My Exciting News(!!): Two Book Contracts With Random House Children's Books

I am thrilled to announce that I will be illustrating two picture books written by Lauren McLaughlin debuting the pint-sized detective, MITZI TULANE, for Random House Children's Books. Editor: Maria Modugno. Art Director: TBA.

Lauren McLaughlin worked in the film business as both a screenwriter (Hypercube, Prisoner Of Love, Specimen) and producer (American Psycho, Buffalo '66, Vig, Stag and others), and she is the author of several teen novels including Scored, Cycler and (Re)Cycler. You can find out more about Lauren at http://www.laurenmclaughlin.net. I read Scored a while back and loved it, am looking forward to reading Lauren's other YA books as well.

My editor will be Maria Modugno. I was originally supposed to work with Maria on the RUBY ROSE books by Rob Sanders at HarperCollins Children's, but then I heard that Maria had left HC to become editorial director at Random House.

Maria Modugno, Editorial Director of picture books at Random House & Golden Books For Young Readers Group

Turns out that Maria still wanted to work with me (YAY!!) because soon afterward she contacted my agent, Ginger Knowlton, at Curtis Brown  and asked if I'd be interested in illustrating the Mitzi Tulane books.

I read the manuscript and fell head-over-heels in love with the pre-school detective.

:-)

I'll be starting work on the first Mitzi Tulane book in 2014.

Thank you SO VERY MUCH to my fantabulous agent, Ginger Knowlton, for helping make all this happen and keeping me organized, as well as Ginger's wonderful assistant, Mina Feig.

I'm soooo excited about all the fun picture book projects I have lined up over the next little while. These include...

What I'm working on right now:

NAKED! for Simon & Schuster Books For Young Readers, written by Michael Ian Black and illustrated by me.Editor: Justin Chanda. Art Director: Laurent Linn. Scheduled for publication in Summer 2014. Read the announcement about NAKED! in Entertainment Weekly.

What I will be working on in the near future and next couple of years:

UNTITLED picture book for Simon & Schuster Books For Young Readers, written AND illustrated by me (woohoo!!!!!). Editor: Justin Chanda. Art Director: Laurent Linn. Scheduled for publication in Spring 2015.

RUBY ROSE ON HER TOES for HarperCollins Children's Books, written by Rob Sanders and illustrated by me. Editor: Margaret Anastas. Art Director: TBA. Publication date: TBA.

UNTITLED (second RUBY ROSE book) for HarperCollins Children's Books, written by Rob Sanders and illustrated by me. Editor: Margaret Anastas. Art Director: TBA. Publication date: TBA.

UNTITLED (first MITZI TULANE book) for Random House Children's, written by Lauren McLaughlin and illustrated by me. Editor: Maria Modugno. Art Director: TBA.

UNTITLED (second MITZI TULANE book) for Random House Children's, written by Lauren McLaughlin and illustrated by me. Editor: Maria Modugno. Art Director: TBA.

Meanwhile, I am also working on writing and sometimes illustrating my own projects: picture books, illustrated middle grade, and YA. My children's book writer/illustrator sister Ruth Ohi and I are also planning to do a book project together. Life is pretty amazing right now, and I'm grateful for the people who have helped make it happen. I've mentioned a few of these people already, and will be posting about more of them over the coming year.

A Thank You To Justin Chanda & Simon & Schuster Children's

A Thank You Letter To The SCBWI

And how it all got started:

How A Rejection Got Me A Book Deal

Kindoma remote bedtime reading could be useful for authors

I was intrigued by this New York Times article, which talks about how Kindoma's new Storytime app lets grandparents and others read bedtime books remotely to children.

Another possible application: authors doing remote readings for small groups of students? Or larger groups, if the iPad is hooked up to a larger display.

I haven't yet tried the app, but the catch is that the app has to have the book in its library. Once the tech is streamlined and if successful, however, perhaps publishers would want to partner with Kindoma to make titles available. 

Kudos and Thanks

Thanks to the Kindergarten and 1st Grade students at Avoca West Elementary in Illinois for choosing I'M BORED as their 2013 ITC March Madness Champion. :-)

For more info about Avoca as well as winners in other categories, see this blog post. Thanks to Susan Geidner for alerting me to this news via Twitter.

Also:

Thanks to Writer's Digest for choosing Inkygirl.com as one of its 101 Best Websites For Writers in the May/June issue!

MicroBookTweet: MAYA WAS GRUMPY by Courtney Pippin-Mathurs (Flashlight Press)

Fun pics/story in MAYA WAS GRUMPY by @pippinmathur ( @flashlightpress) chases scowls away. Congrats, Courtney! twitter.com/inkyelbows/sta…

— Debbie Ridpath Ohi (@inkyelbows) April 24, 2013

More info:

Courtney Pippin-Mathur website

Courtney Pippin-Mathur on Twitter: @pippinmathur

Kirkus Reviews on MAYA WAS GRUMPY

Back on Mon. April 22nd

Between travel and work commitments, my online access is going to be sporadic between now and Mon. April 22nd. Have a great week, all!

Survey results: 49% survey respondents feel negatively re: Amazon's acquisition of Goodreads

Last week, I asked you how you felt about Amazon's acquisition of Goodreads.

143 responded: 64% describe yourselves as writer and/or illustrators, 31% are teachers or librarians, 11% are editors, 6% publishers, 2% booksellers. As you can tell from the numbers, some of you wear more than one hat.

The question: Amazon and Goodreads have announced that Amazon will be acquiring the book-based social networking site. How do you feel about it?

What you said:

I posted the survey immediately after the announcement, but I suspect that if I had posted it after Laura Hazard Owen's interview with Amazon and Goodreads, less people would have voted negative. If I was voting? Not sure yet. I love the idea of being able to rate books on Goodreads from my Kindle, but one of the strengths of Goodreads (in terms of brand) was that everyone knew it was indie. This was even more important after all the controversy about Amazon culling book reviews and authors manipulating their Amazon rankings.

According to LHO's interview on Paidcontent, Amazon says that Goodreads will remain an independent subsidiary of Amazon, like IMDB. Thing is, people and sites that use IMDB don't tend to be direct competitors with Amazon. Will all those competing sites/companies be willing to continue supporting Goodreads?

I may post this survey again a year from now, to compare.

And I wouldn't be surprised if, at this very moment, there is someone out there who is working on filling the space left by the Goodreads acquisition: a book reviews site with the potential reach of Goodreads...but that is still independent.

Some comments from survey respondents:

"One of the wonderful things about GoodReads is that it was completely independent of any bookseller, publisher, author and it was reader driven. I could go there and get honest reviews and recommendations without having to worry that they were influenced by the bottom dollar. Now here's another good thing ruined by a major corporation."

"Neutrally optimistic? I don't much care, it might be a little interesting from the outside. I don't use GoodReads, though I have an account, and I use Kindle very little - no gadget and I tend to read through calibre or FBReader rather than the app."

"My worry is Amazon is already the thousand pound gorilla in this industry and readers, and especially writers, need some independent tools. Goodreads has been a reliable one of these, precisely because it isn't a direct seller, so it maintains independence. Losing this is a shame."

"People have pointed out that Amazon does not have a history of buying companies and then running them into the ground like other large companies, so I'm holding out hope for goodreads (which I just recommended to some of my students)."

"Will wait to see what changes are made. There have been a lot of complaints about issues at Goodreads. They might be fixed now, might be better or worse. BUT.. I wish esp. writers/pubs would stop the OMG the sky is falling everytime Amazon farts. If it was Apple or B&N there would have been silence. It gets really old."

"So far, they haven't ruined my fave bookstore, The Book Depository, and I was greatly afraid when they bought that. I only use Goodreads to really keep track of my reading... ...however, I'm not keen on Amazon buying just everything - that doesn't make me very happy - but it's a good excuse to gracefully bow out of Goodreads; I cannot STAND the whole Amazon rating/review things, and the crazy it inspires in authors, and if that's coming to town, I'm out."

"If I wanted to review books for Amazon I would. If I wanted Amazon to mine my data and reading habits I'd have a kindle."

"It all depends on whether Amazon changes or limits the experience."

"Cautious, sad they're only taking care of Kindles."

"Cautiously pessimistic?"

"They'll probably want to link everything to one profile--all my reviews and conversations. Just as they want to link my kindle! I don't want my book reviews linked to the stuff I write about vacuum cleaners or underwear. Bah."

"Best-case scenario: the acquisition will be a positive one for those who already use Amazon and have Kindles, and that it won't affect those of us who only use Goodreads at all. But I'll still be keeping an ear to the ground about possible replacements, just in case Amazon makes too many sweeping changes to what is a great site as-is."

"I don't trust Amazon. The jury is out. I'm concerned."

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Also see my other Inkygirl surveys.