Introducing Diverse Book Tours

Long before the now famous We Need Diverse Books movement, Guinevere and Libertad Thomas were a driving force in calling attention to the need for diversity in Children’s and YA literature. 

Libertad Thomas

As bloggers, activists, writers, book reviewers, and promoters, they continue to keep the focus on this important issue. Joining forces with Sasha of So Bookishly,

these talented bloggers are transforming their passion into a new venture, Diverse Book Tours, launching at the end of August.

Guinevere Thomas

I first connected with Libertad and Guinevere Thomas via their blog, Twinja Book Reviews. As an independent author of diverse/multicultural YA, finding quality and result-driven promotion is always on my mind. I know first-hand how challenging it can be to find literary bloggers willing to read, review, and promote your work. That’s why I’m delighted Diverse Book Tours will soon be a reality.  

Here’s my conversational interview with Libertad and Guinevere Thomas as we discuss their new venture and the state of diversity in publishing.

I know Diverse Book Tours has been brewing for a while. Tell me a little about how it came to be, from inception to where you are today, about to launch this new venture.

This has been on our minds for a long time. As readers, we wanted books that featured a MAIN character who was: of color, disabled, queer/Quiltbag, non-Christian, or otherwise—essentially anything that might not be the "default" for a protagonist. We've always wanted to promote diversity in books on a larger scale and we’ve been at it since September of 2013, blogging about and promoting diversity in YA Literature on Twinja Book Reviews. 

An author we hosted on our blog suggested the Book

Tour idea, which got us thinking, so we started researching exactly what went into a successful book tour company. We also write, so wanted to better understand the industry for self-published authors, since we plan to publish our own work. It was quite eye opening, because there aren't nearly as many resources for diverse books as there are for just "books." And the traditional publishing industry, as far as we knew, wasn't exactly moving on this issue.

Then, Sasha approached us about joining her to start a virtual book blog tour company that promoted diversity. She saw what our blog did, how we connected to other bloggers and authors (both traditionally and self-published) and thought it'd be a good idea to make us general partners. It was a good fit. 

If someone is completely new to the whole process of book tours, can you break it down and explain how your service works?

Traditional book tours are events that require an author to travel to certain venues to promote their book. However, not all authors, including the traditionally published, have the resources or sales to fund a physical book tour.

Over time, technology has grown stronger and now virtual book tours have everything physical book tours do, but are exclusively online. It is a planned, consistent source of online promotion for a book.

A book tour company like ours offers the service of “booking” your tour. We arrange for tour hosts, online stops for guest posts, author/character interviews, cover reveals, etc. We can also place ads on websites and provide reviews for a book (depending on the service you want). We utilize our numerous social media contacts on a client's behalf and market strongly to bloggers who read diversely. 

It would be very time consuming for an author to do what we’ve already done: research bloggers, the books they've read, if they focus on diversity in their reviews, and then connect with each and every one of them.  

The services we offer are affordable. We accept both traditionally and self-published books, but we strongly encourage self-published authors. Their works often do not make it into physical stores, making it much more difficult to promote.  

As most authors already know, publishers expect you to do a considerable amount of self-promotion. Virtual book tours are a cost efficient option, considering it requires little traveling but provides accessibility to be in the pcs and laptops of many.

I imagine you used your many contacts via social media and other marketing connections to gather all the bloggers who will be participating in Diverse Book Tours. How receptive was the literary blogging community to DBT and what’s the post #WeNeedDiverseBooks climate like?

The response so far has been great, very well received. Nearly everyone we've asked has signed up. Mind you, we team-up with literary bloggers who already read diversely.

As far as the post #WeNeedDiverseBooks climate? We still need diverse books. We still need to understand how to market them. We need to have more conversations about diversity, to understand why it is important. When you talk about needing diversity, I think it intimidates those who don't see a need for it but diversity is about making sure everyone is represented. Traditional Publishing, are you listening?

If you went to a bakery and all they had was one item, you'd get sick of that bakery and go find variety. Same for literature, if all that’s offered is just one narrative, readers will start to go elsewhere—they want something fresh and new. Which is why we wholly support self and independently published authors.

If an author only has an ebook, will you work with them or do they need to have a physical book as well?

It would be most efficient if an author has an ebook. On our own blog, yes we do like physical copies. But ebooks are much more cost effective if a tour is booked that requires multiple people to read and review.

We would not expect an author to start sending multiple copies to tour hosts just to get read. It would be different if an author queried us on our own book blog, Twinja Book Reviews, however, anything involving Diverse Book Tours, it would be more cost and time efficient for an author to have their work released in ebook form.

In my mind, the process of bringing a book into the world divides into three equal parts: Writing/Packaging/Promoting. Traditionally published authors hand the last two steps off to an agent and publisher. I know you are open to working with both traditionally and independently published authors, but what can an independent author of a diverse book do to ensure they get the most out of their experience with Diverse Book Tours?

An independent author's best shot at ensuring a positive response from our service is to make sure their book has first met the industry standard. Editing is an important part of that.

Self/Indie published authors have what it takes just as much as any traditionally published author. But we must stress: your work is in direct competition with not only other well-edited indie books, but also the traditionally published. We want self/indie published authors to feel welcome with us, to know we are out there making sure they get the most out of whichever service they pay for, but we do not want authors to pay for promotion and services that may work against them.

We've done a lot to gather our dedicated team of bloggers. Many bloggers will not accept self-published books for fear they will have to read low quality work due to past experiences working with other tour companies. We’ve worked really hard to gather the amount of tour hosts we did in such a short amount of time. We need to be able to assure them that the books they will be signing up to host, read, and promote are industry ready. We stress this now because we haven't officially launched and we want authors to consider doing more to make sure their work is well edited before they book with us.

There are many options an author can take to do this, and not every option is an expensive route. We would even be happy to suggest options to authors, whatever their price range. While we do not provide editing services, we can provide suggestions.

I’ll be at KidLitCon's  8^th Annual KidLitoshpere Conference in Sacramento, CA (October 10 & 11). This year’s theme is “Blogging Diversity in Young Adult and Children’s Lit: What’s Next?” In your opinion, what IS next?

Aw, we wish we could go! Charlotte Taylor, one of the coordinators of KitLitCon extended a personal invitation to us. Unfortunately, we had other obligations. This year out of any would have been the best to attend (especially meeting great people like you in person!). But there will be other times, so we hope you tell us all about it!

As far as what's next? Well, diverse books always have been and should continue to be what's next. Anyone promoting these books is a part of this. Anyone who writes diversely is a part of this. Anyone who reads, YOU ARE ALL A PART OF THIS.

Watch out for our official launch! We are building our site with a new custom layout and we will soon announce the winner of our giveaway!

I know I’m looking forward to the launch of Diverse Book Tours. For too long I felt like I was out there alone, trying to drum up promotion for Delta Legend. It’s good to know the tide is turning for authors of diverse lit, thanks in part to entrepreneur advocates like Libertad Tomas, Guinevere Tomas, and Sasha Beatty.

In the meantime, you can get an idea of their mad skills in book promotion by visiting Twinja Book Reviews and
So Bookishly. Then be sure to stop by the beautifully evolving Diverse Book Tours site and enter to win their giveaway. I’m donating a paperback of Delta Legend and some Oakland & Delta swag to this monster giveaway!

Thoughts from a Plain-Belly Sneetch

Thanks to the tenacity of Ellen Oh along with the entire #WeNeedDiverseBooks team and subsequent panel at BookCon, many agents, publishers, booksellers, and librarians came away from BEA 2014 with a new perspective on the market for diverse books.

And while this is wonderful news, I've been pondering what this will mean for those of us who were out ahead of this movement and ultimately self-published, the ones without "stars upon thars." 

Independent Authors of diverse books continue to deal with a challenging Catch 22. We are the recipients of a double shunning. First, by agents and publishers who could not envision anything past a niche market for our stories, and secondly, by those bloggers, literary reviewers, libraries, and booksellers who refuse to promote independently published books. The irony is that in doing so, they further perpetuate the state of lack when it comes to diverse literature.

AnimalsWithLightSabers.com
This site will make you smile.

I started to address this issue via social media in the week leading up to BEA, but then I stopped. With something as powerful as We Need Diverse Books about to take center stage at BookCon, there should be no dissension amongst the ranks. What this panel and everyone who participated in #WeNeedDiverseBooks made happen was nothing short of amazing. The need for diversity in Children's and YA literature far outweighs the needs of one little saber-rattling author. 

Sure it’s disheartening to think that some of us who were previously told “no” by traditional publishing might actually find a "welcome" mat in this new climate. But the greater message of Dr. Seuss’s The Sneetches is that at certain point, after things got a little crazy, none of the Sneetches could tell who initially had stars, and who didn’t.

Dr. Seuss's, The Sneetches and Other Stories
Random House, First Edition, 1961. Never
 read it as a child? It's even better as an adult.

Perhaps there’s a silver lining in #WeNeedDiverseBooks for us Indie Sneetches. 

Maybe we'll find a bit more acceptance from those who typically only recognize books by Star-Belly Sneetches. I hope so. Even though I ultimately had to go it alone, I did not publish Delta Legend haphazardly. I knew it would be scrutinized within an inch of its spine by those who look to find fault with independently published books. 

Participating in the We Need Diverse Books campaign was like a gift out of the blue for me and I am so grateful. For years I've felt like I was out here alone. Now I realize that even those with agents and traditional publishers have felt their diverse books are not getting the level of attention and promotion they deserve.

I'm always checking myself when I post about this issue and I often go back in to soften my words—afraid to risk angering the publishing gods. Then I read Ellen Oh's guest post on Angry Asian Man detailing her personal reasons behind #WeNeedDiversBooks. She turned her anger and frustration into unapologetic action and we've all benefited. 

The audio from BookCon's We Need Diverse Books panel is available here. It's about an hour long but so worth the time (or listen in increments as I did). Every author on the panel is positive and inspiring. This was history in the making and has already changed the future of Children's and YA Lit for the better. 

Here's to the upstarts, like Ellen Oh. The ones who say, "I'm not gonna sit around and wait for things to change, I'm gonna go out and make it happen." And for that, this Plain-Belly Sneetch says, thank you. 

Waiting for a Sign

Here we are, on approach to Summer Solstice, and I have Karen Carpenter’s, “Merry Christmas Darling,” stuck in my head.

It's not because Tom is away, tracking an album in England—he’s having a brilliant time and I've needed the solitude. No, it’s because of the line, “Greeting cards have all been sent, the Christmas rush is through… “ It speaks to that moment after a hectic time when things finally start to slow down and you can take stock of your emotions.

As it relates to me at this moment: the screenplay polish of Delta Legend is complete. It honors the novel while ratcheting up the action and suspense needed to carry a film. 

It’s been a while since I’ve faced the Hollywood firing squad and I’m waiting for that moment of brave, a sign that I'm really ready to do this again. If you can't handle rejection, better go find some other place to play.

Whatever comes, it’s been extremely satisfying to incorporate the growth of the novel back into the original spec. They really do compliment each other and it's ready should the need arise. 

I plan on taking a very short break before getting back to the business of writing the next installment. Only this time, there won’t be years between novel and film—they are happening simultaneously. I've written about this before but a screenplay really is a beautiful blueprint for a novel.

This is going to sound crazy, but whenever I get beaten down from going it alone as an indie author/publisher/one-woman marketing team for Delta Legend, I visualize handing the keys to Calvin and telling him, “You gotta drive this thing.” Without hesitation, he nabs the keys and says, “I got this.” And he does.

As writers, we sometimes feel like we’ve given birth to our characters. Most of the time, however, I feel as though characters come out of the ether. Needing their stories to be told, they find me. Calvin, Mei Li and the gang—this is their time. Beyond a niche market, young adults of color need to see themselves as protagonists and heroes of contemporary stories that appeal to a very wide audience. 

As I'm writing this post, UPS just delivered the latest box of physical books … at 8:15 p.m.?  It wasn't due here until June 9th. 

When I hold this book, I am reminded how very fortunate I am to have had the opportunity to tell this story. For all the push-back against self-publishing, it has afforded many of us an opportunity that would have been impossible otherwise. Prior to digital publishing, if no one in traditional publishing found value in your story, that was it, game over. How many writers went to their graves leaving behind an unpublished, type-written manuscript wrapped in brown paper and tied with string? (I warned you I was being sentimental.)

Thanks to Ellen Oh and her merry band of #WeNeedDiverseBooks upstarts, the tide is turning. Querying with my African American protagonist would likely be a bit easier in the current climate. But thanks to independent publishing, Calvin's story didn't have to languish on the back burner, waiting for this day to come. One need only look at the demographics of reviewers on Goodreads and Amazon to see that Delta Legend easily transcends any notion of a niche market.

I am blessed and grateful, and yes, proud. Turning a screenplay into a novel is not often done. Independently publishing that story has been a tough row to hoe, but I did it. And I'll do it again if I have to.

Thinking back to when I was finishing the novel, I did readings with a class of at-risk students from the projects. Remembering how they went from showboating and mouthing-off to quiet and engaged in a matter of pages. The way they embraced Calvin and expressed shock that someone was writing a story they could actually relate to. When one of the toughest guys in the class came up to me afterward to ask what the word "imbibe" meant… How could I not do this?

Seems UPS just delivered that sign I was waiting for. 

An Open Letter To Agents, Publishers, Booksellers, and Librarians Regarding Diverse Literature.

Thanks to the incredibly powerful #WeNeedDiverseBooks Campaign, many of you will soon be heading off to BEA 2014 with a renewed sense of what is marketable.

As you do, please remember that for every wonderfully talented author appearing on BookCon’s, We Need Diverse Books panel, there are countless numbers of us who were out ahead of this movement, yet could not find a champion willing to be in our corner.

If you are truly invested in finding and promoting diversity in literature, you’ll need to rethink the way you view independently published authors of these books. Most of us are talented, hardworking, and brave individuals who refused to let the “no’s” of traditional publishing keep us from telling our diverse stories. We are one of the greatest resources of diverse and multicultural literature available. 

I hope you will keep this in mind the next time you are approached by an independent author of a diverse book. Our champions are found in those who recognize and promote quality literature regardless of who published it.

Kelan O’Connell

#WeNeedDiverseBooks

A big thank you and congratulations to the team of writers, publishers, and bloggers who worked to bring the message of  #WeNeedDiverseBooks to the world. This wildly successful social media campaign caught fire and has already had an impact: BookCon quickly adjusted their 2014 line-up, adding a We Need Diverse Books panel to the schedule. Now that's a successful campaign with immediate results.

This was my initial post for #WeNeedDiverseBooks.

A friend asked me if I was crying in this pic. No! I was simply very tired and it showed. I've been pushing hard to wrap up a polish on the original screenplay version of Delta Legend along with writing the newest  ____ Legend for both screen and manuscript. Yep, I'm kinda busy.



But I wanted to take a moment to celebrate this great event and relate my own experience.

When I began querying with the novel version of Delta Legend, it never occurred to me that my African American male protagonist might be a roadblock to acquiring an agent and landing a publishing deal. My take was that I had something unique and viable; a story that would appeal to readers of all ages and races. Only when the "Not right for my list" rejection letters began stacking up did I even start to wonder. Then came two rejection letters that alluded to the fact that my male protagonist of color would be a tough sell in the current market—this was 2010/2011.

When I tell people this, their initial reaction is shock followed by anger. Who would say such a thing? Well, if I wanted to, I could probably go back and figure out who. But why? I ceremoniously burned every physical rejection letter and dumped all email rejects in the virtual trash bin the day I vowed to publish Delta Legend myself—my Scarlett O'Hara moment. "As God is my witness…" yeah, yeah.

If I'd had more time to think about it, I probably would have worded my statement for this event a little differently. As is, it gives the impression that I hold a grudge against those two agents, when in fact, I will be forever grateful to them. They had the balls to speak the truth, and that truth ultimately set me on a different course. Most agents simply declined with the safe and generic, "Not right for my list." Of course, not every rejection of Delta Legend was because Calvin was black, but I'm willing to bet plenty were.

Publishing is a business. Period. And one that's been challenged by the game-changing landscape of digital technology. Agents and publishers have to make difficult choices about what they believe will sell. And what was selling like hotcakes at the time I was querying with Delta Legend was Paranormal Romance and Dystopian stories featuring white female protagonists.



When I look back, the irony is rather funny. Here I was peddling a protagonist of color during a time when the hottest thing going was not only white people, but extremely white people! Yeah, them.


When the original screenplay version of Delta Legend got nowhere in Hollywood back in the day, it probably wasn't that my hero was black. The bigger roadblock was that I was a previously unproduced writer trying to sell what amounted to a monster pic with a monster budget—the odds of that happening in Hollywood are slim to none.

Now, as I wrap up the screenplay polish and prepare to pitch once again, it will be interesting to see how having a dual platform is received. Who knows, maybe this time I'm driving a "vehicle" that's got legs.

Okay, I was pressed for time so a pic from Eight-Legged Freaks will have to do. I was hoping for a shot of Wilma Flintstone driving their great car. Guess what, the only image I found was one where it looked like Wilma couldn't handle driving because, well, that's a man's job. So you see, things do progress. 

Back to the literary side of things. I can feel the tide turning with regard to diversity in books. It's all about supply and demand. Thanks to #WeNeedDiverseBooks, the demand is finally being taken seriously, inspiring change and moving people to act. While this makes me really happy, there's an insidious Catch 22 that has yet to be addressed in all this: There are authors who, like myself, ultimately self-publish because our diverse main characters were not considered marketable by traditional publishing. Yet many libraries, bookstores, and bloggers continue to shun independently published books, further perpetuating the state of lack when it comes to diverse/multicultural literature.

I didn't go it alone because I wanted to, I did it because I had to. In the end, it's made me a stronger writer with a true appreciation for everything that goes into bringing a book to the people.

So, as you go forth in support of #WeNeedDiverseBooks, remember to stay open to books by Independent Authors. A good book is a good book. Period.

Here's my "do-over" for #WeNeedDiverseBooks.

From Screenplay to Novel and Back Again

In a two-part post titled, Driving In Reverse, I wrote about the journey of turning my screenplay, Delta Legend, into a novel. From the number of views that article gets, I'd say there are quite a few other screenwriters making the transition.

Now that Delta Legend is out in paperback and growing a whole new audience, I've gone back to do a major polish on the original spec. Revisiting the source material after such a long time has been interesting to say the least. Obviously, having written a novel, I'm a different writer than I was when I wrote the screen version. I'm relieved to report that the spec wasn't as inchoate as I'd anticipated and I wouldn't be completely mortified if an original version were unearthed in an archeological dig of Hollywood.

When I wrote the screenplay, Delta Legend, I was living in Los Angeles with my then husband, Michael Bertram. We met working at Skywalker Ranch in Northern California. While neither one of us had lofty ambitions of a Hollywood career (he'd already been there and returned) as magical as Skywalker Ranch is, it can also be a lovely little fish bowl. When the opportunity arose for Michael to take a more challenging position with a major studio, we left our beautiful hippie house on the Petaluma River in Marin and joined the hive in Los Angeles. Talk about culture shock.

Image from WikiMedia.org

Originally a playwright, I decided to adopt a "When in Rome" approach to finding myself in LA. As Michael began carving out a career in Post Production Sound at Fox, I immersed myself in learning to write for television, and eventually features. I truly had no idea of the fortress I was naively preparing to storm.

I met and teamed up with Bob Crane (yes, his dad was that Bob Crane, with all the fame and notoriety that brings). Bob was dating Michael's sister, Leslie, at the time and we ultimately wound up in-laws. He was also my first Hollywood "connection." He'd co-written the only authorized biography of Jack Nicholson, co-written a screenplay that actually got made into a TV Movie, and was a regular contributor to Playboy. Bob was far more experienced in writing and all things Hollywood—he'd grown up in that culture. We clicked and had a similar sense of humor. So when we came up with the idea for a mockumentary-style book based on the OJ Simpson case, we went to work.

Bob Crane fends off a tiny spider in typically subtle fashion.

Bob and I reveled our own private writer's bullpen, working five days a week. It was some of the most fun "working" I've ever had. We brain-stormed, laughed our asses off, lunched at Jerry's or Solley's, and drank a gin at the end of the day, congratulating ourselves on our brilliance.

I thought if I can do this for a living, I will have died and gone to heaven. Our book, No Stone Unturned did not land a traditional publishing deal and self-publishing wasn't even on the map back then. We also pitched a TV spin-off concept around town but no one was biting. No Stone Unturned was ultimately serialized in the now defunct print magazine, 111, and online in the first incarnation of MidnightBBQ—a company name I still use today.

I soon returned my focus to cranking out specs for the "Must See TV" era and tried to get "people who knew people" to read them and take them over the wall. I eventually landed a writer/producer gig on a documentary-style series about night workers and went on the road with a crew, shooting all across America. Hearing Ed Asner speak the V.O. dialogue I had written was a thrill. But, alas, as with lots of shows, We Never Close never saw the light of day, and "close" we did.

Check out the size of that monitor, not to mention the chin. 
With my assistant Jasmine in the Writer's Studio, Studio City.

After seven years of toiling away in Hollywood with lackluster results, I boxed up dozens of TV specs along with a few features and called time of death on my screenwriting career, and ultimately, my marriage. Michael had found his place in Hollywood. I had not. Longing for home and missing the lifestyle of our past, I returned to Northern California and didn't write a single creative word for several years. I opened a shop called The Junkman's Daughter, went back into catering, dabbled in branding and marketing for the wine industry, returned to school for HR Management and did pretty much anything and everything to make myself forget that what I truly wanted to be was a writer.

It was the loss of my dynamic sister-in-law, Sandy, to breast cancer that finally pulled me from my state of denial. This life we've been given does not come with any guarantees. If there's something you want to do, you'd damn well better get to it. And what I wanted to do was give my strongest story, Delta Legend, a chance at life outside the cardboard file box of unwanted specs.

A lot of water had passed under the bridge of my writing career by the time I finally sat down to write the novel version of Delta Legend. But if you think any experience in life has been a waste of time, think again. It's been said of my work as a novelist that I bring "vivid imagery" to the page—I have my seven years in Hollywood to thank for that.

The original spec of Delta Legend was a straight down the line teen horror. If you've read the book, you know the story has become so much more than that as a novel. Incorporating all that growth back into the screenplay was challenging—a bit like trying to pack nutrient-dense ingredients into your favorite donut and still have it taste delicious.

 Dun Well Vegan Doughnuts, Brooklyn, NY dunwelldoughnuts.com

While it's been fun wearing the screenwriter hat again, I'm eager to get back to my preferred gig as novelist and give my full attention to ______ Legend. Coming full circle from spec to novel and back again has made me a stronger writer in both mediums. The two versions of Delta Legend will soon compliment each another.

The original spec was a sound and solid blueprint from which to build the novel. The discipline of screenwriting brings concise story structure and a cinematic quality to the book.

Post novel, the screenplay now has a back-story richness it didn't before, and while the bulk of this remains unseen, it's not unfelt. At the time of this post I'm taking one more pass through the screenplay. Let's hope one day there will be an "Option" option. If so, there's a solid script ready to deliver.