Jesume really now?

Just got an email from Draft2Digital that Kobo is pulling all their titles because of an issue with erotic titles put in places they should not be.  For those of you not up on the discussions on the writers boards it seems some crazy indie writers who write, get this, dinosaur porno, have placed said stories up in the children’s book category.  Now while I can see this needing to be address and those stories being removed from where they are removing all self published work is a crock and we all know it.

I have been using D2D for a few months now and I totally have enjoyed the experience.  They are prompt with help when you need it and they post your work to the four major retailers quickly.  They are easy to work through and you can edit as you need to.

The backlash that has been building from the big publishers is IMO what is driving this.  They don’t like the growing influence of the self published movement.  It was fine for them when the little guys posted up stuff because it wasn’t effecting their bottom line but now that big name authors have jumped ship so to speak they have decided to attack the competition.

A big ebook retailer in Britain was the first to decide they would remove all self published titles from their pages.  This is just wrong.  With the Big five deciding who and what will be published and not doing the job that those established authors pay them for the self publishing market grew.  We authors needed places to put our work.  Yes some of it needs major work but there are so very many highly talented writers who never got past the so called slush pile because the big name publishing companies would rather publish the next Paris Hilton or Kim Kardashian book versus something from an unknown yet talented writer.
Talking with a few writers who have actual contracts with houses you find that unless you are famous you are not getting any of the services you should be.  The publishers are expecting manuscripts to come in totally print ready and that the writers will do all the marketing for said work.  This is wrong.  Twenty years ago there were editors, proof readers, marketing gurus and more to help those that made it through the slush pile, now you can pick up a big name author’s book and you will find grammar and spelling errors, proof reading mistakes and all kinds of other issues.  It isn’t the author that I blame but the so called engine of business that expects profits and not a quality piece of work.

Now so far I am lucky.  Out of my titles there are still 34 showing on Kobo.  Yes 24 of them were put up there in their Writing Life system but that means that there are still ten titles that I did not post there myself showing.  If you go to Barnes and Noble you will find 51 titles including my two small publisher collections.  On Amazon I have 69 titles up for sale and Smashwords has 56.  So there are a lot of titles out there.  (Okay Amazon has the anthologies i am part of that dont show on the other sites and Smashwords has two free stories that aren’t on other sites)

But really this backlash is crazy.  Yes they need to police things better.  Not so much for good or bad writing but to make sure that books end up in the right place.  I would never want any of my erotic tales to show up near a children’s book.  Yes i plan to write a children’s book or three in the future but I don’t plan on having ANYTHING vaguely sexual near it.  This backlash is an over reaction that is going to harm the people who provide the product these places sell.

I really hope that other retailers don’t go the way of Kobo in this.  For some of the very best books i have read this past year have come from self published or small press publshed authors.  With the demise of print magazines we need the avenue of ebook sellers to put out work worth reading.  Kobo may find that what it is doing will cost them even more in the long run than leaving them out there would have.

So gentle readers, keep reading.  Go to whatever sites you need to to find good work.  If Kobo won’t handle us self published authors then go to Smashwords, Barnes and Noble, Amazon, ITunes, Sony or any of the other fine retailers out there.  Show those fat cats that you will take your business to those who will provide what you want to read.

Trying to get everything everywhere

With the newest update to Smashwords I decided to take a look over there again.  Now they have a series manager, which with my work is a great idea.  Most of what I write is of course in series and getting them together can be hard for the purchaser.

Now I have posted stuff all over as you readers know.  Between Amazon, Kobo, Smashwords and D2D I have a lot of work to sort hrough.  While I adore D2D they only post to four of the major retailers right now.  Smashwords has a good six or eight they don’t.  So should i go through and post all my missing stories over there?  Am I up to the mess that Smashwords can be?  Is it worth the effort?  Well when I looked at the list of retailers and saw that I had sold two copies over on Sony.  So while the numbers aren’t big it is worth trying to do this.

The first hurdle is that two of the stories I have yet to put over there are some of the very first tales I published.  Before I learned much about making covers I had put up Night and Day, Passing the Torch and One More All Hallows Eve.  Now the latter has had a new cover made up but I never got to making the cover for the first two.

Working on those covers is a part of my game plan for the next few days.  They need updating anyways so why not?  Once I get those done I have to go back over all my tales and make a smashwords version of the file.  The reason I say this is smashwords is specific on where and how the copyright page is set and the links at the end of the story have to be a certain way.  This won’t be hard to do as I made a templet when I was posting there last year.  I can copy and paste it into the files I have but as I have around 60 titles and only 20 odd of them are on smashwords this will take time.

Of course I am still working on stories and other projects at the same time.  With subimissions for the next Writer’s stuff anthology not needed till November I have a little bit of time there and the third Author’s Choice Select anthology has no due date yet.  Both the stories for these collections have only been partially written.

I have been asked to write the forward for Behind the Door, the second ACS anthology and I need to get a bit more information from the authors before I do that plus we need to update the website for the group with the newer additions to the group.

All this along with blogging six blogs, raising a kid and feeding a family.  I am a busy busy writer…guess I really am the mad writer?

What to work on now

Yeah I should be writing.  Typing up my notes, coming up with new stuff and just being a writer but….I don’t wanna!  Course that might be because nothing is moving in the sales end of things.  Thanks to the summer slow down a lot of writers are seeing a lack of sales.  It does bring up anxiety to all of us who hope to make a living this way.

On one hand you want to put out great project and do the best you can for the reader.  On the other hand you are waiting for that little payment that can make or break your month and your mood.  Course there is a minefield on what company pays how.  And I mean that.  As you readers know I work with Amazon, Kobo, Smashwords, Draft2Digital, Juicy Erotica and Just Fiction.  Now on the payment front they all do thing different.

Amazon and Kobo  pay directly to your bank account but in different ways.  Amazon does an EBT and Kobo does a Western Union wire transfer.  These all take time to process.  Anywhere from a few days to a few weeks.  So even if you get an email with your payment info you won’t see it in the bank for a while.

Smashwords, Just Fiction  and Draft2Digital pay into paypal but you have to reach a certain amount to see a payment.  Just Fiction pays once a year and hopefully you see a good payment but maybe not.  After all you don’t get a monthly statement like you do with the others.  Smashwords you need ten dollars in your part of the sales to get a payment.  Which can take time since they don’t get reports more than quarterly from some of the retailers.  This makes me a bit annoyed but understanding it I don’t get that annoyed.

I haven’t gotten paid by Draft2Digital yet but I should see something next month as I have had some sales.  My portion isn’t the best but that is what happens as a writer.

Now Juicy Erotica I have no idea what will happen.  I have gotten one report which was a bit confusing showing my sales.  As we know I don’t sell a lot of any one title yet but I was hoping to see even a tiny payment for the copies that did sell.  I have a feeling like Just Fiction it will be sometime after the year is up that I will see payment.

So far as a professional author I have made less than 100 dollars in the year of publishing.  So kiddies as you can see it is not a get rich quick thing.  I have lots more to offer for readers and I can just hope that I find a solid audience who wants to read my stuff.  After all right now I have four new titles that could go up but I am holding them for a bit.  I need to see a bit more movement.  I am 15 sales from making 200 total.  I think I will wait till I either get those fifteen sales or till Labor day weekend.  Hopefully I will see more sales this month.  I have seven so far.

Now I have done a cover for Blackbird over my lazy weekend.  Came out rather nice with using one of my photographs for the image.  Not sure what I will do for the other titles I have in the works.  Here is hoping I can find something good.  I need a gremlin but not a Speilberg gremlin.  Something nasty but closer to the Japanese take on them than the American.

I am hoping one of my friends back home will take a photo of the Black Bridge for me for another title.  Who knows?

To do a giveway or not do one, that is the question

With the news that Amazon is finally thinking about reining in all the free books on their site I find myself with a bit of a quantry.  While i pulled myself out of the KDP select program I still want to be able to give a free book or three out to potential readers.  Now Smashwords luckily allows you to do coupons for one day or more of your titles for things like giveaways.

Now this is a useful thing yes, but I don’t have all my titles over there yet.  This means I have to start moving my tush and getting all my published (self published that is) work into shape for the confusing process of smashwords.  This can be both good and bad.  They do put your stuff out to a lot of places but to be honest I have only seen one real sale over there.  One…I have ten times as many on Kobo!  Should i do it or not is the question.

Never mind that I am hip deep in Traveler right now.  I have done some nice progress and have come up with the next sequence in my head so I will hopefully keep banging out the chapters.  I am doing my best to keep this a lighter fantasy, less violence to bother the younger readers and a bit more romance to fill the gap.  Romance not sex…this will be a clean tale but not a kiddie book.

And btw just what qualifies as a YA book?  Does it have to have teens as the main character?  Or just young seeming characters.  Reece and Edana are young…just how old I never say.  Hell Edana is a lot older than she expects.  But can I say this is a YA fantasy novel?  I have no idea.  Anyone want to help me with that?

Hopefully if I keep up on the roll I will have it ready for a prereader by the end of next month.  Another hard thing, finding a prereader!  I know a number of people who like my work but they are all either busy parents or busy authors.  Makes it hard to find someone who will read my stuff and let me know if the story is plausible or needs major fixing.

Well on the news front I have sent off a copy of One More All Hallows Eve to a reviewer and did an author interview for Endings/Revenge.  Just more ways of getting the brand of me out to the reading public.  Another brillant writer type recommended having a tshirt or two made with my book cover on it and having someone wear it around a convention.  Now I hadn’t thought of  that as a marketing technique.  Just finding someone who could afford a con and was willing to wear the shirt just might find my some readers!  Course the people i know who go to cons tend to hit transformer and anime cons but I can work around that right?

Still toying with the bookmarks snuck into books at stores and the local library.  While I don’t have the funds to do this yet I think it would work.  What do you think?  One suggestion would have worked if I hadn’t sold my car but that is okay.

I need more ideas that I can do for no money.  The only way to get people to notice me I can’t afford right now but some day.  Yes someday I will be a known voice in the fantasy genre, not huge but known.  All I can ask right?

Back to work or where did that blind dwarf come from!

I have seriously padded my thumb so I can type and not feel like I am being jabbed each time I hit the space bar.  Managed to do a chapter on Traveler last night and another so far today.  Yes the chapters are short, only a few pages but I do this when I change viewpoint from heroes to villain.  Only makes sense to me.

A new character (or two) decided to pop their head into the story.  Since I am one of those weird writers who don’t use outlines and cue cards and all that stuff to do my stories it is expected.  You need your muse to toss in these voices to move the story in the direction it is supposed to go.

The villain is turning into one hell of a nasty little creature.  Any creature who wants to commit genocide is going to be of course but you don’t expect someone who was once a beautiful Elf woman to turn into one do you?  I am having fun writing the arrogance of the two who are battling over our main character.  Parents…sometimes you just don’t need them right?

Looks like this will be lighter in tone than my last few.  I don’t want to become known for just dark fantasy right?  I am hoping I can get through this whole book with something that would be good for a younger audience.  Say that big youth market?  Would be nice.  The love story is soft and tentative so far.  I won’t take it too adult, after all I have a few others in the wings for adult fantasy romance type things.

Edana is strong willed for sure.  But a woman who grew up not knowing who she is and even what she is, who is the best in a field generally male dominated, she is going to be strong willed.  Now i just need to come up with the Elder Gods.  Yes I said Elder gods.  Creatures who took a hand in events that they never do…or rarely do.  Should be fun.

Still crossing everything I have that the review of Fall Into Nightmares will be a good one from PRG.  They have liked books I have read and reviewed, some more than I have and others less.  Sometimes I am surprised at the things they give 5 stars to.  I don’t expect something that good but I would gladly take it.

Endings is getting a small handful of reviews, which is good since Revenge is out now.  And now I am going to hold off on working on the third book in that trilogy till I see some good sales on both books.  Endings is neck and neck with Ice right now.  While neither is a best seller by any stretch of the imagination they are doing good for me.

Speaking of Ice.  I am thinking that soon I should put together those collections.  March should hold a number of releases of my work.  While I may just be taking up virtual space someone will find me someday and rad everything.  That is my hope after all.

 

Revenge..or a dish best self served

Yup I have finished the rewrite/re edit of book two.  The cover is done adn it is now working its way through the posting process on Amazon, Kobo and Smashwords.  I set the price at $3.99 which is pretty good for a novel.  It totals out to 53K words…which is small compared to some authors but a long book for me.

Dark, filled with a lot of things that will probably brother readers who are more into light fantasy, I think this is a great effort on my part.  I go into more of how Loralil thinks in her and why she is doing this quest.  Yes it is dark, especially near the end but I am not a Gene Wolfe.  The story has light moments, moments of beauty and of course moments of pain.  This is the middle book in this trilogy.  Now Yes I plan on more than three books for Loralil but as the middle book of her early years We do a lot.  The third book will set her up for….oh wait I can’t tell you that now can I?

Those of you who were waiting to get the first book Endings, you better get it soon.  The free offer is almost over.  Same with the first of the Chaos Wars books, Fall Into Nightmares.  Both of them are dark fantasy novels but they come from different places.

Yes i am taking today off of writing.  I spent all day yesterday..and I mean all day working on Revenge.  From 6am till 9pm so I deserve a little time off.  I do plan to dive back into Traveler and see where I can take those characters.  That story is definitely lighter than the last few I have done.  No torture, not deaths (so far) just good old fashioned fantasy with a twist.  I hope to finish that by Easter.  And I will if Harry doesn’t raise his head and demand a new story or my friend at the space station wanting to tell a few more tales…something about matre gras in space…

Poetry can be harder than short fiction

Yes I know poetry is hard for many.  Heck some writers take a year to write one decent poem but well that isn’t how mine come out.  Generally when I am in an emotional overload I will sit down with pen and paper and let it flow out of me.  That was how Love, Loss and Loneliness came about.  A lot of emotional bursts in free verse style.

But the people doing the Apocalypse anthology wanted to have some poetry to go with the short stories.  Now I had submitted a short story and offered to do one for them.  Took me a week to write it!  No really a week for me is a long time in poetry.  I’m not sure of it of course.  I am never sure of my poetry but I sent it over.  Hopefully it makes it into the anthology which submissions for is closing on Thursday.

The Fae poetry contest ended and I was not in the top three.  Course again my poetry is short and to the point.  The ones that one were more epic in style.  Nothing wrong with that and people did like my little ode to the Fae.

Other contests I have entered seemed to have folded up.  Which is too bad really.  This is why I tend to put out my work on my own.  While getting into a collection is supposed to help with your over all noticeability it seems that these stories get lost in the shuffle.  I like being parts of writing groups since it helps with the creative process and you all know dear readers that I adore a good anthology.  but if they never get put out who will read these children of my mind?

The past few days I have been doing a major edit/rewrite to Revenge.  While it is much better than Endings was it needs the work.  some of the sentences just do not flow the way I feel they should.  I am hoping to get it done this coming week.  With my hubby’s hours being shifted I will be doing a lot of writing in the evening.  Now that doesn’t always work for me.  I tend to write in the morning while he is working and the kid is at school.  We will see what happens.

The free offer on Smashwords for both Endings and Fall Into Nightmares is still going.  Nightmares freebie will expire on Valentines day.  Endings goes on till the 25th.  I haven’t decided if I will do a one day free offer on Love, Loss and loneliness on Valentine’s day yet.  I have made a single sale on that poetry collection and I hope to see a few more.  While it may not be all sweetness and light it is definitely a look into a heart and good for that day.

In other works I have a good idea how to finish up If Shadows Could Speak.  That tale is I would say three quarters finished.  That will be either number six or seven in the Death Walks Through series.  I have gotten a bit stuck on Death Comes Softly, which is the piece I had planned as the sixth story.  The either will be No More the Smiles.  After that I will probably take them all and put them together in a paperback.  Not sure how many pages it will be but if it isn’t enough I will have to dig around for new ideas.

The other series are on hold for a little bit.  I have ideas waiting to be sprung out of my folder of starts but I really need to work on the longer stories.  The sequel to Nightmares, Destiny’s tale and Traveler all need to be worked on and hopefully completed by the end of this year.  If I keep up a steady pace of writing I should get them all done.  Too bad I have a number of books to read and review. They are so very distracting..and worth it!

Cover for Christmas Snow

Yup made the cover myself.  I couldn’t wait to I did this one with a hint or two from the hubby.

 

 

A Possible sale

Okay not quite what you are thinking.  I am debating putting most of my titles on sale for the week leading up to Christmas for 99 cents each.  Now that will exclude Naughty Interludes because that it with a publisher but include everything else.  Yep that would mean that for a week if you were interested you could even get Endings for that low low price.

Now I don’t expect it will do a lot but it might just get a few readers willing to pay the price for my book and read it.  Sales are picking up a bit.  right now I stand to two sales less than the whole of last month.  I want to do better of course.  After all last month there was a total of 8 sales period.  Not a lot.  Heck at this rate I will see my first royalty check when I turn 50.

So any of you readers who might be interested just let me know.  Should I drop the prices for a week?

Cover for Fall Into Nightmares

This book will be released on 12/21/12.  Or so I plan on it being.  Just need to do some tweaks in the next week or so.  But here is the lovely cover my talented husband made for it.  Hope you all like it!