Friday the 13th, and Beyond

Yes, I know today isn't Friday the thirteenth, and neither is next Friday. Heck, there isn't another Friday the thirteenth till July.

But Mindy McGinnis, author of Not a Drop to Drink, a Young Adult novel I'm really looking forward to reading when it's published in 2013 (get it? -- 13!) appeared today on a newly launched writing community of bloggers called Friday the Thirteeners. So I thought I'd note that. Of course, readers of Spring Fevers will recognize Mindy's name. Her story "First Kiss" led of the anthology.

In her post, Mindy calls attention to a post on garment disagreements with her mother. (Not that she was aware, but I saw this post right after hearing about a garment disagreement between one of my 3-year-olds and my wife. Nice little coincidence.) What is not a coincidence, of course, is that in her post, Mindy's talking about boobs and prom dresses. I have a few years yet before I have to worry about such concerns for either of my little girls, but I'm sure those discussions will cause a fuse in my daddy brain to be lit and possibly lead to a messy explosion of brain matter upon the walls.

By the way, if you're in the Cincinnati area at the end of May/beginning of June, you might be able to catch Mindy at the annual Lori Foster Reader and Author Get Together . It looks like it's almost sold out, so check that you can attend.

Tweaking the Blog

I thought I'd call attention to a couple little tweaks in the tabs above this post. I've added information about Elephant's Bookshelf Press, LLC, and I've added links to where you can buy Spring Fevers, our first anthology. Well, technically, that was published by me, and The Fall, our upcoming anthology will be the first official publication of Elephant's Bookshelf Press, LLC. But please feel free to check out Spring Fevers. I think you'll enjoy it!

Spring Fevers Now in Paperback

We weren't exactly expecting to have so many people ask us to create a print version of Spring Fevers, so at long last we're happy to share it with you. Published through CreateSpace, Spring Fevers is available for $7.99.

For the cost-conscious, it is still available for free via Smashwords, where we'll soon have our 200th "sale," and for 99 cents for Kindle via Amazon. We hope to get that to Free also, but that requires more people telling Amazon they can find it for less elsewhere. How many more? I have no idea.

But for those who are on the fence about the $7.99 price for the printed version, the proceeds from all sales of Spring Fevers will be given to charity.

Thank you all for contributing to the success of Spring Fevers. I'm so pleased to have had the opportunity to work with such a great team of writers (and the designers are writers too), and there'll be further details about the next anthology, The Fall, which is scheduled to be published in October.

Elephant's Bookshelf Press, LLC

A lot has been happening since the most recent post. We are in the final stages of the Print-on-Demand version of Spring Fevers, and in the next few days I expect the official creation of Elephant's Bookshelf Press, LLC, a small publishing firm. I am president and Chief Elephant Officer. For the initial anthology, I produced it as a small company, but this is also something I intend to do for a while now, so I decided it was best to be smart about it.

It won't change anything in the way the next anthology will be done. We have an excellent team in place to review and decide upon stories for inclusion, and the POD version of Spring Fevers even includes a short description of The Fall, which is scheduled for an October launch.

Things are hopping here, as much as an elephant can hop at least. (And no, this is not an April Fool's Joke.)