Catherine Ryan Hyde's Blog, page 17

The Pay It Forward Foundation has news...

...and a brand new website!

I'm pleased to announce that the Pay It Forward Foundation has a new direction, a new executive director, and a brand new website that better defines our work and goals.

First I want to thank Charley Johnson, whom many of you know, and Kerry Taylor, who worked behind the scenes for many years as part-time director. Both have decided it's time for them to move on, but both were nice enough to stay in place to smooth the transition.

Then I want to introduce you to David Goodwin, our new full-time executive director. I also want to show you the website he created for our foundation. We are turning a huge amount of our focus toward our Young Readers Book Program. For those of you who haven't read the earlier posts about it, it's a program in which the foundation acquires discounted copies of Pay It Forward: Young Readers Edition and donates them to classrooms at no charge. Sounds too good to be true... and in some ways it is... but only to this extent: there are only just so many books we can afford to buy at this point. We are counting on your for small donations, and for spreading the word that they are needed, and how much good they will do.

Please take a look at our brand new website, www.payitforwardfoundation.org, and join us if you can! 

BIG audio giveway

I'm very happy to report, all in one place and at one time, what I've announced in bits and pieces over the last month or two.

Audible audio approached us several months back about acquiring four of my independent (in the US) titles and adapting them into unabridged audiobooks. They are: Where We Belong, Don't Let Me Go, Second Hand Heart and When You Were Older.

I'm please to say they are now all available for purchase/download. Note the titles above are links to each audiobook.

But now here's what I'm even more pleased to say: Audible was kind enough to send ten promotional codes for each title. Each code is good for one free download. I'm only keeping one of each, and I've already given one more of each away to a sight-impaired reader. That leaves eight free downloads of four audiobooks, for a grand total of 32 free audiobooks. So a hundred people could enter this giveaway and each still have a one in three chance of winning.

Here's how it always goes (with one addition--please indicate if you have a preference among the four titles):

Leave a comment below to be entered. Please DO leave your email address in the comment form (even though it will say it's optional). I promise I won't use it for any other purpose but to notify you if you win. Please DON'T leave your email address in the body of your comment unless you want everybody to see it. (It will seem there is no place for your name and email. But when you hit "Post Comment," you'll see those fields come up.)

If you have trouble, email me and let me know (my address is on the Contact page) but it seems commenting is fixed for most of you.

And last, if you're reading this on GoodReads, please click through and leave your comment on the original blog on my site. Otherwise I worry I'll forget the GoodReads folks when the time comes to draw names.

I'll collect entries until about the end of the month and then choose names at random. Good luck!

Better than Blurbs: Keep the Ends Loose by Molly D. Campbell

Because I no longer write blurbs, but still very much want to help other authors, I've launched a blog series called Better Than Blurbs. The authors and I have in-depth discussions about their books, which I hope will help readers identify whether they'd enjoy reading them.

This is the fourteenth post in the series. The author is Molly D. Campbell and the book is Keep the Ends Loose. It's available in Kindle, and in paperback as of today. (Hooray, book birthdays!)

Me: Molly, please tell my readers, in your own words, a little about your novel.

Molly: Keep the Ends Loose started as a character study of a woman who lived alone, happy in her little cottage. But it ran away with me as I began, and it morphed into a book about family secrets, the wisdom of youth, and the idea of forgiveness—what is it, really, and how do actual people deal with forgiving those whom they feel have wronged them. I wrote it in first person, through the eyes of a very precocious fifteen year old girl. Mandy Heath is an amalgam of all of the youthful protagonists I have read and loved through the years, especially Anne Shirley, Holden Caulfield, Jo March, and Flavia De Luce. Mandy is able to talk about her family crisis as a member not directly “hit over the head” with the debacle, but as a somewhat objective observer. And, of course, the book has a humorous and ironic tone, as I am a humor writer at heart.

Me: I first planned to ask you for a little bit more of a plot synopsis. But then it hit me that your book is very character-driven. There’s plot there, but it’s the quirkiness of the characters that’s really your stylistic signature. So instead would you please tell my readers a little about your major characters and what makes them each such individuals?

Molly: I have always been more interested in characterization than plot. When a book has both fascinating characters and a brilliant plot, I am amazed. Here are the people that drive Keep the Ends Loose:

Mandy Heath is fifteen, very smart, and a wry observer. She sees herself as boringly average, and when she compares herself to her mother, Winnie, Mandy feels a bit inferior. Mandy clings tenaciously to childhood, because she fears all the things that adulthood offers: college, career choices, leaving home, and of course, sex. Mandy has no idea how mature and competent she really is. She has a keen sense of irony, and her story telling ability is what sets Keep the Ends Loose apart from other novels about teens. I have always been drawn to precocious narrators, since I read Anne of Green Gables as a child and completely identified with Anne Shirley. 

Barley Crowder is Mandy’s best friend. Barley and Mandy are complete opposites. Where Mandy plods, Barley glides. Mandy is overwhelmingly average. Barley is a junior-high superstar. Barley has gleaming blonde hair, a perfect complexion and figure, and she is wildly popular at school. Mandy enjoys life safely in Barley’s shadow. Barley is a take-charge type who is the catalyst for much of the plot resolution—she is a lot like Winnie, actually.

Roy Heath is the kind and gentle pharmacist who is Mandy’s dad. Mandy sees him as saintly, in compared to her mother. I modeled Roy on my husband, who is the definition of unconditional love. 

Adam Heath is a typical teenaged boy. Mandy’s older brother is, of course, portrayed through her lens, and so we see him as very one-dimensional: the way most siblings view one another. He is annoying, stupid, and monosyllabic. Until he isn’t.

Iris Heath is Mandy’s aunt. She is another complete opposite--of her sister Winnie. She is willowy, beautiful, musical, and graceful. But, as Mandy reports, there just isn’t much in there…Iris is bland. I invented this bland woman around whom the entire plot revolves, because once again, I like the contrast between the two sisters, and I also wanted to focus the plot around Mandy and her immediate family without too much complication from Iris. Iris, of course, is not what she seems, because once again, she is portrayed only as Mandy sees her. As the plot unfolds, Iris gains dimension, and we see how Mandy’s view of her aunt, and actually her entire family, evolves as the book progresses and as Mandy matures.

Winnie Heath is the chubby dynamo about whom Keep the Ends Loose swirls. She is determined, bossy, and she doesn't have one bit of impulse control once she has made her mind up to do something. The book is in large part about forgiveness, and in Winnie, we see a woman who is obsessed with "tying up that one loose end" that has hounded her for years. That is all I can say without spoilers, but I have often wished I had a little more of her dogged determination!

Mandy is able to tell the story of her family’s debacle through a wry and slightly detached lens. She is really me—I have always been a watcher. I wanted to tell this story through a humorous and slightly innocent viewpoint, and this is how Mandy is. She can be both upset and hilarious at the same time.

Me: You’ve done something unusual with Winnie. You’ve made her a big woman—that is, overweight—but also attractive and sexy, someone who has never had trouble getting men’s interest. That’s unusual. In most books, big characters seem purposely placed as tragic and unfulfilled figures. I like it better your way. What inspired you to break that (unusually moldy) mold?

Molly:  I had a good friend in high school who was very popular with boys. I could never understand it, because she wasn’t really pretty. She was  a little overweight-- extremely confident, however, and seemed to think of herself as a siren. And it worked. I thought of her as I created Winnie—and I loved the idea of a chubby woman as a mankiller. I like to tweak stereotypes.

Me: What’s your ideal target audience for this book? Your main character is a teen, of course, so Young Adult seems to go without saying. But did you write this fairly exclusively for young adults, or are you hoping to appeal to a variety of ages? Who is/are your ideal readers?

Molly:  I wrote it for adult readers, but then halfway through, I realized that it would have appeal to young adult readers as well. I am very comfortable writing as a young girl, because I actually feel as if I am still a teenager inside.

Me: You called yourself a humor writer at heart. Talk to us a little about your background as a writer. Is this a debut novel, or is there a rich body of work behind it? And once you’ve told us a little more about your history, please tell us why your heart is drawn to comedy.

Molly:  I have always been “funny.” I initially wanted to be an actress, and comedy was my forte. I have always loved quirky people, and I am drawn to comedy. I think that pain is often very well expressed via comedy, and heartbreak often has a funny flip side. I love words as well, and I like to mix things up. For instance, in Keep the Ends Loose, Mandy calls her father “a cross between a genius and a stuffed animal.” This is just the way I think, I guess!

In terms of a rich body of work, yes. I spent an entire year making up character names and then writing a character sketch for each one. I self-published many of them in my first book, Characters in Search of a Novel. I have always wondered how a name might influence a person’s life: wouldn’t John Smith have a much less eventful life than Rollie Sidebottom?  And then about a year ago, I downloaded a drawing app, and I discovered how much I like to draw the faces of my characters. This opened up a whole new world of fun for me!

I also have blogged weekly for about nine years.  Practice, practice.

Me: What’s next for you?

Molly:  I am writing a book about a lonely woman who makes her living writing erotic fiction, and the friendship she makes with an eleven-year-old girl. They save one another. Wait—this sounds like a Catherine Ryan Hyde novel!

Me: Please write your own question, and answer it.

Molly: If you could have great talent in another area, what would you choose to do?

I would love to be an animal rescuer. I have always loved animals, and one of my goals in life is to hold a baby lion. This will never happen.  I would also like to hug a baby beaver. Again, no way.  Because I could never actually be a rescuer—I would end up trying to keep all the animals I rescued. I would be a complete failure. I know this, as I have five cats sitting in my kitchen at this very moment.  Catherine, thank you so much for having me!

Me: No, thank you, Molly. You are always fun. Readers can learn more about Molly by visiting HER WEBSITE, or you can follow her on Twitter.

Deal Alert for paper people

I could just sit here and amuse myself by trying to say "paper people" ten times fast, but instead I want to tip you to a deal. The paperback edition of my novel The Language of Hoofbeats is marked down (from $14.99) to $9.49, and that price will last for the entire month of March.

So if you prefer paper books, and get slightly ticked that the price deals are always on ebooks, here's your chance.

If you've read this one, or already have the paperback, may I plant an idea in your head? [[ Gifts for readers. ]] Who said that? Wasn't me!

I just always want to tell you about deals because you're my faithful readers and you deserve all the price breaks I can share with you.

Happy reading! 

Giving away a book you can't buy! (Yet.)

Look what the UPS guy just brought me. A carton of advance readers' copies of Worthy. This is my next release, due out in June of 2015. You can't buy it yet.

Does anyone else smell a giveaway coming?

Please, as always, read the following before putting yourself in the running:

Leave a comment below to be entered. Please DO leave your email address in the comment form (even though it will say it's optional). I promise I won't use it for any other purpose but to notify you if you win. Please DON'T leave your email address in the body of your comment unless you want everybody to see it. (It will seem there is no place for your name and email. But when you hit "Post Comment," you'll see those fields come up.)

If you have trouble, email me and let me know (my address is on the Contact page) but it seems commenting is fixed.

And last, if you're reading this on GoodReads, please click through and leave your comment on the original blog on my site. Otherwise I worry I'll forget the GoodReads folks when the time comes to draw names.

I'll collect entries for about a week and then choose three names at random. Good luck!

When You Were Older in unabridged audio!

I'm thrilled to report that another of my titles is now available for preorder in an unabridged audio edition. Audible recently purchased four of my backlist titles and is producing and releasing their audiobooks one after the other. This time it's When You Were Older. It releases on February 10th (soon!) but can be preordered right now.

Just go to THIS LINK.

Two more announcements to follow shortly.

Usually I say "Happy reading!" In this case I should probably say "Happy listening!" Or "Happy commute!" Because nothing makes a commute better than a good audiobook. 

Deal Alert: Take Me With You

Remember how just last month WHEN I FOUND YOU was a Kindle Monthly Deal, marked down to $1.99 for the whole month of January? Well, today it's February, it's back up to $3.99, and today TAKE ME WITH YOU starts its run as a Kindle Monthly Deal for February.

Yup. $1.99 all month. So if you haven't read TAKE ME WITH YOU, here's a good chance to pick it up for a song. If you have, this is a great month to recommend it to a friend.

I'm doing my best to keep the affordable books coming, and Amazon is helping a lot!

Happy reading!

New swag!

Bookplate #1

In an ongoing effort to bring you swaggier swag to thank you for your loyalty, I have this happy announcement: 

Laron Glover of Ninth Moon has designed and created these three lovely custom bookplates. They can be personalized and signed, and they are easy to mail to you. Now all of my books on your shelves can be signed copies!

Bookplate #2

Bookplate #3

Here's how to get one (or more). It's easy.

Address an envelope to yourself and put a stamp on it. Fold it up and mail it to me at:

P.O. Box 552, Cambria, CA 93428 

Be sure to tell me which of the three designs you want and how you'd like it personalized.

That's it! It's my way of saying thank you!

Commenting fixed! Let's celebrate with a giveaway!

I just heard great news this morning. The problem I was having with blog comments (about 25% of you were unable to leave a comment on my blog) has been fixed. Or so I've been told. I'm really keeping my fingers crossed that this will bear out.

It coincides nicely with my author team at Lake Union sending me eight large print hardcover editions of Take Me With You. You know the drill by now. I keep two to archive. The rest are for you folks.

Please, as always, read the following before putting yourself in the running:

Leave a comment below to be entered. Please DO leave your email address in the comment form (even though it will say it's optional). I promise I won't use it for any other purpose but to notify you if you win. Please DON'T leave your email address in the body of your comment unless you want everybody to see it. (It will seem there is no place for your name and email. But when you hit "Post Comment," you'll see those fields come up.)

If you still have trouble, email me and let me know (my address is on the Contact page) but I'm really hoping it's fixed.

I'll collect entries until the end of the month and then choose six names at random. Good luck!

Don't Let Me Go in unabridged audio

Here's a fun announcement.

Audible recently purchased the audio rights to four of my backlist novels, Don't Let Me Go, When You Were Older, Second Hand Heart, and Where we Belong. They are all in various stages of production as unabridged audiobooks.

The news today is that Don't Let Me Go is now available for preorder! Just CLICK HERE.

Hope you enjoy the new editions!