C. Lee McKenzie

Young Adult and Middle Grade Author

Honest Indie Reviews & Awards and HOPS!

By

I would love it you’d stop by and say hi at INDIE UNIVERSE. Gary of HONEST INDIE REVIEWS  has hosted me at his blog today and I’m yappin’ away about selling books. 

The Award!

Hello wonderful writer friends, the amazing Deanie Humphrys-Dunne nominated me for this award. I so appreciated the Dragon’s Loyalty Award, Deanie.
Here are the rules:
  1. Display the Award on your Blog.
  2. Announce your win with a post and thank the Blogger who awarded you.
  3. Present 15 deserving Bloggers with the Award
  4. Link your awardees in the post and let them know of their being awarded. 
  5. Write seven interesting things about you.
And the nominees are: (in no particular order)



7 interesting things about me:
  • I used to change my name every time I moved to a new school. Usually I’d choose Kathleen or Maria. My teachers thought I was using a middle name that wasn’t on my records. My mom finally caught me and put a stop to my renaming.
  • I hate smoked oysters, but love ’em raw.
  • I never liked dolls much. They kind of scared me.
  • I love to play tennis.
  • My favorite pastime is hiking.
  • To me cooking is like dancing, it’s a lot of fun when I’m in the mood.
  • When I’m not writing I’m dreaming.
 Best wishes to all of you great bloggers/writers. If any of you are too busy to participate, it’s understandable.

Sign up HERE
Sign up HERE
Sign up HERE

Market Your Book In Person. Connect With Your Readers. Check Out UncommonYA

By

Every writer knows that writing the book and selling it to a publisher is only part of the project. You have tons of work to market what you’ve created. There are all sorts of online ideas for enticing readers to buy your book, and that’s great, but when I thought about my own book buying habits, I had to admit that I don’t like social media as the only way to showcase my work. 
Other authors say the same thing. Here’s what one author wrote just recently.
“I don’t wait to buy a book until I read the first chapters in the library or a bookstore. I buy a lot of books that I haven’t read one sentence in. Since Amazon, I buy a lot books I’ve never picked up in my hands.”
So why do many people buy books?
  • They’ve heard the author speak.
  • They’ve gone to a book signing.
  • A friend said, “Don’t miss this one.”

There’s nothing better than talking to someone who has just brought your book!

It’s personal.

One great personal way to put your book into the hands of readers is to do a workshop. I’ve done several of these. Some for young adults and more recently, with the release of my Middle Grade novel, for eight to twelve-year-olds. 
These writers are my readers, too. And I love knowing them.
This year I did a Young Writers’ Workshop at our town center. Twenty, eight to twelve year-olds attended, and every one of them wrote a story or created a draft of a story, so they had a taste of the process. I created the workshop around three simple premises.
  • In the beginning, the main characters must want or need something badly.
  • In the middle, the main characters can’t get what they want or need. Every time the reader thinks that might happen, snatch that something away. 
  • In the end, the main characters either succeed (happy ending) or fail (sad ending) to get what they want or need.
The workshop is about four hours and when they’re done they at least have an idea about the structure of a story and what holds a reader’s interest. That’s a great time to let these readers hear your first chapter.
They write amazing stories.
I read once that you don’t have to do much to persuade people to buy your book. Readers only need a single reason. So at the end of the workshop, I read the first chapter of my book and ask them if I’ve done what I told them to do in the beginning part of their stories? I ask if they like my characters based on this brief sample. And I always ask them to guess what they think will happen in the middle? In the end? 
I’ve created curiosity. I’ve created the single reason for someone to want to read my story. I never take home any unsold books. The kids have the experience of getting their own autographed copy, and each year I have at least four who return to do the workshop again. The only problem I have is writing a new book in time for that next workshop. 
Have you had a chance to meet your readers in person? What was your experience? Do you prefer in-person promotion or social media online? Any hints for other writers who are telling about their books? 
******

There’s a new group of Young Adult authors that is offering some

books for the teen+ reader. I hope you’ll take a look and spread the word.

    

#Writers4Writers W4WS

By

WRITERS4WRITERS, the super brainchild of STEPHEN TREMP, is here again. I’m lucky enough to be a featured author for August.  Here’s how you can participate:





1. Be sure to visit WRITERS4WRITERS Facebook page. Click the LIKE button if you haven’t already. Leave a comment, and, if you want, share one of the posts below. 

Kirkus Reviews says Alligators Overhead is a “swampy middle-grade story full of humor, hauntings, quirky characters and a mystery that continues to develop to the very end.” http://tinyurl.com/k85hz57

Kirkus Reviews says, “The folksy diction and lyrical, verb-heavy storytelling will leave readers turning the pages all the way to the end, where big surprises await and the real villains are revealed.” http://tinyurl.com/k85hz57

Alligators, witches and a spooky mansion aren’t your average neighbors. . . unless you live at the edge of the Ornofree swamp in the backwater town of Hadleyville. http://tinyurl.com/k85hz57

2. Twitter away! Here are some Tweets to make that easy for you. Just copy and paste.

KirkusReviews says Alligators Overhead non-stop adventure. http://tinyurl.com/k85hz57 #BookWorm #MGLit #KidLitChat #yalitchat 


KirkusReviews: Alligators Overhead “swampy middle-grade story full of humor & quirky characters.”http://tinyurl.com/k85hz57 #MGLit #KidLitChat 

KirkusReviews: AlligatorsOverhead “a mystery that continues to the end.” http://tinyurl.com/k85hz57 #BookWorm #MGLit #KidLitChat 

ALLIGATORS OVERHEAD takes you on one great swampy adventure. http://tinyurl.com/k85hz57  #MGLit #KidLitChat  #Kindle #library

Witches, alligators and spooky mansions: ALLIGATORS OVERHEAD. http://tinyurl.com/k85hz57 #BookWorm #MGLit #KidLitChat  #library



Please don’t forget to add your own favorite hashtags to help spread the word. 

3. You can also go to #W4WS on your Tweetdeck and Retweet other Tweets. 

Thanks to all you wonderful blogger people. Sunflowers 4U! Don’t miss Carrie Butlers page today either. She’s gone Indie and is making a splash!

Monday Moods-Interested

By 

One thing that has caught my interest in joining the A to Z Blogging Challenge is meeting all the new writers/bloggers.

Karen Jone, Coming Down the Mountain, has some super posts. Here’s one of my favorites about MARKETING. She poses some great questions and the comments she received added so much information that I decided to post a link in case some you hadn’t read her blog post. 

 

I still consider myself a novice at this social media/marketing business, but I’ve been taking notes from people who seem to have experience and, most importantly, success.

Alex Cavanaugh’s launch of his Cassa Fire was a great example of how to use the blogOsphere to get the word out about your book.

It’s a lot about Connecting.

Some of my MARKETING experiments using SOCIAL MEDIA.

For my published books I’ve used Goodreads’ ads and found them somewhat successful as far as people adding my book to their TBR list.  Of course, if gave them away I stirred a lot of interest.

Facebook, no. I didn’t think anything much happened when I took out an ad there, and I’ve heard that echoed by others.

As to Twitter, I changed the default home page so that it showed my book cover and I ran MANAGE TWITTER to clean out Tweeps that didn’t 1) Tweet 2) Follow my Tweets. That freed me up to follow those interested in what I have to say in 140 characters. You can “unfollow” 50/day, but I’m not sure about how Twitter reacts if you do that repeatedly. I’m thinking the “unfollow” should be done over some time. Anyone know more about this?

Jump in and add your ideas or please tell me if I’m totally wonky. I’m off to experiment with more MARKETING and maybe find out something I can share about BRANDING and BOOK REVIEWS (I know there are some pros and cons on this topic). I’ll post what I find out next week. 

SCBWI Authors at the Sonoma Book Fair

By


The day couldn’t have been more beautiful-low 80’s weather, under the shade of a redwood tree, surrounded by people who love books. The best part was being able to catch up on writerly and not-so-writerly stuff with three SCBWI writers.

Here we are posing with our books and display. From left to right: Me, Cynthia Jaynes, Cheryl R. Herbsman, and Malinda Lo.

Alicia and Zoe (Teen Bloggers who rock) came by to say hello, making the fair even better than beautiful.

Catching Up

By

I’m back and trying to catch up. Sometimes things happen even in writers’ lives that take precedence over blogging. Hard to imagine, but true.

So what’s happened while I’ve been away?

Iraq had an “election.”

In Cairo, the President has stirred the Christian and the Islamic world with his messages about a new attitude. Both sides are a bit confused now that they are no longer completely sure about where the U.S. stands. That’s probably progress.

Penguin colonies are now disappearing. Global Warming? Faulty data?

Ice Cream Parlors are up 20% in their sales. Bad economy=More money in the comfort food sector.

Winona Ryder is an insomniac.

My book is getting some good REVIEWS—REVIEWS. Wait! This should be at the top. Oh, well, next time.

Authors Now

By

“The Internet’s Largest Collaboration of Debut Children’s and Teen Book Authors and Illustrators”

It’s up. It’s running. It looks and feels good.

Without Snoop, what would we do? Oops. Thanks to Cynthea Liu also.

Book Divas

By

Well, I’ve spent the day scratching my head and wondering where I am in all of this writing, publishing, marketing business. Then I landed on a site called Book Divas and had some fun. Great site for connecting with your YA readers and enjoying their take on what is hot and what is not. Have to say the reviews I read are spot on.

Marketing

By

I now realize all those English classes might have been good, but what I really needed was a course in marketing. Little did I suspect there was so much involved in post-writing a novel and post-selling a novel. Learning all the vocabulary alone is killing me!

The Photo

By

Back in October I blogged about this:
“Since I’m still in twist about this picture on my book thing, I was trying to remember how I used to look at pictures of writers on books when I was young. Did their age or lack of it have any bearing on my choosing to read their writing? I can’t remember.

Then I went to my book shelves and studied the pictures of authors. Stephen King always looks eerie, so that fits. Wallace Stegner looks old and authorly. Robert Penn Warren looks like he just came out of a cave. Carl Sagan looks international which is good even though he probably should look more universal. And I loved Nora Ephron’s picture on the back of her book, I Feel Bad About My Neck. She has pulled up a turtle neck to just below her eyes!! I’m wondering if I can do that? It would certainly save on air-brushing!”

Now I’ve actually found a photographer who will work on making me look unlike Stephen King or Wallace Stegner . . . even Robert Penn Warren. He says that’s easy. But when I pushed a bit and asked if maybe I could have more of an Anglie Jolie smile, he raised the price. I immediately screamed, “Joking!”

By the end of December I will have a photo. I will no longer be twisting in the wind over this part of the journey. I will either be very happy and broke or very unhappy and broke. I’m praying for the former.

Wish me luck.

Oh, and for Nan, I am planning on using make-up. Maybe even a lot of it. I’m pulling all the stops.