Talking to book clubs about my book

I like to think of myself as a writer. Ever since I was a child that is one of the happier labels I have applied to myself.  When I was a child, a preschooler, I was a talker.  My Dad said I had been "vaccinated with a record needle and never stopped talking since."  Yet, as I started school, and learned that the other kids didn't like my non stop talking, and the fact that as an only child until just before I started school had created a child with no idea how to play well with others. I got slapped down hard, and rejected many times and it wasn't until the end of high school that I started to make friends and realize that I could both talk and listen.

So in school my best friends were the characters in books, and I have always considered myself an introvert.  It goes well with being the person who observes and records instead of interacting.  I curled up with my notebook, or hunched over a desk, and rarely made eye contact or had to speak.

Oddly enough though, when my brother was born with Down's syndrome and I learned to work with him, I also learned to be a teacher, and to work in front of large groups of children.  But that was separate.  I could talk to a class, and I could write - but I was too introverted to talk about my books out loud, so on-line I talked, in person I listened.  But Marketing books means you have to believe in them, AND you have to be their loudest, most vocal word of mouth advocate.  If I believed someone would love my story, nothing would happen until I would open my mouth and tell them why they would love my book.

Double Time On The Oregon Trail

So I wrote Duffy Barkley is Not a Dog, and very few people read it, even though I loved it, and the ones who did read it were positive.  Then I wrote Double Time on the Oregon Trail, and I started talking about it to 5th grade students who were studying the Oregon Trail, and then to a 5th grade teacher, who passed it to a School District Director of Curriculum who authorized the Instructional Media Center to order a class set of 38 copies. Then another 5th grade teacher convinced her book club to read it and asked me to come to their meeting and talk about it.  I was scared, but brought my handwritten draft, and some research, and some old storied I wrote in 5th grade myself and talked, and they listened and asked questions and it was fun.

 This year I am in a book club myself, and we read The Invention of Wings and ate dinner at one members house, and then read The Orphan Train and ate dinner at another members house, and it was my turn to be hostess, and I never invite people into my old house, decorated in Early American Yard Sale.  But I'm a good cook, so I said I can do it, and we chose my first book, Duffy Barkley and I cooked and they came over.

My old, chilly, very Green living room

 But what did I learn?  I learned you can't point out where the glasses and the garbage can are, and serve the food, and sit down and present about how you wrote a book, or ask the questions you want your readers to answer about what worked and where they loved, or hated my book.  Going into classes as an author presenter has been fun and satisfying.  Presenting in someone else's home as an author at their book club, I was focused and had planned ahead what to tell them and which questions to ask. In my home I kept wandering out of the conversation, and still missed a lot of what they said about my book

Duffy Barkley is Not a Dog

 So, when you want to market your book to book clubs, it is a good idea.  You do get a group of people willing to spend time and money on your book, but if you find yourself thinking about hosting the book club, find a partner, and focus for that evening, on being a speaker, speaking passionately about a book you really believe in.

 Amazon's Dixie Dawn Miller Goode Page - You can view it at:

http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B004458ES2

Twitter link: http://twitter.com/#!/pandorasecho

Twitter # 2;  http://twitter.com/#!/DuffyBarkley  

Author Blog:  http://duffybarkley.blogspot.com/

Blog # 2:      http://echo-echosvoice.blogspot.com/

Book Genre:  Fantasy/Young Adult/children's picture books

Sometimes my Heart Recognizes a Story it could only love

     I can't remember where I first heard of this book, but I found it on my own Amazon page wish list and had obviously thought about it at one of those times when even a kindle book was outside my price range.  But I got an Amazon gift card as a birthday present recently, and right before I went to buy a copy of Two Loves Found, a sequel to a book I had just read by Sandy Graham - I found a copy of that book arriving in my mailbox as an unexpected gift.











my review of that here https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/976807623?book_show_action=false





 So anyway, I actually had book $$ and nothing in mind to spend it on, and found that I had saved The Ruby Brooch to my wish list - So on a whim, I ordered it.  I didn't even check to see what it was about, trusting my own taste even though I could obviously no longer trust my memory.

http://www.amazon.com/Brooch-Travel-Romance-Celtic-Trilogy-ebook/dp/B007QMSONK/ref=la_B007QP1I12_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1407433619&sr=1-1

I have never been more grateful that I had waited to get a book.  Yes, I enjoyed it a lot, and yes it was a blend of many of my favorite things, but it really was way too close to my own middle grade novel, Double Time On The Oregon Trail, for me to have been comfortable having to say I had read it before I wrote my own.  In fact, I'm pretty sure I never could have written my book if I had read this first, how would I ever have know for sure that my ideas were not lifted from this story?

So what we have here is a young woman, in 2012 who has recently lost her family in a horrible way, and then finds a letter telling her, that they are not her birth family, but that she was a baby, found on a doorstep, wrapped in a bloody, monogrammed shawl with a ruby brooch that, by the way, transports people and things through time.  When she learns this, she understands why her Dad has raised her with a ton of outdoor skills, and taken her on Oregon trail reenactments. She makes her plans to find out who she is, and uses the brooch to place herself at the start of the Oregon Trail in 1852.

I love time travel and the Oregon Trail, which is why I had a girl from 2002 communicating with a girl from 1850 in my novel - and traveling the highways that retrace the trail now it is always fun to compare my swimming pools and air conditioning to their dust and drought and campfires but Ms. Logan has so many different comparisons to think about that I was immediately hooked into her novel and couldn't put it down.  It was also interesting to see that even in the ten years between my modern 2002 and her 2012, there were changes such as my girl had a phone card, but her woman had a iPod, mine had printed pictures but hers had a digital camera.  I did have to wonder about one thing, I get that she could use a solar charger and charge the iPod, and show saved information on it back in 1852, but I'm wondering how they managed to get hooked in to see you-tube videos?

I'm not usually one to read romances, but her novel also had a few wonderful characters who felt real, and when I realized that her next book has one of them involved in a romance, non time travel, I still had enough of a balance on my card that I bought this sequel as well. I really wanted to know that this person was ok after seeing where The Ruby Brooch left him at the end.  I guess caring about the characters so much means that yes, I am recommending this book.

http://www.amazon.com/Double-Time-Dixie-Miller-Goode-ebook/dp/B008G3JZB8/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1407433466&sr=8-1&keywords=double+time+on+the+Oregon+trail

and just above is the link to my own.

Thanks for reading.

Finding a Class Reading my Novel

 I work as both a writer and as a substitute teacher. The two are mostly unconnected although talking to kids helps me to think of ideas for my writing and to make my characters really talk like the kids do. Recently, walking through the hall before school. I found myself suddenly surrounded by a group of girls, "Mrs Goode! We are reading your book. I love the way you go back and forth in time,"
and on and on while I stand amazed.

That is WHY!!

  I found out it is Mrs. Hooper and her class reading it. A few informed me which 1 kid doesn't like it. I actually laughed - 1 kid doesn't? That is such a Win! Thank you Sandi !  I am lucky because this wonderful teacher first read my book with her book club, a group of a dozen adults, and chose to share it with her class.  And then I am also lucky because a class set of 38 books was purchased last year by the school district's instructional media center.

 Of course, that kind of luck starts with some book promotion on my part and it is hard for me to add promoting and sales to an already busy life as a mom, teacher, writer. It is also not the best match with the shy, observer type personality that a writer tends to be, but years of teaching have taught me too, and I can speak up when I have to.

So one of the best bits of advice that I read on Twitter was the suggestion that every free copy of your book that you put out into the world is an ambassador, working away while you are not looking, to promote your writing.

In this case, I gave a copy of my book to a 5th grade teacher, she read it and suggested it to her book club, which bought 10 copies.  Then they had me come talk to them.  I also gave a book to another substitute teacher, she gave it to her husband, who gave it to the director of curriculum, who gave it to the IMC Librarian with the instructions to go to Amazon and order a class set.

It doesn't always work so well. A lot of give away books, I never hear about again, but some result in wonderful reviews on Goodreads or in blog posts.

 So, three day later I was back at the school where they had started my novel.  This time the reaction was bigger even than before. The kids surrounded me at the bus line, asking me to autograph their arms or notebooks or scraps of paper and begging to know specific details from the book,

"Why did you start the story in St. Louis?"

"Have you ever ridden to the top of the Gateway Arch?"

"Is that Old Grandma really based on yours?"

 And now I have kids, telling me that they want to be writers, and asking me how.

I have kids asking for a sequel

and when I tell them that the next book has been begun

and that it is about Volcanoes and Pompeii and My. St. Helens and connecting two boys through 1901 years, they sound as excited as I do.

 I find that I did get to visit many of the Oregon Trail sites as I researched and wrote, but I probably won't get near Pompeii or Vesuvius, and yet I have learned to travel without ever leaving my desk, and to take classrooms full of kids with me on the journey and I thank my lucky starts every day for this gift.

Spring into a good book, with links

Duffy Barkley Is Not a Dog
Duffy Barkley: Seek Well
Double Time On the oregon Trail

Today I went to Substitute teach at a grade school as I usually do, but I didn't know that one of the classrooms was reading one of my books.  as I walked toward the breakfast crowd, I found myself surrounded, and by now I expect hugs and questions, like, "who are you subbing for?" but I didn't expect

"We are reading your Oregon Trial book!" 

"I love your book."

"I like the way that you move back and forth through time"

"One boy doesn't like it,"

YES!

'One boy doesn't like it ?   One! 

In a class of over 30??

WIN!

 Several Times lately, I have had people ask me for links to the connections where my books and I can be found, So I decided that I need to do another post with some links.  As usual I wanted to sprinkle my blog with pictures, because I am a Words & Pictures kind of person.  I wonder, if my major role in life isn't to observe how beautiful things seem to me, and then record those observations in my writing, my photographs and my paintings.  I love being alive in this wonderful world, even though I have to play around in fantasy and try to create a world of my own, at the same time I am loving this one.

Dixie Goode

Amazon Author Page link:  http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B004458ES2

Goodreads http://www.goodreads.com/author/dashboard 

Twitter link: http://twitter.com/#!/pandorasecho

Twitter # 2;  http://twitter.com/#!/DuffyBarkley 

Author Blog:  http://duffybarkley.blogspot.com/

Blog # 2:      http://echo-echosvoice.blogspot.com/

Book Genre:  Fantasy/Young Adult

365 Project (pictures) http://365project.org/pandorasecho/profile

Redgage (pictures and links)  

http://www.redgage.com/#rf:/profile:innercontainer:dashboard.user

createspace Duffy Barkley Paperback book 1  https://www.createspace.com/3450238

"             "    " "            "        "            book 2  https://www.createspace.com/3649425

The Double Time On The Oregon Trail links

kindle book

http://www.amazon.com/Double-Time-Oregon-Trail-ebook/dp/B008G3JZB8/ref=sr_1_5?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1341109826&sr=1-5

paperback on Createspace

https://www.createspace.com/3923513

paperback on amazon

http://www.amazon.com/Double-Time-Oregon-Trail-1/dp/1478160926/ref=sr_1_3?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1341504499&sr=1-3&keywords=double+time+on+the+oregon+trail

 and of course you should be able to ask your local librarian or bookstore to get any of my books

So have a happy spring, and if you do read something I wrote, even if you are the one who hates it, Thank you - and BTW Book Reviews are my favorite treat to discover online.

Free Ebooks for Kindle from Me with update on progress

 From Feb. 26 until March 2nd, there will be two of my books available for free kindle Downloads.

Amazon's Dixie Dawn Miller Goode Page has the links! You can view it at:

http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B004458ES2

 Of course it seems crazy to work for years and then give that work away for free when you only ask a bit less than people would pay for a cup of coffee anyway, but once I heard the quote that says every book copy that you get out into the hands of the reading public is like your own personal ambassador to the world, encouraging good-will and getting themselves seen and getting you in the public eye, I saw the logic behind the trend to give away books.

Book Description For Duffy Barkley Is Not a Dog

Remember being with a group of friends where you felt safer and more included than you had ever felt at home, friends you had always wanted, who made you look around with a lump in your throat, wishing you could stop time? They were a lot like the groups in all the popular stories. They were the reason people love MASH, Harry Potter, Narnia, Friends, The Lord of the Rings , etc. They were a group of imperfect, overwhelmed and harassed people who became winners because they didn't have to face the overwhelming odds, alone. Even in the face of dark wizards, popular girls, bad hair days or War, they had each other's back. When one of them had a weakness, another had a strength to balance it out. When one was a jerk, someone else saved the day, and forgave them eventually. Now times are turning more difficult again. The world needs that kind of support. We need a source of encouragement so that we can find a way to be that kind of support when we are needed. As times are dark, people look for a reason to laugh, love and hope again. Duffy Barkley is not a dog, a middle grade fantasy, gives you those friends, that escape, that voice of hope in the darkness. Duffy is alone, handicapped, desperate. He is picked-on, lost, & yet, never defeated. In the most alien of places he finds friends. In the most dire of emergencies he finds courage. In the most evil of villains he finds compassion and a solution. In giving away what he most needs, he gains everything. Duffy, a 9 year old boy with cerebral palsy, survives tragedy in the form of a school shooting in which his younger sister is seriously injured. Falling into a new world, he regains his health but finds himself the focus of historic prophecy. While trying to deny his place in their prophecies he discovers his own abilities & changes his life & that of others in both worlds. He enjoys being physically strong but must give it up to save the villain, and find his way back to save his sister, Izzy.

Book description for Double Time: on The Oregon Trail

The past and present meet on the Oregon Trail when two girls travel the same trail with the same lap desk 152 years apart. Kenyon is traveling in 2002 from Pittsburgh to Salem, OR. Her mother is pregnant and staying behind to close escrow on the house and then flying west to join the family. Kenyon; her 5 year old sister, Melissa and her father are in a Dodge Caravan, with a trailer hitch. Her Grandfather has given her a plain, black polished ebony wooden lap desk lined with a scented wood that still smells faintly of cedar. The box is filled with thick, creamy paper, envelopes, a calling card, a hand mirror, pens and pencils and a small Swiss army knife, postage and an electronic address book. Her Grandfather is not moving with them but plans have been made for him to fly out in December for a visit. Kenyon strongly resents being expected to entertain Melissa at the motels in the evenings. Her father has decided to take the long way and show his girls some of the wonders of this country and Melissa is excited but Kenyon is determined to not have any fun. Traveling in 1850, Della, age 15, has already traveled from Northern Illinois to St. Louis, then a week by steamboat on the Missouri River. She stopped in Independence, MO to prepare for the journey and meet with the wagon train. She left behind her 60 year old grandmother who feels too old to attempt the trip, but who gave her a gift of a wooden lap desk. The desk is filled with paper, a small mirror, wooden handled pens with steel nibs, a metal letter opener, hair pins and a small sewing kit. Her younger brother, Orville, her father, and her pregnant mother are traveling with her. She has been asked to teach the younger children around the campfire in the evenings. What happens when they open the desk to see the other girls journal?

So if you choose to take advantage of the free offer, I hope you tell others about the books, I'd love it if you post a review on Amazon or Goodreads, I'd be happy if you but the Duffy Barkley: Seek Well sequel and Most of all, I hope that you have as much fun reading them as I did writing them

The Next Big Thing _ Blog Hop

Due by Wednesday, December 5, 2012

but since I wanted to post today and let you know that Duffy Barkley is not a Dog is available for free on kindle through Dec. 2nd. I am jumping the gun and posting now . 

http://www.amazon.com/Duffy-Barkley-Tales-Uhrlin-ebook/dp/B004478F5M/ref=la_B004458ES2_1_5?ie=UTF8&qid=1354207485&sr=1-5

 The Next Big Thing--Blog Hop

Thanks to Rebecca Douglass at http://www.ninjalibrarian.com and author of
 The Ninja Librarian for tagging me for this one!  She's answered the questions, and now it's my turn.  Then I'm supposed to tag five more writers to participate--so if you write and read this, brace yourself, as you may be next!

Rules:
Mention the person who tagged you at the beginning of your post (check).
Answer the ten questions about your current WIP (work in progress) and/or new release on your blog (check).
Tag five other writers/bloggers and add their links so we can hop over and meet them.  They're supposed to answer the questions next Wednesday, as I understand it. (See bottom of page).

The Questions:
1. What is the working title of your book?

I have two right now, A new release called Double Time On the Oregon Trail and a Work in Progress that I started for NaNoWriMo which is the third book in my Duffy Barkley Is Not a Dog series and is tentatively Titled The Third Charm but probably won't keep that title.

2.  Where did the idea come from for the book?

The original idea came from teaching special education students and seeing them get bullied and hearing about too many school shootings and loving Narnia and Oz and Wonderland type stories. It began while sharing storytelling on long family road trips with my sons and continued in my first experience with the rush of trying to write a novel in a month for NaNoWriMo.

3. What genre does your book fall under?

The Oregon Trail book required a lot of research and a lot of actually driving the route and is written at about a 4th/5th grade level since that is where they study it in schools.  Being me though, there had to be an element of magic to it, so I have two girls, traveling that route, but able to see each others journals and being 152 years apart. So I guess it is Juvenile historical fantasy fiction.

The Duffy Barkley Books, I call young adult, even though he is age 9 in the first and 11 in the second and 13 in the one I am writing. I have had readers from 8 to 73 tell me that hey love Duffy Barkley, but I have also had one tell me that she could;y read it because she cared about him so mush and his life is so harsh at the start of book one.

4. Which actors would you choose to play your characters in a movie rendition?

I have an issue with Duffy, I never really describe his appearance, except that he uses arm crutches and is tall and thin and wobbly from cerebral palsy. I describe others in his life but like the readers to be able to see him as they are.

The girls in the Oregon Trail book, I see as two 15 year olds, one part Sioux, but ordinary, no one flamboyant.

5. What is the one-sentence synopsis of your book?

Two girls traveling the Oregon Trail 152 years apart, learn to face their own issues by reading about the other girl's in exchanging journals at times.

6.  If you plan to publish, will your book be self-published or published traditionally?

I am a strong believer in Indie Books and their future. My three books are self published and I believe that there is no reason to do the next one differently. Unless Scholastic decides to call :)

7. How long did it take you to write the first draft of your MS?

Oh goodness. The short little 30,000 word Oregon Trail story took 13 years. Lots of research and raising kids and losing my Dad to cancer and putting the manuscript away a lot while the idea percolated.  The Duffy Barkley one, November.

8.  What other books would you compare this story to within your genre?

I think I write like Angie Sage and her Septimus Heap books as far as my voice, or so I keep hearing - but the story line is more Narnia, Oz, Wrinkle in Time - drop someone from our world into another.

The Double Time books are longer and more complex than the Magic Treehouse series but I am hoping to continue with a similar goal of having a series of books that matches up with what kids at the 4th/5th/6th grade ages are studying.

9.  Who or what inspired you to write this book?

I was born to be a reader and a storyteller. There is very little else that I do which doesn't leave a nagging voice telling me that I should be doing something else.  When I look back through my old boxes from grade school I find the Books I wrote in second grade, looseleaf pages in shaky print illustrated with pencil and crayon and bound by yarn through the holes.  Only raising my children and being with those I love gives me as much completeness.

10.  What else about your book might pique the reader's interest?

Seeing what you would see if you held the medallion from Uhrlin and it showed you the strongest part of who you are. Finding out that friendship and real values transcend worlds and time.

Now to tag the other bloggers:

http://www.thecreativepenn.com/blog/ Joanna Penn

http://jodyhedlund.com  Jody Hedlund

http://celebratingauthors.blogspot.com Carolyn Arnold

http://wwwjosephmrinaldocom.blogspot.com Joseph Rinaldo

http://www.stevepiacente.com  Steve Piacente

Tag!  You're it!  Be sure to drop in on these folks in a week and see what they are up to.