Did you get yours yet? The Paris Affair is free on Kindle now through June 27th.
And,you can read about the real 2013 Paris Air Show, which was probably far less exciting without Claire and Helmut.
Showing posts with label TheParis Affair. Show all posts
Showing posts with label TheParis Affair. Show all posts
Thursday, June 27, 2013
#Free #Kindle #Romance
Did you get yours yet? The Paris Affair is free on Kindle now through June 27th.
And,you can read about the real 2013 Paris Air Show, which was probably far less exciting without Claire and Helmut.
Thursday, June 20, 2013
Slowly Writing
I'm not very talkative lately, am I?
I hit one major milestone this week--I finished a complete draft of my biggest work-in-progress, a full-length romantic suspense. Right now, the story is fermenting (aka, I am not opening it for a few weeks to allow my brain a chance to read it objectively and not just fall back into the love-hate pattern I had while writing the end).
I don't have any firm release plans yet. I haven't even read the thing start-to-finish, let alone decided on my approaches for editing and all that. I can self-pub it, self-edit or pay an editor, I could shop it around to a variety of e-presses, I could shop it to agents in the hopes of snagging a print press. I could stuff it under my bed and pretend I didn't spend a year and a half on the dumb thing. (wait, did I call it dumb? By "dumb" I meant "brilliant", "engaging", "evocative"....ahem...) . I do have a potential cover photo picked out and paid for that I bought as an incentive to finish the story. So if I do self-pub, I've got step 1 (of like 50) checked off.
Next up is a re-write/edit job on a short story called The Christmas Affair that is a tie-in to The Paris Affair. No specific release plans there either, except to say that I'll try to have it available by some method or other around Christmas. This is another sexy story, similar heat level to The Paris Affair, featuring a minor character from that first novel. My initial draft of it, according to my critique partners, lacked conflict. Oops. This is why you have critique partners. (Also, The Paris Affair has a new price over at Amazon--$2.99 for the Kindle edition. If you are looking for a steamy beach read, go download a copy).
Call the Rain has been enjoying a slow but decent little career. I've got a few good reviews here and there. I'd love more, but that's not up to me, really. Short of whining and begging, there's not much else I can do except to remind folks that if you read it and liked it, then give it a few stars (and maybe a few kind words) :)
And lastly, I have a new laptop. Not that it's really writing news, except setting it up did suck several days of my time by the time I installed Office, Adobe CS4, Visual Studio, Eclipse, etc. The old one was making a disturbing clicking noise and occasionally refused to wake up from hibernation. It also was barely powerful enough to run Word on Windows 7--Skype continually complained that that the video wasn't fast enough, and the built-in wifi adapter would drop connections from all but the oldest routers. I never could install Photoshop on it because it simply couldn't handle the pressure. Also, you can now buy micro SD cards with more storage space than it's harddrive (all of 60 gig...which was huge when I bought it). The old laptop and I have been through a lot together--8 years and 4+ manuscripts. It's not dead yet, but shall enjoy a slow slide into retirement with a much lighter workload.
I hit one major milestone this week--I finished a complete draft of my biggest work-in-progress, a full-length romantic suspense. Right now, the story is fermenting (aka, I am not opening it for a few weeks to allow my brain a chance to read it objectively and not just fall back into the love-hate pattern I had while writing the end).
I don't have any firm release plans yet. I haven't even read the thing start-to-finish, let alone decided on my approaches for editing and all that. I can self-pub it, self-edit or pay an editor, I could shop it around to a variety of e-presses, I could shop it to agents in the hopes of snagging a print press. I could stuff it under my bed and pretend I didn't spend a year and a half on the dumb thing. (wait, did I call it dumb? By "dumb" I meant "brilliant", "engaging", "evocative"....ahem...) . I do have a potential cover photo picked out and paid for that I bought as an incentive to finish the story. So if I do self-pub, I've got step 1 (of like 50) checked off.
Next up is a re-write/edit job on a short story called The Christmas Affair that is a tie-in to The Paris Affair. No specific release plans there either, except to say that I'll try to have it available by some method or other around Christmas. This is another sexy story, similar heat level to The Paris Affair, featuring a minor character from that first novel. My initial draft of it, according to my critique partners, lacked conflict. Oops. This is why you have critique partners. (Also, The Paris Affair has a new price over at Amazon--$2.99 for the Kindle edition. If you are looking for a steamy beach read, go download a copy).
Call the Rain has been enjoying a slow but decent little career. I've got a few good reviews here and there. I'd love more, but that's not up to me, really. Short of whining and begging, there's not much else I can do except to remind folks that if you read it and liked it, then give it a few stars (and maybe a few kind words) :)
And lastly, I have a new laptop. Not that it's really writing news, except setting it up did suck several days of my time by the time I installed Office, Adobe CS4, Visual Studio, Eclipse, etc. The old one was making a disturbing clicking noise and occasionally refused to wake up from hibernation. It also was barely powerful enough to run Word on Windows 7--Skype continually complained that that the video wasn't fast enough, and the built-in wifi adapter would drop connections from all but the oldest routers. I never could install Photoshop on it because it simply couldn't handle the pressure. Also, you can now buy micro SD cards with more storage space than it's harddrive (all of 60 gig...which was huge when I bought it). The old laptop and I have been through a lot together--8 years and 4+ manuscripts. It's not dead yet, but shall enjoy a slow slide into retirement with a much lighter workload.
Wednesday, May 8, 2013
What's next after Call the Rain
A downside of my shameless genre hopping is that, so far, I haven't really written two books in a row that are similar to each other. It's not that I can't write a follow-up, but over several years of shopping manuscripts, I was afraid to spend too much time working on a follow-up to something that might never sell. Throwing good money after bad (or, really, throwing good time after bad).
So, if you've read either of my published books (or even if you haven't), you might be wondering what I'll publish next. People like series, and if anyone happened to like what they read, they might want more of the same. The good news is that everything I have written will (eventually) have related follow-ups. The bad news is that I have yet to write most of those follow-ups.
Here's the plan (chronologically):
Near-Term:
Accomplice. Fall 2013 A sexy romantic suspense. Novel-length (around 65000 words). I'm a handful of scenes from the end, plus I have the post-draft work to do (lots of edits, formatting, cover art, etc).
Holiday 2013 I will be release a short (about 7500 words, or about 50 pages) tie-in called The Christmas Affair, featuring a character who only had a brief moment of screen time (Harriet, the disgruntled engineer). I have a draft of this done, but edits remain.
Longer Term:
Follow up to Call the Rain. Alas, I have not #2 in this series. And this will be a series made up of more novellas and some novel-length works. I have two competing ideas for the next installment. One is Quarie's story, the sister of the heroine from Call the Rain. The second is a different part of the same overall world, but all new characters. Quarie may appeal to readers of Call the Rain, but the second idea has been floating around my brain longer. I also have the beginning 1/4 of a longer, also-related work set in the same overall world. (Did I mention that this is Epic Fantasy with a ginormous world in which I shall slowly begin unveiling a rather large problem that affects every one of these disparate peoples that I'm going to be writing about...)
The Vegas Affair. This will be a novel-length direct sequel to The Paris Affair. It is the story of Kelsie, Helmut's sister. I am aiming for a 2014 release, but no promises because all I have written now is a short synopsis and some character notes.
Sci-Fi Romance series. I have been sitting on Leap for a couple of years (title is subject to change), but it is really book two of a series. I have the opening chapters to Take Me Down, book 1. But an opening does not a whole novel make. I have a whole series name and follow-ups planned.
The Wild Card:
And last, but not least, I have yet another contemporary (with series potential). I've been sitting on Hold on to the Knight for several years now. It's a sweet contemporary--another PG-type rated story. I didn't want to release it back-to-back with uber-sexy Paris Affair.
So, if you've read either of my published books (or even if you haven't), you might be wondering what I'll publish next. People like series, and if anyone happened to like what they read, they might want more of the same. The good news is that everything I have written will (eventually) have related follow-ups. The bad news is that I have yet to write most of those follow-ups.
Here's the plan (chronologically):
Near-Term:
Accomplice. Fall 2013 A sexy romantic suspense. Novel-length (around 65000 words). I'm a handful of scenes from the end, plus I have the post-draft work to do (lots of edits, formatting, cover art, etc).
Holiday 2013 I will be release a short (about 7500 words, or about 50 pages) tie-in called The Christmas Affair, featuring a character who only had a brief moment of screen time (Harriet, the disgruntled engineer). I have a draft of this done, but edits remain.
Longer Term:
Follow up to Call the Rain. Alas, I have not #2 in this series. And this will be a series made up of more novellas and some novel-length works. I have two competing ideas for the next installment. One is Quarie's story, the sister of the heroine from Call the Rain. The second is a different part of the same overall world, but all new characters. Quarie may appeal to readers of Call the Rain, but the second idea has been floating around my brain longer. I also have the beginning 1/4 of a longer, also-related work set in the same overall world. (Did I mention that this is Epic Fantasy with a ginormous world in which I shall slowly begin unveiling a rather large problem that affects every one of these disparate peoples that I'm going to be writing about...)
The Vegas Affair. This will be a novel-length direct sequel to The Paris Affair. It is the story of Kelsie, Helmut's sister. I am aiming for a 2014 release, but no promises because all I have written now is a short synopsis and some character notes.
Sci-Fi Romance series. I have been sitting on Leap for a couple of years (title is subject to change), but it is really book two of a series. I have the opening chapters to Take Me Down, book 1. But an opening does not a whole novel make. I have a whole series name and follow-ups planned.
The Wild Card:
And last, but not least, I have yet another contemporary (with series potential). I've been sitting on Hold on to the Knight for several years now. It's a sweet contemporary--another PG-type rated story. I didn't want to release it back-to-back with uber-sexy Paris Affair.
Sunday, February 19, 2012
The Business of Writing
Learning to run a writing business is fun in a totally geeky sort of way. Since getting The Call last September, I've dealt with contracts, promotion, taxes, accounting, graphic design, web design, networking....and a little writing also. Each new challenge is scary. Fun-scary. And I have no idea whether I'm doing anything right.
This is the second year that I have claimed writing expenses on our tax return, with no income to go with it :) My first royalty check from The Paris Affair is coming sometime later this winter or early spring. So, I got a nice little warning from TurboTax (our accountant of choice until taxes get too complicated) saying that our audit risk is high. Oops :)
One of my resolutions for this year is to be better organized about tracking income and expenses, so I bought a copy of Peachtree Accounting software. Before you jump on the bandwagon, I will warn you: for my purposes, so far I think it's like hiring a master carpenter to hang some pictures on the wall. Totally overkill as a spreadsheet would be sufficient. But, I found a 2010 version for under $5 on clearance, so the worst I've done is waste my time. And it has a ton of online help that walks you through accounting principles, so I think I"m actually getting a bit of an education. Not bad for the money :)
On the promotion front, I've been trying a variety of approaches while trying to stay in line with my projected income (aka: promoting on the cheap). I've done a handful of blogs (here, on the Soul Mate Authors group, and a couple of guest blogs elsewhere). I've given away a couple of copies of my book. (I have a giveaway running this week over on the SMP Authors site). I've tried to be on twitter and facebook, but my playtime there has been limited by the day job (where I've been working longer hours than normal) and the night job (where my munchkins deserve better than to see me over the top of my phone or laptop screen).
Also for promotion, I am playing with online ads. My web hosting service had a bunch of ad credits that I could use, so I've been playing with Facebook and Google ads. I might have Yahoo credit I could claim as well. It's a bit difficult to see how useful the advertising really is. Authors get a small amount of visibility into Amazon rankings of their books, and my publisher can share stats if I ask. But though I am attempting a few tricks to track which clicks result in sales, I don't know if the ads are helping much. So far, I would bet that if I were paying the ad money out of my own pocket instead of a free promotional credit, that I would probably spend more than I am earning from it. I am treating this as on-the-job-training :)
For online ads, you can either use ugly-looking text-only ads, or come up with fancy-looking graphics. Hiring a graphic designer's not in the budget (though I know a couple of them who would be awesome), so I'm polishing up my Photoshop skills. And contemplating making Romance Trading Cards. A lot of authors I know also print bookmarks, and though I'd love to do that (I can never get enough bookmarks), they seem like a strange kind of promo item for a digital release. I might do them anyway, as time permits (maybe with a QR code with the digital buy link?) Hmmm...
The only bad part about all this is that I'm not spending a lot of time writing. My "season" is coming up, though. I typically pump out a lot of words in November, and then again during Lent. No religious association here, but for some reason the mid Feb-mid April timeframe has worked well for me to really get writing. Late spring and summer have been good times for me to revise.
This is the second year that I have claimed writing expenses on our tax return, with no income to go with it :) My first royalty check from The Paris Affair is coming sometime later this winter or early spring. So, I got a nice little warning from TurboTax (our accountant of choice until taxes get too complicated) saying that our audit risk is high. Oops :)
One of my resolutions for this year is to be better organized about tracking income and expenses, so I bought a copy of Peachtree Accounting software. Before you jump on the bandwagon, I will warn you: for my purposes, so far I think it's like hiring a master carpenter to hang some pictures on the wall. Totally overkill as a spreadsheet would be sufficient. But, I found a 2010 version for under $5 on clearance, so the worst I've done is waste my time. And it has a ton of online help that walks you through accounting principles, so I think I"m actually getting a bit of an education. Not bad for the money :)
On the promotion front, I've been trying a variety of approaches while trying to stay in line with my projected income (aka: promoting on the cheap). I've done a handful of blogs (here, on the Soul Mate Authors group, and a couple of guest blogs elsewhere). I've given away a couple of copies of my book. (I have a giveaway running this week over on the SMP Authors site). I've tried to be on twitter and facebook, but my playtime there has been limited by the day job (where I've been working longer hours than normal) and the night job (where my munchkins deserve better than to see me over the top of my phone or laptop screen).
Also for promotion, I am playing with online ads. My web hosting service had a bunch of ad credits that I could use, so I've been playing with Facebook and Google ads. I might have Yahoo credit I could claim as well. It's a bit difficult to see how useful the advertising really is. Authors get a small amount of visibility into Amazon rankings of their books, and my publisher can share stats if I ask. But though I am attempting a few tricks to track which clicks result in sales, I don't know if the ads are helping much. So far, I would bet that if I were paying the ad money out of my own pocket instead of a free promotional credit, that I would probably spend more than I am earning from it. I am treating this as on-the-job-training :)
For online ads, you can either use ugly-looking text-only ads, or come up with fancy-looking graphics. Hiring a graphic designer's not in the budget (though I know a couple of them who would be awesome), so I'm polishing up my Photoshop skills. And contemplating making Romance Trading Cards. A lot of authors I know also print bookmarks, and though I'd love to do that (I can never get enough bookmarks), they seem like a strange kind of promo item for a digital release. I might do them anyway, as time permits (maybe with a QR code with the digital buy link?) Hmmm...
The only bad part about all this is that I'm not spending a lot of time writing. My "season" is coming up, though. I typically pump out a lot of words in November, and then again during Lent. No religious association here, but for some reason the mid Feb-mid April timeframe has worked well for me to really get writing. Late spring and summer have been good times for me to revise.
Monday, January 16, 2012
Mulligan? (Contest!)
One of the silly things I keep fighting lately is technology. Ironic, huh. I'm a software engineer! For real! They pay me like money and stuff! Except, not to administer websites.
So, I tried to be smart and set up a giveaway. I found a snippet of my book, set up a post on my website, scheduled the post....and....I forgot to allow users to actually comment on it. Oops. Well, technically, any registered user could post a comment, but since I'm the only registered user and I don't think the login page was set to allow new registered users, that was kind of useless.
But! I think I'm all fixed. Er, my site is. For now :) Want to win an Amazon Gift card? Click over here and leave a comment. That's it. Your comment can be "enter me in the contest."
Teaser and a $10 Amazon giftcard giveaway
(Maybe I should just switch it to a nice static set of html pages and a link to Blogger. I'm more comfortable over here. But, you know, having my name in the domain is kind of cool, right?)
So, I tried to be smart and set up a giveaway. I found a snippet of my book, set up a post on my website, scheduled the post....and....I forgot to allow users to actually comment on it. Oops. Well, technically, any registered user could post a comment, but since I'm the only registered user and I don't think the login page was set to allow new registered users, that was kind of useless.
But! I think I'm all fixed. Er, my site is. For now :) Want to win an Amazon Gift card? Click over here and leave a comment. That's it. Your comment can be "enter me in the contest."
Teaser and a $10 Amazon giftcard giveaway
(Maybe I should just switch it to a nice static set of html pages and a link to Blogger. I'm more comfortable over here. But, you know, having my name in the domain is kind of cool, right?)
Friday, December 16, 2011
The Paris Affair Now on Amazon Directly
The Paris Affair has been available from the publisher's website since Wednesday. From there, the "buy" links will download straight onto your Kindle or Nook (or allow you to save a file for loading separately, for folks like me who have non-wifi enabled e-reader...).
But as of this morning, my book is also for sale directly on Amazon's website! Discoverability is a good thing! The image below is the buy link.
B&N should be coming soon.
But as of this morning, my book is also for sale directly on Amazon's website! Discoverability is a good thing! The image below is the buy link.
B&N should be coming soon.
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