Today’s the official release of Found in Translation, although Family Christian at Virginia Center hasn’t received its copies yet and Barnes & Noble across the street doesn’t plan to stock it. Gee! I was hoping to take pictures of it on the shelf SOMEWHERE. But that time will come.

I trust you’ve all received your copies of Found by now. I know some of you won’t be able to start reading it as soon as others, but your feedback on Amazon and other bookseller websites is just as important as your talking it up with your friends. Sales during the first few months of a book’s release are the most crucial, so your help is really important.

By the way, so you won’t be the last to know: there’ll be a book signing at Lifeway on Broad Street from 5:00-8:00 on January 14; at Family Christian at Virginia Center on January 15 from 11:00-2:00; and the book release party will be at church right after the 11:00 service on January 16. My daughter, Kristi, will be here for that weekend.

If you live in or near Richmond, please bring your books for us to sign. As a good writer friend of mine says, “That’ll get you 25 cents more at a yard sale.” *G*

I hope your enjoy your reading!

Best regards,
Roger

I don’t know if all of you are familiar with book trailers, but they’re very much like movie trailers. I’ve had one professionally made for Found in Translation, and it looks GREAT!

Would you all please check it out here and then repost the link on your Facebook accounts so the maximum number of people will get a chance to see it.

Thanks! This is REALLY important.

Roger

You may think I’m terribly disappointed about the delay and the uncertainly, but I’m not. I have some othe manuscripts I want to clean up and try selling, and–as much as I love the Altered Hearts series—taking a break to do something different for a while will probably make books 3 and 4 even better when the time comes.

However, this makes YOUR job as a tribe member even more important. I know you’re anxious to receive your influencer copies (not back from the printer yet) and start reading Found in Translation, and I’m anxious for you to do so. If you really like Found, there’s no end to the good you can do by talking it up among your friends. You all probably know people in other parts of the country, too, and the wider you spread your word of mouth comments, the more people Found in Translation may touch.

And please don’t limit yourself to other teens, either. I never intended for this to be strictly a teen book. Of all of my manuscripts, Found is my wife’s favorite, and she’s, uh, a lot older than a teen. *G*

Thanks in advance for being my mouthpiece!

Roger

More important, I gave the wrong link to get directly to my story. Go here.

The story I submitted to CFOM will appear in the November issue. I’m not sure exactly when that will come out, but the editor sent me a link for my story, Coupon Girl.

It won’t take you long to read, and I think you’ll really enjoy it. I’d love to know what you think.

Best regards,
Roger

I wanted to bring you up-to-speed on what’s going on with Found in Translation. The release date of 1/1/11 is set in stone, according to the publisher, and this coming Sunday my wife and I will meet for lunch with Cody Harlow (our youth pastor, for those of you who don’t belong to Winn’s Baptist Church), his wife Amber, and Jeff Chadwick, another of the pastors at Winn’s. Plus Jeff’s wife, Cheryl. If you didn’t count six people there, I left somebody out.

Our purpose? To plan a book release party in early to mid-January. While nothing is written in stone (except the release date, of course), Kathleen and I have a few preliminary ideas, and we’ve gotten some advice from other people as well.

We are thinking about holding the release party at church some evening. We want to divide it into two parts. A fun part (mixed in with “meet the author”) for youth followed by a church-wide reception and book signing for everyone. We hope the youth will invite their friends from other chuches, and maybe Cody can invite other youth groups. I have no idea how much room is in the youth trailer.

My 23-year-old-daughter, Kristi, will come up from Orlando for this event. Barbour Publishing has listed her as my co-author. You can read her Foreword to learn the background of that. The important thing is she’ll keep me from looking so old! *L*

If you have any suggestions about the youth event (or even the reception), please post your comments here. I’ll give you an update after Sunday’s meeting.

I’ve probably left something out, but that’s it for now.

Oh, by the way, Kathleen and I have designed a new tee-shirt to give away as prizes. I’ll post a picture after ours come.

Also, VERY IMPORTANT: what do you think of giving a Kindle book reader as a grand prize that evening? I don’t know how many teens have Kindles yet, but it seems like a great prize for anyone who’s really fond of reading. And that’s what this whole thing’s all about. Reading literature that’s worth reading and not detrimental to a teen’s spiritual health.

Okay. That’s it. Again.

Bye for now,
Roger

How Can You Help Promote a New Book?
If You Love a Book Author and Want to Help Them

Writing an article for Wikipedia sounds especially good–when the time comes. I won’t be able to do it about myself. *L* I’m not sure which article suggested that.

Thanks ahead of time for what you will do to help me. A little help from each of you adds up to a lot of help. *G*

Roger

Thanks,

Roger

By the way, I know it’ll be hard to judge Overshadowed completely since you haven’t read the first two books. At the same time, the lack of familiarity with the characters will be more challenging than not knowing what happened in the first first two books.

Thanks, Tribe!

Roger