Interview with Indie Debut Author Jo Ramsey

I’m putting all my White Forest novel series and Indie Debut 2010 information on my new website: The White Forest

If you have a moment, take a look-see. I just posted an interview with debut author Jo Ramsey, who is the first Indie Debut 2010 to launch a book this year with her YA metaphysical fantasy Connection.

Indie Debut 2010’s First Debut of the Year!

(First off, anyone else out there wear potentially conflicting hats in the blog-o-sphere? I started The Accidental Novelist so I could talk about the writing life ups, downs, ins, outs… for an adult audience. It’s not all that risque, but definitely has contained some mature themes. Because my novel is a children’s novel, I’ve started to watch what I say around here. I’ve never been one to censor myself, so I’m having conflicting thoughts. Eventually, I’ll move all my kid-o-sphere material over to my novel series website: The White Forest)

AND NOW…

I belong to a fabulous collective called Indie Debut 2010. We are a group of writers who all have debut children’s books being released in 2010 by Small and Independent Presses.

The collective was started due to the marketing and distribution challenges of small presses. In my previous post, I mentioned how small presses couldn’t usually get on the shelves at major bookstore chains and were reliant upon online distribution, social media, and good old grass roots footwork.

When asked in a recent interview why she began the group, founder Amy Cook stated:

Frustration.  I saw how much buzz was being built by marketing groups like “Class of 2K9” and other debutante groups.  I wanted to join but was told over and over that I wasn’t eligible, because my press wasn’t listed in Children’s Writers and Illustrators Market.  A lot of small presses aren’t…  I knew I couldn’t be the only person in this situation, and being a die-hard ‘do-it-yourselfer’, I thought I’d put together my own group. I also hoped we might be able to capitalize on the recent groundswell of support for Indie Bookstores to generate publicity for our publishers and our books.

The first book to launch out of this group is Jo Ramsey‘s metaphysical fantasy YA novel Connection, which will be released next Friday (the e-book was already released last week). She’s been doing a blog tour this week and will be over at my new website: The White Forest this Friday.

This is so very exciting for us. There are a total of 12 of us for 2010 (and one author on board for Indie Debut 2011). It’s also a lesson that when we start to feel alone, frustrated, or overwhelmed we can always create a community of like-minded people and work together to ease the pressure.