by jphilo | Sep 30, 2009 | Book Updates
Yesterday one of my writer friends directed me to a snazzy feature available at the Amazon web page for A Different Dream for My Child. Now, I knew the page was the place to buy the book, which you’re all welcome to do if you have some spare dollars burning a hole in your pocket. But I didn’t know that partway down the page were the statistics about how the book was selling. I’m not sure if the information is available to the general public, but somehow it shows up for me. Hmm.
Initially, I thought this feature was just about the coolest thing ever. Especially since my book was #17 in the category of Books > Children’s Books > Religions > Christianity > Devotional. Of course, that was before I realized what you may already have noticed. Different Dream is categorized as a children’s book, which it’s not. But still, I decided, when I discovered that narrow category had over 100 books in it, my baby was holding its own.
And this morning, when I checked the stats again, I was overjoyed to see Different Dream at #12 in its narrow category, and it had cracked the top #100 in the wider category of all Christian devotional books. “How about them apples?” I was thinking as my emotions soared. “Best sellers list, here I come.”
I was pretty smug, dollar signs dancing in my eyes, until I had to go to the page again this afternoon (Okay, so I didn’t have to go to the page; I just wanted to) and saw it had dropped to #27 in its narrow category, which as we know is the wrong category, and my spirits plunged.
By this point I was fed up, tired of my feelings rising and plummeting like those pesky line graphs we made in junior high math class. I hated making them way back when, and now here my innards were, an emotional facsimile of the same, dratted things. Dry, boring statistics I didn’t know existed had invaded and taken control of my life. Eww!
But, no more. From now on, to the best of my ability, I resolve to ignore the Amazon statistics. And I will implement that resolution after checking my stats one last time.
Bummer. #31
by jphilo | Sep 27, 2009 | Book Updates
After weeks of hair-pulling, mental anguish, and nail-biting www.DifferentDream.com, the website companion to my new book, is up and running!
You are cordially invited to visit the website and spend some time there. Your comments and advice concerning the topics discussed in the blog posts are most welcome, even coveted. My goal for the website is to provide a place for parents of special needs or very sick children to find advice, encouragement, hope and a community.
According to a book store manager I spoke with today, the distributor says it will be available at book stores around the middle of September. But according to the publisher, it’s set for release on September first. So it should be available for purchase through the link at DifferentDream.com or through these outlets:
Amazon
Christianbook.com
Discovery House Publishers
But, if you want a copy immediately, contact me. I have three cases ready to sign and sell!
by jphilo | Aug 27, 2009 | Book Updates
For the past week, every waking moment of my life (and this blog) has been consumed by the publication of my book. Not that I’m complaining, mind you. After all, I’ve been working toward this goal for almost four years.
But now and then, a writer needed to breathe normal air, not the heady perfume of printer’s ink and rising blog traffic statistics. In that case, this morning’s annual physical and mammogram were just what the doctor ordered. There’s nothing like being poked, prodded, bled, and squashed to deflate the ego and remind a person she puts her underwear on one leg at a time just like everybody else.
- Waiting for the nurse, the doctor, lab tech, and the rad tech to do their things left me with plenty of time to think about all the normal stuff waiting to be done at home.
- The basil needs to be clipped and turned into pesto.
- Me and Mr. Clean have a date with the kitchen that can’t be postponed any longer.
- Ditto for the Tidy Bowl man and the bathrooms.
- The dust on the furniture is getting thick.
- The weeds are winning in the flower beds, again.
- It’s time to organize my photo CDs and interview tapes, and speaking DVDs.
- I need to learn iMovie and turn my digital movies into demo speaking DVDs.
- First of the month – time to pay the bills.
Boy, was I glad when the lab tech jabbed me with a needle, and I had something less painful to think about.
But, I wonder, when will I get everything done? I figure right after I spend this weekend scrapbooking with my sister-in-law is soon enough. Unless my book becomes a best seller before then. Fat chance, but a writer’s gotta have her dreams.
by jphilo | Aug 21, 2009 | Book Updates
The first copy of
A DIfferent Dream for My Child:
Meditations for Parents of Critically or Chronically
Ill Children
was safely delivered on August 20, 2009
to Jolene Philo
Length: 267 pages
Gestation Period: Three years
Available for viewing: Immediately
Available for purchase: September 1, 2009
Purchase Locations:
Discovery House Publisher (receive a 10% discount)
Amazon
Christian Book Distributors
Christian Book Stores
Signed copies can be purchased from their mother, Jolene Philo.
by jphilo | Aug 19, 2009 | Book Updates
Those of you who read yesterday’s post know I’m a little testy this week. “2 much technology 4 me 2 do,” as a Twitter post would say. And since Twitter is one of Technology woman’s testiness catalysts, it deserves a mention here.
However, progress has been made in the past 24 hours. The website is coming along slowly but surely, and my web guy may not be the whip cracker first impressions made him out to be. And while I’m not quite moving forward in the Twitter sea, I am treading water which is a step up from the drowning sensation of last week.
But the big news is that the publicist at Discovery House Publishers completed the book trailer for A Different Dream for My Child and posted it at a variety of places on the web, including YouTube. If you’re wondering what a book trailer is, you can find out by clicking this link. Of course, that’s assuming this technology woman wannabe follows directions so everything works like it should.
by jphilo | Aug 6, 2009 | Book Updates
This morning, when I poured skuggly, slimy green water from my rainbucket into my flowerpots, the overwhelming sense of playing at life assaulted me. This sensation is nothing new. Those who knew me way back when can vouch for my perpetual citizenship in the land of make-believe. For much of my childhood, with an imagination fueled by repeated readings of the Little House books, I pretended to be a log cabin, prairie girl. Of course, that was fine and dandy for a little kid, but I pranced into adulthood with one foot still firmly planted in la-la land. To this day, my foot’s still there.
My first teaching job at Sky Ranch for Boys, a treatment facility for juvenile delinquents, should have yanked me free, but it didn’t. With several seasons of Welcome Back, Kotter under my belt and the repeated viewing of To Sir With Love during my formative years, I knew my recent college training and high ideals were just what a bunch of wayward adolescent boys riding on erratic waves of testosterone and illicit drugs needed to turn them around.
Boy, was I wrong. After two years in the classroom, my efforts hadn’t accomplish half as much as Sidney Poitier did in and hour and a half on the big screen. Before long, playing the part of a saintly, compassionate miracle working teacher became, well, hard work.
So I left that job and got a new one teaching country school in the little South Dakota town where we lived. My constant childhood rereadings of the Little House books and hours of playing school marm with my cousins as students had me convinced I knew everything there was to know about country schools, though my educational training never addressed the subject.
Boy, was I wrong. Teaching the kids the traditional subjects wasn’t the problem. The problem was teaching music, art, and PE – not a pretty sight. The job duties also included cleaning the school, making sure the bulls weren’t in the school yard before dismissing kids for the day, and pooper-scooping with a snow shovel after the bulls and the kids were gone.
So, how did I reconcile the lovely land of make-believe with the cruel, workaday world? I became a fiction writer. Three years ago when my mystery writing partner and I started writing a novel based on our experiences on the prairie. Working on the project is like total immersion in la-la land. We are allowed, even encouraged, to keep pretending as long as we keep writing, which could be a long time if the book gets published and turns into a series.
Of course, immersion in la-la land sometimes seeps into everyday life, which brings me back to watering my flowers with skuggly, slimy rainwater this morning. See, I know I’m just playing at being an eco-friendly, farm woman. And I know that someday, when the play becomes work, I’ll bail and cook up a new way to play.
The great thing about this immature propensity is that I don’t have to grow out of it. Because I’m a fiction writer, I get to call it research and do it some more. But enough talk about the land of make-believe. It’s time to get to work. Or play. Or work. To me, they’re one and the same.
