But what I find kind of funny now–and what shows me, again (as if I had any doubt!) that I’m a writer to my core, is that I told the paramedics I was a writer, and in the ambulance I brought out the ARC of SCARS and showed one paramedic who’d been excited to meet an author and said he’d look for my book. And for the rest of the ambulance ride, I answered writing and technique questions for the other paramedic about his own writing. By that time I was feleing like myself, and the questions also helped me not focus so much on what was happening and so not be as afraid as I might have been, so that worked out well. (laughing)

I think it’s likely that I fainted from working too hard, and also from a recent very stressful event. I’m still waiting on some tests to see. But I think I’m in good health. I just have to balance work and play a bit better.

I’m laughing at myself a bit, but also enjoying it too. It is SUCH a wonderful thing to have a book I care so much about coming out!

YA Books Central just named my blog & site the Best of the Best! And Kimberly Pauley, YA author and founder of YA Books Central, wrote such a lovely write up about my blog and site, too! It felt SO good to read. I’m honored and delighted.

It’s a lovely thing to be respected by your peers! Thank you, Kimberly!

YABC’s Best of the Best

What do you think? Do you like it?

Thanks to @JillCorcoran for the link.

Unbridled Books P.S.A. from Unbridled Books on Vimeo.

I think Paterson’s article is wise, reassuring, and comforting to those of us who love books.

What do you think?

RED HOT INTERNET PUBLICITY: An Insider’s Guide to Promoting Your Book on the Internet

by Penny C. Sansevieri
Cosimo Books; Revised edition (Sept 2009)
ISBN-10: 1605207241, ISBN-13: 978-1605207247

Source: Author-donated copy for an unbiased review.

My rating: 5 out of 5 stars

Hundreds of thousands of books are published each year. To get readers to pick up your book, you have to help it stand out. More and more, book promotion is becoming an important part of the writer’s job. I have been reading about and researching author methods of book promotion for at least ten years–as long as I’ve been seriously trying to get published–because I don’t want my books to just disappear off the shelves after they’re published.

So I read Penny C. Sansevieri’s RED HOT INTERNET PUBLICITY: An Insider’s Guide to Promoting Your Book on the Internet with interest. Authors often have limited incomes, and their book promotion budgets can be pretty small. But there is a lot that authors can do online, mostly for free, to help promote their books. Sansevieri covers–in clear, easy-to-understand language and steps–extensive ways that authors can promote their books online, from the basic but very important step of having an author website, and actually getting your website out there (what’s the point of having a website if no one visits it?), to email, blogs, podcasting, social networking (including Twitter), virtual book events, and more.

I love Sansevieri’s conversational tone, her clear way of explaining things so that nothing sounds too hard, and her extensive knowledge about tools that can help authors promote their books. I think online book promotion is very important in getting your book out there.

If you don’t know anything about websites or blogging or social networking, Sansevieri will help guide you through the process. But even if you know tons about it, you’re sure to find more that you didn’t know about and that you’ll find useful. I did. There is a wealth of truly useful information here, and Sansevieri goes into depth and explores layers that other books miss out on. This book is worth the purchase price and more!

I highly recommend this book to every author and book publicist.

It seems that pirated copies are sometimes created by scanning the actual hardcopy of the book, then creating an ebook from the scanned text.

Some people think that reading a pirated ebook is just like taking a book out of the library. Other people believe that it is outright stealing.

The anonymous ebook pirater in this article on ebook piracy makes some interesting points, such as that not everyone who downloads the book would have bought the book. But does that give them the right to download it–illegally–for free?

Sure, not everyone who downloaded the pirated ebook would have bought the actual ebook or book. But some of them would. And that means lost sales for the author. Authors who work hard to produce powerful, creative books with soul.

If ebook piracy hurts authors, how can it be okay? Most authors barely make enough to live on (or just don’t) as it is. I think we need creative people. We need books, art that moves us. And to do that, we need to support writers. (And yes, I’m one of them.) So, if you want to read a book and don’t have the money, go to the library. Otherwise–please buy the book!

What do you think?

Updated:
Check out YA author Laurie Halse Anderson’s great post on this issue!

Also read Sara Zarr’s response! (scroll to the bottom of the post to read.)