New book, new book, please buy my new book!

So, it's here!

My message in a bottle book.
My help other people to help yourself forget about your own problems for a little while book.
My divorce sucks but friends really help book.
My I love Vincent van Gogh book.

So many pieces of myself are in SEE YOU ON A STARRY NIGHT. After my husband read it, he said, this is such a Lisa book.

And that it is.

It's not a big splashy title with publisher support, so the problem is not many people even know about it. The cover is kind of bland, sadly. So any help you can give it would be SO appreciated. If you don't have a child who might like to read it, you can buy it and donate it to a school library or a little library in your neighborhood or even a women and children's shelter. It would be a great book for that. Another easy thing you can do is put a request in at your local library and ask them to order it. Whatever you are able to do - THANK YOU!!

Here are links to make it easy to buy online if that's your jam.

Powell's
Barnes and Noble
Amazon

Here's our new kitten, Luna, checking it out!

One other thing exciting thing happened this week. A quote from I Heart You, You Haunt Me made the spine of "Real Simple" magazine.

Okay, that's all for me today. Hope you have a nice holiday next week spending time with family and friends!

My first novel is 10 years old today!

10 years.
10. years.
10 YEARS.
10 YEARS!!!!

I remember it all. The rejections from agents that said, among other things:

"It's too short to be a novel."
"It's too sad."
"Poetry isn't my thing."
"I wouldn't know a good verse novel from a bad verse novel."

And then, an email from the wonderful woman who is now my agent of almost twelve years.

"I enjoyed it immensely."
“The verse works here – never getting in the way...”
“I would be the most enthusiastic of advocates.”

After many, many rejections, we found the perfect editor, who really got the book. He, along with many other fabulous people at Simon Pulse, helped turn my manuscript into this book.

More than any other book I've written, this one has brought me many, many heartfelt letters from readers. 

Letters from reluctant readers who said, "I usually hate to read but I love this book."
Letters from kids who never finished an entire novel until this one.
Letters from parents of children with dyslexia who were so happy their kids found a book they could read and enjoy.
Letters from people who had lost someone and found comfort in the pages.

It went into a second printing only a month after it had been released.
It's now in its 11th printing with over 100,000 copies in print. 
I call it "The little book that could."

If you have a few minutes to spare, you can watch the video I made to celebrate the book's release. I originally put it up on my blog at the time at livejournal, and then took it down at some point, maybe because I was embarrassed by it?? Well, I'm older now and have less you-know-whats to give. Anyway, while my book hasn't aged much at all, I can't say the same about myself. Ha!

Happy birthday, little book. I'm so happy you are here and that so many people have found hope and comfort and love in your pages. 

Lucky, lucky me

A few weeks ago, I had the pleasure of Skyping with a group of students who are in an English as a Second Language class at a middle school in North Carolina. Their teacher likes to use I HEART YOU, YOU HAUNT ME with his students because he's found the way the verse is written, with lots of white space and not a lot of flowery language, works well for them and where they are at with their reading skills. It was so great to talk to these students and answer their thoughtful questions.

When I'm writing a book, I never know how it will be received or who, if anyone, will end up reading it. I HEART YOU, YOU HAUNT ME has had a reach far greater than I ever imagined.

I'm so honored to have written something these students read and then discussed with each other in class. Even more than that, I'm honored to have met and talked with them. Kids often think that they are the lucky ones when they get to meet an author, but I consider myself even luckier every time I get to meet or talk with one or more of them. They wow me. They inspire me. And they fill me with hope.

Magical Moments

I'm pretty sure I've talked about magical moments here before. This is what I call those moments when I'm writing and out of the blue, the perfect thing comes to me -- something I didn't see coming. As writers, we live for these moments, let me tell you!

Last week I did a bunch of Skype visits and one of the classes asked about a favorite spot in I HEART YOU, YOU HAUNT ME. (It's actually one of the most tweeted, tumbled things from my books, too).

Ava, the main character, who is being haunted by her boyfriend, Jackson and was happy about it at first, has this conversation later on, with an ex-boyfriend, Nick.

"Was it hard," I ask. "Letting go?"

"Not as hard as holding on to something that wasn't real."

When Nick first showed up in the manuscript I wasn't sure why. Like I told the students, when someone or something shows up and I kind of scratch my head over it, I let the story unfold to see what happens and to see if maybe that person or thing holds a purpose I don't know about yet. Nick proved his purpose to me right here. He gives Ava the answer she needs at this moment in time, without knowing that's exactly what she needs.

This little snippet of conversation was very much a magical moment and gave me goosebumps as I wrote it. It was just what the story needed, and I didn't plan it. It just...magically appeared.

There is no way to make magical moments happen other than to show up, day after day, and write. They come without warning, and often when you least expect them.

So now, I'm off to write, hoping, as always for one or two of those magical moments to make their way on to the page.

Have a good week!

Thinking about what sells a book

Six+ years ago, in January, 2008, my first novel came out.

There was no twitter.

Facebook may have been around, I'm not sure, but most people I knew weren't on it yet.

MySpace was going strong, and I did have a page there and tried to connect with people. I know Lisa McMann was incredibly successful in connecting with teens there and getting them excited about her WAKE trilogy when it came out.

Book blogging was really starting to be a thing. I did connect with some book bloggers, but I'm 99% sure my first YA novel didn't have an official "tour" or anything.

Blogging was popular at the time. I had a blog over at livejournal (which still exists because so many comments from my friend Lisa, who passed away three years ago, are there, and I love them. I can't delete them. I just can't. It's like a part of her still exists there. Though I should probably delete it because holy crap, talk about over-sharing.) ANYWAY, a bunch of us who were writers followed each other and had a lot of fun within our tight-knit community. Most of us started our blogs before we were published. So our posts were about personal things or about our writing struggles or about the bumpy road to publication. I loved it. There was no promotion. Just bad news or good news and all the stuff in between. Until things changed. Until everyone started getting book deals.

Here are some things I remember regarding the YA market leading up to my first YA novel coming out.

* I clearly remember the buzz around TWILIGHT before and after it hit the shelves in 2005.

* I remember the buzz around Melissa Marr's WICKED LOVELY series, which sold in 2006, I believe (it came out in 2008).

* I remember reading LOOKING FOR ALASKA while on vacation at Sunriver in 2005. I loved it and I was so excited when it won the Printz in January, 2006. It didn't have a lot of buzz. I only knew about it because his editor was Julie Strauss-Gabel, and she was an editor I admired and kind of kept my eye on.

* I remember it was around the release of the second book of TWILIGHT that bookstores started making a space just for YA novels and moved them out of the children's section. Wow.

* I remember not having a clue as to what to do to promote my book (this is still mostly true, by the way). I joined the class of 2K8. I got a web site going. I kept blogging. And that was about it.

When I HEART YOU, YOU HAUNT ME came out, I remember checking Amazon at one point and I was *shocked* the Amazon ranking was below 10,000. I could not believe it. Even though we don't really know what the numbers actually mean in terms of how many copies sold, I think most people know what's good, great, fantastic, bestseller territory, etc. Anything below 10,000 is good, especially for a debut author.

I'm not sure any of my other books, except for maybe one of my middle-grade novels, dropped down that low.

My editor came back from vacation toward the end of January, and when we talked on the phone, he said, "All I've heard since I've been back is how well I HEART YOU is selling."

I did very little promotion of the book. I didn't have any big name blurb. It got a couple of okay reviews, but nothing spectacular. But here are a couple of things that I believe helped it to sell:

1) The title and the concept combined with the amazing cover. You never know for sure what's going

image credit: morguefile.com

to work and it all just worked.

2) It was the kind of book people read and talked about. What is that kind of book, exactly? No one really knows. If we did, we'd all be writing it. I've said it before and I'll say it again - word of mouth is the BEST kind of marketing there is. If you love an author, talking about his/her books is the number one thing you can do to support that author. And for all of the people who have talked about my books over the years - thank you!!

Okay, one more thing helped it to sell.
3) Luck. Right place, right time, simple as that. I think sometimes we underestimate this element.

So, what other things help to sell books? Support from the publisher and bookstores, of course. Lead titles are at a huge advantage because of the push they get from the publisher. Nothing can beat that, really.

I've been thinking about all of this in regards to twitter and how it really varies as to how much authors tweet about their books. Some tweet very little. Others tweet all the time.

A year or two ago I asked on twitter if people got excited about a book release when an author was excited about a book release. A lot of people said yes. It made them excited when the author was excited. There were a few of us who kind of went - uh oh. Because for many of us, a book release is mostly anxiety producing, and it's hard to be excited when we sort of just want to crawl inside a hole. I've decided when there is something to be excited about, I need to not hold back. Be excited and let others see that, because people DO like to see genuine happiness/excitement.

But can there be too much, is the question I've been pondering? I tend to think yes.

Personally, I think the 80/20 rule is a good one to follow. That is - only about 20% of tweets or posts on facebook or instagram or wherever should be book/promotion-related. More than that, and you run the risk of being annoying. You also may look desperate. Those two things do not sell books.

The biggest change from the year 2008 to the year 2014 is not where people talk about books or how we connect with each other or any of that. No, the biggest change is how many more YA novels simply exist now. A LOT!!! It is much harder to get noticed in today's market. Of course, we also have a gazillion more books to choose from to read, which is pretty sweet, right?

Two happy things for a Monday

First!

THE DAY BEFORE is an Oregon Book Award finalist. I'm thrilled to be among friends April Henry, Emily Whitman, Jen Violi and Heather Vogel Frederick!

Next!

I was so excited to see I HEART YOU, YOU HAUNT ME mentioned alongside titles by Sarah Dessen and John Green (two of my favorite authors!) in this article in School Library Journal titled "What Teens Are Really Reading."

Now that is what I call a wonderful Monday.

And now, time to get started on a new book.

The Little Book That Could

Once upon a time a girl wrote a novel.

A strange novel.

A short novel. Maybe it wasn't even a novel. One agent replied, after receiving a query, "this isn't a novel. It's too short. What you have here is most likely a novella."

Mmm-hmm.

It started out like this:

A Day of Black

I've never been
to a funeral
until today.

I see
dazzling arrangements of
red, yellow, and purple flowers
with long, green stems.

And so it went.

Page after page like that.

Only one agent was curious enough to read it. Lucky for the girl, that agent loved it and said she wanted to try and sell it.

It went out on submission to about ten editors.

Before long, the rejections started rolling in.

Editor after editor said, "not for me."
"Not for me."
"Not for me."

And so it went. For three long, excruciating months.

But one of the editors sent it to a different division of the publishing house. It landed in a pile. An editorial assistant picked it up out of that pile and took it home to read on the train. The next day, he passed it around. He didn't have the ability to acquire it, but he worked to garner enthusiasm for that strange, little book.

And eventually, many months after it had been submitted to editors, when almost all hope had disappeared from the girl's heart, the book sold. The editorial assistant was given his very first book to edit. The girl was pretty sure expectations for that book weren't very high, but it didn't matter. She'd finally achieved her dream of having a novel published.

The book came out in January, 2008. A month later, the editor called the girl, back from vacation, and said, "All I've heard since I've come back is how well I HEART YOU, YOU HAUNT ME is selling."

Over and over, agents and editors said no.

But readers, oh those dear, dear readers, they said yes. They said, I don't care if it's a little different or a little short or a little this or a little that. (Well, you know, maybe a few care, but we won't talk about those).

Today, almost four years later, the book is in its tenth printing. It's still selling. AND a few months ago, Scholastic picked it up to sell in their book fairs and clubs.

Too strange? Too short? Apparently not:

http://booktalk.scholastic.com/2011/10/11/october-bestsellers/

When I wrote this book, my heart told me I had something special. And so today, I just want to say, if you are writing something or submitting something that you think is special, and you keep getting no's, remember:

It only takes one yes!

Look what's in the October Scholastic TAB

I was so excited when my friend, Lindsey Leavitt, let me know we were in the October Scholastic TAB together. In case you don't know what TAB is, that's Scholastic's book club for middle schoolers. If you go HERE, you'll see her book is even mentioned in the video! Cool!! My editor sent me the actual flyer a couple of days ago, which was fun to see.

I HEART YOU, YOU HAUNT ME came out in January, 2008. And while it's still on shelves and continues to sell, which makes me happy, I love that this will help it reach a whole new group of readers!

I love this video, which shows what Scholastic book clubs means to kids and schools. I'm so happy to be a part of it!

Dare to be different

Booklist has never given me a good review. So fine, one or more of them don't like verse novels. But when an editor from the Booklist "youth brigade" puts verse novels on the list of seven things he'd like to see "change or just go away," I had to comment. 

Here's the thing. Verse novels are different. I get that. But for some teens, they are the perfect kind of different. As I said in my response on that post, I get at least a few e-mails a week from teens who specifically write to me and tell me they usually hate to read, but they love my books.

Here are just a couple of examples of notes I've gotten:

"I am 14 years old. I found the book called I heart you, you haunt me in my school library and I decided to read it. I do not like to read at all. So my teacher forced me to read so I opened the book up and I started to read. WOW. I actually read. This book was so good I could not stop reading."

"Hi I'm Ashley, I love your book I heart you You haunt me.. I read it in only 1 day yes 1 day.. now I really lookin foward to reading Far From You. I think its gonna be another really good book. I hate reading but ever since I started reading your books it makes me want to read more."

I don't post these to pat myself on the back. I post these to say - thank goodness I don't write for the editors of Booklist. I write for teens who want or need a little something different to read. 

Different. I'm so glad there are artists before me who weren't afraid to be different. Who didn't let the critical adults of the world silence them.
 

On January 8th, 2008, three years ago from today, I HEART YOU, YOU HAUNT ME was released into the world. Yes, it's different. And it is certainly not the best book ever written. Far from it. I read it now and see all of its faults. But it has touched many teens, and some adults too, and has been a doorway into reading for some teens. And amazingly, it is still on bookstore shelves and continues to sell. 

So today, I say - Dare to be different!

 

And Happy Birthday little book of mine!

 

Why "oh well" should become an author's favorite words

On the eve of the 3rd anniversary of my debut novel, I HEART YOU, YOU HAUNT ME (I know. Three years? Really? Wow!) I've been thinking about the realities of being a published author. So, lucky you, you get to hear some of my rambling thoughts today.

Many writers pursue publication for years.

Years and years and years.

And when it finally happens, when a hard working writer finally gets the deal, he is ecstatic. Like, over-the-moon happy.

It's going to be a BOOK! A real, live, honest-to-goodness book that people can pull off of shelf, open the cover with his name on the *front cover*, and read. Yes, people will read the words he sweated and slaved over, trying to create a story that would move a reader, amaze a reader, and stay with a reader for a long, long time.

Cartwheels are done. Champagne is popped. Gratitude is expressed right and left, up and down for the opportunity to be published. It feels SO good!

But often, after weeks or months of dreaming about the book out in the world, the vision starts to shift. It's not just an imaginary shelf somewhere, it's a shelf in Barnes and Noble, and every single one of the independents across the country. The author may start to imagine the book face out on the "New Releases" shelf. Or, even better, "The Best of..." shelf.

The author starts to wonder about reviews. Will they be good? Will there be *stars* involved? If it's starred, lots and lots of libraries will pick it up. Awesome. Maybe it will make special lists, or maybe, even better, it will win awards! Awards? Oh my word, it could win awards!!!

Hope is abundant in those months leading up to the release. And it makes sense, doesn't it? Hope kept that hard-working writer going, year after year, despite the rejections that piled up. Hard-working writers live and *breathe* hope.

And then, the day comes. The book is out. And here is where, for too many authors, it all goes to hell. One or both of the chains pass, so when the author goes to find it in a bookstore, he can't. Furthermore, it only gets one or two reviews, and they are so-so. One of those might even be bad. Buzz around the internet is for other books who have a big publisher push behind them. And the author wonders, why? Not just one why, but a hundred whys. Why didn't the bookstores want to carry it? Why didn't my publisher want to market it better? Why didn't I get a book tour like other authors I've seen at my book store? Why, why, why?

The elation the writer felt when the champagne was popped has vanished, and in its place, the writer finds disappointment and feelings of failure.

The big question then becomes - what next.

In the months leading up to the release of I HEART YOU, YOU HAUNT ME, I wrote like a crazy person. I had one novel ready to go and another novel started. The completed novel was rejected. That's the way it goes sometimes. But the other novel, what eventually became FAR FROM YOU, became the novel I worked on in those months immediately following the release of I HEART YOU.

Now, yes, I HEART YOU made it into bookstores. It got pretty good reviews (no stars though). It sold well, and in fact, much better than I think anyone expected. And sure, I was happy about that, of course. How could I not be? But I had let it go a long time ago, in case none of those things happened. I had mostly released it from my mind and my heart, wished it well, and moved on.

Now some will say, No, no way Lisa, you don't know what it's like. You can't relate. You haven't really been there.

But I can relate because none of my books have sold as well as that first book. FAR FROM YOU, my second novel, came out in December 2008, when it felt like the world was about to fall out from underneath us. When people were getting laid off right and left and it felt like a second Great Depression was imminent. Expectations were high for that book based on how well I HEART YOU did, and guess what? Books were returned to the warehouse in droves. And not because it was a bad book, but because that's just how it goes sometimes. Things happen, books don't sell, expectations aren't met.

Oh well.

Yes, you read that right - oh well! It's NOT the end of the world!! And it doesn't have to be the end of your career either. Really and truly, it doesn't.

Remember when you'd query agents and you'd get rejected and sure, you might take a couple of days to be sad over a particularly hard rejection, but eventually you'd say, "oh well," and you'd submit again? So why can't you use those words now, when your book isn't selling the way you'd hoped it would?

I think writers should celebrate the sale. Then, work damn hard on revisions and make it the absolute best book you can make it. And when you send those final pages back, and you've done everything you're going to do on it, you need to open Scrivener or Word, and start in on a new project. Or if you don't know what to write next, brainstorm ideas for a week until you have one.

You have to let the sold book go, and let it become what it's going to become. Release it, like a kite. It'll fly or it will fall, but it's out of your hands. And we *must* remember, every book is completely separate from the ones that became before it and the ones that will come after it. Even if you're writing a series, the success of one book doesn't guarantee the success of another one. AND, perhaps even more importantly, the failure of one book does NOT guarantee the failure of another one.

I have seen too many writers crushed after the first book didn't do well, and they're done. They walk away. And these are good writers! I suppose it's the flight or fight response. So you fought all of those years for publication and now, when factors completely out of your control affect the sales of the book, you're going to run away? Someone might argue, but isn't my career over at that point?

WHAT!? Says who?? If you write a book editors can't say no to, your career is not over! It's as simple as that. So if you want to be an author, sit down and write a book editors can't say no to!

Maybe, after the whole rotten experience, some people decide they don't want to be an author. And that's fine, if it's a conscious decision. Believe me, I understand, it's a tough business. But, if you love writing, if this IS what you want to be doing, shut out the noise of the publishing world, open up a document, and write.

You might say, but what about promotion? I have to be out there, promoting my book, I can't shut out the publishing world. Look, let's get real. I have seen authors promote 24/7 for months and months, and their books still didn't do well. You *sold* your book to a publisher. When you've finished writing the thing, your job is DONE. There is nothing else you *have* to do (unless your house sends you on tour or requires appearances of you, I suppose). And I'm sorry, but the promotion we do on our own isn't going to make a whole lot of difference anyway. If you're out there doing school visits and events like that, yes, it will probably make a difference. But skipping out on twitter because you need to write? Don't feel guilty about that.

Writers write. After each book, I kept writing. I kept moving forward. By the time the book was ready to be released, I had something else ready to go out, maybe even already sold.

I guess I want to close by saying - if you've published a novel, regardless of how well it did, be proud of yourself! You have accomplished something that about 97% of the US population dreams of doing. It's no small thing!

And remember how you dreamed of someone pulling it off the shelf, with your name on the cover, and reading it, and just *that* image made you incredibly happy? Well, that happened. Some people read your book. Maybe not as many people as you had hoped, but it's a BOOK, and you've been read! *You* are an author. And everything else that didn't happen?

OH WELL.

And I bet at least a hundred people reading this post will think to themselves, I would be SO happy if that happened to me. (And then I ask, really? You really think so? Are you sure, if only *that* happened?). Ha!