Congratulations to Joyce Hostetter who won For To See The Elephant from last week's blog.
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Book Winner Extraordinaire!
I haven't counted how many books I've given away since I started this blog over ten years ago. All I know is that I love doing it and appreciate the authors and publishers who supply me with books and the people who enter the giveaways. You don't know how fun it is for me to put your names into random.org (a long way off from writing names on slips of paper for my mother to draw out of a hat) and see whose name is chosen.
Margaret Federlin picks a winner of Lisa Kline's book, Summer of the Wolves, 2012
One of my frequent winners is Connie Saunders. I thought that she'd won about 10 books, in fact, it's over 25! Here's what she had to say:
Shortly after I retired as a public librarian in 2015, I discovered Carol's blog dedicated to books and literacy. Many of the books she features are for children and young adults and I was especially eager to stay informed since my granddaughter Isabella was born shortly after my retirement. Carol often shares a giveaway for the books that she features and I've been very fortunate to win several of these books. My latest win was Just Between Sam and Me by Cat Michaels and Rosie Russell.
Here are some of the other books that I've won for Isabella:
I urge all of you to read Carol's blog. She features outstanding books and gives you a chance to win some of them. You can earn multiple entries by sharing on other social media so you need to Read--Enter--Share!
This blog wouldn't be complete without a giveaway. Today I'm giving away The Middle School Writing Toolkitby Tim Clifford; it will be an asset in every middle school classroom. If you're homeschooling (and who isn't these days?) and feel stuck on writing instruction, this book will help you plan and execute lessons.
Leave me a comment by January 15 and I'll enter your name. MAKE SURE you leave me your email address if you are new to my blog. I've had several "Unknowns" leave me comments and I can't enter you without a name and email address. If you follow my blog OR share this on social media, I'll enter your name twice.
Right from the beginning, the reader discovers the reason for the title. As Olivia opens a brand new journal and starts pouring out her feelings about sixth grade, she writes as if she is talking to her cat, Sam. At the end of the first chapter she writes, "Remember Sam, it's just between you and me."
On the first day of school, Olivia meets the new girl, Candace, who makes it clear that she thinks Olivia's town of Spring Hope should be re-named Spring Hopeless. Although Olivia is put off by Candace's spangly sequined jacket and fancy phone, she has more empathy for her when she discovers Candace's realtor father works all the time, her parents are divorced, and she recently lost her beloved grandmother.
But problems start. Olivia, Candace, and Isabella, Olivia's BFF, string bracelets that Olivia plans to sell to save money to buy a new halter for her horse, Star, at the next Spring Daze competition. Soon after Olivia consigns the bracelets, the ones which Candace made break. The weak ties of friendship between the two girls fall apart too.
The tension between the two girls escalates and Candace starts bullying Olivia. She begins doubting herself and her friendship with Isabella but refuses to confide her fears to anyone--except to Sam.
Springtime brings Spring Daze and an essay contest. When Candace makes fun of Olivia's essay, their teacher steps in. "We have zero tolerance in this school for children who make fun of others or who are cruel in any way." Although Olivia appreciates her teacher's kindness, she refuses to snitch and reveal all the ways Candace has been tormenting her.
She finally divulges Candace's bullying to Isabella. "I figured if I didn't talk about them [the mean notes she had received], it would be like they weren't real and never existed."
One of my favorite parts of the book is when Olivia finally confronts Candace. Although she feels like blowing up, she realizes that she would end up sounding as mean as Candace. Instead, she quietly tells her, "No more lying. No more bullying. I've had it with you, Candace. Everyone is on to you. You won't have any more friends in Spring Hope unless you stop."
It takes a tornado tearing through the town for Olivia to learn a lesson about priorities and for the truth to come out about Candace.
My other favorite part is the last chapter. But, no spoilers here. Buy this book for the 8-12-year-old reader in your life and read it with her. I think you'll agree that Sam is the real Star of the show.
CURRICULUM RESOURCE
The back matter not only includes directions for making friendship bracelets and a recipe for queso dip (mentioned in the book) but also excellent notes to the reader about ways to handle bullying and websites for more information.
GIVEAWAY
To enter this giveaway, please leave me a comment or send me an email. If you are new to my blog, make sure you leave me your email address. U.S. residents will receive an autographed copy; overseas residents will receive the e-book. Giveaway ends at 6 PM on Friday, December 4. For an extra chance to win the book, share my blog on social media or start following my blog. Just let me know which you do in the comments.
Congratulations to Lois Bartholomew who won Bionic Beasts from last week's blog.
As promised in the last post about Cat Michaels and Rosie Russell's collaborative process, this is the third blog leading up to the release of their book, Just Between Sam and Me on December 2. Since October is National Bullying Prevention Month, Cat, Rosie, and I decided to talk about bullying, which is a major theme in their middle-grade novel.
AUTHOR INTERVIEW
Carol: I understand Olivia is your protagonist and the ME in your story of Just Between Sam and Me. Tell us more about Sam and his relationship with Olivia.
Cat: Sam is Olivia’s cat! He’s a big orange tabby. Tough on the outside but a soft heart for his Human.
Shy Olivia is ashamed to let people know she’s being taunted by a mean girl clique at school. Instead, she pours out her problems by writing to Sam in her journal, who’s usually purring beside Olivia as she writes.
Rosie: We want to show children that talking about bullying with a trusted adult or friend (or even writing in a journal to a cat!) helps them feel they’re not alone and often leads them to stop bullying behaviors.
Carol: Got it! Olivia’s journal is what stays “between” Sam and Me in your title! Why did you decide to add that epistolary element to your story?
Cat: We wanted readers to dig deeper into our main character’s head through her journaling. And honestly, the 13 journal entries are sprinkled with kid-speak, different fonts, and funky graphics to break up lines of text. More fun for kids and less overwhelming.
Just Between Sam and Me, by Cat Michaels and Rosie Russell
Carol:What kind of research did you do about bullying before you started writing?
Cat: We’re no experts on bullying, but from the years we worked in the classroom, Rosie and I saw firsthand what happens when kids are excluded and mocked. We also consulted several trusted online sources that we include in our back-matter.
Carol:Why did you decide to make your main character a child who is bullied?
Cat:When plotting our book, Rosie and I brainstormed different kid-sized obstacles to throw at our 11-year-old protagonist. We wanted to keep tweens engaged while adding subtle social messages.
Social bullying became personal when my fourth-grade niece was taunted by mean girls at school. She was devastated. Fortunately, her parents and teachers immediately picked up on the bullying behaviors and stopped them. Yet, my niece still remains anxious about approaching new school experiences.
Olivia’s character arc quickly became her struggle to overcome the taunts of a trio of mean girls at school. In fact, several social bullying incidents in our book, and especially the seminal event that causes Olivia’s greatest heartbreak, are based on encounters that actually happened to my niece.
Carol:Do you include any upstanders to help Olivia and show young readers how people can prevent bullying?
Rosie:Absolutely! We have two characters in the book who support her. One is an unexpected source. However, our main character’s BFF, Isabella, squashes bullying behaviors when she observes them:
“What do you think about this writing contest?” Brooke asked at lunch, scooting next to Candace and Bethany at their table.
Candace glowered. “I have to write about moving to this stupid, boring town.”
Isabella held up a slice of pizza. “I’m writing about spring harvest and how it should be required for school to serve pizza every day.”
“Just eat already, Isabella,” Olivia laughed.
“What’s your essay about, Olivia?” asked Bethany.
“I bet she’s going to write about that stinky horse of hers,” Candace said.
Olivia’s face turned red. “Well, yes. My essay is about getting Star ready for the halter competition at Spring Daze.”
Candace whinnied and pawed at the table with her hands as pretend horse hooves. Bethany and Brooke giggled and joined her.
“Really? Imitating farm animals, Candy? We did that in kindergarten,” Isabella cut in.
The new girl snapped and stopped her mischief. “Don’t call me Candy! My name is Candace.”
Her stony glare didn’t bother Isabella one bit.
Excerpt: Just Between Sam and Me, by Cat Michaels and Rosie Russell
Carol: How do you make your readers empathize with your antagonist, Candace, and perhaps feel sympathy for her, despite being the mean girl?
Cat: We want kids to boo at our baddie but not hate her. Plus, we show that kids who bully often act out of their own despair and trouble. Doesn’t excuse those actions, but it helps children understand why:
Candace set her phone alarm for early Saturday morning. Last night, Dad had promised to make his special waffles from Grandma Nettie’s recipe and top them with strawberries, whipped cream and maple syrup. It would be a breakfast for the two of them together.
She didn’t care about his waffles, although they were delicious. She wanted to spend time with her father. Dad spent every Saturday morning showing his clients homes for sale in Spring Hope. But this Saturday, he had pushed back his appointments and promised a father-daughter meal.
Candace threw on a bathrobe and walked past Dad’s bedroom on her way to the kitchen. She noticed his bedroom lights were on. He was probably up already and getting ready for her!
Knocking softly, she entered when he didn’t answer. Dad was propped against his pillows with his laptop, sound asleep. Candace sighed. He had been working late again. She gently removed the laptop and tucked the covers around him.
Excerpt: Just Between Sam and Me, by Cat Michaels and Rosie Russell
Carol:What do you want your young readers to take away about
bullying?
Rosie: Olivia’s teacher says it best after she privately admonishes
Candace for making fun of Olivia in class:
“We have zero tolerance for children who make fun of others or who are cruel in any way.”
Cat:We want kids to reach out for help and look for upstanders. We
say this upfront in our dedication page:
For upstanders, who break the cycle of bullying.
For teachers, parents, and grown-ups, who step in to help.
Most of all, for every child, who has experienced cruelty from others: You are brave, amazing, and wonderfully unique inside and out. There is someone waiting to help you. Reach out to them now!
GIVEAWAY
Be one of the first to read Between Sam and Me! Leave a comment with your name and email address (if you are new to my blog) or send me an email and I'll enter your name to win an ARC. The winner will be drawn on October 16.
MEET THE AUTHORS
Award-winning author CAT MICHAELS has an M.S. degree in special education from the University of Kansas plus decades of teaching experience. Her books for young and reluctant readers have been recognized for excellence in writing children’s literature with three Purple Dragonfly Awards, a first-place honor from the Children’s Literary Classics Book Awards, and a silver medal by the Readers’ Favorite International Book Awards. Her last book, Sweet T and the Turtle Team, also won the Wind Dancer Films competition and was considered for adaptation to movies or TV.
Cat and her family live in North Carolina, where she creates a fairy garden for her neighborhood children, enjoys photography, devours British mystery novels and period TV series, works out most days, and writes.
ROSIE RUSSELL is the author and illustrator ofnine books for young readers. After her studies in early childhood education, she taught in elementary and middle schools for fifteen years.She enjoys sharing her books with students and encouraging them to write and illustrate their own stories.
Rosie now writes and illustrates full-timein her Kansas City, Missouri, hometown. As an avid reader, baseball fan, and crafter, her greatest joy comes from spending time with family and friends.
Congratulations to Gwen Porter who won the second copy of The Teachers March! from the bonus blog.
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Welcome back to my second conversation with Cat Michaels and Rosie Russell on their co-authoring journey. (If you missed the first post when they gave tips for successful collaboration, you'll find it here.) Today we'll talk about some of the technical, business, and creative aspects of their co-authoring project.
BUSINESS FIRST
Carol: How did you decide who was going to write what?
Cat:Rosie and I learned co-writing is tons more challenging than deciding who’s writing what. We viewed our collaboration as a business. Before we wrote a jot, we contracted details up-front about our partnership.
Carol:What’s involved with your contracting process? Is it the same as signing a contract with a traditional publisher?
Cat: It’s very different, Carol. As Indie authors, contracting means mapping out the who, what, where, why, when, and how we’d work together – all those details creatives dislike thinking about!
I developed a Statement of Work (SOW) to spell things out beforedeciding to work together. With the SOW as our guide, we hashed out everything from identifying goals and target audience to head-spinning stuff like finances, writing, production milestones, and marketing strategies. It took weeks. It wasn’t fun, but it was worth the effort to avoid roadblocks later.
I learned the hard way about establishing clear expectations at the start of a project. Five years ago, I co-facilitated a short-story anthology collection with several other kid lit authors. After months of writing and editing, we couldn’t figure out how to manage royalties or taxes between people living in the US and abroad. Then someone submitted a Young Adult horror story, which didn’t fit our target audience of sweet reads for primary grade kids. So, we never published, and the project folded. That fiasco still haunts me.
Carol:After completing your statement of work, did you decide on content and writing roles?
Rosie: Figuring out writing roles was part of the up-front work. Cat had the big picture in mind, so she wrote the opening and ending sections. She also incorporated feedback from her local SCBWI critique group.
I knew the story’s details and had lots of ideas for plot mischief, so I drafted the middle. Then I’d hand those chapters over to Cat for her to do her magic with rewrites and editing.
We also created extensive storyboards for our character and added everything we could imagine about them: What did they look like? What did they like to do in their spare time? What were their personality traits? etc.
True story: I was telling my husband about what one of our characters did in our book that day. I was talking so real about her, my husband had to stop and ask me, “Who is that, and she did what?” It’s funny how your characters become so real to you in your head!
Carol:How did you keep track of your drafts and exchange feedback with each other?
Cat:This is where we got cozy with technology! We used Google’s shared drive for file exchange. We set up character boards and tons of other folders to house ideas and how-to articles in addition to our chapter drafts.
I also created an excel template to divide our book into its beginning, middle, and end. Shooting for the sweet spot of 30,000 words for a middle-grade tale, we estimated the number of chapters and page count for each chapter. Then we brainstormed chapters and sketched in scenes and story arcs. This spreadsheet became our book outline. We could see what we’d written, where we were headed, and tally word count.
Rosie:We wrote our first drafts in Word on our desktops but used Google docs to edit. That shared drive became our file cabinet in the sky! I highly recommend it.
We also checked in by email and replied to each other’s comments on Google Drive and agreed before moving on. Mostly, our comments went smoothly, but a few times, we’d have to talk them out.
Carol: You live 1,500 miles away from each other. How were you able to communicate and keep going?
Rosie: This is my first-time co-authoring. Cat taught me a world of knowledge on how to communicate through Google Docs.
We also touched base with each other almost daily, even if it was to catch up on small details. I think the key to co-writing is to communicate consistently and be very specific with how things are discussed. Having a plan and keeping organized has also been very helpful. Cat is the guru of folders, lists, and charts that saved us. She even made sure our monthly phone calls, which we called “Call Memories,” were documented and put in special folders.
If one of us needed to leave the office for a few days, we let each other know ahead of time. It really has been like a full-time job, but it’s doing what we love and that is writing!
Carol: How did you manage bumps in the road while co-writing?
Cat: To be honest, living in a pandemic was a major stumbling block for me. In the early days, I couldn’t concentrate. Didn’t want to write. Stepped away from the keyboard for weeks until I could wrap my head around the new normal. Rosie was very understanding.
Beyond Covid, we addressed critical success factors in our Statement of Work, so we didn’t have major stumbles. If differences popped up, we talked them through and kept going. It also helped to have a fab writing partner like Rosie! See our tips about finding your perfect co-author in part 1.
Carol: How did you decide on a title? Was it difficult to agree on one?
Rosie: It was a long process because we wanted a title that no one had used before, so it took weeks to find the perfect one, Just Between Sam and Me. Here's a you-tube video that describes their process.
Carol: Who are you using to print the book? How did you make that decision?
Cat: Because we live in two different states, managing author royalties and tax implications were our biggest production challenge.
That’s why we chose Bundle Rabbit before we started our partnership. This aggregator distributes print on demand books through Amazon and digital books across multiple platforms, like Kobo, Barnes and Noble, and Amazon. Best for us, it also tracks sales and manages co-author royalties and taxes.
FINANCES
Carol: Did you have any financial outlay?
w Biggest expenses:
Hiring an artist to create the cover and half-dozen black and white interior illustrations.
Hiring a graphic designer to format our print book (Cat’s formatting the e-book on her Vellum Software that runs on Mac OS).
w Other expenses:
·Swag, giveaways, Advance Reader Copies for industry reviewers who require print editions; plus postage and handling.
·Advertisements on sites like Amazon, Book Bub, Fussy Librarian, etc., especially around launch week.
w “Freebies”
·Fortunate to have professional editors among our friends and family, or editing would be a major expense.
·Impossible to put a price tag on support received from beta readers, author pals, newsletter subscribers, Street Team, and fellow bloggers like you, Carol! We could never succeed without it.
TOOLS TO USE
Carol: What software/tools would you recommend to writers who want to collaborate and self-publish?
·Google docs for co-editing and file sharing on Google Drive
·For Mac OS: Vellum software to format digital books
·Canva or Photoshop for creating marketing materials
·Excel or Google sheets to keep track of expenses
·Google calendar to manage dates for production, guest blogging, and marketing dates.
Carol: Why did you decide to go the self-publishing route? Has either of you self-published before?
Cat: This is my fifth book as an Indie, andI love the freedom of being an authorprenuer! Today’s publishing technology and social media channels make print-on-demand readily available, so why not?!? My books have been recognized with several writing awards, and my last book, Sweet T and the Turtle Team won the Wind Dancer Film competition and was considered for adaptation to TV or movies. I’m one happy Indie camper.
Rosie: I love being an Indie Author! It has given me the chance to make my books just the way I want them. I currently have nine children’s book titles. I’ve been able to include personal stories with the memories of family and friends that I love. I’m looking forward to making more.
ARC GIVEAWAY!
Their middle-grade book, Just Between Sam and Me, will be released in print and digital formats on Dec. 2. Rosie and Cat will contact the winner, who will have 24 hours to respond in order to receive their advance print copy of the book as soon as it is available. The print copy is only available within the continental U.S. If you are outside the U.S. you will receive a digital ARC. PLEASE leave your comment with your email address if you are new to my blog. If you're uncomfortable leaving your email, contact me at cbaldwin6@me.com. Giveaway ends September 22.
Prize:
One (1) ARC paperback of Just Between Sam and Me – Continental US
OR
One (1) ARC digital download of Just Between Sam and Me– International
Giveaway begins:
16 September, midnight , ET
Giveaway ends:
22 September, 12:00 am midnight, ET
Open: International
Terms and Conditions: NO PURCHASE NECESSARY TO ENTER OR WIN. VOID WHERE PROHIBITED BY LAW.
Must be 18 years or older to enter, have a valid email address and USPS address (US), or current Amazon account (international). One (1) winner will be randomly drawn through the Rafflecopter widget from among all eligible Entries received throughout the Sweepstake period and will be contacted by Cat Michaels via email within 48 hours after the giveaway ends. The winner will then have 24 hours to respond. If a winner does not respond within 48 hours, a new draw will take place for a new winner. 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, Twitter or Instagram. Prizes are provided by Cat Michaels and Rosie Russell, who also host and manage this giveaway. Host is not responsible for technical/internet difficulties. If you have questions, email to Cat Michaels: cat@catmichaelswriter (dot).com
