Category: My Books

Getting Back Into The Swing of Things

Yes, I’m late (what a surprise) organizing photos of our Galapagos trip. Getting sick the first week home didn’t help. I didn’t really do much of anything last week. Most days I was too dizzy (a weird kind of vertigo) to leave the house. I did manage to begin uploading short videos of the Galapagos Islands to my Facebook page. Pop on over and check them out (look under Photos and then Videos to find them most quickly). While you’re there, go ahead and click “Like.” It’s painless!

I won’t be posting the videos to the blog (most likely) or my website so please visit Facebook if you want to see them. Stories and photos will appear on the blog as promised.

I wanted to get photos from my sister-in-law and brother-in-law (who got some great underwater shots) before beginning organizing. As soon as I have them all done, I’ll start with the blog posts. In the meantime, please know I’m thinking about it. Yes, thinking is requiring a lot of my focus lately. Just sitting here and thinking doesn’t require a lot of energy.

I spent the beginning of this week organizing the household. There’s a lot to do before Eldest Son comes home in a month. Youngest Son is now living at home for two back-to-back co-op work terms. It’s great to have him home, and even greater that he has a job and is gone during the day, because now I have some precious writing time until E.S. and his girlfriend move in.

When I left for South America, I was in the middle of writing an especially hot short story for Penny (see Blog Legend on the right sidebar if you don’t know who Penny is). So it seems like perfect sense to finish the story before E.S. and G-1 return (Girlfriend 1 – no, he doesn’t have two, but he’s the oldest so she’s G-1. Y.S.’s GF is hereforthwithtofor G-2). I don’t know how successful I’ll be, however, because I have two June deadlines for two Cindy projects (which I don’t feel like revealing right now…come back later), and I must get to them first.

While I was in Ecuador, I received my author copies of the Greek BORROWING ALEX. I’ll post the cover and a loose translation of the Greek title tomorrow. It’s so weird to see my book not only in another language but another alphabet. Between the Japanese version of HEAD OVER HEELS and the Greek version of BORROWING ALEX, I’ve yet to see a foreign version published with our alphabet (German, French and Spanish publishers, feel free to contact me to rectify this). (Other languages also and always welcome!)

I always find it takes me a week to get back into the swing of things after I’ve been away. It doesn’t matter if I’ve only been away a few days for a conference or I’ve been 3 weeks in South America. The same amount of stuff seems to pile up. I’m starting to clue in that I might as well always leave for 3 weeks at a time. Alas, our next big adventure likely won’t be until 2014, when we plan to visit the Aussie relatives.

How do you get back into your regular routine after being away? I just want to close my eyes and dream of the Galapagos.

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.

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.

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Categorized as My Books

Sneak Peak and Give-Away at RomCon!

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Today I’m at the RomCon Contemporary blog providing a Sneak Peak at WHERE SHE BELONGS. At RomCon, you can also enter to win a free copy of the audiobook. So if you didn’t win yesterday’s draw on my blog, have no fear. You have a second chance.

Yes, I know, I’m generosity itself.

Please hop over to RomCon to participate in the give-away. Comments left here will not qualify today, as RomCon picks the winner this time, not moi.

P.S. It takes a few moments for the site to load from the links in this blog post. Have patience! It will load.

Celebrating WHERE SHE BELONGS Audio Release With a Give-Away!

The audiobook of WHERE SHE BELONGS releases today from AudioLark and is available from the AudioLark website as well as Audible, iTunes and Overdrive (fine print – I don’t know if it’s available from the third party distributors TODAY or in a few days, but I will update this post with links as I find out.)

But wait!

I’m celebrating by giving away a copy of the audiobook (8 hours and 6 minutes of listening pleasure). All you have to do is leave a comment for this post and you’re entered. Entries will be accepted until midnight tonight. You can listen to a short demo at the AudioLark website. Sooner or later I’ll get around to posting the demo to my website, but not today—I’m too busy celebrating!

Tomorrow morning, I’ll choose a winner through computer-generated random draw and contact the lucky person by email with instructions for how to download the book. Don’t worry about leaving your email address in the comments section. I’m the only person with access to the comments and email addresses on my dashboard, and I do not harvest email addresses for newsletters or whatever other drivel I might wish to foist upon you (but I’m Canadian, so I won’t and don’t). If you want to sign up for my newsletter, you gotta do it yourself (easy-peasy link on my Contact page).

Also, please note that only comments left at Muse Interrupted (ie. my blog) qualify as entries for the audiobook give-away. If you’re reading this post through a feed at Facebook, Amazon, Goodreads, Twitter or another social network, please note that you need to leave your comment on my blog to enter.

If you want to read the story blurb, check out this post.

Print excerpts can be found here, here, here and here. I’m nothing if not generous in the excerpts department!

Thank you for your support and good luck!