Tom Ryan's Blog, page 2

What Surprised Me About Publishing – Vlog

 

 

Whoa! I haven't updated in a month – I have all kinds of news, but it will have to wait a few days. (patience, patience!) In the meantime, here's the latest vlog I did for the Apocalypsies Youtube Page. Enjoy!

First Ever Friday Endorsement Extravaganza!

I listen to a lot of podcasts – I'd go so far as to say that my number one entertainment delivery system, with the possible exception of straight up listening to music. I listen to podcasts when I clean the house, when I go for walks with the dog, when I mow the lawn, when I cook supper, and so on and so on, blah blah blah…

Podcasts are great. They're free, you can find them on virtually any topic, and the best of them are super entertaining and informative. Some of my favorites are This American Life, Writers and Company, Desert Island Discs and Radiolab, to name just a few.

I've recently become completely obsessed with the Cultural Gabfest, a weekly podcast put out by Slate.com. I say obsessed because I discovered the podcast in early January, downloaded the 100 back episodes available on iTunes, and have since listened to 80 of them. That's a lot of radio to consume in a month. The basic set-up is pretty straightforward; three hyper-intelligent, witty, culturally informed co-hosts (Steve Metcalf, Julia Turner, and Dana Stevens) sit around for about 45 minutes once a week and yap about three current pop-cultural stories/issues. They talk about movies, TV shows, books, albums, musicians, awards shows, you name it. I can't say enough about the show – it's funny and insightful and if you're the kind of person who loves academic occasionally pretentious yip-yappery about pop-culture, you might want to check it out.

All of this is essentially a pre-amble to my new thang, so to speak. One of my fave parts of the show is at the end, when each of the hosts and sometimes their guest endorses something that they've been culturally "consuming." I've been turned on to lots of great books, TV shows, music, etc… from the endorsement section of the show. So anyway, I'm going to blatantly steal this idea and start endorsing stuff that I love – every Friday.

Without further ado, here are my endorsements for this week :

 

Endorsement #1 : I recently ate my first bag of Hawkins Cheezies. Oh. My. God. I'm telling you, if you love Cheesies or Crunchits or Cheetos any of these corn based cheese snacks, but haven't yet tried these Cheezies, you are missing the boat! They are super delicious and blow the rest of those posers completely out of the water.

I'm not sure where you can buy them – I don't remember ever seeing them in eastern Canada, but they are all over the place in BC, and they are produced and packaged in Belleville, Ontario. I'm telling you, order some now, before I start stockpiling for the apocalypse (only 11 months away!)

 

Endorsement #2 : the awesome song "Kindergarten" from the awesome album "Say Us" by the awesome band "Zeus." Happy headspace listening, straight-up spring-is-comin' music. Give 'em a listen.

That's it for this week – happy Friday!

 

 

 

Next Up

Big news! I'm super frickin' excited to announce my second book! Orca has given the green light to TAG ALONG (working title) and I couldn't be happier.

TAG ALONG – SYNOPSIS : Andrea, Paul, Candace and Roemi aren't friends – they barely even know each other – but they do have one thing in common: it's prom night, and for very different reasons, none of them is at the big event. Over the course of one crazy night, paths are crossed, plans are changed, messages are mixed, and things definitely do not end the way they began.

In many ways, this is a total departure from WAY TO GO. I wanted to write something totally contemporary (WAY TO GO is set in '94) and fast-paced. TAG ALONG takes place entirely over the span of one night. Some of my favourite memories from high school are of epic nights full of twists and turns and a random and revolving cast of friends, foes, and love interests – those nights were the inspiration behind the book.

The book is also multi-vocal – alternating chapters are narrated by each of the four main characters – 2 guys and 2 girls. It was a challenge to take on four voices, but a lot of fun once I got into the swing of things.

I had a blast writing it, and I am really looking forward to working for the second time with Sarah Harvey, who was my editor on WAY TO GO. The book is currently slated for release in fall of 2013.

I'm totally excited, and can't wait to blog about this new adventure!

 

YAmazing Race With MGnificent Prizes!

Hi! Welcome! You've made your way to Tom Ryan's pit-stop on the YAmazing Race with MGnificent prizes! If you've been running the race already, and you know what I'm talking about, feel free to skip the next paragraph! (Please note: YAmazing Race is NOW OVER! Contest winners will be announced in the next couple of days – thanks for participating!)

For those of you who may have landed on my page with no knowledge of the contest, the YAmazing Race is a wild and crazy blog hop featuring more than 50 debut authors and lots of amazing prize packages, featuring everything from signed ARCS (including one of WAY TO GO!) to gift certificates, bookmarks, and lots of other cool stuff. You have one week from today (January 16th) to run the race. Sound good? Great! Head over to the Apocalypsies homepage to read the rules and get started! http://apocalypsies.blogspot.com/

Now on to the race!

For my portion of the contest, I'm posting my full cover for the first time – front and back. I've already revealed the front cover of WAY TO GO (actually, I revealed it twice – long story!) but I've been waiting for this contest to do a full reveal of the back cover and spine. All the info you need for the quiz can be found in the information on the back of the book. Read it carefully – remember, you are only eligible to win a prize pack if you answer all five quizzes! (Hint : the answer to the WAY TO GO question can be found in the bottom paragraph on the back cover)

 

Got it? Great! Before you continue on with the race, a couple of things – WAY TO GO is available for pre-order on Amazon, so if you're interested in having a copy shipped to you as soon as it's available (April 1!) consider clicking through and ordering one now! Amazon/Way to Go 

Finally, if you enter the contest below - you'll have the chance to win one of 5 "mix tapes," inspired by the book. WAY TO GO is set in 1994, when nobody knew what an MP3 was – instead, people passed music around on homemade cassettes. I've put together some amazing playlists and will be shipping them to the winners on USB drives – I've even put a few surprises on there as well! (Update – my personal contest is over! The winners have been chosen and are announced below – I'll be in touch to get mailing addresses this week. Congratulations! Thanks so much for all of you who took time to stop and check out my blog and enter the contest. The YAmazing Race will continue until 12 noon, EST on Monday, January 22)

a Rafflecopter giveaway

<a href="http://rafl.es/enable-js"&am... need javascript enabled to see this giveaway</a>.<a href="http://rafl.es/enable-js"&am... need javascript enabled to see this giveaway</a>.Ready to move on? Click here to pay a visit to Jasmine Richards, author of THE BOOK OF WONDER! Good luck and have fun!

 

YAmazing Race With MGnificent Prizes!

Hi! Welcome! You've made your way to Tom Ryan's pit-stop on the YAmazing Race with MGnificent prizes! If you've been running the race already, and you know what I'm talking about, feel free to skip the next paragraph! (Please note: the race doesn't start until Monday, January 16, 2012, at 12 noon EST)

For those of you who may have landed on my page with no knowledge of the contest, the YAmazing Race is a wild and crazy blog hop featuring more than 50 debut authors and lots of amazing prize packages, featuring everything from signed ARCS (including one of WAY TO GO!) to gift certificates, bookmarks, and lots of other cool stuff. You have one week from today (January 16th) to run the race. Sound good? Great! Head over to the Apocalypsies homepage to read the rules and get started! http://apocalypsies.blogspot.com/

Now on to the race!

For my portion of the contest, I'm posting my full cover for the first time – front and back. I've already revealed the front cover of WAY TO GO (actually, I revealed it twice – long story!) but I've been waiting for this contest to do a full reveal of the back cover and spine. All the info you need for the quiz can be found in the information on the back of the book. Read it carefully – remember, you are only eligible to win a prize pack if you answer all five quizzes! (Hint : the answer to the WAY TO GO question can be found in the bottom paragraph on the back cover)

 

Got it? Great! Before you continue on with the race, a couple of things – WAY TO GO is available for pre-order on Amazon, so if you're interested in having a copy shipped to you as soon as it's available (April 1!) consider clicking through and ordering one now! Amazon/Way to Go 

Finally, if you go to my Facebook page - http://www.facebook.com/tomwrotethat -and "Like" me, I'll enter you to win one of 5 "mix tapes," inspired by the book. If you follow me on Twitter, you'll be eligible to win one of five more. WAY TO GO is set in 1994, when nobody knew what an MP3 was – instead, people passed music around on homemade cassettes. I've put together some amazing playlists and will be shipping them to the winners on USB drives – there might even be some cool bonus stuff on there as well! I'll also be doing more giveaways between now and my release date, and Facebook and Twitter fans will be automatically entered in those contests as well.

Ready to move on? Click here to pay a visit to A.C. Gaughen, author of SCARLET! Good luck and have fun!

 

ReCovering (and a contest!)

Happy Friday!

Big thanks to all of you who took the time to comment on the cover for WAY TO GO! From the sound of things, everyone else loves it as much as I do, which is great to hear.

Here's the thing… a couple of days after I revealed the cover, I got a call from my editor.

This is a difficult phone call to make - she said – there's been a bit of concern around the office about the readability of -

OF WHAT!? Of the book!? Chapter One? All the chapters? The whole damn thing?

- the readability of the title on the cover design… so… the decision was made to change to a more readable font…

Okay, I can deal with this.

I'm not going to lie, I was in love with the tape scrolling out of the cassette, spelling out the title. That was a pretty epic design, and the art director and her team deserve a lot of credit for coming up with that idea and executing it so well. That said, a couple of people had mentioned to me that they'd needed to adjust their eyes for a moment before making out the words – and these were people who already knew the title. It's really important – crucial really – that the title be instantly readable. My friends and family are going to buy the book anyway (ed. – they'd BETTER buy the book anyway) – the challenging part of book publishing is marketing and selling to people who have never heard of me or the book. If they can't read the title right away, there's a good chance that they'll skim right over it and keep on walking.

So. New font. The good news is that the rest of the cover is pretty much the same – same cassette, same (awesome) color green, my name is still written on the cassette label (I love that, I do.) The only other difference is that there is now some purple on the spine and the back cover – I love purple, so that's all good. So without further ado, here's my new cover -

Ta da!

I know, it's not really all that different. I still love it. I am going to frame the shit out of this design and put it on my wall. (possibly poster sized – too much? too much.)

Anyway, that's the cover, unless it changes again. A lesson to us all – in publishing, it ain't over till it's over.

In another quick bit of cool news, on MONDAY JANUARY 16 (cap-locks, so you know it's important) there is going to be an amazing opportunity to win some prize packages full of books and other stuff from some of the Apocalypsies. For those of you who are late to the blog, the Apocalypsies is a group of YA (young adult) and MG (middle grade) authors whose debuts are coming out in 2012. I'm a member of the group and I can tell you that this is a super cool bunch of people – so many great-looking books to read! It's been really cool to hang out online with these guys and talk shop and get excited with each other about imminent book birthdays. Now that 2012 is in gear, several books have already been released – one of them (CINDER by Marissa Meyer) debuted at #10 on the NYT bestseller list this week – exciting!

But I digress – on Monday, at 12 noon EST (that's 1 pm in Atlantic Canada and 9 am on the west coast) go to the Apocalypsies homepage for the starting line of the YAmazing Race with MGnificent prizes! This scavenger/blog hunt will be up for a week, and will basically involve following the directions on the homepage to visit the blogs/websites of over 50 Apocalypsies (I'm one of them!) and answer questions in a challenge format to be eligible for prizes! Clear as mud? Don't worry, the instructions on the Apocalypsies page will be crystal clear. I'll be facebooking and tweeting about it once the contest starts, and you'll have a whole week to participate.

Best of all? Several great prize packages full of books, bookmarks, and lots of other swag. One of the prizes is a signed ARC of WAY TO GO! Be sure to pay attention to the individual authors' blogs as well – there are going to be lots of individual give-aways, which is pretty cool.

I also want to give a quick shout out to Gina Damico, who organized the whole damn thing. Her book CROAK will be coming out in March, and it looks wickedly funny. Can't wait to read it.

Anyway, that's it for now – thanks again for the continued interest in the book and have a great weekend!

ReCovering (and a contest!)

Happy Friday!

Big thanks to all of you who took the time to comment on the cover for WAY TO GO! From the sound of things, everyone else loves it as much as I do, which is great to hear.

Here’s the thing… a couple of days after I revealed the cover, I got a call from my editor.

This is a difficult phone call to make - she said – there’s been a bit of concern around the office about the readability of -

OF WHAT!? Of the book!? Chapter One? All the chapters? The whole damn thing?

- the readability of the title on the cover design… so… the decision was made to change to a more readable font…

Okay, I can deal with this.

I’m not going to lie, I was in love with the tape scrolling out of the cassette, spelling out the title. That was a pretty epic design, and the art director and her team deserve a lot of credit for coming up with that idea and executing it so well. That said, a couple of people had mentioned to me that they’d needed to adjust their eyes for a moment before making out the words – and these were people who already knew the title. It’s really important – crucial really – that the title be instantly readable. My friends and family are going to buy the book anyway (ed. – they’d BETTER buy the book anyway) – the challenging part of book publishing is marketing and selling to people who have never heard of me or the book. If they can’t read the title right away, there’s a good chance that they’ll skim right over it and keep on walking.

So. New font. The good news is that the rest of the cover is pretty much the same – same cassette, same (awesome) color green, my name is still written on the cassette label (I love that, I do.) The only other difference is that there is now some purple on the spine and the back cover – I love purple, so that’s all good. So without further ado, here’s my new cover -

Ta da!

I know, it’s not really all that different. I still love it. I am going to frame the shit out of this design and put it on my wall. (possibly poster sized – too much? too much.)

Anyway, that’s the cover, unless it changes again. A lesson to us all – in publishing, it ain’t over till it’s over.

In another quick bit of cool news, on MONDAY JANUARY 16 (cap-locks, so you know it’s important) there is going to be an amazing opportunity to win some prize packages full of books and other stuff from some of the Apocalypsies. For those of you who are late to the blog, the Apocalypsies is a group of YA (young adult) and MG (middle grade) authors whose debuts are coming out in 2012. I’m a member of the group and I can tell you that this is a super cool bunch of people – so many great-looking books to read! It’s been really cool to hang out online with these guys and talk shop and get excited with each other about imminent book birthdays. Now that 2012 is in gear, several books have already been released – one of them (CINDER by Marissa Meyer) debuted at #10 on the NYT bestseller list this week – exciting!

But I digress – on Monday, at 12 noon EST (that’s 1 pm in Atlantic Canada and 9 am on the west coast) go to the Apocalypsies homepage for the starting line of the YAmazing Race with MGnificent prizes! This scavenger/blog hunt will be up for a week, and will basically involve following the directions on the homepage to visit the blogs/websites of over 50 Apocalypsies (I’m one of them!) and answer questions in a challenge format to be eligible for prizes! Clear as mud? Don’t worry, the instructions on the Apocalypsies page will be crystal clear. I’ll be facebooking and tweeting about it once the contest starts, and you’ll have a whole week to participate.

Best of all? Several great prize packages full of books, bookmarks, and lots of other swag. One of the prizes is a signed ARC of WAY TO GO! Be sure to pay attention to the individual authors’ blogs as well – there are going to be lots of individual give-aways, which is pretty cool.

I also want to give a quick shout out to Gina Damico, who organized the whole damn thing. Her book CROAK will be coming out in March, and it looks wickedly funny. Can’t wait to read it.

Anyway, that’s it for now – thanks again for the continued interest in the book and have a great weekend!

Cover Day!!!

Happy New Year! WAY TO GO has a cover! Isn't it AWESOME!!??!! I couldn't be happier with it – the gang at Orca did an amazing job. Anyone who knows me well can testify that this couldn't possibly be more in line with my style – the color, the retro feel, just perfect! More to the point, the design totally works for the book. I'm over the moon about it!

To help launch the cover, and to show some gratitude to the amazing Apocalypsies, who have been tweeting and blogging support for each other since the get-go, I've started a Tumblr site – Love Your Cover – where I'll be showcasing cover art for new books as they're released over the course of 2012. I'll be featuring Apocalypsies covers, Orca covers, and any other great cover art that I happen to come across. The goal is to line up posts with release dates.

Let me know what you think of the cover! Here's to an exciting 2012!

Cover Day!!!

Happy New Year! WAY TO GO has a cover! Isn’t it AWESOME!!??!! I couldn’t be happier with it – the gang at Orca did an amazing job. Anyone who knows me well can testify that this couldn’t possibly be more in line with my style – the color, the retro feel, just perfect! More to the point, the design totally works for the book. I’m over the moon about it!

To help launch the cover, and to show some gratitude to the amazing Apocalypsies, who have been tweeting and blogging support for each other since the get-go, I’ve started a Tumblr site – Love Your Cover – where I’ll be showcasing cover art for new books as they’re released over the course of 2012. I’ll be featuring Apocalypsies covers, Orca covers, and any other great cover art that I happen to come across. The goal is to line up posts with release dates.

Let me know what you think of the cover! Here’s to an exciting 2012!

Proof

I wrote a book. Here's the proof.

The proof – also commonly referred to as proofs, or galley proofs – is the preliminary version of a publication. The proofs come after the primary editing and copy-editing stages have been completed. This is one of the final steps before the book finally goes to print.

This is my last chance to carefully read the text and make notes wherever a change is necessary. I'm talking little mini changes – as in a mistake with a character's name, or the wrong word in the wrong place. This is not an opportunity for rewriting - I've been informed - That stage is past.

Okayfinethenwhatever. It's for the best – it's expensive to make changes at this point, and chances are I'd find a million things to fix if I let myself.

The proofs will also be used to produce a limited number of ARCs. ARCs are Advance Review Copies. These will be sent out to reviewers in the months leading up to the book's release in April. I'll be receiving a few ARCs that I'll be giving away as prizes in the lead up to the launch, so keep your eyes peeled for details!

By this point, the production editor and layout team have completed their magic, and the marked up MS Word document that my editor and I have been slinging back and forth for months has been transformed into something that looks like a real book. The typeface has been chosen, the pages are numbered and the text is properly justified, and the biography and acknowledgments are neatly arranged.

Even the copyright page is in there. You know, that page inside the front cover that nobody ever reads, with dates and library numbers and all that other good bookish stuff written out in tiny text. I have an ISBN number! I have a Library of Congress Control number!

 

It looks like a real book, and it looks fantastic! F&*#ing A!

Yup. This is it, the book is almost complete. WAY TO GO is almost ready to be released into the world.

2012 is gonna be fun!