Rachele Alpine's Blog, page 18

Cover Thoughts

I've talked about my cover a bit, because I've been thinking about it a lot these last few weeks. While marketing said I won't get to see my cover for another six months, I had to fill out a lot of questions about the cover. It was a pretty neat thing to do.

I had to answer questions about important locations in the book (the basketball court, the prep school itself and a swimming pool at nighttime- my main character, Kate, swims laps at night), clothes I thought the characters would wear (school uniforms- navy skirts or pants, white collared shirts), and important colors (maroon and yellow- Beacon Prep's school colors). I described the tone of the book and other things I thought might be important.

I also had to include pictures of actors and actresses that I thought looked like my main characters. I went to imdb for that and attached the following files.

I pulled pictures of Ellen Page and Willa Holland for Kate...


And Chord Overstreet and Chad Michael Murray (don't laugh...I was totally channeling him in One Tree Hill the whole time I was writing) for Jack.

This is what I wrote to the art department when trying to describe my thoughts/mood of the cover:

"When I envision the cover I see either a silhouette of Kate swimming in a swimming pool at night (perhaps from above, so the whole cover is the pool and her silhouette is on the bottom) or Kate floating on her back in a pool at night maybe with her hair spread out around her. Again, I see the whole cover the pool and a small part the main character of Kate. I think this would evoke the idea of solitude or feeling alone, especially at night.

The other image that comes to mind is an empty basketball court and either Kate sitting alone in her school uniform on the edge of a bleacher or lying on the floor of the court (again, the whole court is most of the cover) like the cover I've attached from Out of Reach. This would also evoke that idea/mode of being alone or solitude. She doesn't play basketball, but she's surrounded by it."

I'm so nervous and so excited to see my cover! I don't know if I can handle the waiting!

Sending Love and Support...

This week has been one of the hardest weeks in my teaching career.

Chardon is a neighboring school to my school district.

Many of my students are friends with the students of Chardon, play sports against their teams, and went to Auburn Career Center with the victims. I have colleagues who live in Chardon, and my department has worked with teachers at their high school on professional development.
This week was tough.

It was one full of sadness, anger, pain, disbelief, fear, questions, support, unity and most of all love.

The compassion and drive my students had this week to come together and help amazed me. They are incredible, incredible kids.
Today my school gathered together wearing red, Chardon's school color. This picture, along with banners full of messages from our students, have been sent to them.

If you look in the middle, you'll see we formed a heart inside of our group to let Chardon know how much we love and care for them.

What's In A Name?

There was a recent conversation on Twitter about names. A bunch of the The Lucky 13s' girls have names that are spelled different than the usual spelling or even names that are usually male.

I chimed in that my name is spelled different too.

Did you know that?

My parents spelled it "Rachele," but it's pronounced like "Rachel."

Have you been thinking it's Got the soft sound at the end like "Ra-shell?"

I've lived my whole life saying, "It's Rachel, my parents just spell it funny." Who knew?!

Sorry about the mistaken identity...I wanted to set the record straight!

Opression Release Day!

"Happy release day to you,
happy release day to you,
happy release day, dear Jessica Therrien,
happy release day to you!"

Jessica's book Opression comes out today (and showed up on my Kindle when I turned it on...woo ho!).

Not only does the book have a gorgeous cover...

It sounds awesome too!

Elyse knows what it means to keep a secret. She's been keeping secrets her whole life. Two, actually. First, that she ages five times slower than average people, so that while she looks eighteen years old, she's closer to eighty. Second, that her blood has a mysterious power to heal. For Elyse, these things don't make her special. They make life dangerous. After the death of her parents, she's been careful to keep her secret as closely guarded as possible. Now, only one other person in the world knows about her age and ability. Or so she thinks. Elyse is not the only one keeping secrets. There are others like her all over the world, descendants of the very people the Greeks considered gods. She is one of them, and they have been waiting for her for a long time. Some are waiting for her to put an end to centuries of traditions that have oppressed their people under the guise of safeguarding them. Others are determined to keep her from doing just that. But for Elyse, the game is just beginning - and she's not entirely willing to play by their rules.

Order, download, go out and buy a copy today!

Amazon
Barnes and Noble

And in the meantime...check out her blog. It's full of great writing talk and awhile back she posted her wedding pictures . They are BEAUTIFUL!

Author Photo

I have to submit an author photo for my cover...eek! I know I will have it taken professionally (I have an awesome photographer in mind), but I found a few fun ones that I wouldn't mind using instead!
Some are more of a joke, but maybe I'll start a trend. Silly author photos instead of the all serious ones!
Which is your favorite?
French Rachele...


NYC Rachele....

Cyprus Rachele...

V.I.P. Rachele....

Cartoon Rachele...

Scary Jersey Shore Spray Tan Rachele (yep...I totally posted this!)...

Coffee Loving Rachele...

IDK Rachele...

Artsy-Shot Rachele...

Sparkle Nails Rachele...

Fed Up Rachele...

And my personal favorite...
Coffee and Mustache Loving Rachele...

Uhm...seriously, I really love the picture above. It's my Goodreads and Twitter picture. I totally want to use it. What do you think?

Cover Nerves

I just got my PPTS sheet (Pre-Pub Title Sheet). It's full of questions that relate to my book for marketing. It's a little bit of awesome and a little bit of intimidation.
Some of the questions focus on my cover. Questions like what the main characters look like, important scenes in the book, locations, objects. I can even attach pictures of what I think my characters look like.
I have to admit that my cover is what I'm the most nervous about at this point. As a high school English teacher, I know how important a cover is. It's probably the most important factor in getting a teen to pick up the book. A cover, in my opinion, can often make or break a book. I have a lot of great books in my room that are a hard sell for my students simply because they don't like the cover.
I envision what it will be like when I get my cover...I will probably open the e-mail, see the attachment, have my husband look at it first and check out his reaction. Then I'll cover it and peek at the corner and slowly, slowly continue to remove my hand until I see it all.
Yes, I know. I'm a nut. But this is stressing me out! Big time!
I guess all I can do is pray to the cover gods that I get something as wonderful and amazing as this new cover, which I've been crushing on lately! Oh goodness, how I love this cover!

What are some of your favorite covers?

XOXOXO

Happy Valentine's Day!

*compliments of pinterest

I hope you give your sweetie a lot of smooches today, whether your sweetie is a special someone, family member or pet!

I also have two winners for the Valentine's Heart Warming Contest...

Diane D. (who is crushing on Dimitri from Vampire Academy)

The Girl on Fire 27 (who is crushing on Sean from The Scorpio Races)

Congrats! I hope your day is full of hearts, hugs and kisses!

What literary character are you crushing on today?

XOXOXO

Happy Birthday, Radley!

I will be the first one to admit that I'm a bit obsessed with my dog, Radley.
But who wouldn't be? She's a cutie!

Yesterday she turned 1, so we celebrated in style!
There was Frosty Paws eaten...


And presents to open and play with (she's a big Who fan...although the shirt only stayed on for about five minutes)...

Look how little she was when we brought her home!

And to celebrate...one of my favorite parts of one of my favorite movies!
Before we left the breeder's house, we put her by her mom (Cherry) one last time, and the two of them touched and licked noses just like Pongo and his puppy!

Heart Warming Contest!

Check these out!

They are hand warmers made out of old wool sweaters (most are my sweaters!). My mom makes them and sells them and they are awesome! They're filled with rice and lavendar, and all you have to do is microwave them for 30 seconds and ta-da! Instant hand warmers that smell so good!

I use them when writing to keep my hands warm between thoughts or when I'm walking the dog.


I've been getting such a good response with my survey that I thought I'd give two sets of these away. What do you think? Sound good? Okay!
The enter is simple.
Just follow my blog and then fill out this form with the character that warms your heart the most in a YA book.
My pick would be Cricket from Lola and the Boy Next Door...dang, I'm still dreaming about that boy!
What about you???
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How Do You Discover Books?

Publishers Weekly had a really interesting article last week. While the topic was more about a hybrid market (both print and e books), they talked about marketing and how readers discover books.
They included this chart (and yes, I know it add up to more than 100%...a lot more, in fact, but regardless, it's a pretty interesting view on how books are discovered).

I don't think there is one specific way I discover books. I definetly buy books from word of mouth, I trust the NY Times book recommendations, usually love anything NPR tells me to read and can be convinced to buy a book based on chatter that I catch on blogs or twitter.
What about you?
How do you discover books?
I'd love to hear how you decide what book to pick up next.
If you don't mind taking the simple survey, I'll post results in a couple of days.
Okay?
Okay!
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