Category: My Books

They Saved the Best for Last?

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.

“Just”ified…Or Not

No, I’m not blogging about a TV show. I’m celebrating finishing my edits for WHERE SHE BELONGS (Five Star Expressions, Dec. 2011). A few things I learned through the editing process:

  • My characters smile and laugh and chuckle too much in this manuscript. I could not see this until my editor pointed it out. She axed a bunch of smiles, and I axed more after axing hers.
  • I overuse ellipses…and why not? I love ellipses! But my Five Star/Cengage editor isn’t the first editor to point out my overuse of the dot-dot-dot. Penny’s last editor for Red Sage Secrets caught me on it, too. To me, ellipses are a stylistic technique, but I can see how too many ellipses can…slow down the pacing (I had to think about that, thus the ellipses). I don’t think I STET’ed any ellipses that my editor took out (she replaced them with commas or dashes). My problem is, I need the editorial eye to point out which ellipses should stay and which should go. I’m too close to the characters and the story. Because I know I’m too close to the story, I didn’t “accept all changes” (using Track Changes in Word) and then read the manuscript to see what screamed “Clunk!” Instead, I went through each and every change, a learning experience.
  • I overuse italics…and why not? I love my italics! I love my italics sooooooo much! I love my freaking italics! I do know I’m not alone in overusing italics. You see, Penny’s last Red Sage Secrets editor caught me on them, too, but assured me that I overuse italics less than other authors. So there. That my Five Star/Cengage editor and my Secrets editor both caught me on my two biggest faux pas…I realized something. They both must be right! So, yes, alack, alas, amiss, I agreed with 95% of my Five Star/Cengage editor’s corrections.
  • I overuse “then.” This is the first editor who’s ever pointed that out to me, so maybe it’s a stylistic/house thing. You know, those sentences, “I did this, and then I did that.” Or “I did this, this, then that happened.” My Five Star/Cengage editor prefers another “and” to “then.” Or starting a new sentence. Okie-doke, I’m easy-peasy.

Other than that, I rocked! No revisions, just the edits. I was pretty happy.

After going through my editor’s edits, though, I couldn’t help but notice other things popping out at me that I’d never noticed before with this manuscript. So I went ahead and fixed them.

  • I overuse “just.” I’d love to justify my overuse of “just,” but I’m afraid I…I just can’t. I took out all the extraneous justs and just left the ones that just had to be there.
  • I gave two extremely minor characters, one who isn’t even seen on the page, similar names—Ellen and Elaine. I did not see this before re-reading the manuscript five times in one week. So Elaine is now Louisa.

Realizing that I’m too close to my manuscripts is a reason I’m hesitant to go the self-Kindle/”indie” route at this point in time. If I ever did go that route, I’d want to hire a copy editor to go over my manuscript first. We think we’ve caught every error, we think our critique partners or beta readers might point out overuse-age, etc., but, frankly, critique partners and beta readers, IMO, should read more for story. A good editor who has never looked at the manuscript before, who hasn’t brainstormed story elements with you, is the person who will catch little ditties like my Five Star/Cengage editor caught for me. Plus, that she liked the story feels great. I’d love to work with her again.

What are your editing bugaboos?

I’m On Canadian Amazon!

It’s about time.

If you haven’t noticed, I’m taking a break from the Peru posts. Not to worry, those who have been following the stories and pictures of my travels, I’ll start blogging about Peru again next week. For now, I am excited (and relieved) that the trade paperback versions of my two Amber Quill Press romantic comedies, HEAD OVER HEELS and BORROWING ALEX, are now FINALLY available on Canadian Amazon.

HEAD OVER HEELS was on Canadian Amazon for a short while. The printer that Amber Quill Press uses had subcontracts with Canadian printers, so if someone in western Canada, for example, ordered the trade paperback, the books would be printed and shipped from Victoria, B.C. Then Amazon (the big American conglomerate) bought the printer–and immediately canceled the printing sub-contracts. As a result, BORROWING ALEX has never been on Canadian Amazon. Until now!

Earlier this year, I blogged that Amazon had announced they were opening a Canadian warehouse, and I had hopes this meant my books would FINALLY be available for Canadians to order without having to worry about border-crossing charges, etc. That day has arrived.

Here are links to the pages, if you’re interested:

HEAD OVER HEELS

BORROWING ALEX

You’ll note that Amazon states that the books are not in stock but you can order and they’ll deliver the books when they’re available. What this means is that they are either: (1) shipping them from the U.S. warehouse to the Canadian warehouse and then to you, or (2) waiting to print copies once they receive an order. You see, because they bought the printing company that services a number of micro-publishers like Amber Quill Press, when someone orders a book from one of those publishers, Amazon either orders from the printer and then ships to you or Amazon prints copies itself within its warehouse. They do the latter in the States, so I wouldn’t be surprised if they had in-warehouse printers set up in their Canadian warehouse, too. That’s the beauty of print-on-demand. They can print just one copy or they can print 100 and then stock the rest, depending on how many orders they receive.

So if you’re Canadian, hope on over to www.amazon.ca and check it out! If you type my name into the search engine (remember that E in Procter), a page listing both books miraculously appears. Yoop-yoop! And, oh, yeah, you can qualify for free shipping by adding my books to other books you order. So yoop-yoop for you, too!

If you have a Kindle, both books are available through the U.S. Kindle store.

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How Do You Say…?

Recently, I had to provide pronunciation guides to the audiobook publisher for HEAD OVER HEELS and BORROWING ALEX. I sped-read (speed-readed?) both books to find words that might trip up the narrators. A mental forehead slap happened nearly right away. I’d forgotten that some readers have a tough time pronouncing the name of my heroine in HEAD OVER HEELS. Her name is Magee Sinclair. Magee is pronounced like the Irish surname, with a hard G, like Mr. Magoo but with E’s instead of O’s. I did everything I could in the writing of the book to ensure the name wasn’t pronounced like Maggie, but can’t be assured of my success. Even an old friend said she wanted to say the name like Maggie. When I asked her how she would pronouce Magee if she saw it on a business (like Magee’s Garage), she could pronounce it easily enough. Go figure.

I’ve tried to give my characters easier-to-pronounce names ever since. Frankly, I knew the name Magee would give some readers conniptions before Amber Quill Press published the book. But I’d had the name on my character names list since I was pregnant with my first child. I loved the name, and it suits my heroine to a T, because she’s a bit of klutz (a Ms. Magoo, shall we say).

Now, my legal name is Cindy. It isn’t Cynthia and it isn’t Lucinda. My birth surname, Procter, is spelled with an E—NOT like Proctor. When my mom registered me for grade 1 (I didn’t go to Kindergarten; it wasn’t available in the community where I lived at the time, way back in the Dark Ages), I distinctly remember the principal coming along and speaking to my mom by the registration table. You see, the principal of my elementary school had once taught my father and uncles in a one-room schoolhouse. You’d think she would have known how to spell Procter, she had enough of the little rascals in her school. Yet somehow my name got registered as Proctor—argh! And no matter what my mother said, whoever actually recorded my name was not convinced that Cindy was a bona fide name in and of itself. Until I was in grade 3 and my wonderful teacher, Mrs. Brady, asked me why I kept mangling my library card, on which my name was written as Cynthia Proctor, the problem persisted.

At least people know how to say Cindy, though. It’s not as if I’ve had to suffer through people calling me Sign-Dee or Sin-Die. No one has ever called me Kindee. I have been called Sydney before, though, usually by people young enough that they don’t recognize “Cindy” as a name. What’s that I heard? She must have said Sydney. I know Sydney is a popular girl’s name these days, but it makes me think of Woody Allen. I am not at all appreciative when someone calls me Sydney.

How about you? Do you have a name that’s difficult to pronounce? Or, it looks easy enough to you but people mangle it regardless? Share your horror stories here.

Amazon to Open Canadian Warehouse

As a Canadian published with an American micro-press, I, for one (two or three if you count my other personalities), am glad Amazon has finally been given the go-ahead to open a fulfillment warehouse in Canada. You can read the story here.

Until now, the trade paperback editions of my Amber Quill Press books were only available from American Amazon. Which meant Canadians either had to pay more for a copy of one of my books (depending on the exchange rates, which, until recently, sucked), or had to pay more for shipping, or maybe suffer a cost for the book to cross the border. Whatever. They had to pay more. Now, I honestly don’t know if Amazon opening a Canadian fulfillment warehouse means that searching for Cindy Procter-King on www.amazon.ca will eventually cough up search results for new copies of my books, but I’m hopeful. A lot more hopeful than I was two days ago, at any rate. Whether or not it actually happens is up to Amazon and my publisher, not me.

Right now you can buy used copies of the first edition of HEAD OVER HEELS from Canadian Amazon for exorbitant amounts, but not new copies. Not that I don’t think I’m important (the odd day, I do), but $40 or $60 for a used copy of one of my books? It makes no sense.

Please, anyone who thinks they might be doing me a favor by buying one of these used copies off Canadian Amazon, you won’t. Authors don’t make a dime, or even a penny, off the sale of used books. That the prices are ludicrously high…to me, it’s laughable. No wonder those used copies never sell. And I hope they never do. What a rip-off—for me and the reader.

I love ordering books on-line. I order from Canadian Amazon or Chapters—whichever site has the best deal for the books I want at the time. I always wait until I have an order over $39 so I can get free shipping. Yes, I’m cheap that way. And the thought that Canadian readers might eventually be able to take advantage of the same opportunity with my books tickles me.

Well, I don’t know that my books will ever be available on Chapters. That’s another issue. For now, I’m happy with the possibility of directing readers to other-than-a-buy-used-for-a-hefty-price-cindypk page on Amazon.ca.

As soon as I learn more, you can bet you’ll find the news here.

In the meantime, I’m keeping my “buy from author” option open on my website.

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