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IT IS TIME TO NOMINATE WRITING AND ILLUSTRATING www.kathy.temean.wordpress.com for the WRITER’S DIGEST’S 101 BEST WEBSITES FOR WRITERS!

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Happy Chanukah!

This Chanukah illustration was sent in by Amalia Hoffman. She was featured on Illustrator Saturday on September 18th, 2010.

Have you noticed that since so many people have bought e readers that publishers are looking for ways to grab more sales? 

It seems publishers are getting their authors to write novellas and short stories to help inspire people who have not read the author’s books to read a smaller story, at a low price, that ties into the novel.  So authors, doing all those character studies can help down the road.  You may be able to write a novella or a short story about a secondary character, which could pique a reader’s interest, let them see for a small amount of money how you write, and glean a flavor of your novel.  It is an excellent strategy and one that wasn’t there before e readers were introduced.  It also works to keep the reader who was been pulled into your novel series, ready and waiting to buy the next book.  Now an author can put out a novella that can be sold to your readers, while you are working on the next book in the series. Perfect!  It will help readers keep connected with the story and, help them remember the characters, while they are reading another novel series that is on their reading list.

I have found this to be a problem, especially if the author doesn’t think of the second book as a stand alone read. If it has been a year and a half between books, most people will have read 20 or 30 other books waiting for your next book to come out and by that time readers can get secondary characters confused. No one wants to go back and read the first one again before opening the new release, so this will help.  I have read a few novel series where the author did manage to tell a great story without having to read the first book.  One that comes to mind is Libba Bray’s Gemma Doyle Trilogy. I picked up the second book, because of the cover and I didn’t realize it was a series. Without having read the first, I was still able to enjoy that book and want to buy the first and third when finished.

Maryann Yin reported the following over a Galleycat the other week.

HarperCollins has created HarperTeen Impulse, an eBook imprint dedicated to publishing short stories and novellas for the young-adult genre.

The imprint will release one to four eBooks on the first Tuesday of every month, a day the publisher has dubbed “Impulse Tuesday.” The prices will range between $0.99 to $2.99. Follow this link to see the upcoming titles.

Here’s more from the release: “The first titles go on sale December 4, 2012, and they include Breathless by Sophie Jordan, a companion novella to her Firelight series; Stupid Perfect World, a future-set novella by bestselling author Scott Westerfeld…Cruisin’ by Sarah Mlynowski, a short story in which teens take a plunge on the high seas and discover that everything is not as it seems; and Radiant by Cynthia Hand, a novella set in the world of her bestselling Unearthly series…Forthcoming titles include The Prince: A Selection Novella by Kiera Cass, a companion to the New York Times bestseller The Selection; Tags, a one-act play by National Ambassador for Young People’s Literature Walter Dean Myers; and One Day More, a prequel novella to bestselling author Aprilynne Pike’s forthcoming novel, Life After Theft.”

Talk tomorrow,

Kathy