Happy holidays!

I hope all of you are enjoying a happy holiday season. It was great that the world didn't end like some had predicted. That would have really put a crimp in the holiday plans. On the upside, no one would have had to pay their post-holiday bills or worry about putting on weight after eating too much.

This year, if you gave gifts, I hope everyone on your list loved what they got. And if you received gifts, I hope those were just what you wanted. If you were celebrating a religious holiday, I hope it was fulfilling. If you're ringing in a new year, I hope it's the best one yet. And if you're doing whatever happens on Boxing Day, I hope it involves plenty of boxes or boxing.

So happy holidays. I hope you're surrounded by family and friends if you want, or quiet and solitude if you prefer. And have a wonderful 2013!

Kim

I SAW YOUR FUTURE shipping early!

Are you looking for the perfect gift for that hard-to-buy-for woman on your Christmas list? Good news: Our new book I SAW YOUR FUTURE AND HE'S NOT IT: A PSYCHIC'S GUIDE TO TRUE LOVE has started shipping a month early! http://www.amazon.com/Saw-Your-Future-Hes-Not/dp/0738734934/ref=sr_1_cc_1?s=aps&ie=UTF8&qid=1341954742&sr=1-1-catcorr&keywords=I+saw+your+future+and+he%27s
Technically, the release date is still January 8, 2013, but the gods of the publishing universe must have realized they were missing out on sales by not selling it until after the holidays. So it's here for your gift shopping convenience, not to mention offering help to those of you who would like to find "Mr. Right" to spend New Year's Eve with.
Happy reading!

Career change?

A career change seems appropriate. Sure, writing's nice and all, but I might be better suited for a  career in TV. No, not acting. That would demand that I don't gain weight and sometimes have to kiss perfect strangers on camera.

No, I'm thinking more along the lines of television programming. I plan to sell my services to rival TV networks. Whoever pays me the most will get me to watch their rival networks' new season of TV shows. If I'm watching the shows, that will guarantee that no one else on the planet will watch them and they'll be immediately cancelled. No matter how good they are.

Think of the advantage for the network that pays me! The obvious implication here is that no matter how lousy the shows that my employing network is producing, they'll stay on the air as long as I don't watch them. No matter how excellent the rival networks' shows are, they'll be cancelled!

You might wonder what qualifies me for this particular line of work. Let me give you some examples of great shows that I watched that were cancelled within their first season: Firefly. I loved Firefly. Everyone who ever watched Firefly loved it. That was the best show ever. And it had a target on its forehead before the first episode even aired. Remember Moonlight with the vampires and the reporter? Gone. Last season I watched The Finder. Apparently everyone heard that I liked it because it was cancelled.

Maybe you think this is just a recent phenomenon that's occurring because of the heightened competition for viewers in an internet world. But no, my ability to kill a TV show has existed for years. There was a TV show on years ago based on the Mortal Kombat video game. It was terrific. And it was cancelled. They left me hanging after the end of Season 1.

Thankfully there have been some exceptions over the years, and I'm grateful that my curse didn't afflict shows like Grimm and Person of Interest. I foolishly watched those shows from their first episodes, laughing at fate and daring the networks to cancel them. But somehow they managed to survive, even though I was watching. These shows were the exception, and too many others succumbed to my kiss of death.

This year the curse has struck again. I've been enjoying 666 Park Avenue and Last Resort, only to learn recently that they're both going the way of other entertaining programs that weren't identical to every other show on TV. What's wrong with just giving a show a chance to build an audience?

But enough whining. As long as the networks are going to mess with me anyway, I might as well make some money from it. So, attention TV executives: If you want to see your rivals' new season go the way of the dinosaur, just write a check to me. And don't be stingy. You're going to have to outbid all the other networks, otherwise my curse will be used against you. Nothing personal; it's just business. I look forward to working with you.

Kim

The Original Louise Helene

Now that the book I wrote with my aunt, psychic advisor Louise Helene, is set for publication January 8, 2013, I've had a lot of people ask me how my aunt chose such an unusual career. I always tell them that she learned her craft from her mother, whose professional name was also Louise Helene. If you'd like some more details about my aunt's journey from a curious five-year-old gaping at her mother's crystal ball to a popular, successful psychic advisor, check out her most recent blog http://louisehelenethepsychic.blogspot.com/. And don't forget that our book I SAW YOUR FUTURE AND HE'S NOT IT: A PSYCHIC'S GUIDE TO TRUE LOVE is available for pre-order everywhere, for which I am very grateful this Thanksgiving.

First Review - And It's Good!

That Google Alert I set up to tell me when anyone mentions my upcoming book I SAW YOUR FUTURE AND HE'S NOT IT: A PSYCHIC'S GUIDE TO TRUE LOVE has paid off. Today it led me to the book's first review. http://biggestlittlereviewblog.blogspot.com/2012/11/book-i-saw-your-future-and-hes-not-it.html
Now, I know I SAW YOUR FUTURE is a great book, and my coauthor (and aunt) Louise Helene knows it's a great book, but until you actually see a good review, there's always that nagging little doubt that maybe the rest of the world will wake up on the wrong side of the bed and won't be in a mood to like anything. So it was a huge relief when I read the review and saw that this reviewer understood what we were trying to do and enjoyed it. (Exhale huge sigh of relief here) I'm so glad that the reviewer recommends the book, and it was especially fun to read that she identified with some of the women whose stories of good love and and good love gone bad are presented. That's something we've heard from many of the women who've read the book. This is serious cause for celebration this weekend.
Cheers to good reviews!

Tracking Book Sales

Back in the days before the internet, there must have been fewer ways for authors to obsess over their book sales. There were best seller lists and statements from the publisher, but what else? Today, with the internet, there are countless websites offering a variety of ways to keep track of book sales, plus reviews, readers' comments, and a zillion other factors that affect a book's popularity. What did authors do with themselves back in the day when they weren't spending their days setting up Google alerts for mentions of their book titles or their own names? Maybe they actually had time to write new books.

My latest obsession is a site called NovelRank.com. If you put your book's title into the system, it tracks the Amazon sales and ranking. Don't ask how many times per day I've popped over there since putting I SAW YOUR FUTURE AND HE'S NOT IT into the system. It's already been up and down a bit, and as the release days of January 8 gets closer, I'm hoping the ranking and sales will steadily improve.

Next on my agenda is to put my Abraxas books into the system. I think it will track print books and ebooks separately, which gives me that many more chances to obsess about book sales. Isn't technology wonderful?

Author Fairs

Over the past couple months, I've been lucky to attend a few author fairs at libraries in the Chicago area. I started attending these events back in 2006 when Stones of Abraxas was first published, and I loved them then. Now that I've got my self-pubbed version of Stones out, along with the Heroes of Abraxas sequel and My Life as an Earthworm, they're even more fun because there are more books to talk to people about. For these most recent fairs, I also brought promotional postcards for the upcoming nonfiction book I wrote with my aunt, psychic Louise Helene. The book is called I Saw Your Future and He's Not It, and it's going over big with readers.

One of the things I find most interesting about author fairs and other book signing events is that you can never tell who's going to be most interested in your books. When a 12-year-old boy walks past my signing table, I used to automatically assume he'd like my YA fantasy novels with a dragon and gargoyle on the covers. And sometimes he is interested in fantasy, but a lot of times he's not. One time there was a kid who I thought would love fantasy, but he came over and picked up my nonfiction book about Muammar Qaddafi in Libya. When I looked surprised, his mom explained, "He's really interested in dictators." Go figure.

At least half of the people I talk to and sell YA books to at signings are adult women. Sometimes they're looking for a gift for kids or grandkids, but more often they're looking for themselves. I understand where they're coming from because at least half of what I read is classified as young adult.

Maybe most surprising is that it's not just women who are picking up the promo cards for I Saw Your Future and He's Not It. Men are curious, too. Mostly they're dads who have daughters, and they're eager for help in warning the girls away from lousy guys. The book's title really strikes a chord for those dads, I guess.

So, like books, it seems that you can't tell a book reader by his/her cover.