The Internet hosts HEAPS of advice for new writers and new authors. I do not weigh in on those, because publishing is a business where your mileage may vary. I'm doing what works for me!

Today, I have a single piece of advice for new authors: think carefully about your cover art. My publisher and I agreed on the cover for Life Before, and it truly fits the story, but I hadn't realized it would be everywhere. It's on my business cards, all over my website, on posters when I speak at book stores, and on name tags at book events. The cover was perfect for Xander, but I'm not really a dirty Chucks kind of girl.

Next Thursday, we're revealing my new cover. It's beautiful. I'll be buying new business cards and revamping my website as soon as possible!

While cleaning up my blog categories, I realized I used to tag many posts "cake." That must have been before the whole author thing got real. (Since it "got real," my life consists of family and book-related stuff, and why-the-hell-am-I-doing-anything-not-related-to-this-book-or-the-next-book? Anxiety reigns.

But this week, there was cake. This Tuesday, I turned in my final edits for Life Before, and I celebrated with coconut cake. I'd tasted this cake at our school auction last weekend, and NEEDED more. . .but I didn't need the coconuts all over the outside. Turns out, the coconut is for show, but cardboard on the lips.

Live and learn. There will be no coconut cake at the launch party. (But there will be cake. From http://www.rosellinisweets.com/ no less. Come for the chitchat, stay for the cake.

It's no secret that I base my novel's scenery on places I've been. While on holiday in Ohio, I took two shots for you. They're both key for Life Before, which is out in spring 2016.

Xander Fife lives in my childhood house. I haven't stepped inside since I turned 18, and it's endured many changes in color since then, but here's his house:

You can imagine a rickety wooden bench to the left of the door, right? Xander' bench includes many layers of peeling paint, but is black during his story.

And, of course, his high school. For a long time, the manuscript included a lengthy description of the camel-colored bricks that had darkened with age. Now it says nothing about the school's drab exterior, but I snapped a pic at my school while I was in Ohio. I didn't get to enter--it was August, after all--but this is the door that Xander and his best friend, Jill, enter on their very last day of high school. A tiny part of my brain expected Tucker to be sitting on the radiator just inside the doorway, waiting for his best buddies.

He wasn't. . .but just being at the school made me VERY excited to share this book with the world.

Kirsten Lopresti, author of Bright Coin Moon, read an early draft of Life Before. She calls it, "A gripping story about a shattered family and one boy’s journey to begin again. Bacon takes on the subject of domestic violence with skill and compassion in this fast-paced, suspenseful, and thoroughly enjoyable novel.” 


Well, that's exciting!

This post intentionally left blank. But you've FOUND IT!

The fun starts in May 2016, just before the book release. Want to play?

Give me your address and you'll know the moment we're live.