by Sylvia McNicoll | Nov 13, 2012 | Sylvia McNicoll
Last night, November 12, was a celebration of literary arts in the Hamilton community. Lots of prizes are given out and my friends Marsha Skrypuch, Estelle Salata and Gary Barwin were celebrated. Â The crazy thing about awards is that such diverse books end up in the same category. Â So I think Tori’s Happy Journal by Estelle Salata should win a prize for the best book set in the Lake Erie cottage country with windsurfing in it. Â Last Airlift by Marsha Skrypuch should win for best nonfiction on escaping Vietnam and Gary Barwin’s poetry books should win for…I’m not sure. Â But you get what I mean. Â We pit apples against grapes when readers love all kinds of fruits er books. Â Still… Â These awards offer a lovely get together for people who usually work alone in a messy office.Â
The strange cooincidence is that instead of working on rewrites I declared Monday a reading day and read True Blue by Deborah Ellis. Â I bought the book at Telling Tales in September and just got to reading it yesterday. Â It was a compelling dark read about an uncomfortable character who does not stand up for a friend. Â True Blue won in the Young Adult Category. Â If only Deborah could have been there to hear Aquarius Theatre’s creative director Ron Ulrich read the first chapter.
by Sylvia McNicoll | Nov 7, 2012 | Sylvia McNicoll
This endcap is located at my nearest Indigo at 1250 Brant Street, right next to the new Marshalls.  I’m signing there this Thursday, November 8 from 6:00 p.m. to 9:00 p.m.  Chris Chehowski, the enthusiastic new manager there, invited me on this his Plum Rewards night.  People enrolled in their free Plum Rewards program will get scratch and save cards, the first 25 will get a free prize.  There will a singer, refreshments.  It’s a general customer appreciation night.  Check out the details here: http://www.facebook.com/events/203414569793017/
I’m looking forward to meeting new readers and maybe getting some shopping done myself. As per my custom, IÂ will be offering my up own renowned Mars Bars Squares and cheerfully answering questions from eager writers or readers. And of course signing! Â Not just my latest Red Maple Nominee, crush. candy. corpse but also Grave Secrets and Last Chance for Paris.
We’re still pondering about signings being a good use of authors’ time. So far so good.
Late breaking news: Â November 27th and the endcap is still up. This morning I received an email from a Burlington reader Amy who says she picked up crush. candy.corpse from the end cap, read the back blurb and ended up buying it. Â She said she isn’t a big reader but she loved the story, and cheered for Sunny at the end. Â She also picked up another of my books and intends to read more of my titles.
Signings seem to be the only way to connect with a non school market. Â
by Sylvia McNicoll | Oct 28, 2012 | Sylvia McNicoll
Guests at the Author Appreciation Party
Authors love to party and we love being appreciated. So when Wendy Mason and Christie Harkin invited us to an author appreciation party, we showed up in droves. (Full confession, camera battery was dead and Frankenstein and his bride did not attend, my daughter, the bride here, is the author of soon to be released Wardroids, though)
What we did, besides eat and drink, was discuss books, publishers and awards. Librarians and literacy consultants also showed, they were very appreciative of us and that felt wonderful.
I met Jennifer Lanthier and looked at her lovely Heather’s pic’ The Stamp Collector. I chatted with Barbara Reid (Picture a Tree) and Deborah Kerbel (Under
the Moon) who are both nominated for Govenor General Awards. Afterwards I rushed to Indigo for Deborah’s book. Then I talked to Mahtab Narsimhan (The Tiffan) about our Red Maple nominations. I’d long ago bought and read her novel about a boy whose life went a different direction because of a message misdirected in a lunch box.
Readers might be surprised to learn that these awards do not pit author against author. Most of us are good friends and admire each other’s work. We know how difficult a job writing can be. Ah but so much fun, especially the parties. And I love to enjoy someone else’s story. We are our own best appreciators; we love to read. I can’t tell you how many times I heard authors tell each other at this party that they’d read or were going to read each other’s books.
The Red Maple shortlists ten fiction (and ten non fiction) books for grade 7 and
8 students to read and select one favourite. Hurray if that’s my book or Mahtab’s. But both our books can be your favourite, or all ten. Or you can like each for a different reason. You can read those ten and read our other titles and decide you like a different novel much better. I would definitely read Deborah Kerbel’s and I will buy Barbara Reid’s Picture a Tree. I also bought The Town that Drowned by Riel Nason. She wasn’t even at the party and her novel is on the Red Maple list.
The bookshelf in my heart holds many titles and so can yours.
by Sylvia McNicoll | Oct 22, 2012 | Sylvia McNicoll
A Genuine Red Maple
The Red Maple program will get into full swing around January, so I’m told, but I received my first note regarding the awards, the day after the announcement. I think it had more to do with bookstore signings than the Red Maple.
Most authors despise these events. Bookstore customers slink around you, averting your eyes, or ask you where the washrooms/mugs/giftwrap is. No matter which award you’ve won, your audience stays away in droves. Hey, they’ve already read your novel.
Everyone who is nominated has already won a larger readership.
Nobody lines up for your autograph; you have to call out to distant passerbyers. I make treats: so for crush.candy.corpse I call out, “Hey, want to try a Mars Bar square.” and when I draw them in, I quickly spew about the story and hope to hook them into buying. At the end of a good four hours of this, I will have sold 30 books.
So what makes it the least bit worth while? If you don’t make the tree lists and you haven’t had any author visits for a while, it’s a way of reaching out to the public. The sales clerk may develop an affinity for you and your titles and may hand sell for a while. The store may keep a display of the book for a very short while.
The real payoff I think, though, are the new readers you make, independent of school, teachers,
librarians and awards. Takes reading out of the have to, hate to category. Makes broccoli into chocolate again, if you know what I mean.
Chloe would be such a new reader. Chloe, if you’re reading this blog post, can you answer this question: would you have read crush. candy.corpse if your cousin had not met me and bought you Last Chance for Paris? Do you think you ever would have read Last Chance for Paris? Authors out there did you ever make a contact who you felt was worth your four hours? Yes or no, are booksignings worth it. Weigh in!
Here’s Chloe’s note, published with her kind permission.
Hi,
My name is Chloe and I am in grade 7 at Immaculata in Ottawa, Ontario.
I read your Last Chance For Paris book which my cousin Claire had got signed for me at a chapters in Toronto this summer and was so excited when our schools teacher librarian Mme. Charon told us one of your books was on the list. I want to email just to tell you in person congrats on your nomination and you will probably be getting my vote. Thank you so much if you actually read this and again congrats!
Your number 1 fan,
Chloe
by Sylvia McNicoll | Oct 15, 2012 | Sylvia McNicoll
Writers love libraries, they’re our paradise.
The angels who help us around there are the librarians. Â Over the summer a flock of the angels spend their times reading all the Canadian children’s books and making lists of ten for each tree award. Â Each different tree represents a different age group. The Silver Birch is the tree for grades four to six for example. Â My novel Bringing Up Beauty won this award and I would say it launched my career even though I’d written eight books before it.
Only ten books make a list and I think the criteria cannot  be that the books are the best, but rather that they are appealing in unique ways.  I’m not sure.  I just know fabulous books make the list and fabulous books don’t. Being nominated for a tree award by a group of these angels sends us halfway to heaven.  When I write a story, I’m always hoping for an audience of readers, a big audience.  When you’re nominated for a tree, all the schools participating order a set of your novels.  That delivers many readers to my story.
So I’m very happy to announce that Crush. Candy. Corpse was nominated for the Red Maple Award. Â This would be for grade 7 and 8.
I love the competition on the list and hope to read all those books. Hope you will too.
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