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I’ve been ordering books from the book depository for a few years but now I have a tablet with a Kindle app and I find myself camped out at Amazon. I feel like I’m cheating on the book store (and the actual book) with a giant most hate right now and a format other’s loath with a passion bordering on obsession. As a soon to be published digital author, I know I (and everyone else with a pulse) has a right to buy up big and save time and money, but should we? With Barnes and Noble and Amazon in a fight for the monopoly, where should my loyalties lie? Amazon is going to help me sell books in the future but B&N and other book stores, like the Book Depository, offer me the books I’ve been collecting in series’ forever. I have a perfect set of Lian Hearn's Tales of the Otori (if you haven’t read these and you love medieval fantasy Japan, you’re missing out!) I have all of Robin Hobb’s books and most of Ian Irvine’s, Raymond E Feist’s, Stephanie Lauren’s, and the list goes on. Should my conscience rest easy knowing I still buy paper and am helping in the livelihoods of book sellers, editors, publishers, authors, etc? Or should I just stop buying altogether and help them all over to (what I term affectionately) the dark side? For so long before I submitted to Carina I toed and froed and couldn’t put my foot in either camp, then I decided I could have my feet in both camps but I’d never thought of it from a book buyer’s perspective, only an author’s. What do you think? Do you think ebooks are an inevitable way of the future? Do you think we can all live harmoniously and get along for the next thousand years or so? Or are you a tree hugging hippie who would love to see the end of the print book altogether? (not that electricity to run your tablet or computer does much for the environment either...)
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_ I was lucky enough to get on my hands on an Advanced Readers Copy (ARC) of The Rogue's Pirate Bride by Shana Galen and I loved it! Let me count the ways...
There are two things I absolutely love in a hero. One is an accent. I don’t think it really matters what country – although Scottish and Irish brogues are hot! – and the second is the pirate factor. I don’t think the hero has to actually be a pirate but if he has any pirate traits (kidnapping, ravishing, adventure on the high seas, cheeky and devilish) then he’s mighty fine in my book. Shana Galan’s Rogue’s Pirate Bride ticks all the boxes for me! This is the third in a series that introduces a family separated by the French Revolution, each believing the others dead. (The Making of a Duchess) Julien and his English mother escape together and set sail for England. (The Making of a Gentleman) Armand was held in a prison for so many years he lost track and became a mute (everyone loves a tortured hero), and Bastien became Captain Cutlass in The Rogue’s Pirate Bride, a privateer (pirate) sailing for the Spanish (or greed really) and terrorising anyone he wanted to but mostly searching for the man who killed his friend and mentor. The heroine, Raeven, throws punches, wears breeches, fights with a sword, swears like a sailor and just happens to be the daughter of a British Admiral. She keeps escaping her father’s ship intent on killing Captain Cutlass for the death of her fiancée in a fight between the navy and Cutlass’s ship, the Shadow. I’ll go off on a tangent here for a sec. I’ve noticed so often in romance novels lately that in the hero’s POV, they almost brag about the number of women they’ve bedded and how beautiful those women were. We all know that a titled man is going to have had a heap of sex. Those were the times that a good deal of titled men met their maker with syphilis and sores in places sores had no right to be. To be honest, I don’t think it needs to be elaborated on and thank the good lord, The Rogue’s Pirate Bride didn’t dwell on that. What it did have was a hero who unashamedly shot at and wounded men who were after him. He kidnapped Raeven, fired on ships, fought bravely and never apologised for being a pirate. Raeven was equally as bloodthirsty (and not unhappy to be kidnapped) and I liked it! You won’t see any ‘no horses or pirates were harmed in the writing of this book’ in the acknowledgements and it made it more exciting, almost made them even more human (readers everywhere will know exactly what I mean when I say that). If you like a book that you can go “awwwwww” at the end of, then add it to your list. You won't be sorry! The book comes out early in Feb but you can already preorder your copy wherever good books (Amazon or Book Depository) and ebooks are sold but in the meantime, go and get the first two, The Making of a Duchess and The Making of a Gentleman, and read them in order. You can guess how they’re going to end but I betcha can’t guess what happens in the middle... _
Since so many of you asked for the call story, here it is =) I would start at the beginning but I can’t actually remember where I got the idea for Scandal’s Mistress. I only knew that I had a great idea on my hands and if I wrote it well, it would be the book to launch my career. In hindsight I was right, but along the way-when I was sweating over the small stuff-I never thought it would ever see the light of someone’s ereader! Back on the 22nd of April I sent the full manuscript for Scandal’s Mistress to Angela James at Carina Press after submitting via an eHarlequin Write Stuff pitching contest. My pitch wasn’t chosen but I was invited to submit anyway and that’s what I did. And then I waited. And waited. And chewed my fingernails down and waited some more. Then at the end of July, being as impatient as I am and with the conference looming and Angela James coming to the conference, I sent a follow up email and asked how it was going. I know you’re not supposed to but I so wanted to talk to Angela about it if they liked it (not sure what I would have done if they hated it, lol). And then a few days after that, I got an email from an editor saying that she loved it but the pacing was off and there were a few bits and pieces that needed improvement. It wasn’t a rejection, it was a revise and resubmit. I squealed like an idiot. Lucky for me I had the awesome Evangeline read over it and her list of suggestions were almost identical to the editor’s so most of the changes had already been made. Still, I didn’t get the R&R back to them until October. Then it was back to waiting. Don’t worry, I didn’t sit on my hands during this time, I’ve been editing and writing away on the next book. In December, I got impatient again and sent the editor an email. Kind of a how are you going, did you love the changes or hate them. Then she sent me one back saying she loved the changes and had sent the book to the acquisitions team with a recommendation to accept. More squealing followed but I still wasn’t home by any stretch of the imagination. A silly little piece of information about me? I check my emails on my phone every morning when I wake up. OCD? Wishful thinking? All of the above? Anyway, on the 21st of December, I rolled over in the morning and opened Yahoo mobile and there was an email from Angela James. When I read them on my phone, the subject of the email comes up along with the first few words reading “I’m sorry I was unable...” A few days before this there was a Twitter thread going about whether you would want bad news before Christmas or wait till after. I said I would rather know ASAP than dwell on it over the festive season but then I move on reasonably quickly after a rejection. So with my heart in my throat, expecting the “I’m sorry I was unable to sell this to acquisitions, better luck next time” speech, I nearly squealed right out of bed when it started with “I'm sorry I was unable to make this offer via phone, but I am happy to say that Carina Press would like to an extend an offer to publish SCANDAL’S MISTRESS.” (don’t ever be sorry you didn’t call me at 4am) First person I called? My man, Doug. I was all like “guess what just happened to me?” and since it was before 7am, I think he expected it to be something bad. I then had to keep a lid on it until I had formally accepted, and then told my family (including Kelly and Lex), and then my writing family, South Australian Romance Authors, before squeeeeing it from Facebook and any other platform that would listen. I have say huge thank you’s to everyone who helped me along the way with this story but mostly to Lex, Kelly, Amy and Zee for reading and praising and suggesting and to Evangeline for reading it like an editor and telling it to me straight! And the biggest thanks (after Doug and the kids for sticking with me) is to Lynne, who will be my editor. Thanks so much for believing in me and my story. I know it’s going to be a tough road ahead but I’m ready! So later in the year my first historical, Scandal’s Mistress, will come out with Carina Press and be available as a digital book. I know I still have so much to learn and I couldn’t be happier that it will be with Carina, with my editor who I’m already half in love with and the other awesome Aussie Carina authors. Stay tuned for more details but in the mean time, I’ll leave you with the pitch... Love. It’s the cruelest mistress of all. When you have it, it hurts. When you lose it, it nearly kills you. But what if he doesn’t believe in it and she doesn’t want it… Italian opera singer, Carmalina Belluccini, has been alone with her bad luck and morbid thoughts for too long. When a man who is no angel offers her an affare, dignity and desire start to battle within her. She is no courtesan and certainly not mistress material, only, when her beautiful voice fails she finds herself in a position too difficult to refuse Justin Trentham’s protection. But what is he hiding and why is he so desperate to create the scandal of the season? _
With Christmas firmly behind us and a new year looming, packed with possibility and fun times, I wanted to share a few of my favourite things with you. One of them is Christmas. Yes, call me crazy but it’s my favourite time of the year besides Easter. I do have to admit that in our house, it’s not the birth of baby Jesus that gets us excited, it’s the chance to unwind and spend a few days being merry with our families. It’s about watching my four year old just about have an apoplexy when she opened her Nintendo DS and it was bigger than her sister’s. It’s about my six year old sticking her nose in the first book and forgetting about opening the rest of the presents until reminded there might be more books (and there was!). It’s about my father in law’s third hug for the year (despite not being a hugger, this one I know is special). A couple of my superficial faves are handbags and shoes but if you know me, then you already know I have a slight obsession. Only slight though. If you’re wondering if I went to the boxing day sales, then the answer is a big fat yes! Some of my fave movies include What Dreams May Come with Cuba Gooding Jr and Robin Williams. You need a whole box of tissues to watch that one! I love the fluffy ones like Pirates of the Caribbean and the not so fluffy like the Underworld series about vampires and lycan, and the Lara Croft series. I own everything with Matthew McConaughey and Kate Hudson together and a heap of Sandra Bullock and Brad Pitt. In fact, in my box of movies, I have them sorted by actor. Bones and Castle have me gripped and won’t let go (but I think that has more to do with the eye candy than anything else). I love reading Ian Irvine and Raymond E Feist. The series that shoots off from Magician written with Janny Wurts about Mara of the Acoma (Daughter of the Empire, Servant of the Empire and Mistress of the Empire) are still my favourite fantasy reads although seconded very closely by Anne Bishop and Robin Hobb (esp the Live Ship Traders series). My favourite colours (or non-colours if you want to get technical) are black and grey. I don’t mind a little coral thrown in these days but I prefer dark shades. Our house is now decked out on the inside with black white and red which is awesome to look at! Instead of doing the usual contest after Christmas about the best or the worst present you ever received, I want to know about what makes you smile. My kids do that when they’re not making me cranky, but I want the superficial stuff. Like one of my best presents this year (not the best but right up there) was the gift voucher I got so I could shop at the Boxing Day sales. Made me grin like an idiot! I’ll get one of the kids to pick a winning comment at random and send a box of Cadbury Favourites to make the commenter smile some more =) Have a safe and happy new year’s eve and I’ll see you on the other side! _ I'll get to the merry Christmas but first, a little something on rejections...
A few of my friends have been woe-is-meing over rejections lately (rightly so) and I’ve had my fair share already so it begs this question – what do you do about them? Do you Google the agent/editor/publisher, print their picture out and hang it on your dart board? Do you count them so you can avoid some magical number you have in your head that it takes to get to before you’ll get a yes? Do you save them all in a special file tagged ‘people to eliminate first in the event of a zombie apocalypse and then pin the blame on the undead’ . Me? I don’t do any of that (I promise). I’ve never even counted them. I do keep the rejections in my email, though this is more so I don’t double up and resend the same thing to the same person. I don’t want to upset someone so they dump my name on their spam list. Or worse. Gulp. Block me. But really, at the end of the day, you sent your submission to an agent/ed/publisher and they didn’t want it. Upsetting? Yes. The end of the world? Never. Read the rejection word by word, slowly and with dry eyes. Did they give any feedback on the why’s and why not’s? Did they offer an invitation to submit again? After you’ve established this, put the letter/email away for a few days and come back to it and read it again. Never send an email asking them to change their mind. Never send a letter asking for a reason. Say thanks for your time and then move on to the next agent/ed/publisher. If it’s the 36th rejection you’ve received for the same manuscript and you’ve never got any feedback or further requests, it might be time to shelve the story for a bit and work on something new... It’s really important to stay professional and to think positive. Especially at this time of year. I hate getting bad news at Christmas but could you imagine getting hate mail at Christmas? Nasty emails? Paper bags filled with poo? I don’t much think agents/eds/publishers would either. I don't know if it's just me but I don't get upset over rejections any more. Maybe I'm used to them? Just kidding. I think it's because I'm in this for the long haul and eventually I know the right person for my story will come along and they'll love it so much they'll buy it. And then we can all live happily ever after. Now onto something that isn’t a rejection. I won Spacecoast Authors Launching A Star contest in the historical category!! Merry Christmas to me! It really has been an interesting year filled with wins, finals, rejections, happy dancing and commiserations. Here’s hoping next year is filled with sales! For everyone! Happy holidays and have a merry Christmas! I’ll catch you in the new year =) _I've decided (gently nudged by the challenge) to read more next year. I'm signing up to read 20 books written by Australian female authors. Should be easy. One every fortnight with a few weeks off for good behaviour =) Will you sign up and give it a go?
2012 Challenge Australian Women Writers 2012 National Year of Reading Challenge Keen on romance, fantasy, crime, YA, literary, mainstream women's fiction? Contemporary or historical? Memoir, other nonfiction or poetry? Whatever your preference, whether you're a fan of one genre or a devoted eclectic, the 2012 Australian Women Writers Book Reading & Reviewing Challenge invites you to celebrate a year encountering the best of Australian women's writing. Objective: This challenge hopes to help counteract the gender bias in reviewing and social media newsfeeds that has continued throughout 2011 by actively promoting the reading and reviewing of a wide range of contemporary Australian women's writing. (See the page on gender bias for recent discussions.) Readers should approach this challenge with a spirit of willingness. There are no failures, just personal goals. Reviews can be long or short, favourable or "this book is not for me". Hopefully, along the way, we'll all discover some future classics and perhaps a few surprises among genres we're not familiar with. The main aim is to have fun. Challenge period: 1 January 2012 - 31 December 2012 Goal: Read and review books written by Australian women writers – hard copies, ebooks and audiobooks, new, borrowed or stumbled upon by book-crossing. Genre challenges: Purist: one genre only Dabbler: more than one genre Devoted eclectic: as many genres as you can find Challenge levels: Stella (read 3 and review at least 2 books) Miles (read 6 and review at least 3* Franklin-fantastic (read 10 and review at least 4 books)* * The higher levels should include at least one substantial length review Authors as guest reviewer : Request a special "Guest Review" badge for your website. Read and review one book in a genre other than your own and write a considered review. You will be invited to share this review - along with some information about your own writing, if you wish - on the Australian Women Writers blog page. Added option : WeLove2Read2 campaign. This page gives participants the option of a further challenge which could help redress the genre imbalance of the National Year of Reading's, Love2Read "Our Story" campaign. Dedicated bookbloggers and reviewers are particularly invited to add this element to their challenge. We all love Fairy Tales. Don’t shake your head and say that you don’t because you’re lying. Even if you don’t right now, at one stage in your life, you were a huge fan. Disney had made a motza from remakes like the most recent Tangled which is the tale of Rapunzel. It’s now one of my favourite Disney animated films of all time followed very closely by Beauty and the Beast.
We’ve all seen them remade over and over either in full or as a base for a story loosely modelled on or around them. Some of the first epic tales of love and happily ever afters were Fairy Tales. I personally love Drew Barrymore in Ever After (not A Cinderella Story like I originally thought) and other more unconventional remakes like The Brothers Grim. There are romance novels galore based on Cinderella and Beauty and the Beast and it works. Take Beauty and the Beast. Usually she is judged unfairly by her beauty or she suffers pride and he is the other way around, crippled by scars or ugliness on the outside or the inside (because remember beauty is only skin deep) and together they have to sort it out, overcome, and then live happily ever after. I love the Shrek movies because I’m a sucker for the underdog (or ogre in that case). And I love, love, love Hoodwinked which is a blend of so many fairy tales it’s hard to separate and pick them all out. I got so excited about the remake of Little Red Riding Hood in 2010. I decided for once to read the book before watching the movie. It worked with Twilight—so glad I was to read the books and look at it in my own mind before letting crappy acting skills ruin it for me—that I decided to do it with Red Riding Hood too. Well, if you haven’t seen the movie, don’t bother. It was not worth the money I paid or the night I lost and I don’t usually bag movies especially in a public forum, but it was crap. The book I quite enjoyed for the twists and turns and I worked out who the wolf was about halfway through but the movie was badly done. The only thing I’m excited more about this week than the second-last instalment on the Twilight series is the trailer I saw today for Snow White and the Huntsman. Charlize Theron is hot (So is Sophie Monk). Home and Away Dude from Thor (Chris Hemsworth is his name) is super freakin’ awesomely hot! Kristen Stewart I’m not so sure of. I wasn’t on the bashing bandwagon over her in Twilight. I actually think she did the part justice since Bella stutters and trips over a lot in the book. So Kristen Stewart has a chance to redeem herself in the eyes of so many in the next few months (I don’t know when it’s releases yet and I thought I’d leave it as a surprise for you). I am going to try to find the book first if there is one because I like that. My question for you is what is your favourite Fairy Tale story and what format is it? Mine changes but right now it’s Tangled/Rapunzel remade into a Disney movie. I think Rumplestiltskin would be interesting if they wanted to take that on and before Tangled it was Beauty and the Beast. I’d like to say my love of Disney classics is a result of having children but the truth is I had them all well before the babies =) I can sing along with the movies and I know most of the words to The Lion King, Aladdin and Cinderella. Yes, very sad, but there it is. Now it’s your turn... Quick update because I'm flat chat but it was pointed out to me that it's been nearly a month since my last post. Sorry about that... I have started another blog for my random non-writing related stuff. If you want to check it out the link is http://peanutmusings.blogspot.com/
I promise I will make you laugh at least once =) As to the writing, it's kicking along very nicely. My opera singer historical is under a revise and resubmit and my courtesan is out with an agent and a few editors which is super exciting! I'm waiting on placings for three contests - The Rebecca, The Molly and the IGO. Penguin, NAL and Carina are the final judges for these. I attended a one day intesive with Christopher Vogler which was awesome. That man knows what he's talking about! I'm a bit too brain dead to really tell you all about it right now (plus I can't find the notebook I took the notes in) but I will do a post on it soon. The most interesting thing about him for me is that he's worked on a heap of Disney movies and I love Disney. You should see the drawer of DVD's I have (not the kid's, they're mine)and all animations, pretty much. My head space is taken up largey by wedding preparation at the moment and it leaves little room for anything else althought I did start a novella type short today to submit to Avon Impulse's Yellow Ribbon line they're doing next year. I also started my next Historical since the courtesan is done and you'll love this one! It has some plot issues to sort out but we're making headway thanks to the wonderful gals at SARA. I'm thinking of giving Deb Dixon's GMC another crack since I wasn't really paying a lot of attention the first skim through. Anyway, that's it for me. I have a Fairies concert to get ready for, five year old twins to buy presents for, a baby shower to organise for a friend, another friend having her 30th and her son's 1st birthdays, a wedding (not mine), and heaps more fun! Adios Amigos! Okay, I admit it. I have wedding brain. We aren't getting married until next year in June but I feel like everything has to be done yesterday and it doesn't help that I'm flighty enough to keep changing my mind. Needless to say, I haven't written much. I am still writing and have started a brand spanking, sparkly new Regency so stay tuned. I have contest entries out and over the weekend I'm going to print off about 80 pages to send to an agent in New York. Busy, busy, busy.
On the writing front, I'm doing some articles for an online magazine called Beauty and Lace. If you hit the wedding pages, you can follow the preparation and madness involved in saying I do... And then there's a new blog I'm associated with called Historical Hearts. On Monday, Cassandra Samuels is going to tell us all about the history and language of the fan and let me tell you, I had no idea! Did you know in the Regency period, a woman could invite a man to her bedroom with a flick of her wrist and a wave of silk? Easier than the come hither finger =) Enjoy your weekend and have an eventful week! If you want a giggle go and check out http://thebloggess.com/ but be warned, she will make you cry at the least and wet your pants at the most... I won't even go into what might happen in between. Peace out! This is going to be another one of those rambling posts about my completely random thoughts. But before you get bored and fall into a coma on your keyboard, I want to give you the details for a new blog I’ll be participating in with nearly twenty other Historical Romance Authors from Australia. It’s called Historical Hearts and this week is our launch so we’re having a five day virtual party where you all get to meet us and find out what we write and why we write it. I’ll be on Friday (saving the best till last) and I’ll be giving away Candace Camp’s Scandalous and a contest critique to two lucky people who comment. There will be giveaways every day and general madness and mayhem you get when a heap of romance authors get together on any level. So the link is http://historicalhearts.blogspot.com/ It’s going to be great! And it would be wonderful if you could drop by and check it out. Now onto the ramblings. Let me set the scene. It’s freezing. If there was a fierce wind, I would get knocked over (little exaggeration but not much). And because I’m lazy, I don’t do much to stay warm (housework wise-yuck!). So there I was last night, after crawling out of the sleeping bag cocoon I made myself while I worked on my Regency (73k and still going), and I was cold. Really cold. Lucky I had to foresight to already have switched the electric blanket on to warm up my side of the bed. So I got dressed in the bathroom, crouched in front of a tiny blow heater that sucks more electricity than five plasmas, and then practically ran to my bed. My feet were so cold I couldn’t get to sleep for ages despite the fact it was midnight. So then I lay wondering what would happen if I got electrocuted by the electric blanket. You hear it happening. Pensioners houses burn down due to faulty blankets all the time. This is what my brain does to me in the dark, in the middle of the night. It gives me the worst possible scenario to fall asleep with. Then I started thinking about what I did before I had an electric blanket. My parents never let me have one. Until I got to high school I didn’t even know it was possible to create a heavenly warm haven so you didn’t have to shiver yourself into fitful dreams where you were stuck in Iceland with no sunshine. The truth is, back then, I wore socks to bed. And trackies. And a jumper. And a long sleeve, high necked shirt. You see, I’m a super light sleeper and if I'm cold I can't sleep. And I’m not a touchy feely cuddly type of gal either so I can't tuck my cold feet around the man and wait for him to warm me up. I know I’m not the only one. Not all chicks are into being smothered in their sleep by their men who may or may not have heavy, muscled arms that twitch when they dream (mine does). His arm always happens to land right across my middle and then I’m awake. And it’s not comfortable. (Also, Doug I know what you’re doing at 5am when you pretend to be asleep). And then I’m cranky because sleeping is my most favourite part of the day. It’s the only time when I’m not stressed, I don’t have to wonder where everyone is and what they’re doing. I don’t have to worry about what to cook for tea or what to pack for lunch. And because I have a bad back, lying down at night is like no other feeling. Add to that the fact that I only fell asleep sometime between midnight and 1am. Don’t get me wrong. I love sharing a bed with a man I’m hopelessly in love with but this is why they made electric blankets. So gals like me could stay warm and get some sleep! It's nothing personal about his hygiene or anything like that. it's all me. So now I want to know two things. How do you stay warm when it’s so bloody cold and is my brain broken or do you to think about stupid stuff when you also should have opted for the safety of counting sheep? Oh and are you cuddly? I'm not and most people look at me like it's a disease. It's not. I just really like my own personal space and don't feel the need to hug everyone I meet! Anyway, the answer that makes me laugh the most wins a prize since I got to the all important 2000 hits last week! Thanks to Cherie Thomas for being the 2000th visitor! You win a prize too!! Not sure what yet but it’ll be cool =) |
DisclaimerI'm a published author but I'm still mostly stumbling about in the dark looking for the right paths so this blog is about that, though sometimes something will give the me the shits and I'll have a bit of a rant. I'll try not to be offensive but occasionally my mouth opens without asking my brain's permission so I'll apologise in advance. Archives
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