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USAopoly recently revived fan-favorite Harry Potter board games, Trivia Pursuit’s World of Harry Potter and Harry Potter CLUE. With multiple editions of well-loved Harry Potter games, it has been years since we’ve seen a brand new Harry Potter board game. With the resurgence of the Harry Potter franchise with the release of Harry Potter and the Cursed Child (both the opening of the play for preview and the script book reaching fans this weekend!!!) and the Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them films, USAopoly is releasing a new Harry Potter deck building game!

 

Harry Potter Hogwarts Battle–A Cooperative Deck-Building Game is a new interactive board game that allow players to take on Voldemort as one of their favorite member Dumbledore’s Army (choosing between Harry, Ron, Hermione, or Neville). Each player must complete seven tasks, each one more challenging, to protect Hogwarts from Voldemort and his Death Eaters. Each player starts with cards specific to their character, and then collects more cards–spells, skills, abilities and more. USAopoly describes the game:

The forces of evil are threatening to overrun HOGWARTS™ castle in this new cooperative game! It’s up to four students to ensure the safety of the school by defeating villains and consolidating their defenses. Players take on the role of a HOGWARTS student: Harry, Ron, Hermione or Neville, each with his or her own personal deck of cards. To secure the castle from the forces of evil the students must work together to build more powerful decks using iconic Wizarding World characters, spells, and items.  Defeat all the villains including He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named and win the game!

• Play together as your favorite heroes! Harry, Ron, Hermione or Neville
• Relive the excitement of the Wizarding World as you battle evil forces to defend HOGWARTS™
• Become a more powerful wizard as you learn new spells and acquire more allies and items
• Unlock new secrets and challenges with each successive game adventure

Fans can preview and play the game for the first time at GenCon in Indianapolis, August 4-7, 2016. A limited number of copies will be available for sale and fans will receive exclusive extra cards with purchase.

 

The game will be featured and available for purchase at GenCon (with exclusive extra cards!) August 4-7 , and is available for preorder on the Harry Potter Shop website. The game will be shipped out to customers September 15, 2016.

 

 

 

The Harry Potter Shop describes the game:

“Can you stop the forces of Evil from overtaking Hogwarts Castle? Take on the role of a HOGWARTS student; Harry, Ron, Hermione, and Neville to defeat the villains and ensure the safety of the school with this Hogwarts Battle Deck Building Game. Each character has his or her own personal deck of cards which is used to acquire resources. Add more cards to the deck to form iconic characters, spells, and magical items. But be weary of villains and the Dark Arts. Other cards allow you to regain health or to fight against villains, keeping them from gaining power. Only by working together will players be able to defeat all of the villains, securing the castle from the forces of evil. Includes game board, chip pieces, markers, health tracker boards, 245 cards, dice, card boxes, rules booklet, and sorting cards. Ages: 11+. 2-4 Players.”

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Excalibur Auctions will be selling off a Sirius Black ‘wanted’ style poster from the promotion of Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban film in just a few days time.

The promotional poster is one of less than ten of this kind known to be produced for the film, leading Excalibur Auctions to call this ‘one of the rarest posters ever produced to publicise the films’.

It is particularly unique due to its lenticular design, meaning that the images changes depending on which angle you view it from. Sirius Black (Gary Oldman) is in the shot if you view the poster from head on, and he disappears if you angle the poster slightly differently. Clearly this format was much more expensive to produce, leading to the remaining posters being coveted!

The poster is predicted to sell for £4,000-£6,000, and the auction will take place at The Village Hotel in Elstree, Watford on Saturday 28th May 2016 at 10:30am. Live bidding will occur in the room, with internet bidding available at The Sale Room and Invaluable.

The auction will also feature a Star Wars Episode II Yoda lenticular poster, a 1920s Sherlock Holmes window card and many James Bond themed items (including original Quad posters from Dr No and From Russia With Love.

More information can be found on the Excalibur Auctions website, here.

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नशा मुक्ति – एक पहल आए थे हंसते खेलते मयखाने में “फिराक” जब पी चुके शराब तो संजीदा हो गए बिहार, महिलाएं और शराब बंदी – ड्राई डे बिहार में बहार हो .. यकीनन जो शराब को अपना सब कुछ मानते हैं उसके लिए दुख की घडी होगी क्योकि बिहार मे ततकाल प्रभाव से शराब […]

The post बिहार, महिलाएं और शराब बंदी – ड्राई डे appeared first on Monica Gupta.

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The wonderfully worn down and hand-decorated chair J.K. Rowling sat in to write the first two Harry Potter books will be auctioned in New York next month.

Rowling originally donated the chair in a 2002 auction called ‘Chair-ish a Child’. The money for which went to the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, raising £15,000 ($23,475), later being sold on eBay for £19,555 ($29,117) in 2009.

The auction will be held by Heritage Auctions at their 445 Park Avenue gallery, and will open at $45,000 on March 18th, with the live auction itself taking place on April 6th.

“You may not / find me pretty ~ / but don’t judge / on what you see,” Rowling wrote across its wooden slats and sides. “I wrote / Harry Potter / while sitting / on this chair.”

The chair also features Rowling’s signature and multiple lightning ‘scars’.

The Guardian reports:

“For me, what’s important about the chair is that [Rowling] basically created a unique artwork that’s self-reflexive. It’s all about her creation,” said James Gannon, director of rare books at Heritage Auctions. “There’s not that much in Harry Potter world that’s very valuable or very rare because the books were so big so quickly, so after the first couple of books, the first editions were quite large, and I think, by the end, they were printing like 8m or 10m copies of the first edition.”

The chair comes with a typed and signed letter, “Dear new-owner-of-my-chair,” composed by Rowling before the 2002 auction. Written on “Owl Post” stationery, Rowling briefly relates the history of the chair before adding this parting line: “My nostalgic side is quite sad to see it go, but my back isn’t.”

Fancy placing a bid? Gannon suspects the chair will sell for ‘at least $75,000′, and could easily best $100,000, so we’d best get saving!

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Federico Salvan of the Italian comics news site Manga Forever dropped me a line to alert me to a retailer survey on the state of Italian comics . It’s in Italian, of course, but they surveyed 31 local comics shops out of about 180 in Italy, so it’s a somewhat statistically significant survey. I’ve asked […]

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In the run up to the April 7th opening of the Wizarding World of Harry Potter at Universal Studios Hollywood, the theme park is planning ahead to try to manage operations around this time.

Their new pricing policy will reflect popular demand, so will charge higher for this period of massive fluctuations in visitors (attendance jumped almost 30% in 2011 after the installation of a ride at the Wizarding World in Orlando, and after new installations in 2014 revenue was boosted by double digits).

LA Times reports:

“Under the pricing policy launched Tuesday by Universal Studios, tickets bought at the gate remain $95. But visitors who book tickets online for low-demand days — such as a weekday in February before Harry Potter opens — can save up to $20.

“During weekends and peak demand days during spring break or summer, parkgoers save only $5 by booking online.

“Universal wants people to plan ahead, which will help it manage its operations. Parkgoers can lock in prices by buying tickets online for dates through the end of September. People who procrastinate might see online prices fluctuate depending on last-minute demand.

” “Demand-based pricing not only helps maximize ticket revenues, but also provides a tool to shift price-conscious consumers to less-busy days,” said Michael Erstad, senior consumer analyst at New York-based ITG Investment Research. “Spreading visitations throughout the week may help improve the overall customer experience at the park.” “

Basically, if you’re wanting to be one of the first to see the Wizarding World in Hollywood, be prepared to pay their high prices. Alternatively, plan around these high-demand dates and go at a period expected to be less crowded!

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Diamond just released sales charts for December and it was a familiar story: Secret Wars and Brian K Vaughan. In a slight twist, it was The Private Eye, the collected edition of the web-only serial by Vaughan, Marcos Martin and Muntsa Vicente that led GNs and not Saga but, you can the picture.

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Brandon and Alex talk about the best comics and comics creators of 2015!

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What does DC need to do to change its fortunes in the year to come?

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Every Wednesday, I talk about comics with Brandon Montclare, writer of the hit Image series Rocket Girl and co-writer of Marvel’s Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur series. We gab about what we’re reading now, what books we consider classics (Brandon loves Dark Knight Strikes Again…), and the hottest gossip of the industry.  Occasionally, the inimitable artist Amy Reeder (Rocket Girl, Batwoman) stops by.  Check out our full […]

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Last month, we reported that a signed Deluxe Edition of Jim Kay’s illustrated Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone, was to be auctioned for charity. Sotheby’s auctioned a Deluxe Edition of Philosopher’s Stone, signed by both J.K. Rowling and Jim Kay, to benefit Lumos.

The book was expected to be sold for 2,000-3,000 GBP. Not surprisingly, Harry Potter soared beyond expectations. The signed special edition book was able to raise 13,750 GBP for Lumos! We can only imagine how proud J.K. Rowling must be.

Sotheby’s gave details of the item up for auction, and the auction itself:

 

‘Hailed by the publishers as “the landmark publishing event of 2015″, the first full-colour illustrated edition of Rowling’s novel was released, as a trade edition, on 6 October. A sumptuous deluxe edition, in a larger format, was published on 5 November. THIS IS THE FIRST COPY OF THE DELUXE EDITION. It is accompanied by a letter of provenance from Publishing Director of Bloomsbury Children’s Books, that notes “this is the first advance copy of the Deluxe Edition. It was hand bound ahead of the binding of the rest of the print run and sent from our printer in Italy… ready for signing by J.K. Rowling and Jim Kay.”‘

 

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You can’t spell “horror comics” without EC—these finely drawn masterpieces of the macabre set a standard for illustrated chills that were so unsettling, they nearly got the whole comics industry shut down.

Fantagraphics has been reprinting the EC comics in handsome books devoted to various artists, including the late great Al Feldstein, Jack Davis, Wally Wood, Graham Ingels and John Severin. And they are on sale from Comixology until 11 pm tomorrow night.  Each book is only $10.99, and pound for pound this could be the best back for your horror buck possible.

You may have seen the stories excerpted here there and everywhere, but if you’ve never experienced these tales in quantity, this is a fine jumping on point. And shhhhhh, Harvey Kurtzman’s great war comics are also on sale.

 

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If you need a steamy read for the weekend, DESIRED is on sale! Grab it now!

Readers of Fifty Shades of Grey are sure to love Desired, USA Today bestselling author Stacey Kennedy’s latest seductive, electrifying novel of Club Sin, where fantasy becomes reality.

Kyler Morgan, Master at the legendary Club Sin in Las Vegas, knows how to give women what they want—too well. He hasn’t had a real challenge in a long time. Then Ella Snow enters his life. Beautiful, inhibited, and innocent in the ways of submission and domination, Ella is the new blood he’s been lusting after. Soon, the thrill of training her to embrace his world brings forth desires Kyler cannot control.

After ending an abusive relationship, Ella makes a promise to herself to start living life to the fullest. It’s one of the reasons she seeks out Club Sin. Here, Kyler’s every touch is a lesson in liberation, stirring passions that have no bounds. But as she falls under Kyler’s command, Ella discovers that some secrets are so dark they must come to light. Submission alone may not be enough to save her, leaving her Master with only one question: How can he help Ella heal while unlocking the deep pleasures she craves?





a Rafflecopter giveaway


Stacey Kennedy is the USA Today bestselling author of the Club Sin series. Growing up, Stacey’s mind wandered the path less traveled, and that path most often led to love. She has always broken rules and she continues to feed off emotion—always staying true to her heart. Those traits are now the bones of her stories. She lives in southwestern Ontario with her husband, who puts any of the heroes in her books to shame, and their two young children. If she’s not on Mom duty or plugging away at a new story, you’ll find Stacey camping in the summer, hibernating in the winter, and obsessing over Penny Dreadful, Game of Thrones, and Sons of Anarchy.

The post Spotlight and Giveaway: DESIRED by Stacey Kennedy appeared first on Manga Maniac Cafe.

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I have just had the second book of my second series for children published. It feels like a bit of a milestone.


It's called Dragon Amber, and it's part of a multiple worlds adventure trilogy that started with Deep Amber last March. The cover's lovely, as all of them have been (thanks to David Wyatt), and there's nothing quite like holding the physical copy of your new book in your hands (or even clutching it to yourself as you do a little dance...!!) But it being the second book of the second series made me stop and think. It's my sixth book to be published. While I'm far from being 'established' (whatever that means), it certainly means I'm no longer a total newbie.

Which feels ever so slightly weird, as I still think of myself as a novice, pretending to be an author.

This business of feeling as if you're pretending seems to be something quite a few children's authors suffer from. (It may be related to the fact that very few of us are actually making enough money to feel writing is a 'proper' job, but that's another story...)

Anyway, I thought I'd take this opportunity - as someone who can no longer consider herself a novice - to try and sum up what I have learnt over the last three years of being part of the world of children's publishing.

1. First and foremost: other children's authors - whether well known, just published or still hopeful - are almost all lovely, warm, friendly and modest (and there are not many professions you'd be able to say that of.) Getting together with them, at festivals, conferences, retreats or book launches is a wonderfully affirming thing to do - and helps quite a lot with that feeling of being a bit of a fraud (I AM a children's writer - because I am accepted by all those other lovely children's writers!!)



2. I have almost no control over whether my books do well or not - so I should just relax and maybe cross my fingers occasionally! Being open to opportunities like school visit invites or festivals is fun and part of getting to know the publishing business - tweeting and face booking have been similarly good for getting to know other writer friends. And sometimes opportunities have come from that. But none of it has turned my book into a best-seller, and I don't think there's any magic way of doing so!



3. If I don't want to become mad and bitter, I have to try not to compare my book sales/prize nominations and festival invites with others - and must remember NOT to check the Amazon ranking of my books more than  once a week! There is a great deal of luck and randomness in this business and then there are the unfathomable whims of publishers, reviewers and the reading public (Fifty Shades of Grey, anyone?). Generally (but not always: see aforementioned Fifty Shades) it's Very Good Books that get attention and prizes - equally there are thousands of Very Good Books that don't, and which category mine end up in (even  if they were to be considered Very Good!) is mostly down to serendipity.

Oh - and marketing spend.

Which brings me to no. 4.

4. Publishers put serious time, energy and money behind only a select few of the books they publish. These books are plastered all over websites, magazines, 'hot new trends' lists, twitter, reviews, front window billing at Waterstones and W.H. Smiths.


In the absence of this push, you are lucky if your book ends up in a select few Waterstones branches, or garners an online review from a kind blogger. This is no reflection on the quality of your book - I've met too many other brilliant people with fabulous books who can't get them noticed to think it's entirely a meritocracy. Publishers are scrabbling to find the next Wimpy Kid or Hunger Games, and even they don't know what will trigger that response. Often it's something they have all roundly rejected as too dire to waste ink on (cough, Fifty Shades...) So they put money behind a few, and publish a hundred others in a kind of scattergun approach, in case any of them builds a following by chance. I've learned to treat having a book out as a bit like having bought a lottery ticket - whether it does well or not is as random as whether I win the jackpot or a £10 prize for three numbers.


5. So, finally, after a few years of trying to find the 'magic key' to making a go of this publishing lark, I've learned to just enjoy the moment: to hold my new book in my hands, and do a little jig at having pulled it off one more time. In the book I'm currently reading (The Blade Itself, by Joe Abercrombie) one of the characters is a Northman, hard, battle-scarred, always getting into more impossible fights. At the end of each one, he repeats, as a kind of mantra: 'Still alive, still alive...' I think I feel a bit like that about writing - 'Still there, still there...'


C.J. Busby writes funny fantasy adventures for ages 7 upwards. Her first book, Frogspell, was a Richard and Judy Children's Book Cub choice for 2012. The series is published in Canada by Scholastic and the UK by Templar and has been translated into German and Turkish. Deep Amber, the first of a new trilogy, was published in March 2014. The second instalment, Dragon Amber, came out on 1st September.



"A rift-hopping romp with great charm, wit and pace" Frances Hardinge.

Nominated for the Stockton Book Award 2015.

www. cjbusby.co.uk

@ceciliabusby

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Emily Romero is the vice president of marketing for the Penguin Young Readers Group, a division of Penguin Random House, where she has spent over fourteen years working on a wide range of children's literature, from picture books to young adult novels.

Children's books are permeating entertainment, TV, movies, etc. Emily thinks Stephen Colbert said it best.

"A young adult novel is a regular novel that people actually read."
-Stephen Colbert

Most book buyers actively discover books by asking friends, browsing in bookstores, and reading reviews online. This is the seed of what the marketing team does; they take word-of-mouth and build it.

Building support with booksellers is key.

Penguin still prints catalogs, they create F&Gs/ARCs, as well as create a catalog of their backlog. They do trade advertising, as well as special mailings.

Penguin attends Book Expo America (BEA), which give them a chance to put their best foot forward. "We represent our books and get support." Face-to-face opportunities where they as the publisher get to represent their books.

On getting their books notice: People have to find your book. Penguin works with their sales reps and get promotions (displays, posters, etc.) so that the book is noticed.

The teacher and librarian market is powerful because it gets books in the hands of readers. Penguin is sure to get their books on state list. They also attend conferences that teachers and librarians attend (like ALA), as well as provide teachers with material they need to use their books in the classroom.

Reaching consumers is now heavily done through social and digital means. They've invested in all the platforms to be certain they have a reach and build the many communities who might buy their books.

Advertising is done through print, digital/search, broadcast.

Sale. Marketing. Publicity. They all work together.

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There’s a great warehouse sale going on at AdHouse Books:

It’s been a few years since we had a SALE, so I thought we’d make some AdSelections available again. Also, we have a fair amount of inventory coming to the warehouse this season, so we need to make room. Any order of $40 or more will get free shipping via a paypal refund. Just remind me when you place your order. (Also, feel free to add any non-sale items from our regular catalog to your order. We’d love to put them on sale, too, but we don’t have the inventory to do so.)

AdHouse specializes in books that are attractive and daring but accessible as well. A few suggestions/perennials:

Noirness
by Boulet.
$3.50
Amazing 24-hour comic by one of the boldest cartoonists working.

Pope Hats #3
by Ethan Rilly.
$3.50
MULTIPLE award winning comic that picks up where the great comcis of the 90s like Optic Nerve and Love and Rockets let off.

Centifolia Volume 1
by Stuart Immonen.
$10
Hello? Stuart Immonen. There’s a second volume as well.

Driven by Lemons
by Joshua Cotter.
$10
Like all of Cotters books, this is difficult but ultimately rewarding.

Duncan the Wonder Dog
by Adam Hines.
$12.50
Winner of the LA Times Graphic Novel Prize. The first in a planned 9-volume tale, this is anough to stand by itself exploring a world where animals can talk.

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Here are some inexpensive reads for your Saturday night.  If the weather in your area is like mine, you are probably going to want to stay in this evening.  We are expecting thunderstorms to roll through, and it has been cloudy and overcast all day long.

The Rise of Renegade X rocks, and I highly recommend it, even though at $3.99 it’s the priciest book listed below.  The rest are $1.99.

The Rise of Renegade X (Renegade X, Book 1)

Sixteen-year-old Damien Locke has a plan: major in messing with people at the local supervillain university and become a professional evil genius, just like his supervillain mom. But when he discovers the shameful secret she’s been hiding all these years, that the one-night stand that spawned him was actually with a superhero, everything gets messed up. His father’s too moral for his own good, so when he finds out Damien exists, he actually wants him to come live with him and his goody-goody superhero family. Damien gets shipped off to stay with them in their suburban hellhole, and he has only six weeks to prove he’s not a hero in any way, or else he’s stuck living with them for the rest of his life, or until he turns eighteen, whichever comes first.
To get out of this mess, Damien has to survive his dad’s "flying lessons" that involve throwing him off the tallest building in the city–despite his nearly debilitating fear of heights–thwarting the eccentric teen scientist who insists she’s his sidekick, and keeping his supervillain girlfriend from finding out the truth. But when Damien uncovers a dastardly plot to turn all the superheroes into mindless zombie slaves, a plan hatched by his own mom, he discovers he cares about his new family more than he thought. Now he has to choose: go back to his life of villainy and let his family become zombies, or stand up to his mom and become a real hero.

I just saw a listing for the sequel  The Trials of Renegade X (Renegade X, Book 2), which released last month. I will be grabbing it as soon as I have some room in my reading schedule.

Under the Empyrean Sky (The Heartland Trilogy)

Fear the Corn.

Corn is king in the Heartland, and Cael McAvoy has had enough of it. It’s the only crop the Empyrean government allows the people of the Heartland to grow—and the genetically modified strain is so aggressive that it takes everything the Heartlanders have just to control it. As captain of the Big Sky Scavengers, Cael and his crew sail their rickety ship over the corn day after day, scavenging for valuables. But Cael’s tired of surviving life on the ground while the Empyrean elite drift by above in their extravagant sky flotillas. He’s sick of the mayor’s son besting Cael’s crew in the scavenging game. And he’s worried about losing Gwennie—his first mate and the love of his life—forever when their government-chosen spouses are revealed. But most of all, Cael is angry—angry that their lot in life will never get better and that his father doesn’t seem upset about any of it. When Cael and his crew discover a secret, illegal garden, he knows it’s time to make his own luck…even if it means bringing down the wrath of the Empyrean elite and changing life in the Heartland forever.

 

Variant

Benson Fisher thought that a scholarship to Maxfield Academy would be the ticket out of his dead-end life.

He was wrong.

Now he’s trapped in a school that’s surrounded by a razor-wire fence. A school where video cameras monitor his every move. Where there are no adults. Where the kids have split into groups in order to survive.

Where breaking the rules equals death.

But when Benson stumbles upon the school’s real secret, he realizes that playing by the rules could spell a fate worse than death, and that escape—his only real hope for survival—may be impossible.

Die for Me (Revenants)

My life had always been blissfully, wonderfully normal. But it only took one moment to change everything.

Suddenly, my sister, Georgia, and I were orphans. We put our lives into storage and moved to Paris to live with my grandparents. And I knew my shattered heart, my shattered life, would never feel normal again. Then I met Vincent.

Mysterious, sexy, and unnervingly charming, Vincent Delacroix appeared out of nowhere and swept me off my feet. Just like that, I was in danger of losing my heart all over again. But I was ready to let it happen.

Of course, nothing is ever that easy. Because Vincent is no normal human. He has a terrifying destiny, one that puts his life at risk every day. He also has enemies . . . immortal, murderous enemies who are determined to destroy him and all of his kind.

While I’m fighting to piece together the remnants of my life, can I risk putting my heart—as well as my life and my family’s—in jeopardy for a chance at love?

The Cloak Society

The first in a thrilling, action-packed middle grade trilogy, which School Library Journal declared "will likely find the same wide appeal as Rick Riordan’s Percy Jackson books.

The Cloak Society: An elite organization of supervillains graced with extraordinary powers. Ten years ago the Cloak Society was defeated by Sterling City’s superheroes, the Rangers of Justice, and vanished without a trace. But the villains have been waiting for the perfect moment to resurface. . . .

Twelve-year-old Alex Knight is a dedicated junior member of Cloak who has spent years mastering his telekinetic superpowers and preparing for the day when Cloak will rise to power again. Cloak is everything he believes in.

But during his debut mission, Alex does the unthinkable: He saves the life of a Junior Ranger of Justice. Even worse . . . she becomes his friend. And the more time he spends with her, the more Alex wonders what, exactly, he’s been fighting for.

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If there are any Covet titles you have your eye on, today is the day to stock up!  All Covet titles are 99 cents, today only!  Here are the deets -

 

Announcing the Covet One Day Sale!!

All of our Covet books are on sale TODAY ONLY for just $0.99 each. That means you can grab all of these great stories for less than $15!!

To celebrate, our fabulous Covet Authors have put together a scavenger hunt with a Kindle Fire as the prize. Hop on over to the event page to join in the fun!!

Covets have all the sexiness, emotion, and happily ever after that readers have come to expect and love from Entangled. They are firmly grounded in the contemporary world, but each novel brings in supernatural twists, breaking the contemporary and paranormal rules, alike. To find out more about our titles, chat with authors, participate in special events, and to find out what books you’ll be coveting next, visit the Entangled website, follow us on Twitter, like our Facebook page, and join our Book Club!!

 

Check out the books here -  Covet books at Amazon

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Simba: Father?!
Mufasa’s ghost: Simba, you have forgotten me.
Simba: No! How could I?
Mufasa’s ghost: You have forgotten who you are and so have forgotten me. Look inside yourself Simba. You are more than what you have become. You must take your place in the circle of life.
Simba: How can I go back!? I’m not who I used be!
Mufasa’s ghost: Remember who you are.
©Disney

My father was a salesman. I don’t think I realized this when I was a little kid growing up in the Midwest, but he definitely was one, even though his real occupation was working as a foreman for the Indiana State Highway Department. Back then, I’d spend time with my dad who was always looking to find ways to supplement his income to make an honest living. On weekends, Dad would drive me around in one of his old, beat-up cars or trucks he fixed-up himself. My family and I wouldn’t get too used to whatever vehicle he was driving at the moment, as it generally wouldn’t stay around long. The car merely served as a short-term means of transportation, and a roving billboard that advertised its own sale. While he didn’t have any long term relationship with the vehicle, he did have a certain attachment to it that came from having pride in his work, illustrated through his own mechanical abilities, which enabled him to fix things that were broken.

On any given Sunday, Dad and I would be out on a mission, looking for other “For Sale” signs on tractors, lawn mowers, cars, trucks, boats or trailers parked haphazardly in some stranger’s yard. We’d spend hours on end in search of whatever we could find that not only suited Dad’s liking but also matched his mechanical skills to buy, fix-up and sell again for a profit.

On any one of those days, my handsome dad would pull our car into some random driveway, climb out, smooth back his hair, hoist his pants and walk confidently up to knock on the stranger’s door as I stayed lingering, paces behind. “I’m here about the lawnmower you’ve got for sale out front,” he’d say, and then he’d follow the owner out to the yard to look the product over, while I stood quietly nearby.  I learned a thing or two about the basics of selling alongside my dad back then. After all, he was the master of the “wheel and deal,” and one of the best negotiators I’ve ever met. But while my father would sometimes negotiate the terms of the sale or offer a barter or trade when he didn’t have just enough money, the biggest lesson I learned back then is that my father, ultimately, didn’t mind paying a fair price for the right product.

Part of my father’s “business plan” included his self-reliance on his mechanical knowledge and his ability to fix-up something that was broken, while still keeping in mind its full potential or value. This is what differentiated him from other buyers and sellers in the local area. He understood the cost of parts and labor as well as what was involved in buying something that needed to be fixed for resale. He’d buy it, only if he felt he could breathe new life into it and if he was guaranteed a profit for it when he turned the product.

Looking back on all this now, I realize my father would have made an amazing entrepreneur/business owner. He had the right mindset and business acumen. He never compromised who he was or deviated from his goal of turning a profit to put food on the table or to simply provide for his family. He’d buy something. He’d fix it up. He’d resell it. And, then he’d start that process over and over again, honestly and fairly, always being mindful of his profit margins along the way. If he were still around today, and if he had an actual business, I know that he wouldn’t have wavered from his business approach much along the way. After all, he was in the business of making money.

While all of this may be nothing more than simple lessons I learned early on in life, they made a fairly significant impact on me, nonetheless. In this crazy, mixed-up economy we are experiencing today, it’s so easy to become desperate and to sell yourself, your qualifications and your talents short. If you devise the perfect formula for success, it should include differentiating yourself to create value, to make an impact and to stand out, while still minding those margins to make sure you get fairly compensated in the process of all of that hard work and steadfast determination. Rely more heavily on what you know: Buy a product, fix it up with your client’s brand and sell it–at a fair and honest price. Showcase your skills and knowledge, and this will differentiate you from the masses. “Remember who you are,” but most importantly, don’t compromise yourself along the way.

Tonia Allen Gould is President/CEO of  TAG! The Creative Source, a consumer promotions and marketing agency headquartered in California.

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2013 GradeReading.NET Summer Reading Lists

Keep your students reading all summer! The lists for 2nd, 3rd and 4th, include 10 recommended fiction titles and 10 recommended nonfiction titles. Printed double-sided, these one-page flyers are perfect to hand out to students, teachers, or parents. Great for PTA meetings, have on hand in the library, or to send home with students for the summer. FREE Pdf or infographic jpeg. See the Summer Lists Now!

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My bio officially reads like this: Author, blogger, and writing teacher Darcy Pattison (www.darcypattison.com) has been published in eight languages.

How do those foreign language books come about? It depends.

Your book contract included world rights. It all depends on your book contract. If you signed a contract that allowed world rights in all languages, then the publisher has the right to exercise those rights, or not. The easiest way for publishers to do this is to attend the Bologna (Italy) Children’s Book Fair, where publishers worldwide gather to make deals. You’ll find publishers who specialize in children’s books, or larger publishers with strong children’s imprints. It’s here that deals were made for my books in Swedish, Danish, Norwegian, Spanish, Taiwanese Chinese, German and Arabic for an Egyptian company. Here’s one report on the 2013 Children’s Book Fair. It will be held March 24-27 in 2014.

Generally, authors can’t do much to encourage their book’s translation rights sales; it’s up to the Rights people at the publisher, or to your agent.

Your agent kept world rights. Some agents reserve the foreign language rights and only negotiate contracts for “first North American English Language rights” or some variation of that. That means they can sell each language separately. Often agents will attend the Bologna Book Fair. But sometimes, they work with a foreign agent, a well-respected agency for a certain country. In this case, agents generally split royalties with the foreign agent, so your agent may ask for a larger percentage of these type sales.

Your book contract does not include world rights, but you want to publish in another country. These days, you do have options for publishing in other countries yourself. For indie publishers, or if you are traditionally published, but you want to self-publish in another language, you can use a variety of services. For example, Kindle sells to France, Germany, Italy, Portugal, Spain, Japan and India. Of course, this means you must have the book translated yourself and that may be daunting because it takes someone with specialized skill to translate a literary work. It’s not just a matter of straight translation, but of making the text sound as good in the second language as it does in English.

The biggest problem with a Kindle version is marketing. Once the book comes out (in English or the native language), how will you market it? Do you know enough about other country’s economies to know how to advertise and sell there? If you merely make it available, with no marketing, sales will dribble in and the project may not be worth your time invested.

IBooks, through itunesconnect.apple.com has one of the widest distribution systems. Using Apple’s free iBooksAuthor program, you can create an iBook version of your story, and upload it to 51 countries. Here’s my book, WISDOM, THE MIDWAY ALBATROSS on the IBookStore, which allows a download to your iPad. It is also available worldwide. Sounds cool to say that, doesn’t it? (Well–it’s only available in an English language translation, but hey, still sounds good.)

Just the logistics of translation and marketing in a foreign country scare off most authors. But–it is possible.

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2013 GradeReading.NET Summer Reading Lists

Keep your students reading all summer! The lists for 2nd, 3rd and 4th, include 10 recommended fiction titles and 10 recommended nonfiction titles. Printed double-sided, these one-page flyers are perfect to hand out to students, teachers, or parents. Great for PTA meetings, have on hand in the library, or to send home with students for the summer. FREE Pdf or infographic jpeg. See the Summer Lists Now!

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The Publisher’s Marketplace tracks sales of manuscripts in different categories–one of the many advantages of their paid services. These sales are self-reported, which may or may not skew the results. These are the top literary agents for picture books for the last year. I have provided links to the agency’s websites when available. Please consult each agency’s policies on submission and follow them carefully.
To see details of the sales, you must be a member of Publisher’s Marketplace.

1. Erin Murphy (Erin Murphy Literary Agency)
   19 deals in the last 12 months
2. Holly McGhee (Pippin Properties)
   15 deals in the last 12 months
3. Kelly Sonnack (Andrea Brown Literary Agency)
   12 deals in the last 12 months
4. Paul Rodeen (Rodeen Literary Management)
   11 deals in the last 12 months
5. Jennifer Laughran (Andrea Brown Literary Agency) 11 deals in the last 12 months
6. Teresa Kietlinski (Prospect Agency)
   11 deals in the last 12 months
7. Ammi-Joan Paquette (Erin Murphy Literary Agency) 10 deals in the last 12 months
8. Karen Grencik (Red Fox Literary)
   10 deals in the last 12 months
9. Brenda Bowen (Sanford J. Greenburger Associates)
   9 deals in the last 12 months
10. Isabel Atherton (Creative Authors)
    9 deals in the last 12 months
11. Jamie Weiss Chilton (Andrea Brown Literary Agency)8 deals in the last 12 months
12. Lori Nowicki (Painted Words)
    8 deals in the last 12 months
13. Emily van Beek (Folio Literary Management)
    7 deals in the last 12 months
14. Stephen Barr (Writers House)
    7 deals in the last 12 months
15. Elena Mechlin (Pippin Properties)
    6 deals in the last 12 months
16. Elizabeth Harding (Curtis Brown)
    6 deals in the last 12 months
17. Steven Malk (Writers House)
    5 deals in the last 12 months
18. Edward Necarsulmer IV (McIntosh & Otis)
    5 deals in the last 12 months
19. Anna Olswanger (Liza Dawson Associates)
    5 deals in the last 12 months
20. Jennifer Rofe (Andrea Brown Literary Agency)
    5 deals in the last 12 months

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Amazon.com Widgets

Beautiful Creatures is on sale today only!

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TweetSome early morning ramble to go with your coffee. While all around us creators are struggling with editors, artists are flying from one series to another every three issues, books are chopped and movies are cut – there is a little oasis in the middle of the DC desert. Batman. When the New 52 started [...]

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It’s a new month, which means more deals for your Kindle!  Here are some nicely priced eBooks to read this weekend.

Breadcrumbs by Anne Ursu is only $1.99!

A stunning modern-day fairy tale from acclaimed author Anne Ursu

Once upon a time, Hazel and Jack were best friends. But that was before he stopped talking to her and disappeared into a forest with a mysterious woman made of ice. Now it’s up to Hazel to go in after him. Inspired by Hans Christian Andersen’s "The Snow Queen," Breadcrumbs is a story of the struggle to hold on, and the things we leave behind.

 

Incarnate by Jodi Meadows is only $2.99!  This is a great read, and Asunder,  the next book in the series, just came out!

New soul

Ana is new. For thousands of years in Range, a million souls have been reincarnated over and over, keeping their memories and experiences from previous lifetimes. When Ana was born, another soul vanished, and no one knows why.

No soul

Even Ana’s own mother thinks she’s a nosoul, an omen of worse things to come, and has kept her away from society. To escape her seclusion and learn whether she’ll be reincarnated, Ana travels to the city of Heart, but its citizens are afraid of what her presence means. When dragons and sylph attack the city, is Ana to blame?

Heart

Sam believes Ana’s new soul is good and worthwhile. When he stands up for her, their relationship blooms. But can he love someone who may live only once, and will Ana’s enemies—human and creature alike—let them be together? Ana needs to uncover the mistake that gave her someone else’s life, but will her quest threaten the peace of Heart and destroy the promise of reincarnation for all?

Jodi Meadows expertly weaves soul-deep romance, fantasy, and danger into an extraordinary tale of new life.

Infinity by Sherrilyn Kenyon is $2.99

At fourteen, Nick Gautier thinks he knows everything about the world around him. Streetwise, tough and savvy, his quick sarcasm is the stuff of legends. . .until the night when his best friends try to kill him. Saved by a mysterious warrior who has more fighting skills than Chuck Norris, Nick is sucked into the realm of the Dark-Hunters: immortal vampire slayers who risk everything to save humanity.
Nick quickly learns that the human world is only a veil for a much larger and more dangerous one: a world where the captain of the football team is a werewolf and the girl he has a crush on goes out at night to stake the undead.
But before he can even learn the rules of this new world, his fellow students are turning into flesh eating zombies. And he’s next on the menu.

As if starting high school isn’t hard enough. . .now Nick has to hide his new friends from his mom, his chainsaw from the principal, and keep the zombies and the demon Simi from eating his brains, all without getting grounded or suspended. How in the world is he supposed to do that?

A Long Long Sleep by Anna Sheehan is only $2.99!

Rosalinda Fitzroy has been asleep for sixty-two years when she is woken by a kiss. Locked away in the chemically induced slumber of a stasis tube in a forgotten subbasement, sixteen-year-old Rose slept straight through the Dark Times that killed millions and utterly changed the world she knew. Now, her parents and her first love are long gone, and Rose— hailed upon her awakening as the long-lost heir to an interplanetary empire— is thrust alone into a future in which she is viewed as either a freak or a threat. Desperate to put the past behind her and adapt to her new world, Rose finds herself drawn to the boy who kissed her awake, hoping that he can help her to start fresh. But when a deadly danger jeopardizes her fragile new existence, Rose must face the ghosts of her past with open eyes— or be left without any future at all.

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Here are some nicely priced YA books for your Kindle!  Grab them today!

Pushing the Limits by Katie McCarry  is 1.99

Immortal Rules by Julie Kagawa is only 1.99

The Iron King by Julie Kagawa is 1.99

Speechless by Hannah Harrington is 1.99

The Goddess Test by Aimee Carter is only 1.99!

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