Hurray! I have bookmarks for Karma Girl. 5,000 of them to be exact. Or 48 pounds’ worth. Who knew they would weigh that much? Or take up so much room in my office? Want some freebies? Anyone, anyone? Bueller? Bueller? 😎

If you want some free bookmarks, send me an e-mail at jennifer@jenniferestep.com, and I’ll tell you were to send your self-addressed, stamped envelope.

I will be more than happy to drop you some in the mail. And let me tell you, these are nice bookmarks. They are 2 x 8 (bigger than average), heavy cardboard, shiny paper, and the color is just awesome.

If you need to have bookmarks made for your titles, I would recommend the folks who did mine at Iconix Biz. They were really patient about all the little nitpicky changes I had, the price was very reasonable, and I got them about a week after I ordered them.

What about you? Do you love bookmarks? Hate ’em? Inquiring minds want to know …

All right, I have officially set up some May book signings and readings for Karma Girl. Yeah! Here’s what I have so far:

May 5: I’ll be at Barnes & Noble in Johnson City, Tenn. Time to be determined shortly.

May 8: I’ll be at Madagascar Coffee Co. in Kingsport, Tenn. Time to be determined shortly, but it will be after 5 p.m. I’ll be doing a short reading, answering questions about writing and publishing, and signing and selling books. (I’ll actually be answering questions at all the events).

May 12: I’ll be at B Dalton Bookseller in the Bristol Mall in Bristol, Va. from 12:30-2:30 p.m.

May 12: I’ll be at Books-A-Million on Roan Street in Johnson City, Tenn. from 4-6 p.m.

I’m also going to be appearing at the Thomas Memorial Branch Public Library in Bluff City, Tenn., and hopefully at the Bristol Public Library in Bristol, Va. and Waldenbooks in the Fort Henry Mall in Kingsport, Tenn. 

There will be more to details and events come over the next few weeks, so stay tuned! 🙂

Every once in a while, I google myself just to see what people are saying about the books. Today, I came across a strange comment, posted by someone who has evidently seen/read Karma Girl.

It wasn’t good, but it wasn’t bad. It was just what my significant other and I call a meh comment. Roughly translated, Meh means I don’t care one way or the other. Or It won’t kill me, but I’m not overly enthused about the prospect. Like when I ask my significant other if he wants to go to a particular restaurant. Sometimes, he looks at me, shrugs, and says Meh.

What I read today was definitely a Meh. It wasn’t a scathing review, but it didn’t make my day be a barrel of sunshine either. But, I’m going to let it go and hope that the good comments will outweigh the Meh ones.

So what do you do about Meh comments? Scathing reviews? Do you fight back or let them slide? Inquiring minds want to know …

Okay, I have to confess something.

I’m completely addicted to Amazon. More specifically, to checking my sales numbers for Karma Girl. I know, I know, it’s not even out yet. It won’t be out for three more months (May 1 to be exact). But evidently, Amazon keeps track of pre-orders and posts those ranks too.

Right now, I am #711,130 in Books. That’s up from the 1.3 million range I was in last week, but down from my high of 400,000 and some earlier this week. Since I don’t know exactly how many books Amazon is selling, I don’t really know what my rank is.

How many books would you have to sell to get into the top 10,000? The top 1,000? The top 100? A girl can dream …

Maybe I’ll check it again in a few minutes … just in case it went up …

What about you? Do you obsess over Amazon rankings? Inquiring minds want to know …

It’s official. The second book in my Bigtime series will be callled … Hot Mama. It’s about a superhero with fire-based powers whose love life is about to crash and burn.

I love the title. But … it’s the one that I came up with for the book. Any author will tell you that titles usually change — sometimes three or four times before one is finally decided on. Most authors don’t get to keep the titles they create for their books.

But I have.

I’d originally called Karma Girl simply Karma. But my super agent suggested adding the Girl, which I happily agreed to. It’s a much better title. So, she submitted it as Karma Girl, and the title stuck. 

Hot Mama was all me from the very beginning, although I also suggested Burn, Baby, Burn. So, I guess you could say that I’m 1 1/2 for 2 on titles right now. Not a bad average at all.

Right now, the working titled for Bigtime 3 is Jinx. I’m thinking about changing it to Jinxed, though. We’ll see. And looking ahead, Bigtime 4 and Bigtime 5 (should the series go that long) have working titles of Black Widow and Nightingale.

What about you? Does Hot Mama make you cringe? Want to know more? Inquiring minds want to know …