Sunday, July 30, 2006

Braces links

Archwired has an incredible amount of material, including a Metal Mouth Message Board. I should post about Retainer Girl (also available at Amazon etc), though since the site is more for adults with braces the next Dr.Wrighting novel, Love and Braces, will probably be more interesting to them since it is about an adult with braces. (Retainer Girl is more for teens and adults who have been through the experience already, I think.)

There are also links to a lot of braces blogs there, which I will have to check out. And one more really interesting link I found there was to Smile (A Dental Drama) by Raina Telgemeier - a braces comic!

I've linked to some videos at Intraoral Press. The Head Gear Girl movie is impressive, but there's also a lot at Youtube. Like Retainer fun.

Friday, July 28, 2006

Weekly update

The German Amazon now even has Retainer Girl in stock! 4 copies (I think). I wonder if anyone has read it yet. I hope they review it there, or tell others if they liked it. But it doesn't look like there have been any other Amazon sales.

Very busy right now (and the long trip ahead!), so I don't have time to try to publicize it elsewhere. Messageboards? Braces sites? MySpace? But I'll try to think of things to do in the next weeks. And finish Love and Braces ...!

Saturday, July 22, 2006

5 reasons you should read Retainer Girl

5 reasons you should read Retainer Girl, which is available at Amazon and most other online bookstores, including the German Amazon and the British Amazon:


1. There are almost no books which really describe what having braces is like, and Retainer Girl is all about what it's like having braces - and retainers and even headgear.

2. Retainer Girl isn't just about having braces. It's a real novel about being a teenager, with Lauren looking both back and ahead and describing all the other changes she is going through. Getting the braces off is just the most obvious change, a new freedom that also poses new challenges. The retainers she gets are a more flexible holding stage, and help her with the more difficult decisions she has to begin thinking about making.

3. Retainer Girl is also a bit of an orthodontic fantasy. The world it describes is one where braces are a slightly bigger deal than the real one and Dr.Wrighting is a slightly more intense (but very nice) orthodontist. There's some orthodontic fantasy of longer and more involved treatements, some of which might make the braces experiences readers have had not seem so bad after all.

4. Retainer Girl is honest about the difficulties of having braces - the pain and discomfort, the concern about how you look, the teasing. Lauren goes through all of that and more, sharing the entire experience of having braces with the reader.

5. Dr.Wrighting is better and worse than any orthodontist you know. Almost all her patients wind up really liking her (as much as one can like an orthodontist), but most of them have to wear more embarrassing and bulkier devices than most orthodontists would insist on, and they have to wear them for a longer time. All Dr.Wrighting cares about is that the treatment is a success, not that the braces are as little of an inconvenience as possible to patients. Retainer Girl is just the first in a series of novels about Dr.Wrighting's patients, and you'll want to read all of them to see all the things she does !

Weekly update

Things have slowed down again. No more sales of Retainer Girl at the German Amazon, I guess - rank is down in the 30,000s ! - - and still none anywhere else. But I hope that some of the first buyers have got it now and that there will be some good word of mouth when they see that it is a good novel about having braces !

Work on Love and Braces is going well but it's going to get hectic at home now so I don't know how soon I will be able to finish it. I hope to get it out before the fall !

Saturday, July 15, 2006

Weekly update

Retainer Girl really seems to have taken off in Germany! During the week the sales rank got as high as 2.028 at that Amazon which sounds sensational! But maybe it's just for the English books they sell there.

I finally noticed that for Amazon sales Lulu.com only adds those numbers at the end of the month, so the Lulu sales rank for the book is still terrible - 20,000+ ! But that should improve once the German sales come in.

It's kind of cool that the book has taken off in Germany first. The internet really does make it a small world! But the reason I set the "headquarters" up in the US, even though I am in England is because I was sure that America would be the biggest market. I thought it was going to be almost the only market! I still think that's where most of the sales will be, but I like it that it is also going to be a sort of international success.

The success of the book has also been invigorating as far as the writing goes, and I got a lot more of the next book done. It's already almost as long as Retainer Girl! But I knew it was going to be a bigger project. I think I have another 50 pages to go.

I'm glad that I'm getting so much done now since vacation time is coming up and that's going to limit what I can do. I don't think I can finish before we go to Michigan, but maybe I'll be close enough that I can finish it there. That would be great.

Saturday, July 08, 2006

Weekly update

Someone posted something about the Intraoral Press site at a braces forum - in German ! So now a lot more poeple have been coming to have a look. I hope I have enough information up so that they can make an informed decision about whether or not they want to buy and read Retainer Girl.

Someone has already bought it, which is so cool ! The Lulu Global Distribution really does get the book everywhere, and it is listed at all sorts of internet outlets, including the English Amazon and the French Amazon. But the first sale went through the German Amazon! It even had a sales rank of 8.792 there, which sounds really good, so maybe more than one copy got sold. I just feel bad that it looks like they have to wait 1-3 weeks for delivery.

So this first success has made my week. I don't mind that much that it's taking time for the word to spread, because I want readers who like the book to be able to read the next one - or ones! And finishing them and getting them out will take a few more months.

Wednesday, July 05, 2006

Teen book ?

Some of the online stores that list Retainer Girl describe it as a kid's or teen book. Allie's eleven and I think she's still too young. I think it is definitely a teen book. And even if she were a few years older, I would want her to have started with braces before she read a story like this one.

I like to think that it's exactly the sort of book I would have needed about halfway into my orthodontic treatment, and that it would have helped me the rest of the way because it describes so much of what I was going through. But it's probably better to err on the side of caution. I think "mature teenagers" is sort of the minimum audience age. And the book is also meant for people who have been through it already, because I think older teens and adults can enjoy it too. And parents of kids who are going through it now.

I do like the title, but it really is a book about every part of having braces. Lots of looks back at the different stages she goes through. So I hope people don't just expect it to be just about the retainer period!

Tuesday, July 04, 2006

July 4th update

Except for the heat it doesn't feel like July 4th here, but we'll celebrate later. I'm still not getting enough done on the next two Dr.Wrighting novels, but I did reach the most difficult pivotal scene in Love and Braces and I know exactly how the rest of it is going to go. Now I just need to find the time to write!

I think that I'm going to try to explain why people might want to read Retainer Girl here. I don't want to give away too much of the book, but I do want people to see why they might like it. Or why they might not, since I don't want people to get it if they're hoping for something else. And it also gives me something more to post here, other than the weekly updates where not much happens!