School has started and the noise level in my house has dropped considerably (we still have two boys who aren't old enough to go to school). Oh, boy, have I got a lot of news this month! I was hoping to get some things finalized before I sent this email, but I thought I better send the email before it got too late into the month. My life is filled with a lot of "maybe's" right now. I'd like to see it filled with more "yeses!"

Perhaps you’ll recognize one or more of the famous authors to the left. I’ve met several of them before, so it was nice to see them again. If you ever go to a science fiction convention (i.e. WorldCon or Nebulas), make sure you meet the Haldemans. They are just the most wonderful and kind people.

I was on one panel called “Publicity: Who’s Job is it anyway?” at the WorldCon with Joy Ward, Roy Gray, Astrid Anderson Bear, and Pierce Watters. Ben Bova was supposed to be on the panel, but he couldn’t make it. You can watch the panel Here.

Strange thing happened a couple of days after the WorldCon. I got an agent for a week or two (the agent just kind of fell into my lap), but things didn’t work out and I’m agentless again. It was a great experience, though, because it really let me see the world through an agent’s perspective. I know now what to look for in an agent, especially if they are someone I’ll be working with for many years to come. For some reason, I just wasn’t very excited about my agent, even though they represented bigtime authors. They didn’t work much with YA authors, so that troubled me as well. It was definitely for the best that it didn’t work out. When I get an agent again, I want them to be someone that I am excited to work with and who is excited to work with me.

MOVIE NEWS:

On other news, Ray Arco, one of the 80 or so judges for the Golden Globe awards contacted me last week. We had a great conversation. He liked my “Harry Potter meets Star Wars!” tagline and asked for some materials so that he could possibly share my book with some movie producers/directors at the Toronto Film Festival. I’m not sure if anything will come of this, but it’s fun to see the interest that the film industry has in my book. I’ve had at least half a dozen movie and TV producers and a couple of talent agencies approach me at book events. This is the first time a film professional has called me, though.

FOREIGN NEWS:

Looks like India might get a sampling of my book. Perhaps 500 to 1000 copies to see how it sells. It’s a start. An agent from Korea translated part of Paraworld Zero into Korean, but no news on that yet. It's a slow business for sure. Patience is one of the biggest keys.

The 10-disc Audio CD just came out! Yahoo! Go here to learn more.

Also, as of yesterday, Paraworld Zero is now a downloadable audiobook! Right now you can get it from www.kitabe.com but in the near future, it will also be on Audible.com, iTunes.com, SpokenNetwork.com and probably Audiobooks.com. In fact, Audible just sent me a sample contract while I was writing this newsletter. They get a million visitors a month, so that should be nice.

My wife and I composed some music for the audiobook. Listen to it here and tell me what you think.

I played a joke on my boys last month. They caught a bunch of tadpoles at a camping trip. After they went to bed I found a large frog (I named him "Squeaky" because his croak was more of a cute little squeak). Well, I hid all of my boy's tadpoles, and in the morning I told them that the tadpoles ate each other (which they do) and only one survived. I then showed them Squeaky. You should have seen their eyes! This frog to the left isn't Squeaky. It's the last remaining tadpole that we brought home. He essentially ate the others. He’s only an inch long. We're getting rid of him the second he starts making noises!