Thursday, October 29, 2009


This is a very interesting article about young adult readers. Two things leapt out at me:

--Only 6% of survey respondents preferred e-books. 79% said paperbacks, 74% said hardcovers (obviously, they could choose more than one format).

Told ya so.


This has been a very packed week. I've been doing a fiction line edit for a client, and a nonfiction edit for another client, and pushing to get both done by this weekend, so I can start NaNo. I'll wrap them both up on Saturday. I also expect to be done with the draft of last year's NaNo book, which kept getting shoved aside for other projects, and the final polishing of an older book, which I will then send on to my agent. That will clear the field!

And guess what my NaNo book is gonna be? A YA! Still romantic adventure, and paranormal to boot, but this is a big departure for me. I didn't think like a teen when I was one, so I never felt I could do this genre. But I've been reading a lot of it, and I've always felt it was important, and wanted to be involved with it. So we'll see if I can. NaNo is awesome for doing this kind of thing--stepping outside your comfort zone, trying something new.

I keep forgetting that Supernatural is new tonight. My mind is preoccupied with trick-or-treating. Yes, it's tonight. Yes, I know Halloween isn't until Saturday. Tell Pennsylvania. They've missed that memo for over two decades. *sigh*

Okay, I have to get back to work. Must input the edits for both projects, work on the draft novel, order RAM for my computer, update the checkbook, order an oil delivery, and start a read-through I kind of promised at the beginning of the week. I hope to get that done while I wait for trick-or-treaters. The rest I need to do before 2:34, when Number Two gets home.

Yeah, that'll happen.


Shannon Stacey said...

Going on the assumption a large number of YA-question respondents would be teens, the answers don't surprise me. They don't, as a rule have credit cards of their own, making it difficult to buy digital books.

Natalie J. Damschroder said...

That's surely a factor. Such a big one, I don't know why rabid e-book proponents (the ones who call the rest of us names for not accepting that tomorrow there will be ONLY e-books) who swear that teens are major e-book readers don't realize it.

But if they really wanted e-books, they could get them. Just like with iTunes or Amazon--I get gift cards and my kids use those.

Cindy Procter-King said...

Good luck with NaNo! I hear dark YAs are selling better than light YAs, if that helps.

I can finally access my website and blog again. I learned a very big lesson about guessing my password fifty million times. Don't. Do. It.

Natalie J. Damschroder said...

Thanks, Cindy! It's good information to have. Though I don't really write dark, and don't wanna. My book won't be exactly LIGHT, though, either, so...we'll see.

LOL on the password. Been there, done, that--just a couple of weeks ago with my online bank account, actually, though I wasn't guessing, I knew it, it just wouldn't accept it and I was determined to make it.

Glad you got it back!

Lori Kruza said...

Just wanted to let you know the Thurs night Trick-or-Treating thing is not a PA thing because we only have it on Halloween night. Every year. Which I love!! Maybe you'll have to move closer to me!!!

Natalie J. Damschroder said...

I don't mean it's a PA thing in that every town does it (though I'd guess 90% around here do), but it's a PA thing in that other states DON'T.


I just did a little research, found an article that says "In parts of Tennessee, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Utah, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, North Carolina, Nebraska and New Mexico,"

The only one of those states I've lived in (and I've lived in several) is Massachusetts, and I've NEVER heard of trick-or-treating being on a different night. Still, that's 9 states out of 50.

Funny, the article didn't mention WHY they don't, and the bulk of it was in favor of making it always on Saturday, which is the antithesis of the procedure around here.