Greetings everyone. Plans are underway for the 4th annual Back To School Blog Tour coming up on Sept. 12-16. All week, authors will be featured with interviews and reviews of their books. Giveaways are also in the works. So, please stop by on Sept. 12 for a week of fantastic children’s literature to start off your school year.
Plus, there are still some slots open for this event. If you are an Indie children’s author and are interested, please email me at: tiff@tiffmester.net. Let me know you’re interested, what type of children’s book you have, age level, and any promos you might be interested in doing. Authors can set up their own giveaway, and I’ll be promoting the links. I’ll also be setting up a Back To School Blog Tour Giveaway that everyone can put on their blogs. The deadline to get back to me is Aug. 25.
To all the teachers and students going back to school over the next few weeks, have a fun and safe return. Happy reading!
Join in on the Back to School Blog Tour Sept. 7-11, 2015
PLANS ARE UNDERWAY! The blog tour will begin next week on Monday, Sept. 7. All week there will be author interviews, and links to participating author blogs with behind the scenes posts, back to school memories, and giveaways.
Here is the list of participating authors:
Participating Authors:
Marilyn Peake Monday Sept. 7
Rue Cole Tuesday Sept. 8
Sean McCartney Wednesday Sept. 9
Lee Winters Thursday Sept. 10
Recap day of giveaways
It will be a fabulous way to celebrate the beginning of school. Plus, I’ll be releasing my first Writing Project lesson plans in a Back to School Writing Project packet that will be available on Teacherspayteachers.com. All lessons comply with the new Common Core Standards and are drawn from my 18 years of teaching experience.
Looking forward to having you there! I’ll see you on Monday, Sept. 7!
Welcome to the first day of the Back to School Blog Tour for 2014. It’s part of my give back to the Indie Children’s Author community. I am featuring some unique and fabulous books this week from picture books to YA. With the new Common Core being adopted in many schools throughout the US, this is a great time to learn about new authors and possible new books for guided reading and novel studies. Plus, if you just want to find a great new book to read at the start of school, please check back each day for our new featured author.
This year, we have a Back To School Book Bundle Giveaway featuring books donated by the featured authors. Enter to win by joining featured authors’ social media links. It’s a great way to stay in touch with what the featured authors will be doing in the Fall and months to come. Plus, your welcomed to share what you learned by reposting any of the featured posts. The giveaway will run through the end of the weekend, Sept. 7, 2014. Winners will be announced on the blog 48 hours after the end of the giveaway. All the authors featured for this week have donated books for the giveaway. Here is your chance to support Indie authors and win something too! Here is what you can win:
Grand Prize Book Bundle:
Becca Price: Fairies and Fireflies
Rachel Cole: The Rabbit Ate My Homework
Clare K.R. Miller: A Star to Guide Her Trilogy (YA) Ebook Trilogy
D.R. Martin: Johnny Graphic Adventure Series (Middle Grade) Paperback or Ebook edition
Garrett Carter: I Want To Be An Athlete and a Teacher (Picture Book) Paperback signed edition
Runner Up: One runner-up winner will receive The Lost Secret of Fairies Ebook or Paperback edition and a $10 Starbucks Gift Card
Our first featured author is Becca Price. She first joined the blog tour last year, and has been up to writing many more books since she was last featured. She is almost done with her Fairies and Fey series, and is adding a bit more spice by working on a YA. It has been a wonderful experience to see her list of books grow over the last year. I had a chance to ask Becca about her current and future projects, and what she remembers about her favorite memories of her most inspiring teacher.
1) What is your favorite memory from the beginning of a school year?
Becca Price: The first day of school often coincided with my birthday (this was back when schools started in early September) so I’d get a lot of fancy school stuff and clothes for birthday gifts. And books! I’d usually get lots of books for my birthday — so I had the triple excitement of a new school year, a birthday, and new books to read in boring classes. (did I actually say that?)
2) Who was your most inspiring teacher? Why?
Becca Price: I had two very inspiring teachers in junior high and high school, and it is to my deepest shame that I don’t recall their names. In Junior High, I had a history teacher who recognized that I could write my stories and poems in class, and still keep up good grades in her class. She let me write whatever I wanted to, as long as I showed it to her when I was done. She was very encouraging, even though my poetry was mostly doggerel at that point. My stories were typical early teen self-indulgence, but she’d often underline a sentence or paragraph that was particularly good.
In high school, I took a creative writing class. My teacher there, too, was very encouraging about my way with words, but warned me that the path of a professional fiction writer was hard, and not very well paid.
3) What is the advice you would give children authors to get started?
Becca Price: Read all the children’s books you can. Read Neil Gaiman for sheer brilliance, Charles de Lint for his way of making every word and scene count, read the classic children’s literature because they’re fun. But read, read, read everything you can get your hands on. You never know what will spark inspiration.
4) Who is your favorite character from a children’s book?
Becca Price: Oddly, the little engine from The Little Engine That Could. “I think I can, I think I can.” Words that should be engraved in every child’s heart.
5) How could you sum up what writing means to you?
Becca Price: Writing is life, writing is breath. Writing is emotion, both joy and sorrow. I’ve always written, I can’t imagine not writing. There was a long period where I was on medication that decreased creativity (was known for that, in fact) and it was horrible. The week I got off that was the week I first published Dragons and Dreams.
6) What are your current writing projects?
Becca Price: Right now I’ve got several irons in the fire. The most pressing is re-releasing all my books with illustrations, and getting them professionally laid out. I’ve found the most wonderful artist, Sara Anderson, who really captures the story themes and my writing style, and I adore her. She also has several unpublished stories to illustrate for me, so that they’ll come out as a first edition with illustrations. I hope to have all those done by the end of 2014.
In the mean time, I’ve started a fairly major project, The Woods Between. It’s hard to describe. It’s for a YA/Adult audience, still a fairy tale, but a multi-generation saga of one family’s interactions with fairyland for good and ill. It will be composed of three separate stories for 3 distinct generations, showing how the actions of each previous generation affects the next generation. It started out as a simple quest fairy tale, and my husband asked a simple question, and the rest cascaded from there. I have no idea how long it will be, but don’t look for publication until early 2015.
I’m also about 2/3 done with my next collection, Quests and Fairy Queens — I’m hoping to work on the two or three missing stories when I’m not working on The Woods Between.
Thank you Becca for kicking off the Back To School Blog Tour this year. I can’t wait to see where this next year takes you. For more information or connect with Becca Price:
All the arrangements have been made. The blog tour is set and ready to post starting tomorrow, Sept. 1. Start your Labor Day celebrations by finding out about great Indie Children’s books for your children or to use in your classroom. The line up for the week is as follows:
The giveaway has grown this year. A Book Bundle with a donated book or book series from each author will be up to win during the week of the tour. The giveaway will run from Sept.1-Sept.8. Runner-ups will receive a copy of The Lost Secret of Fairies, the first in my book series, and a $10 Starbucks Gift Card. The Giveaway opens at midnight on Sept. 1.
So, check back tomorrow for the start of this year’s exciting tour. I’d like to thank all of the authors for joining us this year, and for giving so much of themselves into their work. It’s what makes writing such a challenge and reward. You are the book!
Please post and share this post to let everyone know about the blog tour this week. I’d love to see a bigger turn out than last year. This is all done out of the kindness of my little teacher heart. I’m a children’s writer as well, and want to give back to the Indie Children’s Author community. All of the features and book reviews were done for no fee. All the authors have put in the work of answering interview questions and donating their books for the giveaway. So, support by entering the giveaway, tweeting and Facebook about this blog event. All the support is welcomed!
Plans are under way for the Back to School Blog Tour 2014. The dates are set for Sept. 1-5. I’ve decided to go with a theme for our featured authors: Connecting with Common Core. Participating authors will be sharing items to help students/teachers and parents help connect and utilize the new Common Core Standards in the US. Find discussion questions, activities, writing experiences for those young authors, and discount coupons through Smashwords for featured books. Last year we had fabulous Indie Children’s Authors participating such as Victoria Jeffrey, H. Y. Hanna, Sibel Hodge, Vivienne Mathews, W.N. Rae, Becca Brice, and Scott Pixello. I’m still finalizing this year’s authors, and will have up a list as soon as it’s available.
Plus, I’m working on a giveaway selection. I’d love to hear what you’d like to win. Ebook copies? Paperback copies of featured books? Amazon gift cards? What would get you motivated for the beginning of the 2014 school year? Since I’m in the planning stages, this would be a great time to leave comments and questions so I can incorporate them into the blog tour. I really want to try to meet the new Common Core needs, and make things go smoother for everyone as we start the new school year.
What can we do as Indie Children’s Authors to help support the Common Core and the start of the new year? After 17 years of teaching in elementary school, I have some idea of what teachers and students are up against with Common Core. But any feedback to share among everyone will be greatly appreciated. I’d love to hear from you over the next few weeks.
So, welcome all that participated or dropped by to visit my first blog tour hosted by the Indie Children’s Authors Connection. This post will be a little behind the scenes, as I share all the lessons learned and huge amount of friends that were made.
First, why should you run a blog tour? Well, it is a way to connect a whole lot of bloggers that are networking to share a certain content during a set block of time. I would recommend to try to join as a participant before you host a blog tour. It is a great way to learn the ropes.
Second, link up with a blog tour that fits with what you want to promote. I spent a good portion of the summer wanting to promote my fantasy adventure books for children. I joined a blog tour that sponsored fantasy as the theme. There were a range of different books, and it was a good way to get started. Add the fact my blog got featured for a day on Kboards.com, and it all conjoined into a lot of promotion for my books. Plus, I even sold a few books that week.
Third, I took what I learned, specializing in your genre and trying to bring that audience to your blog. I looked around for a Back to School related tour. I didn’t find one. So, I figured, if you build a blog tour, they will come and discover Indie Children’s Authors.
Realizing that I had an opportunity to support the mission of my blog, getting the word out about Indie Children’s Authors, I asked on my writing board, Kboards.com, if anyone would be interested. I got a HUGE response. You can read the almost 2 months of planning that went on with this thread here.
Back to School Blog Tour 2013 Sept. 2-6
So, I whipped up a blog tour logo from some free clipart, and started organizing. I made up a list, sent out questions to authors, and gave deadlines. I made up a landing page through the page option on WordPress. I had some people come and go due to schedules, but we ended up with a fabulous list of participating authors. Here is the final list of authors:
1) Victoria Jeffrey
Blog Link: http://www.epistlepublishing.com
Featured Books: The Green Door, The Pumpkin Princess and The Winter Wolves
I’d like to thank everyone for making the first Back to School Blog Tour a success.
So, what did I learn? I think I’m going to go for invitation to participate next time, limit to five authors for manageability, and cut the book giveaway bundle. We ended up not have any entries, but leave the authors to do their own giveaways if they wish.
I’m staying with the featured author interviews, and will work as that being the host site feature. I did have study questions and Back to School memories as a popular blog topic for participants.
So, I learned a lot, and I’m glad to share the wealth. If you are interested in hosting your own blog tour; keep it simple. Simple is good and easier to manage. Add onto it as you do another blog tour in the future. To conclude, enjoy yourself. I was happy to host a place for new Indie authors to be discovered. I’m hoping I’ve created a niche, and now, hopefully, an annual event.
**This post is part of the monthly
“Indie Life” posts linked on the Indelibles Blog.
The Lost Secret of Dragonfire is available at Amazon and Barnes & Noble.
***Tiffany Turner has just released her third book, The Lost Secret of Dragonfire, in her Crystal Keeper series. She continues to teach fourth graders in California while writing fantasy adventure middle grade novels. She is working on other writing projects in her No Limits Writing practices. She actively plays the Gaelic Harp at Renaissance festivals throughout Northern California.
Back to School Blog Tour Sept. 2-6 Check back for more details!
At this time of year, life gets busy for me. It’s time for me to get back to work. Yes, true confession, I am a teacher. Which can come in pretty handy since I love to write books. But to make things extra fun, besides the fact I just bought a disco ball for my room, I’m planning a Back to School Blog Tour for the week of Sept. 2-6.
Come meet some authors, find out what it’s like to write as an Indie, and learn a few things. There will be all sorts of books from animals, fantasy, and even a humorous look at teaching. It will be a true exciting start to the school year. I should know. This is the start of my 17th year of teaching.
Welcome to day two of the Magik and Mayhem Blog Tour. I’d also like to welcome everyone that has come to visit from Kboards.com. Today, a fabulous $75 Amazon Gift Card is being featured for those visiting today. Link below to enter the prize. Note: The giveaway will start on July 16, 2013 and run for seven days. This is a special giveaway for Kboards.com members, but anyone visiting may enter. Thanks for stopping by! I’d also like to thank Harvey at Kboards.com for featuring my blog today.
Now, for a fabulous Middle Grade novel that has an educational twist that includes, what else, an elf! I’ve managed to find the perfect start to the blog tour. The Gemstone Chronicles: The Carnelian is book 1 in the series by William L. Stuart.
Evil and good are out of balance again, and needs to be restored. Aidan and Maggie are visiting their grandparents, helping their grandfather rock hunt, when they discover an odd fairy cross stone. The debate is on what to do with it after seeing a spector appear from it requesting help.
The Gemstone Chronicles Book 1: The Carnelian by William L. Stuart
The kids can’t help their curiousty, and break the stone open releasing the elf, Findecano. They must help him to find the several gemstones missing from the Elven Bow. Together, they must restore the balance.
I really liked this story since it showed grandparents as elders helping to raise and instill morals and values in their grandchildren. Plus, it showed the children being respectful. There was also great inner struggles with especially Beebop, the grandfather, as he comes to terms with the fact, elves are real. I always love stories that skirt the real world and a fantasy world.
Plus, it starts at the grandparents’ home in the Georgian mountains as the grandkids are visiting for Spring Break. So, I think this is a great book for kids that are visiting their grandparents, and need some activities. There is even a little education in rock hunting stones, and a general sense of respect for others, including elves and trolls. This would be a great start for any visit to grandparents, with two more books that follow in the series. It will keep grandchildren that love fantasy busy for hours.
**** Four Star Rating
The Gemstone Chronicles: The Carnelian is available at Amazon.com in paperback and ebook editions. Also available at Smashwords.com as an ebook edition.
Tomorrow’s post will feature an interview with the author of the Gemstone Chronicles, William L. Stuart.
I’d like to thank Kboards.com Facebook and Blog for featuring the Indie Children’s Authors Connection today.
Welcome to day one of the Magik and Mayhem Blog Tour. This week I’ll be featuring posts and book reviews that focus on the theme of elves and magical creatures. But first we’ll start the good stuff: the giveaways.
To start: I’ll be giving away a paperback set of my fantasy/adventure series The Crystal Keeper Chronicles. It all starts in book 1, The Lost Secret of Fairies. Wanda, a loner, discovers fairies are real. With the help of her new friends, Lillith, the Queen of Fairies, and an elder elf named Geldon, Wanda discovers there’s more than finding out how to help, it’s finding the strength within to fight.
Book 2 is The Lost Secret of the Green Man, where Wanda starts to discover the other Worlds of Fairy and makes the biggest discovery of all, a best friend.
Book 3 is The Lost Secret of Dragonfire. Wanda learns that sometimes friendship is something you fight for.
All books will be mailed in paperback format. The lucky winner will receive an autographed set. Here is how to enter:
Now for the second awesome giveaway! This is the Grand Prize. All the authors in the blog tour have chipped in for this one. There is an age limit to enter. You must be 18 years or older. The prizes include:
Ebook Yseult by Ruth Nestvold
Ebook bundle Season 1 Boreal and John Grey by Chrystalla Thoma
Ebook bundle Dark Elf by Willo Nonea Rea
Ebook Caitlin’s Book of Shadows by Juli D. Revezzo
Print book Raingun by John Blackport
Ebook Aundes Aura by Ryan Sullivan
Ebook Seeking a Scribe by Marsha A. Moore
Ebook Her Master’s Madness by J.E. & M. Keep
Ebook Wings of Shadow by Anna Kyss
Ebook Rune Breaker by Landon Porter
Ebook Judgement Rising by Tracy Falbe
Ebook The Chosen by Annette Gisby
Ebook New Zealand with a Hobbit Botherer by John & Annette Gisby
Gift certificate
Come back tomorrow for an exciting book review of an MG Fantasy novel called The Gemstone Chronicles, The Carnelian. Plus, my blog will be featured on the KBoards.com Blog and Facebook page tomorrow, Tues. July 16. There will be a one day giveaway only tomorrow where you can win a $75 Amazon Card to purchase fabulous ebooks on Amazon. See you then!
Wanting more than just your average book? Next week, declare your independence from the Mass Book market. Come to the wild side and see what independently published books are out there.
A blog hop is being hosted by the Indelibles, a blog site with 25 Indie Authors. Over 60 blogs are participating that will feature an outstanding Indie Author’s book. It’ll get you set with your summer reading. A range of different books will be available. The Indie Children’s Authors Connection is proud to be participating.
If you are a blogger or an avid reader and would like to get involved, here are the steps:
1) PICK A BOOK: Pick an indie (self-published or small press) book that you either HAVE READ AND LOVED or WANT TO READ.
2) WRITE A POST: On INDIEpendence day (July 2nd), write a post about that book. It can be a review, an interview with the author, or simply a post highlighting the book.
3) CLICK BELOW: to join the link that will tie the blog hop together on July 2nd. See the Indelibles for more details.
The Indie Children's Authors Connection 