Writing to the Eerie

Silence the Whispers is now at Kindle and soon other places. This is one of my all-time favorite romantic suspense stories. But then, I love 'em all. :)

In going over my long career of writing across romance subgenres, which include humor (believe it or not) I may prefer romantic suspense with a touch of eerie. Silence the Whispers is definitely eerie as this Oklahoma heiress thinks she's losing her mind.

Blurb: 
Haunted by eerie whispers, heiress Cameron Somerton is driven to uncover the secrets of her past. When big, hard-looking Hayden Olson moves in next door, she senses he’s hunting her. Why? Has he been sent to harm her?

Hayden wants answers to his family’s disaster and she’s the key. When they become uneasy lovers, he isn’t expecting Cameron’s sensuality or his fascination with her.

Stirred into action, a dormant evil believes that murder is a small price to keep secrets… Can Hayden protect her and unravel the horrible secrets of Cameron’s haunting whispers?

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Silence the Whispers  joins a string of other Preferred Edition (that's my indie version) romantic suspense, Return to Fairy Cove, Season of Truth, Sleepless in Montana, and When Night Falls. My publishers also have my other ebooks and paper.

One reader thanked me for reissuing my books in epub and I'm so glad that indie publishing is allowing me to explore this avenue. I've learned so much. The above book covers are my own work and I have more to do in reissuing my backlist. (Can't wait to get to my unpublished new ones.)

Loved Silence the Whispers eerie tree background, don't you?

Would love to hear from you, or join my e-newsletter for the latest news.

WILD DAWN

WILD DAWN is a frontier romance, where the rules so far as bride capturing and women's rights haven't yet set in. A woodsman needing a mother for his baby is about to get a good lesson from a lady...

I loved writing these western historicals, and just like the others previously published, this one is based on traveling to the area. If you join my e-newsletter (see right icon), you'll find more on my books, including romantic suspense, category, etc.

Here's Wild Dawn's blurb:

Kidnapped and freezing in a mountain cabin, high-born Lady Regina is terrified when the mountain man arrives with his baby son. MacGregor needs a woman to care for his son and he's offering marriage, or she can be left to die.

But rough-tough MacGregor is in for a surprise, because this lady isn't sweet. Haunted and hunted by her dark past, a legend she can't remember; she's determined to build her own life--without a husband to rule her. A man scarred by his own past and devoted to his baby, MacGregor isn't willing to be tamed to her hand; she isn't the docile wife he'd planned. But this mountain man is in hot pursuit, determined to keep his wife and baby safe, and is surprisingly tender, more appealing by the minute.

With another powerful man hunting her, wanting to possess her and the legendary power that is hers, Indian wars circling them, MacGregor and Regina struggle against terrifying dangers, passion, and love in a wild new dawn...
***

About the cover: The overlay is a photo of the sunset taken from my back window. :)

I hope you like Wild Dawn, now available in Kindle and others, and don't forget to join my e-newsletter for more information.

Writers: Dealing with Overload?

Season of Truth 

Please Note that I'm in blog template update, so hopefully this will look better soon.

Author Chatter: Among the topics and conversations that interested me this week was a blog post concerning Classic Romance. With new readers out there, perhaps expecting different elements, it is important to note the difference.

To me, a Classic Series Romance is lighter in sensual weight than currently, or definitely romance. The hero is usually strong “Alpha”, which means he thinks he rules the little secretary, etc. in the relationship. Some great comedy romance was based on what “he” thinks.

When re-publishing a Classic, the typical question is: Do I update it?

I did, if possible. Rotary “dial” phones are now punch button cells, etc. In one particular Classic, click to read how I softened this hero.... 

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Then the length of a novel came up, which e-published is typically shorter. Hey, folks. We’re caught by the media, want it fast, we do, yup.

Several writerly conversations I've had in the recent weeks concern how much and if promotion actually helps. We’re almost past the days of physical swag, i.e. sending out bookmarks, etc. but we still have newsletters to our dedicated readerships. (BTW, when presenting in person or meeting readers, every author should have something, i.e. a business card whatever to hand out to people.) I’m using a simple yahoo subscription for Cait London and I’m very careful not to overdo. My e-newsletters generally deal with what’s coming up, changes, wrapped in a little easy chatter-type stuff.

A typical writer has a Twitter and a Facebook page, a website and a blog. I jumped in and had 3, one for each facet of my life. (I’ve now cut down to Daily or Not.) Then, there are the e-loops and LinkedIn, Goodreads and Shelfari. Now there’s Pinterest. (How many Pinterest fans do I know? Let me count the ways….) Add that on to what a writer needs to do—write—and it’s a lot of work/time. BTW, an author usually maintains several e-mail boxes, each with a different purpose.

Each writer has their favorite “running pack”. Some people prefer Twitter over Facebook and vice versa. Some link between both. For professional stuff, learning/sharing with others, I have 2 of those loops and 1 loop from a Novelists, Inc. Generally, each writer has several mailboxes at different URLs, each for a specific need. You can write to me at mine.

A friend just noted that she wants her stories in audio books. “But the learning curve….” she sighed wearily.

SAM’S STORY (I'm hoping to write more about Sam Knight's family, his brothers and sister. Sam tells his own story... and I love the male point of view.)

That took us back, and it was no easy chore to get started in publishing our own. Since starting, the elements of e-publishing or self-publishing in e-pub or paper, have created one big huge learning curve. That learning curve changes as you look at it. Introduction of tablets, androids, etc. changes cover demands, which were smaller. Now they are not. Thankfully, new methods and formatting software have popped up.

The base advice now is to get a nice, clean starting document.

I note that most authors are focusing on what works best for them. Many are pruning what does not work.

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IMHO, there is no specific set trail to more e-book or paper sales. Readers will usually buy favorite authors, so by brand. Then each genre and/or subgenre has a devoted readership. Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Smashwords, etc. all have different programs to raise promotion, i.e. Author Central at Amazon. Smashwords has coupons.  Kindleboards and Mobi offer tremendous networking, as do other Boards.

Price and cover changes sometimes increase sales. Opinions differ about Likes, Tags, and Reviews placed on the book’s URL. Again, what works for one author, is not a sure trail for another.

But the general rule is that consistency pays off, and definitely keeping busy online and networking. And here we go, back to pruning what does not work, again per author.

If you have input for what works best in book sales, what to "prune", please comment?

Between in Writer's Land

When Night Falls

I’m Between. In a writer’s world that’s the off-center place where you’re shifting from one project to another. It’s also the place where you catch up on Life Stuff, that necessary stuff you’ve let slide while attending to a writing career.

If under a publisher's contract to write, a synopsis whatever still has to be written--and approved. Choices of whatever made. But for now, I'm just dealing with myself and what to do next.

Life Stuff is easy: Pay bills, clean, groceries, recycle, house stuff, friends/family. (Hmm, maybe the latter should be the former. J)

Return to Fairy Cove

Daily Writer Stuff is usually posting on various places, Twitter, Facebook, checking sales, interacting with e-loops (I’m on some great ones, by the way), checking professional group notices, etc.

But Between…. That’s really hard and is not routine. It's highly uncomfortable, because choices must be made for time management. Time Management is perhaps a writer's biggest task.

My Between today concerns Which project next??

Here’s some of my projects:

1.  Need to create a cover for Delilah, an upcoming western romance, revisited. This is a backlist book, rights reverted, and the text formatting is done. I have ideas on that, which is a good start.
2. Ad Work, necessary for sales. Redoing the banner on this blog and reformatting. Not very easy since I did some of the HTML and have long forgotten some tricks. For now, I'm sticking with blogspot.
3. Ad Work2: updating my website, which has had to wait while I worked with other projects. This is truly time-consuming, working with links, etc. I'm reorganizing each romance subgenre, into pods, no small task.
4. Reworking a FB flub up. It was so great and somehow, I followed directions and ended up with--well, something I need to clean.
5. I've gotten material to my Oops reader, a great copyreader, so she's working on that for awhile. Mark that off the list.
6. Which Backlist book to start next, working on her remarks into my text and formatting that for e-publication. Very time consuming, very.

Sleepless in Montana

Then, the big one:

Which new project should I jump into. I spent several hours last night going through my material and options.

Here's a list:

1. Edit a completed Women's Fiction.
2. Finish a short story for one anthology.
3. Begin another short story for another anthology
4. Write the last half of a Viking historical. This would take time because I'd have to get into my research, gods, etc. again.
5. Write another children's short story for that anthology.
6. Complete a psychic romantic suspense, 3/4 done. (These projects get interrupted by what plops on the desk that day.)*

Night Fire Now on Kindle Prime

There's more, but let's revisit that *. Every single day, something pops up and it must be handled. That interruption takes a writer off track from their current work. Sometimes it's difficult to get back into the story.

And worst of all: At some point, when weighing all the uncompleted projects, it's necessary to weigh them. Are they really worthy? That's difficult.

Between is where a writer is unanchored. Sometimes, it's just good to do the small stuff, get that out of the way first. But what do you think?

The Author Biz

Gambler's Lady/Classic Romance

Yesterday was spent on Writer Business, all day. I longed to return to my current hero, truly one of the best I've written. I just love him. But, sigh....

Writing for publication is a business, an industry and sometimes writers have to tear themselves away from their stories to deal with business at hand. We (or someone we pay) deal with copyrights, ISBNs, Royalty Free Stock Photos, technical software, agents, editors, spreadsheets, taxes, etc.

Many writers are now securing their rights. In negotiating publishing contracts, Rights Reversion clauses are so important. Writers are taking those reverted rights straight to e-publishing and gathering new readers in a new medium. Or they may wish to paper/traditional publish. But author rights are their bread and butter, and the stories are frankly part of their individual hearts.

As a long-term professional, I am concerned about the following, and sought permission from Authors Guild for this reprint. Please read carefully:

By Permission, Authors Guild:
 Authors Guild v. HathiTrust. Last month, the Guild moved for summary judgment in its lawsuit against online digital repository HathiTrust, its overseer, the University of Michigan, and four other universities assisting in the unauthorized reproduction of copyright-protected books for the archive. The case was sparked last year when the University of Michigan announced plans to allow students and faculty unlimited downloads of so-called "orphaned" books, out-of-print books whose copyright holders were considered unfindable by the university. The Guild challenged the legality of the university's program (Congress has considered, but never enacted, orphan works legislation), and it quickly found copyright holders for many of the "orphan" titles. The Guild and writers' organizations from Australia, Canada, and Europe, along with several individual writers, came together to sue HathiTrust and the universities.
....

Unfindable. Now there's a word. With a few taps of a keyboard, almost anyone, anything can be found. Unfindable. Hmm.... Who's looking and how hard?

Big term, Orphaned Works. The other day, I was at a favorite Thrift Shop and saw a big box of novels, marked $2.00. That was for the whole box. They were old, and the authors could have died, but their heirs might be alive and needing income. What if those books were declared Orphaned Works? Don't cut out the heirs.

Keep in mind that writers for publication want to earn a paycheck. They can't do that if their work is given for free. Or pirated.

Remember Gambler's Lady, the Romance Classic at the top of this post? It was my second book Ever. And now it is re-covered and epublished by me, one Cait London. I can do that, because Berkley reverted the rights to my real name.

(You can read more about Gambler's Lady here.)

On that Note: Authors, it is critical to assign an executor for your Intellectual Rights.

Something to think about, huh?