Category: Books (Page 9 of 82)

Ebook Redistribution and Author Updates

February 28, 2022 / Katie L. Carroll

Quick announcement about ebook availability. I’m redoing how I distribute some of my ebooks, so there’s a chance those titles won’t be available on some retailers for a limited time. I am now selling all my ebooks directly on my Purchase Books page, where you can also order signed paperbacks, and none of those listings will be affected. The Amazon listings also shouldn’t be affected, so you can find them there as well.

Is it just me or is this year quickly flying by in a big ball of stress? Let me be honest on here for a second (I’m always pretty honest here), I have felt very stressed out this year. The world is feeling ugly and I’m constantly worried about keeping my family healthy, and I’m guessing I’m not the only one feeling this way. It makes it hard to focus, so I keep telling myself writing books for young people is always important–maybe even more so in trying times.

So I’ve been doing my best to take the moments I have for work and keep my head down to make the most of them. Still, I’ve hardly written anything new this year. I have so many solid ideas waiting in the wings. Lots of projects in the works, though. One of these weeks, I’m going to dig into revisions of that NaNoWriMo book of mine, the young adult Hamlet-inspired tale of a teen mourning the loss of her sister. Here’s a little mood board I put together for it.

The illustrations for my upcoming picture book MOMMY’S NIGHT BEFORE CHRISTMAS are coming along. Soon I’ll be able to share some of what the very talented illustrator Phoebe Cho has been working on for that book. I’m also working on fun marketing and release details for the October publish date.

Events for 2022 are coming along as well. I have a few writing workshops lined up to teach, and I’m hoping to have some in-person books events and festivals lined up for when the weather warms up. I recently did a virtual author visit for my son’s 5th-grade class, and they wrote me the sweetest thank-you letters, many of them sharing the story ideas they came up during the guided writing exercise I did with them.

Believe it or not, I’m making publishing plans for 2023 already. I have one other book that might come out this year and even more planned for next year. So I guess it’s okay that I haven’t been writing much. I’m working…in between sick days and snow days and stressing out about war. Also taking a moment to appreciate how lucky I am…always important to practice gratitude.

What’s on your mind lately? I’d love to hear from you in the comments.

Katie’s 2021 Year of Reading

January 4, 2022 / Katie L. Carroll

Goodreads can be kind of a nightmare for authors (I generally don’t read reviews of my books there), but I enjoy it as a reader. In particular, I like keeping track of the novels I’ve read (I don’t track my picture book reading) and for the yearly reading challenge with the handy wrap-up they give you at the end of each year. That’s where the screenshots in this post came from.

My 2021 reading goal was 50 books, which has been pretty typical of my reading habits of the last few years, and I came in at 51. Yay for consistency and meeting goals! Most of my reads were young adult or middle grade novels. In addition to that, I’m positive I’ve read hundreds of pictures books.

One of my goals was to read more graphic novels. My kids are obsessed with them! It was fun to share a lot of these with my 10-year-old and chat about them. I was quite successful on that front. A few stand-outs in that category were Séance Tea Party by Remena Yee, which was beautiful on so many levels, and Witches of Brooklyn and the sequel What the Hex?! by Sophie Escabasse. I did a lot of witchy reading, so it’s no surprise that these ended up as favorites.

I also read more romance than I usually do because I found those easy to read at times when I was having trouble concentrating. Helen Hoang and Jasmine Guillory are two of my favorite romance authors.

I read less non-fiction than usual, probably because those can require heavy concentration and I was lacking that in my reading this year. The End of Everything (Astrophysically Speaking) by Katie Mack was fascinating and not as heavy a read as the title suggest. Though I didn’t read a ton of adult non-fiction, I made up for that in how much non-fiction I read to the kiddos. We read lots of science books, particularly space-related ones.

Reading a diverse list of authors has been an important reading goal for me for years now, and I think I did a good job with that. This is also an important factor in what my kids are reading, so I make sure that they have books with all different kinds of people in them and written by diverse creators. Dr. Rudine Sims Bishop introduced the phrase about children having “windows, mirrors, and sliding glass doors” in their literature. My boys have plenty of mirrors in their reading, so I make sure they are also getting windows into other peoples’ lives.

Malinda Lo’s historical YA novel Last Night at the Telegraph Club won the National Book Award, among many other awards and starred reviews, and totally lives up the hype. I’ve enjoyed reading her stories ever since her first book Ash came out over ten years ago, and I was really happy to see her have such a successful year.

I’ve gotten to a point in my life where I don’t really read books that I don’t enjoy. So if you see a book end up on my read list that means I’ve enjoyed it. I also don’t buy as many books as my reading habits might suggest. The boys and I are big patrons of the public library, and I stop by there pretty much every week. Borrowing books from the library is a great way to support literacy, your community, and authors.

Unfortunately I still haven’t been able to get into reading audiobooks. Seems the efforts I talked about in my post from 2019 “Training My Brain to Read Audiobooks” haven’t worked. I continue to enjoy podcasts, so at least something came of that attempt.

What did you enjoy reading this year? Did you face any challenges or try anything new?

Deal Alert: November Discount on Katie L. Carroll’s Books

November 1, 2021 / Katie L. Carroll

Remember how back in the beginning of the pandemic there was a shortage of toilet paper and since then there have been various shortages of certain items? That’s happening now with physical books.

The supply chain issues regarding books can’t totally be blamed on the pandemic (this problem has been years in the making, see “Looking for Answers to Supply Chain Challenges” by Michael Seidlinger), but the bottom line is there is a shortage of physical books.

While publishers are pushing back release dates and paper is in short supply, you don’t have to worry because I have all of my books in stock. For the entire month of November, you can get signed copies of my books at a 10% discount when you use code NOVEMBER10 at checkout on the Purchase Books page.

Signed and personalized books make for great gifts, and I have choices for all the young readers in your life! My picture book THE BEDTIME KNIGHT is a fun read aloud where young kiddos can participate by seeing what is revealed in the illustrations. For the 8-12 crowd, PIRATE ISLAND has pirate treasure and a cursed island (and a little real history thrown in there for good measure). My YA fantasies, the award-winning ELIXIR BOUND and ELIXIR SAVED, are perfect for teens or fantasy loving adults.

This discount is running through the end of November so I can make sure to get them all mailed off in time for the December holidays. All orders come with a bonus bookmark or sticker, customized to the book(s) you’re ordering. Buying direct from me also means that you’re supporting a small business!

Reintroduction and Updates on Author Katie L. Carroll

October 4, 2021 / Katie L. Carroll

Author Katie L. Carroll at the CT Renaissance Faire, cosplaying as Yeselda, witch of Faway Forest, from the Elixir Chronicles.

Welcome to my blog! I have some new followers that I met at the CT Renaissance Faire, so I thought I’d reintroduce myself and my website. I generally post about twice a month, so you won’t be spammed with a million posts from me. I like to introduce myself by saying I write books for young people and those who are young at heart, and you can visit my Author Bio page to learn more about me.

I would be remiss not to also send a big thanks to all my long-time followers who have stuck with me these many years I’ve been blogging. I checked and discovered that my very first blog post was dated May 26, 2008! Every few years I wonder if I should keep blogging, but it seems that I’ll be continuing this venture of mine for awhile still.

The blog space is where I share updates about anything important going on with my books, like teasers and thoughts about my works-in-progress, any new releases or sale prices on my books (stay tuned in the coming weeks for news on sales), and upcoming events. You can learn more about books by clicking on the Books tab on my website and you can buy signed books directly from me by going to the Purchase Books tab.

I also post about things that are on my mind, often related to what I’ve been writing. I have an ongoing series of posts about space exploration and one of my favorite past series of posts was about females in YA. There is the occasional guest post from a fellow author, artist, or creative type or a post that includes pictures of my kiddos and our adventures.

I love connecting with readers and other writers here and welcome comments, so if there’s something particular you’d like me to write about, please do let me know. My Author Visits page and Events page are good places to check out if you want to connect with me further. For those of you interested in the publishing side of writing, I have Self-Publishing Resources as well.

Upcoming Events: River Bend Bookshop Panel & Renaissance Faire

September 9, 2021 / Katie L. Carroll

I still have a few more posts on space exploration coming (see my posts on billionaires in space and why space exploration is important), but I wanted to take today to announce a couple of outdoor, in-person events I have coming up this month.

The first is a picture book author panel with the River Bend Bookshop at the Glastonbury Arts’ on the Green Art Show this coming weekend. I’ll be reading from THE BEDTIME KNIGHT on Sunday, September 12 around 11:00 a.m. There is an amazing line up of authors for the two days, so if you’re local to Connecticut, it’s definitely worth checking out. Find directions and parking options here.

Next up, I’m the featured author at the Connecticut Renaissance Faire on Saturday, September 25 for Wizard Weekend! I’ll be in the old-world marketplace most of the day, though my official signing time is from 1:00 – 3:00 p.m. I’ll have copies of all four of my books for sale with a special price on the Elixir Chronicles bundle. I’ll probably even be doing a little cosplaying as one of my own book characters, so stop by and show off your costume (if that’s your thing!).

The faire is on the Lebanon County Fairgrounds, 122 Mack Road in Lebanon, CT, and there is an admission fee, which I’m sure will be worth it given how many amazing things there are to check out there.