More holiday give-aways!

My alter ego’s publisher, Red Sage, is hosting Rock Around December with Red Sage. The contest runs until December 31st.

From the Red Sage blog:

During the month of December, keep your finger on the pulse of the Red Sage Blog, and leave a comment on any post to be entered to win a prize pack. We’re talking signed print copies of the Secrets Anthology, a list of the hottest freakin’ e-books on the market, some e-books that haven’t even been released yet, and goodies galore. You might even find some delicious chocolate showing up on your doorstep in addition to the eye candy our book covers provide. The covers and trailers here are only some of the prizes the winner will receive.

So follow the blog. Comment. It’s that simple. The more comments you leave, the more times your name is dropped into a hat.

Note, when you read, “follow the blog. Comment,” that doesn’t mean to comment on MY blog to win a free book. You can comment here if you like (you know, to tell me how wonderful I am), but understand it won’t enter you in the contest. Comment on the Red Sage blog to enter the contest. I’m just passing along the info because I’m gracious, charitable, and humble. Of course, you already knew that.

Have fun!

AudioLark is the audiobook publisher for HEAD OVER HEELS and BORROWING ALEX (release dates TBA). AudioLark and its sister site for erotic romance audio books, AudioMinx, are hosting holiday give-aways.

Just visit either site and click on the Free Book Give-Away Link to download Christmas in an Elevator by Kay Murky.

They’re also giving away free audiobooks to newsletter subscribers. Visit either site for details.

Lately, I’ve been reading the term “indie author” to describe self-publishing. I find it interesting that none of the authors on the professional authors e-publishing loop I referred to last week use the term. They just say self-publishing, or re-releasing their back list in ebook form (self-publishing is a shorter way of saying that). I’m interested in why the use of “indie author” has come about. Is it because “self-published” has a negative connotation when it comes to fiction? Or to differentiate that you haven’t paid a vanity press to print your book, or to get you reviews, etc? Vanity press being, in my point of view, a printer who calls themselves a publisher who will print anything sent to them. They don’t care as long as they’re getting paid. Compared to, say, paying for your own editing services (or swapping editing services) to one individual, paying for your cover art (or creating it yourself) from probably another individual, and uploading the book to e-book venues yourself (or, again, paying someone else to do it). To ME, that’s self-publishing. When you’re really doing it all yourself instead of paying a vanity press usually way more money than necessary to do it for you.

The thing I don’t understand is that all authors are “independent authors,” because we’re independent contractors. I guess if you have a 5-book contract with a major publisher…no, I would still consider that author as running her own business (which she is). Even Nora. So…isn’t Nora an indie author?

Unless you’re an employee of a publishing house, you’re independent as far as I can tell.

So…is “indie author” used to differentiate from “published with a major house?” To differentiate from “being under contract”? If that’s the case, I’m very much an indie author. Because I haven’t sold to a major publishing house and I’ve never sold a 2+ book contract. Yet I’m not an indie author, according to how I’ve seen the term used, because I’m not self-published.

What am I missing?

Educate me!

I belong to a loop of multi-published authors who are interested in self-publishing their back lists on Kindle, Smashwords, and the like. I heard about the loop as a result of my Novelists, Inc. membership and joined while the loop was in its infancy. I joined because I would like to self-publish my out-of-print short story, DECEIVING DEREK, on Kindle (I’d say which publisher previously had it up for sale, but they didn’t pay me my due royalties, so I don’t want to give them the credit, and, besides, they’re out of business). You know, when I have the time. Plus, while I sold library edition hardcover rights and other rights to my upcoming contemporary romance, WHERE SHE BELONGS, to Five Star Expressions (December 2011), Five Star doesn’t buy electronic rights. So, eventually, I will self-publish the ebook version of WHERE SHE BELONGS, as well. My Five Star contract states I can’t publish the ebook until 12 months following the hardcover release, which means you won’t see the ebook until at least December 2012. But I’m a Capricorn. I like to prepare. And so I joined the e-loop, which was the brainchild of multi-published contemporary romance author, Julie Ortolon. She also designs ebook covers. Multi-talented, that Julie.

It’s a very busy loop as the authors learn the ins and outs of self-publishing their back lists and help each other along. In case you’re not a writer, by “back list” I mean books previously published by traditional publishers or small publishers, or the odd e-publisher. Books for which the rights have reverted to the authors. Or the authors are in the process of getting the rights reverted to them, usually because the contracts didn’t stipulate ebook rights. But other cases also apply.

The e-loop grew very big very quickly. As someone only published by small press and e-publishers, I’m definitely in the minority. Although I’m not alone. There are a few more like me on the loop, who also probably gained entrance through membership in Novelists, Inc.

Some of the more industrious authors on the e-loop have banded together to form the Back List EBooks website. If you visit, the site that’s there now is temporary. The group is currently getting a site professionally designed (depending when you read this, it might be up by now). If you buy books from this site, you are assured that the books are not pirated (pirating is bad, very bad). You are supporting the authors who put in the hard work of writing the books, not some schlep who thinks it’s okay to scan books into his computer, create ebooks from them, and sell them (that’s illegal). Or even someone who has bought an ebook and then thinks it’s okay to upload it to a file-sharing site or sell it (again, illegal, because you could feasibly sell 1000 or more copies of an ebook, whereas, when you buy a paper book and then take it to a used bookstore and they sell it, sooner or later that book will fall apart and need replacing, so it’s a different ball of wax). Yes, anyone who has downloaded an ebook for free, or even paid for it, from a file-sharing site or, yes, places like eBay, you are not supporting the authors. You are supporting an ebook pirate. For shame. Most authors struggle to earn even a part time income from their writing. Don’t make their lives harder by paying pirates for books!!

Ahem. Back on topic.

Here’s some info from the Back List EBooks site:

Backlist Ebooks is a brand new venture designed to help ebook readers find quality fiction from established authors who have e-released their out-of-print novels. Participating authors must have self-published one or more backlist titles that were originally published traditionally, in print, by a major professional publishing house (as we define it).

Note the “as we define it.” Their website, their definition of a major professional publishing house. I have no problem with it. For more details, check out the About Joining Us section on their website. (Hint, it’s on the Resources tab).

They also have a Facebook page.

As of April 2011, Harlequin Enterprises is removing the Silhouette branding from several of its lines. Only Harlequin branding will remain. While I have yet to find a link to a formal announcement, the news is all over Twitter and Facebook, with a well known editor confirming that Harlequin/Silhouette authors have either already received letters advising them of the change or they will receive the letters very soon.

Silhouette Special Edition, Desire, and Romantic Suspense will all fall under Harlequin branding, joining Harlequin Nocturne, which was previously branded as Silhouette Nocturne. Word has it that Love Inspired will remain a Harlequin brand, but Steeple Hill will be no more. I’m not familiar enough with the Inspirational lines to comment on the change.

Silhouette first emerged in 1980 as part of Simon Schuster. Harlequin bought Silhouette Books in 1984 and continued to run the Silhouette-branded lines from its New York offices while overseeing the Harlequin brands at its Toronto office. There was some overlap. Harlequin Intrigue, for example, ran editorial out of the NYC offices.

Now all the lines will be branded as Harlequin. What does this mean to readers? I’m not sure. Will they follow the line or wonder what happened to the brand? I would think they will follow the line, if Harlequin publicizes the transition well.

Pure speculation on my part, but the melding of the brands has me wondering about the future of “former” H/S lines. Harlequin Superromance and Silhouette Special Edition offer different editorial visions, but both are “long contemporary series.” Harlequin Intrigue and Silhouette Romantic Suspense are similar in some aspects, different in others (Intrigue apparently has a higher suspense to romance ration, and SRS has a longer word count). Harlequin Blaze and Silhouette Desire, however, in my mind at least, are totally different.

These are interesting times in publishing!

How do you feel about the changes?

Dear Author reports that editor Leah Hultenschmidt, formerly of Dorchester Publishing, is now with Sourcebooks, where she will acquire romance and young adult fiction. Good for her. That didn’t take very long.

Congratulations to both Leah and to Sourcebooks!

I’ve gotta spin this some way.

A couple of days ago I found out that the Five Star Expressions hardcover library line, to which I sold my contemporary romance, WHERE SHE BELONGS, will cease publication after December 2011. That’s when WHERE SHE BELONGS is coming out. Five Star/Tekno is still acquiring manuscripts for their Mystery line, but women’s fiction and romance, which had a home in Expressions, is no more. I was very sad to hear this news. My first sale to the line, and I had hopes for more sales. I really enjoyed working with my editor. She really went above-board for me. For one thing, my submission came about as a result of a conversation on the Novelists, Inc. email loop. My editor contacted me and said when I was ready to submit to Five Star/Cengage, she wanted to see the manuscript. I hadn’t planned on submitting in February. I wasn’t going to submit until after I finished revisions on a single title. But as soon as I heard that she wanted to see my book, I dropped those revisions faster than a flat potato pancake. I polished WHERE SHE BELONGS until it shone, working my way through a dead computer and a new Dell that wouldn’t see delivery for two weeks. Just a couple of weeks ago, we worked on the edits. My manuscript went “into production,” and I expected the next news to be that my cover art had arrived or that proofs needed looking at.

Those will still occur. As far as I know at this point, WHERE SHE BELONGS is still in the queue to be published. I know of at least one other December 2011 Expressions author, Stacey Coverstone. She and I, I believe, will be the last Expressions authors.

I have no idea what this means for my print run, distribution, or how quickly the book will go out of print. At this point, especially in light of everything that’s happening at Dorchester (including the recent axing of two editors), I’m counting myself lucky that my story will see print at all. Working on this book again made me realize how much I love it. It’s a “book of my heart.”

You know what this means, don’t you? When I say, at some point in 2011, that the book is available for pre-order, tell everyone you know to pre-order the heck out of the thing. When I announce, in December 2011, that the book is available, buy it right away. Help me help the Five Star Expressions line go out with a bang.

Strangely, I’m not depressed. I’m sad, but I’m not down and out. I’ve become so accustomed to looking forward in this industry, I’m not sure I even know how to look backward anymore. I’ll dust myself off and move on to the next opportunity. A little sad at the news, but a whole lot glad that I had a chance to become part of the Five Star/Cengage family.

If you’re a romance writer and at all savvy in the ways of the ‘Net and keeping up with news of the industry, you know about Dorchester’s announcement to drop its mass market publishing program in favor of ebooks with eventual trade publication down the line. Or something like that. I’m in the midst of edits for my December 2011 Five Star Expressions release, and while I’ve been following the talk throughout the weekend, I haven’t had time to pay the attention to it that I’d like. What I do know is that I have friends who write for Dorchester, and I feel for them. I hear even the editorial staff was surprised by Dorchester’s decision. But Dorchester has fallen on hard times, and at least the company is trying to do something about it. Whether how they’re going about it will make authors happy remains to be seen. If Dorchester is abandoning the mass market publishing model, does that mean they’ll also abandon advances and offer higher royalties instead? I don’t know. I figure the people who are more likely to discover these things are the people, the writers, who have a vested interest in them. IE. Dorchester authors. And so I’ll hand you over to the likes of Anna DeStefano, a Dorchester author who is blogging about the changes at Dorchester on her blog as she experiences them. She’s doing a great job. The link I just provided will take you to the first in Anna’s articles on the subject.

I admire several Dorchester authors, and I have bought several Dorchester books. In fact, on Friday, just before I heard that the rumor bandied about on Twitter was in fact not a rumor, I received notification from my favorite on-line bookstore that a Dorchester novel I’d ordered was on its way in the mail to me. I expect to receive it this week. And I really want to read it (Book 4 in Gemma Halliday’s High Heel Mysteries series). But maybe I should wrap it in plastic and store it away instead—as one of the last mass market paperbacks Dorchester might ever print.

Who am I kidding? I’ll read it. I love Gemma’s writing.

I’m an epublished author (or “digital author,” if that’s your preference). (“Digital author” makes me think of  little Jack Horner sticking his fingers into a pie, I must say). “Digital first,” as some larger publishers are now calling themselves. That means ebook first, then trade paperback somewhere down the line, whether it’s a month later with the trades printed with Print on Demand technology (basically no warehousing involved) (by the way, this was how my first two cindypks were published with Amber Quill), or digital release (there’s the finger popping out of the pie!) with the trades releasing several months down the line (like Samhain and others; I only mention Samhain because they have a great reputation and I know several of their authors, so I’m familiar that they indeed do publish their ebooks in print several months down the line). Some publishers use POD technology for the trade paperbacks, and others run small print runs.

Okay, so I’m an epublished author, we’ve established that. Why does hearing that Dorchester is dropping mass market sadden me? Because, to me, “mass market” (meaning a printing format) = distribution. And distribution = a greater chance at sales. A greater chance at earning an income beyond what I fondly term The King Family Kraft Dinner Fund. I know a lot of people who pretty much only buy their books in mass market format—at the grocery store, maybe once in a blue moon through a trip to a bookstore. I don’t know many people who order books on-line (I do, because I don’t have to leave the house and I order enough to qualify for free shipping in one go), I don’t know anyone outside of some American writer friends who owns an e-reader or plans to buy one. Yes, this will change as the publishing industry changes. I don’t even own an e-reader yet, but have plans to buy one next year (must wait for a good reason, like a birthday, and my most recent birthday was in January). Yes, as an epublished author who first ventured into the arena ten years ago (I signed my first epublishing contract in 1999 or 2000, but then cancelled it before the book came out because I’d learned some not-so-good things about the company), I’ve been hopeful and waiting for the time when e-readers would come down in price and the public would begin to embrace ebooks. But I didn’t envision that happening at the expense of other publishing models, like mass market. And that, honestly, isn’t what’s happened. The recession in the U.S. has played a major part. I WANT the public to embrace digital publishing, but I don’t like seeing any format disappear. Certainly not a format to which I aspire to publish my books. I’m sad for new authors who recently sold to Dorchester and thought they’d finally achieved their dream of mass market publication, only to discover that all the bucks they’d spent on promotion, etc., might be for naught, because Dorchester’s entire (now trade) print publishing schedule is being pushed back. I feel for authors who have 3 or 4 books out in a series in mass market who are facing the last book in the series getting published “digital first.” Will their mass market readers follow them? If those readers don’t follow them, what will that mean for those authors’ careers? I feel sad for readers who can’t afford e-readers and don’t use credit cards (I know such people), which are useful little items for ordering things on-line. I think, as the industry changes, readers as well as writers will get caught in the crunch. We are living in exciting times…as long as you aren’t personally affected by it. We’re living in exciting publishing times…you know, when you look back on it fifty years hence and can think, Hey, wasn’t that kind of like when the whole Gutenburg thing happened? And I was part of it. Cool. But right now, the times, they are uncertain. Authors careers, they are uncertain. If you are a reader and you have a favorite author, the best thing you can do for them is support them and buy their books new. Not from a used book store and, for heaven’s sake, not by downloading “free” ebooks from a pirate site. Those “free” ebooks are illegal copies and authors don’t earn one penny from those downloads. Authors don’t earn money from non-existent “sales.” If authors don’t earn money, publishers might axe them—because publishing is a business and businesses like to make money. If publishers don’t earn money, then they might drop entire publishing programs. And if you like to buy your books from the grocery store, then that WILL impact you.

Okay, I’m rambling. I’ll admit it. Time to stop. I don’t know if anything I’ve said here makes sense. The publishing industry is changing, not all of it for the good, and as an author I need to learn as much as I can about those changes. And I need to adapt and change along with them. Which I intend to do. But first I have to honor my contract and get those edits in under deadline. Because I’m a writer, and that’s the way we roll.

~~~~

UPDATE! Dorchester now has some information about the transition to their new publishing program on their website.