Sometimes the setting in a book becomes a character, and that's something I tried very hard to do with my fictional small town of Snowden, Iowa, in my young adult novel THE OBVIOUS GAME. Recently I received an advanced copy of Keija Parssinen's THE UNRAVELING OF MERCY LOUIS, which is set in the tiny Southern oil town of Port Sabine, Texas. Even though it was below zero when I read this book, I could feel the thick, reeking air of this refinery town on the back of my neck.

There is so much going on in this novel: the thrill of competition (basketball), a coach's place in a teen's life, first love, the complexity of lifelong friendships, difficult mother/daughter relationships, religion, Y2K fear, environmental and financial distress, fear of the community outlier, teenage sexuality and pregnancy and health complications so unusual I had to look them up because I didn't believe they existed, but guess what: They do.

Every time I thought I knew what would happen next, I was wrong. It was that good. I'm actually still thinking about it a few days later and have recommended it to four people since I read it.

So if you like thinky-but-thrilling books, you should read this one. I haven't read Keija's first novel yet, but as I'm the sort of person who falls in love with authors more than books, I'm going to put it on my to-be-read list.

Here's a picture of Keija, who has absolutely nothing going for her except diplomas from Princeton and the Iowa Writers' Workshop (where she was a Truman Capote fellow) and a Michener-Copernicus Award. So I am totally not the only person who thinks her writing is very much worth your copious free time.

I know, and she's cute. Try not to hate her.

The novel's official release is March 10th, but you can pre-order a copy here and purchase Keija’s first novel,  THE RUINS OF US, here.

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This post is part of a blog tour! I know, you're shocked I would do that! And I am not the only person giving away books. Check out my partners in literary crime below.

Andrea Casarsa - Maybe It's Just Me

Greta Funk - GFunkified

Julie Gardner - Julie C. Gardner

Saturday, March 6: Alexandra - Good Day, Regular People

Monday, March 9: Tracy Morrison - Sellabit Mum and Nicole Leigh Shaw - Ninja Mom

Tuesday, March 10: Ann Imig - Ann's Rants and Tarja Parssinen - The Flying Chalupa

Wednesday, March 11: Alison Lee - Writing, Wishing

Friday, March 13: Nancy Davis Kho - Midlife Mixtape

And now I'm going to do one of my favorite things: Give away a book. Follow the Rafflecopter instructions below. I will leave the giveaway open for one week and close it next Friday. Enter as much as you want.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

I drove her to school yesterday, because it was cold.

She hoisted her backpack and saxophone out of the trunk that she didn't used to be able to open by herself. It is a heavy trunk door and the struts to keep it open don't work anymore.

I see her every day, but something about the way she flipped her hair back and blew me a kiss reminded me of the way she looked when I dropped her off in first grade. But this isn't first grade, it's fifth grade, and she's told me next year she will rule the school.

Something about the way she flipped her hair and blew me a kiss nailed my gut to the back of my seat, and I actually couldn't move for a breath.

My mother told me about this love, but I didn't understand it.

Every night she says she loves me more. And I say no, that's impossible. I don't even make a game out of it. I know now it is impossible to love your mother more than she loves you, at least in my family.

She saw a while back that I was serious, and she stopped trying to win the argument. I wrap her in blankets and the promise that there is no way that I could not love her the most.

She clomps off toward the school in her winter boots, the backpack and the saxophone trying to drag her down but her long hair promising to catch the wind so she can fly.

It's a normal school day, but it's not.

Just like every day.

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I like to write about young people. Enter a Goodreads giveaway now to win a copy of my young adult novel, THE OBVIOUS GAME!

Goodreads Book Giveaway

The Obvious Game

by Rita Arens

Giveaway ends February 20, 2015.

See the giveaway details at Goodreads.

 

Enter to win

Over the next few weeks, I'm going to be testing some book marketing services for THE OBVIOUS GAME. It came out in February, and I'm reaching the end of the period when I can do Goodsreads giveaways, which I found were great for boosting the number of people who added my book to their "to read" lists, but it's impossible to tell if it had an impact on sales as there is no direct clickthrough information. 

I'm going to be pretty transparent about my marketing methods, because it's tough out there for a gangsta with a small traditional publisher. So far, I've spent hundreds of dollars buying and mailing my books to book bloggers and reviewers, which resulted in 25 authentic reviews on Amazon and 32 reviews and 68 ratings on Goodreads. In 2013, I attended ALA Midwinter to meet librarians and tell them about my book and RT Booklovers when it came to Kansas City. I also went to the Less Than Three conference in St. Louis. I met readers there, handed out signed bookplates and business cards and met other young adult authors. Meeting the other authors was my favorite part of any of the conferences. I've always found other authors to be approachable and supportive, even Veronica Roth, whose DIVERGENT series took off like a Dauntless train right from the get-go.

I noticed that many of the books that made this year's best-of lists were both well written and well marketed. I started seeing the covers in my industry newsletters over and over and over, to the extent that even though I don't read vampire books, I know THE COLDEST GIRL IN COLD TOWN's cover on sight. That marketing is huge -- I wish I had it. I'd be lying if I said it doesn't make me jealous. But I don't, at least for this book, so I'm doing what I can to break out of the echo chamber of people who know me/of me and into the world of people who just like to read young adult novels. I'm hoping some of the email marketing services I'm trying will help with that. That's the positive thing about jealousy -- you can use it to get the energy you need to get off your ass and do something about it. And also to get you to write your next book, because everything might be easier with the next book. You just never know.

My first experiment with paid online book marketing is BookGorilla. My book will be included in their newsletter on Sunday, December 29, 2013 (in two days). On that day, the price of THE OBVIOUS GAME's ebook will drop from $4.99 to $1.99 for 24 hours everywhere it is sold to coordinate with the deal. You can already get the ebook version for $1.99 if you've bought the paperback version on Amazon as part of their matching service. 

Buying advertising isn't cheap for the average jane like me, an author who is just a normal person with a day job and a mortgage and a kid who needed Christmas presents and still needs new jeans that fit. Since it isn't affordable or easy, it's important to figure out if this advertising is worth it or not. With thousands of books coming out every single day, breaking through the noise and out of your own echo chamber is harder than ever. We'll see if this helps. I've seen a lot of other authors offering a prize if you buy their books, but that doesn't feel right for me, at least not with this book. 

Next month, I'll be doing a similar paid advertising deal with Riffle Select.

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In other news, you have to check out what my sister gave me for Christmas. It's devine. I'll have pics of Esther the llama in her new series here on Surrender, Dorothy as soon as the little angel and I figure out what to call it.

Hey, y'all. Here's my latest Goodreads giveaway. This is for a paperback copy. Scroll down for the latest Surrender, Dorothy post!

Goodreads Book Giveaway

The Obvious Game

by Rita Arens

Giveaway ends April 30, 2013.

See the giveaway detailsat Goodreads.

Enter to win

I feel like I have been working on THE OBVIOUS GAME for a thousand years, even though intellectually I know it is three.I feel like I have read this manuscript so many times I should have it memorized, and yet I still found an errant sentence referencing a scene I cut twelvity million revisions ago not ten minutes ago.

I have read this manuscript over and over and over, as this week I turn it in and probably won't see it again before it goes to print.

Part of me, a very LARGE part of me, wanted to just hit accept changes and turn it in without another glance.

The part of me that is a control freak knew there was no way in hell that was going to happen, because if wasn't the way I wanted it and it went out like that, I would never forgive myself for setting aside two scrolling-related migraine headaches and ten hours of my butt in an uncomfortable chair scrolling, scrolling, through Word and through my Kindle and then back to Word again.

At some point, you just have to call it done. That is pretty hard to do. And yet effortless.

While I was waiting for a publisher to emerge from the ether, I started working on my new novel, THE BIRTHRIGHT OF PARKER CLEAVES. I immersed myself in that novel, which is completely different from this novel. I outlined the entire thing. I bought software to help me avoid the structural mistakes I made in THE OBVIOUS GAME in its earlier drafts. I thought deeply about plot and character. I almost forgot Diana, the protagonist of THE OBVIOUS GAME. I kind of needed to forget about Diana, because it hurt too much to think about her never seeing the light of day except in my head for these three years.

Spending so much time with my manuscript after almost a year of trying not to think about it as as jarring as a 10-year high school reunion. Not enough time has passed to keep you from still being a little in love with those people. And now, diving back in and staring at every sentence, I'm so grateful for InkSpell and the opportunity for this book to see the light of day. I'm still in love with these people.