In a belated Spring cleaning effort, I was going through some old files on my computer and ran across a short story I wrote for Woman’s World magazine. My friend Terescia and I challenged each other to write a short story for the magazine some odd years ago, and while neither were accepted, we both thought they were cute and should be shared.
You can find Terescia’s Fantasy Man on her site. And I’m posting His Perfect Neighbor in WWR’s Online Reads section for viewers to enjoy. Happy reading!
While I normally don’t post truly personal things to this blog, I really wanted to share my beautiful purse Kate Walker and her wonderful husband Stephen Wade sent me for my birthday. They are so thoughtful! :-)
If you like it, you can do a search for the per una brand sold by Marks & Spencer.
Not sure if I’ve mentioned this 
before but I met Heather at a conference a couple years ago (the Lori Foster and Dianne Castell gathering) and we just hit it off. Not only are our first names the same, but we’re close in age and our lives are fairly similar. So when she approached me about doing some work on her website I was ecstatic. While I didn’t do all the graphic work, I did set the site up and make a few changes to suit Heather. If you haven’t checked out her site, you should. It’s pretty! :-) Here’s a link to her site: http://www.heathergrothaus.com/
But it’s not her site I wanted to mention. I wondered if anyone else has read her latest book, Taming the Beast. I was priviliged enough to get a review copy when it came out, but in case you missed it, here’s a snippet:
Heather Grothaus’ Taming the Beast is a magnificent, heart-wrenching beauty and the beast tale that will enrich your heart.
There are just two many things I loved about this book to name, so I thought I’d share a few things I didn’t. Like how I couldn’t put it down! I’ve had very few books I couldn’t truly put down and get a good nights sleep, but this one was definitely one of those. You were immediately enthralled by the characters to the point you couldn’t wait to read more.
Another thing I didn’t like was that it made me cry! It takes a very good writer and a super touching story to make emotion well up enough for me to cry over a story in a book. This one has it all. From the heroes plight to the heroine’s heartbreak you can just feel what they’re going through.
Michaela Fortune has a nickname…some call her Miss Fortune. They believe she’s clumsy and not worthy of their time. That is until she befriends the daughter Lord Tornfield and wins his favor in a singing contest. Little does she know that’s the beginning of a life filled with intrigue, misunderstandings, betrayals, and murder. Everything in her life will be turned upside down. And when she’s at her lowest, heartbroken and humiliated she finds herself responding to a summons from the land’s overlord Lord Cherbon. The son of the Cherbon Devil. Rumors say he’s scarred where he once was beautiful. They say he’s just as evil as his father. So what on earth was she doing offering to marry him?
Lord Roderick Cherbon had lived through hell and came out the other side.
Read more or buy your copy of Taming the Beast now!
Janet Evanovich is a super author and most adore her Stephanie Plum series (as evidenced by her last book—number 15–selling nearly 1 million copies in hardback), but really, how far is too far when it comes to money? I mean, we all want to make a living doing something we love. We also want to make money for our families. But how much is too much? Could you ask your publisher for $50 million for a 4 book deal? If you produced 1 book a year for 4 years, that’d be over $10 million a year as salary. Of course, rumors are told on the web every single day and the report by Deadline.com that she’s asked that much could very well be wrong. But the idea that the possibility is out there seems a bit much for me. I found an article on Publishers Weekly that addresses it a bit. Here’s an excerpt and link:
Evanovich is in the top tier of bestselling authors. According to PW’s sales ranking of 2009 hardcover bestsellers, Evanovich’s 15th entry in the Stephanie Plum series, Finger Lickin’ Fifteen, sold 977,178 copies, making it the seventh bestselling hardcover of the year. Evanovich was in good company, perched above #8, Stephenie Meyer’s The Host, and below John Grisham’s Ford County. Still, some observers, all of whom spoke on details about this deal on the condition of anonymity, said $50 million is too high for Evanovich. One agent estimated that to command the kind of money she was asking, she would need to sell roughly 1.25 million hardcovers.
Of course, 977,178 is fairly close to 1.25 million, so on some level the $50 million request may be reasonable. And a Forbes item, which ran shortly after the news of the deal broke, said as much—20 million Evanovich backlist titles sold last year, and she sells in the same stratosphere as people like Ken Follett, who supposedly got a $50 million three-book deal three years ago.
The web is a buzz with information about how starting this September, Dorchester will be a digital first publisher. It’s a huge step to drop mass market publication first, but apparently the publisher is serious. Here’s what Publishers Weekly posted in their recent article Dorchester Drops Mass Market Publishing for E-Book/POD Model :
Mass market romance publisher Dorchester Publishing has dropped its traditional print publishing business in favor of an e-book/print-on-demand model effective with its September titles that are “shipping” now. President John Prebich said after retail sales fell by 25% in 2009, the company knew that 2010 “would be a defining year,” but rather than show improvement, “sales have been worse.” While returns are down, the company has had a difficult time getting its titles into stores as shelf space for mass market has been reduced, Prebich explained. Dorchester recently let its field sales force of seven go, although Tim DeYoung remains with the company as v-p of sales and marketing. The editorial team remains intact, although Prebich said the number of titles released monthly will likely be reduced from over 30 to 25. He said the schedule for 2011 is set and Dorchester has books in the pipeline through June 2012.
Dorchester will continue to do print copies for its book club business and has signed a deal with Ingram Publisher Service for IPS to do print-on-demand copies for selected titles. According to Prebich, some e-books that are doing well in the digital marketplace will be released as trade paperbacks with IPS fulfilling orders; the company, however, will not do any more mass market paperbacks for retail distribution.
Prebich said Dorchester’s e-book business has had “remarkable growth” which he expects to double again in the next year. Still, digital sales accounted for only 12% of total revenue prior to the company making the transition to the e-book/pod model. Prebich conceded that Dorchester will have lower revenues, but he expects margins to improve. He said the company is working out a new royalty rate with authors that he expects to announce next week. Editors are talking to authors now about the changes. “We hope they’ll stay,” Prebich said. Dorchester’s e-books are available at most major vendors and compatible with most platforms at an average price of $6.99. Trade paperbacks will be priced in the $12 to $15 range.
On his decision to drop the mass market format Prebich explained: “These are like pioneer times in publishing. We felt like we needed to take some chances and make a bold move."
What do you think? Will this be a bold move that lands them in bankruptcy or will readers love it? With the economy in the dumps I believe it might just be the thing that keeps them afloat. They’ll have less cost in each book and less waste. Perhaps authors will see more return for their work this way. Then again…
WHITE HEAT will be out July 27th. To celebrate, Brenda is throwing a cyber-party!
Where? Twitter. If you’re not on Twitter, definitely sign up so you’ll be ready. It’s free and easy. Click here to get started.
When? Wednesday, August 4th, 8:00 – 10:00 p.m. Eastern time
What will be happening? You never know who you might meet. Brenda will be there chatting about the new book and anything else that comes up. Other authors will be joining her. Maybe even her agent and editor and members of her family. Also, she’ll be giving away a bevy of prizes. You can win an iPad (she’ll be giving away THREE), Borders and Barnes & Noble gift certificates, autographed copies of her backlist, jewelry, See’s Candy, and other fabulous prizes. When you register, you will receive a “party pack” via snail mail that includes a $1.00 coupon for the book, your raffle tickets for the prizes, and other goodies — so make sure you complete all the shipping information.
Decadent Publishing recently sent out this interesting press release:
Charles Paz aka RT’s Mr. Romance 2009, has signed on to be the “body” of Decadent Publishing. Executive Editor Heather Bennett states, “Charles is extremely excited to be a part of our company and we are thrilled to have him. He not only looks great in front of the camera, but he is a talented photographer and will be helping us produce high quality book covers.”
Decadent Publishing debuts on August 1st with stories from some of the industry’s best authors. They are currently hosting three consecutive writing contests for short stories, novellas and novels. For information and guidelines, visit us at www.decadentpublishing.com
It’s a day when there are pranks made galore, but I’m not really one for that sort of thing. How about you? Do you get into the practical jokes?
Here’s a few of the funny pics I found in an article on PC World written by Ian Paul entitled, Top 10 April Fools’ Day Fake News Items for 2010:
New Sizes at Starbucks
Google Goes Topeka
How funny! There are some more, but these are the ones I thought would probably freak more people out than not. :-)
It’s that wonderful time of year again that everything is…green!
Spring is here, the birds are singing, and my kids are super eager to be outside playing. And all I want to do is READ! I’ve been on a reading frenzy of late. I can’t seem to sleep, so I thought what better use of those 3-4 hours at night when I should be than catching up on my to-be-read pile? And it’s not really mattering if it’s a Christian fiction work or perhaps some ebooks I’ve downloaded from the READS library. I’ve read everything across the board in the last few months when I’m not working on finishing up the WWR redo, working up WeREADRomance.com (site coming soon!), or working on client updates.
What are you reading these days?
If you enjoy a variety of books from the sensual to the thrilling, you’ll love this bundle. Our reviewer’s did!
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