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Author: Mary Anne

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Just a quick update b/c I didn't blog this weekend. I was busy working on Duke of Eden - so I know my fans will forgive me.

I almost finished Duke this weekend - I've made it to the closing scene. So I hope to get 'er done this week and hit the press with Part 3 by the weekend - at the latest. The full book will follow after a "full" edit.

So all you DUKE OF EDEN fans keep your eyes on this blog. You'll find out here first when Part 3 goes to press.

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**Note: This blog is a slightly revised version of one I posted earlier at the Marianne's Blog. The original post is here. I've updated it because Mrs. Santa didn't come through at Christmas. I hope you'll go to the Marianne's Blog and check out all of the fine posts by the talented authors I blog with there. (Clears throat) And yes, this is a bit of shameless self and cross promotion.

But I especially want you to check out the Marianne's blog on Monday, 4/18. That'll be my day to blog and I'm doing something special. Because I'm almost finished with Part 3 of The Duke of Eden, and it and then the full book will be available soon, I'm doing a little preview on Monday. ON 4/18 DUKE OF EDEN FANS WILL BE ABLE TO EXCLUSIVELY READ AN EXCERPT FROM PART 3. So don't miss it. Check out my post at the Marianne's Blog on Monday, 4/18 to get a glimpse of what's ahead for Brand and Adria**

...continue reading "What Romance Novel Hero Should Mother Nature Send Your Way?"

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I know that rainbows exist and people say there are pots of gold at the end. Some people also claim that they do outlines that plot a complete book before they ever type the first word. I'm willing to believe that both things are true. Of the two truths, I'm more likely to find the pot of gold than I am to outline a book. My creative process just doesn't work that way.

 I suspect that the outline method works for organized souls. I imagine those writers entering a state of harmony with the universe as they fill their roman-numeral-bearing outlines from "Chapter One" to "The End." I suspect that on lots of those writers' desks you'll find the Zen Desk Gardens with all the sand and the little rake. Can't you just see one of them building up a little sand mountain as they wrestle with a plot dilemma in the "Chapter Seven" section? Perhaps other of the Zen-organized authors have desktop water fountains or rock gardens. They plot their books as they live their lives - calm, organized and focused. 

...continue reading "The Duke of Eden – Plotting the Ending"

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Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth.

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same.

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I--
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

 The Road Not Taken - Robert Frost (1915)

This week in the publishing world brought the stories of 3 authors: Amanda Hocking, Barry Eisler and Connie Brockway. All are taking different paths and I wish all of them well. But looking at them raises interesting questions and yes, it did remind me oh-so-much of the poem by Robert Frost. Mr. Frost's poem is one of my all-time-faves, and any time I'm in a position of "choosing" - first I consider myself lucky - and then, I reflect on Mr. Frost's words. I wonder if these words went through Amanda's, Barry's and Connie's minds over the past few weeks?

...continue reading "The Roads To Publication"

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Let's talk about the Castle. You know, the one that used to exist and house the publishing elite? It now lies in ruins. Indies don't even have to seige it anymore. You know why? The Royals are destroying it from the inside. It's so nice when an enemy takes care of destroying themselves. It lets all the indie writers just smile as we press forward with our WIPs.

 Two pieces of news inspired this post. More recently - just this week - e-book sales figures for January, 2011 were announced. Sales for January, 2011 more than doubled over numbers for January, 2010. In January of this year, sales were 115% better than they were just a year earlier.  E-books outsold hardcovers and mass market paperbacks in January. 

 While news of e-books outselling traditional books just made it to the public's eyes, industry insiders would've had these figures for quite a while now. If they didn't have the hard numbers, the Royals had enough data by late February to see that this whole e-book thing that they'd ignored and underrated, well, maybe it deserved more of their attention. So they gave it - in the wrong way, of course.  

In late February HarperCollins proved that the stupidity of a publishing house can not be overstated. HC announced on 2/25/11 that new titles of ebooks licensed by public libraries could only be checked out 26 times before the license would expire. The company's move shows the snobbery of the literary elite and its utter lack of concern for the plight of millions of Americans. HC couldn't have made it any clearer if they'd rented a billboard in Times Square and displayed the message in flashing neon: The type of people who use public libraries aren't the type of customers we want anyway.

...continue reading "Indies Don’t Have to Seige the Castle Anymore"

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That's right pardners.  'Tis once again time to boogle over to All Day, All Night ... Romance Divas - The Marianne's Blog.  Yours truly posted about secondary characters. 

Belly on up to the ADAN bar and tell us how you like your romance served!

http://alldayallnightromancedivas.blogspot.com/2011/03/do-you-like-your-romance-neat-straight.html

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Earlier, I'd blogged that Quacking Alone's romance books would be at 25% Off for Smashwords Read An Ebook Week Promo. Then, I checked and couldn't find the books listed so I updated the blog.

SW founder Mark Coker has now advised that QA's books are in the promo.

SO WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR? Go to Smashwords quick before you miss out. Grab QA Romance's full line of books and then pick up a bunch of other fine books.

Read An Ebook Week only comes once a year. Fill up your ereader while the deals last!!!

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For some reason, it doesn't look like SW has ever applied the 25% discount to my books for this week. I listed them for the Read An E-book promo at that price, so I don't know why they wouldn't be enrolled.

Possibly the SW site is having problems, the staff is sick, etc. (There is some of that going round at my house too).

Either way I wanted to update my readers. I listed my stuff for the promo at 25% off - I'd never quack out the wrong info to my peeps.

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Visit Smashwords & Fill Your E-Reader
All Quacking Alone Romances 25% Off

This week, March 6-12th, is International Read An E-book Week (RAE Week) and e-tailers all over the web are celebrating with special deals and give aways. If you own an e-reader this is the week when you can snag more free e-books than at any time in the year. If you miss this week's steals and deals you'll pay for it - literally - all year long. But as the week begins, lets take a moment and look back at the history of the e-book.

This is lucky year seven for the RAE Week celebration, which began in 2004. However, a lot of folks don't realize that while this week is the 7th birthday of the RAE Week celebration, it's the 40th birthday of the e-book. The e-book was born in 1971 when Michael Hart used a Xerox Sigma V mainframe computer to create the first e-book - The Declaration of Independence. Fitting choice, wasn't it?

Mr. Hart believed that "the greatest value created by computers would not be computing, but would be the storage, retrieval, and searching of what was stored in our libraries."  The creation of that first e-book was the beginning of what became Project Gutenberg. It hosts 20,000 free texts on its site and over 100,000 are available through its partners and today over 3 million e-books are downloaded each month.

...continue reading "March 6-12 – Read an E-Book Week"