Category: My Books

Deceiving Derek Is At Smashwords!

Deceiving Derek, Story 1 in LOVE & OTHER CALAMITIES is now available in multiple ebook formats at Smashwords! Seeing as I’m leaving for the Novelists, Inc. conference in a week, I’ve decided to go ahead and hire a formatter to create the Kindle and Kobo/Apple (ePub) editions. I know, I know, I said I would learn formatting on this short story, but learning to format for Smashwords was enough for this puppy. I still need to finish editing Catching Claire, the second story in the series, and hopefully get it off to the formatter before I leave for NINC, as well. The less time I spend on formatting Deceiving Derek, the more time I can spend on polishing Catching Claire before I leave. So, you see, it’s not laziness but time-management that spurred this decision!

Because of attending the NINC conference, I’ll probably be a little late updating my Books pages. So I’m including the Deceiving Derek cover and story blurb here. Never fear, I shall update my book pages with all the buy links as they come in after I return from the conference.

I just love this cover! It’s so cute!

Story blurb:

Lingerie designer Lacey DeMarco livens up her life by finagling an unsuspecting police detective into attending a funky bridal shower. She needs one last item to complete a scavenger hunt list, and handsome cop Derek McAllister is it. But a little trickery is at work. Both Lacey and Derek are being hoodwinked…in the name of love.

To read an excerpt, for now please visit the Deceiving Derek page at Smashwords and download a sample in the format of your choice. Or buy a copy in the format of your choice! (Insert Subliminal Message: Buy a copy, Buy a copy, Buy a copy!) Smashwords sells .mobi formats for reading on Kindle, ePub formats for reading on NOOK, Kobo, Sony and the iPad, plus HTML formats and more. So if you can’t wait for the 3 weeks or so time it takes for Smashword to distribute to NOOK and Sony, you can buy Deceiving Derek from Smashwords now.

I’ll upload to Kindle, Kobo, All Romance Ebooks, and iTunes as soon as I have the specific files in hand. But, for now, Smashwords is it! Shout it loud and wide! Mama needs a new case of Kraft Dinner.

Catching Claire Cover

I’m working on copy edits for Deceiving Derek, Story 1 in LOVE & OTHER CALAMITIES. The story should be available this month! In the meantime, I’ve received the cover for Catching Claire, Story 2 in the series. Yes, Catching Claire features a laundry-room scene. So this cover is perfect. Another winner from LFD Designs for Authors!

You want a blurb, you say? Sorry, I haven’t written it yet! I am working on the blurb for Deceiving Derek, though. So have no fear, when I update my Books pages, the blurbs will magically appear.

Deceiving Derek Cover Reveal

This month I’m Indie-publishing the first of two romantic comedy short stories in a five-part series called LOVE & OTHER CALAMITIES. The series follows a group of friends in a fictional Seattle suburb called Rosewood. The series starts with the bachelorette party in Deceiving Derek and will end with the wedding of one of the secondary characters from the first story.

Deceiving Derek has been previously published (whereas the remaining four stories in the series will be Indie originals), and so I’ve taken the opportunity to update it technology-wise and also revise it both to reflect changes in my writing style and also because the hero, Derek McAllister, is a police detective and I wanted to make sure I nailed his character to the best of my ability. I had a great research resource in the form of a writer I’ve critiqued with over the years, but because geography can make a difference I also took the opportunity to pick the brains of a resource in Lynwood (near Seattle) and most especially a very helpful detective with the Edmonds Police Department, also near Seattle. All three resources were invaluable, and of course any errors or, ahem, fictional liberties are my own.

Deceiving Derek first appeared on the website of the first publisher of HEAD OVER HEELS. Later, before epublishing took off, I sold the story to another small epublisher, who sold maybe 11 copies from their website over a period of seven months. The Kindle was getting introduced just when that small epublisher went under. I began to wonder if this story was cursed.

Then I was offered another contract to publish the story—from a traditional epublisher that is still around and has published a lot of books. I decided not to accept that offer, because I wanted to retain audio rights to the story and the publisher, while they did not have plans to release the story in audio at the time, wanted to contract those rights for the possible future. And so I declined, and the story sat on my hard drive.

Will it ever release in audio? What inspired me to take this story and develop it into a series? You’ll have to stay tuned to this blog!

For now, Deceiving Derek will see life again as an ebook, and once I’m finished writing the series, perhaps also in a print anthology (depending on the eventual length of the series). I’m very excited to get it out there again, especially in its new incarnation. But I need to learn formatting first, so the release date is still a couple of weeks off.

In the meantime…drum roll…I love this cover designed by the talented Dara England of LFD Designs for Authors. It totally captures the romantic comedy mood with some winky-winky flair.

What do you think?

Print Edition of HEAD OVER HEELS Shipping from Amazon

The new print edition of HEAD OVER HEELS is now shipping from Amazon! That’s a lot faster than the 5-7 business days I expected to wait.

You know what this means, don’t you? It’s finally time for me to send out my newsletter. And another website update is now on my daily plans.

I expect to publish the first two in my romantic comedy short story series, LOVE & OTHER CALAMITIES, in October. So if you want to be amongst the first to get the news, please sign up for the newsletter. I only send it out when I have a new release, and I do not harvest the email addresses for any other purposes.

Newsletter sign-up is easy. Just look in the upper right corner of my blog, or visit my Contact page. There’s also a clickable graphic link on my Home page.

Canadians, the new print edition of HEAD OVER HEELS is not yet on Amazon.ca. I will post another update as soon as it is. However, if ebooks are your thing, I have buy links galore for various ebook formats (Kindle, NOOK, Kobo, Sony, iPad) on the HEAD OVER HEELS page.

Print Edition of HEAD OVER HEELS Available Again!

The print edition of my updated and revised romantic comedy, HEAD OVER HEELS, is now available from the CreateSpace store!

It will take 5-7 business days for the book to appear on Amazon as well as Amazon stores in the U.K. and Europe. I’m a bit in the dark about when the book will appear for sale on Canadian Amazon, but will update you as soon as I know.

The proof copy of the book appeared yesterday, and I was very impressed with the quality. The cover from Kim Killion looks amazing and the interior designed by Michael Hale is equally well done. All in all, I am in love with this edition. It’s very colorful and stands out. I am so glad I took the opportunity to revise and update the novel and offer it again to readers. If you haven’t read the book before in either ebook or trade paperback, check out the reviews and excerpt and take a chance on a new-to-you author!

Orders from CreateSpace will incur a shipping cost. So if you like to order paperbacks in a lump to get free shipping on Amazon, you might want to wait until the book appears there.

Cost from CreateSpace is $7.99, which was as low as I could price the book and still earn royalties. But I am pleased that I am able to offer the trade paperback at far less than the former publisher could, because I have basically cut out one middle man.