Today, I'm celebrating all of the help I received during the official release of Black Flowers, White Lies last week. Thank you to everyone who shared the news on social media and on their blogs. Here are some of the bloggers who helped -- consider paying them a visit! 

October is one of my favorite months. Here are some memes in honor of Halloween:

Celebrate the Small Things is a blog hop hosted by Lexa Cain, L.G. Keltner, and Tonja Drecker. ​You can link to other participating bloggers here:
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My new psychological thriller, Black Flowers, White Lies, is now out in the world! The official book birthday is October 4th, but the novel has made its arrival a little early. 

As my writer friends know, critique groups are a key part of the creative process. One thing I'm celebrating this week is my fellow critiquers, and that my critique partner, C. Lee McKenzie, included this lovely write-up in her newsletter. 

"Yvonne and I have shared writing since the 90s. We're in a group called The Garret, and it has some excellent writers with keen eyes that let nothing slip by. We came together because of a wonderful person named L. K. Madigan. Her first book, Flash Burnout, won the Morris Award. Unfortunately, she died far too young and way before her writing career could take off. We've kept the group together because she chose well. We're all compatible. We all strive to do our best and learn to be better. Yvonne is certainly one who does better with everything she writes. Pandemic won the Crystal Kite Award last year, and you're going to love this newest one."

Thank you so much, Lee!

​In other book news, BuzzFeed included Black Flowers, White Lies on their YA "must read" fall list, saying "This suspenseful psychological thriller definitely won't disappoint." Hooray!

What books are on your fall reading list?

Celebrate the Small Things is a blog hop hosted by Lexa Cain, L.G. Keltner, and Tonja Drecker. ​You can link to other participating bloggers here:
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September is National Preparedness Month to encourage people to be prepared for emergency situations.  Sky Pony Press recently featured my guest post on their blog,  Disaster Preparedness: 5 Lessons Learned. Leave me a comment there! Do you feel prepared for a hurricane or an even larger disaster? 

I'm celebrating the small things this week with some favorite quotes.

I'm always collecting inspirational quotes, so feel free to share your favorites in the comments. 

Celebrate the Small Things is a blog hop hosted by Lexa Cain, L.G. Keltner, and Tonja Drecker. 

Planning for a book promotion can feel like an overwhelming task. What can you do to prepare and when? Since my second young adult novel, Black Flowers, White Lies, is being published October 4th, I’ve been reviewing the to-do lists I made when Pandemic launched. I thought I'd share some of my book marketing ideas, so here's part one. Obviously, experiences can vary by publisher or if you are self-publishing, but feel free to use these tips as a general guide.

1. If you are being traditionally published, many of your author deadlines will key off the publication date and your publishing house’s internal schedule. Confirm your pub date and ask about what deadlines (besides editorial) you need to be aware of. When is your author photo due? Publishers may have a standard “Author Questionnaire” they use to help with publicity. When is that due? Leave time to complete this thoroughly.
2. Author photos: My advice is to make sure you *really* like the way this comes out. If you have it done professionally, leave time for a reshoot. I hated my first round of author photos. A few weeks later, we tried again outside with better results. These two articles offer more information: Your Author Photo: How to Project the Right Image and Demonstrate Your Author Brand with a Professional Headshot.
3. Write a biography that you can use on your jacket cover and online. Some people have different versions--short, long, funny, serious.
4. Consider setting up a Goodreads Author account. Even if you decide not to use Goodreads, having an author account provides a presence for readers and allows you to run giveaways if you choose. Include your bio and your author photo. If you blog, you can link your blog so that the posts automatically show up on your Goodreads Author page, which is another way to reach readers. Library Thing and Booklikes are also options to reach book-loving folks (although I haven't managed to keep up with my presence there).
5. Set up an Amazon Author page. This is another place to include your bio and author photo. You can also link your blog and Twitter account so that recent blog posts and Tweets show up on your author page.
6. If you are active on social media, update your bio and author photo on the various platforms. The bios don’t have to be identical (given word length restrictions, etc) but should be consistent enough that readers recognize you. You can mention your book as “Available (date) from (publisher).” Just remember to go back and change it when the book launches!
7. Most email programs allow you to create a signature line--this is another place to mention your book and the publication date.
8. If you are not active on social media, now is a good time to experiment with various platforms and build an audience on the platforms you enjoy. Try to use a consistent user name (preferably your author name) across different types of social media. 
9. Do you have a website? This is a big topic in and of itself, so I’ll refer you to Jane Friedman’s article, The Basic Components of an Author Website, to start. I use my author name as my URL, YvonneVentresca.com. You can also consider buying the domain name for your book's title. For Pandemic, I have a basic page that connects back to my main site.
10. Decide if you would like to do an online book tour, and if you will coordinate it yourself or hire someone to do it for you. Jen Halligan PR set up my BFWL blog tour, which is going on now and features a giveaway--a $25 Amazon gift card, a $25 Sephora gift card, a signed copy of BFWL, and the chalkboard I used to display the prizes. (Scroll down on the blog tour page to access the giveaway.) 

Those are the first ten tips for marketing your book. There are more to come!

Stephanie Faris is celebrating the release of two new novels, and today she's sharing some of the writing wisdom she's gained through the years. To celebrate her books, she's also offering a giveaway. (See below.)

“Youth is wasted on the young.” I heard that saying for the first time in It’s a Wonderful Life. I was young at the time and even then, I thought how nice it would be to have all the wisdom old people have as a teen. In your younger years, you have your entire life ahead of you. You make choices that will determine the rest of your life without the experience you need to make those decisions.

When I decided to write my first novel, I was in my early 20s. I’d been through journalism school, interned at a TV station, and worked a year or two in public relations. I knew fully well that I lacked the experience necessary to write a best-selling novel, but I still had those stars in my eyes. What if I was one of those wunderkind stories that make big news?

I wrote three young adult novels before I even began researching what to do with a book once you’ve written it. I knew you sent it to a publisher, but what publisher? How did you know the address and editor name? There was no such thing as Google back then, so I hit the “how to write” section of my bookstore and started reading everything I could find.

I’ll never forget reading the words that there was not currently a market for young adult novels. I read up on book packagers, which was the only real option for young adult novelists in the 90s. I had no idea so many popular young adult series were ghostwritten, but I dove in. I auditioned to write for Sweet Valley High TWICE and failed both times. I quickly decided I simply couldn’t write young adult, since the market was pretty much nonexistent in the 90s.

So I gravitated toward romance. And that was where I made another big mistake. I wrote my first manuscript and, sure it was brilliant, I put it in the mail to an editor. Luckily she simply sent a form rejection--one of many I’d received over the years. It was only THEN that I decided to seek out a writer’s group. And then the real learning began.

If I could speak to my twenty-something self, I would tell her to read and research before writing that first manuscript. No writing is wasted--it’s all practice that helps us get better. I just would have gotten much further, much faster, had I known more about the market before I wrote “The End” on my first book.
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If you’re a pre-published author, that would be my biggest advice. Read, meet other writers, and grow. Consider your career and build your support system before you write 100,000 words, only to realize you’ve done all of that work for nothing. But I can say that even knowing that now, I don’t regret all of that hard work, especially since Harry Potter came along and changed everything. I’ve now come full circle. I started my career writing for young readers and that’s what I’m doing now. And I’ve loved every minute of it!

When Piper Morgan has to move to a new town, she is sad to leave behind her friends, but excited for a new adventure. She is determined to have fun, be brave and find new friends.
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In Piper Morgan Joins the Circus, Piper learns her mom’s new job will be with the Big Top Circus. She can’t wait to learn all about life under the big top, see all the cool animals, and meet the Little Explorers, the other kids who travel with the show. She’s even more excited to learn that she gets to be a part of the Little Explorers and help them end each show with a routine to get the audience on their feet and dancing along!

In Piper Morgan in Charge, Piper’s mom takes a job in the local elementary school principal’s office. Piper is excited for a new school and new friends--and is thrilled when she is made an “office helper.” But there is one girl who seems determined to prove she is a better helper--and she just so happens to be the principal’s daughter. Can Piper figure out how to handle being the new girl in town once more?

​Stephanie Faris knew she wanted to be an author from a very young age. In fact, her mother often told her to stop reading so much and go outside and play with the other kids. After graduating from Middle Tennessee State University with a Bachelor of Science in broadcast journalism, she somehow found herself working in information technology. But she never stopped writing.
 
Stephanie is the Simon & Schuster author of 30 Days of No Gossip and 25 Roses. When she isn’t crafting fiction, she writes for a variety of online websites on the topics of business, technology, and her favorite subject of all--fashion. She lives in Nashville with her husband, a sales executive. ​
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LINKS: Website |  Blog | Facebook | Twitter | Instagram | Amazon
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Congratulations to author Julie Flanders on her book, Baby Moo's Great Escape, which comes out tomorrow from Native Ink Press.

About the book:
Baby Moo has a dream. He wants to travel the world and sing on the stage of the Sydney Opera House! While he loves his home at Sunrise Sanctuary, it hasn’t been the same since a piglet named Nathan showed up and stole all the attention away from Moo. Jealous of the new baby, Moo decides now is the time to make his escape and pursue his dream.
But the world outside the sanctuary gates is not quite the fun and exciting place Moo imagined, and he quickly finds himself in big trouble. Moo's friends Missy the dog and Ruthie the cat rush to help him, and land in some trouble of their own.
Lost and frightened, Moo and his friends must rely on each other to find their way back home. Will they ever see Sunrise again?

Visit Julie Flanders' web page, or add Baby Moo to Goodreads. Julie will donate $1 to Sunrise Sanctuary, home to Baby Moo and numerous other rescued animals, for each copy sold in September. 

A few small things to celebrate this week:

My 13-year old Westie received a clean bill of health from the vet. Rocky's in pretty good shape for his age!

My publisher, Sky Pony Press, designed bookmarks for Black Flowers, White Lies. They came back from the printer and I'm thrilled with how they came out! Email me with your address if you'd like one. 

Let's celebrate blog hops like this one, hosted by Lexa Cain, L.G. Keltner, and Tonja Drecker. What little things have made you happy this week?

Happy book birthday to Scavenger of Souls by Joshua David Bellin! This is the final stop on his blog tour. To celebrate, here's an excerpt from his exciting new YA novel:

Scavenger of Souls
© 2016 by Joshua David Bellin
 Chapter One
 
Aleka looked out over the land and frowned.
 
She stood at the crest of a low hill, squinting in the sunlight, the lines deepening around her mouth. I tried to read her expression, but as usual I failed.
 
This was Aleka, after all. Her close-cropped, graying blond hair framed a face she could turn into a mask at a moment’s notice. I’d been studying that face for the better part of a week, and I still had no idea what was going on behind her deep gray eyes.
 
Aleka. My mother. And as much a mystery to me as my own past.
 
After a long minute she spoke the name of her second-in-command. “Soon.”
 
Soon, a big guy with what might have been called a pot belly in a different time, came up beside her.
 
Aleka surveyed the unforgiving landscape, the lazy glint of river the only sign of movement in the waste. “How long?”
 
“A week. Maybe two if we’re extra careful.” He searched her face, but he must have come up empty too. “Why?”
 
She didn’t answer. The others had edged closer, listening. Any conversation that hinted at our dwindling supply of canned goods got their attention.
 
But after another long look over the barren land, she turned and strode back down the hill, refusing to meet any of our eyes. Everyone watched her go in silence, until she disappeared behind a clump of rock that stood at the base of the hill.
 
“Well, that was enlightening,” Wali said.
 
There were sixteen of us, the last survivors of Survival Colony 9. Five grown-ups counting Aleka, Soon, our camp healer Tyris, our craftswoman Nekane, and the old woman whose name no one knew, a wraith with wild white hair and a threadbare shift the same drab gray-brown as our uniforms. For the past week we’d been carrying her on a homemade stretcher, while she gripped her late husband’s collection container, a scuffed, bottle-green jar overflowing with scraps of hair and fingernails. She was amazingly heavy for a woman who’d dwindled to skin and bones.
 
The rest of us were teens and younger. Wali, with his shaggy hair and bronzed muscles, the oldest at seventeen. Nessa, the only teenage girl left in our colony since the death of Wali’s girlfriend Korah. Then there was Adem, a tall skinny awkward guy who communicated mostly with gulps and blushes. And the little ones, seven of them total, from ragged five-year-old Keely to knowing Zataias at age ten, with straggly-haired Bea in the middle.
 
And that left only me. Querry Genn. Fifteen years old last week, and thanks to an accident seven months ago, with no memory of the first fourteen.
 
Only my mother held the secret to who I was. But she wasn’t talking.
 
She hadn’t said a word to me the whole week. That entire time, we’d been creeping across a desert landscape of stripped stone and yawning crevices, the scars our ancestors had cut into the face of the land. For six of those seven days we’d been carrying the old woman. Aleka had driven us at a pace unusual even for her, with only short rests at the brutal height of day and long marches deep into the night. What she was hurrying for was another thing she wouldn’t talk to me about.
 
When we’d left our camp by the river, the old woman had babbled on about mountains somewhere to the north, licking her lips while she talked as if she could taste the snow-fresh air. She’d described green grass as high as our knees, wind rippling across it so it seemed to shimmer like something she called satin. She’d told us about yellow flowers and purple ones, trickling water so clear you could see brightly colored fish darting among the submerged stones. Clouds, she said, blanketed the mountain peaks, cool and white and soft, unlike the oppressive brown clouds that smothered the sun but almost never rained in the world we knew. At first I refused to believe her, told myself that half of what she said had to be exaggerated or misremembered or just plain crazy. But like everyone else, I’d fallen in love with the picture she painted. None of the rest of us had seen mountains, not even Tyris, who’d been two or three years old when the wars started. After a lifetime in the desert, the prospect of mountains rearing up out of nowhere, white and purple and capped with gold from the sun, was irresistible.
 
By now, though, it seemed even the old woman had forgotten where we were headed. She’d lapsed into silence, except for the times she stroked her collection jar, mumbling to it. She slept most of the time, sometimes beating her hands against her chest and mouthing words no one could make out. But even when her eyes opened, her glassy expression showed no awareness of anyone or anything around her.
 
We set her stretcher down in the best shade we could find and stood there, waiting for Aleka to return. Nessa held the old woman’s gnarled hand and sang softly, something the old woman had sung to her when she was a kid. I tried to organize a game with the little ones, but they just flopped in the dirt, limbs flung everywhere in postures of dramatic protest. I’d learned the hard way that you couldn’t get all seven of them to do anything at once, but occasionally, if you got one of them doing something that looked interesting enough, the others couldn’t stand to be left out.
 
Today, though, it wasn’t going to happen. A fossil hunt usually got them going, but this time even Keely wouldn’t bite when I told him an old, rotting buffalo skull was a T. rex.
 
“I don’t want to play that game, Querry,” he managed weakly, before putting his head down and closing his eyes. “It’s boring.”
 
Without warning, Aleka stalked back to the group. To my complete surprise, she took my arm and pulled me away from the others. I stumbled to keep up with her long strides. When we reached the rock where she’d hidden herself before, she stopped, so suddenly she just about spun me around.
 
“Querry,” she said. “We need to talk.”
 
“We’ve needed to talk all week,” I said under my breath.
 
She heard me. She always did. “That will have to wait. This is priority.”
 
“Something else always is, isn’t it?”
 
We faced off for a moment.
 
“I’m asking you to be patient,” she said. “And to believe I’m working on this.”
 
“Fine.” I wished for once I could meet her on even ground, but she had a good six inches on me, not to mention at least thirty years. “Let me know when you’ve got it all worked out.”
 
If I thought I’d get a reaction from that, I was wrong. Her face went into lockdown, and I was pretty sure the conversation was over. But then she asked, “What is it you want, Querry?”
 
“Answers,” I said. “The truth.”
 
“Answers aren’t always true,” she said. “And the truth isn’t always the answer you want.”
 
“Whatever that means.”
 
She glared at me, but kept her voice in check.
 
“It means what it means,” she said. “For one, it means that Soon’s estimate is wildly optimistic. I’ve checked our stores, and we have only a few days of food left. If we’re even stingier than usual. Which is a risk, since there’s nothing here to supplement our supplies.”
 
“Why would Soon. . . .”
 
She ignored me. “And it means the old woman is failing.  Earlier today she asked me if she could talk to Laman.”
 
“You’re kidding.”
 
“I wish I were.”
 
I stared at her, not knowing what to say. Laman Genn had led Survival Colony 9 for twenty-five years. But like so many of his followers, he’d died a little over a week ago, just before we set out on our journey.
 
Died. Been killed. I tried not to think about it, but I remembered the nest, the bloody wound in his side, the creature that had torn him open.
 
The Skaldi.
 
The ones we’d been fleeing all our lives. Monsters with the ability to consume and mimic human hosts. It was hard to believe anyone could forget them. Even though we’d destroyed their nest, I kept expecting them to reappear, like a second nightmare that catches you when you think you’re awake and drags you back under.
 
“Any more good news?” I said, trying to smile.
 
She didn’t return the offering. “The children are failing too,” she said. “Keely and Beatrice especially. If we run out of solid food. . . . We forget how fragile they are. And how many of the little ones simply don’t make it.”
 
I turned to look at the kids, lying on the ground like so many dusty garlands. “What can we do?”
 
She didn’t say anything for a long time, and her gaze left mine, drifting to the desert beyond. I thought she wasn’t going to answer when her voice came again, as far away as her eyes.
 
“I know this area,” she said. “Or at least, I did. None of the others has been here--Laman seems to have avoided it assiduously. But I was here, once upon a time. So long ago the details are fuzzy. Either that or it’s . . . changed.”
 
I glanced around us, as if I expected to see something I hadn’t noticed before. “Why didn’t you tell anyone?”
 
Her shoulders inched in the slightest of shrugs. “I didn’t want to give anyone false hope. They were excited enough about the mountains. And I wasn’t sure I could find it again. I’m still not sure.”
 
“What is it?”
 
She waved vaguely toward the northwest. “A sanctuary, or as much of one as we’re likely to find in this world. Not mountains, but a canyon. Shaded, protected from the worst damage of the wars. The river gains strength as it flows through, nourishing what grows on its banks. If we could only reach it, there might be a chance for the most vulnerable members of the colony.”
 
I studied her face, as still and remote as the surface of the moon. This time, though, I thought I caught something there.
 
“If this place is so great,” I said carefully, “why did Laman stay away from it?”
 
Her eyes snapped to mine, and for the briefest second I imagined I saw a glimmer of fear.

Querry Genn is running out of time. He may have saved his survival colony and defeated a nest of the monstrous Skaldi, but that doesn’t mean he has any more answers to who he is. And Querry’s mother, Aleka, isn’t talking. Instead, she’s leading the colony through a wasteland of unfamiliar territory. When they reach Aleka’s destination, everything Querry believed about his past is challenged.
 
In the middle of a burned-out desert, an entire compound of humans has survived with plenty of food and equipment. But the colonists find no welcome there, especially from Mercy, the granddaughter of the compound’s leader. Mercy is as tough a fighter as Querry has ever seen—and a girl as impetuous as he is careful. But the more Querry learns about Mercy and her colony, the more he uncovers the gruesome secrets that haunt Mercy’s past—and his own.
 
With threats mounting from the Skaldi and the other humans, Querry must grapple with the past and fight to save the future. In the thrilling conclusion to the story that began with Survival Colony 9, Joshua David Bellin narrates a tale of sacrifice, courage against overwhelming odds, and the fateful choices that define us for a lifetime.
 
Publisher: Margaret K. McElderry Books
Age: 12+
Release date: August 23, 2016
For order links, visit http://joshuadavidbellin.com/my-books/
Available in hardcover and e-book
 
Praise for Survival Colony 9:
 Tantalizing mysteries abound among the human and inhuman inhabitants of the bleak landscape, and the post-apocalyptic plot is satisfyingly full of twists.--Booklist
 
Joshua David Bellin brings serious game in a post-apocalyptic thriller that collides breathless action with devious world building and genuine heart. A terrific novel!--Jonathan Maberry, New York Times bestselling author of Rot & Ruin and V-Wars
 
Set in a gritty post-apocalyptic world, Survival Colony 9 is both an adventure and an exploration of what it means to be human.--Margaret Peterson Haddix, New York Times bestselling author of the Missing Series

Joshua David Bellin has been writing novels since he was eight years old (though the first few were admittedly very short). He taught college for twenty years, wrote a bunch of books for college students, then decided to return to fiction. Survival Colony 9 is his first novel, with the sequel, Scavenger of Souls, set to release on August 23, 2016. A third YA science fiction novel, the deep-space adventure/romance Freefall, will appear in 2017.
 
Josh loves to read, watch movies, and spend time in Nature with his kids. Oh, yeah, and he likes monsters. Really scary monsters.
 
To find out more about Josh and his books, visit him at the following:
 Website | Blog | Twitter |  Facebook | Goodreads