S. Smith's Blog, page 15

Expect the Unexpected

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The doll she made to match the character in her book.

This weekend my hubby and I took the train up to spend time with family for Easter. After the weekend I’m taking a few days off to get back to my writing. Which means I shouldn’t be thinking about social media now, just writing the book.

But I had the most extraordinary experience on the short ride up here. And it’s not like similar things haven’t happened before…but I tend to forget. I tend to forget to expect the unexpected.

I tell myself a lot of things, and then I ignore them. What I mean is, I have ideas, inspirations, thoughts of things I should do. Then when the time comes to carry through, I shrug it off. “Nah, that was dumb; Or, too much trouble; Or, there are more important things to focus on.” Case in point: Before the train trip I was thinking of what I could do as an AUTHOR on the train. If you read my last post you know I recently returned from a wonderful writing/publishing conference and am on fire about it. I am also reading a terrific book by Brooke Warner called Green-Light Your Book: How Writers Can Succeed in the New Era of Publishing. I’m trying to have confidence in myself as a writer and publisher. Own it, as Brooke says.

So a day or so before we left on the train, I had this idea to take my first Seed Savers book and put a sticker on it letting people know they were free to read the book and pass it on, and then I’d  leave the book on the train. Maybe put some hashtag on it like #bookonthetrain and encourage whoever reads it to let me know. Something along those lines.

Then I wigged out. I didn’t bring even one of my books with me. Sigh.

So what happened? I ended up sharing a table in the lounge car with a girl who was an avid reader. She had at least three print books stuffed in her backpack. We talked about our favorite books and our love of writing. Our affinity for print books over ebooks. We talked about our urban chickens and our cats. About Star Wars. She was in 8th grade, the same as the characters in my books.

I could have kicked myself for not listening to that voice to bring one of my books along. I really wanted to give her one right then and there.

The train ride passed swiftly because of our enjoyable conversation. And here’s the thing: We were both shy people. But I pushed a little beyond my normal shy limits and it opened up a magical interaction that could easily have been missed. Unfortunately, I didn’t even leave her my card, but I hope she remembers my website. I hope I will hear from her again.

So, reach out, people.

Listen to your inspirations.

And expect the unexpected.

S. Smith is the author of the awesome and award-winning middle grade/YA series,  Seed  Savers.  Visit her  Facebook  and  Pinterest  pages. Follow her on  Twitter .  Sign up for the newsletter!

IBPA Publishing University: A Great Conference Experience

The 2017 IBPA Publishing University (PubU) just concluded and I’m already looking forward to next year! For those of you who don’t know what I’m talking about, I’ll do my best to explain. (A couple of months ago I didn’t know anything about it, either.)

IBPA stands for the Independent Book Publishers Association. Although I’ve been a member of ALLi  (The Alliance of Independent Authors) for a couple of years, somehow I missed IBPA! I was fortunate to discover IBPA just before their national PubU event in Portland, Oregon, only 40 miles north of where I live.

PubU is billed as “The Premier Educational Event for Indie Publishers and Self-Published Authors.” That’s me! I joined the organization and signed up for the Publishing University (conference) in one fell swoop.

I went to PubU with two main goals. Initially, the sessions promising to teach new ways to sell my books intrigued me. But as the conference date grew nearer, I was becoming more and more convinced that I needed to change my book covers. Since Treasure is middle grade, I had always wanted the cover to be an illustration but never thought I could afford it. And now that I will soon have five books in the series, I will need five new covers. As I researched online about covers and artists and book designers, I became increasingly confused as to how to bring it all together.

As it turns out, PubU has sessions called “Ask the Experts” where you can sign up for 15 minute segments to talk to industry professionals about whatever questions you have. I signed up for two of these sessions and went loaded with questions. There were also sponsor tables set up, mostly printers, some small publishers, etc., and we were encouraged to visit each of these. Soon I was learning things I didn’t even know I hadn’t known!

Then there were the sessions. For each hour block there were four sessions from which to choose, each with a particular theme or focus such as Editorial & Design, the Business of Publishing, Marketing & Social Media, Production & Distribution, Sales, etc. For example, I went to a session on how to market and sell to schools since my  Seed Savers series is great for schools. I also went to one titled “Who You Gonna Call–A Publisher, Designer, or Printer” to help answer my growing question about how to go about getting new covers.

But really, I can’t sum up in one little post two very full days. So let me just say this: the atmosphere was warm and encouraging. Everyone was kind, helpful, and friendly. We wore name tags with our names in GIANT letters. You literally could not sit down at a table without someone greeting you by name and introducing themselves.

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The snack and drink tables overflowed with root beer and m & m’s. The Benjamin Franklin Book Awards/Dinner was superb and inspiring.

Everyone at Pub/U was there to help each other no matter where you were on the journey of publishing or authoring. There was humor, songs, poetry, and plenty of chocolate.

The IBPA Publishing University will be in Austin next year. I’m already making plans… Hope to see you there!!!

S. Smith is the author of the awesome and award-winning middle grade/YA series,  Seed  Savers.  Visit her  Facebook  and  Pinterest  pages. Follow her on  Twitter .  Sign up for the newsletter!

Update on All Things #SeedSavers

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Today’s post is strictly informational and time sensitive. I’ve been busy with a lot of things and want to keep you up-to-date.

First, I am currently giving away the short book, The Lunchroom, with a sign-up to my email newsletter. The Lunchroom consists of several chapter-length stories giving more background to characters in the Seed Savers series. Find out more about Clare, Lily, Rose and Jason by downloading The Lunchroom here. Also included in The Lunchroom are instructions on seed saving, tea making, and the poems Clare wrote for her 8th grade writing project.

Additionally, by following the above link you can learn about a dozen more middle grade/YA books! This special is good through March 25, 2017, only.

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Second, many of you are wondering when book 5 in the Seed Savers series will be available. See the recent review left on Amazon in regard to book 4, Keeper:

My 10 yr old daughter says this series is the best she has ever read. She hopes volume 5 will be out soon. She said when she was finished reading this last book she felt like throwing a fit because she couldn’t read another in the series. My daughter is an avid reader and has never thrown a fit or said she had ever wanted to until she finished this book. Hope there are more to come in this series.

Yes, there is a book 5. Yes, I am working on it now. Yes, I have fallen off the wagon again and have stopped writing for awhile. I will try to pick it up again soon! I do want to finish it this year.

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Treasure Audiobook

Third, some of the reasons I’ve fallen off the writing wagon… Treasure is finally being made into an audiobook!! In fact, it will be available in April! I will keep you posted. Also, I am busy setting things up for some big events coming later this year and as always, setting up promotions for Seed Savers so that more people can hear about the series.

If you are already a fan, please tell everyone who would be interested about the Seed Savers series!!

These are the big events for Seed Savers this year: the International Master Gardener Conference will be held in Portland in July. I will be in booth 101 to meet you and sell and sign books!

On the heels of the MG conference is the National Children & Youth Garden Symposium, also in the Vancouver, WA & Portland, OR area. I’ll be presenting about the Seed Savers series at this awesome gathering of garden educators and program coordinators.

I will also, most likely, return to the Heirloom Expo in Santa Rosa, CA in September. This will be my fourth year at this fun and informative event.

For those of you who have read all the way to the end of this post: If you haven’t yet read Treasure or Lily, both ebooks will be on sale for 99 cents starting on March 26 and running through April 9! Be sure to download for spring vacation reading.

ACX Auditions – Audiobook First-timer

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I finally jumped on the audiobook wagon. 

As an indie author and publisher there are always many things to do, many things to learn and consider. Do I write more books? Do I spend my time marketing? Do learn about Facebook ads… Like anyone else, I am subject to run down a lot of rabbit holes. I’ll lay it on the line: I’m not very consistent. I don’t always follow through. I burn myself out.

But then the New Year starts and it’s a fresh beginning; I vow to do better. For various reasons I decided now was the time to get going on an audiobook for the first book in my series, Treasure.

The following is my two cents on one part of the process of making an audiobook with ACX –the auditions. There are plenty of step-by-step blog posts on the entire process. And even though I thought I had read them all and was ready to go, once I started the ACX ball rolling I felt like I wasn’t prepared enough. I found the ACX website not at all intuitive and lacking in many of the areas for which I had questions. I probably should have just phoned somebody, but I didn’t. I tried to find my answers online. 

I’ll share my experience, and maybe it will help someone else on the journey. If nothing else, a good rant.

Ana of Seed Savers

November 7 is a very special day at our house. It’s the day I gave birth to my daughter, Anastasia.

Often on or around this date I publish a new book. This is not one of those years. However, in honor of my daughter’s birthday I’m putting the first two books of Seed Savers on sale for 99 cents.

What’s the connection between Ana and Seed Savers? Those who have read the first two books know that Ana is the name of the wise and knowledgeable elderly woman who teaches the children about seeds and gardening in a future where such actions are illegal. It is a future where food is manufactured and distributed and has no resemblance to plant life.

I like to think this might be my Ana.

When I  wrote Treasure (Seed Savers 1) back in 2010, Ana was very supportive. She was in high school and living at home. She loved the idea of the book before I ever wrote it down and her enthusiasm helped me put pen to paper.

What is the real Ana like? The real Ana plants and tends a garden all on her own. She loves good food and is an awesome cook. As a teen, she spent her summers working with children at camp. She was part of an award-winning Envirothon team in high school. She has sold apples at farmers market and harvested Marionberries on a night picking machine. Ana loves reading and devours books at an amazing speed. She is smart, stubborn, and opinionated. 

Does this sound like elderly Ana of Seed Savers? Maybe so

A Master Gardener’s Review of Treasure (Seed Savers, 1)

Seed Savers: Treasure (Book 1) is a work of fiction, written for age 9 through young adult readers. The subject matter in the book is somewhat based on discussions of current world events suggestive of GMOs, interest in global food supplies, and the science that currently drives these topics. As Master Gardeners, we are non-political of course. But this book is so much more than just an acknowledgement of those issues.

It is engagingly written to provoke thought among today’s youth, while also providing a backdrop of a very entertaining literary experience.

 

This book was the 2013 Runner-up in the Young Adult Category of the Green Book Festival, which honors “books that contribute to greater understanding, respect for, and positive action on, the changing worldwide environment.”



The book is set in an era of America when gardens no longer exist as an option for citizens to grow their own food. In fact, the word “garden” and all books that relate to such activities have been banned.



Three young children, Clare, Dante, and Lily, thirst for knowledge about how plants grow and what food is that comes from plants. They find fun, some dangers, and mostly, adventures along the way. They learn lost American skills from an elderly woman, Ana, who shares information about what food-producing plants are, their parts, growing methods and the fruits and vegetables that result. Ana belongs to a secret society known as “Seed Savers.”

Imagine a world where children have no knowledge of the origin of food? It’s not really that far-fetched, of course. When Ginny Stibolt (author of Organic Methods for Vegetable Gardening in Florida, University Press of Florida, 2013) visited with us last month, she related a story about an adult who took children to her garden to “pull” a carrot. When the carrot was pulled out of the ground, the children were “horrified” that the woman had apparently “buried her carrots in the dirt!” 

It is an unfortunate truism that the vast majority of today’s children are no longer “connected to the soil” or know how food is produced.

The children in the book Seed Savers: Treasure learn about seeds, what different seeds look like, what they produce, and how plants are cultivated. Now, Agri-Fest  fans—of what does that remind you? This book is“right on” in presenting children with the wonders of agriculture and food production and how it should be a focus in understanding everyday living. Additionally, young readers can identify with the children in the story as they become empowered to effect change through what they have studied.



Clare, Dante, and Lily have many adventures as they thirst to learn about seeds and plants, while avoiding and even outrunning those that would thwart their efforts—and, making new friends along the way. Children love reading about and keeping “secrets” and this book is a childhood adventure and mystery romp. 

There is much to like about this book, and I personally look forward to reading the next installments of the series.

Look also for Seed Savers: Lily (Book 2), which is also currently available in paperback or Kindle version, and Seed Savers: Heirloom (Book 3), which will be published this fall. Perhaps…a wonderful “gift trilogy” for that special young person you know! And—if you don’t have a special young person right now, by all means get the books for yourself!

Can children save the world? Who would ever think they couldn’t?

CLL

UF/IFAS Master Gardener

Lakeland, Florida





Originally Published  2013 in The Ragweed (Newsletter), which

has now been replaced by another newsletter to MGs.

Special thanks to Carol and her Master Gardener group in Florida for allowing me to post this on my blog!
S. Smith is the author of the awesome and award-winning middle grade/YA series,  Seed  Savers.  Visit her  Facebook  and  Pinterest  pages. Follow her on  Twitter .  Sign up for the newsletter!
 

Celebrate Indie Author Day With Me

I promised I would do my part to celebrate the first official Indie Author Day.

So for one day only I have put ALL OF MY SEED SAVERS BOOKS on sale for 99 cents at the same time. I don’t think I’ve ever done that before. It’s only for today, so if you want to save over $10, GET THEM NOW.

Take a look at my other posts about Indie books and self-publishing:

5 Reasons to Self Publish
Newbie Self-Publisher? There’s Help
Posting Reviews for Your Indie Authors
10 Ways to Thank Your Favorite Indie Author at Christmas or Any Time
Read Across America Day — Go Indie!
#PoweredByIndie
10 Lesser-Known MG/YA First-in-Series FREE Books

Have a nice weekend!

-S

S. Smith is the author of the awesome and award-winning middle grade/YA series,  Seed  Savers.  Visit her  Facebook  and  Pinterest  pages. Follow her on  Twitter .  Sign up for the newsletter!

5 Reasons to Self Publish

As I mentioned in my previous post, Amazon is celebrating Indie authors this month. Libraries around the country are initiating Indie Author Day tomorrow. I’ll have my own special surprise tomorrow to mark the occasion. But right now I’d like to share my five reasons to self-publish, based on my own experience.

1.If your book isn’t in a popular genre, consider publishing it yourself.

I wrote the first book in my Seed Savers series in 2010. We were just coming off the teen vampire romance craze. Agents did not want to hear about a futuristic book where gardening is illegal. As far as I know, they still don’t. If I hadn’t been busy querying, waiting, querying, etc. for a year and a half I may have hit that early KDP sweet spot back in the early days when there was no separation between “free” and “paid” books. But, alas, it took listening to Colleen Houck speaking at my local library for me to hear about self-publishing and get over the idea that it was inferior.

I still meet people with their first book, sitting around timidly, waiting, waiting, waiting, for someone to scoop them up, hoping someday they will be “published.”

2. Learning to publish and publishing will build confidence.

It’s a lot of hard work, but once you have published a few books and hit the road with them, you will gain confidence. No more sitting around timidly waiting for someone to make you feel worthy. Anyone who can write a book AND publish it is a very competent person. If you can crack the marketing and actually sell your book then you’ll feel even better. And guess what? Anyone can have their book on Amazon. Amazon even makes it easy. (The publishing, not the marketing.)

3. Tying in with number one, if you aren’t having luck getting an agent, much less a publisher, self-publishing will allow you to MOVE ON.

When you move on, you write more books. When you write more books you become a better writer. It’s true. You really do. I never even finished my original novel (before Treasure). When I go back and look at it I throw up my hands. So much work to clean that thing up. Ugh.

Just get moving. And maybe if you still want a big publisher, after several books you’ll be so good it will be like that show, Person of Interest: They’ll find you.

4. When you self-publish you can have as many print copies of your book around as you want.

You are not waiting on a publisher. You order them yourself. If you want to carry them around in the trunk of your car or go on tour, your books are always accessible.

5. If you deal in ebooks, you can sell those at a reasonable price.

I have sometimes bought print copies of books just because the ebooks were the same price. What?? Why?? No paper involved. Control of price-setting is awesome.

There you have it: my five reasons to self-publish. Is it hard work? YES!!! But if you’ve ever considered it and are getting nowhere in the traditional arena, why not give it a shot?

Don’t forget to tune in tomorrow for my special surprise for Indie Author Day!!!

S. Smith is the author of the awesome and award-winning middle grade/YA series,  Seed  Savers.  Visit her  Facebook  and  Pinterest  pages. Follow her on  Twitter .  Sign up for the newsletter!

#PoweredByIndie

Amazon has deemed October the month to celebrate Indie writers/publishers. Libraries across the country will be celebrating the FIRST ANNUAL Indie Author Day on October 8. So never mind that Wikipedia doesn’t have a page for Indie Author or Indie Publishing. Or maybe I should say “not yet.”

All month, Indies are invited to share on social media why they love being indie authors using the hashtag #PoweredByIndie.

Amazon has an official landing page for indie books and authors. (Wish Seed Savers could make it there, but since I doubt it, check it out here.)

I read an article once that said “self-publishers should not be called authors.” The writer of the article suggested you needed to make a certain amount of money to be called an author, otherwise you were just a “plain old writer.” Not sure what he thinks we should call actors and actresses who don’t earn enough money. “Plain old class clowns?”

Thankfully, most readers do not agree. It’s not the publisher or the monetary compensation that determines authors. It’s the writing and the publishing. And Amazon has given writers/authors the opportunity get their books out there in front of readers.

Thank you KDP, CreateSpace, and ACX for access to the world.

 

Do you have a favorite Indie author or book? Leave a comment below.

In Praise of the Scarlet Runner Bean

I wanted to write an ode to the Scarlet Runner Bean, but instead I’ll settle for an essay. For now, at least.

The first time I heard someone talk about a Scarlet Runner Bean they did it with a beatific smile on their face. It was said almost reverently: Scarlet Runner Bean. Ah, yes.

I planted the beans along the fence where my garden is. Scarlet Runners, are, as the name suggests, climbing beans. The running part did not disappoint me. The bean part did. They got large: wide and hairy. Maybe even stringy, I don’t remember. I was unimpressed. I vowed not to plant them again.

Oh you knave, Scarlet Runner. I didn’t plant them again, but they planted themselves. Those beans I gave up on last summer dried, fell, germinated, and came back this year.

I admit it. I have a soft spot in my heart for “volunteers” as my mom called the plants that come back on their own. I dug up those little volunteer Scarlet Runners and lined them up along the fence once more.

I also intentionally planted some other Scarlet Runners into a bean teepee in a garden at the community center I run. They do climb so well and bloom so beautifully red.