Blisscraft Life With Christina Katz

I enjoyed meeting April L. Hamilton at the Writer’s Digest Conference in New York in 2009. Our daughters are about the same age. Her self-published The Indie Author Guide is now published by Writer’s Digest. Please help me welcome April.

April L. Hamilton is an author, author services provider, blogger, Technorati BlogCritic, leading advocate and speaker for the indie author movement, and founder and Editor in Chief of Publetariat, the premier online news hub and community for indie authors and small imprints. April is also on the Board of Directors for the Association of Independent Authors. In 2009, she launched Publetariat Vault University, an online educational program offering lessons in Self-Publishing and Author Platform/Book Promotion. Her popular self-published reference book, The IndieAuthor Guide: Self-Publishing Strategies Anyone Can Use, has been released by Writer’s Digest Books in a revised and updated edition and is currently available from booksellers everywhere in both print and e-book formats. Learn more about April at http://www.aprillhamilton.com/.

In The Indie Author Guide, April provides plain English, step-by-step directions to self-publishers, with plenty of illustrations, charts, and even a companion website. Everything from manuscript formatting for print and e-book publication, designing your own book cover, hiring and working with freelancers, selecting a print service provider, and even author platform and book promotion for all budget levels is covered in this exhaustive volume, plus much more.

1. How has writing (either just the act of writing or writing this book or both) impacted your self-confidence?

The Indie Author Guide truly marks a turning point in my life. It set me on the path to becoming an evangelist for self-publishing, which spurred me to launch Publetariat and commit myself to a career in the publishing field. Not all that long ago I felt like so many writers do: on the outside, looking in at the publishing world. Now I’m helping others walk right past the velvet ropes and gatekeepers to become authors on their own terms. I’m lucky enough to be doing work I feel is very important, and which I also happen to enjoy.

2. What are three words that describe your creative book-writing process?

When I’m writing fiction, it’s all about character, circumstance and motivation. My fiction usually begins with a clearly defined character and a set of unusual or trying circumstances. From there I more or less let the story unfold naturally based on that character’s prime motivation. It all comes down to deciding what the character would do next, each step of the way. If the character’s number one priority in life is to be respected, he or she will react to a given set of circumstances differently than a character whose prime motivation is to be loved, or to amass wealth, for example.

3. What good has your book created in the world?

I get emails, tweets and Facebook messages almost daily from authors who’ve found some bit of help, guidance or motivation in my book or on one of my sites. I’m just one among many who’ve spearheaded this new “indie author” movement, and I certainly wouldn’t try to take all the credit for it. But it feels really good to know I’m a part of it, and that I’m giving others the tools they need to make their dreams of authorship come true.

• • •

Last time I asked a question about self-publishing, it was about whether or not you would consider it. This time, let’s pretend you are considering it at some point in your career and it’s not so much about what you’ll self-publish as what you won’t self-publish. Give us an idea of what you will self-publish, what you won’t self-publish, and why.

Answer in the comments in 50-200 words (no less and no more to qualify to win one of today’s books). Please read the complete rules at least once!

Thanks for participating in the Writer Mama Every-Day-In-May Book Giveaway! Thanks for spreading the word!

Thanks for helping me welcome Pamela Jane. Pamela and I met over the phone and keep in touch online. Pamela is a prolific children’s writer. I bet you will impressed with how much she has written. Welcome, Pamela!

Pamela Jane has published twenty-six children’s books with Houghton Mifflin, Atheneum, Simon & Schuster, Avon, Penguin-Putnam, Harper, Mondo, and others.  Her books include Noelle of the Nutcracker, illustrated by Jan Brett which has been optioned for a film, and the “Winky Blue” and “Milo” series published by Mondo. Books in these series have recently gone into Spanish, big book, and CD editions. New and forthcoming titles include, A Vampire is Coming to Dinner!  10 Rules to Follow Little Goblins Ten and illustrated by NY Times best-selling illustrator, Jane Manning. Pamela’s books have appeared in Scholastic Book Clubs, on ALA “Pick of the Lists,” Weekly Reader, and foreign language editions. She also writes a web-based children’s animation series for Little Fox Publishing.

A Vampire Is Coming To Dinner! 10 Rules To Follow by Pamela Jane, illustrated by Pedro Rodriquez. After a vampire invites himself to dinner, the narrator comes up with some very practical rules for dealing with a vampire. Read along as the narrator of this story comes up with some very practical rules for dealing with a vampire. But rules are meant to be broken, aren’t they? From feeding the vampire garlic to filling the house with mirrors, the narrator is doing just that! With ten full-page gatefolds and a pop at the end of the book, kids will love seeing which rules are being followed and which aren’t! The ultimate book on vampire etiquette!

Q&A:

1. How has writing (either just the act of writing or writing this book or both) impacted your self-confidence?

This was the first children’s book I wrote that I could trace directly to an idea I got from my daughter, as it came from a tickling game I used to play with her.  The fact that a fun-loving activity could result in a published book confirmed what I’d always felt about writing springing from humor as well as hard work, and gave me confidence to trust in the way that I create.

2.  What are three words that describe your creative book-writing process?

Playfulness, discipline, and perseverance

3. What good has your book created in the world?

A Vampire is Coming To Dinner has entertained and tickled kids, parents and teachers, and encouraged them to enjoying reading together.

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Have you ever considered writing for children? What topics would you cover or what story would your imagined children’s book tell?

But you will have to say more than just the three words to get to 50-200 words.

Answer in the comments in 50-200 words (no less and no more to qualify to win one of today’s books). Please read the complete rules at least once!

Thanks for participating in the Writer Mama Every-Day-In-May Book Giveaway! Thanks for sharing about the giveaway on Facebook!

Caroline Grant from Literary Mama (who was our guest the other day) introduced me to Lisa Harper. And I’m so glad she did! I’m always happy to meet another writer mama. Please help me welcome her!

Lisa Catherine Harper is the author of A Double Life, Discovering Motherhood and a professor in the MFA program at the University of San Francisco. Her writing has appeared in books, online and in print, in places including San Francisco Chronicle, Poetry Foundation, Huffington Post, Babble, Glimmer Train, Literary Mama, Offsprung, Gastronomica, and Mama, PhD.  She holds a BA from Princeton University and an MA and PhD from University of California, Davis. She lives in the San Francisco Bay Area with her husband, and their two children. You can find her online at http://www.LisaCatherineHarper.com.

A Double Life, Discovering Motherhood is the winner of the 2010 River Teeth Literary Nonfiction Prize. Publishers Weekly has called the book, which merges personal narrative with research “universal, moving, and relevant.” Following the intimate story of Harper’s first pregnancy, from conception to her daughter’s first word, A Double Life looks at how the biological facts of motherhood give rise to life-altering emotional and psychological changes. It shows us how motherhood transforms the female body, hijacks a woman’s mind, and splits her life in two, creating an identity both brand new and as old as time. It charts the passage from individual to incubator, from pregnancy, labor, and nursing to language acquisition, from coupledom to the complex reality of family life. Harper’s carefully researched story reminds us that motherhood’s central joys are also its most essential transformations.

Questions:

1. How has writing (either just the act of writing or writing this book or both) impacted your self-confidence?

Writing  A Double Life cemented my confidence in my voice as well as my commitment to writing fact-based, lyrical narratives. I wrote fiction before I pursued my PhD, and A Double Life engages every aspect of my writing life: the rigor of research, the necessity of narrative, the experimental flight of lyric. It took me a long time to find a home for this book, but since publication I’ve been especially gratified that reviewers and readers have responded with great enthusiasm to the very aspects of the book that made some early editors nervous. Now I feel much more confident in my sensibility, my style, and my point of view. I have a greater sense of who I am as a writer and how I want to enter the conversation. Whatever my next long project, this sensibility will remain central to my writing. Knowing that has given me tremendous confidence and the momentum to keep going.

2. What are three words that describe your creative book-writing process?

Investigate. Narrate. Lyric.

3. What good has your book created in the world?

A Double Life is helping to change the conversation we have about motherhood–away from the sensational and voyeuristic and toward something more essential. It has also helped readers–including fathers and the childless–to understand in a profound and intimate way the radical transformations that women go through when they become mothers. It’s not just nine months of pregnancy and then–boom–you have a baby. Motherhood is a profound, gradual, life-altering process that is at once a great joy and a great challenge.

My book tells this story to mothers (expectant, new, veteran) in a way that allows them to understand, share, welcome, and celebrate these changes.When they read, they recognize parts of their own story. The book helps them to feel less alone; it helps them to understand how the biological gives rise to the emotional and psychological; it helps explain the why and how; and it has absolutely helped their friends and partners understand what the big deal is in the first place. (I’ve even had email from childless, adult readers who have gifted the book to their mothers as a way of saying “thank you! Now I get it!”)

• • •

Another question we’ve been asking our authors for you: how has writing impacted your self-confidence?

But you will have to say more than just the three words to get to 50-200 words.

Answer in the comments in 50-200 words (no less and no more to qualify to win one of today’s books). Please read the complete rules at least once!

Thanks for participating in the Writer Mama Every-Day-In-May Book Giveaway! Please bring give the giveaway a shout-out on Twitter today.

I met Laura Whitcomb at a Willamette Writers Conference where we were signing books at tables next to each other. She has since moved to the same town as me, written many books in just several years, and has spoken for me at The Northwest Author Series. I have encountered her walking her dog around the park musing. I bet she was dreaming up her another great book idea. Please help me welcome Laura!

Laura Whitcomb is the author of the supernatural YA novels A Certain Slant of Light (a Discover Great New Authors pick at Barnes and Nobel) and The Fetch (#5 on the Indy Next List’s Top Ten YA books of 2009) and the writing book Novel Shortcuts. She also co-authored the book Your First Novel with her literary agent, Ann Rittenberg. Laura’s novels have been published in eight foreign languages, produced as audio books, and Slant is optioned for film by the producer of the movies The Departed and The Time Travelers Wife. She lives in Wilsonville, Oregon with her one-year-old son, Robinson.

The Fetch, a young adult supernatural novel. Calder is a Fetch, a death escort, the first of his kind to step from Heaven back to Earth. The first to fall in love with a mortal girl. But when he climbs backwards out of that Death Scene, into the chaos of the Russian Revolution, he tears a wound in the ghost realm, where the spirits begin a revolution of their own.

Q: How has writing (either just the act of writing or writing this book or both) impacted your self-confidence?

A: When you have one novel published and it does well, you feel great. But finishing a second helps you know that it wasn’t a fluke. This is your career! I was proud of myself and now I’m almost done with a third, the sequel to my first novel.

Q: What are three words that describe your creative book-writing process?

A: Hard to describe. Hee hee. Just kidding. Let’s see . . . how about Mysterious Inconsistent Magical.

Q: What good has your book created in the world?

A: Other than making me money for world-brightening things like adopting a baby and having enough money to support the writing of the next book, I hear from the fans who write to me that The Fetch has inspired them to read more, inspired them to write, stirred their imaginations and emotions, and encouraged them to learn more about history. Once in a while one of my fans will also say my writing gives them comfort or opens their minds about the Afterlife.

• • •

Okay, back to the fun stuff, you guys.

How about you give us three words that describe your writing process?

But you will have to say more than just the three words to get to 50-200 words. 😉

Answer in the comments in 50-200 words (no less and no more to qualify to win one of today’s books). Please read the complete rules at least once!

Thanks for participating in the Writer Mama Every-Day-In-May Book Giveaway! Please bring your five people you just met next time you come.

And the winner of Mama PhD edited by Caroline Grant is…

Angie A! Congratulations!

And the winner of The Beautiful One Has Come by Suzanna Kamata is…

Beth Vogt!

If you missed the drawing, you can read all about it here.

I need each winner to send me an e-mail with your mailing address so that I can send it on to the author and she can send you your signed book!

Please send your address in an e-mail to “katz christina at comcast dot net.”

Thanks for participating. Onward!