2014 Laredo Book Festival

Last week Laredo, Texas, held its annual book festival at their beautiful Laredo Public Library. It turned out to be a huge success. Librarians, educators, and the general public were in attendance. Authors and illustrators from all over Texas were part of the lineup. We all had a wonderful time doing book readings and meeting with the public. Looking forward to next year’s event. While there, we stayed at the famous La Posada hotel right by the Rio Grande.

Librarians at the Bookfest

 On the Writer’s Digest blog, Chuck Sambuchino’s (Guide to Literary Agents) post includes an interview with author Kira Peikoff on the topic, “5 Tips for Writing Suspense.” She writes: “Get your protagonist in trouble as soon as possible and never let her get too comfortable or too safe." From (1) Structure Scenes like Min-Novels to (5) Raise questions and delay the answers, Peikoff's article covers "some tips for budding thriller writers that I wish I'd known from day one ..."

And while there, visit Sambuchino's post on  “11 Frequently Asked Questions About Book Royalties, Advances and Money,” to learn more on that topic. 

 

Authors & Illustrators & Friends

La Posada

La Posada

Schedule



Net Royalty: A royalty payment based on the amount of money a book publisher receives on the sale of a book after booksellers’ discounts, special sales discounts, and returns. – Writers’ Digest Weekly Planner

Writers' League of Texas Book Awards

 Congratulations to all the winners and finalists for the Writers’ League of Texas Book Awards. I am honored to have been one of the finalists in the category of picture books for my book, Lupita’s First Dance. Wonderful to see so many of the authors I already know. Cynsations blog has a complete list.

 

 

Here’s an interesting post on the Project Mayhem blog, which also appeared on the Cynsations blog. In this post author Isaiah Campbell writes about rejections, rewrites, killing off his darlings in the rewrite, and just plain perseverance before he finally got published. Take a look. Interesting read. 

 

Kaeden Books is accepting submissions for children’s fiction and nonfiction. For details and guidelines, go to their link. 

Picture Book – A type of book, aimed at preschoolers to eight-year-olds, that tells a story using a combination of text and artwork, or artwork only. –Writer’s Digest Weekly Planner