Guest post by Author Carrie Finison

​Please join me in my DeLorean as we travel back in time…
 
On June 7, 2019, I woke up with BIG plans for the day. My 8th grader would be graduating from middle school on June 11. My 4th grader would be in school for only another week after that. Mama had a mile-long to-do list to accomplish before the busy, distracting days of summer arrived! 

​But a brief Twitter check stopped me in my tracks. #NationalDoughnutDay was trending. How could I, author of a soon-to-be-released picture book entitled DOZENS OF DOUGHNUTS, have forgotten about this important national holiday? As I scanned through the tweets in my feed, one thing became clear. People like to talk about doughnuts. A LOT! It was a festive atmosphere and I wanted to jump in with both feet. 

​At that point, I had officially been on Twitter for six years, since 2013, but I rarely used it. I had joined only to participate in pitch contests when I was seeking an agent. I didn’t spend much time tweeting and didn’t have a large following. But one of my goals in advance of my July 2020 book release was to grow my connections on Twitter. And I wanted to do so in a genuine way, not by participating in many of the “follow fests” that I saw happening. Without knowing the words for it at the time, I was seeking “audience engagement” rather than numbers.
 
Normally, I’m a planner. I second-, third-, and fourth-guess most of the things I do. But right then, I needed to get two kids to school and get on with my day. With no time to play guessing games, I posted the following: 

​Then I packed up the kids and left the house.
 
I’m not sure what I expected. Maybe some fun pictures of doughnuts to fill my news feed? Maybe a few more followers? I was pretty surprised when I came home, checked Twitter, and found over a dozen responses to my tweet. As I started responding to them, more responses came. Everyone, it seemed, wanted to share their favorite doughnut.
 
I tossed my plans – whatever they were – aside and spent most of the morning on Twitter. At some point, I realized my plan to offer a critique needed some parameters, and posted a quick update:

So what were my takeaways? There were some practical things I learned. Keeping track of a lot of responses all at once is tough. The logistics of doing a fair drawing from retweets can be a little complicated. Tweeting on a hashtag that’s already trending (#NationalDoughnutDay) can greatly boost your visibility. But, just as with making a delicious batch of doughnuts, some of the intangible lessons were more important:

1.Don’t rush the doughnuts! Engagement takes time.
You want followers who are interested in you and want to engage, and that means you need to take the time to reciprocate. Offer something of value and people will respond - and that doesn’t necessarily mean monetary value like a critique or a book. I think people had fun that day and valued the interaction as much as (if not more than) the chance at a critique.

2.Just add sprinkles! It’s more fun when you have fun.
This particular giveaway didn’t feel like “work” or a drain on my time because I was engaging with people over a topic we all loved – doughnuts!
​
3.Don’t overmix your batter! Don’t overthink it.
Probably a life lesson for me, but I’m not sure this would have gone as well as it did, if I had spent time planning it in advance. For good or bad, Twitter is a very spontaneous medium and that can work to your advantage.
 
Just to quickly illustrate an example of #3, let’s jump back in the DeLorean and zoom forward to 2020. This year, I planned a big preorder giveaway for DOZENS OF DOUGHNUTS, scheduled to launch on National Doughnut Day – June 5. However, when the day came we were in the midst of major social upheaval and protests against racism and police brutality in the wake of the murder of George Floyd and…well, it didn’t feel like a good moment for self promotion or talk of something frivolous like doughnuts. So, just as spontaneously as I had jumped into the National Doughnut Day celebrations in 2019, I pulled out of them in 2020, and waited for a different moment to announce my giveaway.
 
Twitter can keep you on your toes, for sure, but keeping things spontaneous and real will help you grow your audience in a genuine way – and have fun while you’re doing it!

~ by Amanda Smith

​​24 Carrot Writing celebrates with
Kristine Asselin
as her new Young Adult novel, 
Falling for Wonder Boy 
hits shelves today! 

Kristine shares the inspiration behind the novel, as well as her path to publishing:

​Falling for Wonder Boy has truly been a labor of love for me. When I started writing in 2006, I was drafting mostly picture book texts for my toddler—they were okay, but not great. I got some nice feedback, but nothing more. When a friend reminded me of an anecdote from our teen years, I had an epiphany. It would make a great YA short story.

My parents managed a golf course in the 1980s. They bought it when I was in the 6th grade. For my entire teen years, we lived, worked, and played golf. When I was in high school, I was the only girl in my four years to go out for the golf team. It just wasn’t a sport girls played in my world.

After I wrote the short story, I shared it with a few trusted friends. And the overwhelming response was that people needed to know more about the characters. That short story ended up being published in Golfer Girl Magazine in 2008 as “The Knight in Tan Khakis” and is more or less Chapters 9 and 10 in the book—where Scott tosses Kate a sweatshirt to cover up a see-through wet t-shirt. 

Since 2008, that short story has evolved. For a long time, the title of the novel was The Sweet Spot. It’s been through a dozen revisions, it landed me my agent (more than once). It was acquired by a publishing company and then rejected after the decision was made that golf wasn’t something that would sell to teens. I’ve written other things, including a ton of nonfiction and two published novels (Any Way You Slice It and co-written The Art of the Swap). In fact, Any Way You Slice It was a direct result of that failed acquisition.

The Sweet Spot was shelved for years, but in late 2018, after ten years of close calls, I decided to work with K.R. Conway at Wicked Whale Publishing to independently publish the book. I changed the title to Falling for Wonder Boy and I haven’t looked back.

I’ll be honest, in some ways it’s scarier than anything else I’ve ever published. There are pieces of my heart on display for all to see—it’s mostly fictionalized, but there are moments that really happened (like the sweatshirt toss). Emotions that were real.

This book is truly the book of my heart. Not only is it firmly grounded in my own history, it’s also been the backbone of my writing career. Working on this book taught me how to write. It opened doors for me professionally. It deserves to be out in the world.
​
I’m grateful to K.R. Conway for her support, guidance, and amazing design skills. I could not have imagined a better skin for Kate and Scott to live inside. I’d love to engage with readers. Please let me know what you think!  

Bio
​Kristine is the author of sixteen works of children’s nonfiction as well as the YA novel Any Way You Slice It and co-author of the middle grade novel The Art of the Swap.
 
She loves being a Girl Scout leader and a Library Trustee, and volunteering with the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators. Her alter-ego is The Query Godmother and she loves critiquing queries and helping people with submission packages. She lives on the outskirts of Boston with her teen daughter and husband, and is represented by Kathleen Rushall of the Andrea Brown Literary Agency.​
​
Visit her at ​ www.kristineasselin.com/

FALLING FOR WONDER BOY is available at Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Kobo and other online vendors.

​To celebrate October, and to whip our writing efforts into a productive fourth quarter frenzy, you are cordially invited to join us on
the 24 Carrot Writing Facebook page for our :

3rd Annual 24 Carrot
Writing Trick or Book Treat Party

Join the Writing Trick or Book Treat Party by sharing your favorite writing trick or tip, or treating your fellow writers to a book recommendation. Share your writing tip, or a recent children’s book that you have loved and/or used as a mentor text on our Facebook page.

By Kelly J. Carey

Thank you to all those who joined our 2nd Annual 24 Carrot Writing Trick or Treat Party.

We shared some writing tricks like opening a Goodreads account (I’m a big fan of this tip!), to committing to 10 minutes of writing every day (Francine’s an advocate of a timed daily writing goal!). Amanda suggested flipping your protagonist and antagonist as a writing exercise, and we were encouraged to read in our genre so we would have the wisdom of mentor texts in our brain.  

Treats were shared like the YA novels Calvin by Martine Leavitt and The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman, the MG novel Beyond the Bright Sea by Lauren Wolk, and PBs Applesauce Day by Lisa Amstutz and Grandmother Thorn by Katey Howes.

I love that our 24 Carrot Writing community shared Tricks that included both craft and writing goals, and that our book Treats featured PB, MG and YA!

Our 24 Carrot Trick or Treat Party Winners of signed books are:
Kristi Liberty Mahoney – the A.C. Gaughen YA novel Scarlet
Meg Lysaght Thacher – the Molly B. Burnham MG novel Teddy Mars Almost an Outlaw
Brenda Maier – the Sue Lowell Gallion PB Pug & Pig Trick or Treat

If you are a party winner – please PM us with your address.

Thanks for joining the 24 Carrot Writing Trick or Treat Party!

To celebrate October, and to whip our writing efforts into a productive fourth quarter frenzy, you are cordially invited to join us on
the 24 Carrot Writing Facebook page for our :
2nd Annual 24 Carrot
Writing Trick or Book Treat Party

Join the Writing Trick or Book Treat Party by sharing your favorite writing trick or tip, or treating your fellow writers to a book recommendation. Share your writing tip, or a recent children’s book that you have loved and/or used as a mentor text on our Facebook page.

When you share, we will enter you in our October 31 drawing for signed copies of children's literature.  We are keeping the middle grade and young adult titles masked! But our picture book prize is a signed copy of Sue Lowell Gallion's newest picture book Pug & Pig Trick-or-Treat. And stay tuned for a guest blog by Sue later this month!

You don’t need a costume, but you do need to be a part of our 24 Carrot Facebook group. If you haven't joined yet, what are you waiting for? You'll get a weekly Facebook update every time we post a new blog or book pick! To join, just click the green "Join Our Facebook Group" button on your right. Or you can find us on Facebook at 24 Carrot Writing.

Come join our Writing Trick or Book Treat Party!