Querying a Collaboration by Jessica from BookEnds, LCC – A Literary Agency. Peek: “With some collaborations authors choose to have separate agents (often they already have agents for other projects). Most of the time, however, one agent will represent the author team on the book.”

A Sense of Place by Jessie from The Life Story of a Book Worm. Note: the post references Tantalize in a flattering way, but I’m referencing it here for the points made about setting and regional diversity. Peek: “For me, a sense of place, has to be real. Dusty, Texas towns are there but not everywhere in Texas. You have cacti and sand dunes sharing space. You have graffiti and wild flowers less than thirty minutes from each other. This is all I know and this is what I write.”

10 Ways to Cope with Pre-presentation Jitters by Jon Gibbs from An Englishman in New Jersey. Peek: “If the venue room is empty, do something physical, like moving chairs around – it doesn’t matter if the room’s already set up perfectly, you can always move them back again.”

The Magic Formula: How an E-Book Can Become a Bestseller by Karleen from Kids’ Ebook Bestsellers. Peek: “I suggest that authors for children get in fast while the number of e-books for children is relatively low. It’s growing quickly, but right now you have a better numbers game in this genre than in many others.”

New Voice: Maureen McGowan on Cinderella: Ninja Warrior and Sleeping Beauty: Vampire Slayer from Cynsations. Peek: “So many people, including me, go into novel writing thinking they know how to write and tell stories, only to discover it takes time (and often several manuscripts) to develop the skills required to write publishable novels, no matter how talented you are and no matter how much you think you know about writing or literature going in.” Note: re-posted from Memorial Day for thosewho took a break from the kidlitosphere over the holiday weekend.

Cynsational Book Promotion Tip: Advertise at Young Adult (& Kids Book Central). Traffic is high, rates are reasonable, the site manager is helpful. Note: I’m currently running the book trailer for Blessed on the site.

What I Learned Doing My Kickstarter Project, Part 1 by Greg Pincus from The Happy Accident. Peek: “My Kickstarter project, Poetry: Spread the Word successfully funded on May 9th (and thank you all for your support) raising just over $6,900 to help me spread poetry into schools.”

A Chat with a Cool Chick – Erzsi Deak, founder of Hen & Ink from Melissa Buron. Peek: “No matter the doom and gloom that roams the bookshelves these days, I’m a little short on razor blades, so prefer dark with a dose of levity.”

2011 Arab American (Children’s-YA) Book Award winner is Saving Sky by Diane Stanley (HarperCollins) and the honorable mention is Time to Pray by Maha Addasi, illustrated by Ned Gannon (Boyds Mills). Note: the award is given by the Arab American National Museum. See also Cynsations guest posts on Time to Pray by Maha and Ted.

Congratulations to E. Kristin Anderson on being newly appointed Hunger Mountain‘s new children’s-YA lit assistant editor.

Release or How Authors Cope with Emotional Ups and Downs by Janet Fox from Through the Wardrobe. Peek: “Is it the best I can do with the skills I have at my command right now?”

Self-doubt by Jill Hathaway from Jill Scribbles. Peek: “…it was a big blow to my ego. I went from getting multiple offers of representation to being told that my book needed some insanely hard work. I cried. A lot.”

Staying Motivated – My Buddy and Me by Carmela Martino from Teaching Authors. Peek: “I found it very motivating to put my goals in writing and to know I’d have to be accountable to someone at the end of the week.”

Mariana Debut Year – First Signing from Crowe’s Nest. Peek: “…when the first two people in line both mentioned how nervous I seemed, and I realized I was shaking and saw how chicken-scrawly and unfamiliar my writing in their books was, and all those people were looking at me, well…I became concerned.”

The Epic Post on Trends (Middle Grade & YA) by author-agent Mandy Hubbard. Peek: “Just like last year, editors are really short on MG and feel this market is primed to boom in the way YA has…but that hardly any one is actually, you know, writing it.“

More Personally

“Cat Calls,” my short story e-book, has hit #8 on the BooksonBoard bestseller list. It’s also an Amazon.com “free” bestseller. Download “Cat Calls” for the Nook from Barnes & Noble and for the Kindle from Amazon.

Bookends: Cynthia Leitich Smith from the Dallas Museum of Art. Note: interview focuses on writing as a career, Native youth literature, writing fantasy, and interacting with young readers.

Blogger of Awesome-Successful Author Talk with Cynthia Leitich Smith by Mindy McGinnis from Writer, Writer, Pants on Fire. Note: interview focuses on my recent three-book deal, my YA Gothic fantasy novels, my writing process, overcoming fear, trunk novels, the query process, social networking and marketing, blogging and more.

Q & A with Cynthia Leitich Smith – The Author’s Journey by Donna Bowman Bratton from Writing Down the Kidlit Page. Note: interview focuses on the pre-publication stage, traditional paths to a first sale, trends, branding, online marketing, and the inner writer versus the inner author.

Even More Personally

From last Wednesday to the Wednesday before that, I mostly took a break from my writing life. Okay, I still ended up working about five or six hours a day (because the rest of the world kept spinning).

But I also read The Undertakers: Rise of the Corpses by Ty Drago (Sourcebooks/Jabberwocky, 2011) and Odd Girl In by Jo Whittemore (Aladdin, 2011) and met with friends for lunch at 24 Diner and tea at Sweetish Hill Bakery & Cafe and saw “Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides” and “Thor” with Greg at Alamo Drafthouse.

Hence my twitter exchange of the week:

From @CynLeitichSmith (Cynthia Leitich Smith): @HornBook @librarianpirate *Loved* #Thor. Thinking #Asgard for my summer vacation. Don’t suppose there’s an @fourseasons in that realm….

From @FourSeasons (Four Seasons Hotels): @CynLeitichSmith No hotel in that realm yet, but we’ll try to make a pitch to our development team 😉

I also took a long walk to appreciate the flowers.

Exhibit flowers…


From Greg Leitich Smith

• The Grand Plan to Fix Everything by Uma Krishnaswami

Personal Links:

• The Loss of Bridget Zinn, Cancer and Sadness from Lisa Schroeder
• Just Start: Find the Time to Make Your Dream Come True by Cheryl Renee Herbsman
• Multicultural Familia
• We Heart Indies from Mundie Moms

Cynsational Events

The First Annual BooksmART Festival will be from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. June 11 as part of Arts & Letters Live from the Dallas Museum of Art. Peek: “Come spend the day with authors, illustrators, musicians and actors, and enjoy talks, workshops, gallery tours, and entertainment, designed to appeal to every member of the family and every age group.” Featured children’s-YA book creators include Rick Riordan, Norton Juster, Laurie Halse Anderson, David Wiesner, Jerry Pinkney, Gene Luen Yang, Cynthia Leitich Smith, Duncan Tonatiuh, Antonio Sacre, Joe McDermott, Jan Bozarth, and Ann Marie Newman. See also Dallas Museum of Art Announces Artists for First Annual BooksmART Festival by Mechele R. Dillard from The Examiner.

Authors Jennifer Ziegler and Cynthia Leitich Smith will speak to YA readers at 2 p.m. June 18 at Bee Cave Public Library in Bee Cave, Texas. Mark your calendars for book talk and pizza! See also event planner information on booking Jennifer and Cynthia for the joint “From Classics to Contemporary” program–two authors for the price of one!

Cynthia Leitich Smith will speak to the Cedar Park Teen Book Club at 11 a.m. June 25 at Cedar Park (TX) Public Library.