Risky Book Talk - Risky Regencies

Stuff happens and winners!

August 30, 2013 August 30, 2013 Elena Greene 4 Comments

This picture is an example of the sort of week I’ve been having.

See the pretty page proof of Fly with a Rogue on the left? It’s actually the second of three proofs I ordered for checking out updates to the paperback version. Nice cover, right? And that’s just as it was in the first page proof. But there were still some issues to be addressed in the interior, so after making corrections, I ordered the third page proof. In the rush to check the interior, I didn’t take a close look at the cover. After all, it was good in the previous two proofs and I hadn’t changed the file, right?

My bad. Next time I will check everything, every time. For now, I’m going to wait until the cover is fixed—which should be soon—before I do a giveaway of the paperback copy.

Other Stuff That Went Wrong this week. One of the support cylinders for the trunk of my hard-working, much-loved but soon-to-be-replaced Subaru Outback broke, so now it takes two people to load or unload anything, one to hold the trunk open, one to handle the stuff. An important message to the narrator of the audiobook for Lady Dearing’s Masquerade didn’t go through for whatever reason—and with no error reported, so I didn’t know until I sent her another note that she hadn’t gotten the first. Anyway, she’s now working diligently to make up for the lost time, which I appreciate!

So nothing terrible, just little annoyances and setbacks. So how was your week? Any accomplishments? Any setbacks, large or small, you’d like to share?

But first let me announce the winners of the e-book version of Fly with a Rogue. Congratulations to:

HJ
Nancy
bn100
Annette
Shelley Munro

Please email me at elena @ elenagreene.com (no spaces) and let me know the correct email to use for the gift and if you prefer a Kindle, Nook or Smashwords copy.

So let me know how your week has been going!

Elena
www.elenagreene.com
www.facebook.com/ElenaGreene

A Frivolous Competition

August 26, 2013 August 27, 2013 Diane Gaston 11 Comments

Maybe it is because I’ve lost too many Words With Friends games lately, or maybe it is because I watched part of the Sonoma Grand Prix today, but I’m feeling competitive, so I’ve devised a Risky competition. A dumb one.

Game on! What Risky Book Commands The Highest Price On Ebay?

I even devised rules for the game.

1. Book must be a paperback
2. It must be Historical (leaving out some Jewel and Mullany books)
3. No novellas or double books
4. No special releases (leaving out a bunch of McCabe and Gaston books)
5. Written under our “Risky” names (No Diane Perkins books – Amanda sneaks in with her Laurel McKee because it is on the Risky site)
6. Book must mail from the US, because the UK and AU books (McCabe, Mullany, Gaston) are more costly by virtue of being far away.
7. Book must not sell directly from Barnes and Noble on ebay as Janet’s and Carolyn’s books do. That’s just wrong.

Here are the results in no special order except the winner comes last.

Susanna Fraser

Poor Susanna did not make it to the gate, but, in her case, this is a good thing. Because her books are ebook only, if they appeared on ebay they’d likely be pirated versions, so we are glad she is not running this race. We will, however, put up the cover of her latest book, A Dream Defiant, out now!!

Gail Eastwood

Gail has a very respectable offering in An Unlikely Hero (1996) which has a Buy It Now price of $7.99

Myretta Robens

Myretta lags a bit behind Gail. Her Just Say Yes (2005), the book that finalled for the 2006 RITA Award for Best Regency Romance, is going for $5.98.

Laurel McKee

Laurel is pretty far ahead with Duchess of Sin (2011) at $9.75. Can anybody beat her?

Megan Frampton

Megan’s 2005 Regency, A Singular Lady, slips back in the pack with a $5.98 price tag, but if you don’t have this delightful book, you might want to snap it up. This is the only copy for sale on ebay.

Elena Greene

Elena’s 2005 Regency (2005 was a GREAT year for Regencies), Lady Dearing’s Masquerade , sprinted past Laurel with a cost of $10.62. She’s the girl to beat.

Amanda McCabe

Amanda just squeaked past Megan with A Notorious Woman (2007), one of her early Harlequin Historicals, set in romantic Venice, for sale at $6.99, not enough to catch up to Gail and way behind herself/Laurel and Elena.

Diane Gaston

A surprising surge for my Valiant Soldier, Beautiful Lady (2011), passing Elena and Megan at $7.86. Why this book? Why not one of the older, harder to find ones? I am so close to Gail, by the way, I could just reach over and knock her off her…..never mind!!!

Carolyn Jewel

Wait a minute!! Carolyn just streaked past me with Not Wicked Enough (2012) at $9.75. She’s pumping her legs hard to catch up to Elena. The race is getting exciting!

Elena’a struggling, too, though, to catch up to the leader. One of us is way ahead!

Janet Mullany

The first place winner is Janet! Her Jane and the Damned (2010) is crossing the finish line at a speed–I mean–cost of $13.88. That passes even the Laurels in this group.

Personally, I think vampires should be excluded (well, I think that now. In fact, I just thought of it this second)

Which reminds me, I never thought of a prize….I think the prize should be the satisfaction of a race well-run. What do you think? What should the prize of this competition be?????

Multipart Thingee

August 14, 2013 November 17, 2022 carolyn 2 Comments

Craziness reigns at Jewel Central.

I’m working on The Next Historical and I’m in that “This is so painfully bad, why did I EVER think I could write anything?” phase, plus it’s just really hard, this writing business.

My hero and heroine are currently alone in a bedroom and ALL THEY DO IS TALK!!! I keep muttering “shut up, would you?” at the monitor and they keep talking. This happened in Not Proper Enough, and I thought I was going to end up with the World’s Talkiest Romance. I imagined reviewers saying ALL they do is TALK! but actually, by the time it was out there in the world there were a few complaints about too much sex. So, I must have gotten through the talking part. Cross your fingers that Lucy and Thrale will end up smoking hot.

Art

Today I ended up chatting with a really gifted artist, and though illustration and writing are very different, it turns out there are things in common about being a creative sort. Here’s a link to his website: Ricky Watts. The link goes to his illustrations. I bought two prints. Any guesses about which ones? One hint – Poultry is big in my town. BWAHAHAHAHAHA! You’re on your own as to the other.

Challenges in common: procrastination. I did not tell him it is my belief I can out-procrastinate anyone and besides, he had walls full of art that said his procrastination problem is not as severe as mine.

Getting in the zone. Very familiar (but not as familiar as it ought to be, you talkie hero and heroine!). When you come out the end, it can feel like someone else did all that work. I know a lot of writers feel that way. I’m surprised, for some reason, that it happens to artists too.

I do enjoy meeting creative sorts.

Nachos, Spinich Salad, Sweet Potato Fries

Does that sound like dinner? It was! For me, our own Janet Mullaney, and Pam Rosenthal. Janet was all the way in my part of California this weekend. I was supposed to see them in Berkeley on Saturday, but the Evil Day Job was particularly evil and by Friday I’d had too many nights of <5 hours sleep. I slept until 11:00 AM Saturday, long past our meeting. Goodness. Janet and Pam drove to my town Sunday instead and we shared the meal noted and talked about writing and publishing and writing and it was really lovely to see them both.

To Be Read, and Wished-I-Hadn’t-Read

My digital TBR is getting out of control. But that doesn’t stop me from buying more books. I have Meljean Brook’s Guardian Demon in my Kindle and part of me doesn’t want to read it because then it will be over and I won’t have it to look forward to with such delicious anticipation. I love that series. I love her writing. I do know I have to save the book for when I have a block of time, hopefully this coming weekend.

I did read a book that someone in an RWA workshop (I have the conference on audio and am listening to workshops) said was edgy and risky so I bought it immediately and by about 1/3 of the way through I knew exactly what would happen next and I was in fact right every time. That, my friends, is not edgy or risky. It can’t be if I know what will happen, why it happens, and don’t even care. This book had nearly 900 Amazon reviews and most of them are raving. The author was consistently mistaken about the difference between your and you’re. I was skimming by the middle in case I was wrong about what would happen but I wasn’t so I dnf’d.

What’s in your TBR and any books in your Wished You Hadn’t Read pile?

Well. I think this is a blog bost! I need to get back to Lucy and Thrale and see if I can get them to stop talking.

Busy at home and RITA changes

July 19, 2013 July 19, 2013 Elena Greene 4 Comments

Part of me wishes I could be at RWA. It’s been years since I’ve seen many of my writing friends. However, the logistics involved in leaving my disabled husband for that many days make it complicated. Not impossible, but complicated.

This year, I’ve actually been too busy to pine (much).

After mulling the top two auditions, both very good, I picked a narrator, Robin Rowan, for the audio book version of Lady Dearing’s Masquerade (cover shown here). I look forward to working with her, because she makes my story sound so good!

I’m continuing to edit Fly with a Rogue to address comments received through critique. Last week I compared being critiqued to sitting in the dentist’s chair. This week it’s more like therapeutic massage. It takes some pressure to work out the knots, but it feels so good afterwards!

I’m also excited to hear that the RITAs will now be open to-self published books. This is partly on a personal note, as I will be able to enter Fly with a Rogue this year. The opportunity for peer recognition is not critical for me—I had already decided, for business reasons, to self-publish this book—but it is nice to know I have the option.

On an organizational level, I think it’s very important. If the purpose of the RITAs is to “promote excellence in the romance genre by recognizing outstanding published romance novels and novellas”, it doesn’t make sense to exclude self-published romances, many of which have already hit the New York Times, USA Today, and other bestseller lists. As I understand it, entrants will have to be eligible for RWA’s Published Authors Network, which means the contest will be open only to authors with a proven record of sales.

There will also be a new category for erotic romance, which many authors of erotic romance have been asking for. I know there are others who say erotic romance should just be entered in whichever category fits otherwise (paranormal, historical, etc…) I understand their point, but I also know that there are judges whose reaction to extremes of sexuality in a book can impair their ability to judge fairly. Allowing those judges to choose not to opt in for the erotic romance category should help ensure better judging.

I haven’t read enough erotic romance to know for sure if this is always true, but in the ones I’ve read, sexual awakening or healing is an important part of the characters’ journey. This is in addition to being part of the relationship development, as it would be in sexy romances in other categories. The special role of sexuality in an erotic romance is also another argument for a unique category.

What do you all think of the RITA changes?

I hope everyone is having a great time in Atlanta and I’m looking forward to seeing pictures here!

Elena
www.elenagreene.com
www.facebook.com/ElenaGreene

Excerpt from FLY WITH A ROGUE

July 12, 2013 July 12, 2013 Elena Greene One Comment

I’m busy editing Fly with a Rogue based on critique partner input. Like going to the dentist, critique is something you wouldn’t do if it wasn’t good for you. But it’s going well.

Here’s an excerpt, near the beginning of the story. Gil Manning crashes his balloon and after a brief first meeting with local schoolmistress Emma Westfield, he passes out due to a concussion. He is brought to her cottage where she watches him through the night, having been warned by the surgeon that he might never revive.

He was a flirt and a daredevil, there was no doubt of that. A gambler. A gentleman, perhaps an officer sold out since Waterloo. She wondered if he’d known . . . but how likely was that? Yet how could she not think about it? She’d seen the scars, the result of bullets and swords piercing his flesh. Scars that could not obscure the beauty of a healthy male body.

She blinked away a tear. Lud! She hadn’t cried in ages. What was the matter with her now?

She knew what was the matter.

It was the look of childlike innocence Manning wore in sleep, as he might in death. Had Charles looked so when he died? Had he thought of her? Perhaps, regretted . . .?

Charles . . . my love . . .

She caught herself whispering the words aloud. Now she was going mad.

But Manning did not wake. Perhaps his spirit was already beyond reach. Did he have a wife or a sweetheart who would mourn him?
Tears blurred her vision as she leaned over him. His mouth was surely made for smiling. For laughing. For kissing. Grief welled up along with the feeling that he might never do any of those things again.

She closed her eyes and pressed her lips to his. They were cool and unresponsive.

Then they parted.

She jerked back, saw his eyes flutter open.

“Don’t stop now,” he whispered.