New Month, New Year, New Featured Author

Here we are again: the beginning of another month. Fresh faced, excited, and so looking forward to everything that the month may bring. This time around we’re not only at the start of a month but also the beginning of a brand-new year. 2017 saw a couple changes to the blog – some things faded out, new things were begun. 2018 will be no different. I have a couple new things I’m planning to begin during the next couple weeks and months and will share those with you as they become ready for launch. I’m excited for them and think they’ll be an interesting addition and enhancement to the blog. In the mean time…

Since it is the beginning of a new month it is the time to introduce to you all the January Featured Author of the Month!

Kelly Lyman debuted her first novel in November 2017 – she’s nearly as freshly minted an author as 2018 is a year! This month we’ll have the opportunity to learn more about her book, about her and her process, and oh, so much more. She’ll even be helping me launch one of my new ‘things’ on the blog a little later this month so make sure you keep an eye out for that! So let’s get this going; allow me to introduce to you more completely, Kelly Lyman.

Kelly is a dreamer, a planner and a doer. Her favorite mantra is: “Go after a dream that is destined to fail without divine intervention.” She has a degree in education from West Chester University and taught 5th grade before deciding to stay home full time.

She writes adult historical romance and YA paranormal/fantasy. So of course she loves, loves, loves history and can usually be found daydreaming about people who lived centuries ago...that is, when she’s not taking care of her four kids. Traveling to Scotland, England, and Ireland are on her bucket list. Skydiving is not. LOL.

She’s mildly obsessed with mint chocolate chip ice cream (so am I!!), peanut butter M&MS, drinking coffee with cream only, and thinks chips and salsa is a perfectly acceptable dinner option. Her favorite color is green and if she could, she would sit on the beach and read all day long.

I can tell you right now that I am truly looking forward to every moment of getting to know Kelly better and working with her as I spotlight her as my January Featured Author of the Month.

You can follow Kelly on Facebook, Twitter & Instagram.

And you can follow her as the January Featured Author of the Month on the blog and social media by searching and following the hashtags: #FAOM #AuthorOfTheMonth and #UDIOFeaturedAuthors.

Until next time… Happy Reading!

Finally... The NEW FEATURE

Last month I mentioned that there would be a new feature coming to Ups, Downs, Ins & Outs this fall, and so there is. I’m really excited about it, and I hope you will be too. Over the past couple years, I’ve played with running social media and blog features like “Author of the Day” on Facebook, “Daily Featured Books” on the blog and Facebook, and other similar things.

“Author of the Day” started as a 2-week long special event on Facebook and turned into a month-long one. Over the course of that month I met dozens of new and new-to-me authors. Some have become people that I chat with frequently: weekly, even daily. Some of them have become authors whose (new) books I purchase in a heartbeat. Some have become prolific, popular, seasoned authors, while some still have just one book, or are struggling with their writing. The success of this past event plays into the new feature.

The “Daily Featured Books” of old was an interesting way of sharing a wide variety of books with my friends and followers, but the schedule, especially with a new baby in the house, is one that I would (quite frankly) struggle immensely to try and keep up with at this point. DFB may come back eventually but I think the new feature will allow me to share a similar variety of books, without the imposing deadlines.

By now you’re probably saying, “JUST TELL US ALREADY!” So here goes…

Introducing the 'Featured Author of the Month’ on Ups, Downs, Ins & Outs. This new feature will give me the opportunity to spotlight a different author every month providing you with not just a name and book title, but with a profile of the author including things like bios, interviews, inspirations, book lists, and more. With each author, we’ll also spotlight at least one of their books. Over all it should be a fun way to meet and interact with authors both new and “old”, and should be a nice way of discovering some new books to read.

Seriously, I’m really looking forward to it! 

Our first Author of the Month will be coming in November. Authors can sign up any time starting October 1^st, 2017 to be placed on the schedule. Then the fun begins! More information, including the sign up form, can be found by clicking the Features tab at the top of the page.