Author: Cindy

I'm irritated because my posts won't publish.

Go Go Galapagos!

Wow, now that was a whirlwind of experience!

My husband and I have just returned from 18 days in Ecuador, two weeks of which were spent in the Galapagos Islands. We had an amazing time, met some incredible people, and discovered a naturalist’s paradise. Now we’re back home, both sick with a cold he caught the last two days of our cruise, trying to recover from 30 hours of travel and get caught up on our “real” lives. I took a million pictures and also some short videos, and I plan to blog about our trip like I did our Peru trip from two years ago. So you can begin looking for the blog posts to appear hopefully by the end of the week. I need to learn how to type again first (feeling constantly dizzy and having blocked ears doesn’t help). Laundry to do, groceries to buy, dog to walk and run. Yes, real life intrudes once again.

I just have to say that my two weeks on board the Cormorant catamaran were totally stress-free and filled with tons of laughter (I began to worry that all I knew how to do was laugh). I didn’t have to cook (yet ate three big meals a day – amazing food), didn’t have to clean the house, and had no deadlines to fret over. I’m not sure blogging about what you experience in the Galapagos Islands can do it justice, but I’ll try. The pictures should speak for themselves.

Over and out until my head stops spinning from this cold. Be back soon.

AudioLark Taking Questions at Romance University

Today my audio publisher, Jennifer Fedderson of AudioLark, is talking about Listen Up! Romance Audio Books Increase Author Profits over at Romance University. She asked both myself, as the author of Where She Belongs (which she is giving away on her blog post at RU), and Renee Chambliss, the narrator of two of my three books on audio, to pop in and also contribute descriptions of our parts in the process.

If you’re at all interested in getting your books into audio, or if you love reading audiobooks and want a look inside the process, please pop over.

Yes, It’s April

I’ve been so busy writing lately that I haven’t had time for the blog. I know, I’m bad. The proliferation of social networks has made the blog kind of passé, but I like that posting to my blog feeds to the social networks, which is where I get the most interaction with my blog readers. It’s so easy to reply to a blog post on Facebook, etc., why bother visiting the author’s website and commenting there? I understand the ease, and I understand the reluctance to post one’s email address in the Comment field (even though the blog admin is the only person who sees it). I don’t visit blogs anywhere near as often I used to. I used to check several author and agent blogs per day. Now, well, there doesn’t seem to be enough hours IN the day to engage in the social networking that most publishers insist the author needs to do, blog, AND write our books.

No, I’m not dismantling my blog, just providing one of my myriad excuses why I don’t post here with regularity anymore. Also, when people don’t comment ON the blog, it does make the author feel a little like there might not be interest in what I’m posting. Maybe I’m getting boring.

I’d like to say I’m going to make a concerted effort to begin blogging more frequently. And I have some professional changes coming up in June that just might very well lead to me blogging regularly. In fact, I think I’ll put that on my June to-do list.

I don’t want to announce the changes now, because they’re still in the works, but let’s just say I’m entering a new and exciting stage of my writing career. One that will put me in charge more than ever before (was I ever in charge?). Some of you will know what I’m talking about. The rest, make a guess!

Judging and Social Networks

Just a bit of ‘net etiquette when it comes to judging unpublished manuscripts or published books in contests…

If you agree to judge a writing contest, please hold off on announcing which manuscript or book you’ve judged via a review or rating or comment at any of the tons of sites and social networks out there until AFTER the finalists have been announced. Judging packets usually include an indication of when the finalists will be notified and many judging packets (indeed most of the packets for contests I’ve judged) explicitly state not to discuss scores in the preliminary rounds. This is certainly a huge stipulation in the RITAs, RWA’s annual contest for published novels. And it’s the case in pretty much every RWA chapter contest in which I’ve participated as a judge.

Please note that I don’t have an issue with reviews, and I don’t have an issue with ratings. When it comes to published books, I don’t even have an issue with reviews or ratings that are posted before contest finalists are announced. After all, in order for the author to enter a contest for published novels, the novel has to have been published already, and whoever has read it certainly has the right to make their opinions about the book known.

However, when a judge points out that they judged the book in a particular contest and that contest is still on-going…it kind of takes the fun and anticipation out of the contest for the author.

Okay, so we don’t really enter writing contests for fun. We enter them to get judged—and hopefully make the finals. Judging occurs during the contest, and it can certainly occur on a public forum in the form of a review or rating. Just please make sure not to say where and why you read the book if contest finalists have not been announced.

And that’s my PSA for today!

Published
Categorized as Contests

Greece Is The Word

I’ve been holding onto this information for weeks! I sold Greek translation rights for BORROWING ALEX to Anubis Publications in Athens for publication in mass market paperback and ebook for distribution in Greece and Cyprus. As you can tell, I’m super excited that BORROWING ALEX has found its first foreign market.

Essentially, this will be the first time one of my books will be published in mass market format rather than the larger and more expensive trade paperback format. The print run for the comic book edition of HEAD OVER HEELS was larger than the Greek print run for BORROWING ALEX, and comic books are a form of mass market, but the Greek edition of BORROWING ALEX will be the first time one of my books will appear in narrative form in mass market—just in another language.

What makes it more fun is that a friend of mine also sold one of her books to Anubis. I’ll let her out herself, if she happens to read this blog post. We didn’t find out until a week or so ago that we had both been approached.

Everything has happened so fast since I was contacted by the publisher a month or so ago. Oh, it might have been January. I had several hoops to jump through to prove to the Greek authorities that I am a Canadian citizen for tax purposes for 2012, so I won’t be double-taxed. Every sale to a different country comes with its own learning curve, and the Greek sale was no exception. Unlike when I sold HEAD OVER HEELS to Japan and only needed to fill out a form and basically certify myself, for Greece I had to get Revenue Canada to write a letter on official letterhead stating that I am a Canadian resident for tax purposes, and I also had to get a Revenue Canada representative to fill out and sign a Hellenic tax form. Turns out you can do this all through the mail, but I had no idea how long it would take to accomplish. I received the letter from Revenue Canada quicker than anticipated, and yesterday I sent off all the paperwork for tax purposes to the manager of Anubis Publications.

Like with the Japanese sale of HEAD OVER HEELS, the sale of BORROWING ALEX came out of the blue, as a result of Anubis first approaching Amber Quill Press, which published the first edition of BORROWING ALEX. So if anyone has questions about how to go about finding foreign markets for books for which you hold those rights, alas, I don’t have the answers. I would like to get my books into more foreign markets, so this is something I will have to investigate sooner or later.

For now, I’m thrilled that the Greek translation has been accomplished, and apparently I should be receiving my author copies soon. When I do, I’ll post the cover.

Published
Categorized as My Books