But It's a Dry Heat

Archive for the ‘epublishing’ Category

Bet Your eBook Can’t Do This!

I’m utterly obsessed with my current WIP. Writing anything else when these damn pushy characters keep demanding time is about impossible. They did let me take a break and do some sketching….

I was thinking about my earlier post regarding my new Kindle and how much I like reading on it. (I do. In fact, I think I would have bailed on the book I’m currently reading–‘nother Twilight clone–if it were in print.) It’s just easier to skim slog through a really bad book on my Kindle.

But then I started thinking about the many uses of print books. Several immediately came to mind, but given my limited drawing skills, I went with four. It’s getting easier to draw people, but it still took at least 30-minutes to draw the ‘toons with people, vs. two-minutes to draw the greyhound.

Middle panel features Regan O’Connell smacking Breas Montrose (The Music of Chaos). I assure you, he deserved it.

Click the image for a full-sized view!

You Can Bring a Luddite to an Ebook …

This week I finally popped my digital cherry as it were. Last month, for my birthday, I got a Kindle. Now, after working through my print book backlog, I’m reading my first ebook (Stacia Kane’s Unholy Ghosts).

This morning, while over at Smart Bitches, Trashy Books I came across this little monument to luddite-ness.

The reading public in private is lazy and smutty. E-readers hide the material. Erotica sells well. My own downmarket literary fetish is male-oriented historical fiction (histfic). Swords and sails stuff. I’m happier reading it on an e-reader, and keeping shelf space for books that proclaim my cleverness.

Ah, so basically, the only reason people use ereaders is to hide the fact that they aren’t reading the classics? Okie-dokie.

My experience with my new gadget would suggest otherwise….

After reading the equivalent of 200 pages, I’ve found that it’s a lot easier to read on a Kindle. The device is very light and it (more…)

The Music of Chaos, Now in Print!

Buy a book or the cute greyhound will have to go back to a miserable life of racing, stuck in a tiny crate all day, fed horrible food, abused.  You wouldn’t want that to happen, would you?

Then buy a book, save a puppy dog.

Shorter sales pitch: The dead tree version of The Music of Chaos is now available!

There they are. Some of my author copies of The Music of Chaos, my debut novel.  I tried to enlist the Wonder Horse‘s help in selling, but his version of marketing involved chomping his big, yellow teeth on the books. (Everybody’s a critic.)

My author’s copies arrived yesterday.  Prompting the immediate response of, “Oh, crap. Now I’ve got to sell my book in two formats!”

I love the idea of an ebook. But there’s something about holding your book in your hands, the smell of ink and glue, that makes any writer all … giggly.  Like a schoolgirl. Titter.

Here’s the short version of the book blurb:

“Blind dates are always a train wreck.”

By day, Regan O’Connell is a highly respected project manager.  By night, she’s a Wolfe, a paranormal agent working for a vampire syndicate.

Her two worlds collide when a co-worker sets her up with tall, dark and sexy Jason Lake.  Jason is a Holder, a member of an ancient, all-human organization dedicated to policing the activities of things that go bump in the night. Things like half-vampire Regan.

Falling for the wrong guy is the least of Regan’s problems. There’s a murderer on the loose, and his favorite weapon is chaotic magic, an erratic force with the power to rip holes in the fabric of the universe. And the best way to catch the killer is to get close to Jason, the man who is not only her enemy, but her prime suspect.

Buy it now (please) at Decadent Publishing or Amazon.

For those who want instant gratification, you can download the ebook version: Decadent Publishing, Amazon/Kindle, and B&N/Nook.

Or you can sample a chapter–FREE.

 

A Taste of the Chaos

Once upon a time, for a short while, The Music of Chaos was a webcomic. Because nobody (not even Edward of Twilight) does moping and angst like I do, I decided I would never, evah get the manuscript published.  In a fit of pathos, I turned it into a graphic novel.

About 90 pages in, I came to my senses and went back to trying to sell the story to publishers.

Over at Romance Writer’s Revenge blog, I was asked to tell my story of the Call with The Music of Chaos.  This is where most authors get to describe the giddy excitement, the celebration, that came with signing the contract and publishing their book.

My version of the story, at least with the final acceptance that led to publication, could be summed up as “a shrug.” The Music of Chaos has had a total of four acceptances. (Plus a NY editor who loved the early chapters. Story for ‘nother time.)

Two of the publishers, I turned down.  One because the publisher had (and to this day still has), butt-ugly Poser-generated covers. Another, because the publisher had the contract from hell.  Secondary rights were mis-identified as primary rights; it was riddled with contradictions; and it took all rights including a merchandising clause that gave them rights to the webcomic.  Actually, it even gave them rights to artwork (not created by me) in an illustrated anthology.

Did I mention this was a little known, epublisher who has about as much chance of selling TMOC merchandise as I have for winning American Idol? Yeah.  Ridiculous.

Anyway, poor Decadent Publishing got TMOC when my enthusiasm for publishing was running on fumes.  But they’ve proven, so far, to be a good home for the story that wouldn’t give up (even if its author did).  My book was edited, edited, and just when I thought it was safe to open my email– “It’s back!” –edited some more. Which is, as Martha Stewart would say, “…a good thing.”

Wanna read a sample?  Chapter One can be read in its entirety, here.

Judging an eBook Publisher by the Covers

And by their web page.

These days new epublishers are popping up like daisies on the lawn. Over at Absolute Write, someone starts a thread inquiring about a press’s bona fides almost daily.

Before you sign a contract, or for that matter, submit a manuscript to a publisher, you should always do some research.  But before you bother to Google, post a question in a newsgroup, etc., there’s one simple way to gauge whether a pub is worth the mouse clicks.

Look at their web page, especially their home page.

A publisher’s page should do one thing and do it well. Sell books.

It’s easier to show than (more…)