self-publish her first YA, SOLSTICE, after her agent, Laura Rennert with Andrea Brown Literary Agency, suggested it and out of a sheer desire to get the book into the hands of readers. After all, she reasoned, she’d worked on the book for three years and felt it would be a shame to let it sit in a drawer when there are so many other options these days. In addition, the topic and themes of SOLSTICE were so timely they were afraid that, after some early attempts at traditional publishing didn’t result in a deal, the traditional timeframe would be too long and she’d miss the market.

P.J.’s agent, Laura Rennert, discussed her agency’s experimental role in helping to bring an ebook or self-published book to market, which she sees as just another way the agency can help authors bring books to readers. Laura is heading up her agency’s digital and independent publishing initiative. Following the model used with P.J.’s book, the agency would likely handle everything from positioning and packaging, editorial and copyediting, formatting and conversion, cover design and jacket copy, photography, proofreading, and uploading to all retailers and distributors—with standard agency commissions, as with books printed traditionally, to ensure there’s no conflict of interest. Laura talked about segments where ebooks have penetrated farther than paper books and some of the advantages and disadvantages of publishing options.

All panelists echoed Laura’s belief that this is a great time for authors, with more opportunities than ever before. Attendees were energized and chatty after the event ended, lingering to network, gab, and discuss their possible interest in ebooks and self-publishing. “It was very informative and really worth attending,” said Elizabeth Blake.

Authors & Ebooks: 11 Points to Ponder

Thanks to Laurie for sending this post from I.N.K. (Interesting Nonfiction for Kids) called Authors & ebooks: 11 points to ponder (written by Loreen Leedy). Here's a preview of the article:

#11 Business as usual?
If ebooks are priced lower, they may undermine the sales of traditional books, a huge problem for most publishers (and naturally authors.) The impact on libraries and bookstores, how schools will utilize ebooks, the affect on textbooks, the split authors get versus the various middlemen, how ebooks will be reviewed, the rise of indie publishing... whew, must stop now.

I.N.K. is another great blog to follow (especially for nonfiction writers!).

E-Piracy; Online Book Theft

With the rising number of e-readers, and e-books that are being bought, sold, and given as gifts, there is also a rise in piracy. These articles (the first article is about the rise in e-piracy, and the other article is about a book pirate) are good ones to peruse on the subject. Thanks to Joni for sending the links.

Article Opportunity for The Chinook

Greetings, fellow SCBWI-WWA members...

In honor of Google's release of eBooks today, I would like to challenge one or more of you to write an article for The Chinook about the various e-readers and electronic book movement. I'm open to different takes on the issue, though I'd like to keep things positive and informative, rather than negative and dismissive.

If this interests you and you're willing to do some research so that we can have an informative and instructive piece, please email me at scbwiwa@scbwi-washington.org.

Please contact me before moving forward with any writing, I want to make sure we're on the same page, content-wise.

Thanks!

I look forward to hearing from you!

Sincerely,

Liz Mills

Articles Editor

Penguin plays with the iPad

This is pretty cool!



Thanks to Liz Mills for the link.

Nail Your Novel: a free ebook

Roz Morris, a novelist, ghostwriter and freelancer, has an e-book called Nail Your Novel. You can download it free here.

The ebook platform for kids?

GalleyCat had this fascinating item about the Nintendo DS (a new version of it, anyway). The thing to note here is that this particular toy is the iPhone/Holy Grail/fetish object of the 5-and-up set. It could have huge implications for children's books:

Retailing for $189.99 and coming in both burgundy and bronze editions, the Nintendo DSi XL will help the gaming company grab a spot in the eBook universe.

The new device will launch with a stylus, a screen 93 percent larger than the Nintendo DS Lite model (pictured), and special eBook package. According to the company, the new device will launch March 28.

Here's more from eBookNewser: "In June, according to BusinessWeek, the company will introduce '100 Classic Books,' a collection of public domain works for reading on the DSi XL. The collection will cost $19.99. Obviously, this is a move to avoid being eclipsed by Apple's iPad, which will be used by many--as are the iPhone and iPod Touch--to play games, most likely more sophisticated ones that its smaller cousins can handle."

Go to GalleyCat.

Publishers delay ebook releases

The Wall Street Journal reports that HarperCollins has joined the ebook-delay bandwagon. They're experimenting with a four-week to six-month lag after the release of hardbacks as a way of protesting Amazon's $9.99 price. Publishers say this is below cost, and it's almost certainly behind the $9.99 price on hardbacks we've been seeing at some discount stores.

Interestingly, it's NOT below the cost of a YA novel (or most of them, anyway). In my experience, the wholesale rate is about half the cover price. Yet YA novels still cost that $9.99. If I ruled the world, I'd release ebooks for YA readers at the same time as the hardback and see what happens. It's not below cost, and publishers sort of lose their griping rights. Then they could go ahead and delay the release of the adult books, and then they can compare sales and have an actual experiment on their hands.

Read the WSJ story here.

Read a blog post by Todd Sattersten that criticizes the move to delay ebooks here.

Happy Friday: here's some Neil Gaiman for you

I'd call this a YA picture e-book--what about you?

Another ebook distributor

Publishers Weekly has a piece about iStoryTime, a new company that brings children's books to the iPhone. Books by "new" authors are the only ones available, the company founder said, because he didn't think the big publishers would be willing to distribute their books on this platform. Now that the company is getting more publicity, though, he's having a hard time keeping up with submissions.

Read the whole thing here.

Are libraries (and books) endangered species?

Here's an interesting speech about how one headmaster wants to evolve a school library. He talks a bit about books and their history, imagining here we're still in 1439, when manuscripts were copied by hand:

I want to tell you about this wonderful scriptorium that we have at Cushing Academy in 1439. We have scribes working full time to illuminate and copy the central texts of western civilization, especially Aristotle. We now have a remarkable library collection of 200 manuscripts, of which we are justly boastful. Now, I just learned some guy named Gutenberg claims to have perfected a method of movable type, which he thinks is the next big thing. I’m skeptical. I don’t see how this is ever going to replace the beautiful illuminated scripts that we have. So much of value will be lost if we move to these ugly, nondescript, black and white, uniform looking things called printed books. It surely will never compete with the aesthetic value of illuminated vellum. Compared to the human, personal expression of handwritten texts, where’s the individualization in printed copies? Also, these books are not going to be safe for society, because we won’t be able to control information from getting into the hands of troublemakers and even well-intentioned people who can’t handle it responsibly.

Read the rest...

Ebook Releases: Thoughts from a Publisher

Booksquare has this post from Dominique Raccah, Publisher and CEO of Sourcebooks, explaining how one publisher looks at e-books and considers the timing of their release.

We are at the beginning of model building. If hot frontlist titles are to be available in e-formats, they need to be priced by the publisher, at a reasonable discount from the hardcover retail price (to take into account the devaluation of eformats). I am totally open to that. But that’s not an option currently available. I think people may be willing to pay the premium to have the new new thing, or they may want to wait until the price falls with the trade paper edition, at which point the e-book price should be adjusted and $9.99 may make perfect sense.

Read more...