First Page Panda Today Featuring Illegally Blonde

A fabulous writer friend I got to know through Verla Kay's blue boards, Anna Staniszewski, has created a terrific new blog featuring the first pages of new and upcoming young adult and middle grade books and sharing some information about the authors and their books. It's called First Page Panda because, hey, who doesn't like panda's?? and ILLEGALLY BLONDE is being featured today! Check it out here if you have a minute and make sure you go back often to read the first pages of some exciting new writers. Anna herself will be coming out with her debut book MY UN-FAIRY TALE LIFE in 2011 from Sourcebooks Jabberwocky imprint. I'm very excited to read that one!

Hope your holidays have been a source of joy and minimal family conflict so far. Tomorrow we're heading off to our nation's capital, Ottawa, to cheer on The Boy's hockey team in the Bell Canada Cup tournament. Hoping for good weather, good hockey and fun times. The next time I'll be posting will be in 2011 the Year of the Rabbit. After the turbulent Year of the Tiger that 2010 was I'm definitely looking forward to a calm, peaceful (and lucky) Rabbit Year!

Ouickie Post: Surviving the Move Week and Link to Interview

Just popping in to let y'all know I'm surviving the final few days before our move on Thursday. My husband keeps telling me we are no where near ready and plans to stay awake 24/7 from now until Thursday to make sure we are completely organized. That way we'll be sitting on the stoop at 8 a.m. when the movers arrive with nothing more to do than point to a pile of neatly packed boxes and empty-of-clothing furniture and say: "There you go, boys."

Yeah. Good luck with that, sweetie.

I, on the other hand, need at least 6 hours sleep a night so I will not be staying up past 1 a.m. I expect this week to be full of sturm and drang but this too shall pass.

In the meantime, in lieu of a blog post I'm linking to an interview that the awesome Debbie Ohi did with me and just posted on her inkygirl website last week. Debbie, as many of you might know, is an awesome force, member of Torkidlit and both an illustrator and writer. In fact, she just got a contract to illustrate a book written by writer/actor/comedian Michael Ian Black, to be released by Simon & Schuster in 2012! Yay, Debbie!! So, with great thanks for taking the time to interview me, here's the link. Hope you enjoy!
http://bit.ly/9k9MKO

First TV Interview

Yet another new thing I never would have experienced if not for writing a book - I had my first TV interview with the multicultural station here in Toronto, OMNI 1! It was a bit nerve wracking but the reporter made me feel very comfortable and, even though the interview was conducted in both English and Portuguese the interview segment only showed my Portuguese responses. I was a bit concerned about speaking in Portuguese to a Portuguese language station but it turned out okay. I've never heard myself (or watched myself) on tape speaking Portuguese and I was surprised to find I could actually be understood! My daughter said I sounded like my Aunt Olimpia so I guess that means I sounded sort of authentic.

Anyway, not that many of you who read the blog can understand the language, I'm still linking the piece. They started it off really nicely with clips from the 2006 deportation of Portuguese workers in Toronto to Portugal (the catalyst for Illegally Blonde's story) and ended it with the info on my book launch at the Bloor-Gladstone Library on Sunday. All good stuff. Here's the link to the interview. Click on the tab just above the female news anchor called Web Stories and then click on the item called Livro Sobro Deportados(Be kind!)

http://ontario.omninews.ca/?language=5

Another First - Doing a Guest Blog Post

Well, it's released! I had a lovely Twitter book birthday party and it was a beautiful sunny day to boot. It feels very much like the start of a new chapter for me (sorry for the cringe-inducing writing metaphor!). And to start it off I was even asked to guest blog on Drunk Writer Talk. The lovely Maureen McGowan (one of the Drunk Writer's)invited me to talk about ILLEGALLY BLONDE on their blog and I was honoured. It's a great place to hear about the struggle and triumph that writing can be and to commiserate with fellow writers who understand the highs and lows. So go check it out and thank you everyone, again, for your warm wishes and happy congratulations. Like I said yesterday, I'm a very lucky girl.

What makes you buy a book? Cover, Blurb, Recommendation or Review?

I ask this question because I'm really fascinated by the whole process people go through when choosing what they read. There are just SO MANY BOOKS OUT THERE! How on earth do you choose?? I know that, like everything else in publishing, choosing a book is subjective. For me, in the past choosing a book would be a very immediate, personal thing. I'd browse through the bookstore, sometimes picking a book up because the cover called to me, sometimes because the backcover blurb spoke to me. But that was when I had time to browse. As my reading (and choosing what to read) time diminished with each successive child, my book buying selection process changed. Buying a book became more about whether it had been recommended to me by a trusted friend who I knew wouldn't steer me in the wrong direction because I just didn't have the time to spend on a book that wasted those precious few reading hours I had left.

Now, my process has changed yet again. As part of a larger writing community I want to read what that community is writing - to support them for sure, but also to learn and be aware of what works and sometimes doesn't work in the YA and Romance genres. As for reviews and award nominations, I've sometimes been influenced to buy a book because I've read a review or seen a book's been nominated for an especially prestigious award (I bought Beautiful Creatures soley because of the William C. Morris YA Debut award nomination). But those things usually influence me very little.

So here's an interesting question to all my writer friends: if you had to choose, which would you want the most for your book: a great cover and blurb, word of mouth recommendations or awesome reviews/awards? Sure, sure, it would be nice to have them all. But you have to choose only one.

Me? I think I want that "She told two friends, and they told two friends" kind of buzz and momentum. You know - the kind of publicity you can't buy. I'm still very happy with my book cover, for sure. But friend to friend recommendation? That would be awesome.

Here it is! The Cover for ILLEGALLY BLONDE!

I've been waiting patiently and, I admit, with a little bit of nervousness for my cover from my publisher. I shouldn't have been nervous. The wait was so worth it! I love the cover and think it captures the feeling of the book wonderfully. There might be some more minor adjustments but this seems to be it. Yay!!!!!!!!!!!

Gone Over to the Dark Side - I'm on Twitter!

Funny how a group of cheerful, friendly and supportive kidlit author's can convince you by their sheer enthusiasm that Twitter will not turn one into a babbling, incoherent mess of mangled Internet chum! Of course I should join, they said. Did I know how many kidlit authors are out there in Twitterland? How many wonderful, helpful connections one could make? How, if I just gave it a chance, I'd see how great Twitter was? Besides - how could I keep up with what the kidlit authors in and around Toronto were up to? What was I afraid of?

Ah. And there's the million dollar question. What was I afraid of? Something new? My continued anxiety about being 'out there'? I'm a soon to be published author, for pete's sake. I have to be out there. I've always said the worst fears are the ones you don't face.

So tonight I took the plunge. I joined Twitter. May God have mercy on my soul. Come on and twitter me. I'm at http://twitter.com/nelsaroberto

Sigh. And I'm still getting used to blogging...

A couple of cool things...

For some reason I missed the announcement of Illegally Blonde when it appeared in Canada's national publishing magazine, Quill and Quire. I'm really happy with this one - especially since it is the 'home' announcement! Here it is

Great Plains Publications publisher Gregg Shilliday and YA editor Anita Daher have acquired Canadian rights to a teen novel by Nelsa Roberto. Illegally Blonde is the story of what a rebellious Toronto teen does when her family is threatened with deportation to their native Portugal. Great Plains plans to publish in spring 2010. The deal was arranged by Kris Rothstein, an associate agent with the Carolyn Swayze Literary Agency

I swear, I will never get tired of reading that. I'm a geek, I know.

Okay, the other cool thing was that I received my official author's questionnaire from the publisher. Holy cow, they ask a lot of questions. But even though I'm stressing to make sure I provide them with what they need and not have an author's bio that makes me sound like a total doofus it's still pretty cool that I'm even getting a chance to fill out an author's questionnaire! And that the publisher even cares what I think. Me. I'm stressed, and thrilled and feeling surreal, all at once.

Is this how I'm going to feel the rest of the year? I better start doing yoga...

Facing up...

I've finally gone public with my face. I know in this Facebook crazy world and reality obsessed TV putting your mug out there for the world to see is no big deal. Sheesh, the stuff people post on YouTube and on their personal pages amazes me daily. So I don't know why, exactly, it took me so long to 'face up'. But it took me quite a few months to even put my first post up on Verla Kay's Blueboards even though I'd been lurking for months. So taking about a year and a half to add an avatar isn't so surprising. Still, it's kinda like showing up for school in neon pink pajamas or something after you've been a quiet, stay in the background wall flower for the first few years. Not sure I'm comfortable with being a little bit less anonymous. I know I shouldn't worry. The writers I've met on the internet so far have been amazing and since I know so many of their faces it's only fair for me to step away from the curtain myself now. So, hello there everybody! This is my face. You can't tell but it's blushing. The embarrassment will go away soon I hope.

Now, if I could just figure out what name I will, hopefully, be published under one day I'd reveal that too. But I change my mind daily on that one. My real name is a bit unusual and I've always had issues with it so not sure I'll keep it or use a nom de plume. Then again, the cursed name is like a badge of honour with me now - didn't even change it when I got married. So for all its baggage, I may stick with the damn thing. Sigh. If parents could only understand what trauma they inflict on their children by the simple act of granting a name...