A fun way to start the week

I’m the featured author this week at Kindle on the Cheap and Cheap eReads! If you’re not familiar with these sites, you should be, especially if you’re on Facebook. They list free and inexpensive ebooks for the Kindle and the nook. I think the Cheap has another page that lists deals for Smashwords, Kobo, and Sony as well. They have pages that specialize in YA books, romance, even nonfiction. All books listed include the star rating and the genre as well as a link to the book. Check them out!

Kindle on the Cheap

Cheap eReads

It’s Monday and All is Well

After a very long weekend (made longer by a nasty cold that developed. Don’t mind me coughing over here in the corner.), I’m happy to report that all is momentarily well. Aside from the cold.

What I mean is Mending Fences and Finding Refuge both successfully loaded and are available at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and Smashwords. Other retailers are coming (I’m sure I’ve said that already), but the books should be available now in all the major formats.

So, what’s on the agenda this week?

• I write nonfiction under my other writer hat, and I have an article to finish.
• Reclaiming my flower beds, which are once again choking with grass. Darn stuff. Weed barriers are useless against it.
• Reclaiming my desk. I should seriously upload a photo of what my out-of-control desk looks like. You’d be shocked that I manage to get ANYTHING done.
• Catch up on some reading. I have The Third Scroll by Dana Marton, The Book of A Thousand Days by Shannon Hale, and The Governess Affair by Courtney Milan as the next books to conquer on my TBR mountain range.
• Watch two movies coming out this week: Brave and Abraham Lincoln, Vampire Hunter. Soooo excited for both of them!

What are your goals for the week?

I’ll leave you with trailers for the movies, in case you’ve missed them.

Read an Ebook Week promotion on Smashwords

March is Read an Ebook Month, and over at Smashwords, we are celebrating Read an Ebook Week (March 4-10). Thousands of authors have put their books on sale for the week, anywhere from 25% off to free, so it’s an excellent time to try out one new ebook, or stock up!

Mending Fences is on sale during this promotion week for $1, so if you haven’t had a chance to pick up a copy, this would be a good time. http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/131449

Saturday Stuff

Random notes for Saturday:

• I always have a wide variety of birds using the feeders in my little urban forest. Two new species have shown up to eat, and I’m trying to get good photos of them so I can get professional help identifying them. I’m pretty sure one of them is a Pacific-slope Flycatcher. Interesting, because that species doesn’t belong in Utah. I’ll post photos when I can.
• We worked HARD in dance class today. My calves are killing me from being on my toes for an hour. I wouldn’t trade it, though. Irish dance just makes me smile.
• I’m participating in a St. Patrick’s Day Blog Hop! It’s going to be a lot of fun, and there are even prizes to give away. Every blog in the hop will be giving away a prize, including mine! Stay tuned for what that will be, and click on the Blog Hop sign to the right to learn more.
• I’m also participating in the Read an Ebook Week promotion on Smashwords. Starting at 12:01 a.m. on March 4, through March 10, Smashwords will offer a catalog of books discounted by the authors. I’m offering Mending Fences at 75% off, to help entice readers into the world of ebooks. Trust me, reading digitally is cool! More on this tomorrow, when the sale begins.

World Book Day! Is your child a reader?

Today is World Book Day, a time to celebrate books and get books into the hands of children and teens. But what if your child, or a child you care about, isn’t a reader? How do you encourage them to pick up a book?

I have five children, the youngest turning 16 this year. They are all readers, but it didn’t come naturally to any of them. So how did they become readers? Let’s face it, forcing kids to read doesn’t make them love it. Often it will have the opposite effect, especially if they equate reading with work, such as reading for school. How do you help a child discover that reading is a wonderful journey, an escape that will take their imagination to amazing places, and help them learn more about themselves, other people, and the world around them? How do you get them to the point that they can come out of a great movie, sigh, and say, “But the book was better”?

I believe there are three very important factors. One, start keeping books in the house for kids far earlier than you think they would ever be interested in them. Read stories to them even when they’re too young to understand. Leave the books where they can touch them, hold them, and look through the pictures.

Two, find that one book that opens it all up for the child, the one special book that grabs them and pulls them into the lives and worlds of characters so well that they suddenly understand why people enjoy reading.

That one book, the key book, was different for each of my children. For my oldest, who hated reading, it was Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone. JK Rowling’s world pulled him in and I will be forever grateful. Son #2 refused to touch fiction until he read a novel based on a video game he liked, and that hooked him. Son #3’s key was the Series of Unfortunate Events books by Lemony Snicket. Son #4 waited anxiously for each of the Spiderwick Chronicles by Holly Black & Tony DiTerlizzi to come out, quit reading again for a while, then graduated to the Ranger’s Apprentice books by John Flanagan and hasn’t stopped reading since. The Princess read sporadically until she discovered Out of the Dust by Karen Hesse. It was the first book to give her an emotional reaction: it made her cry. She was hooked. Now she devours books, most recently by Neal Shusterman, Scott Westerfeld, and John Green. So…to start, recognize your child’s interests, what they pretend to be when they play, what sort of experiences entertain them, and find books that fit those criteria. Then it’s trial and error until they connect.

The third most important thing? Let them see you reading and enjoying it. A lady in my neighborhood once complained that her children refused to read and she couldn’t figure out how to get them interested in books. I asked if they saw her enjoying books, and I’ll never the dismissive way she said: “Are you kidding? I don’t have time to waste on reading.” She very actively sent a message to her children that reading had no value, at the same time as she prodded them to read. I’m sure they got the stronger of the two messages there. Teach by example, and let them see you enjoying books, whether hardcover, paperback, or on your e-reader. It really does matter.

What book triggered your child to read? And what are you reading today?