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Category: Writing

Posts in which we talk about the writing craft and process

News!!! And Commentary

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If you look over there — there. In the sidebars …. You may see the covers of my historicals Scandal and Indiscreet. Those are the US covers done by Berkley Books, and they are lovely. That’s John Marron, by the way, on the cover of Indiscreet. ::waving:::

I’ve spent the last year being silent about that fact that the books were, until about last week, unavailable in the US or Canada. Berkley mistakenly took them off sale in the latter half of 2012.

Long story short, by February of 2013, I instructed my agent that we should stop our (fruitless) efforts to get them to fix the mistake and simply request a reversion after the next royalty statement. And that is what we did.

My reversions arrived last week. I have been working to get them on sale in the US and Canada with the covers I commissioned for my non-North American version of the books. By “version” I mean different covers, a couple of typos fixed, and a reformatted interior. Some of you may recall that the original eBook version of Indiscreet was unreadable. The corrected file, when it was finally produced, was … readable. I’ll leave it at that.

It’s odd. I loved writing for Berkley. I loved my editor, I’ve adored all my covers. The copy-editor for Scandal was amazing, and I did have regrets about declining the opportunity to do additional books for them. But the fact is that Scandal and Indiscreet mean more to me than they did to Berkley– the company. The economic harm during the nearly year and a half the books were not on sale was disproportionately mine.

Then there’s the harm to my writing career. When Dear Author had long threads about historicals with exotic locations, I know for a fact people tried to buy Indiscreet (because the book was mentioned in the threads) and could not. I know because a couple of them emailed me. How many didn’t? Not so long ago, Scandal was again reviewed on Dear Author. Not to sound too vain, but Scandal was a RITA finalist. It made a list of one of the 100 best Romances. My agent called it a tour-de-force. And a website that gets hundreds of thousands of hits from romance readers reviewed it again, nearly four years after its release. And nobody in North America could buy the book when it should have been available.

When those two books disappeared from sale, Berkley wasn’t motivated to fix the problem. I, on the other hand, was fielding emails from readers who’d heard about the books and could not get them, and there was nothing I could do. My agent and I had already made multiple requests to get the books back on sale.

To everyone in  North America who wondered why there was no eBook and practically no print availability, this is why. I’m sorry for the long wait and the silence, but once I decided I was done with the situation, I was worried that Berkley would (at last) notice what had happened.

Scandal and Indiscreet are both good books. Really good books. If you like angsty books, then hey, I’m your gal. And at last, if you’re in North America, you can get the books for $4.99 US.

Here are the links I have so far for Scandal:

Here are the links for Indiscreet:

I’m not sure why Kobo hasn’t managed to get the books on sale yet. Hopefully soon. Google Play and Print versions will be coming shortly.

Posted in Former Riskies, Writing | Tagged , , | 10 Replies

Are You Covered?

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First, my apologies for missing two weeks in a row. The first time, I was just off by an  day. Last week, I just entirely forgot. Things have been crazy busy. I sent Book two of the Sinclair Sisters series — A Notorious Ruin — out for a first round read. Then I started writing a My Immortals novella, currently titled Dead Drop. It’s for a paranormal anthology and I have to write really really fast. I am on track so far.  But I have to keep to a very aggressive word count. Whew!

 

Covers

I’ve been thinking about covers lately. Looking at lots of images and covers and I’ve been thinking. In the traditional publishing world, if you were selling well enough, you might get a step-back cover. Where the front cover might be a little short width-wise but underneath is more cover and the two make a cohesive image. When you open the top cover, you see a bigger image. I liked step backs. Most of the time, they are very pretty and fun and the artwork is nice.

I’ve not seen anyone doing the equivalent in eBooks. There are a bunch of ways to deal with expanding out an images that’s probably more complicated than it’s worth — except, maybe not. In the hands of the right artist it could be neat. Plus, there’s always the simple thing of just adding another image. A super duper sexy one (if appropriate) or maybe just a beautiful illustration. I’m talking just about some extra bling in the book, not turning into an graphic novel or something.

So, I ask you, assuming you are not making an author-based decision, what kind of covers do you like? What are the things that appeal to you? Colors? Details? Couples? Just the guy? Just the girl? Potted plants?

Assuming an additional image(s) in an eBook didn’t pose a technical annoyance to you (slowing down the device or what have you), how might you feel about a second image inside the book — step-backish in that it’s kind of a cover enhanced? What if there were an illustration?

Let me know in the comments.

Oh! Hey! Also this!

If you are reading this on April 30, it’s my birthday! I’ll send a commenter a surprise thing. Not worth more than forty bucks US, because that’s my budget. It’s a surprise because I just realized tomorrow is my birthday and so I’m not prepared. International is OK.

No purchase necessary. Void where prohibited. Must be 18 to enter. My relatives are not eligible to enter. If I had employees they wouldn’t be eligible either. Winner chosen at random from among the commenters who comment BEFORE midnight April 30th, 2014 Pacific Time. This blog is in the Eastern Time zone, so technically you have until the blog says 2:59:59 AM May 1, 2014.

Posted in Former Riskies, Risky Book Talk, Writing | Tagged , |
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