2013 Houston Book Rave Photos - FUN Texas Reader Event!

Jordan Dane

@JordanDane

 The first Houston Book Rave (HBR) happened on November 2, 2013 and featured over 60+ authors. Young adult authors were most represented, but many New Adult authors came and quite a number of self-published indie authors were also in attendance. Our official bookstore was Barnes & Noble, arranged by the HBR staff.


The advance publicity on this event brought quite a bit of traffic to my website from all over the country. Thanks to the organizers and to all the fabulous bloggers who helped make this event successful. The event was free for those who attended. To track attendance, organizers had participants download a free ticket and I’d heard nearly 800 were downloaded. HBR was sponsored by a number of publishers, including my house, HarlequinTeen.


The YA authors had the morning session where we decorated our tables and met with readers for two hours, not signing books until later. Instead we signed shirts, bags, book marks, etc. I wasn’t sure how I would like that format (no panel discussions), but I had a blast. We had great traffic through the rooms and got to meet some fun people. Lots of young readers and reviewers were there. After we had our social time, our next assignment was to sign books in a larger room with all the authors and the bookstore on the floor (the size of a gym).
 
 


I shared my table with YA author extraordinaire Jennifer Archer (Through Her Eyes, Shadow Girl-HarperTeen). Jenny and I have known each other for awhile so we had tons of fun catching up. She’s a little shy and I AM NOT. I had noise makers and had her laughing at my antics. (Thankfully she has a great sense of humor.) We had Halloween candy and signed Milk Dud boxes – pretty much anything. We had more people coming over to our table to have a good time.


There were many young readers who came looking for us. Scarlett (in the neck scarf) was with her dad (smart man) and is a review blogger who had purchased my book - On a Dark Wing. I had all my released HarlequinTeen books there.

Here are some personal stories:


Here’s our decorated table. We went with the Halloween theme since we had leftover candy. Duh! As you can see, Jenny and I signed ANYTHING, including the Milk Duds. Hot commodity.

 
 


One fan brought baked goods. Doesn’t this look yummy. So good!!!

 
 

This is a photo of me with Emily (a young author who I met at the Texas Library Association annual conference two years ago). I had seen Emily at two TLA events and talked to her about a book she was writing. I never forgot her. Well, her mom came to the HBR and brought this photo memory of when Emily and I last met. She had asked her mom to get me to sign it. (Emily couldn’t make HBR, but through her mom, she was there in spirit.) Emily has aspirations to become an editor in the publishing industry. With her love of writing and reading, she will be a hit.


  I love Emily...and her mom. xxoo


Savannah (on the right) is an amazing  book blogger who has read/reviewed my YAs. She introduced me to one of her reviewers, Chayse (left). The purple shirts were the attire of HBR staff, so you can see both of these two enthusiastic readers were there to help. I LOVED hanging out with them, including sharing a table at our Friday night BBQ as we decorated our spots. I can’t say enough about Savannah and Chayse. <3 (They are both adorable.)

 



Another GO TO person I found there was Misty Baker of the Kindle Obsessed Blog. Man, she is organized and knows her stuff. She was a great help to all the authors and to the HBR organizers. Wish I had a photo of her. She is a lovely lovely person. xxoo Misty!


I wanted to share my photos. If you follow me on Twitter, you might have seen some of these. I had fun tweeting ANYTHING from HBR. This event is definitely on my radar for next year. Anytime an author can spend quality time with readers, reviewers, and bloggers, it is a good thing. 


My next promo event will be the Austin Texas Comic Con on the weekend of Nov 22. OMG! I’m a Comic Con virgin, but I am looking forward to it. I will be joining the Writing Ninjas of Texas who have two tables in prime corner position. I will definitely post photos from this traveling circus.
 

 

 

 

Jordan Dane’s Crystal Fire (HarlequinTeen-The Hunted Series) now available for pre-order. Release is Nov 26, 2013.

Plundering Graves in Savannah

by Katie Crouch


I'm in Savannah, Georgia today, doing some research for the last installment of the Magnolia League and doing a couple of book events. My co-writer, Grady Hendricks, and I loaded up my Mom's ancient SUV yesterday with books and snacks and hit Highway 17 South from Charleston around four. Grady and I have known each other since we were nine, and since he lives in New York and I live in San Francisco, we had a lot to catch up on. Gossip, our reaction to the Hunger Games movie, how weird our parents are. Same stuff, basically, we used to talk about in high school, even though we're 38.

Savannah is an amazing town. Green, lush, quiet, and, of course, terrifically spooky. When we got up at 4:30 to do a morning show (aaaack), the mist clung to the ground, waist high and thick as soup. Naturally, we've been hanging out in Savannah's graveyards this morning, looking for more cool details to put into the Magnolia saga.

Goofer dust figures heavily into our plot, so we looked around for the best graves for Madison to plunder in book three. Never heard of goofer dust? Well, newbie! It's actually the dirt from graves, and depending on who's under there, a vial of it around your neck can greatly affect your fate. According to Hoodoo magic, if you're poor, the goofer from a dead rich person will turn your finances around, while the goofer from the grave of a criminal can be used to put a deathly blue root on someone you'd like to curse. Of course, you're not supposed to just TAKE the goofer. It's very important to leave a dime on the grave in payment, otherwise that spirit might follow you home.

On the way home after the event, we'll stop at Bonventure, Savannah's largest and most famous cemetery. It'll be dark by then, so hopefully we'll ferret out a spirit or two.

For more information on Hoodoo and the Southern spirits we drew upon to write the trilogy, please visit:

http://magnolialeague.katiecrouch.com/gullah-jack/

Until next time!

xo

Katie Crouch

That voice in my head is getting louder...

by Amanda Stevens

A character named Lucy November has haunted me for years. She’s become so real that a writer friend claims she sees Lucy sitting cross-legged in an empty room, impatiently drumming her fingers on the floor as she waits for me to give her a story. Actually, she has a story—a whole book, in fact—called Garden of Perpetual Slumber. That book has never been sent to a publisher, but it did help me land my current agent, who for years resided at the top of my dream agent list. Yay!

But…back to Lucy. She’s an aspiring filmmaker who moonlights as a corpse cosmetician at a boutique funeral home in Austin, Texas. By boutique, I mean the mortuary specializes in elaborate funerals and unique presentations. A little like Christopher Walken’s mortuary in Undertaking Betty but less Star Trek and more Rocky Horror, if you get my drift. Lucy also converses with the corpses. She calls herself a facilitator because she likes to think that she eases their transition to the other side.

The book has problems.  For one thing, the mystery plot is way too convoluted and for another, the reanimated corpses are nothing more than diversions. The good news is I know how to fix. I’ve tweaked Lucy’s occupation, incorporated the corpses into a simplified mystery plot and I’m integrating some mythological elements into the back story. But as excited as I am by these changes, something has been niggling at me for a while now.

Is Lucy a character whose time has come and gone?

How long should a writer cling to a character or a plot or even a premise before moving on? After all, my cemetery restorer protagonist in The Graveyard Queen series sprang fully developed from my imagination. The premise, plot, setting…everything came together seamlessly.

So what is the deal with Lucy? Am I trying too hard to make her work? Am I now so invested in this character that I’ve lost my objectivity? Has she taken on so many of my own personality traits that I’m unable to let her be who she needs to be? Have I become one of those awful stage mothers, pushing my beloved progeny into a direction she doesn’t want to go?

Just to mix things up, I’ve considered relocating her from Austin to Savannah, but a different setting would completely alter her personality. After all, she is a product of her environment. Austin is a cool, laid back city that prides itself on its weirdness. A haven for the nonconformist. A sanctuary for misfits, hipsters and aging hippies.

This is Lucy in Austin:

Savannah is old South. Deep South. The dark, eccentric, Gothic South of folk magic, Bonaventure Cemetery and John Berendt’s Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil.

This is Lucy in Savannah:

See what I mean?  Two different characters.

So what do I do?  Abandon the project?  Keep trying until I find her the prefect home?  How long must I listen to Lucy's voice in my head before I tune her out forever?

What do you do when a character won't leave you alone?