My guest blogger today is Cheryl Kaye Tardif, bestselling author of Whale Song, The River, and Divine Intervention. Cheryl writes:
Recently, I was a guest blogger on Book Marketing Floozy and I talked about how authors have to “think outside the book”. Sometimes a book can be marketed even before it has been published, and once in a while even before it has been written. That’s what I’ve done with my iPhone novel Finding Bliss, a novel that has only 2 chapters written yet has already received much media attention.
It all started when I saw a commercial for Hershey’s Bliss chocolates in their individually wrapped foil packages. I saw the word BLISS on the TV and thought, “Wow, that would make a really neat girl’s name.” Almost instantly a picture came to mind of a teenaged girl with scraggly dirty-blond hair and torn jeans. Foster child, street child, pickpocket, unwanted, unloved-the complete opposite of the word “bliss”. And Finding Bliss was born.
I didn’t want to lose any of my ideas for this novel, but I also didn’t want to stop watching the TV show that was on, so I grabbed my new iPhone 3G. There is a Notes application and this was the first time I used it. What was really great was that I was able to type in my notes on this new novel idea during the commercials and then email them to myself. Later, I went upstairs to my office, opened the email on my PC, copied and pasted the notes into a Word document and-voila!-I had started a new novel.
About 2 years ago, a writing craze swept across Japan ; cell phone novels took the publishing world by storm in this small country. In the first six months of 2007, Goma Books and Maho i-Land published more cell phone novels than the major Japanese publishers did print books. And now, North America has its first English language cell phone novel platform through Textnovel.
I am very familiar with Textnovel. CEO Stan Soper heard about my iPhone novel Finding Bliss and he personally invited me to check out Textnovel. Since I always like to try new things, I submitted three short stories, serializing them over a period of time. You can find my novelette Remote Control there. Stan has shown great interest in Finding Bliss, and there is a possibility that my iPhone novel might show up on Textnovel in the future.
To date, I have appeared on a number of television and radio interviews, and in newspapers, because I have chosen to write a novel in a completely different way. Another major company contacted me about Finding Bliss a month or so ago, and they too would like to be the first company to “release” this novel to the public. Let the bidding wars begin!
‘Finding Bliss’ will be an emotional, heartwarming story of a damaged teenage girl who must fight to survive in a world of abuse, lies and loss. As she struggles to find herself, Bliss will discover exactly where she belongs and she’ll learn that she is worthy of love after all.”
There is no publish date on this book as I have not finished writing it. Once I am done, it will be handed to my wonderful agent Jack Scovil to pitch to publishers.
“Risk! Risk anything! Care no more for the opinion of others, for those voices. Do the hardest thing on earth for you. Act for yourself. Face the truth.” — Katherine Mansfield
Bertram's Blog 
January 11, 2009 at 7:08 pm
Talk about grabbing an idea while its hot and running with it!
malcolm
January 11, 2009 at 7:30 pm
I’m glad Cheryl shared this information with us all. 🙂
Textnovel.com is a wonderful site brimming with amazing possibility and some truly distinctive talents. I would also suggest people check it out. The first Textnovel contest officially ended on Dec. 31, 2008 and quite a few folks are anxiously awaiting the final results.
I have a couple pieces there as well and the community is growing by leaps and bounds under founder, Stan Soper’s care.
January 11, 2009 at 10:50 pm
Another techie makes it work, lol! Actually a lot of good ideas are born out of necessity–or in this case, not wanting to get up and wanting to miss a TV show.
the new phones can do so many things, and half of them I haven’t a clue on, though my teen? Oh yah, he’s got it down.
Thanks for sharing your Bliss with us, Cheryl.
January 12, 2009 at 5:50 am
Great Post!
As a short story writer, I only post my work on the Internet. I post my short stories on Twitter which is developing a growing audience. I only post stories on Twitter and nothing else.
I believe now that phones and PDA’s are more “Text Reader Friendly”, more people are using them for more than just a phone. In particular thanks to the new Touch Screen like iPhone, Blackberry, and Instinct, people use there phone 80% of the time to communicate now during the day. Texting is now the norm instead of calling to leave a message.
I’ll be checking out the Textnovel link! Thanks for posting this!
~Jonathan~
http://www.johnmarionfrancis.com
January 13, 2009 at 9:47 am
Thank you all for dropping by! 🙂
Malcolm, you got it! As soon as my husband suggested the idea, I thought, “Hey! Why not?”
Saoirse, I recognized your name from Textnovel right away. 🙂 I have a few shorst stories and a novelette posted on Textnovel too, and like you, it’ll be exciting to see who has won the contest. Good luck!!
Sia, nice to see you again…or read you. lol Wow, it’s been a while since someone’s called me a “techie”. Then again, I was doomed to be one. My father is a genius computer programmer. Not that he shared much with me–since I’m female. But that just forced me to learn things on my own. And then teach my mother. 🙂 Authors are going to see lots of opportunities open for them in the digital world.
Jonathan, you’re so right. People are getting the hang of using their cell phone as a piece of valuable communication technology, not just a phone. I do so much more on my iPhone now, although I will admit, I never thought I’d be writing a complete novel on one. The great thing is, more people–especially teens–are reading on their cell phones. This is where reading is evolving, and authors have to keep up and change with the times.
I have some exciting projects I’m working on. When I can talk about them, I’ll see if Pat will allow me to drop by again and tell you all about them. 🙂
Thank you for reading my post here and for the comments. I wish you all the best in success!
Cheryl Kaye Tardif
http://www.cherylktardif.com
January 13, 2009 at 10:35 am
Cheryl, drop by any time! Or rather, drop your article by any time. Looking forward to hearing what you have to say.
January 13, 2009 at 11:47 am
Just a quick note to let everyone here know that my novelette Remote Control is a finalist in Textnovel’s first annual writing contest.
You can view the article that lists the posts at:
http://mycounsel.typepad.com/textnovelblog/2009/01/textnovelcom-editorial-board-chooses-finalists-for-writing-contest.html
Please check out my novelette too. 🙂
Cheryl Kaye Tardif,
bestselling author of Whale Song