Back in 1990 I was asked to write a 4-book series titled HOTLINE, about a group of high school kids who start a telephone peer counseling line after the suicide of one of their friends, to give kids someone to talk to about their problems. I went through suicide prevention training, volunteered for a hotline, and put in time at an Albuquerque High School with a diverse student population. Eventually I came up with four main characters, one to be the focus of each of the four books, a bunch of minor characters, and a theme for each book. The books came out in paperback over the next couple of years, and when my interest evolved to historical fiction, I pretty much forgot about HOTLINE.
Then my writer friend Kersten Hamilton (check out her terrific books) suggested that I bring back the series as e-books. It sounded like a great idea. How hard could it be? Just convert the yellowing paperbacks to a new format, right? The covers look dated, but those covers only hint at how dated the stories themselves are! They were written before cellphones changed the way teenagers--and the rest of us--communicate. Suddenly the four HOTLINE books read like historical novels.
So I'm rewriting them, start to finish, bringing them into the 21st Century. The first, BECAUSE OF LISSA, will be available as an e-book in a couple of weeks, with the goal of releasing one a month after that. Wish me luck! I'll let you know how it goes.
Then my writer friend Kersten Hamilton (check out her terrific books) suggested that I bring back the series as e-books. It sounded like a great idea. How hard could it be? Just convert the yellowing paperbacks to a new format, right? The covers look dated, but those covers only hint at how dated the stories themselves are! They were written before cellphones changed the way teenagers--and the rest of us--communicate. Suddenly the four HOTLINE books read like historical novels.
So I'm rewriting them, start to finish, bringing them into the 21st Century. The first, BECAUSE OF LISSA, will be available as an e-book in a couple of weeks, with the goal of releasing one a month after that. Wish me luck! I'll let you know how it goes.