What's a Book Studio?

According to our website, FlirtyGirl Productions is "an innovative book studio." But you may be asking yourself, "What exactly does that MEAN?"

A studio is a place where an artist, photographer, or other creative person works. Essentially, it's a place that fosters imaginative thought. And that's what we like to do—be imaginative, be experimental, be resourceful, be ingenious.

It all starts with book ideas. We generate A LOT of them in our studio. When one really catches our fancy, we work with an author to develop it into a full-blown proposal and outline. Meanwhile, we brainstorm until we've figured out the best way to make the characters and content jump off the page—creating associated websites, streaming videos, online character interaction, and other super-secret added features we're not prepared to share with you just yet.

We also work with authors who come to us with brilliant book ideas that would be perfect for our out-of-the-box approach. Our submissions review process is much like that of an agent or publisher, but once we accept a proposal we contribute our editorial expertise and work with the author to generate the right type of online content before presenting the book to publishers.

But our work doesn't end after the book is published. The publisher handles the major marketing and publicity efforts, but we help the author with grassroots online promotions such as hosting a virtual launch party, coordinating online giveaways, networking with YA book bloggers, and interacting with readers via blogs, Twitter, Facebook, and so on.

Our job, essentially, is to make everyone's life easier. Everyone's, that is, except for ours.

But that's okay, because we love what we do.

BTW, we're in the process of compiling a frequently asked questions post, so please feel free to leave your burning ??s in the comments below.

(And yes, if you post a silly question, it will most likely get answered, so feel free to be creative.)

"Bitch Lit" Is Where It's At!

So FlirtyGirl Liz and I have been talking about all these new companies who are trying to do books with interactive components. It's great to see the genre—maybe it needs a name of its own?—start to come of age. These other companies are doing books that focus on fantasy or mystery or I don't even know what...and someday you might see the FlirtyGirls take a stab at those areas, too.

But right now at FlirtyGirl Productions we understand that "Bitch Lit" is where it's at!

Here's why: The same readers who are devouring Gossip Girl and Pretty Little Liars and (we hope!) Golden Girl are the same girls who can't get enough of MySpace and Facebook. The same ones who text constantly, even while they're driving. The same ones who post incriminating photos of people they don't like to public websites. The same ones, naturally, who created the whole idea of cyberbullying. So, we think, they are the obvious choice for our new, unnamed, genre of cyber books.

So that's why you'll find our FlirtyGirl minds creating exciting new series that will keep all the drama tweens and teens love without sacrificing the "lit" part of "Bitch Lit". GoldenGirl is continuing to climb the best-seller chart, garner great reviews, and amazing everyone who sees the realistic websites, but great new things are just around the corner.

Oh, if you have any ideas for a genre name for books that have an electronic/internet component, let me know. We'll start using it around here and pretty soon everyone will be talking about it.

Cheers!

Bradford Blog Bash

Check out the month-long Bradford Blog Bash, going on now at bradfordnovels.blogspot.com!


Join us for author interviews, exclusive behind-the-scenes info, and lots of fun book giveaways! Copy the banner and post it on your blog or website to help spread the word!

For more information about the Bradford Novels, visit www.bradfordnovels.com.

Counting Down and Gearing Up

With the release of GoldenGirl just days away, I figure that the FlirtyGirl Productions website is about to inundated with curious publishers itching to know what we have in store for the Next Big Thing. The answer is lots...but you won't find out from this blog. Instead you'll have to speak with us directly to get the 411.

We've been thinking a lot about what we bring to the table when a publisher partners with us, and we think the most important assets of FlirtyGirl aren't necessarily obvious. There's experience, of course. Innovation, naturally. Great ideas, certainly. But more than that, it's an instinct, a love of the genre, a certain je ne sais quoi that cannot be duplicated. All you have to do is check out Cathy's Book (yep, we were the editors behind that best-seller) and GoldenGirl to see what I mean.

I'm off now to create something marvelous, or maybe make dinner...it's 6pm after all. Oh, my "A" key is working better now. Thanks for your concern.

Cheers!

It feels like the first time...

Welcome to the very first blog post from FlirtyGirl Productions.

Notice how tht last line hd no letter "A"s in it. Tht's because I'm having a little tiny computer, um, issue, and for some reason the "A" doesn't wnt to work all the time. Some people may blme my problem on an unfortunte glss of Orngina tht ws mistakenly spilled on my keybord, but I think it is just a sign tht this FlirtyGirl needs a new computer.
Anyway, on with the first blog post.

We're so excited here in FlirtyLnd because our very first actual "production" is going to be released to the public in just 8 days. It's been a long labor of love to get GoldenGirl into the hands of teens everywhere but the final result is so awesome that it is all totally worth it. In case you don't know (and since our tagline for this novel series is "as if you didn't know", I'm sure you do know, if that makes any sense...) the Bradford Novels come equipped with (in no particular order): a whole world of websites, book trailers, blogs (natch!), promotions, giveaways, photos, and much, much more. Check everything out by going to the Bradford Novels official website at www.bradfordnovels.com.

Now as excited as we are about Bradford, the FlirtyGirls are not just a one trick pony. We've got tons of other stuff coming down the pipeline. We're in the development stages on a bunch of new, innovative, exciting, cool, life-changing projects, so if you are someone looking for something like that, feel free to contact us.

Tht's all for this first blog. I'd better go figure out wht to do bout this whole "a" issue.

Cheers!