The New Face of Romance

Remember when Fabio was on the cover of nearly every romance novel ever published? Well, maybe that's an exaggeration, but it seemed like he was on the cover of every one I picked up. Then came John DeSalvo. Man, was he ever a cutie. Both those guys have now faded from favor but they'll live on forever, as long as there are old romance novels floating around.

Now, with the tidal wave of self-publishing and e-pub/small presses, there's a new guy in  romance town. His name is Jimmy Thomas and his image is on more than 1,600 romance novels, at last count. He's keeping track and keeps all the covers on bookshelves on his site and the number changes daily by leaps and bounds. How did he end up on so many covers, you ask? Well, you see, Jimmy has a web site called RomanceNovelCovers.com where cover artists (and those playing at creating covers--like me) can purchase stock images--featuring him and a variety of female models in cover-ready poses.

So, in case you were wondering, who's that guy on all the romance covers all of a sudden, meet Jimmy Thomas, the new face of romance. :o)

Two of my future books were added to Jimmy's shelves today. I had a lot of fun making these covers. And the stock images of the couples I found on Jimmy's site made it so much easier to add that special touch of romance. ~~~Devon

Baby Steps

That's what I feel like I'm taking right now--baby steps. With my mom here, the relatives are coming and going so much, I might need to install a revolving door. Plus, it seems like we take an awful lot of impromptu trips to town for whatever. Then there are the functions. Nephew's graduation, huge family gathering at the cemetery to decorate graves (people drive in from out of state for this), birthdays (hubby, mom, and my niece), and a first time ever family reunion next weekend. I know I've said this before but, I am NOT a social person. I just want to be left alone so I can write, not to mention THINK. I guess that makes me an old stick-in-the-mud (or so I'm told).

Would you be surprised if I told you, progress on the current manuscript is going painfully slow? No? Didn't think so. I recently read someplace that if you want to do something badly enough, you WILL find a way. So, that's what I've been trying to do. Find a way. To write. Even if it's only a few lines a day. I want to get this second book out there. I'm tired of being asked when the next book is coming out and having no answer except, "I'm working on it." 

Meanwhile, even with everything around me in chaos, I've been trying to get my name out there. Trying to network. Very time consuming. Time I should be spending working on the ms., I suppose. Like now, instead of writing this blog post. But it's so much easier to click a few buttons on Facebook than write sparkling dialogue when it's 3:00 in the morning and my mental faculties turned to mush an hour ago. Speaking of Facebook. I got a friend request from some porn queen tonight, complete with racy photos. I declined, but thought it was interesting because that's never happened before. Heh. And now I'm rambling...

It was my intent tonight to get on here and give you a progress report. Even though I've had a few twinge moments for one reason or another, (lots of despicable author shenanigans from the self-published on Amazon forums) I'm still happy with my decision to publish on my own. I'm not burning up the rankings, but sales have been a steady trickle. The key word here is "steady" and I can now report that since publishing on April 26th, I've already surpassed my royalty earnings that I made for the entire year of 2010 while I was under contract with a small press/epub. WITH THE SAME BOOK. THAT'S ALREADY BEEN ON THE MARKET FOUR YEARS. I think that's pretty remarkable. It gives me hope for the future. And that's a good thing. :o)

Sweet dreams, and my apologies for the occasional shouting.

Devon

Quality Control

I had intended to save this topic for a later date, but something just happened that prompts me to bring it up now.

On the recommendation of a Facebook friend, I downloaded a western historical by an author I'm not familiar with. I thought, oh, good, a new author with a whole list of books I haven't read already. Eagerly, I opened to the first page and started reading. The first brief paragraph was in the hero's point of view. The second paragraph was in the heroine's. What? That's where I stopped, and I won't be returning to this book. I refuse to read a book written by someone who ignores the rules of craft that I've had drummed into my head for the past fifteen years and that I abide by at all costs. How much easier it would be to whip out the pages if I didn't have to follow even the most basic rules, such as NO HEAD-HOPPING. This book was not self-published, nor was it from a small press. I find it hard to swallow that such blatant head-hopping is still allowed by the big pubs in this day and time. I mean really. First two paragraphs of the book!

End of rant.

Now, to the real topic of this post. Quality control.

A year ago, one of the reasons I wouldn't have considered self-publishing was the issue of quality control. With Amazon's Kindle program, B&N's Pubit, and a whole host of others, anyone out there, even down to their siblings and cousins, can publish any old thing they whip out on a word processing program and it doesn't cost them a dime to do it. How are the book buying consumers supposed to wade through all the crap to find books worth reading? It seemed there was no answer because the vetting process, the gatekeepers, had been taken out of the equation. This lack of any kind of quality control was the one aspect of the self-publishing stampede that troubled me the most.

Then, the ebook retailers provided the solution, and it was so simple. It's called sampling. All the major ebook retailers have sampling on their sites. You can try the beginning of any ebook before you commit to buying it. The sample depends on the book length. I checked and the sample of my book is something just over the first two chapters. Shorter lengths may only be the first chapter or so. Plenty enough material to tell whether or not a book is well written--or not--and if it's something we want to spend time reading. I even sample the books from the big NY pubs and I've run across quite a few clunkers that I decided not to waste my time or money on, and this after the blurbs made them sound so good. Thank goodness for samples. Now we don't have to rely on reader reviews, which may or may not have been posted by the author's friends and family.

Samples are definitely our friends.

Have you tried sampling yet?

Back From The Edge

Hi, all! I'm back. After many months of woolgathering and deep introspection (is there any other kind?), I've decided to return to the land of the living.

As some of you already know, or may have guessed, I've joined the Indie revolution, which is a rather pretentious way of saying, I'm self-publishing. And guess what. I'm loving it! This was a decision I didn't make lightly. And, yes, I've spent a lot of long nights trying to figure out how to do this and that. There's a big learning curve between writing the book and actually publishing the book. In the coming weeks, I hope to share with you some of the things I've learned during this process.

The most fun I had was making my own cover. I think it turned out fairly well, insofar as it reflects the two main characters and one glance lets you know, you're looking at a western historical. What do you think?

Just a year ago, I never would have considered going the indie route. (Ack, the horror! Only people who can't write self-publish. The stigma, the stigma!) But times have changed, and they continue to change, sometimes on a daily basis. After spending four years with a small press/epub, I can tell you with certainty, there are more advantages to putting my work on the market myself. At least, that's true for me.

So, what are your thoughts about the self-publishing frenzy taking place in the publishing industry? Would you ever consider becoming an Indie author? Or is the stigma that's long been associated with it still too real for you?

Devon

She's Back!

Have you ever run across an author whose writing you enjoyed so much, you went looking for her entire backlist? For me, Rebecca Sinclair was such an author. I have her entire list of Western Historicals, plus a couple of her Scottish Medievals. To me, her appeal wasn't in her great storytelling ability, it was in her in-depth sensual details (and I'm not talking about sexual encounters, although she had those, too). As a writer, it was those passages of detailed sensuality that fascinated me.

I devoured her books. Then, ten years ago she suddenly disappeared from the radar. After doing a little digging, I discovered she'd quit writing.

I was really sad about that, so I held onto all her books and I've reread "Forbidden Desires" so many times the pages are coming loose from the binding.

Well, surprise, surprise. Last night, I logged onto MySpace and, suddenly, there she was. And she's got a new book titled "Murphy's Law" out from Kensington, her old publisher. I immediately popped over to Amazon and discovered the book is only available in Kindle edition. Bummer. I don't have a Kindle. So I went looking again. The e-book is available other places, but I'm leery of buying from them. The only successful downloads I've bought have been from the Harlequin site. Twice I've bought something from Fictionwise and they've taken my credit card number then sent the download zinging off into cyberspace and complete oblivion. I have no idea where they went. I only know they didn't end up in my computer.

I must have this book! This snowbound cabin cover looks so cozy and inviting. Here's the blurb I picked up over on Amazon:

Murphy's Law reigns supreme...

What else can explain how Murphy McKenna managed to get herself stuck in an unexpected, early-in-the-season Maine blizzard? In a very remote cabin. With dead phones. And impassable roads. Could there be a worse time for a desperate, badly wounded man to show up on her doorstep?

Instinct demands Murphy not trust Garrett Thayer. After all, the man refuses to give her a straight answer about anything. Even her precious Himalayan cat, Moonshine, is suspicious. Who wouldn't be? Not only is Garrett hurt, he's also apparently been out wandering in the storm with nothing more than a duffel bag stuffed with money, antique jewelry (a bottle of antihistamines?) -- and a gun.

Will Murphy's conscience allow her to turn her back on the handsome stranger who may be a thief, a bank robber, or worse ...?

This storyline appeals to me. I used a very similar plot device in "Maura's Outlaw," my historical romance set in late 19th century Missouri.

Just as an aside, I think it's interesting--in light of the current digital vs. print debate in romanceland--that Kensington has released this book in e-format only. Despite my bad luck with downloading e-books, I'll probably give it another try. Probably before the day is over. Maybe. Darn it. I wish they'd released this one in print.

Devon

Good Grief

The other day, I went to the eHarlequin site and bought two of the Historicals Undone titles. I was curious to see how they're written. I mean, these are only 10-15,000 words. And I write historicals. How long would it take to write 10-15K words? Huh? Huh? But I see that most of these are Regency set. Wonder if they'd be open to westerns?

Anyway, I bought two titles, including the one from this cover pic, and it took me until just a few minutes ago to figure out how to get them into my computer. I really hate to admit that, but it's just the truth. I bought the books in PDF format and when I downloaded them, I got ACSM files, which are links to nowhere, according to my computer. I ended up having to download a newfangled Adobe reader and setting up an account with them. But the files still wouldn't download from the site. I still got the ACSM url links, and when I clicked on them, a window popped up to tell me they couldn't be opened because they were corrupted. Well, great. I finally tonight got the bright idea to manually drag the ASCM files into the newfangled Adobe reader file and, VOILA!, it worked. The things downloaded and now I have them. But, wow, what a bunch of crap. I've downloaded plenty of free ebooks in PDF format and never had a problem. I think this has something to do with the DRM versions of these files.

In other news, I've been having my annual month of May identity crisis. Last year was the worst. It was exactly one year ago yesterday when I swore off writing forever and dropped out of sight. That lasted a whole eight months and I nearly went insane in the meantime. On second thought, maybe I actually did go crazy and just don't realize it. I once told Mary, I thought I was losing my mind. She told me that crazy people don't know they're crazy, so that meant I must not be--crazy, that is. Personally, I think there's room for argument.

Speaking of identity crisis, I've gotten into a real muddle with my work in progress. Muddle really isn't accurate, it's more like I've come to a screeching halt. After thinking about it for a couple of days, I realized I've got two other plots trying to butt in. This is the result of writing an entire manuscript without knowing diddly about GMC and THEN going back and trying to fix it. I brainstormed so many different GMC scenarios, two of them were evidently pretty strong and got stuck in my head. Now they're trying to butt in on the action. So I've got a heroine with a three-way split personality. She should be all the feisty, can-do girl, but shades of the strong-willed, independent and the emotionally damaged heroines keep rearing their heads and trying to drag their baggage into the mix. The only solution I can see is to promise these two gals their own stories somewhere down the road and hope they'll behave themselves long enough for me to finish heroine number one's story. Sheesh.

Devon