The Orphan Ship on Amazon.com next week!

Thanks to the genius of Createspace, I'm re-publishing The Orphan Ship. You'll be able to order copies of the book on Amazon.com for $10.95. Kindle downloads are only $3.99. Thank you to fellow author Tamara Ward for helping me format the manuscript, and thanks to my friend Cindy Harrison for helping me with the cover layout. The cover art is by my talented son Nathaniel. He's currently painting the cover for my next book, The Lost Sheep, which is in my editor's capable hands right now. I think it's on schedule to be released on Kindle by mid-June.

I'm also pleased to announce that The Orphan Ship will be showcased at Printer's Row Literary Festival in Chicago in June, courtesy of Children's Literary Classics. The Orphan Ship was awarded a silver medal from CLC in 2012. I'm honored to have my work recognized at this huge book event.

On an unrelated note, I was thrilled to receive a reply to the email I sent to author Mike Shepherd. For those of you who don't spend every waking minute in the library like I do, Mike is the author of the bestselling Kris Longknife series. In my email, I asked him for some advice on publicity, and he said he would answer it in detail in his blog at www.mikeshepherd.org. I will share it here, with his permission.

The Orphan Ship now exclusively on Amazon/Kindle

With a lot of technical assistance from fellow author Tamara Ward, I published The Orphan Ship on Kindle; it will be available exclusively from Amazon for the next three months. Only $3.99, but keep an eye on my blog because I will have it available free for a few days in July.

The Lost Sheep, if there are no major snags, will also be on Kindle this summer.

I'm still revising!

I'm getting sick of my laptop! But I hope to have The Lost Sheep out on eBooks by @June.

Holly Springs Cultural Arts Festival

Please join me and other local authors and artists at the Holly Springs Cultural Arts Festival this week, Tuesday - Friday from 4:00 - 9:00 pm; Saturday from 10:00 - 4:00 pm. There will be free writing and art workshops offered all week, and lots of activities for the kids, so bring the whole family and drop in anytime. Location: Holly Springs, NC, Library-Cultural Arts Center, just behind the Town Hall on Main St. (It's a very small town and easy to find!)
I will be on an author Q&A panel on Saturday from 2:00 - 4:00 pm, if you have any burning questions about writing or publishing, and The Orphan Ship will be on sale, of course, all week, for $15. I hope to see you there!

Happy 2013!

I'm nearly done with the rough draft of The Lost Sheep, the sequel to The Orphan Ship, but I'm sure revisions will take several months. I hope to get started on the third book (it will be a trilogy) that I haven't chosen a name for yet. For those of you who have been asking for the next book, I'm sorry to say that you'll have to wait until 2014 for the next two books. I have to wait until my publishing contract expires in January '14 so I can release the trilogy with a new publisher. (A new publisher won't consider books 2 and 3 unless he/she can also have the rights to The Orphan Ship.) Sorry for the wait, but I hope it will be worth it!

Meanwhile, The Orphan Ship is still available for order from the sites on the right hand side of the screen. Or, if you live in the Raleigh, NC area, you can buy a signed copy directly from me for $15. Email me if you're interested: SterlingRWalker@yahoo.com. I will try to post to my blog more often this year, and hopefully share more than just my writing updates -- boring, I know.

Happy New Year!

Signed copy of The Orphan Ship with free shipping, just in time for Christmas!

If you'd like a signed copy of The Orphan Ship, just send me an email at sterlingrwalker@yahoo.com. Pay the list price of $18.95, and I'll ship the book for free. Books make great Christmas gifts! This is a limited time offer because I don't have many copies, but if I'm ever famous (yeah, right), you'll be glad you have a signed first edition! Merry Christmas, or whatever holiday you celebrate this time of year!

My first book award!

The Orphan Ship has been awarded a 2012 silver Children's Literary Classics award.  www.childrensliteraryclassics.com