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Category: Announcements

Portrait of Woman in Ink available in paperback

After some deliberation and figuring out what to do with Portrait of Woman in Ink: A Tattoo Storybook now that my contract with my publisher is up. Since I’m in the middle of a career change, uber-frequent visits to my doctor, and deep in the throes of editing my third novel, I opted to go the way of the Amazon and just put it out there as part of my growing “backlist.”

I was partially lucky because I had already done the long, time-sucking work of formatting a print copy of my manuscript: sections, section headers and footers, right-facing pages, page numbers, front matter, back matter – pretty much everything you don’t have to worry about for electronic format books. Even so, it still took a good couple weeks of back and forth with CreateSpace to get my cover positioning just right, which proved to be a frustrating couple of weeks. But at long last, the print paperback is complete and available everywhere (CreateSpace print paperbacks are sold).

So if you’d like your very own dead tree version to add to your Kelly I. Hitchcock collection of works, you can find it here!

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Portrait of Woman in Ink on Kindle Unlimited

Now that Portrait of Woman in Ink: A Tattoo Storybook is in my purview, I’ve enrolled it in the Amazon KDP Select program. This probably doesn’t mean anything to you, unless you’re an Amazon Prime or Kindle Unlimited subscriber. If you’re an Amazon Prime-ate, you can borrow my book from the Kindle Owner’s Lending Library for absolutely free. Because this is America. If you’re Kindle Unlimited folk, you can buy it for zero dollars and zero cents.

It’s a beautiful thing. So check it out.

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I have a fan club!

… and believe it or not, it’s not the first time.

My BFFF created a fan club for my authorisms on Facebook if you’re into joining the fun.

Interestingly enough, I once had a Facebook fan club way back in college. I have no idea how it started, but it became a thing and I eventually dissolved the group due to the fact that I no longer interacted with any of the people in it. This time, however, the fan club is run by someone other than myself, so it will actually be a legitimate fan club and shit.

Maybe there will even be a P.O. Box so you can send fANthrax mail.

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Novel Night at Malvern Books

Mark your calendars, Austin peeps! I’ll be making an appearance at Malvern Books for their June Novel Night event, reading from Portrait of Woman in Ink: A Tattoo Storybook and talking about my work. Come join in the fun and you can say you saw a rare appearance by the one and only Kelly I. Hitchcock (though not rare entirely by chance).

What: Novel Night at Malvern Books
Where: Malvern Books 613 W 29th St, Austin, TX 78705
When: June 11, 2015
Who: Myself and author Christopher Brown

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Author Feature in the Buffalo Reflex

Oh, hello! You came to find me but today I’m over at my hometown paper, The Buffalo Reflex, talking to the good folks there about what I’ve been up to in my author career since I departed the halls of Buffalo High School 15 years ago.

Check the story out here.

Side note, it was hard to do this interview. My first book, The Redheaded Stepchild, is set in a small town in Minnesota but anyone who knows me could easily figure out that the portrait of this small town in heavily influenced by Buffalo, Missourah. Yes, the book is fiction. Very very very much fiction. That said, the fictitious characters in the book bear more than a passing resemblance to the people who helped shape my formative years, and my formative years were all in Buffalo. I have a feeling my ears will be ringing as people in my hometown pick up the Friday paper and see what I’ve been doing with my life.

P.S. You may or may not have noticed that I got myself a sassy new head shot. A big thanks to Danielle Selby of PASADYA for the great work! (She’s a freelancer for hire if you need some design work of any kind!)

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Reading Redux: Indies First at Bookwoman

Small Business Saturday was a big day for me. I did my second book reading at an “Indies First” event at the first bookstore I had the guts to approach about Portrait of Woman in InkBookWoman on North Lamar. It was a fantastic event and I had such a great time sharing with this great group of people and reading from my book.

Since it’s Thanksgiving weekend, I got to drag the whole family along – my husband, my mother, and my sister. I’m tweeting here, not playing on my phone, I swear.

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A big thanks to BookWoman for having me, to the other authors for making this a great event, and to all the people who came out to join in the fun and support these local authors!

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Portrait of Woman in Ink at Malvern Books

My diabolical plot to take over all bookstores is, well, a long way from happening, but I’m officially one bookstore closer to total and complete domination. Malvern Books, a small independent bookstore close to the University of Texas campus that carries only books from small presses has picked it up and will have a couple copies on their shelves. At the very least, I’m 1/3 of the way toward my annual goal of having the book in 3 more stores by the end of the year.

Having reached this milestone, I would now like to share my secret formula for getting your book in a bookstore, if you are a local author looking for exposure.

  1. Write a good book.
  2. Have someone publish it.
  3. Set foot inside a bookstore.
  4. Ask.

The worst they can say is “No,” right? BTW – I have to tell myself this, too. You are not alone!

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The last chapter in the CLR saga…

Seeing as the newest season of Doctor Who just premiered, it seems only fitting that we should jump in our time machines for this post…

This week, I finally received my contributor copies of the first publication that ever accepted a piece of my work, Clackamas Literary Review. It is a damn fine publication, but in case you’re new to the drama that is Kelly I. Hitchcock’s literary life, here’s a summary of the timeline around this little interaction…

Sometime in 2009: I submit 3 poems to CLR for consideration.
February 2010: Clackamas accepts 2 of my poems for publication in their 2010 issue.
November 2011: I receive word the issue is going to drop publication any day.
February 2012: I once again receive word the issue is going to be published soon, and that I will receive 7 contributor copies instead of 2, and that I can purchase copies for $5.
March 2013: 2010 issue is published, with promise of shipment for 7 contributor copies, which I do not receive.
September 2013: Tired of waiting, I order my own copy for about $10. Thanks, Amazon Prime!
August 2014: I mysteriously receive 3 contributor copies in the mail.

You may be looking at this and thinking “Wow, that’s a really long publication cycle,” and you’d be right. What made the whole thing even weirder was that 1: I received 3 copies, not 2 (which was the original number) or 7 (which was the later promised number). 2: These poems came to the name I use on Facebook – not my Facebook author page, but my personal Facebook timeline, same punctuation and everything. 3: The envelope they came in looked like it had been attacked by a rabid wolverine; I don’t even know how the mailman got the books to stay in the manila bubble mailer.

With practices like this, it should surprise no one that more and more authors are moving away from traditional publishing. This isn’t really an anomaly; actually, authors have been screwed over on much larger scales than this by even more prestigious traditional publishing houses. Looking at timelines like these, it’s no wonder Type A authors (like me) who like control (like me) are publishing works at the rate of 1 new book on Amazon every 5 minutes.

That said, I truly am grateful that Clackamas Literary Review published my work and I have that name to attach to my own. I know it’s hard for university presses to get their jobs done in the face of changing market demands, technology, and budget constraints. I just wish they’d learn to do more with less a little faster than 5 years, and adapt quickly like the rest of the world’s been forced to.

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Go PORTRAIT, it’s your birthday!

Portrait of Woman in Ink is a year old today! Just a year ago I was feverishly promoting the initial release of my new book of short stories about women and their tattoos and trying to keep up with the buzz as my closest people supported my efforts. It’s been a good first year for Portrait of Woman in Ink, but there are many more good ones come! It’s like Christmas in July; even this guy popped by to wish Portrait a happy birthday…

To celebrate, I’m making the Kindle edition of my first book, The Redheaded Stepchild, free all damn week! Grab a copy if you don’t have one. If you have one, grab a copy anyway (um, they’re free) and gift it to someone you love or like just a little bit. When Portrait of Woman in Ink is a little older and wiser, it too can be given away for the low low price of free.

Spread the word, get my books (one a year old today and one free), and enjoy the swelter of summer! Have I told you people I love you lately? Well, I do.

 

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