My Annual Earth Day Observance

It's Earth Day, people. Though I have been keeping an eye on my pollinator garden, I have not been keeping up on what's happening environmentally during the month of April, which is something I have done in the past.

However, Earth Day provides me with a good opportunity to mention Saving the Planet & Stuff, a rare eco-comedy. I still don't see much in the way of books for YAs and adults that have environmental threads or are set in a world where the environment plays a significant role that are not about climate change or a disaster brought about by climate change. Though I haven't been looking recently.

Oh, so many things to read about.

Now that I'm obsessing about how older adults are portrayed in books, I will mention that while my editor at G.P. Putnam and I were working on Saving the Planet, she said she'd never seen older adults portrayed as they are here. By which I believe she meant committed, in control, business owners, etc. etc. and not aging hippies. Though Nora and Walt are that, too.

#Authorlifemonth Day 10 My Comp Titles

 As I said last week, I am doing #authorlifemonth or, as some call it, #authorlifemonth2021 on Twitter. Yesterday's prompt was "My Comp Titles." Since I'm using Saving the Planet & Stuff for any book references for this challenge, my comp titles will relate to it. 

Comp titles, in case anyone is wondering, are titles of books yours can be compared to, especially known, relatively successful books you can compare yours to. Initially, you are trying to show prospective agents and editors that there is an interest in your subject matter out in the buying public. Then you're trying to show buyers that if they liked Book A, they will certainly like yours, as well.

Comp titles are a struggle for me. I have a hard time coming up with any, and I've grown to suspect that that's because my interests, which is what I write about, of course, may not be generally shared. 

For Saving the Planet & Stuff, the comp title situation is particularly interesting. I was working with a editor and publisher at the time, and they didn't require comp titles from me, because we were just interested in the next Gail Gauthier book. Yes, once upon a time there was an interest in the next Gail Gauthier book. You'll have to trust me on that.

Additionally, Saving the Planet & Stuff deals with environmentalism. The plot, the setting, and even the secondary characters are all part of that subset of the American culture that cares about environmental living. I find environmental children's books predicatable and even boring. The middle grade books are very pedantic. Kids are fighting evil corporations. They're saving an endangered species. YA books, when you find them at all, are frequently clifi. Humans have done something to cause climate disaster. If you've read one of those, haven't you read them all?

But I Do Have A Couple Of Comp Titles For STPS! 

 

Over the years, I have come up with a couple of books I think could be compared to Saving the Planet & Stuff.

 

• 
  
  Right now, I'm reading Boys, Bears, and a Serious Pair of Hiking Boots by Abby McDonald in which a teenage environmentalist goes out into the Canadian "wild" for the summer where she finds that she's not welcome. (Aside--I can't find much information about Abby McDonald, though she appears to be one of the staff writers for the TV series Bridgerton. I know you want to know that, since I want to know it.)
• 
  Kissing Frogs by Alisha Sevigny in which a teenage borderline mean girl
  is thrown in for the summer with the school science crowd who are dealing with one of those endangered species I mentioned above.   

These two books, along with Saving the Planet & Stuff, are fish-out-of-water stories. In STP&S and Kissing Frogs, the fish are being thrown in with environmentalists, which they most definitely are not. In Boys, Bears, and a Serious Pair of Hiking Boots, the fish is the environmentalist who is thrown in with people who are not only non-environmentalists, they're a bit hostile to the idea. These books are examples of environmentalism providing the background or character development for the story. 

They are also all examples of mainstream stories integrating environmentalism instead of stories that are excuses for environmental lectures. I don't think environmentalism will be a serious part of our culture until we start seeing this kind of thing happening in books a lot more.

Coming Back To Life

I'm sure you all recall that last fall Gyldendal Undervisning renewed our agreement to use some material from Saving the Planet & Stuff in one of its textbooks for teaching English. Last week they notified me that they've decided to increase the first-print run of the edition. More books!

And then just a couple of days ago I learned that my flash creative nonfiction, Heroes, has been included in The Bending Genres Anthology 2018-2019. The piece was published at Bending Genres in 2018.

Writing can be a discouraging slog. But one of the neat things that can happen in publishing is that sometimes something you've published in the past suddenly gets a little new life, as was the case for me this past week.

I can remember back in the day suddenly hearing from my editor that foreign publishers wanted to do editions of my books.  My Life Among the Aliens was published in Japan. Japan! (And Italy and Germany, which also did editions of two of my other books.) And then there was that time I was notified four times that states had included A Year With Butch And Spike on their student readers' choice award lists. When Happy Kid! went on to one of its two award lists, it resulted in a second printing for the book, because those lists generate sales and the book was right at the point where it needed a new printing to meet demand. Another year I got an e-mail from my editor to let me know that The Hero of Ticonderoga was being talked about at that year's ALA conference. And the next thing I knew (seriously, it was within a day or two) I found out that the ALA was naming it a Notable Book for that year.

Now, yes, I am using my recent news as an opportunity to relive past glories. But I have a point apart from that. The point is: I was through with those books. I may have still been promoting them at school visits or where and when I could, but the writing, the editing, the publishing was all done. I wasn't working on those books any more. And, yet, things continued to happen for them. 

That these kinds of things happen is one of the many things I didn't know about writing and publishing when I was getting started. Yes, it was one of the better things.

"Saving The Planet & Stuff" News

Gyldendal Undervisning, my favorite Norwegian publisher, and I have just renewed our agreement for it to use some material from Saving the Planet & Stuff in one of its textbooks for teaching English. For the second time since 2016. That's always a lovely surprise when that happens.

Environmental Book Club

Sierra, the national magazine of the Sierra Club, has a nice round-up of environmental book gifts for readers. The list includes a wide variety of titles.


And if you're looking for an eco-comedy for a humor-loving Kindle reader, there's always Saving the Planet & Stuff.

Some New Love For "Saving The Planet & Stuff"

Last weekend a new review of Saving the Planet & Stuff ran in The News-Gazette in Urbana, Illinois. Reviewer Deb Aronson starts out by saying, "It's not often these days that you read a middle-grade novel where there are intergenerational friendships. Gauthier does a great job both poking fun at and showing the marvels of friendships like this." She ends with "This outburst is especially striking since Michael could just as easily be describing himself." As a family member who read the review said, "She gets it."

Yes, I was delighted.

Interesting point: I was in Illinois the weekend before the review ran. In fact, my traveling companion assures me we were very near Urbana.

I need to travel more.

#STPStwittered: The Results Post

I finished my July Saving the Planet & Stuff summer reading push a couple of days into August. But I did finish it.

You will recall, of course, that the July marketing month involved a series of quote images from the book. They cover the entire story without giving away the entire story. The Kindle edition, all that's available now, has been marked down from $2.99 to $1.99 since July 1. I did a post here at OC on Saving the Planet's Vermont setting, as well as one on the Norwegian textbook that includes a STPS excerpt and the recycling crafts described in the book.

What Did This Book Marketing Get You, Gail?

Well, here is what I hoped to gain from this effort:

• Sell a few books.
• Get a couple of decent Goodreads or Amazon reviews.
• Collect a few new Twitter followers
• Gain experience running a new marketing strategy. 

Here is what happened:

•  I sold 1 eBook. Hurray! Really. Hurray!
• No new Goodreads or Amazon reviews, decent or otherwise.  
• Whatever new Twitter followers I got last month were due to my own trolling. People were not beating a path to my door because they were so impressed with my quote images.
• Computer Guy and I did gain experience using Twitter quote images as part of a marketing campaign.

 

What Questions Does This Book Marketing Experience Raise?

Notice I didn't ask "What have I learned?" That's because I've learned nothing. Absolutely nothing. I just have questions I didn't have before.

1. Is this quote image thing just a poor marketing tool? It is free and pretty easy, after all, and "You get what you pay for" is a much more accurate cliche than "The best things in life are free."
2.  Are older books like Saving the Planet & Stuff impossible to market?
3.  Is Saving the Planet & Stuff impossible to market? 
4. I've been experimenting with different types of marketing over a long period of time for what is now a self-published book. Is this pointless? Are self-published books just like traditionally published books? The only opportunity for sales is during the big opening, like movies?

It's All Good

 

This afternoon, a family member and I were discussing how we'd used part of our summers on activities that weren't very productive when we could have been doing other things that might have been more so. (He did better than I did last month.) But all experience has value. What we did will be good for us somehow, sometime. 

Can't Say Enough About Recycling And "Saving the Planet & Stuff"

A few years ago, I did a post here at Original Content called The Annotated "Saving the Planet & Stuff" Part Eleven: DIY Recycling. You can go back there to read an excerpt from the book in which main character Michael Racine surveys the items his hosts, Walt and Nora, have been holding onto for years in order to keep them out of a transfer station. Their plan is to reuse them in some way. Not only will they then have kept them out of the transfer station, they will have avoided using new resources to make whatever they've done with them. 

I so understand what they were doing.

Today I'm going to do some more on this recycling idea, mainly because I've got a bunch of pictures I've been saving for this purpose.

Useful Looking Things I Have Held On To, Planning To Do Something With Them Someday  

My most successful recycle. Making a quilt from used denim.  I'm starting with my most successful experience with recycling, because with short, business-like nonfiction you want to put the juicy stuff upfront in case your readers wander off. So my greatest recycle project was this denim quilt.

A Lot Of Denim

Denim, the kind that isn't the result of an unholy breeding program with Spandex, can be used for a lot of things. So I have a lot of used denim. And I am hanging on to this stuff no matter what. It will move with me wherever I go. It will have to be pried out of my cold, stiff hands. I made a good-size denim bag for a gift a couple of years ago, and if I am ever able to have the DIY Weekend Sewing Retreat I keep talking about, I'm going to make one for me.

I Mean A LOT Of Denim

A family member once gave me a pair of used denim pants for my denim collection. The pants were actually in better shape than some I wore. Those are in my closet now. That's recycling, too.
 

My second most successful recyle. Cutting up Christmas cards to make name tags for Christmas presents. Honest to God, this was a thing years ago. You saw it in magazines. If you own a pair of pinking scissors (and I do), you can make these look pretty good. You ought to also get yourself a paper punch. And some curling ribbon. Yeah, this is some work.

This is a DIY project that's on it's way out, because if you really want to be environmental, you don't send Christmas cards. Plus more and more of the people who do send Christmas cards send personalized ones with their family members' pictures instead of generic Christmas scenes, because they're easy to do. Probably easier than cutting up traditional cards, punching holes in them, and stringing them on the curling ribbon you wrap around presents. 

So-so recyles. Bubble-wrap. Like Walt and Nora in Planet, we held

on to bubble wrap that came in packages we received so that when we had to mail something, we could use this perfectly good stuff and not have to buy more. Turns out, we don't mail that many packages.

Gift tins. Walt and Nora have some of these, too. This was a little more useful back when I was a part of a mom world whose members all baked for one another at Christmas time. Everyone went back to work, and it's all we can do to bake for our families.

Cardboard boxes. This became a huge attic collection. We had a used gift box collection up there, too. Walt and Nora have a box collection, also.

"Plastic sacks filled with more plastic sacks." That's a quote from Saving the Planet & Stuff. Yes, I have a plastic bag collection. Two, in fact. And I have a paper bag collection. I should have placed this higher in the post, maybe as a third most successful recycle. It only seems unsuccessful, because it's on the floor of the pantry. But I reuse bags a lot.

And then there is my Yoga Journal collection. I had years of those things, because the articles were so good and I spend soooo much time rereading magazines.

Recycling Conflicts With Time Management

Taking care of a lot of stuff takes time.  Additionally, a lack of order in surroundings can impact impulse control. And lack of impulse control leads to procrastination. So during multiple purges, I unloaded the bubble wrap, the gift tins, the Yoga Journals, and most of the cardboard boxes.

I have never been that successful a recyler, definitely not on a par with Walt and Nora.

"Saving The Planet & Stuff" As The Norwegians See It

I am sure you all remember that an excerpt of Saving the Planet & Stuff sold to Norwegian publisher Gyldendal Undervisning two years ago for use in a textbook for teaching English. And the company extended the agreement this past winter.

You can get a look at the textbook in which the Planet material appears. You can get a feeling for how the page layout looks below.

And, remember, the nonNorwegian  Kindle edition is on sale this month for just $1.99.

"Saving The Planet's" Real World Setting In Middlebury, Vermont

Last week I described Saving the Planet & Stuff as having an environmental setting because much of the book's action takes place at the editorial office of an environmental journal. Additionally, there are scenes in the home of seriously committed environmentalists.

But the book also has a "real world" setting, a street and a town. It's set in East Branbury, Vermont, a place you will not find on any maps, because I made it up. (Though you will find Branbury State Park, which my family referred to as Branbury Beach.)

 I grew up in three different towns within a half an hour of Middlebury, and some of my older relatives ran farms in the area back in the day. Nonetheless, in spite of the Gauthier connection, Middlebury was bohemian bourgeois before bohemian bourgeois came to America. (We Gauthiers are neither bohemian nor bourgeois, forget about doing both of them at once.) When I was in high school, Middlebury was where we went to be cool. Except for the Ben Franklin, I couldn't shop in town, it was too expensive. But I can recall muttering obscenities with my friends while struggling to park my parents' car on the street. That's how cool I was then.

So when I wanted a town in Vermont, one with a place for an office and a house and streets to bike on, Middlebury came to mind.

The Middlebury STP&S Connections

First off, I thought of Weybridge Street for the location of Walt and Nora's 70s/80s-era solar home. My Gauthier grandparents lived on Weybridge Street towards the end of their lives, and it is absolutely the only residential street in Middlebury I have any knowledge of. No brainer.

There are several scenes in the book in which Michael and Nora bike to her office. Here is a Weybridge Street view I had in mind for that. Note how flat it is. My kind of biking.  If you read about Michael and Nora on their bikes, think of this kind of street.


Here is what I was thinking of as Michael and Nora's first turn off from Weybridge Street on their daily commute.


Then I envisioned them on a Main Street like Middlebury's. 

The bike trip to The Earth's Wife's office is described as including a steep incline. That's right. That didn't come out of  nowhere.There is an alley in Middlebury that leads to shops and what used to be the Vermont State Craft Center at Frog Hollow, which began during the time Walt and Nora were starting their magazine and was still a going concern while I was writing STP&S.

At the foot of this incline you also find the multi-floor back of some Main Street buildings. In my mind, this is where I located the entrance to The Earth's Wife's offices. They are on an upper floor, and Walt and Nora are renovating a lower floor for another editorial office.

Enough about the ride to the office. In one scene Walt and Michael go to the East Branbury transfer station. I don't have a clue where Middlebury's transfer station is, or if individuals can access it the way Walt does. I just got Michael and Walt out of town by sending them out past a church. And I did have a church in mind, St. Mary's Catholic Church, which the Gauthiers have had some connection with over the years.

One of the most popular scenes in Saving the Planet takes place in a restaurant. I was thinking of one of these store fronts for the restaurant. We're no longer on Main Street here. We're on whatever turns off Main Street to go up the hill toward Rt. 7. Yeah, you know what I'm talking about.

So that gives you an idea of the kinds of things I do in my head to work on settings for a book, particularly this one.

Like Pinterest?

If you like Pinterest, I have a Pinterest Board on STPS's Middlebury setting. It includes some extra personal material on my connection to some of these places.  By the way, you can also find some Pinterest boards I'm using for character development on a new project.

#STPStwittered

You can follow me on Twitter or use the hashtag #STPStwittered so you can read the Twitter edition of Saving the Planet & Stuff.

"Saving the Planet & Stuff": Twitter Edition

A Twitter marketing push for the Saving the Planet & Stuff eBook wasn't one of my objectives for this year, but it seems like something that ought to be connected to my annual goal of Community Building/General Marketing/Branding. So it's okay that I've spent some time on a Twitter edition of the book. Really. It is.

Now, I published the eBook edition of STP&S a few years back. In traditional publishing, no one would be making a new marketing effort for a book that old. (The hardcover edition published by G.P. Putnam's Sons is even older.) But this isn't a traditionally published book, it's a self-published book. And, to me, a big reason for self-publishing is that you can do things you wouldn't do with a traditionally published title. You don't have to follow any marketing rules, beyond not being any combination of tasteless, needy, and dishonest. I'm going to try to pull that off.

So What Are You Doing, Gail?

I'm using quote images on Twitter for this particular plan. I got the idea for quote images from the article 5 Fresh Ideas For Promoting An Indie Book at the Writer's Edit website. I probably stumbled upon this Fresh Ideas thing through Twitter, to be honest. You know. A tweet?  (And, yes, I do try to avoid reading listicles and any article with a number in the title. I am ashamed, but just a little.) When it came time to decide what quotes from Saving the Planet I should use, I decided to use enough to do a Twitter version of the book, tweeted over an entire month.

A test of our quote image format. Font may be enlarged at some point.

My computer guy created these images for me. He didn't use a "graphic design tool" as described in the Writer's Edit article. Because real computer guys don't need no stinkin' graphic design tool. I have no idea how he does these things. He is a mystery.

Why July?

In the past, I've promoted Saving the Planet as an environmental book because it has an environmental setting and the plot involves an environmental issue. But the book also involves a summer vacation and a summer job. And it's funny. It could just as easily be described as a summer book. Thinking of the STP&S in this new way opens up a new marketing opportunity. Especially since it is summer. You know...a summer book...it's summer now...

July is the first full summer month, a month when some people find themselves with extra reading time.  July leads into August, which might end early as far as summer vacations are concerned, but people still can be doing some summer, light reading then.

What Do You Actually Hope To Achieve, Gail?

 

Maybe in Sept.?

• Well, it would be great sell a few books. 
• If I got a couple of decent Goodreads or Amazon reviews out of this, I wouldn't complain.
• It would be terrific if I collected a few new Twitter followers who enjoy the Twitter version of STP&S
• Computer Guy and I will have gained the experience of running this new, to us, marketing strategy. In fact, depending on what kind of response I get to this effort, I might tweet some quote images related to one of my eBooks published by Putnam. 

 Doing Anything Else For This Promotion, Gail?

I hope to get a few blog posts up about STP&S next month and finally create a Pinterest board related to this book, one that I've had in mind for well over a year. Improving my use of Pinterest is one of my objectives for the Community Building/General Marketing/Branding goal, so, good work, me.

 A Tasteless Mention of Money

I've instructed Amazon to drop the price of STP&S to $1.99, and I'll keep it there for the month of July. (I'm not sure when that will actually happen. I hope by Sunday, July 1.) After the beginning of August, it will go back up to $2.99.

So those of you interested in book marketing and/or Twitter might want to follow me at gail_gauthier and look for #STP&Stwittered. You can also keep checking back here to see how this diabolical plan of mine works out.

Merry Christmas To Me

I am sure you  recall that last year the Norwegian publisher Gyldendal Undervisning purchased the rights to an excerpt from my book Saving the Planet & Stuff for a textbook for Norwegian students studying English. I told you all about it.

Well, today the good people at Gyldendal Undervisning contacted me about renewing our agreement for an additional print run.

There are kids in Norway reading about going to the Laundromat and recycling station because of my excerpt in their textbook. That is deep.

The Connecticut Book Awards Are Back

The Connecticut Center for the Book, a CT Humanities Program,  is bringing back the Connecticut Book Awards, which were last heard from in 2011 when the Connecticut Center for the Book was managed by Hartford Library. There will be four categories, including Books for Young Readers. That will include "Juvenile, Young Adult, Teen." (I am not at all sure what the difference is between YA and Teen. In fact, I really have no idea.) This category includes both authors and illustrators.

Take a look at the submission guidelines.

Saving the Planet & Stuff was a finalist for the Connecticut Book Award Young Readers division back in 2004. Pegi Deitz Shea (seated far left) won that year.

The hardcover edition of STP&S is out-of-print now, but I still have that outfit. And wear it. It seems as if that should have some meaningful significance, but for the life of me I can't think what it would be.

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.

Humor And Mature Characters

I am sure some of you are thinking that with Earth Day over and the Earth Day Saving the Planet & Stuff promotion behind us, I will finally be off talking about STP&S. How little you know me. I planned to cover Saving the Planet for the month of April, and I will cover it for the month of April, if I have to finish on my hands and knees. I'm kind of strong on perseverance. Other things, not so much.

Books About YA

Over the years, I've seen books about children's books. It's not something I've made a study off, but have been aware of. I don't know if I've seen this type of thing in relation to adult books, but it may exist.

To be honest, I know about these directories/guides because I'm in a few of them. Well, no, the to-be-honest part is that I know I'm in a few of them because I ego-surf. I only do it every now and then, because who has time for that sort of thing? But the occasional ego surf can turn up some juicy stuff.

Saving the Planet & Stuff Made Two...Count 'em...Two Books

The original edition of Saving the Planet & Stuff was discussed in two of these books about books.

Thematic Guide to Young Adult Literature by Alice Trupe. (2006) Saving the Planet & Stuff was discussed in a chapter on Older People's Impact on Our Lives. STP&S is the story of Michael Racine's summer with Walter Marcello and Nora Blake, contemporaries of his grandparents, so I can see how it ended up in that section of the book.

Humor in Young Adult Literature: A Time to Laugh by Walter Hogan. (2005)  STP&S is included in a section on Employers and Landlords. Part of what Michael is doing with Walt and Nora is working for their environmental journal. Hogan says the office politics there are "fierce and often funny."

It's nice to be talked about. These books appear to be out-of-print, so it's nice to have been talked about once.

Now, seriously, how many of you are going to go right out and ego-surf to see if you can find something juicy about yourselves?

Saving The Planet & Stuff Is Going To Norway

I am very happy to be able to announce that Gyldendal Undervisning (Education) (scroll down at the linked site) has purchased the rights to an excerpt from Saving the Planet & Stuff for a new textbook for Norwegian students studying English. Gyldendal Undervisning (Education) is the "leading Norwegian publisher of teaching material for all levels from preschool to upper-secondary school. "Hurray, Norway!

The request for rights from Gyldendal came out of the blue for a book that's ink- and-paper edition has been out of print for a while now. A family member once referred to my books to which I hold the rights as properties to be managed. I can republish, I can sell rights, etc.. The Gyldendal request was an opportunity to do some managing.

Managing feels good.


Oh, by the way, tomorrow the Kindle edition of Saving the Planet & Stuff will be free, for the first of three days. Those Norwegian kids will be reading part of Chapter 11. You Kindle readers can, too.