Quacking Alone

Sat 17 Mar 2012

Say It Ain’t So – A DNF Lowell?

Posted by Mary Anne under Uncategorized
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For my February Prime borrow on Kindle I picked up Elizabeth Lowell’s, “Golden Mountain.” It now appears to be free, so you might want to pick it up and give it a read. Your opinion could certainly vary from that of a crazy duck lady, because IMHO – this is one to pass on. And I can’t believe I said that about a Lowell romance!

I love every Lowell book I’ve ever read with the exception of this one. Ms. Lowell is an amazingly talented author, but this book just didn’t do it for me. I couldn’t finish it. I read about 10 to 15% of the book before I put it away. I only read that much because it was a Lowell so I kept waiting for it to pick me up and get me involved. Except that never happened. Not only did I not get involved, I dreaded picking up my Fire and would make excuses why I couldn’t read more just now. That’s when I knew that I had to let this one go because normally I steal time from writing to read. I was a romance fan a long time before I was a romance author, after all.

Why didn’t I like this one? First, it took way too long to get started. The first part was the heroine following her father around and assisting him while he took photos of Chinese miners and mining communities. When the father died – very early in the book (not a *spoiler*) - the heroine wandered off to Seattle to take photos. Then we’re treated to long, expansive descriptions of the Chinese community in Seattle. By the time I put it down the story seemed almost ready to go somewhere, but by then I didn’t care. In a romance, I want to feel tension between the hero and the heroine fairly quickly. I’m okay with a few pages of backstory, but get me involved first, then feed me the history.

My other big problem with this book was that it wasn’t clear from the get go who the hero was. There were 2 brothers – one good guy and one wild one. It seemed that the good guy would be the hero, but the first chemistry we read about occurs between the heroine and the wild brother. I wasn’t even sure if the good guy could be the hero because there was a reference to the good guy having slept with the heroine’s newly discovered step-mother, a prostitute for one of the Chinese crime lord big shots we read far too much about. That made me feel icky about the good guy brother. Of course the good guy could have turned out to be the bad guy and the wild one could have been the real good guy.

My biggest problem with the book was that the lack of clarity about the hero made me feel unsure of the story. I’m okay with a hero that starts out with issues. I’m okay if he is the biggest rogue in the galaxy. I know that once he meets the heroine, he’ll change. Oh, he’ll be unwilling to change and perturbed with the world at large because he is changing. But by the end of the story, I’ll have been with him through his changes and I’ll adore him. But that can only happen if I’m clear that I should be rooting for him instead of finding him annoying.

I hate romances where the heroine is torn between two men. Or at least, I generally hate them. I recall that “Whitney, My Love” was an exception to that rule. Golden Mountain could have been an exception too – it should have been, because it was written by Lowell. The difference between Whitney and Golden is that we knew who the hero and heroine were in Whitney and we saw chemistry between the hero and heroine early on – even if the heroine didn’t see it yet.

I guess Elizabeth Lowell can’t be perfect every time. So she’s only “almost” perfect. If I ever achieve “almost” perfect I’ll rent out an airplane and skywrite it. I’ll buy TV time and advertise it. But I won’t start budgeting for that just yet…

If I were you, I’d give “Golden Mountain” a pass and pick up Lowell’s “Only” books instead. I got them while they were $1.99. Of course, they’re old favorites but now they have space on my Fire. It looks like HarperCollins is running “rolling” $1.99 specials on a bunch of Ms. Lowell’s work. Trust me, pick those up and pass on “Golden Mountain.”

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Thu 15 Mar 2012

‘Tis The Day To Waddle Over to ADAN

Posted by Mary Anne under General Writing
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Tis the day of the month when y’all need to waddle over to ADAN and check out my blog post.

Our theme this month is beginnings and my post is about my beginning as a romance writer.

Waddle on over and be sure to leave me a quack out in the comments!

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Wed 14 Mar 2012

Posted by Mary Anne under Humor
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Thu 8 Mar 2012

Ma Book Should Go The Way Of Ma Bell

Posted by Mary Anne under The E-book Industry, Uncategorized
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Today news broke that the Justice Department warned Apple and a number of big publishers of its intent to file suit against them. The DOJ alleges that Apple and the publishers conspired to increase the price of ebooks. Publishers affected apparently include the following:

The five publishers facing possible Justice Department action are Simon & Schuster Inc, a unit of CBS Corp (CBS.N); Lagardere SCA’s (LAGA.PA) Hachette Book Group; Pearson Plc’s (PSON.L) Penguin Group (USA); Macmillan, a unit of Verlagsgruppe Georg von Holtzbrinck GmbH; and HarperCollins Publishers Inc, a unit of News Corp (NWSA.O). — Reuters

If DOJ wants confirmation, it might check with consumers, particularly those who owned Kindles and bought them based upon Amazon’s promise to try to keep ebook prices below $9.99. Yes, Virginia the roosters coming home to roost this time arise from the publisher’s battle with Amazon over ebook pricing that resulted in publishers and Apple concocting the “agency model” of pricing. What is the agency model? It’s where the publisher decides what its price will be and the retailer is not allowed to change it.

Think of the agency model like this (and this is only an example, based on nothing more than the odd imagination of a certain duck lady) – imagine that Wrangler is really peeved at Wal Mart for selling its blue jeans for $19.99. Wrangler has decided it wants it’s blue jeans to have an upscale image and a price tag to match. Wrangler decides that Wal Mart can only sell its jeans if they are priced at the numbers on the tags shipped with the jeans and they start at $49.95 a pair. If Wal Mart doesn’t like it, then they can’t sell Wrangler jeans.

Well, that wouldn’t work if just Wrangler did it, now, would it? Wal Mart would say to Wrangler – screw you and the horse you rode in on. Where will you sell your jeans with those terms, Wal Mart would ask. The store that Sam Walton built might reply that it would just sell Levis instead. But what if 5 or 6 big companies control all the well known jean brands? And what if all of them say the same thing to the big chain store? And when the chain store asks, in a much softer voice, well, where will you sell your product, then – who will ever accept those terms? And the merchants answer – Target. We’ve all reached a deal with Target on exactly those terms and Target will keep a set percentage for profit based on the price we set. Well, Target would be making a chunk of change too, wouldn’t it? And Wal Mart would lose all the customers who wanted to buy big name jeans. AND, worst of all, the customers would pay a lot more for the product.

Now, understand that the big publishers are the blue jean companies and Apple is Target. That’s agency pricing and in the long run, the victims are the consumers.

Federal Antitrust legislation exists to prevent monopolies that destroy competition and damage consumers. The most famous example of DOJ’s heavy hand with Antitrust action was the break up of the old Ma Bell network of AT&T. Since that time – look at what’s happened to telephone service. Consumers have options at every price point and every service level. And as much as I dislike the Feds regulating most things, Antitrust legislation has an important and valuable purpose.

So, DOJ may very well be right on target in breaking up this scheme because prices consumers pay should be set by the merchants from whom consumers buy. The merchants pay a wholesale price and sometimes they’ll sell some items below wholesale in order to promote some other items. That’s what Amazon was doing with ebooks to sell its Kindle devices – and again, that’s what publishers were trying to prevent.

Yes, if agency pricing goes then the whole system will have to adjust. Indies like me would be hurt because we are little tiny pebbles caught between giant boulders. Amazon says to indies, you can only sell on our platform if you price you ebooks at your cheapest price. Oh, and if your price is lower anywhere else – we’ll match the low price and base your royalty payment on that figure. Presently, the agency pricing system gave indies got a benefit of sales platforms mostly selling indie work at the price the indies set. So indies don’t get caught in a price reduction whirlwind at Amazon, often the biggest sales source.

Even though readjusting the system to get it back to a wholesale/retail marketplace would hurt indies, like me, for a while, I expect that pricing would work itself out after a period of some turbulence. And even if it didn’t, and I took a hit along with other indies, well, that’s okay. We’d have to adapt because ultimately, the agency pricing results in readers paying high prices across the board when in a wholesale/retail market, competition would keep prices lower. READERS SHOULD NEVER BE HURT BY AND OVERCHARGED BECAUSE OF A “SECRET” SYSTEM THAT’S KEEPING PRICES ARTIFICIALLY INFLATED.

It’s not something I say often but in this case, I’ve gotta make an exception – YOU GO, DOJ. Ma Book should go the way of Ma Bell.

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Tue 6 Mar 2012

Don’t Miss The Steals & Deals – Smashwords Read An Ebook Sale Runs Through March 10th

Posted by Mary Anne under Uncategorized
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Don’t miss out on the Smashwords Read An Ebook week promo. It runs through this Saturday, March 10th.

There are steals and deals galore so don’t miss out on this once-a-year chance to fill your ereader without draining your wallet. It’s a coupon sale, so enter the codes at check out.

ALL QUACKING ALONE ROMANCES ARE 50% OFF ! If you don’t own ‘em all already – perhaps you haven’t picked up one or two of them yet – then don’t miss these deals.

With the strained state of finances and the need to stretch a dollar until old George Washington quacks for help – I never miss this deal and you shouldn’t either. So waddle on over to SW and fill up your ereader before the stroke of midnight on Saturday, March 10th.

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Sun 4 Mar 2012

My Answer – The Atlantic Wonders If Publishers Should Worry

Posted by Mary Anne under The E-book Industry
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Alan Jacobs of The Atlantic posted a piece entitled: Digital Self-Publishing: Should Publishers Be Worried? In the article, he says: “John O’Hara, who long ago wrote the book for the musical Pal Joey, based on his own novel. When the play was making a big run on Broadway, two friends of O’Hara’s bumped into him on the streets of New York. “Oh John,” they cooed, “We just saw Pal Joey again, and we enjoyed it even more than the first time!” O’Hara snarled, “What the hell was wrong with it the first time?”"

Jacobs’ piece also quotes Colorado College’s librarian Steve Lawson’s Piece. Lawson’s article is entitled: Publishers Hate You. You Should Hate Them Back. Lawson says:

So library-types, let’s get our story straight. Publishers have contempt for the authors they need to write works, and the readers they need to read works. Publishers are scared that the internet is going to disintermediate their asses into the dustbin of history, and the best response that many of them have come up with is to express their fear through hatred. For all the things that we might need to improve in libraries or apologize for, this isn’t one of them.

Jacobs reply is basically as follows, although you should read the whole piece:

But one of the illusions most common to writers — an illusion that may make the long slow slog of writing possible, for many people — is that an enormous audience is out there waiting for the wisdom and delight that I alone can provide, and that the Publishing System is a giant obstacle to my reaching those people. Thus the dream that digital publishing technologies will indeed “disintermediate” — will eliminate that obstacle and connect me directly to what Bugs Bunny calls “me Public.” (See “Bully for Bugs”.) And we have heard just enough unexpected success stories to keep that dream alive.

Well, here’s hoping. But a couple of months ago I decided to dip my toes into these waters: I wrote a longish essay called “Reverting to Type” about my own history as a reader — a kind of personal epilogue to The Pleasures of Reading — and decided to submit it as a Kindle Single. Amazon wasn’t interested, so I decided to publish it myself using Kindle Direct Publishing. I announced its existence to the world: that is, I posted a link on my tumblelog and tweeted about it. A few people downloaded it; some pointed out typos that I had missed, but that a copy editor surely would have caught. I thought about ways to promote it better but haven’t been able to come up with anything other than becoming a self-promoting jerk on Twitter. Last time I checked it had sold 98 copies

MY ANSWER?

I’m an indie author who distributes through Smashwords, KDP, Pubit for B&N and most recently, All Romance eBooks. My books sit on the virtual shelves beside great work published by big companies and indie authors alike. For whatever it’s worth, I’ve sold a lot more than 98 copies of my work – I don’t have the number but I’ve sold thousands. I’ve (probably – haven’t totaled them) sold at least 98 so far this month across the channels and it’s only 4 days into March. And NO, my numbers don’t IN ANY WAY even begin to compare to some of the success stories, like Amanda Hocking’s for example. All in all, self publishing is a lot of work, but the rewards are amazing. Some of the reward is monetary – extra money to supplement yet another family struggling in this economy. Much of the reward is simply having my work out there to be loved and hated – and yes, it has received both responses.

When I started self publishing I wrote long blogs about how companies like Smashwords would break through and destroy the walls of the publishing royals castles. I continue to think that self publishing has greatly, greatly enriched the literary world and, more importantly, that it has empowered the reader to decide whether or not the work is worth her money. No longer do the publishing companies’ systems and slush piles serve as socially acceptable censors.

Now, however, I’m farther along on my journey and my attitude has changed slightly. Yes, I think self publishing has already destroyed the castle walls so that all writers can get their work to readers. Yes, work from the big companies usually – but not always – sells better, but the market share of those companies will go the way of the castle walls. I think we’re headed for greater equality which is always a good thing.

I believe that publishing companies who change the way they do business can adapt, survive and succeed. I believe that they will have to adopt an Amazon approach and partner with writers, showing a willingness to throw out the old models and craft individual deals that recognize writers as important business partners with individual needs and concerns. I don’t think publishing will survive in any kind of “one size fits all” way.

In the long run, I hope that publishers do adapt to the digital world. I’ve read many great published books and hope to read many more. Today, I’ve come far enough along my journey to wish publishers who adapt and change – and especially the writers who partner with them – great success.

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Fri 2 Mar 2012

Bad Boys & The Romance Writers Who Love Them

Posted by Mary Anne under Uncategorized
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Sun 26 Feb 2012

Male Feminists – The Ultimate in Hypocrisy

Posted by angryoldfatman under My Books, Politics, Website Updates
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Sorry to disappoint you guys, but it’s me, the Dear Hubby, instead of the Quacked-Out Duck Lady.

She’s experiencing some of the fun I used to enjoy, mainly formatting e-books to satisfy the jackals at the various digital distributors. Given that, the full-time job, the bills, the laundry, and writing her wacky romance novels, she didn’t have the time or energy to deal with the blog this week, so I’m doing it. This is taking crucial time away from my more important tasks, mainly ARRRRRR WHAR BE THE WENCHES AND THE GROG ARRRRRRR!

First, some news on our website(s). I’ve taken the time to change the e-book covers to reflect Mary Anne’s title changes on her contemporary romances. Her contemporaries weren’t moving off the digital shelves as quickly as the historical/fantasy romances, so we discussed possibly bundling them at some future date. Of course, there has got to be some unifying theme to help tie the bundle together, so when we looked at the nitty-gritty essence of the two current contemporaries and the one she’s currently working on, we found a hook – Dangerous Relations, where relationships and the law intersect and many times conflict.

So now we have Dangerous Relations: Seducing the Billionaire and Dangerous Relations: Griffin’s Law, with Mary Anne currently pounding away on the third one. No, I’m not telling you what the work-in-progress is tentatively titled, leave me alone you freaks.

I also fixed our Nook links on the Complete List of Books page, which were all broken due to Barnes and Noble introducing their Pub-It service, a direct competitor to Amazon’s Kindle Publishing. It’s aggravating to deal with, but I understand the necessity of the computer programming changes.

Now onto the meat of the blog post. The other day I encountered, on a fairly well-trafficked comedy website, a piece written by a male feminist.

I struggle to understand the very concept of a male feminist, or any other (what I see as) self-hating political activist.

(more…)

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