Apple Seeds - March/April 2006
Sandy Pauly, Owner
Michael Blake. Don’t recognize the name? The author of “Dances With Wolves” is back on the scene with a contract for a new novel, Indian Yell: Insurgency in the American West. His last book was so well known; he gets money up front—without a word in print at this time!
Psychic, Sylvia Brown, has hardcover “If You Could See What I See” already in the top bestseller numbers.
Kid Stuff: A February Publishers Weekly was full of children’s book selections for the coming year—and I mean FULL. No wonder Mom & Dad have a hard time picking out books for the kiddies! (Ayyyee—did you know “The Fonz” is writing for children?)
This complaint I’m familiar with:
Too many new kids’ books arrive
in a pretty lousy condition.
Publishers, let’s be careful out there!
Some more Kid Stuff: Postage Stamps will be featuring Curious George Flies a Kite, The Very Hungry Caterpillar, and Charlotte’s Web—with more to come.
Elton John co-wrote the songs for Anne Rice’s vampire Lestat. Gotta go to Broadway for that!
Andrew Greeley has a new hardcover out this March, “Irish Crystal”. A-n-d his “Irish Cream” is now in paperback. He’s certainly been publishing more and more these past years. Check out his website at agreeley.com.
You’ve got to start reading Fern Michaels again. We’ve got 3 boxes full in the backroom! Her latest is Pretty Woman—which we ain’t got.
Fern Michaels has a great website. You can download, or just print, her book lists in Excel (Alpha, by date or publisher) in Word or Adobe Acrobat PDF File. When her youngest started kindergarten, her (no longer!) husband told her, “Get off your ass and get a job.” She did just fine—with the writing and without HIM!
Did you know:
Lillian Jackson Braun is 90 years young.
Toni Morrison is 75.
So, if you want to be an author and you’re in that age bracket, or heading there,
keep writing!
Regarding our “aging” population, sometime in 2007 there will be a new imprint aimed at women 35 & older—fiction & non-fiction.
There’s a “Win A Date With A Zillionaire!” contest in the March Romantic Times BookClub Magazine. Three Winners! (He’s Danielle Steel’s ex—Tom Perkins.) The guy’s a zillionaire, and has to have a magazine look for dates? (Yuk, but it’s for his 1st book promotional.)
A new, Four Star historical romance paperback is out for Dorothy Garlock fans:
Train From Marietta. Strange price though—12.95.
The HQN books (newer imprint for Harlequin) are on shelves everywhere with other “regular” romances. Kasey Michaels and Linda Lael Miller are a couple of the authors mentioned.
Three readers have asked why we don’t have more of Steve Hamilton’s books. I don’t know. Same goes for Patricia Sprinkle and Carl Hiaasen. Haven’t finished inventory yet, but we do have somewhere around 40,000 books.
Oh, hey, I just read the funniest, bawdiest western by Sharon Sala. Even Mr. P was laughing out loud. It is a western for men and women. If you see “Whippoorwill” anywhere, grab it! (There’s a baptismal scene in there you’ll never forget. Just wait until you attend one at your church—you may be asked to find another congregation!)
Here’s the headline from an ad: “She’s got the boss from hell—literally!”
It’s for “Working for the Devil” by Lilith Saintcrow. NOW, go ahead and google Lilith. Great author name for a devil of a book!
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Okay, now on to the good stuff: AREA AUTHORS.
Dan Prusi: Dan has finished another manuscript, and is working on the next one. He sold (mostly wildlife) 2 stories to Boundary Waters Journal, 1 to Arkansas Wildlife and 1 to Conservation Volunteer, with 3 more sold for publication in 2006. Dan does a nature and outdoors column for THREE papers and does KAXE radio. Busy man—and he has to go to work, too.
Terry Mejdrich’s 3 area suspense novels are selling well. Our new writers group hopes to get a little input from him on self-publishing. He was also interviewed on the radio.
Nathan Jorganson’s Waiting for White Horses consistently finds new readers—mostly by word of mouth as Nate has now received four honors for his novel. 1) 2004 Benjamin Franklin Award for Best New Voice Fiction, 2) 2005 National Writers Association David Raffelock Award, 3) 2005 Independent Publishers Book Award Finalist, and 4) 2005 ForeWord Magazine 2005 Book of the Year Award Finalist!
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A popular PI series “Arch McNally”, originally penned by Lawrence Sanders, has continued through the writings of Vincent Lardo. Since Sanders death in 1998, Lardo has authored six in the series, which includes McNally’s Bluff.
Margaret Weis (58 this March) has the final book in the trilogy “Master of Dragons” in print. A prolific author, Weis is also a publisher.
Some paperbacks on Bestseller List in March:
Michael Connelly…………….....The Closers
Steve Berry……………………...The Third Secret
John Grisham……………………The Broker
Tony Hillerman…………………Skeleton Man
Danielle Steel…………………....Impossible
Luanne Rice…………………….Crazy in Love
Michael Crichton……………….State of Fear
Daniel Silva………….…………..Prince of Fire
Elie Wiesel………….……………Night
Truman Capote…………………In Cold Blood
Jodi Picoult…………………..…Vanishing Acts
and James Patterson & Howard Roughan……….Honeymoon
Bookspan: The book club paid $680,000 for telemarketing violations. They called over 100,000 people on the Do Not Call List. Tsk.
At the “new” bookstores:
If you’ve got $49.95 + tax, pick up Stephen King’s audio “Cell”. The premise of the novel is that characters hear “The Pulse” on their cell phones and become “something”. You can go online and get a clip of this “thing” and send it to your “friends”.
OR
For $12.95 you can get Don Piper’s (true story) “90 Minutes in Heaven”, which now has a huge readership. He was pronounced dead at a car accident site, and 90 minutes later came back with a memory of heaven and tells what he saw, heard & felt while he was absent from his body.
110 years ago (2-25-1896) the 1400 foot wooden train trestle across Shingobee Bay was completed. On March 10, 1896 the Village of Walker was officially incorporated. The trestle is now gone. Walker is STILL HERE!
The first council meeting on 4-25-1896 dealt with prostitution,
outhouses and animal carcasses—among other important issues.
Read this and more in the “Walker on Leech Lake, The First 100 Years, 1896-1996.”
Saying, “Hey!” to Prof. Bill & to our Sharon.
Gotta go……Hugs to everyone!
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