Colleen Houck's Blog, page 69

Tiger's Voyage

The cover for Tiger's Voyage is done! It will be up on my website as soon as my brother can post it but if you want to see it now, it's on goodreads and facebook.

Colleen

Good News!

Tiger's Curse has been named a finalist in the Young Adult Category of the 2010 Next Generation Indie Book Awards! This means I get fancy golden stickers to put on Tiger's Curse to show off and the book will be on display at the Book Expo of America happening on May 25th in New York City. I'm super excited about this award and very honored to have been chosen.

Here is a link to a new survey I created to help me figure out where I have pockets of fans so I can do book signings. Click on the link http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/TRBXJQL and answer the three questions. This also serves as a reminder to go to the Tiger Series page and do the movie survey too if you haven't already.

I haven't sent out the link to sign up as my friend on Goodreads in a while so here it is. http://www.goodreads.com/friend/i?i=L....

The map for the Tiger Series has been added on the bottom of the Tiger Series page and the old book trailer for Tiger's Curse is on the right hand side of the Tiger's Curse page above the picture gallery. The new book trailers are in process. My movie producer is going to trick them out for me. Grin.

Have a great weekend!

Colleen

Tiger's Quest

Tiger's Quest is finally back online on Amazon. The price will drop to $21.99 (sorry it's the lowest they let me set it). Give it a few days to show the new price before you buy. I experimented by ordering one to see if the price dropped in the cart but it didn't. Curse took a couple of days to drop the price as well. I spent the week writing a detailed synopsis of all five books for the movie producer. I think it's important for the screenwriter as well as actors/director to know the whole story so they can truly understand the characters. Lokesh, for example, is barely fleshed out in the first few books.

Here's how the movie thing goes down. 1) You find an interested producer who makes you an option offer. This is usually a small sum a money for a finite time, typically a year. 2) During that year, he'll start developing the idea, get a screenplay written, and start looking for investors. 3) If he get's investors (movie studio) they give him a check to make the movie. If he doesn't get investors by the time a year is up he can ask to renew the option for another year or I can choose a different producer and sign an option agreement with them. 4) If the movie goes forward, I sign another contract giving permission to make the movie and get another check. 5) Movie gets made and I get a percentage of the net profits.

I thought you all might be interested to learn the process. In my research I've found that lots of books get optioned and put on the back burner for future development. This means the material is taken off the table during the option time and no one else can acquire it. There are many books that get optioned and never become movies or they take years and years to develop. I'm hoping that doesn't happen to the Tiger Series but you never know.

For me the most awesome part of having a movie made isn't getting a check though earning money for years of writing is nice. It's that I get to drool over Ren and Kishan like the rest of you and see my tigers on the big screen. That is the biggest payday I can imagine.

Hopefully, I can get back to Destiny tomorrow. Have a good weekend.

Colleen

Save the Date

Hello!

With the help of a couple fans we are setting up the first official Tiger Tour in Salem, Oregon. It will be on Thursday June 3rd and we're trying to set up something really cool. In conjuntion with Tina Anderson over at the Polk County Fairgrounds, Western Oregon University, and Great Cats World Park we hope to offer something fun and unique. The tentative plans are as follows:

Author Breakfast at White's Restaurant
Book Signing at Western Oregon University's Bookstore
Tour of WOU including the Hammersley Library and the Jensen Arctic Museum
Photo Op with Wolfie the WOU mascot at the football stadium
Booths with Tiger stuff for sale
Lunch at Burgerville or on WOU campus
A driving tour going up Kelsey's mountain where her home would be
See Kelsey's Porche and Ren's Hummer (still unofficial)
A guided tour of the Polk County Fairgrounds
An animal expert lecture featuring his white tiger (still unofficial)
A picnic dinner and Q & A with the author

Sign Language interpreters will be provided. I plan to keep it as low cost for fans as possible. We still haven't secured the tiger yet because the owner feels his cat is too big to travel. He's looking for a younger, smaller cat to bring instead. We may end up with an orange tiger instead of a white one but he'll do his best. If you are interested in going we'll set up a way to reserve your ticket sometime this week. We'll do the Polk Fairgrounds stuff last during the day so kids in school who want to come can still see the tiger.

Voyage is on its third draft for the cover and second draft for the interior. It's going to be at least three weeks and I'm really hoping it will be ready by the Tiger Tour because I hope to have Voyage books to sell there.

Have a great week!

PS I have the movie contract in hand so keep your fingers crossed that we'll get the funding to make it.

Colleen

Tiger Fans

Hello Tiger Fans!

I want to give a shout out to the kids at Fowler Middle School in Tigard. You guys are awesome! They peppered me with questions and wanted to know what each magical object could do. They even got to see the new Voyage cover proofs! I had a great time and hope I'll get invited back soon even though it took me all day today to recover. I had to match their energy and I'm no teenager anymore. We did about five hours with 60-100 kids per hour. Whew! There's nothing like a three hour power nap to get you through the day.

On saturday my husband and I met with a Hollywood movie producer who is going to pick up the option to make Tiger's Curse a movie. The first step is finding a screenwriter which he is working on now and then he will shop out the idea to investors. We're very excited and he is very enthusiastic. He feels very strongly there needs to be real tigers used in the movie and also that it should be done in 3-D. As I go through this process, he has asked me to respond to all of your questions with the statement, "The movie is in the works." Keep in mind that there are still no guarantees at this point but the odds are good. I'll let you know what I can through my blog but if you ask me about actors, directors, etc. I won't be able to answer so save yourself and me the time and trouble.

As I told the kids at Fowler, I have gotten back the first version of the cover and interior design for Voyage. They are being perfected now and as soon as I have the cover I want, I will put it up on goodreads and on the Tiger's Voyage page on my website. I'm excited about it and I think you'll like it, a lot. Still no word on the Kindle or hardback versions of Voyage. If the company doesn't add the Kindle formatting feature within the first two or three months, we may have to resort to listing it ourself. You'd still get the story but none of the fancy stuff. Hardbacks are being reformatted right now and as soon as they're done, I will be selling them through my website since they cannot be listed on Amazon. Quest is still offline (the paperback version) but should be back up anytime. It would have been up last week but we found a major error in the proof and had to have it fixed.

Thats all for now. Have a happy day and take care!

Colleen

Book Signings

I am planning to drive to Salt Lake City to attend an Interpreter Convention from June 16-20 and will be driving through Oregon and Idaho. I wanted to stop at Pendleton, Boise, and of course Utah to do some book signings either going to or coming from the convention. If you live in or near any of those areas and would like to help plan or attend a signing there, please email me at contactme@colleenhouck.com so we can get something organized. I know one fan asked about me coming to Pendleton but I can't remember who you are, so please email me. For the Utah fans let me know if you'd prefer for me to come to the Provo area or if you'd rather have it in SLC.

Colleen

Study Group Questions

I have just a couple of quick updates for you. I've added study group questions for Tiger's Curse and Quest. They are under the Books tab then Tiger series and they're between the book quote and the playlist for each book. Thanks to those who submitted questions. Tiger's Quest is still offline as it's being updated. The hardbacks are being updated as well and when they're done, I'll be selling them in my store since I can't sell them through Amazon.

I have a second movie producer interested which is fun and a meeting with the first one this saturday. I'm finalizing the contract with Korea which is awesome. (I think some of the actors you all picked are from Korea). We're busy working on the book trailers and I think I found a great voice for Kishan. Hope you all agree. We've got voices now for Ren, Mr. Kadam, Kelsey, and Kishan, and I think I even found one for Lokesh.

Voyage is in the design phase now and I don't think it will take too long. I'm hoping for a release around mid-May though that may be pushing it a little. Thanks to everyone who is spreading the word. New fans are writing to me everyday and most of them say they heard about the books from a friend. I'm almost done with chapter 9 of Destiny and it's exciting seeing the story all come together. Hope you all have a great week!

Colleen

Revisions

Revisions for Voyage are done! It's my husband's fault they took longer than anticipated. He suddenly wanted to reread the whole book right before I sent it in. It was probably good because he did catch a few things the editor and I missed. I signed the contract last weekend for Curse, Quest, and Voyage to be published in China! Costco is still on board and are waiting for Voyage to be done. I will be doing a signing in the Salem, Oregon Costco store sometime soon and will add it to my events as soon as I know when. Don't forget to ask for the books in your local Costco too. My brother and his wife are in the process of creating book trailers and we've found several great voices for Mr. Kadam and a decent one for Kishan. I'm having a hard time listening to men who want to voice for Ren. Nothing sounds quite right and if it's this hard picking a voice, imagine how hard it would be to find an actor who fits the bill. There are good men like that out there ladies. Only they're usually shorter and have receding hairlines.

Voyage

Tiger's Voyage came back from the editor today, so we're one step closer to publication! Her favorite parts were the red dragon and Kelsey's, how did she put it, self-effacing humor.

In her overall comments she wrote, "This sequel continues the adventures of Ren, Kishan, Kelsey, Mr. Kadam, and the others without missing a beat. Seeing their names again made me smile, which is what readers will no doubt do when they get Tiger's Voyage into their hands. The characters seem like old friends—friends who live engagingly exotic lives. By the way, the dragons are spectacular. I am especially taken with Lóngjūn whose exuberant physical presence nearly jumps off the page. Readers' stomachs will lurch right along with Kelsey's when Lóngjūn takes to the air with her and "the boys." Well done! Good luck in your revision, and I wish you all the best for this manuscript and future Tiger sequels. They're g-r-r-r-reat! —Gail Cato, Editor

I'll put Destiny on the back burner and go through the revisions which I estimate will take me about two days. Then, I submit it to the publisher for formatting which should go pretty quickly because I already have a template they can follow. They will do the interior formatting first and cover design last. I have to write the dedication, the acknowledgements, and the back cover text, which I'm doing myself this time, but if all goes well, I hope the book will hit the market in 4-6 weeks.

Also, I signed the contracts to sell Curse and Quest to Thailand today. They will do the translations and redesign for sale in their country with an expected publication date of 18 months from now, which is also exciting. Have a great day!

Colleen

Price Change on Tiger's Curse

I have some good news and some bad news. The good news is that Tiger's Curse is finished with its updates and the books are available for purchase on Amazon again at its new price of $17.35. They will not let me lower it any more than that. Sorry. I think it should be $9.99 but it's better than it was. Quest should be going off-line any time now for updates as well and then will come back with a cheaper price.

The bad news is that it appears that Create Space (the publishing company that merged with Booksurge) is not set up to do kindle at this time. My rep there said they plan to add it back into their services but they don't know when. Those of you who are Kindle readers may want to write them and let them know they need to get busy on that so you can get Voyage too. Go to www.createspace.com then scroll to the bottom of the page and click contact us. Maybe if enough of you write in about it, they'll bump it up on their priority list.

I also wanted to give a shout out to Ms. Anderson's class in New Hampshire, who were the first brave volunteers willing to listen to a new author talk about her books. They asked many insightful questions, were full of giggles, and agree unanimously that John Abraham would make a good Ren.

Colleen