I’ve decided with much reluctance to step away from my (now former) Golden Heart 2007 finalists (“The 007s”) group blog, Nobody Writes It Better. If you’ve visited the blog lately and noticed that the posts are really, really old, that’s because they are. The blog experienced a bit of a disaster in late December in the way of a nasty virus that was whipping its way around the web and somehow made its way onto the site and infected several of the members’ computers, including mine. Ol’ Delbert. May he rest in pieces. This happened just as I was going on vacation, so I had to leave the fixes to other members of the management team. Our blog designer fixed the problem, but then it seemed to reoccur, which was horribly confusing, as we didn’t know how it was happening. We had over 30 members when we started blogging only last June. The planning and design process of the blog occurred for another several months before that. Well, once the blog was fixed, it seemed like a good time for members to take stock of their involvement. And the exodus began. About ten members still remain with the blog, but it’s undergoing a transition period so currently is inoperative.

Everything in me wanted to stay with the blog (I have a problem giving up), but as one of the members of the initial management team, I’d put hours and hours and countless hours into not only the design of the blog, but also the set-up and several aspects of the continuing maintenance. I just couldn’t keep it up. I also discovered along the way that I’m not really suited to group blogging. With 31 or 32 members, we had to keep a pretty tight schedule, and scheduled blogging makes me feel…pressured. Yes, I only blogged every 6 weeks, however, unlike here, I didn’t feel like I could just whip out a post. No, I had to take more time, say something important or clever. And trying to be clever, as we all know, is stressful. It’s better when the cleverness just pours out of us naturally!

Would I consider joining another group blog? Yes, maybe, we’ll see. It depends. It would depend on a number of factors. But right now I need a break.

Regardless of who stays with the blog and who has decided to leave, we are all still 007 Bond Girl sisters. We’ll still cheer each other on, celebrate our successes and commiserate with our lows. We don’t need a group blog to do that.

How do you feel about group blogs? Do you read them? Do you participate in one? What about it works for you (or doesn’t)?

I visited Natalie Damschroder’s blog the other day to discover that she’d passed on The Circle of Friends Blog Award to little ol’ moi. Thanks, Natalie!

You know what this means, don’t you?

(1) She reads my blog on a nearly daily basis

(2) She enjoys my wit and intelligence

(3) She wants me to buy her a drink in Nashville

(4) She wants to buy ME a drink in Nashville

(5) She is constantly amazed at our mutual GMTA. Excellent. Because I am, too.

I’m pleased to have the award. The shade of blue looks so wonderful on my website that a little, evil part of me isn’t sure I should pass on the button to others. But I will. Because I enjoy blog-hopping. I don’t do it as much as I used to, what with Facebook and Twitter and those nasty things called deadlines getting in the way. I wish I had more time to blog-hop, because I think it’s much more personal, shall we say, than truncated Twitter posts. But there are several blogs that I visit nearly every day (even if I don’t always comment) and their authors deserve a look-see. So blog-hop-on over to:

Avery Beck

Edie Ramer

HelenKay Dimon

Maureen McGowan

Carina Press editor Angela James blogs about why publishers don’t often send personalized rejections. Well worth a read.

My favorite personalized rejection over the last year? “Your story made it to our ‘perhaps’ pile, but sadly we can’t publish them all.” It made me laugh. The editor also apologized for the length of time it took to receive a reply, which is always nice. (No, it wasn’t Angela James!)

Do you have a favorite personalized rejection line? Paraphrase it for me, baby.

Seeing as my buddy, my pal, my lifelong friend (and most excellent critique partner, or “cp” as we like to call each other) Kate St. James doesn’t have a blog (for shame!), I promised to pass this along for her.

Kate’s blogging in the contemporary area of RomConInc today! And giving away a copy of Secrets 28: SENSUAL CRAVINGS, which includes her most excellent erotic romance novella, Kiss Me at Midnight.

Leave a comment for Kate at RomCon for your chance to win!

I’m blogging at Nobody Writes It Better today…about cats and Christmas trees. I even wrote a Christmas cat poem! Hop on over to read it.

Today’s the last day of the Super Secret Santa Give-Away over at Nobody Writes It Better as well. Click here to learn how to enter. Barbara Wallace is drawing the winner’s name later today, and Gail Fuller will announce the winner on the NWIB blog tomorrow.

Merry Christmas, everyone!

My group blog, Nobody Writes It Better, is holding The Super Secret Santa Give-Away from now until Christmas Eve, with the winner announced on Christmas Day. Several authors are participating, with some of us donating copies of our books and some of us donating gifts. Each author will mail her book/gift to the winner independently, so every time you visit your mailbox, you might find another present therein. Sounds like fun, no? For my part, I’m donating a copy of BORROWING ALEX.

Visit The Super Secret Santa Give-Away for details on how to enter. (Note: comments to this post, while appreciated, do not enter you in the contest. Visit the blog and follow the directions there).

I’ve installed a (supposedly) cool Twitter plug-in for WordPress called Tweetmeme that (supposedly) allows me or a blog reader to easily tweet my blog posts. You can see the icon at the bottom of each blog (it says “tweet” on a green background that magically matches my color scheme—honest, I didn’t adjust it! It came that way).

The problem? I can’t get the plug-in to work. Whenever I try to tweet a post, I get the error, “Failed to resolve URL for tweet.” In my usual ignoramus way, I have no idea what this means. I’m contacting Someone Far Wiser in hopes they have the answer. But because they are SFW, they probably didn’t encounter this issue on their own blog and I’m probably SNAFU’ed. But what else is new?

In my defense, this is the first plug-in I’ve ever installed. Maybe I screwed up (noooo, can’t be!).

I just upgraded my WordPress. Maybe Tweetmeme hasn’t caught up yet.

So, if you want to tweet one of my blog posts, click on the green “tweet” button at the bottom of the post in question and give it a whirl. If it doesn’t work, blame your Thanksgiving turkey. Even if his name isn’t Vincent.

If you’re reading this post in the far future and don’t see the cute little green “tweet” button, that’s because I could never get it to work and gave up.

If you’re reading this post in the far past and don’t see the cute little green “tweet” button, that’s because I hadn’t installed it yet! So no time-traveling for you, my dear blog readers, or this post won’t make sense.

UPDATE: Saturday a.m. I was able to tweet a blog post today, so I’m no longer SNAFU’ed. Not sure what I did right this morning that I did wrong yesterday. That it was tweeted isn’t showing up on the icon, but that doesn’t matter. I’m going for efficiency here.

Wow, a lot happened yesterday. Not only did Romance Writers of America inform Harlequin/Silhouette that they were no longer on RWA’s list of eligible publishers (which get perks like meeting space for Spotlights and book signings and for offering editor appointments) as a result of opening a vanity publishing division and putting the Harlequin name on it, but Mystery Writers of America and Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America stepped in, too. Author Jackie Kessler provided a breakdown of the Horizons press release on her blog. Here’s a link to her post yesterday, Harlequin Horizons Versus RWA. If you’re considering submitting to ANY vanity publisher, I encourage you to read it. It’s very, very important for a writer to educate herself about the multitude of, um, opportunities available in publishing today.

In her post, Jackie points out:

Vanity presses hurt authors. The rule of thumb is money flows **toward** the author. Period. Authors should not have to pay to get their books published — they should be paid for their work. If authors choose to self-publish, they damn well should get 100% of the profits, because they have paid for everything up front.

With vanity presses, money flows TOWARD the press FROM the writer. The press keeps some of the royalties, too. This differs from true self-publishing where the writer pays all the expenses to publish her book but also retains ALL the profits.

If a writer decides to publish her work through a vanity press, that’s her choice. But educate yourself first. Make SURE this is the option you want to take, when there are so many other options available, such as true self-publishing, or, hey about this one—continuing to hone your craft and submitting to advance and/or royalty paying publishers that don’t require you to contribute a dime toward the publication of your work.

Back to RWA and Harlequin Horizons. RWA pulled the hard line and removed Harlequin from their list of eligible publishers yesterday. Harlequin responded and is now going to remove the Harlequin name from the Horizons venture. Agent Kristin Nelson printed the Harlequin letter to its authors in its entirety on her blog. Here’s a snippet of that letter:

Most importantly, however, we have heard the concerns that you, our authors, have expressed regarding the potential confusion between this venture and our traditional business. As such, we are changing the name of the self-publishing company from Harlequin Horizons to a designation that will not refer to Harlequin in any way. We will initiate this process immediately.

Jackie Kessler then breaks down that letter on her blog in a post called The Day After: Harlequin Blinks. If you’re looking for a crash course in the Horizons, um, journey, this is another good post to read. Read Harlequin Horizons Versus RWA first.

I am proud of RWA for taking a hard line with Horizons. They have taken a hard line with small publishers when those publishers have chosen to open new lines or divisions that don’t meet the requirements for an RWA-eligible publisher, so it only makes sense to me that they would take a hard line with a major publisher, too. I can’t say that I had every confidence that the RWA board WOULD take a hard line. Because I didn’t. I was pleasantly surprised. Hurrah for the new RWA board.

I am glad the Harlequin name will no longer be associated with Horizons. However, I am still unhappy about the possibility of Harlequin rejection letters pointing rejected writers TO Horizons as an avenue for publishing their books. I personally don’t see how retaining this option will get H/S back onto the list of RWA-eligible publishers.

Stay tuned!