J. Scott Savage's Blog
March 16, 2009
All along, I have been saying that Land Keep, book two of the Farworld series, will come out this September. Unfortunately, as I think many of us authors are learning, the current economy makes nothing certain. As most of you know, my wife, Jennifer and I have been working on school visits fulltime since late December, when we realized that a fall release of book two might not be as sure of a thing as we had thought. It has been a great experience, but I also know that it has been pretty taxing
All along, I have been saying that Land Keep, book two of the Farworld series, will come out this September. Unfortunately, as I think many of us authors are learning, the current economy makes nothing certain. As most of you know, my wife, Jennifer and I have been working on school visits fulltime since late December, when we realized that a fall release of book two might not be as sure of a thing as we had thought. It has been a great experience, but I also know that it has been pretty taxing
March 9, 2009
The good news about visiting schools is that you get to meet some amazing kids, teachers, librarians, principals, and parents. I’ve been having a ball. The bad news is that you come home absolutely exhausted after doing four of what really amount to one hour performances. It feels like you are a light bulb that’s been running at extra high intensity all day. Combine that with meeting lots of kids, and the results are probably predictable enough.Last week, I did two days of Provo school visits.
March 2, 2009
Publishing is selling. There is no easier way to explain it. One of the sayings I teach at writing workshops is, “Don’t write what sells . . . unless you want to sell what you write.” It sounds kind of obvious, but the point is that if you have no plans to sell what you write, you can write whatever you heart desires. But as soon as you decide you are writing for publication, you must give at least some thought to what is selling. That is not to say you should chase after every trend, “Vampire b
February 9, 2009
Probably the most common question I am asked as I do author events is, “How do you get published?” Of course there is no “one” way to get published. Everyone’s experience is different, and there is no magic bullet. The simple answer is, “Write something really great and send it out until someone buys it.” Kind of like the old joke. “How do you get to Carnegie Hall?” “Practice!” If your writing is good enough—or you are willing to really work at getting better—and you are persistent enough, you w
January 26, 2009
Just got back from a week doing school visits in California. We had a ball and sold lots of books. In fact we sold the Barnes and Noble in Roseville completely out of books, and I have to admit it was pretty cool when they said the only authors to have bigger signings there were Janet Evanovich and Stephenie Meyer. They even brought little cups of hot cocoa to the people waiting in line. How cool is that?
A few random thoughts from the road.
I don’t know about anyone else, but the perfect driving
A few random thoughts from the road.
I don’t know about anyone else, but the perfect driving
January 12, 2009
You can't wait for inspiration. You have to go after it with a club.
- Jack London
So I’m back doing school visits again, which is admittedly a lot more fun than going to a nine to five job. Where else can you suggest to a gym full of kids that a cheese-vomiting giant bologna sandwich would be a really cool arch villain? At the end of the presentation, I usually do a Q&A session. One of the most common questions goes something like this. “What was the inspiration for your book?” My typical answer
January 5, 2009
I guess a lot of people must have received Farworld for Christmas, or Chanukah, or doorstops, or maybe just because everyone else was buying books. Whatever the reason, I started getting a ton of e-mails recently. It’s been great, and I’ve been trying to be pretty quick in responding. I think getting fan mail is one of the coolest things about being an author. So today I thought I’d share some of my recent letters. I’ll just post the writers first name for privacy reasons.BTW, if you write to me
December 29, 2008
Things have been pretty wild around the Savage household of late. My daughter came home with a ring on her finger. (Much better than, say, a ring in her nose, in this dad’s opinion.)
My son left to serve his Church for two years in Columbus, Ohio, then came home two weeks later to have arthroscopic surgery on both his knees. (Did I mention I lost my job last month and our insurance ends in January?) Fortunately we managed to get most of the work done this month, and it looks like we’ll have our o
