I Saw Your Future

Terrific news: I have a contract with Llewellyn Publishing to release my first nonfiction book for adults! I Saw Your Future and He's Not It: A Psychic's Guide to True Love was co-written with my aunt, psychic advisor Louise Helene. For more than 30 years, she's consulted with clients around the world, particularly talking to women about love and relationship problems.

You might be thinking, "But, Kim, you write young adult fiction. What's with the nonfiction book for adults?" Well, the fact is that I'm a sucker for a good story, and this book is full of fascinating ones that my aunt has heard from her clients over the years. Some are hilarious, some heart-breaking, and some will just make you say "aaawww". This book has something for everyone, whether you're in a relationship or not, and whether you're into supernatural phenomena or not. It's entertaining, lively, and informative. You'll love it!

Our publisher is working on cover art for I Saw Your Future and He's Not It right now, and I'll post it here as soon as it's ready. The book will be available for pre-sale at Llewellyn Publishing's website and at booksellers starting in July or August. It will be released January 8, 2013, just in time for Valentine's Day.

My aunt and I really enjoyed the opportunity to work together on writing the book, and now we're looking forward to the fun of promoting it. I'm even sharpening my book-signing pen. Sadly, pens aren't supposed to be sharpened, so now I've got ink all over my fingers. OK, I'm going to sign off and wash my hands.

Happy publishing!

Kim

The Trouble with Twitters

I don't fully understand Twitter. I'm not having technical problems; I know how to tweet and haven't forgotten my password or anything. But I'm not sure exactly how I'm supposed to use it. First, I don't have a smart phone, so anytime something interesting happens when I'm out, I have to remember it until I get home and can get on my computer. Needless to say, I forget. And, frankly, nothing particularly tweet-worthy happens when I'm sitting at home in front of the computer. Do you want to know about "the cutest thing" my cat just did? I didn't think so. Since I don't want to spend untold sums of money for a data plan and a new cell phone, I think I'm stuck with uninspired tweets.

OK, I can handle that. I'll just tweet occasionally and follow other people who I find interesting. Which leads me to my second problem: How many people am I supposed to follow? Everyone I see follows hundreds or thousands of other people. THOUSANDS! How is that even possible? Even if every one of those people only tweets once a week, it would be a full time job to read all that stuff. Plus, there are a few people I'm particularly interested in, but if I'm following a zillion people, then the ones I'm most interested in get lost in the shuffle, and I never see their posts. What's the point?

On a related note, some people I've seen are tweeting constantly. Is it necessary to literally share a minute-by-minute account of your day? But if you start following someone like that, then isn't it rude to unsubscribe from their feed? Do they know someone has unsubscribed? Will they take it personally and have their feelings hurt? And if I want people to follow my tweets, then I assume I'm supposed to follow theirs, right? Is that a requirement? It seems like the polite thing to do, but I have no idea what kind of social rules apply to the world of Twitter.

Which brings me to another issue: It seems like everyone cheats the 140-character rule by tweeting links. Sure, I'm guilty of doing this, too, but I don't usually want to read an entire link. Whatever happened to just tweeting a short thought or comment? Don't people do that anymore? Isn't it possible to just subscribe to someone's feed, read a short thought or comment from them, then move on without having to click through a link to a whole article or blog or something? What's ironic is that I'm posting a link to this blog on my Twitter account, so people might read this rant against links when they've just followed a link. Is that irony? Or is that just a sign that I'm a sociopath?

As a result of all my confusion, I've found it easier to just not get too deeply into Twitter. I can't tweet much without a smart phone anyway, I don't follow many people because I'm afraid to unsubscribe if they tweet too much, and I'm not wild about having to deal with links in tweets. But maybe if you're reading this blog, you could explain to me what I'm doing wrong. Please tell me how anyone can actually follow 10,000 Twitter accounts. Maybe there's a trick that I don't know. And, no, I'm not willing to give up sleep in order to be an accomplished Twitter user. So if you can solve these problems, please send me a link to the answers. J

Happy tweeting!

Kim 

New Stones of Abraxas is here!

Finally! The new print edition of Stones of Abraxas is available through Createspace and by the end of the month, ebooks for Kindle and other formats will be out there, too. Even better, Book #2 of the Abraxas Pentagram series, Heroes of Abraxas, will also be for sale within the next month. I know it took forever. Believe me, it was frustrating to see my first Abraxas publisher leave the young adult market, which meant the book went out of print. Then I saw my second publisher go out of business entirely before either Stones or Heroes could be released. But now, thanks to the miracle of self-publishing, those books can be available again.

You can see the funky new cover for this edition of Stones as the profile picture for this blog. I have the Heroes of Abraxas cover, too, and while I love both of the covers, but I'm especially fond of the emerald green and gargoyle on the Heroes cover.  Thumbs up for my cover artist!

Right now, I'm busy working on Book #3 in the Abraxas series, called Rulers of Abraxas. I promise this one won't take nearly as long as it took me to get Book #2 out there! I'm also working on publishing a few other manuscripts that I've finished in recent years and will announce when those are available. It's so cool to have the ability to release books when and how I want. This modern technology thing is really beginning to grow on me.

If you get a chance, please head over to Createspace's e-store and check out the new print version of Stones of Abraxas. It's been a long wait, but don't they say good things are worth waiting for? https://www.createspace.com/3803104

Happy publishing, everyone!
Kim

New Stones of Abraxas edition almost here!

It's almost here! I've just placed an order for the first proof copy of Stones of Abraxas. Hopefully it will look as good on paper as it does on the computer page. It took a long time – way longer than I'd expected – to get it to this point, but now I'm really happy with the result. The print books should up and available for sale on Amazon by the end of April, and I hope to have the ebook versions available soon after. At about the same time, the Heroes of Abraxas sequel will be available, too.

I find myself looking back on the past months and wondering why it took me so long to get this done, but the fact is that self-publishing a book requires a lot of steps. Since this is my first attempt at self-publishing, there was a steep learning curve. Oh, and there was the work I was also doing to finish my latest nonfiction manuscript and find a publisher for it. The good news is I did find a publisher for that one, and the book will be out in January 2013. More about that in an upcoming post.

Anyway, here's what I've been doing to get Stones of Abraxas ready for prime time:

-        Edited the manuscript once, twice, three times, then another time for good measure. I added a few things and deleted others from the original version that Medallion Press had published back in 2006.

-        Researched publishing options and decided on Amazon's Createspace.

-        I figured out how to use Createspace's online publishing tools, including formatting my manuscript to work in their system.

-        Found an artist for the book cover. She did a great job on a very cool looking cover. Now she's got me on the schedule to work on one for the Abraxas sequel.

-        Put the inside and outside of the book together and ordered a proof copy.

-        Used the book cover to order promotional postcards to pass out at book signings.

So far, that's it. Now I wait for the books to show up while I get the ebook version formatted. After that, I get to start the fun part: Book signings and other promotional events. I've got a couple lined up, but there should be more soon.

That's it for now. I'll be posting the new cover on my website soon. Thanks for checking on the progress of the new edition of Stones of Abraxas. It will be available again very soon. Thanks for your patience!

Kim

Good news! And a little complaining

I know it's been forever since I've posted a blog, but I have a good excuse...er, reason. I've been busy finishing the manuscript I wrote with my aunt. It's fun and exciting and officially in the hands of our editor. Hopefully we'll be signing books in no time!

Since I was so busy working on the book with my aunt, I've gone nowhere with my self-publishing efforts with the Abraxas series. Yes, I feel terrible about it, but now I've got some time so I'm diving back into it. Seriously. Don't roll your eyes. You'll see. Again, I'll be signing books in no time!

But while we're waiting, how about a little complaint about something that's been on my mind: Christmas music. I love Christmas time, but the one thing about it that makes me cringe every year is when they put Christmas music on the radio. There I am, bopping away to Lady Gaga or Led Zeppelin or White Stripes or whatever (depending on radio station) when all of a sudden, White Christmas starts coming at me. Or Little Drummer Boy. Or that song a bunch of celebrities got together to do in order to raise money for charity.

Look, I don't dislike any of these songs per se, but they have to be in context! I intentionally watch the movie White Christmas every year and love it. But when I'm listening to normal, non-holiday music on a normal, non-holiday radio station, that's what I want to hear. Not an unexpected version of Mariah Carey singing Silent Night. For instance, if I choose to listen to a classic rock station, I wouldn't want them to suddenly slip in a hip hop song or Dolly Parton. That's not what I want to listen to. So why's it OK to do that with Christmas music?

The good news is that the holidays are over and I don't have to worry about this problem for 11 more months. During that time maybe I should just buy myself some new CDs and I can listen to them in the car throughout the month of December. Have I just become a modern-day Scrooge? Bah-humbug!

Here's to a happy and safe 2012!

Kim

I'm not playing favorites

I feel horribly guilty. Over the summer my goal was to get my first two Abraxas books self-published. I failed. Miserably. Here it is mid-October and while the first one has been edited (about a dozen times) the second one is still on my clipboard. But it's been languishing there for weeks because I've been playing favorites. There's another manuscript that I've been working on - the nonfiction one that I've been writing with my aunt - and all my time is being spent on that. Of course, that one has an interested publisher so it makes sense to spend time on it. Still, I feel guilty about not devoting the time to Abraxas that it deserves.

The limited progress I've made lately on Abraxas consists mainly of deciding to form my own publishing company to publish the books myself rather than going through another company like Createspace or Smashwords. It will take a little more work, but the cool thing is that I'll be my own publisher and own my own ISBNs. So I've got to get on that by filling out the paperwork and paying the fees to create the company and get the ISBNs. Which I intend to do - just as soon as I finish my nonfiction manuscript.

So when those nagging feelings of guilt strike me every time I look at my Abraxas manuscripts, I tell myself, "It'll be just a little longer. Definitely by the end of the year. Or maybe spring. Summer's nice, too."

New Project

Do you ever get yourself involved in a totally unexpected project, then have it turn out to be more fun than you ever guessed? Well, lately I've been helping my aunt write a manuscript about her experiences working as a psychic, and it's a blast!

This is totally different from the stuff I usually write. It's kind of a memoir/self-help manuscript, which I've never done before. I'm more used to fiction, or even straight nonfiction like the books I wrote about Yugoslavia and Libya.

For this book, my aunt is sharing lots of stories about the years she's spent consulting with clients and how she learned her craft as a psychic advisor. Instead of telling one long story, like with a novel, in this manuscript we're telling a bunch of shorter stories. It's a different process, but it's also really fun. It's also fun to collaborate with a partner on a writing project like this. And the added bonus, of course, is that I get to spend time with my aunt who's hilarious.

It'll take us some time to finish this manuscript, but when we do, I can't wait to share it with the world. Stay tuned for details!

Kim