ugliest

June 2024 Update

Posted on by kellyvincent

So I have not kept up with my promised once-monthly post. Sorry about that if you were looking for posts. I am successfully sending out a newsletter once a month if you haven’t signed up for that.

I’m in the middle of doing things related to the Ugliest release on August 13 through my publicist. So far, I’ve done some written Q&A, a guest article, a letter to my teenage self, and a podcast interview. I have more things scheduled and there’s still more coming in. Many Bookstagrammers have Ugliest—and some have all three books—and will be posting closer to release.

If you’re interested in being an ARC reviewer for Ugliest, there’s still time! Email me at [email protected]. The ask is that you review the book on Amazon (plus any others if you want). I can send the ebook to anyone (pub or pdf), but there’s also the opportunity to get a paperback copy if you prefer and you live in the US or the UK (I can’t afford to mail internationally, but by chance, I’m going to be in the UK at the right time, so I’ll just bring copies and hit up a Royal Mail branch when I’m there). Paperback receivers will get a few other goodies, including fun stickers. And a pen. Everyone should have a pen with my name on it, obviously.

I have a few other things going on. Uglier is part of a giveaway of YA books where you can win around 20 books and an ereader. All you have to do is sign up for author newsletters. You can enter here through the middle of August. Secondly, if you’re a Smashwords reader, all of my books except Finding Frances (that’s still with a publisher who controls the price) will be on sale on Smashwords all of July. I can’t actually remember what I priced them at, and can’t find where to figure that out, so it will be a surprise to me, too. You’ll see the sale price if you go to the Smashwords link for each book, starting tomorrow.

Lastly, I also totally forgot to post the cover of Ugliest after I made it—I’d actually been planning to redo Ugly and Uglier and have the same designer do Ugliest, but there were some timing problems. If you've gone to my Books page you would have already seen the Ugliest one I did myself, but if you didn't, here you go:

Ugliest book cover

Like the others, it has real stuff I made (the first two are pictures of real carvings I did on some wood I picked up at Home Depot and pictures of other stuff, collage style). Ugliest involved watercolor painting. But I’m still really excited about the new covers, which I’ll release next year. They’re being done in an illustration style by someone who draws better than I do.

April 2024 Update

Posted on by kellyvincent

Writing

So much for posting monthly—I totally forgot last month, and here I am coming in under the wire for April. I’ll try to do better.

Ugliest is almost finalized. I’m just waiting on the cover (with my designer) and I need to finalize a resources section for the back of the book. And of course I have to see if I can get anyone to blurb the book. I’m a terrible networker, so this is unlikely to happen.

My publicity campaign officially got started a couple weeks ago, and we’re in the planning and setup stage. I did submit Ugly and Uglier for some more reviews to get more quotes for the book listings and maybe some quotes for the cover, and then also some visibility so people recognize them when they keep seeing them over and over. I’m in the process of preparing book plates and some more swag, with a little bit of original drawing on these mini sketchbooks.

Reading

So you all might remember that I said I’d do three reading challenges this year. The first is the Reader Harder Challenge and the second is the Goodreads one. The third one was as yet undetermined when I posted in January, because it was going to be whatever the King County Library System put together.

My Read Harder Challenge is going well. It’s got 24 categories on it and I’ve already read 10, with 3 in progress right now.

On Goodreads, I’m exactly on track to hit my 120 (though to be fair, I did recently get caught up by reading a stack of graphic novels/manga).

Finally, the KCLS challenge did come out, and it’s basically to contribute to a million minutes spent reading by all participants. FYI, I’ve spent 48 hours and 40 minutes reading so far since I started tracking on March 12. That’s actually quite a bit in just a month and a half—I’m rather surprised. But we, as in the KCLS reading community, are going to smash that goal in October or November if people keep reading the same rate, especially if new people join. They’ve already recorded 442,736 minutes.

February 2024 Update

Image posted on by kellyvincent

Staying Informed

I haven’t been able to keep up with my weekly posts for quite a while, so I think I’m going to officially do just one post a month for now, with updates. I’m not even going to commit to a particular day, just once per calendar month

I also do have a newsletter now that is also monthly, so if you’re interested in staying informed, that’s a great way, too. You can subscribe here. It goes out the first Tuesday of every month.

Ugliest

I’m still actively working on Ugliest, book 3 in The Art of Being Ugly, and making good progress. But it’s a tough book to work on, because it has such high stakes—and they’re real, not just in the book. The kids become activists for LGBTQ+ rights, fighting against the anti-LGBTQ+ laws that are sweeping red America. This is really happening, and it’s turning much of this country into a near-dystopia, when time will take it the rest of the way. We already are seeing red state refugees—families who are fleeing states to keep their trans kids safe. A few weeks ago, I met a family from Oklahoma that had just moved to Washington for their kid. This is no joke. If you are in a position to fight these laws with your votes, please do. It’s so important.

Other Book News

I’m planning to hire a publicist to really try to get Ugly and Uglier some attention before the release of Ugliest, which I’m targeting for early September this year, even though I don’t know if that’s possible because I’m still writing the first draft.

I’m also planning to redo the covers for all of the books. I actually do like the covers I have now, but I feel like new covers could take them to the next level. But I don’t know what to do yet, so I’m hoping for help from the publicist.

Ugly book cover
Uglier book cover

Sales

Ugly and Uglier are both only 99 cents all month, so check them out if you haven’t read them yet. You can find them at all the major ebook retailers (and some of the smaller ones, too).

October 2023 Update

Posted on by kellyvincent

It feels a little like things are paused right now, because I’ve been focused on two other projects, and I was working extra for my day job, too. I’ve just started querying on my nonfiction project related to my day job, so it’s sort of “done”. The third romance I’m writing under a pen name is also wrapping up, but there are still several chapters left to write. I’m just feeling a little wrung out and stretched thin. And on top of that, since July I’ve lost two cats and had another diagnosed with cancer, so it’s been a rough ride. But a friend convinced me to start going to yoga, and I figure I’ll give that a shot, so hopefully I’ll be back to normal soon—which will mean posting here more regularly. It will also mean making much more progress on Ugliest, which is moving along, but slowly.

In the realm of good news, Uglier has gotten some recognition lately, which is really cool. It got a starred review from Kirkus Reviews a bit ago, and the made it an editor’s pick for their most recent issue of the magazine, out today. I also got some other good news about it, but I can’t share that for a bit. Watch this space.

I’ve made some decisions about social media. Partially because I was feeling overwhelmed and busy, I’ve not been active. But I have finally decided to officially give up on BookTok. My account is clearly marked, and no matter what I do, I can’t get past the about-250-views mark. Sometimes I’ll post it and get there in a couple hours, but other times it might take me a day or two, but whatever the timing, as soon as I hit 250, TikTok stops showing it. I also have an account for my romance pen name, and although I don’t get a lot of views, it’s not blocked like @kv_books is. And on my account related to my day job (@kelly_datascientist), I occasionally get 1000+ views (I’ve had one go over 8000, too). So it’s obviously @kv_books that’s blacklisted or whatever. But anyway, I’m trying to get back on Instagram. I took a bunch of pictures of books I’ve read in the last few months (fortunately, I am still reading a lot) and will be posting those soon, a few at a time. Maybe I’ll even make some videos.

In other news, I have some sales on my ebooks coming up. Always the New Girl and Binding Off are on sale for the first half of November, both for 99 cents (and 79 cents for Binding Off where possible). Ugly and Uglier are also going to be 99 cents for the entire month of December. I will be sending reminders about these out in my newsletter, so subscribe if you’re interested.

And just for posterity, here are a couple pictures of my old lady cats who are no longer with us. They’re both still so cute in these, even though they were difficult to take care of at the end.

Chloe the cat
Chloe
Zmije the cat in her cage
Zmije

August 2023 Update

Posted on by kellyvincent

I can’t believe it’s already almost September. But since it is, I’d thought I’d give an update on what’s been going on writing-wise, because there is stuff.

Good News

I got some good news a couple weeks ago—Uglier got a starred review from Kirkus Reviews. It’s such a nice review, and you can see it here. I’m pretty proud of this book and although it’s slow going right now, Ugliest is coming along.

A List

There’s a somewhat new book site that’s kind of an alternative to Goodreads called Shepherd, which also works with authors more closely than Goodreads. They have lots of book-related content and invite authors to create lists on a theme where they recommend a handful of books. You can also browse books based on various filters and see what authors have said when they’ve recommended a book. It’s actually a pretty cool site and it’s growing. I created a list called “The best books that remind us that nonbinary people are human, too.”

Podcasts

A few weeks back, I was on the podcast Beyond the Pen with Maccabee Griffin. He was really nice to talk to and also very understanding when I missed the first recording we had scheduled because I got the time zone wrong (something I rarely do, fortunately). He rescheduled and we talked. You can find the podcast here.

I was also on another podcast called The Bookshelf Odyssey with Art a few months ago, which can be found here. Art is also nice and it was a good conversation.

These were both fun to do, even though it should have been a little intimidating, but talking about my books is not too difficult.

Also, also, I should mention that both these podcasts are really interesting if you like digging into writers’ thoughts about their books, themselves, the world around them, and on an on. So definitely check out their other episodes.

A Final Thought

I should hopefully be able to get back to posting reviews here like I used to, since I’m reading more now. We’ll see if it happens, but I hope so.

April 2023 Update

Posted on by kellyvincent

I’ve been really busy and struggling to keep up with everything, so it’s been a while since I posted. But everything’s moving along nicely right now.

Uglier will be released August 1st. I have lined up several beta readers for it, and it’s out for round one right now. I’ll be sending out round two in early May, hopefully with changes based on feedback from some of the round one readers. I’m getting this to my editor in mid-June. I’ve got the cover ready, and I’m including it at the bottom of the post. I’m also planning to do some art to include in the book, which is a little intimidating because in the book, Nic is a very skilled artist, and I’m … not (yet). So hopefully mine will be good enough to include.

I’m also happy to report that I am in the planning stages of Ugliest, and I’ve mapped out the first half of the book already, in the last week or so. I can promise this one will be exciting and it deals with some real world problems and I think you will like it.

Here’s the Uglier cover:

Uglier book cover