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Ahh, a book about Upstate New York. My birth place and the one part of this country I consider to be home. Alive and Well in Prague, New York is written by Daphne Grab and its main character does not necessarily love what I love about Upstate, at least at first.

Matisse is purely a New York City girl and would never deny it. She shops at city stores and eats at the best restaurants, loving her culturally expansive life. When her father gets sick and her parents decide to move to a tiny town upstate, Matisse is devastated and believes her life is pretty much over. She isn't into hayrides, rinky-dink stores, or small town life at all. Though at first, Matisse draws into herself and refuses to make friends with anyone from Prague, she slowly begins to form connections with people and starts to realize these aren't flaky city-friends, these are real friends that she can count on. She soon starts to branch out emotionally to these new friends and is able to begin to deal with her family issues.

Grab's story is written in an extremely realistic style. Matisse is a believable character, as are her parents and friends and the overall reactions to Matisse's father's illness. The reader is able to connect with the story and the characters, leaving a very satisfied feeling once the last page has been turned. I really enjoyed this title and can see my teens at the library loving it as well.

2K8ers love a good blog party, but nothing beats a debut author's first real world launch party!

I had my book party (Alive and Well in Prague New York) at the wonderful Bank Street Bookstore in my neighborhood in Manhattan. Friends and family braved fierce heat to come out and help me celebrate.



This is me and my super fabulous editor Jill Santopolo, who is an excellent author in her own right. She introduced my reading. I was pretty nervous about it but it was a sympathetic audience and they cheered me on. Afterwards I signed books.

This is my friend Keith Bunin who is a terrific playwright and screenwriter. He was one of a group of friends from high school who came out to show their support. It’s neat to have friend who actually knew me as a teen read my teen book!


Here are some other friends and my awesome-beyond-words agent Alyssa Eisner-Henkin. Writer Kathryne Alfred is in there too along with a couple of other friends. After the signing we headed out for food and drinks at a nearby restaurant.

And here’s another group that came out to support me: some Class of 2K8ers! This is me with Donna Freitas, Courtney Sheinmel and Nina Nelson.

It was so much fun to celebrate my book’s arrival in the world and I’m so grateful to everyone who came!

Thanks for a wonderful week, Daphne!

Alive and Well at the Class of 2K8 blog this week, is Daphne Grab! We're so excited to get to send the week launching her debut book Alive and Well in Prague, New York! Welcome, Daphne!

Is it as magical as the life of an author?

Marissa Doyle, Daphne Grab, Albert Borris (2k9 Co-Pres), Nancy Viau, Nina Nelson

New Jersey has one of the largest SCBWI chapters on the East coast, and writers from Maine to Maryland sign-up early to attend the annual conference in lovely Princeton. This year top editors like Cheryl Klein, Robin Tordini, Jessica Dandino Garrison, Samantha McFerrin, Stacy Cantor, Nick Eliopulos, and came ready to dish out advice, provide critiques, and give workshops. Approachable agents were in the mix, as well, and the line-up included Dan Lazar of Writers House, Stephen Barbara of Donald Maass Literary, and Linda Pratt of the Sheldon Fogelman Agency.

The Class of 2K8 panel at NJSCBWI:

Daphne Grab, Nina Nelson, Marissa Doyle, & Nancy Viau

Members from the Class presented an afternoon workshop on guerrilla marketing called 28 Great Marketing Ideas from the Class of 2k8. Nina Nelson, Marissa Doyle, Daphne Grab, and Nancy Viau spoke about marketing their debut novels, individually and as part of a group, to a packed room full of energetic attendees.

They began with the basics—have a signature line for every email that includes your information, create a professional-looking website that reflects not only your book, but you as an author. People nodded and smiled, and scribbled notes in the spaces left on the handout. Press kits were discussed, along with publisher/author communication, tie-ins to national organizations, and what can be done to create consistent buzz. People scribbled harder!

Nancy, Daphne, And Marissa

Daphne, Nina,Marissa, and Nancy

The panel was a hit! Questions kept coming long after everyone filtered out into the hallway.

Check the Class website for more 2k8 presentations coming to local, regional, and national conferences this year.

Stay tuned: more pics from the NJSCBWI conference coming tomorrow!

Give us a week and SHAZAM good news bursts forth. It's literary lava and we are HOT!


RAVE REVIEWS

Nina Nelson’s Bringing the Boy Home received a glowing review from Kirkus. “"Told in two distinctive voices, this imaginative and beautifully realized novel, set in the Amazon, tells the story of two boys from the fictional Takunami tribe…their stories connect in a surprising yet totally believable way, giving psychological depth to this richly hued novel about the winding turns of destiny and the bonds between father and son, tribe and family.”

The Story Siren said Regina Scott’s “La Petite Four has a little bit of everything; mystery, suspense, romance and of course really beautiful dresses! The plot is interesting and captivating.” They also refer to Regina as an “awesome writer.”

BIZ BUZZ

M.P. Barker got an excellent write up in The Republican and was a featured author on Red Room.

Jennifer Bradbury’s Shift will be published in Dutch!

Teri Brown’s book trailer for Read My Lips is featured on CBS’s You Tube.

Laura Bowers is known for her amusing author interviews. Check out her latest 1-on-1 in which Daphne Grab confesses to singing to her cat.

Not only has Marissa Doyle been a featured author on the Fantasy Debut blogspot, her Bewitching Season was named in the editor's ten best summer reads for older readers in Scholastic’s Instructor, a magazine for teachers.

Sarah Prineas talks about killing your darlings aka revising as a guest blogger on Darcy Patterson’s Revision Notes. Even better, Czech and Slovak rights to The Magic Thief trilogy were sold to publisher Fortuna. That's a total of 12 languages, plus the UK/Australia!

Who knew Lisa Schroeder was an expert juggler?!? But she says as much in this great interview with Cynthia Leitich Smith. And I Heart You, You Haunt Me is going to be published in Polish. It’s official…2k8 is international!

Pittsburgh’s Lux did an awesome interview with Brooke Taylor (her first!). Check it out!

Sarah Beth Durst (Into the Wild) recently interviewed our Zu Vincent about her essay in the Teen Libris anthology, Through the Wardrobe: Your Favorite Authors on C. S. Lewis's Chronicles of Narnia.

Annie Wedekind’s new website is a must see in addition to her post about the love affair between girls and horses on the Feiwel and Friends blog.

Today's Totally Important Post is about class member Daphne Grab. Teen reviewer Gela gushes about Daphne's book, Alive and Well in Prague, New York. Check it out.


Now, back to this week's topic: Group Marketing...

Debbie Reed Fischer is the other person who was part of the dynamic duo that took SCBWI Florida by storm in January. Let's find out what she has to say about doing a workshop with another author.

Debbie?

Chatting online every day for months creates a very unique bond with someone, and that is especially true in 2k8. Like the rest of the class, Jody and I had already spent hundreds of hours discussing book promotion, as well as sharing opinions, triumphs, disappointments and jokes. So when I arrived at the conference and we found each other, it wasn't the polite, tentative greeting that usually takes place when meeting someone for the first time. From the moment we hugged in the main conference room, I felt as though we'd been friends forever. When we did sit down to discuss our presentation, there was a comfort level of two people who had been working together for a long time. It made planning and executing our presentation as easy as two friends talking about a common interest. That was a direct result of being in the Class of 2k8.

The really great thing about 2k8 is that members have professional backgrounds in areas other than publishing. How is that a plus, you ask? Well, when Jody and I were speaking about book promotion, I was grateful she had worked in the related field of advertising for many years. It was reassuring to have her expertise handy.

One attendee told me, "You usually see workshops on the same thing at all these conferences. This was something truly different." That 'something different' is another thing 2k8 brings to the table, and Jody and I were eager to talk about it. We have mutual enthusiasm for the group and its purpose, which really showed in our presentation. Our Class of 2k8 brochures were received with interest and curiosity, and a lot of people wanted to know more. Another attendee complained that our workshop wasn't long enough, after we spoke for an hour and a half! Not to mention it was the very last workshop of a three-day conference!


M.P. Barker also knows how important group marketing is...

Being part of 2k8 has helped me because I'm a terrible procrastinator, very disorganized, and know absolutely nothing about marketing. I'm very bad at meeting personal deadlines if I'm not responsible to anyone but myself, but fear of shame and humiliation makes me very good at meeting deadlines when they're imposed by somebody else. Having a group to be answerable to forces me to get my act together and get things accomplished. It's also great to have a support group of people whom I can learn from and who are going through all the same things I am.


Liz Gallagher simply puts it this way:

It makes the fish a little bigger in that big pond.

So, if you're thinking of joining a group to help you get the word out about your books,

A Web site offers fun features.
There is one part on my Web site that I had a lot of fun doing: thinking of my all-time favorite girl and guy characters in YA lit for my Favorites page. I wanted to write YA because I read it all the time. Because much as I enjoy adult novels, I love YA more. Which means I've read, and loved, an awful lot of YA books with some pretty awesome characters. There are some amazing girl characters out there, and some pretty fabulous guys who spring to life off the written page. So who did I choose to feature on my site? Click on the link below to find out!
~Daphne Grab, Author of Alive and Well in Prague, NY,
http://www.daphnegrab.com/


A Web site is proof.
My publisher tells me that kid readers are especially interested in the authors of the books they read. It's as if they can't believe an actual person wrote the book. A website proves an actual person did write the book, and a well-designed site gives extra interesting details about that person, like how many cats she has. It’s a great way for readers to continue to interact with the book.
~Sarah Prineas, Author of The Magic Thief,
http://www.sarah-prineas.com


Teens spend time online.
I think it's important to have a personal web site because the world is so Internet-ty! Especially because I write for teenagers, who seem to spend lots of time online and be very savvy, it's the most efficient way to reach out to them, let them know about me and my book, events, news, and whatever else is going on in my book-world. I happen to be a writer who's interested in communicating with young readers, so it's a step to accomplishing that. I think teenagers almost expect the experience of a book they love to go beyond the page. Everything else seems to go online somehow! Look at popular TV shows, like Lost, who are doing webisodes to accompany the television broadcasts. Not to mention message boards!
~Liz Gallagher, Author of The Opposite of Invisible,
http://lizgallagher.com/


A strong Web presence can do amazing things for your career.
It cultivates your readership, creates word-of-mouth interest, gains press, excites your publisher, and more. With that in mind I started researching Web site designers by visiting author sites. I noted what layouts and features I liked, what I didn’t and which designers I could afford. I wanted a website that was user friendly, had teen appeal and that I could build on as my career grew. I thought of it like a starter home. I couldn’t spend $5000 on a site (or even $2000), but I could build an affordable base site and add on to it. And later on, if I wanted to, I could always remodel. My site designer, Barb of Jaleroro Web Designs, did a fantastic job of taking my ideas and making them a reality. I’ve already received positive feedback on my site and it has generated interest in my upcoming books.
~Terri Clark, Author of Sleepless,
http://www.terriclarkbooks.com/


Anybody who’s anybody has a Web site.
I think it's important to have a personal web site because everyone keeps telling me that it is, even though I'm not entirely sure what I should put on it. Frankly, I'm a pretty boring person. If I were all that interesting, I wouldn't be spending my time making upstories, now, would I?
~M.P. Barker, Author of A Difficult Boy,
http://mpbarker.net/


Web sites keep Amazon.com in business.
Personal websites make me want to read more books. Sometimes the websites give the back-story of a particular book, and I feel compelled to go straight to Amazon and order the book right away. I’ve discovered some of my favorite books this way, and I suspect I’m not the only one.
~Courtney Sheinmel, Author of My So-Called Family
http://courtneywrites.livejournal.com

My blog.