So Children's eBooks Do Sell

G. P Putnam

Published by moi

I have four eBooks out in the world. Three were published by G.P. Putnam's Sons at the same time the company published the hardcover editions of my last three books. I published the fourth one, an eBook republication of one my earlier out-of-print books from Putnam. Nonetheless, my impression has been that children aren't big eBook readers. I've heard speakers say eBooks are the next big thing for children. But when visiting schools, speaking with librarians and parents, and in give-and-take on-line, I haven't seen it happening. In fact, I've read that eBooks are very much a middle-aged woman reader thing. Not a kid thing, at all.

G. P. Putnam

Then last month I received my most recent statement from Penguin Random House.  They've revised the statement, so it's a little easier to read. (Hey. It's not just me who has trouble with those things.)  I was surprised to discover that I've  sold a few copies of each of my eBooks during the period the statement covers. What was more surprising was how many eBooks I've sold overall.


Now, we're not talking bestselling numbers here. The numbers are just higher than I expected. When I told a family member how many eBooks of Happy Kid! have sold...Well, let's just say I got a reaction. Our expectations were that low.

G. P. Putnam

Of course, children don't buy many books of any kind. Adults buy books for them. No doubt adults are buying these. Are they buying them for their children's e-readers? Are they buying them for their own e-readers, so they'll have some child reading available for child reading emergencies in cars, doctors' offices, etc.? (I can see myself doing that.) Are they buying them for themselves to read? (I have done that.)

Whatever the reason, someone is buying these particular children's eBooks. I assume that means they're buying other children's eBooks, too.

Hannah and Brandon Get Some Attention

Ames Public Library blogs about A Girl, a Boy, and a Monster Cat and calls the book's humor "perfect for 2nd and 3rd graders."

Remember, I did not say that. The wise and discerning people at Ames Public Library did.

Yeah, that's right. I've been ego-surfing.

The Three Robbers Celebration--The Hannah and Brandon School Presentation

I've discussed in a couple of my Three Robbers blog tour interviews that I became interested in writing a book for younger readers after talking with teachers at elementary schools where I was doing presentations for middle grade students. Then at The Miss Rumphius Effect I talk a little more about my school visits. So I thought that today I'd say a few words about the presentation I developed for first through third graders around A Girl, a Boy, and a Monster Cat, the first in The Hannah and Brandon Stories.

Teachers suggested that I speak to the littlies about things like characters, plot, setting--what sounded like the elements of fiction to me. So I thought I could try introducing kids to those terms, or, in the case of students who already knew them, reinforce their meaning/significance. But how? I use storytelling in my talk for older kids, which is about writers using their experience in their work. I hardly wanted to stand up in front of younger children and do a literature lecture.

Preparing a presentation was a struggle for me, until I came up with a couple of metaphors. Oh, how I love metaphors--the meaningful kind that explain life. Surely you all have some of those? Mine for this presentation are:

1. Writers are scientists who make changes in their characters, plot, and setting every time they create a new experiment/draft.

2. A story is a jigsaw puzzle, and the characters, plot, and setting are the pieces that a scientist/writer moves around while experimenting, until all the pieces come together into a story.


After that, things fell into place for me. Sort of like a jigsaw puzzle, in fact. My computer guy loved the metaphors and made me a set of terrific slides.

Looking For A Blogging Classroom Teacher

This post is going to be pretty much a repeat of the last one, but if you're a classroom teacher for grades one through three, or have been a classroom teacher for grades one through three, you may not have read the last post because it was for booksellers. This one is for you.

I'm going to be doing a blog tour the week A Girl, a Boy, and Three Robbers officially hits its on-sale date. The hosting bloggers will be interviewing me about Three Robbers in relation to early chapter books in general. So we'll be promoting both my book and the...market? age group? field?

I have librarians, a professor of teacher education, and a literacy advocate lined up for July 1 through 5. (The book will be published July 3.) I'd like to find a classroom teacher familiar with kids in the early grades, their reading preferences, etc. to interview/host me on June 29th or 30th. My idea (and hope) is that all these different people will come at the subject from a different angle and ask different kinds of questions. It's an experiment. We'll see what happens.

I've found a number of blogging classroom teachers who teach 5th and 6th grade, but I haven't stumbled upon any who work with the younger kids. I can't believe you're not out there.

So if you are a blogging classroom and are interested in being part of this tour on either June 29th or 30th, e-mail me at gail@gailgauthier.com.

If you're interested but those dates aren't good for you, e-mail me, anyway. We'll double up on one of the other dates.

Here's An Award I'm Very Happy To Hear About

I just learned this afternoon that A Girl, a Boy, and a Monster Cat has been nominated for the Kansas Reading Circle Award. And look what the folks in Kansas say about it in their catalogue: "riotous, imaginative"..."Funny and fast-paced."

That's the second time in just over a week that one of my books has been nominated for a state award. I am feeling rather special right now.

UPDATE: This isn't actually an award nomination. The Reading Circle Catalogue is a reading list circulated throughout the state of Kansas. I was so delighted to hear that I was on it that I felt as if I'd been nominated for an award. It's fine to congratulate me on having made the list, though.

Kidlit And Still All About Me

This just in from the home office: The Junior Library Guild will be offering A Girl, a Boy, and Three Robbers to its members next year. Perhaps you recall that it's already offering A Girl, a Boy, and a Monster Cat.

What's that you're hearing? Me sighing with satisfaction.

Loonies And Toonies And Monster Cats

A Girl, a Boy, and a Monster Cat made a list of Top Picks in the St. Albert Gazette. That's St. Albert, Alberta and not St. Albert, Ontario, famous for its cheese factory, and which I think I drove through once around ten years ago. Alberta is way west for me.

Of course, I particularly love this list because it includes my book. I'm not going to try to kid you. But it has some other titles I find attractive. Loonies and Toonies: A Canadian Number Book and Canadian Boys Who Rocked the World are too titles I wouldn't expect to stumble upon below the border. I don't know a lot of people who even know what loonies and toonies are. The book that really caught my eye, though, was Is My Dog a Wolf?. That's a question I've never heard down here in southern New England. When I was a kid, though, I would have loved wondering about that kind of thing.

I like seeing book lists that reflect interests beyond the books you might describe as belonging to an international publishing pool. Especially when the list includes one of my books.

Some New Press

A Girl, a Boy, and a Monster Cat was reviewed in the October issue of the Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books. I say October because that's four months after publication. It was one of those mixed reviews that I keep saying writers should be grateful for, so I'm putting my money where my mouth is and mentioning it here. Plus a review in a professional journal four months after publication is fantastic.

The reviewer said Monster Cat is "conceptually inspiring." When my computer guy heard that, he said, "What does that mean?" I said, "I don't know, but I love it." No, really, I do know what it means, and I still love it. Actually the whole sentence was quite good. "More than anything, Gauthier's novel is conceptually inspiring, and it may motivate more than one reader to click off that remote and head into the endless possibilities of imaginative play."

Another good line is "Be prepared to laugh." That's what a writer for The International Falls Daily Journal had to say about Monster Cat. If you follow the link and go all the way down to the fourth from the last paragraph, you'll see it. I only got two sentences in that particular piece, but when one of them is "Be prepared to laugh," you don't need any more.

I was particularly pleased to get a mention in The International Falls Daily Journal because it's published in International Falls, Minnesota, the inspiration for Frostbite Falls, Minnesota, the home of Rocky and Bullwinkle.

Rocky and Bullwinkle were cool.

One Of Those Good News And Bad News Things

A Girl, a Boy, and a Monster Cat made MotherReader's Best Books of 2007 (So Far) MEGALIST. That's the good news.

The bad news is that even though I've read nearly 80 books so far this year, I've read only three from the 2007 MEGALIST. (I got a fourth one from the library this morning.) This business about 150,000+ books being published every year is just too much for me. I can't keep up.

Another One For My Collection

A Girl, a Boy, and a Monster Cat was recently reviewed at Big A, little a. I was very pleased with how that one turned out.

What Happened With Butch And Spike?

Remember last week's drawing for A Year With Butch And Spike? A copy has been inscribed for three brothers from Indiana and is going into the mail tomorrow.

If I don't forget, I'll do another giveaway at Halloween because Butch and Spike has a Halloween chapter. Club Earth has a Thanksgiving chapter, so I'll give away copy of that at the end of November. Then in December I'll be giving away a copy of My Life Among the Aliens because--you guessed it--that has a Christmas chapter.

So you can get freebies here for the next quarter year.

Tomorrow I'm also going to be sending out an arc for A Girl, a Boy, and a Monster Cat. I have two more left. Contact me through my web page if you'd like one.

Promo Time

This past weekend I was so involved with my thoughts regarding Gregor and Ripred that I forgot all about putting in a good word for A Girl, a Boy, and a Monster Cat. I have some new reviews to share.

The July/August issue of The Horn Book gave Monster Cat a very satisfying review. "Take one boy stuck at a neighbor's house, mix in one girl with an overactive imagination, add one vicious Chihuahua, and you have a perfect recipe for havoc...Cepeda's familiar black-and-white sketches add just the right energy to an already lively chapter book." The Horn Book also lists Monster Cat on its web page collection of pet stories. (It also has a page called Web Watch that includes my classroom materials under "Reading Guides.")

School Library Journal posted its review of the book at its website. "The outrageous situations, quirky characters, and black-and-white cartoon illustrations are certain to appeal to children who are looking for an easy chapter book that is pure fun." That was satisfying, too.

Monster Cat Giveaway

Thanks to all who sent e-mails yesterday for the A Girl, a Boy, and a Monster Cat giveaway. My computer guy will take care of the random drawing this evening, and I'll be getting in touch with the winners this weekend.

I'll be doing another drawing in August during the Perseid Showers. That one will be for My Life Among the Aliens.

Sorry, Computer Guy, but this means it's time to update the homepage, too.

Take Your Best Shot

It's still early in the day here on the east coast. Go ahead and take your shot at winning your own copy of A Girl, a Boy, and a Monster Cat.

What will I be doing on this exciting publication day? Well, in less than an hour and a half I will being tested on anything my sambumnim wants to test me on. Say, the seven different ways I'm supposed to know to disarm an assailant with a gun or the...ah...ah...maybe nine or ten ways I'm supposed to know to protect myself from an attack with a joon bong. And then you have the twenty-seven step-sparring techniques. And...ah...some other stuff.

And when I get home, I need to knock off a thousand words on The Durand Cousins. The last three or four days I've worked on that manuscript, I've managed to write a thousand words or better a day. Now, I know many writers won't get out of bed for a mere thousand words. But it's good for me.

My point is, by the time a book is actually published, a writer ought to have moved on to something else. This one ought to, anyway.

Tomorrow's The Big Day

Yes, people, this is the last time you'll have to endure me reminding you that A Girl, a Boy, and a Monster Cat will be published on June 21st. Remember that tomorrow you have a chance to win a copy for yourself. Yes, you, too, have a chance at experiencing the happiness of a brand new copy of Monster Cat.

Yeah, Yeah, Yeah. Two More Days.

A Girl, a Boy, and a Monster Cat. Comes out this Thursday. Go here to see how you can win a free copy.

And Now It's Three More Days, Three More Days...

Three more days until A Girl, a Boy, and a Monster Cat is officially published. Those of you planning to try your hand at winning your own copy of the book will be relieved to hear that the books arrived today.

I didn't really have a back-up plan if they didn't come for a while.

Four More Days, Four More Days, Four More Days...

...until A Girl, a Boy, and a Monster Cat bursts out into the world and you can take a shot at winning your own copy.

What will I be doing to celebrate, you may wonder? Well, Thursday morning is my taekwondo class, and this is testing week. Even though I'm not testing for promotion, I will be expected to know more than I did three months ago. Testing week is always...testing. So, I won't be thinking about Monster Cat until well after ten in the morning.

Five More Days...

...until you can take your shot at winning a copy of A Girl, a Boy, and a Monster Cat.

Only Six More Days...

...until A Girl, a Boy, and a Monster Cat is let loose upon the world, and you can take a shot at winning a copy.

Today I was preparing a copy of Monster Cat to send to Miss Rumphius who won it for her participation in the 48 Hour Book Challenge. When I sign books, I like to have a little something to say in them besides, "Gail Gauthier," which just doesn't seem like enough. For The Hero of Ticonderoga, for instance, I say, "Speak for those who can't speak for themselves," and for Saving the Planet & Stuff, I say, "Turn out the lights!" Both these little inscriptions are deep--very, very profound--if you've read the book involved.

So today I said to a family member who had just read A Girl, a Boy, and a Monster Cat, "What do you think I should use for an inscription in this book?"

And he said, "Can we watch TV now?"

Given what the book is about and who was making the suggestion, this was hysterically funny. But not really appropriate because we're not supposed to be encouraging the young to watch TV, are we? So I had to come up with something else.