Stacy DeKeyser's Blog: Reading, Writing, and Chocolate, page 3

Workshop Outline: "Demystifying the Editorial Process" at the Mark Twain House, April 18, 2015

Here's the whole thing, if you didn't get a handout.

It's a Google doc. If you can't open it, email me or leave a comment, and I'll send you the Word document directly.

Thanks for attending!

Workshop Outline: Demystifying the Editing Process

Daring to update a fairy tale

Thanks, Jessica at Cracking the Cover, for hosting me on your blog! Peek into my process for putting a twist on "Jack and the Beanstalk."
http://bit.ly/17b6VhB

One Witch at a Time

We love teachers! 16 Free Books for Valentine's Day!

Are you a teacher, librarian, or reading specialist? Do you want 16 signed midgrade books for your school or classroom?

Most of them are brand new or soon-to-be-published. A few are familiar favorites. (There's even a big award-winner hiding in the mix!)

For your chance to win signed copies of ALL these books, just do one of two things:

1. Leave a comment below

OR

3. Tweet about the giveaway using the hashtag #MGAuthorsLoveTeachers

Your name will be entered into the virtual hat, and we’ll draw the winner at 11:59 PM on Wednesday, February 18th. If you win, you’ll receive signed copies of ALL these books–not all at once, because some of them don’t publish until March or April, but won’t it be fun to get multiple packages in your mailbox?
Good luck!

(And if you want a similar boatload of YA books, hop on over to Sarah Darer Littman's blog for another chance to win!)

Here are the titles in the giveaway:


Why'd They Wear That?
by
Sarah Albee

Random Body Parts
by
Leslie Bulion

Beetle Busters
by
Loree Griffin Burns

Walk Two Moons
by
Sharon Creech

One Witch at a Time
by
Stacy DeKeyser


Fish in a Tree
by
Lynda Mullaly Hunt


Paper Things
by
Jennifer Richard Jacobson


How to Outswim a Shark Without a Snorkel
by
Jess Keating


On the Road to Mr. Mineo's
by
Barbara O'Connor


Wish Girl
by
Nikki Lofton


Mark of the Thief
by
Jennifer A. Nielsen

The Way to Stay in Destiny
by
Augusta Scattergood

The Gossip File
by
Anna Staniszewski

Emmanuel's Dream
by
Laurie Ann Thompson

Blue Birds
by
Caroline Starr Rose

Brown Girl Dreaming
by
Jacqueline Woodson


Whew!
Good luck!

Launch party for ONE WITCH AT A TIME starts today!

One Witch at a Time is coming out tomorrow, but the party starts today! I'm being hosted over at
Cracking the Cover Thanks, Jessica!

Blog Tour!

Announcing the official schedule of the One Witch at a Time blog tour! Check out a few (or all) of these fabulous blogs for author interviews, guest posts, reviews, and giveaways!

February 9
Cracking the Cover


February 10
Haunting of Orchid Forsythia


February 11
Mother-Daughter Book Club


February 12
GreenBeanTeenQueen


February 13
The Book Monsters


February 16
Word Spelunking


February 17
Read Now, Sleep Later


February 18
Small Review


February 19
KidLit Frenzy


February 20
The Flashlight Reader

I'm starting a newsletter

"Oh, joy!" I can hear you saying. "Finally, we can get news from Stacy without doing anything!"

Well, you need to do ONE thing.

You need to sign up here, if you want occasional news and interesting info sent to your inbox.

I promise to make it pertinent, and I also promise not to share your info with anyone else.

Thanks, CRA attendees!

If you attended my workshop at the Connecticut Reading Association conference on October 23, here is the PowerPoint presentation that accompanied the workshop:

Revision Tricks Any Kid Can Do

And here is a Revision Tricks Guide (based on the presentation) that your students can use as they revise their own work.

Feel free to download and use them with your students.

Have fun, and thanks!

Stacy

Amazon vs. The World: Why Amazon is Winning

Amazon.
Love 'em? Hate 'em? A little bit of both?
There is so much to hate about Amazon's bullying tactics, their dodging of sales tax, and their treatment of warehouse employees. (Do a search on any of those terms, and you'll get more background than you'll ever want.)
More than any of the above, I worry about any one entity controlling the distribution of books, because Books = Ideas. And limiting access to Ideas is a Bad Idea.
But two things happened recently that make it pretty obvious why Amazon dominates, and why they will continue to dominate if their competitors don't get up to speed.
Thing #1:
I have a new book coming out in a few months. Very exciting, right? The minute I had a jacket image and ISBN number, I was ready to tell the world. Look how pretty! You can preorder! 
But the book's information was available in only one place. Can you guess where?
And it was all there: Cover image. ISBN number. Publication date. Preorder button.* Plot summary. Links to all my other books.
It took about 3 weeks for the same information to show up at BN.com or any other online bookseller.
So, being an author who sympathizes with Hachette authors (there but for the grace of Amazon etc.), and is opposed to Amazon ruling the world, I had two choices: share my good news, via Amazon, or bite my tongue until the news was available more widely. I bit my tongue. (Which probably makes no difference for an author of my (un)fame, but it proves I'm a good sport.)

Thing #2:
This morning a message popped into my inbox, directly from Hachette, advertising a specific new book title. I suppose I'm on their mailing list, and it WAS a book that interested me, and that I hadn't known about before. I followed the links to buy it at bn.com, where it was discounted, AND with free shipping.
"Ha!" I said to myself, "Good move, B&N! Way to capitalize on Amazon's feud with Hachette, swoop in and steal sales from your biggest competitor!"
I set about placing my order. 
Half an hour later, after many clicks, blank screens, kick-outs, and general frustration, I still hadn't bought the book.
I gave up. I will try from another retailer, but I won't get a discount, and it's a $35 book, so a discount would have been nice.
If I had shopped at Amazon (except of course the book was "backordered" for 3 weeks and not discounted either**), I would have been able to part with my money in under two minutes.

So here is the conclusion: Love Amazon or hate Amazon, or somewhere in between, Amazon has its sh$t together. They know what they're doing, and they do it very, very well.
Until other booksellers--online and real-world--get up to speed, Amazon will continue to rule the world.


* because not a Hachette book** because Hachette book

A peek into the process: ARCs and uncorrected proofs

I'm always fascinated to learn about what goes on behind the scenes when a book is published. Here's how it's working for One Witch at a Time:


Within a few days of each other, I got these in the mail:

Advance Reader Copies (ARCs)
And these:
Uncorrected page proofs
Outwardly, they look very different, but inside, they are exactly the same. Most importantly: They both have errors. (Which is why ARCs tend to have a big UNCORRECTED disclaimer somewhere on them.) This is where editing and production and promotion all overlap. Because while I'm reading the page proofs, and marking corrections and small changes (I'm STILL deleting extraneous, cringe-inducing words like just!), the bound version is going out to reviewers and booksellers.

And that's very exciting!
I just hope they don't just see the extraneous justs. I'd be just horrified!

Book trailer!