Almost there...

I finally figured out the formatting problems I was having with my latest book, and it just needs one more run-through to make sure it's nice and clean. I could get it uploaded today if only I didn't have other plans. But alas, I must go visit Dad today, and then I have a kid with Tae Kwon Do this evening. So it's going to have to wait till tomorrow.

This will be the first book I'm uploading under another name. I still haven't figured out how to promote it on the threads-- I'm going to have to think about that!

Dean Wesley Smith on self-publishing

Dean Wesley Smith blogs on why self-publishing is no longer a bad idea here. "Some things have changed, some have not. But for sure it is no longer bad to self-publish or small-publish your own work now."

Lowering prices for a while

Since I've been so sick with the colitis, I haven't been promoting as much, and some of my sales have suffered. I just lowered All I Ever Wanted and Never Love a Stranger back down to 99 cents (for a limited time) to see if I can get them selling again.

Space ambassador

Apparently feeling that it's best to be prepared, the UN is going to appoint a space ambassador (a Malaysian astrophysicist will be filling the position). All alien invaders, please step this way!

An agent who represents the self-pubbed

Here's a blog post in which agent Jim Levine is quoted as saying he finds that publishers are interested in self-pubbed authors who've sold more than 5000 copies. The post says that "he’s on the crest of a wave of agents beginning to represent authors who’ve self-published their work and are seeking mainstream commercial publication." Some other agents are mentioned who are interested in self-pubbed authors, as well as those who are still wary.

Dara Joy

Dara Joy has just put up several of her self-pubbed books (including the oddly titled Death by Ploot Ploot) on Kindle. If you're a Dara Joy fan, you might want to check them out.

LOL

I spotted this tweet recently: "Just read the sample of Isn't It Romantic by Ellen Fisher. After my 3rd eye roll in ch.2 i decided to spare myself the trauma and just stop." Tonight, I was amused to see that tweet picked up by a website about eye injuries:-). Of course it's just one of those random sites that simply picked up on the combined words "eye" and "trauma," but still, it's funny. Readers beware Ellen Fisher books-- they can cause eye injuries!

Newbie mistake

New indie authors sometimes make the mistake of going onto the Amazon forums and pretending they're someone else-- or possibly having one of their friends promote for them. In either case, if you post a glowing five-star review for a book, and then post the exact same verbiage to thread after thread, while claiming you never heard of the author before now, NO ONE is going to believe you. It's blatantly obvious that you're either the author, or a friend or family member. It's especially blatant when the poster in question has posted absolutely no reviews except for this one book. (Edit: And when I can do a search on you and find that you promoted the paper edition back in 2009 and referred to it as your own novel, that's even more blatant. Old threads never die!)

So a word of advice to newbies: Don't spam the threads as yourself, but don't think you can avoid the appearance of spamming by pretending to be a disinterested reader, either. Disinterested readers don't post the same promo on five or six threads in the course of an hour. Readers aren't stupid, and this kind of thing makes ALL indie authors look bad. Just stick to the promo threads and post to them a couple at a time. If your book is good, people will find you, and you won't run the risk of ticking readers off.

Amazon can be rough

The Amazon romance boards are busy ripping into two threads that are perceived as being "shills" by indie authors. I know better than to post when the environment over there is unsettled, but someone on the historical romance board asked for a book-- alcoholic hero, colonial America, perhaps a bond servant heroine. That is almost certainly my book The Light in the Darkness, so I posted politely and said so. Within a few minutes I had four people voting me down. Sheesh... it isn't even an indie book, as it was released by Bantam, and I don't make money off it either, because it's out of print. I'm just responding to the OP with what I believe is useful info, but right now, people over there are in a bit of an uproar. Amazon can be a tough neighborhood!

Kay Wilde hits the Kindle!

Kay Wilde is an author who used to be with NCP. I consider her a friend, so yes, this is a shill:-). I just noticed that she's joined the indie ranks-- her romance novella I'll Be Seeing You is now available in Kindle format. Do go check it out, please!

Frustration

I am frustrated because of my Crohn's colitis. It's been kicking up for a while, but since my vacation it's been flaring up like crazy. I feel terrible all the time, have lost a lot of weight, and recently was told that I'm extremely anemic. I have another week to struggle through before I get some testing done, and hopefully at that point things will begin to get better. But right now, I'm irritated because I don't have the energy to write. I have two books almost ready to post on Amazon, and I just cannot get up enough energy to care.

It's frustrating, because I really wanted to rededicate myself to writing and start churning out books. But sometimes stuff happens, I guess. I hope soon I'll be better, and will be able to get back to writing like a madwoman.

And speaking of Crohn's, I recently read a very good and amusing book about colitis called ColitiScope. (Say it out loud and you'll get the pun.) It's not a topic that's easy to approach with humor, but the author manages it. I enjoyed it.

Straight to Kindle

Amazon says that NYTimes bestselling author David Morrell is releasing a new book (plus nine backlist titles) straight to Kindle. Details here. Morrell says, "Publishing these 10 books in the Kindle Store is a great opportunity to explore how electronic publishing enables me to give my readers additional, unique content,...Available at $9.99 or less, I hope that my fans will be able to rediscover their favorite titles, and that new readers will have the chance to enjoy my books on their Kindles. I'm especially excited about publishing my new thriller, 'The Naked Edge' in digital format, exclusively for Kindle."

Where's the chest hair?

I got an email today from a guy complaining about my covers. He said he was a "hairy-chested heterosexual man," and felt that my covers depicted "stereotypically hairless gay guys." He wanted to know if chest hair was obsolete.

I have to assume the guy is not a romance reader. Have you EVER seen chest hair on a romance novel cover? Here's my first cover, from 1998:


Notice the lack of chest hair. You could also look at any old Fabio cover, or any recent Samhain cover, or... I could post a gazillion examples, but I don't think it's necessary. Anyone who reads romance knows that men in Romance Novel Land just don't have chest hair!

A possible benefit of indie publishing

I was thinking this morning that one of the big benefits of indie publishing may be that it might help prevent authors avoid getting mixed up with dubious publishers. There have always been iffy start-up pubs with no clear business model, or disguised self-pubs that drain authors of their money, and authors who couldn't make a sale elsewhere tended to turn to them, so they could call themselves "published." An author who's determined to get his or her work out there is going to find a way-- and historically, some of those ways have been really bad for the authors. I'd like to think that nowadays, those authors might turn to self-publishing on Amazon instead.

Of course, if the authors aren't of publishable quality, that's not necessarily a good thing for indie publishing in general, but I'd argue it's better for the authors. I'd rather see new authors put up a bad book on Amazon, learn from the experience, and be able to edit it or even take it down, then see them trapped with a bad publisher (and all the attendant bad experiences) for years. We've all read horror stories about the anguish of having your work held hostage by a lousy publisher. At least with indie publishing, you control your own work.

The downside is that I imagine that as indie publishing takes off, it will be harder for new small publishers to get established. But I still imagine that ones that really offer substantial services to their authors (solid editing, good covers) will manage to gain a foothold in the market.

My kid is weird

I took Kid #4 to kindergarten orientation. There was a cute little picture of a schoolhouse to color while the teacher talked. Every other child in the room colored the picture neatly, and most of the finished products had a certain generic sameness-- the walls were inevitably red, the roof black, the bushes green. They were almost eerily similar.

Kid #4, while he is capable of coloring neatly in the lines, prefers to do his own drawing. He drew what might have appeared to be scribbles all over the paper, but explained them to me later: "This is a black hole in the sky. These are maneating bushes (teeth and eyes added to the bushes)-- see, that one is sleepy, that's why its eyes look like that. There's a flood (blue scribbles everywhere). Oh, and there's a secret treasure chest with gold coming out!"

Uh-huh. I do believe my child is a divergent thinker. Wonder what the teacher's going to think about his drawing? Too bad he didn't get a chance to explain it to her... I'd love to see her reaction to "maneating bushes."

Uh... but who ARE you?

Today was my birthday. I hung out with my dad, as I do once a week. He didn't actually remember that it was my birthday, but that's okay-- he's ninety-three, after all. He did wish me happy birthday once I reminded him:-). Later the kids took me out to dinner at Outback, and humiliated me by having the waiters sing to me. Overall, it was a nice, if quiet, birthday.

Only one thing puzzles me. I got a chirpy voice mail: "Hi, Ellen, it's me. Just calling to wish you a happy birthday. Hope you have fun!" Uh, thanks, but who ARE you? I don't recognize the voice, or the name that the kid told me popped up on caller ID, and I can't begin to guess who "me" might be. Still... I'm glad someone remembered, even if it was a mystery person!