How can you, readers and lovers of books, help authors like me? Having people read and enjoy a book you wrote is wonderful. But how do we get our books into the hands of more people? With your help, of course. We need you! Especially we indie authors, who self-publish.

Here are some great ideas for you to help spread the word about the books you love!

• TELL YOUR FRIENDS
Obviously, the best way to spread the news about a book is word of mouth. Talking with a friend about what they’ve been reading lately? Chatting on IM? Skyping or Facetiming? Texting? Share what you’ve been reading and where they can find it.

You can also share links on your Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, Google+, or wherever else you hang out online.

• REVIEWS
This is so helpful to authors as well as other readers looking for good books to read. If you read a book and love it, please post a review and rating. Your opinion and recommendation matters, especially for a new author trying to get the word out about her book. 😉

It doesn’t have to be a lengthy review telling all the plot points and definitely don’t give away any major twists or big reveals in the story. Just share what you loved about it. How it made you feel? What made you think about it long after you read it?

Places to review a book:
AMAZON — BARNES & NOBLE — GOODREADS
Do a search for the book title on these sites. You can even copy your review from one site and review it on the others also.

• SHARE or GIFT IT
A girl on Goodreads, who won my giveaway, enjoyed the book and told me she is going to pass it around a reading group she is a part of after she lets her teenage niece read it. I love that. I encourage anyone who bought a copy of my book to share it with a friend or give it away to someone you know will love it. For me, it’s not about the number of sales I get, it’s about the people who get to read it.

If you pass the book on, make sure to tell them how to spread the word, too.

• ASK YOUR LIBRARY TO CARRY IT
Not all libraries will do it, but you can request books and the more requests they get, the greater chance they will add the book. Having a book in the library makes it easy (and free) for many more people to read the book!

• BLOG ABOUT IT
If you have a blog, write a post/review about the book. Besides a review on book sites like Amazon, you can share more about the book and your thoughts on it as well as links to the author’s website/blog, places to purchase the book, etc.

When you’re done reading it, you could even give it away on your blog. If you can part with it, of course. 😉

Some authors are also willing to be interviewed for blogs. Open your blog up for questions from your readers, then invite them back after the author answers their questions.

• INSTAGRAM IT
Take a photo of yourself with the book, something fun and creative. (If it’s my book, include the hashtag #thetruthaboutdrew.) 🙂

Instagram is a fun place to share your photos, but if you aren’t on Instagram, you can post it on Facebook. (Again, if it’s my book, visit my Facebook author page and add your photos to the “Reader Photos” album.)

• BOOK CLUBS
Are you in a book club? Suggest it as the book one month. Sometimes authors are even willing to answer questions via email, chat or Skype to go along with your book discussion.

• GOODREADS
Goodreads is such a fun place to hang out, make new friends, join groups, and talk about books. Start a discussion in your favorite group about books you’ve read and loved. And don’t forget to leave reviews there as well.

• TWITTER
Tweet favorite lines or quotes from books you are reading. (Don’t forget, if it’s my book, add the hashtag #thetruthaboutdrew.) 😉

• TELL THE AUTHOR
Let the author know how much you liked the book, what you loved about it, how it affected you. This isn’t really about spreading the word, but this can be so encouraging to an author. Some days, just a little email or comment or “like” can totally make their day and give the boost that’s needed to write through a tough scene in their next manuscript.

It’s wonderful to hear what kinds of things you’re doing to help spread the word about a book, too.

I appreciate all that you guys are doing to tell people about my little book. Thank you!

When I started thinking about what I wanted to do for the design of my book cover, I had a very clear vision of what I thought it should look like. Close-up of a teenage boy with his arms crossed over his chest in the sign language for “love”. This is something that the characters do in the book and I thought that would connect the cover with the story. Drew also carries around this worn leather notebook all the time, and I knew I wanted to incorporate that as well.

And shooting my own cover, well, that was no problem with my years of photography experience. So I wrangled Zach, my thirteen year old son, into being my “Drew” for the cover and we shot two sets of pictures. One of him wearing an aqua/teal blue shirt and another wearing a red shirt. Obviously, I went with the blue for the cover, but the leather of the journal looked pretty nice next to the red shirt, so you just never know until you shoot it.

Once I loaded the images and took a look at them, I knew it had to be the blue shirt. It looked much better with his skin tone and it just popped. Plus, I love that color.

Another thing I knew … the journal was too small. While writing the book, I always envisioned Drew’s notebook to be larger, like 8×10 or something closer to those dimensions, but the only one we could find that looked similar to my imaginings was this small one from B&N. And I didn’t want to drop a small fortune on a larger one and didn’t really like the styles, so I went with it. I knew that I had the photoshop skills to alter the size of the notebook, thanks again to all my years of editing wedding photographs (I have literally swapped heads from one photo to another to make sure everyone’s smiling in family and bridal party photos.) 😉

You might also notice that the backdrop is the siding of my parents’ house. I erased the background to make that white, then went about resizing the journal. I will not explain all the many steps it took for me to do that. I don’t even remember half of them. I will just say that it took many hours to get it to look just right. 😉

Here is the before and after:

Once that was finished, I used the template that Createspace gives for authors to design their covers and worked on the layout.

I hand wrote Drew’s name on my iPad using the Paper app and sent it to my husband, Jake, who turned it into a vector graphic for me using Adobe Illustrator. (I don’t have the program and have never used it before, but he does and has, and the letters were nice and smooth-edged when he was done with them.) I love the look of hand written words on covers and, because “Drew” is always writing in his notebook, I thought that would be a nice touch to have his “signature” on the front of the book.

So these were my first two versions. I decided that the blue background was too much, so I went with the white when I ordered my first proof copy. It was just too plain once it was printed. (The big gap at the bottom is the space for the UPC code, by the way.)

Another thing I noticed was the words “the” and “about” were too light and blended into the background a little too much. So I made those a little bolder and added a darker drop shadow. My name was also not properly centered, so I fixed that. And then I decided to go with a mix of the first two designs and add a gradient to the blue background and I liked that much better. A little bit of color, but not overwhelmingly so.

But still … something was missing. And then I remembered that when I originally doodled the name “Drew” onto my iPad, I liked that the “D” looked like a cross at the top (tying in with the Bible verses Drew is always quoting), but it also looked like the tip of a pen at the bottom. So I pulled out the iPad again and drew a swirly line to look like the tip of the “pen” had drawn it, and sent it off to Jake for some more vector graphic magic. I dropped it onto my cover design and loved it.

And this is the finished cover for the paperback version of my book! To take an idea from my head and make it a reality is pretty awesome. I’m proud of how it turned out and it looks great in print, too. 🙂

So … I told Zach, who will probably kill me for sharing these, that he didn’t need to smile while I took the cover pictures, because his face would not be seen in the finished product. This is what he did while I was shooting.

What a kid! Thanks, bud, for being my cover model. 😛

Hope you enjoyed this little peek into my cover design process. If you have any questions, don’t hesitate to comment below.

THE TRUTH ABOUT DREW • I’m working hard on my book. Yes, it’s already been released, but the work doesn’t stop once you hit “publish”. Because I chose to self-publish, I am responsible for all the marketing, and it’s hard to get a book noticed. But I’m plugging along, making connections with other authors and learning all I can. I didn’t do this to “be famous”. That doesn’t interest me at all. But having people read and love my book(s), that’s what I want. I think there is definitely an audience for “clean” books, great stories, which also happen to deal with the characters’ faith in God (or lack thereof). My book is one of those and I hope people will find it. With a lot of prayer and much learning as I go, I’m trying to make that happen.

MY NEXT BOOK • It’s coming right along. I’m halfway through the first edit of my manuscript and it’s already way better than it was before. I cried through two chapters last night. There were some emotional moments for our girl, Maggie. But she’s about to have a little breakthrough. 🙂

My latest book is filled with weddings and photography and relationships and love.

But this is a hard one to write. I’m pulling from my heart, from a lot of the struggles I went through when my first engagement ended. I love this story. I love Maggie, but she is me in a lot of ways, and it’s not easy to spend so much time with her. Not that I don’t like myself, it’s just hard to put myself in her shoes and be back there again, hurting, brokenhearted, lonely, questioning everything, afraid of being hurt again.

I’ve been spending a few hours every night this week working through the first several chapters. And it hurts. Earlier today, when I thought about sitting down to write, I tried to come up with other things I could do instead. I could sort through our vacation photos and choose some for an album. I could edit the maternity photos I took the other day for my friend, Heidi. I could bake a loaf of banana bread. (Mmmmm. That sounds good right now.) I could fold and sort some laundry, maybe go through my clothes and see if there’s anything I want to get rid of. I could binge watch some random television show on Netflix. Anything and everything crossed my mind.

To really fill in Maggie’s story, though, I have to dig deep. But digging up all those old emotions has left my recently opened wounds a little raw. I even thought today that maybe I should just shelve this one, maybe it’s easier to just quit before I get too far into it, too consumed by the pain.

But maybe this is exactly the right time to write this book, when I’ve already been dealing with so much of my past this year and it’s all fresh in my mind. Maybe God will use it to help me heal. I don’t know that I’ll ever be fully healed, but that is part of my journey, just as it is a part of Maggie’s.

I found my happily ever after. Will Maggie find hers? Hmmm … guess you’ll have to wait and see. 😉

Write, write, write. That’s the goal of NaNoWriMo, to just get the story out of your head. It doesn’t have to be perfect (what book is on the first draft?), just get it written. So, that’s what I did and there my book was in its most raw form. I thought it was a good story, but it needed so much work, which is probably why it took me so long to really dig into it. Editing takes a commitment that I guess I wasn’t quite ready for then. So the book sat on the back burner for a long time.

Not forgotten, just for later.

But I loved my little story. Claire and Drew. Best friends since childhood, only Drew isn’t who he appears to be. The journey Claire goes on through the story, finding out who Drew really is, and learning so much more about her family and friends and God along the way, is special. I’m sure every author loves their own book, but I really feel it’s something that God can use, even if it only touches one person’s heart in even the tiniest way.

Last summer/fall (2013), I finally knew I was ready to get serious about it. I had put it off for a long time, making excuses, filling my time with other things. But I finally said, “I’m gonna do it. 2014 is the year I’m gonna publish my novel.”

It took about 8 months to get the book ready to publish. I read through the chapters over and over, correcting punctuation and grammatical errors, making sure it flowed well, etc. Then, once I thought I’d found everything that needed changed, I read through it backwards, from the last chapter to the first, and found more things to change. Then I read through it again, front to back. Same thing. More changes.

When I got my first proof copy of the book, I made even more changes. I actually think editing a physical copy was much better than editing on a computer screen. There’s just something about having the actual book in your hands. I checked over each page and made notes all over. There was no page left unmarked. Then I read the book aloud to my daughter, Chloe, and made all sorts of changes to the dialogue, per her suggestions.

“Mom, a teenage girl would never say it that way.” Thanks, Chloe! 😉

When the second proof copy arrived, I asked my husband, Jake, who is a writer himself, to read it over. He came out of our room, fighting back tears, gave me a kiss, and told me, “It’s perfect.” I respect his opinion so much because he’s been an avid reader since childhood and if he doesn’t like a book, he will be honest about it. We sat together and went over a few small changes he thought needed to be made. He talked about how he felt the emotion of the book was the perfect balance and the story was so much more filled out than when he read the first draft. I made the changes he suggested and it was ready!

So, 4 years, 5 months and 16 days after writing the first draft, I hit the “approve” button and my book was out there for the world!

Editing a book is hard work. It’s tedious and time consuming. But, I really hope that all the hours I spent on it will show. I hope it will be enjoyed and, like I said, if it just touches one person’s heart, it will have been worth it all.

My book is starting to arrive on people’s doorsteps this week. That seems weird and a little surreal to me. My sister-in-law wrote this morning that she was just discovering “the truth”, when she had to stop reading because she was on an airplane and she was starting to really cry in front of everyone. 😉

My friend and childhood neighbor, Holly, shared this picture with me on Facebook yesterday. Her book arrived! I love it!

I put together a Facebook Author page to share info about the book and interact with my readers. You’ll see this cute banner (above) when you stop by there. Pass the link on to your friends and feel free to hit the “like page” button while you’re at it. 😉
http://facebook.com/bykristanoorman

OK … THIS is so crazy. Hitting the “approve” button on Friday and seeing my book for sale online … I cried. I couldn’t help it. This book is so special to me and my heart is full thinking of how God might use it in someone’s life.

Honestly, my stomach hurts right now. It’s kind of nerve wracking putting your work out there, not knowing if anyone (besides your family and friends) will even care to read it or even like it if they do. Terrifying to say the least. But I believe in it. I believe in Claire’s journey.

And as my mother-in-law said, “God certainly guided you and your keystrokes.” I believe that, too.

HERE are the LINKS to purchase my book, “The Truth About Drew”:

Amazon: createspace.com/4469365

Kindle eBook: amazon.com/dp/B00KDLTMQY

And now, after days of sitting in front of this computer, finalizing everything, getting it all uploaded and approved and linked and posted and blogged, I think it’s time to go celebrate with my family. Chinese food and old episodes of “The Office” sound pretty good right now. 😉

Enjoy the book!

Here it is! The cover of my book, The Truth About Drew, which will soon be released on Amazon.com. The cover would not have come together without the assistance of my son, Zach, who agreed to be my cover model, and my husband, Jake, who picked out the journal for me to use, helped position Zach’s arms, and kept him from fidgeting during the shoot. 😉 (Oh, and my Mom, who helped me pick out the shirt.)

I still have a few final touches to make on the back cover, but here is the “blurb” from the back of the book, so you will finally know what the story is all about.

At fourteen, Claire Thomas leads the average life of a teenage girl, maneuvering her way through family, friendships, and first love. But her childhood best friend, Drew, is not your average teenage boy. In fact, he is downright unusual. Sometimes he disappears, almost before her eyes. He speaks in clichés and Bible verses, and is always writing in his worn leather journal. It seems he is trying to tell Claire something important, but she isn’t sure what.

After years of wondering why she is the only person to ever see or speak to him, thinking maybe he isn’t real and it’s all in her head, she is determined to discover the truth about Drew.

I would categorize the book as Young Adult Christian Fiction. There are some mature elements to the story that I think would only be appropriate for teens or “almost teens”, who have had “the talk” with their parents. 😉

Here are a few pictures I took the day I received my proof copy. So fun to have a physical copy of the book in my hands.

Yesterday was the big edit day. I’ve pored over the pages for the past week, penciling in the changes that needed to be made. Last night, I spent 7 HOURS at my computer making the corrections. Such a long process, but I actually enjoyed it. Can’t beat the feeling of accomplishment. Can’t wait to share it with you all.