Just a reminder...#MGBookElves

Don't forget to enter the Goodreads Giveaway for the BookElves Anthology Volume Two!

Goodreads Book Giveaway

BookElves Anthology Volume 2

by Jemima Pett

Giveaway ends November 26, 2015.
See the giveaway details at Goodreads.

Enter Giveaway

Purchase links here.

BookElves Giveaway!

The new BookElves Anthology (Volume 2!) is out, and we are doing a Goodreads Giveaway! Be sure to check out the new book, and enter the giveaway by following the link below.

And if you can't wait for the giveaway, order a copy now:

Amazon.com ebook 

Smashwords ebook

Apple iBookstore

B&N ebook

Paperbacks: 

Createspace shop (paperback) 

Paperbacks will be available on Amazon soon!

Goodreads Book Giveaway

BookElves Anthology Volume 2

by Jemima Pett

Giveaway ends November 26, 2015.
See the giveaway details at Goodreads.

Enter Giveaway

BookElves Anthology, Volume 2--ready for pre-orders!

Thanks to a huge effort by Head Elf Jemima Pett, the BookElves Anthology Volume 2 will launch on November 12th – but pre-orders are now open for early birds wishing to catch the worm! The second BookElves Anthology, features stories by Cheryl Carpinello, Rebecca Douglass, Wendy Leighton-Porter, SW Lothian, Annaliese Matheron, Jemima Pett and Ben Zackheim.

 

Goodreads: http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/27234317-bookelves-anthology-volume-2

Amazon.com ebook (long format) : http://www.amazon.com/BookElves-Anthology-Another-selection-seasonal-ebook/dp/B016TYHTD6

Amazon.co.uk ebook (short format): http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B016TYHTD6

Smashwords ebook: https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/583971

Apple iBookstore: https://itunes.apple.com/gb/book/bookelves-anthology-volume-2/id1050576870?mt=11

B&N: http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/bookelves-anthology-volume-2-jemima-pett/112284222?ean=2940152413779

Kobo: https://store.kobobooks.com/en-us/ebook/bookelves-anthology-volume-2

Createspace shop (paperback) http://www.createspace.com/5701994

Amazon (paperback)TBA

Enter the Goodreads Giveaway to win a free copy of the paperback!

Goodreads Book Giveaway

BookElves Anthology Volume 2

by Jemima Pett

Giveaway ends November 26, 2015.
See the giveaway details at Goodreads.

Enter Giveaway

Or, for more fun, see Jemima's blog and match the authors to the opening lines for a chance to win the ebook!

Book Review and Giveaway! #MGBookElves

I don't usually review my own work...and I'm not. But I'll review the other 6/7 of the book!

Seven stories, seven situations threatening the festivities. Will the holidays be a disaster?  Will families be left out in the cold? Will there be tears before bedtime, or will there be happy endings all round? The MG BookElves group brings you its first anthology of tales to enjoy during the holiday season:

* Reliable Clooney Dockins delivered his town's mail on time for thirty-two years, until that strange and impossible Christmas Eve when he woke up late. M.G.King (Fizz & Peppers at the Bottom of the World, Librarian on the Roof)

* Max the Tonkinese cat finds Santa Claus on the roof and is whisked away to retrieve a very special message from another time and place. Wendy Leighton-Porter (The Shadows from the Past series)

* Shirley Link is an amateur sleuth who lives in a town that could use all the sleuths it can get! What is it about Shelburne Falls, Massachusetts that makes it such a hotspot for dastardly deeds? Even on Christmas Day? Ben Zackheim (Shirley Link Detective Series, The Camelot Kids)

*Champ may be a rescue dog, but he’s the best person around to stop the dognappers and save heartbreak at Christmas. Fiona Ingram (The Secret of the Sacred Scarab, Champ: My Story of Survival)

* When the railroad gets snowed under, the two bit town of Skunk Corners has to play host to a load of mighty difficult strangers.  Can Big Al and the Ninja Librarian keep the season of goodwill from breaking into a riot? Rebecca M. Douglass (The Ninja Librarian, Halitor the Hero)

*Far away on the west coast of a western Scottish island, Dylan and Dougall face yuletide in Castle Haunn with no heat, light or food.  Can Dylan get the message through to the mainland for help, or is there something nasty waiting for him in the hills? Jemima Pett (The Princelings of the East series)

*It’s Christmas holiday and Lily is stuck in a remote mountain village. With school out for a month and no internet connection, at first she wonders how she will fill the time. In this sweet romance, Lily discovers there’s more to gift-giving than just the giving.  S. Smith (The Seed Savers series)

Each tale weaves its own seasonal magic.  Each magician has already warmed the hearts of thousands of young readers with their stories. Enjoy these frantic races to meet the Christmas deadline while you curl up in your favourite reading spot this winter.

Details: 40,000 words (approx); 157 pages (approx, ebook)/ 184 pages (paperback) ; grade 4 +; ages 8 to 108.

Title: BookElves Anthology, Vol. 1
Authors: Jemima Pett, Rebecca M. Douglass, Fiona Ingram, M.G. King, Wendy Leighton-Porter, S. Smith, Ben Zackhiem
Publisher: Princelings Publications, 2014, 184 pages.
Source: I got to proof the book for our group!



My Review:

 There really is something in here for everyone. The stories are very different, but I enjoyed every one, and each had something to offer the reader: humor, inspiration, food for thought, and a faint whiff of candy canes and chocolate. Most of the stories are spin-offs or bonus tales from series, from my own Ninja Librarian to the guinea pigs that inhabit the world of the Princelings of the East to Max the Tonkinese cat and Shirley Link, kid-detective extraordinaire. I have read some of the series, and for others this was my first encounter, and all the stories read well as stand-alone stories, as well as tickling my desire to delve further into their worlds. It's nice bunch of stories to curl up with as the holidays approach!

Recommendation: 
It really is for kids from 8 to 108, though some stories skew more to the younger or older child, largely through variations in reading level. I recommend this for anyone, of any age, who just wants to spend a little time with some heartwarming holiday stories!

Like it? Buy at Amazon in paperback or Kindle, or enter the Goodreads Giveaway for a copy all your own! 

And while we're on the subject of great new books...

 

Great offers and other business

I don't have any reviews ready to go for today, but that's okay, because I need to remind you all about a couple of great offers.

First: today is the last day to enter my Goodreads Giveaway for the humorous middle-grade fantasy Halitor the Hero! Open to all US Residents (international fans--watch this space--I'll be running an ebook giveaway in the first weeks of December!).

Goodreads Book Giveaway

Halitor the Hero

by Rebecca Douglass

Giveaway ends November 17, 2014.
See the giveaway details at Goodreads.

Enter to win  

###
#MGBookElves

Next: The BookElves Anthology #1 is available for pre-order! Ebooks are just $0.99 at Smashwords and Amazon, with paperback available on the Nov. 25 release date (price TBD). Fellow BookElf Jemima Pett is offering the book as part of a bloghop giveaway right now through Nov. 29 (along with another great looking book)!

BookElves Anthology #1
Seven stories, seven situations threatening the festivities – a postbag that gets bigger, a Santa in summer, the strange disappearance of the gifts, a petnapping gang, a snowstorm in the wilds, a kidnapped messenger, and a whole raft of celebrations that are too strange to contemplate.

Will the holidays be a disaster? Or will seven bookelves weave seasonal magic?

Here's the scoop on those 7 stories:

* Reliable Clooney Dockins delivered his town's mail on time for thirty-two years, until that strange and impossible Christmas Eve when he woke up late. M.G.King (Fizz & Peppers at the Bottom of the World, Librarian on the Roof)

* Max the Tonkinese cat finds Santa Claus on the roof and is whisked away to retrieve a very special message from another time and place. Wendy Leighton-Porter (The Shadows from the Past series)

* Shirley Link is an amateur sleuth who lives in a town that could use all the sleuths it can get! What is it about Shelburne Falls, Massachusetts that makes it such a hotspot for dastardly deeds? Even on Christmas Day? Ben Zackheim (Shirley Link Detective Series, The Camelot Kids)

* Champ may be a rescue dog, but he’s the best person around to stop the dognappers and save heartbreak at Christmas. Fiona Ingram (The Secret of the Sacred Scarab, Champ: My Story of Survival)

* When the railroad gets snowed under, the two bit town of Skunk Corners has to play host to a load of mighty difficult strangers. Can Big Al and the Ninja Librarian keep the season of goodwill from breaking into a riot? Rebecca M. Douglass (The Ninja Librarian, Halitor the Hero)

* Far away on the west coast of a western Scottish island, Dylan and Dougall face yuletide in Castle Haunn with no heat, light or food. Can Dylan get the message through to the mainland for help, or is there something nasty waiting for him in the hills? Jemima Pett (The Princelings of the East series)

* It’s Christmas holiday and Lily is stuck in a remote mountain village. With school out for a month and no internet connection, at first she wonders how she will fill the time. In this sweet romance, Lily discovers there’s more to gift-giving than just the giving. S. Smith (The Seed Savers series)

Each tale weaves its own seasonal magic. Each magician has already warmed the hearts of thousands of young readers with their stories. Enjoy these frantic races to meet the Christmas deadline while you curl up in your favourite reading spot this winter. 

(Yes, we have favourites and a touch of humour, because our beloved Editor-in-Chief, Jemima Pett, is British).

###

And, of course, we have the incredible Read Tuesday event--more authors featured every day!

Being an author-publisher looks a lot like work...

I don't have a review ready to go today. I could blame it on having been on the road with my oldest son, visiting colleges (colleges? We're just getting some traction on this parenting thing, and it's almost over?). That would even be partly true. But I'm also working hard on all the final details for Halitor the Hero, which is still on schedule for its Nov. 30 release date!

There's a lot to do. Once the MS is clean and lovely as far as content goes (got there last week), the formatting begins. I spent yesterday in battle with MS Word getting it to where the ebooks should be perfect (I often wish my books had illustrations, but I admit that it is easier to create an ebook without them!). Now I'm working on the print version, which is easier in some ways (no need for live links!) but requires more of what I'm less good at, i.e. an artistic sense. This font or that? And I set myself a big challenge this time: I hired my amazing cover artist, Danielle English, only for the front cover. I'm doing the back and spine myself. In theory, this is well within my skills. In practice...the jury is still out!

Once that's done and all the chapter heads are just as I want them (and headers! footers! page numbers!), and I upload the whole thing, I'll finish that short story for Friday's blog and get back to your regularly scheduled entertainment!

Oh, and about that "NaNoEdMo" idea, where I was going to get Death By Trombone through the first round of edits by the end of the month? Not looking so good! But I am working on it, so I know I'll get there eventually. Maybe even by the end of the year (just in time to start the second round of edits in the new year).

Meanwhile, you can pre-order the ebook of Halitor from Amazon AND from Smashwords!

 

And don't forget the exciting pending release of the BookElves Anthology! I'll link up as soon as we have a pre-order page, because there are some cool holiday stories in there! Huge thanks to Princelings of the East author Jemima Pett for all the work she's doing on this!

And don't forget that Goodreads Giveaway for Halitor!

#MGBookElves: Interview with Cool Mom from Stanley and Katrina!

 Last month we reviewed the delightful middle grade novel, The Perpetual Papers of the Pack of Pets.  Today, we are delighted to interview, not the author, but the author's Mom!  That's right.  The author of that charming work is "just a kid" (and if you can use that phrase with a straight face after reading the book, there's something wrong with you!).  I caught up with Christine, AKA Cool Mom from Stanley and Katrina, Pet Authors, for a few tips on parenting a writer (and many thanks to Christine for providing the link to allow you to tweet this post!).

1.  Your daughter was only 9 when she wrote The Perpetual Papers of the Pack of Pets. Were you aware what she was doing?  At what point did she involve you in the process, and when did you both decide she should publish?

It seems a bit crazy, but, yes, she was 9 when she wrote The Perpetual Papers of the Pack of Pets (TPPotPoP). Felicia participated in NaNoWriMo YWP, (That's the National Novel Writing Month Youth Writing Project for those who don't want to click through) last November, after completing ScriptFrenzy, in April of 2012. She was highly motivated during NaNoWriMo by the idea of winning free printed copies from CreateSpace.  During November of last year, my role was primarily to be her encourager as well as someone to bounce ideas off of as needed. NaNoWriMo was fantastic for teaching her that the writing process has different stages, and for that very first stage, turning off your inner editor can be rewarding. Publishing her book for anything more than our own family's bookshelf was never the goal. Stanley and Katrina, her characters, seem to have taken on a life of their own. Our family is enjoying the journey.

2.  Nurturing a young talent is a tricky thing.  You have to maintain a balance between support/encouragement and pushing them to improve the work.  What was the hardest thing for you about having your daughter publish a book?

Initially, reviews of her book were the hardest thing for me. Felicia has never wanted TPPotPoP to be treated differently from any other book on the market. My fear was that she would receive harshly critical reviews that might cause her to stop enjoying writing. Thankfully, the few critical reviews she has received to date have only motivated her more. At the moment, the hardest thing is keeping her balanced and making time for her to just be a kid. She needs her down time and I find protecting that has become an extremely important part of my job and my husband’s job as her parents.

3.  I believe you served as general editor for the Perpetual Papers.  Was it difficult to manage the tone of the work--to keep her (child's) voice while at the same time insisting on meeting certain standards of writing and plotting?  I have a couple of sons, and I've never been able to tell them much of anything--did you get a lot of pushback?   
Oh, yes! When she was motivated to truly publish her book for a serious audience, we definitely had push-back during editing.  The punctuation, grammar, capitalization and such were the easy parts. She did a great job with her first draft and that made my job easy. It was important to me to protect that her book continued to remain her work throughout editing.  I focused on pointing out to Felicia when things didn't make any sense, or if I thought she might be able to add more to the story to be sure her readers understood what she was trying to say. To assist the process, we decided to enlist others in the beta reading and editing. Felicia had two wonderful friends and four adults read through her book and act as editors. When she learned that I wasn't the only one having trouble with a certain spot, it made it easier for her to see that it was something that truly needed to be addressed.

4.  On the same lines, my 16-y.o. has been writing a book for the last year plus, and it's got great potential, but he has zero interest in the hard work that is revision.  How did you inspire Neighbor Girl to make that effort?  Or where did she get the idea that she could/should put more effort into it?

There isn't much my husband or I can do to motivate Felicia if she doesn't want to do something. When I find an area of interest for her, I keep an eye out for contests, projects and awards that might be available to her and present them to her for her consideration. Sites such as Hoagies Gifted is a great place to start:  http://www.hoagiesgifted.org/contests.htm.  

  
For TPPotPoP, Felicia happened on a huge motivator to get her through editing speedily - not that I recommend the timeline she had to anyone. We were traditionally homeschooling Felicia last year, but discovered a charter school that appeared to be a great fit for her. After attending an open house and learning she needed two writing samples included in her application to the school, Felicia decided that she  would like TPPotPoP to be one of her writing samples. It gave her about four weeks to get through editing, proofing and printing her book. It was entirely her decision and it motivated her well. That early copy of her book had some things we missed for sure - as I said, I wouldn’t recommend rushing through editing, but it got her to the next level.  I’m thrilled to share that she was accepted to the school and it has proven to be a great fit for her.

  
Inspiring your child is sometimes about finding the thing that motivates them and jumping in with both feet. Getting past the fear of trying is half the battle in most cases. One of our favorite acronyms is F.A.I.L.

5.  Finally, an under-age author faces extra challenges in the internet world.  I know you have acted as her voice on most discussion boards and forums.  Talk a little bit about protecting her privacy and finding the balance with that and the need for an author to have a public presence.

All accounts are in my name or our names together, and I am the first line of communication to anyone who reaches out to Stanley & Katrina online. Felicia is not old enough to have any of the online accounts on her own.   While I administer the content on her blog, nothing gets posted without her approval - other than books that I have reviewed.  She creates all of Katrina's Word of the Week sentences and handles the Wordless Wednesday pictures.

6.  Finally, any other advice for parents who have talented kids?  (In answer to this question, Christine sent the following lovely graphic!):

  Thanks for having me, Rebecca!

So glad to have the chance to chat!

 

Christine is also known as Cool Mom on the Stanley & Katrina blog. She is the mother to Felicia, aka Neighbor Girl, and is the personal assistant to the pets and Felicia. Christine acts as their web administrator as well as their social media manager. Visit her hobby project www.KidLitPrintables.com

Felicia is known as Neighbor Girl on the Stanley & Katrina blog. She is the author of The Perpetual Papers of the Pack of Pets. She loves writing, reading, acting, singing, reading, gymnastics, doodling, reading, ice skating, painting, reading, doing computer stuff… did we mention reading? Her latest creative project is organizing the D.I.R.T. Kids.

"5 Ways to #inspire your child...click to tweet"

Now Enter the Giveaway!

You could win a prize from one of these authors. Most are offering one or two books from their series: if you've already got the first, they may offer you a different one if you win. The prizes are as detailed on the rafflecopter form.  
Contest runs: December 1st to 23rd, 11:59 pm EST, 2013  
Open: Worldwide  
How to enter: Enter using the Rafflecopter widget below.  
Terms and Conditions: NO PURCHASE NECESSARY TO ENTER OR WIN. VOID WHERE PROHIBITED BY LAW. Winners will be randomly drawn through the Rafflecopter widget and will be contacted by email within 48 hours after the giveaway ends. The winner will then have until 28th Dec. to respond. If the winner does not respond in that time, a new draw will take place for a new winner. No cash alternatives to the ebooks offered. Authors may (at their sole discretion) offer a different ebook from that listed if the winner already owns the prize listed. Odds of winning will vary depending on the number of eligible entries received. This contest is in no way sponsored, endorsed or administered by, or associated with Facebook. This giveaway is sponsored by the authors named and is hosted and managed by Jemima Pett, the Princelings author. If you have any additional questions – feel free to send an email to jemima (dot) pett (at) gmail (dot) com.
 a Rafflecopter giveaway