Quite an entertaining day. Highlights are things I wish I had a digital camera to share with you. But I googled what I saw, and turns out, one of two did have images to share. So, for your enjoyment, I share:
Stormtrooper Elvis
Sorry, the img src tag wasn’t working; not sure why.
The other highlight of the day was a t-shirt in the window of none other than Urban Outfitters, a place I’d never expect to have a T-shirt emblazoned with the following slogan:
“Sex, Drugs, and Dungeons & Dragons”
Other happenings: went to the Hasbro Vault party to see what’s in the vault for the next few years (our parent company is Hasbro). Got to see the toys for Ghost Rider. Didn’t get to see what was in the Vault (prototypes for the next few years) because they closed it until they could finish with an announcement. I waited around another 1/2 hour for the announcement, but by the time they started I was exhausted and realized I could barely stand up, so I headed back to my hotel room. When I looked at my legs tonight, I realized they’d swelled to about half again their normal size. I’m sitting here icing them and hoping I can last 3 more days. I’ve been dealing with some crazy health issues lately, so being on my feet without sitting at all for 12 hours a day isn’t working well with my legs.
On the bright side, though, went to an audiobook panel (and got to sit down for an hour) and learned a lot about the production of an audiobook. Did you know that the actor who reads an audiobook usually just makes notes or highlights the book itself, and reads directly from it? I’d always pictured something much more involved or high tech. Turns out, also, that the recording process for a book generally lasts about a week for an unabridged, one-narrator book. That’s just recording time, not prep or postproduction, but still, interesting tidbit.
Looking forward to ‘s panel with Tony DiTerlizzi and Mirrorstone author Matt Forbeck (Knights of the Silver Dragon). The subject is “Competing for the YA mind with words and pictures” tomorrow. Hopefully will catch up with then, too–she’s at the con as an attendee, and unless she drops by the Wizards, booth, there’s no way I’ll find her in the sheer mass of people at the
con!

Busy.
And last night was the “preview” night, so that means that the crush of people was “light traffic.” ALA has nothing on this show in sheer numbers.
And did you hear about the power going out in the LA air traffic control tower? Yeah, I was in a plane *over LA* while that occurred. However, we didn’t get the brunt of it. My hotel roommate was on the flight just before me, and they made them land in San Jose, where they sat on the tarmac for two hours. We left a little early, but because of the flying around LA in a holding pattern (thankfully, we had enough fuel), we lost about 15 minutes and I think they said we were the only flight to make it through to San Diego right then. My roommate actually got to SD about an hour after I did, and my flight left two hours later.
Also, I really am loving the Marriott at the marina. They gave us a free upgrade for no reason–bay side view instead of city view, with a balcony. Not that I’m in the room much, but when I am, I have a pretty picture out my window.
So I’m off to get ready for the day, and to hope I can stand on my
feet all day. It’s been quite a while since I have, and it was reeeaaaally hard to get myself out of bed this morning–I’m really sore. Four more days of this! Here’s hoping my body keeps up.

I’ve decided my LJ needs a title other than my username. My friend Jeff thought that “Stacy Whitman’s Grimoire for the Young and Young at Heart” would be good, but I’m not as convinced. Perhaps the current title is a good personalizing of that. What do you all think? Any suggestions?

I have just been invited to be the Editor Guest of Honor for Life, the Universe and Everything, a small con (“symposium”) in Provo, Utah, at my alma mater, Brigham Young University. I’ve gone to the two previous years–the first year as a grad student presenting a paper, the second just this last February as a fledgling editor–and I attended it with friends as an undergrad, of course. So it’ll be quite interesting. I suppose I’ll have to come up with a keynote address…? Plenty of time, because it doesn’t happen until February of next year. For those of you in Utah, though, keep it in mind!
Speaking of cons, one day till I leave for Comic-con. Lots of things to do in the mean time. With one week between returning from vacation and leaving for a trade show, it’s been crazy time here. Just remember to stop by the Wizards booth if you’re going to be at the show, and if you’re an author or an artist looking to publish with Mirrorstone, be sure to seek me out, as I’ll be the only Mirrorstone editor in atte
ndance.

I’ve always loved Chris LeDoux’s song “County Fair,” which reminded me of my 4-H days showing horses, rabbits, and art. (Yes, I know it’s a love song, but they go out into the midway, which is where we went between shows. I loved the quarter machine, which I thought I could actually win money at.) Today I got to discover what it was like on the judge’s end of the show. A woman at work leads a 4-H club for her kids and is involved in running much of the 4-H part of the fair for the arts & crafts side of things (not livestock, in other words). She sent out a bulletin at work asking for volunteers to judge, and I thought it’d be fun to try.
It really was. Lots of mediocre art, but then, looking back, my art was pretty bad at that age, too. But there were a few that really showed potential. I judged the ceramics, jewelry/beadwork, and weaving, all of which involved more than I thought they would. I even got to choose the grand champions–there’s a lot of responsibility riding on that!
And it was all up to me. Up till choosing the grand champions, it was much like being an editor: judge the
strengths and weaknesses, give comments noting those things in a way that both reinforces the good things and encourages improvement (do we ever stop needing that “start and end with the positive”?), and then make a judgement on what kind of ribbon it deserved (blue, red, or white). Oh, how I hated getting the red ribbons in 4-H, and I even got some whites, sadly, which apparently are rare in this county fair. I don’t think they were *as* rare in my own, but we didn’t have much money to invest in the things we showed, so sometimes my lack of prodigious talent was reinforced by poor materials.
But that’s where the similarities ended. Once I decide I like a book, I then have coworkers I can discuss it with, and superiors I want to like what I like so we can buy it. So I’m able to get concurrance and approval of my decisions–validation.
Well, being a 4-H judge means you need internal validation, because every time I asked the supervisor (my coworker) if she thought my choice of a grand champion was a good one, she basically just asked if that’s the one I wanted, and whether I had another one for a runner up. Tough!
But I’m pretty sure that I made some good choices. The jewelry/beadwork grand champion really was just beautiful. I would have worn it with a formal. The pottery grand champion was a tough decision and I wanted both to win. Weaving didn’t have as many entries and so it was pretty easy to pick a grand champion–it was the one that was the most elaborate and showed the greatest skill. Thankfully in that one I didn’t have to pick a reserve grand champion because it was too little.
Thus I have gone into the secret life of being a 4-H judge and found that … I grew up into one. Minus the responsibility of choosing the grand champion all by myself.

I can’t think of any mainstream publishers in the bookselling business currently, and I’m not well-versed enough with publishing history to know if that was ever the case, so it seems to me like the case of Deseret Book vs. Seagull Book is a unique example of why publishers shouldn’t be booksellers too.
Deseret Book is a religious press owned by the LDS Church. Covenant Communications is an independent publisher. Deseret Book also runs a B&N/Borders-type chain of bookstores that dot the Intermountain West, and Covenant has a sister company called Seagull Book and Tape, a discount book chain that has almost the same number of stores as DB across the West.
Both DB and SB have sold Deseret Book and Covenant books up until the recent past. A little friendly competition has kept prices low, which satisfies the (often cheap) LDS book-buying public. DB often also sells a select
number of mainstream titles. Both bookstores are also like a B&N or Borders in that they usually have a large selection of LDS music and other paraphernalia, much like a Christian bookstore would have multimedia items for its patrons.
Okay, that’s the background. Here’s the story.
Deseret Book recently announced that it would no longer be distributing its books through Seagull Bookstores. Why? Because, says executive VP at Deseret Book, “We have a difference in view in how we market, merchandise and promote the Deseret Book product. . . . As a premier brand, we provide all sorts of merchandising and marketing opportunities, such as posters and displays. They don’t and haven’t taken advantage of those (opportunities).”
Okay, now, what mainstream publisher in their right mind would make bookmarks, posters, floor displays, etc. (what’s the term for this stuff? It’s floated away from the top of my head)–and then tell B&N that if they didn’t use every floor display, poster, bookmark, toy giveaway, etc., that they were going to pull their account from the chain? And not as a negotiating tactic either (which I can’t imagine would be very successful), just as a business decision.
B&N would laugh in their faces. So long, see ya, good luck to ya. Hope your sales in other channels will mak
e up for what you sold through us.
(This is actually a viable option for many presses that don’t get lots of attention in the larger chains, so it’s not a completely wacked-out idea, but think of this example being a huge house that sells a lot through these channels.)
Publishers know that making marketing materials–ah! chotschky or something like that, is the word)–making chotschky is a gamble. Some bookstores will use it, some won’t. Some libraries, the same. You hand it out at trade shows, send it direct mail, etc. to get attention, not necessarily expecting bookstores to use it.
This is because publishers are independent of each other in the mainstream. In LDS publishing, the main retail outlets are connected to the two main publishers, and to get an advantage in the marketplace, Deseret Book appears to be shooting itself in the foot with a major distributor.
They do say they’re staying with other channels like B&N and Borders (in largely LDS-populated areas, I’m assuming), Amazon, and independent bookstores, none of which I think will be marketing DB’s books any more aggressively than Seagull did, so there seem to be some factors at work here that the public isn’t privy to.
However, for me, this just highlights that it’s really a good thing that publishers and booksellers are independent of each other as a general rule. It’s just plain a conf
lict of interest.
For more information on the issue, see:
KSL
Deseret News
Salt Lake Tribune
KUTV News

I decided to get a MySpace account, mainly because that’s where many tech-savvy teens hang out and if I want them to know about our books, that’s a good place to be. We’ve also opened a Mirrorstone profile, but it’s still not updated beyond the very basic of basic profiles yet. July has been crazy busy here, what with vacations and trade shows (my senior editor and I haven’t seen each other for a good three weeks, then she’ll return to the office Monday and I’ll leave for Comic-Con on Tuesday–whew!), so that’s been put to the backburner while we work on just getting the most important things done.
But if you’re on MySpace, go ahead and friend me (also slwhitman there) or Mirrorstone. Eventually we’ll get things up and running, and you’ll have a head start. 🙂
Speaking of Comic-Con, I’ll be working retail in the Wizards of the Coast booth. I’ll try to arrange some time to walk around on the floor, but that won’t be my main purpose in being there. So if you’re going to be there, stop by the Wizards booth and say hi. Hopefully, I’ll be able to do lunch or dinner with peopl
e sometime. If nothing else, I do plan on going to the Holly Black/Tony DiTerlizzi/Matt Forbeck panel (Matt writes Mirrorstone’s Knights of the Silver Dragon books). The details on that:
FRIDAY, JULY 21
Panel: 11:30-12:30, Room 1B
SIGNING: 12:30 – 1:30 Table #AA3
Competing for the Young Adult Mind with Words and Pictures:
Panelists co-creators of The Spiderwick Chronicles, Holly Black (Valiant) & Tony DiTerlizzi (G is for One Gzonk), Matt Forbeck (Knights of the Silver Dragon), Anne Ursu (The Shadow Thieves), Ahmet Zappa (The Monstrous Memoirs of a Mighty McFearless), Shane Berryhill ( Chance Fortune and the Outlaws ) and Tim Eldred (Grease Monkey).
Drop me a note here or via email if you’re going to be at the show.

Yay! I just discovered there’s a senior corps in Seattle. If anyone doesn’t know what I’m talking about, see www.dci.org. This would be great for me–to hang out with local people who also love corps, to get to be involved with local music (may not be great, but at least we’re playing, right?), perform a few times a year, that sort of thing. I think it’ll be a good time.
Brass Attack is very new (March of this year, it started), seems to be very little and only concert, not marching. But I think it would be a good thing to get involved with and get my lip back, just for a hobby/something to do/way to meet local people. They’re performing at the Seattle show tomorrow night.
And what fun that I’m home for the Seattle show! I just found it tonight and it’s tomorrow night. Glad it wasn’t tonight!

Thanks to a link from Cynthia Leitich Smith, I’ve just discovered the website of Cheryl Klein, an editor for Arthur A. Levine books at Scholastic. She’s got some great content on there, and I really like her article on plot (especially the ideas of first and second drafts focusing on different things), and especially the article on how finding a publisher is like dating and falling in love. In mentoring me, my senior editor has also used that comparison–submissions are like wooing, you don’t want to give too much away too soon, and sometimes you have to “break up” with an editor or an agent.
In that article, she’s got great advice for writers as the “pursuer” and publishers as the “pursued.” For example (I’ve made her points into paragraphs because I don’t know how to do bulleted lists in HTML and it was going all wonky):

So it’s your job to introduce yourself and your book in a way that will be attractiv
e to the pursued. In the dating world, this is known as a pick-up line. In publishing, it’s called the query letter.
What sets a yes apart from a no, in dating and in publishing?
Personality—Something interesting to say, that we haven’t heard five hundred times before;
Expression—said well. Basically, it should sound like jacket or catalog copy for your book.
Interest in the other person—that emphasizes why the listener (the editor) is right for the speaker (the book).
And—it has to be said—a nice, clean outward appearance, with no copyediting errors and a self-addressed stamped envelope.
Do NOT emphasize numbers like word count. Equivalent of taking your date out and reciting your ACT and IQ scores. Interesting, but only relevant if the rest of it works out.
It’s often helpful if you can compare your book to another book the editor might know—especially one of the editor’s books. It allows us to get a handle on it, and it shows you’ve done your research….
Now, queries don’t have to be exclusive—you can send out more than one at a time. But you should try to tailor each one to the editor to whom you’re sending it. Nothing more off-putting than when I get a query letter addressed to Samantha McFerrin at Harcourt—which happens sometimes: It’s sloppy on the writer’s part, and it’s not personal to me. Do note it’s a simultaneous query, though.
Just like in relationships, you need to be honest with everyone involved.

If you’re a new writer looking for advice on submitting, it’s great advice. She’s also got some suggested reading lists and advice for young editors.
Which reminds me that I’ve been meaning to post my own recommended reading list. Maybe I’ll try to do that over vacation. I’m off tomorrow to visit the family and go to a drum corps reunion. Happy 4th of July!

Wow, what a great dream I had this morning right before waking up. I finished Specials late last night, and apparently all night I dreamed I was a Special. Flying on a hoverboard over the city, going into a house to find a clue left by someone earlier, and being ambushed by somebody. It was the most vivid story-esque dream I’ve had in a while. Of course, now most of it has faded, but the memory of flying on a hoverboard remains.
Thus, to have cool dreams, read Scott Westerfeld.