Tag Archives: young adult

Aug1

Merch Girl Character Spotlight – Lacey Kind

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Let’s get to know a little more about Lacey Kind, the main character in Merch Girl.

Lacey Kind

Lacey Kind

Full Name: Lacey Anne Kind
Birth Date: July 31
Favorite Color: Purple
Favorite Band: Lansdowne!!!
Heels or flip-flops?: Flip-flops
Favorite place you’ve traveled?: LA was wicked cool, I love celebrities.
Favorite snack: Oreos
Tell us something we would be surprised to know about you: I am fluent in French and I once dyed my hair pink (temporarily)
Favorite TV show?: Anything on MTV
Favorite book?: The Perks of Being a Wallflower
Favorite Movie?: Almost Famous
Best tour memory?: Spending time with Logan in New York City

To learn more about Lacey, and her time on tour, check out Merch Girl, available on Amazon now! http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00CN0HNQO

Jul25

Merch Girl is FREE July 25 – 29!

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If you’ve been wanting to read Merch Girl and haven’t had a chance to download yet, do it now while it’s free!! As part of my Kindle Select subscription, I am able to give readers the chance to purchase my book for free for 5 days. So what are you waiting for? Download it here now through July 29:  http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00CN0HNQO/

 

About Merch Girl:

Seventeen-year-old Lacey Kind doesn’t have the guts to talk to cute boys, isn’t a size two, and would rather stay home and listen to music than go to a party. But in the summer before her first year of college, she ends up thousands of miles away from home, in the back of a tour bus, underneath the body of the hottest teen rockstar in the country.

When Lacey and her best friend Trina sneak into a Boston nightclub to see their favorite band, they not only get to watch their rock gods perform for the first time, but score a chance to meet the guys too. Lacey’s heart races as she comes face-to-face with her idol, nineteen-year-old lead singer, Logan Shire.

The girls charm their way into being hired to sell merchandise on Lansdowne’s first summer tour. As “merch girls” Lacey and Trina quickly find themselves transported from their ordinary, suburban life to an exhilarating few months on the road. But they soon realize that life on the road isn’t always a smooth ride…

Jul16

Self Publishing – Lessons Learned Part 2

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So, it’s been a little over 2 months since I self-published my debut Young Adult novel, Merch Girl on Amazon using their Kindle Direct Program. Here are some things I’ve learned along the way. To read Part 1 of my lessons learned about self publishing, click here. 

Categories Matter

Amazon gives you the option to choose two categories for your book. I chose Teen Romance and Coming of Age when I launched my book. I believe that I chose the correct categories, because Merch Girl cracked the Top 100 in the best sellers list, and even the Top 30 in the Hot New Releases lists in both categories. This helped with the visibility of the book tremendously. 

Sales May Drop After 1 Month

Because of the visibility on the Hot New Releases list, Merch Girl was purchased much more than I ever imagined it would be. However, after about a month, the purchases did drop slightly. I played with the categories a bit, and it seemed that the book was doing better in Teen Romance than in Coming of Age. So, I removed it from the latter and categorized it instead under Music since the book is about rockstars and concerts. The book actually placed in the Top 10 best sellers in the Popular Music and Pop Culture Categories immediately. Exciting, right? Yes, it was cool to be a best seller again, but I kept it in the category for about two weeks and realized that it wasn’t helping sales at all. In fact, i think they were slipping because of it (less visibility to the type of readers I was trying to attract). 

I decided today to add it back into the Coming of Age category and see how it goes. I’m also planning on using my “free days” that Kindle Select gives you for being exclusive with them for 90 days. I’ll report more on that experience after the free days are used!

Happy categorizing!

Jun12

Merch Girl Character Spotlight – Logan Shire

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I’m starting a new series of posts spotlighting the main characters in my YA novel Merch Girl! Here you’ll find the nitty gritty details that might not have made it into the book.

First up is everyone’s favorite rockstar, Logan Shire, lead singer of the band Lansdowne!

Logan Shire

Logan Shire

  • Full Name: Logan Matthew Shire
  • Birth Date: April 22
  • Favorite Color: Red
  • Favorite Band: Aerosmith
  • Boxers or Briefs?: Boxers
  • Favorite place to tour?: Boston, always!
  • Best prank you’ve pulled?: I tend to pants Griffin on stage a lot; he hates it, but that’s why it’s so fun
  • Tell us something we would be surprised to know about you: I used to have my eyebrow pierced, oh and I can do a perfect British accent
  • Favorite TV show?: True Blood
  • Favorite book?: Harry Potter
  • Favorite Movie?: The Departed
  • Tell us something about your bandmates that we wouldn’t know?: Ryan’s diet consists solely of pop-tarts, cheetos and mountain dew. Griffin tries to get a new tattoo in every city we go to, but our manager only lets him get away with it about half of the time.
  • Best tour memory?: Late-night conversations and pizza parties with some amazing new friends.

 

To learn more about Logan, his band and his first cross-country tour, check out Merch Girl, available on Amazon now!  http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00CN0HNQO