Promotion Is Always Better Than Demotion

As I'm sure you remember, because I know for a fact you commit to memory every single word I write here, my lovely publisher Houghton Mifflin Harcourt (yes, the royalty check has arrived at my agent's, so my publisher is lovely once again) created survival kits as a way of promoting The Shade Of The Moon.

I got my survival kit a couple of weeks ago, but I've been too distracted to tell you about it. Here's what it looks like.

 My favorite part was the Attention! Life As We Knew It Survival Kit enclosed! label on the outside box, which I put it into the bag, and then removed it for this photograph.

Scooter was considerably more interested in the color coordinated green whistle and flashlight.

It's been Scooter's life's dream to star in a revival of Anyone Can Whistle.

My lovely publisher sent the Survival Kit to independent bookstore owners as a way of announcing the upcoming publication of The Shade Of The Moon.

 

I can only imagine their lovely reaction to this extremely lovely blog entry at Publishers Weekly about the the fabulously lovely survival kit.

 

The reality is (or at least my reality is, and I don't think I'm alone with this reality), it's genuinely exciting to see promotion for you book. It takes time and effort and money on the publisher's part and I'm very grateful.

 

And Scooter thinks it's an excellent new toy!

There's More To Life Than Writing And Books

There's a day in May at the Orange County Arboretum.

 

 

 

And there's Scooter, who enjoys his greenery indoors!

 

Just For Fun: Who Would You Put In The Children's Book Writers Hall Of Fame If There Were A Children's Book Writers Hall Of Fame?

I was channel flipping yesterday and I noticed that Vinny Testaverde had been admitted to the College Football Hall Of Fame. That reminded me of a vision I'd had a number of years ago for a Children's Book Writers Museum, Hall Of Fame and Gift Shop.

I would have kept my vision to myself except later on, additional channel flipping led to my hearing a reference to the Mustard Hall Of Fame.

So I decided the time had come to write an entry about who I would put in to The Children's Book Writers Hall Of Fame, and more to the point, to ask you who you would put in to this wonderful non-existent joint (by the way, if any of you have a spare $15 million you'd like to spend on it, I have plenty of ideas and only a minor taste for embezzlement).

I decided to limit my own list to The Masters Room, writers whose primary works predate 1950. Here's the list I came up with between the Mustard Hall Of Fame and Scooter waking me up at 7:14 AM. They're in alphabetical order for those of you who take umbrage if someone is listed before someone else for any other reason:

Louisa May Alcott
Horatio Alger
Hans Christian Andersen
J. M. Barrie
L. Frank Baum
Lewis Carroll
Mary Mapes Dodge
Rudyard Kipling
A. A. Milne
Lucy Maud Montgomery
Beatrix Potter
Robert Louis Stevenson
Edward Stratemeyer
P. L. Travers
Laura Ingalls Wilder

All right. The rest is up to you. Add to the Masters Room (I'm certain I forgot people). Debate whether Jules Verne should be in there, or whether Harper Lee should be in the Hall Of Fame (I couldn't decide myself on that one). Let me know if Mary Mapes Dodge should be in the Editors And Agents Room, rather than the Masters Room. Make your Hall Of Fame Lists long or short, contemporary or just past 1950 (it killed me not to put Dr. Seuss in the Masters Room).

Your only restriction is to leave me off your lists. Don't worry. There's a permanent exhibit devoted to me:

Susan Beth Pfeffer: Her Books, Her Cats, Her Vision

Put up the $15 million and you can have your own permanent exhibit too!

Tweet And Retweet Were Walking Down The Street

Let me start by saying I still haven't warmed up to Facebook. I know I should make use of it, both professionally and personally, but I just can't make myself.

On the other hand, Facebook, that sneaky devil, mentioned to me that many of the most popular kids from my high school class were right there, and suggested, in that quiet understated Facebook way, that I remind them of our lifelong friendships at absolutely no cost to them or me. So I did. And I must say my already healthy ego skyrocketed when the vast majority (or maybe all of them, since I no longer remember who I reminded of our lifelong friendships) eagerly acknowledged our lifelong friendships by "friending" me on Facebook for the world to see. Either that, or they always "friend" anyone who asks, which might be why they were the most popular kids from my high school class in the first place.

Most of these most popular kids, by the way, spend as much time on Facebook as I do. But it's a thrill to see Jimmy Steinman posting links to Meatloaf interviews, for me and his other 325 best friends to watch.

Twitter, on the other hand, I find quite entertaining, even though I don't tweet as often as I should, mostly because I have nothing to say and that actually holds me back (silly me).

For example, this afternoon, I almost tweeted: When I'm tired I nap and when I nap I have trouble falling asleep and when I have trouble falling asleep I get tired and nap.

I decided against it because it has taken me approximately forever to break the 500 follower mark, and tweets like that could easily plummet my total to the low 200s (which it also took forever for me to get to).

I don't follow a lot of people on Twitter and some of those I do follow I question why I follow. For example the New York Yankees, who feel obliged to tweet after every base hit, walk, or stolen base. If I'm watching the game, I already know about those base hits, walks, and stolen bases, and if I'm not watching, the odds are I'm not interested in those base hits, walks and stolen bases, and even if I weren't watching and I was interested, reading about them on Twitter isn't all that exciting. Or John Lithgow, who after two weeks of not tweeting (and I must admit, I didn't notice he was gone) tweeted 13 times in a row so we could catch up with what he'd been doing during those missing two weeks.

In the immortal words of Winnie the Pooh, "Do we care (to rhyme with where)?"

The person on Twitter who fascinates me the most is Lawrence Block. I've read a lot of Lawrence Block novels over the years, so I decided to follow him. And I'm glad I do, because he tweets just the right amount and he almost never tweets about hits, walks, or stolen bases.

But what he does, which totally intrigues me, is retweet favorable tweets about his books. Every time he does, I check to see if the person who tweeted in the first place is famous and I simply don't happen to know who said person is because I'm not up on who's famous these days.

But based on how many followers these people have, no, they're not famous. They just happen to mention liking a Lawrence Block novel, and Lawrence Block thinks that's worthy of letting all his fellow followers know.

Frankly, I think his ego would be better served by reminding the popular kids from his high school class that they're his lifelong friends on Facebook. And I wouldn't have to read all those retweeted compliments, which really don't improve the quality of my life one bit.

There are people on Twitter who take the time to announce they like one of my books. Yes, I have to search hard to find them, but they're there and I enjoy reading their intelligent, thoughtful, extremely well written tweets on the subject. But the tweets I'm always tempted to retweet are the ones that hate my books. I mean really really hate my books.

The only reason I refrain is because Lawrence Block never retweets those kind of tweets. Maybe everyone loves his books, or maybe he's too smart to let the world know that's not the case.

But let me tell you, it's hard to resist retweeting something like this:

     

life as we knew it was terrible and the WHOLE SCHOOL was suppose to read it and then we didnt do s...* with it that year

 

Or my current absolute favorite (and I bet it would be Lawrence Block's too):

 

      

EVEN OUR TEACHERS HATED LIFE AS WE KNEW IT. MOST OF THEM GAVE US THE ANSWERS FOR THE REQUIRED TEST WE HAD TO TAKE BECAUSE F...** THAT S...***

 

Now that's what I call tweeting!

 

*Spelt in its entirety on Twitter

 

** Also spelt in its entirety on Twitter, but in big capital letters

 

*** Likewise and then some

 

 

 

 

 

 

Scooter Picked The First Name And I The Other Four

The Bolivian Hat drawing of April 2013 is now history.

Okay, that's excessively dramatic, but I did want you to know the names have been drawn and the emails sent out.

I was pleased (and startled) to receive 85 emails. Thank you to everyone who contacted me. And know if I get any more ARCs of The Shade Of The Moon, I've saved all the names (they'll leave the hat in a moment and go into a sandwich bag for safekeeping) and will plop them back in the hat to see who comes out next.

Scooter will want to know too!

 
 

It's A Bird! It's A Plane! It's A Bolivian Hat!

I could, I suppose, tell you all about the excellent time I had in San Antonio at the International Reading Association convention. I could show you pictures of the San Antonio Riverwalk, where the

 

flowers are blooming and late April feels like May and not March.

Yes, I could do all that. And maybe if I had a little more energy I would.



But instead, I'll tell you that at the convention, my very nice publisher, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt (who I'll love and cherish until I really go crazy waiting for my royalty check to arrive) gave me my very own Advance Reading Copy of The Shade Of The Moon.

Shortly after I came home, my friend the UPS man arrived, bringing me a package containing five more ARCs. Naturally I posed them in front of the forsythia Marci was nice enough to leave for me.

Just as naturally, Scooter came over to inspect them.

Since I already have an ARC and don't need five more, I've decided to offer them to you.

On the assumption that maybe more than five people will want one, I will choose at random five people to send them to.

Here's what you will need to do:

Email me over at susanbpfeffer@aol.com and tell me you'd like one of the ARCs. If you are under 18, get your parent's permission to email me (a total stranger), especially since if you're selected, I'll be sending the ARC to your home, and we don't want your parent to be upset or concerned when the package shows up. If you're over 18, you're on your own.

Where was I? Oh yes. You email me, and then I copy your email address on a slip of paper and I put the slip of paper into the Bolivian hat, which my friend Christy bought me during our brief but memorable stay in La Paz, Bolivia.

 

Oops. It will work better if the Bolivian Hat is upside down.

 

I'll select five email addresses extremely randomly (I even close my eyes while doing so), and if you're one of the five, I'll email you and ask you for your home address and who you'd like to have the ARC inscribed to (along with the "Accept the impossible" part, which works pretty well, except it takes a lot of space, so I have to remember to start it closer to the left side of the page). And then off the ARC will go.

 

Since not everyone who reads this blog reads it the instant it gets published. I'll do the drawing on Monday, April 29, so if your email gets to me by then, it'll be in the hat along with everyone else's. And don't worry if you're from somewhere other than the USA. This drawing is open to everyone on the Planet Earth.

 

I don't know if I'll be getting any more ARCs (the five that arrived yesterday were a very pleasant surprise). It could be that after the American Library Association conference in late June. I might be able to scrounge a few more, in which case, I'll do a second drawing then. But don't count on that, so if you're interested, email me before Monday.

 

And if you're not interested, keep it to yourself. The Bolivian hat is very sensitive!

 

ETA because I just realized I should ETA the following: If you get selected, there's no cost. I pay the postage. And don't expect to hear back from me unless your email is randomly selected, in which case you will hear back from me when I ask you where to send the ARC.

 

 

Sometimes The Lines Simply Aren't Parallel

This has been a very difficult week for many people and places in America, the bombings in Boston, the explosion in West, Texas, the NRA's ownership of the United States Senate. Terrible things happen in the world all the time, but they don't hit us (or at least me) in the face the way these events have.

But as it happens, this was a really good week for me. A lot of nice things happened, and I've been reluctant to post about them for fear of seeming insensitive. But I'm off to San Antonio tomorrow, and when I get back, I'll probably be excited and exhausted and this week will seem like a long time ago.

So I'm going to tell you about the good things. I'll start with the personal stuff and then move to the professional stuff. If you're not in the mood for my good news, then wave goodbye and I'll see you next week, when I hope things will be calmer in the real world.

Okay. Personal good news.

Mostly it's my mother. Things are better with her. Things are never perfect with a 101 with dementia, but the situation which had my brother and Marci and me so concerned has definitely changed for the better.

Also, I saw my doctor for my official Now I'm An Old Person Visit (the sole purpose of which seemed to be to give me a pneumonia vaccine shot), and I talked to my doctor about my late lamented thyroid. She said it takes 6 months for the body to adapt to the loss thereof, and if my weight is still a concern to me, I can talk to Dr. Thyroid about changing dosages of medication. So I feel better about that (she also very sweetly claimed she couldn't see the weight gain on me).

On a sentimental note, today is the fourth anniversary of Scooter's adoption of me. Notice what four years of Scooterhood has done to my sofa.

Obviously, he has worked out his escape route.

 

Scooter is the most difficult, demanding, insecure, noisiest cat I've ever had. But as you all know, I'm crazy about him.

 

Onto the professional good news.

 

I had a great time with the Kirkus interview. The young man who interviewed me had read The Shade Of The Moon. I realized that except for my editor, he's the first person I've had contact with who had actually read it, and my editor has never told me what she likes about it, just offered suggestions about what I could do to make it better. In a few months, any number of people will have read it (and, I hope, like it) but it was genuinely exciting to talk to a person who had.

 

I'm having centering problems here. I think the best thing to do is ignore them and hope you do the same.

 

I got an email from my agent's assistant telling me we had an offer for the audiobook rights for The Shade Of The Moon. I was delighted to accept. Audible will be the publisher and I'm curious already about how Jon is going to sound.

 

It occurred to me this week to check out the Houghton Mifflin Harcourt's catalog page about The Shade Of The Moon and I was delighted to see what their promotion is going to be. I don't know what a "survival kit" is, but I must have one.

And, there's going to be a display unit. My recollection is I tried to find one of those for This World We Live In and never did, but I love the fact the publisher thinks it's worth doing again.

 

 

Finally, I got one of the nicest presents I've ever had the privilege of receiving this week, a truly beautiful painting by a young reader, inspired by Life As We Knew It.

I placed it where I can look at it all the time from my reading chair in the den.

I'm sure you think this is enough good news for anybody, and you'd be right. Besides, I have packing to do and a morning flight to catch.

I'll let you know how things go in San Antonio next week. In the meantime, I hope all your news is as good as mine, although without a mistaken for a scratching post sofa!

ETA: My editor just sent me the very first review of The Shade Of The Moon, from Kirkus itself, and it's a very good one!

Four years ago, a meteor crashed into the moon, altering the Earth’s gravity; the world is an ever-bleaker place in this fourth of Pfeffer’s gripping series.

Seventeen-year-old Jon Evans, the younger brother of Miranda, protagonist in two of the earlier novels, lives with his stepmother and half brother in an enclave called Sexton. After countless natural disasters and proliferating disease, humanity is now plagued by rigidly cruel class stratification, in which a person is either a respected “claver” or a disdained “grub,” a system so ingrained that Jon struggles to understand whether or not he thinks it is right. Featuring a plot that delivers twist after twist, this is a vivid take on the man-as-monster theme common to the genre. While the individual relationships depicted at times stray into melodrama, there is a persistent undercurrent of dread running throughout due to the novel’s realistic portrayals of mob violence and bigotry. Short, dated excerpts from Jon’s third-person perspective lack the immediacy of the epistolary style employed in the installments narrated by Miranda, but they do a fine job of illustrating a young man in a moral quandary.

Action-packed and completely unpredictable, this latest will be widely anticipated by the series’ many fans. (Post-apocalyptic adventure. 14 & up)