#1 Bestseller
That’s a picture of Tales of a Fifth-Grade Knight in the #1 spot among kids’ books at Malaprop’s, our local indie bookstore. That was pretty satisfying, as you might imagine. But what was even more satisfying was the book event Malaprop’s hosted last Saturday afternoon, which I’ve posted pictures of below. If you’d like to see more, you can find them on Facebook here. And here.
What was greatest about the event was being able to do my first ever public reading (which meant a lot to me, since I don’t think I could have written Knight without doing semi-public readings of graphic novels to our son Griffin at a local coffee shop). If you’re at all interested in hearing me talk (and read), then you might be interested in the recording that the fine folks at Malaprop’s made of my event. You’ll find that here.
As a newsletter writer, I’d be remiss not to mention my other recent adventure: I did another school visit, this time at Rainbow Community School, where Griffin is in 6th grade. Here’s a picture of me with his class (and the 5th graders, who came out as well):
They were a great group of kids to talk to, and of course I was prepped beforehand by the teachers, who told me that there were a few aspiring writers in the group, and that it’d be great if I touched on how I got published and how I approach writing.
Something I shared with the students at Rainbow and with the folks at Malaprop’s is how simple (if not easy) it is to acquire a writing habit. Just write every day. Write at the same time every day, if possible. And whatever time that is, make sure that it’s a time you can count on not getting interrupted. What you should do during that time is a question for smarter people than me, but so far, just taking those three steps has helped me enormously.
Thanks again for reading this e-mail. Onward!
P.S.: Don’t forget—I’m still aiming for 25 reviews on Amazon. Can you help with that? If so, submitting a review is easy. Just Google Tales of a Fifth Grade Knight and the Amazon listing will come up at the top. Click on the link. scroll to the bottom of the page, and you’ll see a button that says, “Write a Customer Review.”
You don’t actually need to have bought the book from Amazon to leave a review. And feel free to leave an honest response. The sooner you do this the better. Note, too, that the review could be super short and simple and still be effective.
Finally, to sweeten the pot, I’m going to send Tales of a Fifth Grade Knight swag (your choice of a coffee mug or book bag) to the NEXT TWO people who post a review. And EVERYONE who helps get Knight up to 25 reviews by posting will get a special limited-edition Tales of a Fifth Grade Knight bookmark. (Just send me a note with your mailing address letting me know you submitted your review, I’ll get the gift right off to you!)
