Tuesday, March 30, 2010

Greetings from the Twilight Zone

I have entered the Twilight Zone. I strayed into this dimension when I checked out the amazon.com page for my book Earth in the Hot Seat and discovered "what customers ultimately buy after viewing this item." Ninety-eight percent of them buy my book, which is about global warming. Two percent of them buy...Twilight (The Twilight Saga, Book 1).

My first thought was that the 2% who bought Twilight opted for escapism over realism, hot romance over true tales of a warming planet. Could it have been my cousins in Arkansas, I wondered? Last spring when I visited I saw Twilight lying around at both of their homes, but no trace of the latest by yours truly. Hmmm.

My next thought was that the 98% who bought Earth in the Hot Seat knew exactly what they were looking for and had already decided to buy it. I wouldn't be surprised if they knew me personally. I mean, the book's not exactly in the ranks of top sellers, although I was pleased to see that it moved from a six-digit rank (this morning) to a five-digit rank (this afternoon). I suspect that all it takes is one copy sold for a book to make a seemingly dramatic advance up the ranks. Maybe my neighbor who said she was going to check it out actually bought a copy! And just maybe someone bought it after learning that it won the 2010 Green Earth Book Award for nonfiction, a recent honor that makes me beam.

Anyway, while I'm lingering in the twilight zone, I'd like to turn from our usual focus on nonfiction and give a shout-out to fellow winners of this year's Green Earth Book Awards, which are awarded to books that "best raise awareness of environmental stewardship, and the beauty of our natural world and the responsibility that we have to protect it." Congratulations to:


MIss Fox's Class Goes Green Miss Fox’s Class Goes Green, written by Eileen Spinelli and illustrated by Anne Kennedy (picture book category)

OPeration Redwood Operation Redwood, written by S. Terrell French (children's fiction category)

The  Carbon Diaries: 2015The Carbon Diaries: 2015, written by Saci Lloyd (young adult fiction category)

1 comment:

Deborah Heiligman said...

Congratulations on the award, Marfe, and to all the others who also received one! Twilight zone or not, isn't it great to know that all that hard work paid off!