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Author: Mary Anne

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Giving a digital reading device to a devoted and addicted long time romance reader is a lot like giving a kid a lifetime pass to Disneyworld.  It's also like giving the reader's family a new lease on life.  My house has romance novels in nearly every nook and cranny.  See, I don't just read the books - I save them.  

If I get a yen to read a particular book, the search through the stacks will first send books flying around a couple of different parts of the family room. Then it'll send them headed out the door of my youngest son's walk-in closet.  Finally, in desperation, it'll even cover the macho floor of the male holy land - our garage.   I haven't touched one of the paper books since Christmas - but I haven't replaced them all (yet) with digital versions, so one day it'll happen again, I'm sure.  But it'll happen a lot less often.

My very first ebook purchase was of a single title.  It helped me try out the device.  I have a Sony Pocket Reader which is an excellent way to enter the market.  It doesn't have wi-fi or a 3G wireless function so I can't surf the web or check my email.  All it does is display ebooks but it does that very well.  One thing I adore is that it is sized so that it fits right in my purse.  One day, I may upgrade to a wi-fi or 3G enabled device, but that market is shaking out so much now that it constantly reminds me of how smart my hubby is.  My computer guy spouse says never adopt a new platform or technology (or software) until the kinks have been worked out and the price settles down.

...continue reading "The Lure of Ebook Bundles"

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Published on 2 Comments on Grey’s: From Post-Its To Pacifiers?

This week two couples on Grey's Anatomy were talkin' babies.  Will it go beyond the talking stage?  Will the stork drop off a bundle or two to some of Seattle Grace's finest? 

Yeah, yeah, I know that when Ellen Pompeo was pregnant she and Patrick Dempsey sat down with Shonda Sunshine and suggested that Sunshine write the blessed event into the show. And yeah, I realize that Sunshine said no.  I've heard that she's hinted/said/implied (take your pick) that there wouldn't be a McBaby.  But I've heard other things too, and Sunshine does like to keep the fans guessing. 

Recently, on the March 25th edition of the Ausiello Files, Sunshine did a guest blog post about this season's finale.  And she who created the McDreamy world says that it's "the kind of finale that changes everything."  She called it a "GAME. CHANGER."  Emphasis and punctuation - Shonda's.   

...continue reading "Grey’s: From Post-Its To Pacifiers?"

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Published on 5 Comments on Smash It Again Mark!!!

Once upon a time, a handful of publishing companies decided what Americans could read.  Those companies lived in the great literary castle.  No common writers were admitted to the castle.  The publishing royals would periodically admit certain citizens that they deemed worthy to petition them on behalf of the common writers. By and large, most of the worthy citizens had either worked in the castle in years gone by, or they had worked for other worthy citizens that the royals had known for years. It was an insider’s paradise and no outsider need apply.   

The worthy citizens had the loathsome job of dealing with the commoners in the Kingdom.  Someone had to do it and it wasn’t going to be the royals themselves.  After all, the royals couldn’t dirty their hands by working directly with those who created the products that paid for their castle.  No, let the worthy citizens deal with the rabble.  Best of all, the worthy citizens not only protected the royals from the rabble, the royals didn’t even have to pay the worthy citizens.  The worthy citizens took their fees from the rabble’s proceeds.  A cut of the bounty paid by the royals to the rabble rightly belonged to the worthy citizens. ’ Twas a small enough price for their having to deal with the commoners and sort through their barrage of products to find the work that worthy citizens thought would be deemed acceptable by the royals.

Most of the commoner’s notions got rejected by the worthy citizens.  Those esteemed folks worked and socialized directly with the royals and knew what the royals would and would not deem worthy.  Or at least, they believed that they knew.  And the worthy citizens did not, as a rule, challenge the royals to accept something too new or too different.

And thus was born — the sacred system.

...continue reading "Smash It Again Mark!!!"

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Published on 2 Comments on My Heroes Have Always Been Varmits

Everyone I know is flawed. All of the people I love and adore have blemishes. Each of my co-workers, from the boss on down, has defects. And me? If there were a country called Flawed, I'd be its Queen.

I'm working on a new book. Actually, I'm juggling two - a historical and a contemporary. I was working on the historical yesterday when it struck me that the hero was pretty damned tarnished.  My mind flipped over to the contemporary and realized that yep, sho 'nuff, the hero has potholes in his character big enough to drive an 18-wheeler through.  

My personal creative process starts with the characters and builds from there.  From the characters flows the story.  When its going well, one of them will often lead me down a path I never intended to travel, he or she will change the direction of the whole bloomin' book in a way that's gonna cause me no end of re-writes.  Those characters, the ones whose tale I'm telling?  They're never the good guys in the white hats from stable backgrounds earnestly seeking only a permanent committed relationship. 

Invariably, my hero will be the spoiled rascal who's always lived life on his terms, by his rules.  And those rules, like everything else in his world, tend to favor allowances rather than limits.  His background may have been more or less stable, but it'll have enough instability, enough challenges, that it's made him tough, wily, and smart.  My heroes are always smart.  But he won't be looking to right the world's wrongs.  Heck, he won't even be looking to right his own. 

My hero will never walk into the story as the guy avoiding the tawdry, temporary pleasure of sex without strings.  He surely won't be seeking a committed relationship.  My hero will embrace the tawdry and wallow in the sex whilst avoiding good girls like they were one of those diseases he might pick up in his favorite brothel. 

Yes, you guessed it.  My heroes have always been varmits. 

...continue reading "My Heroes Have Always Been Varmits"

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(Upset Hubby Alert - I can't remember where I read it!)

Read somewhere (hence the hubby alert above) that some of the editors at the big publishing houses are now looking for contemporary romances.  Actually, I think I read in a couple of different places over the last week or two, news that contemporaries may be the next hot thing.  What do I say to that?

THANK GOD, THE GREAT GREEN TOAD FROG AND ALL THE RE-FRIED CLAMS IN THE UNIVERSE!!!

I like historicals and I write historicals, but there are times, many times, when only a contemporary will do.  Some of my favs from that genre are folks like Diana Palmer, Linda Howard, Susan Elizabeth Phillips and Jayne Anne Krentz.  I can curl up in a chair and watch hours pass like minutes while I read one of theirs in paperback form,  or - as I add more to my Sony Reader - in ebook form.  I'm eyeballing a purchase of a Diana Palmer and a Brenda Jackson Westmoreland anthology for my e-reader as we speak. 

I also love contemporaries.  I also WRITE contemporaries.  I previously published Email Enticement, a contemporary set in my home town of Myrtle Beach, South Carolina.  I just published Griffin's Law, a contemporary set at the University of South Carolina's Law School in Columbia, SC.  Both books take place at that interesting mental spot where love and the law intersect. So, does my gratitude about the return of the contemporary contain some amount of self-interest?  You bet'cha.

But, keep in mind, that I write contemporaries because I read contemporaries.  I write contemporaries because I love contemporaries.  I don't agree that you have to write what you know.   I do agree that you have to write what you love.   Enthusiasm and joy and a page turning experience will never happen for a reader if they didn't first happen for the writer.  Fun is contagious. 

...continue reading "Will Vampires & Zombies Exit Stage Right?"

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The book that, to date, I had the most fun writing, Griffin's Law, is being published as I type. It's out there on Smashwords and almost out there (it should be through the publishing grinder shortly ) at Kindle. It'll take a couple of weeks or so for us to get the paperback version out.

The Amazon process for Kindle puts the book out in stages. As I write this post, Griffin's Law is up on the Amazon site, complete with hubby's fantabulous cover image and, by the Great Green Toad Frog, with a buy button. The cover blurb hasn't fed up yet. And this blog post is partly about Griffin's and why it was my most fun book to write, and partly about that cover blurb.

Anyone who reads this blog knows that I'm a huge fan of Grey's Anatomy and of its creator, Shonda Sunshine (Rhimes). And Grey's Anatomy inspired this book. One night, as I watched the folks at Seattle Grace Hospital, I asked myself one question -- What if Grey's Anatomy took place in a law school? 

...continue reading "Griffin’s Law – To Compare Or Not To Compare?"

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This week's Grey's Anatomy was the first after a wee hiatus and it gives a glimpse into where the show is headed down the trail and possibly to the end of its run.  Ellen Pompeo (Meredith) hinted this week that the show would last about 2 more years.  If that's the case, it looks like Shonda Sunshine is heading it back to where it started.  After all, Derek, on the heels of learning that his wife (Addison) had slept with his best friend (Mark), finally accepted Richard's invitation to come to his hospital where Derek would be groomed as Chief.  Except, after Derek got there, Richard's life and marriage disintegrated leaving Richard nothing to hold onto except the power for which he'd traded everything else. 

After years of waiting in the wings, Derek staged a coup and got the job he'd come West to take.   Richard's fall off the wagon might have justified Derek's sneak attack if only McDreamy hadn't traded on inside information from the love of his life to pull it off.  In this episode, Richard sat in a conference room for hours, torn between whether to sign one document that gave up his job and medical license permanently, and another that committed to going into rehab and coming out to resume power.  What had Richard torn was the rehab part - he didn't want to give up drinking b/c it was all he had left.  Finally though, Richard signed and headed to rehab and Derek got ready to take charge.  By the time Richard returns, there may be a battle, but I bet Derek will have learned that power ain't all it's cracked up to be.

...continue reading "Grey’s & Griffin’s — The Power Of Dirt"

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Amazon announced that it is capitulating to Macmillan's demands. The e-tailer essentially says it has to capitulate but that its customers will make the ultimate decision at the cash register.

Maybe I've been a lawyer too long, but this looks a lot like a marketing ploy cooked up at the end of a negotiation. Kindle users get upset at e-books priced over $9.99 because they feel that's their bargain with Amazon. So how could Amazon give in and still come across as being on the Kindle owners' side? They could play a giant shell game but not run it for long enough to do any serious damage to Macmillan or Amazon.

Was this a real dispute or a giant pacifer to Kindle owners? Either way, it opens the door and all the other publishers can now walk through. It's the beginning of the end of that $9.99 ceiling.

I'm an indie publisher so the publishers big prices can only help my bottom line. Unfortunately, I can't say the same for Amazon's customers.

I doubt that Kindle owners will feel terribly pacified.

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E-books have arrived.  There's no longer any doubt about that because in the wake of the plethora of e-readers, Apple's iPad is about to enter the market.  The bigs have stopped throwing down over whether e-books should exist.  Now they're throwing down over how much they should cost.  The journey from whether to how much marks the milestone of an industry change.

This week Amazon and Macmillan locked horns over price point.  At the iPad announcement, Steve Jobs indicated that Apple would only take a 30% commission off the sale of each e-book.  Under the Apple scheme, publishers would set the price.  Boy, howdy, that would suit the publishers just fine but the public - not so much.  After the iPad was out and about and had established itself with a sales history, the pricing structure would have given publishers leverage over Amazon.  Note that I said AFTER. 

One publisher didn't want to wait.  Before the stories from Job's launch announcement had gone to print, John Sergent, CEO of Macmillan, decided to go all Godfather on Amazon.  Sergent told the e-tailer giant to adopt Apple's price structure and abandon its pricing insanity ($9.99 as the max for an e-book) OR Macmillan would do "extensive and deep windowing of titles".  In other words, Macmillan said, give us control of pricing or lose the right to sell our newest and most popular books. 

Sergent made the worst of all negotiating errors - he made a threat he couldn't or shouldn't back up.  And Amazon took him at his word.  The e-tailer didn't just give a verbal response, it gave a real world response.  Amazon removed the buy button from all of Macmillan's titles, e-books and print.  Now Amazon sells a lot of e-books, but it doesn't out and out dominate the market because that market is too new, it's evolving daily.  However, no bookstore on the planet sells the number of print copies that Amazon does.

Now Macmilian is in a corner without a fallback position.  It overlooked the fact that even after the Apple launch, it will still need Amazon.  Macmillan reacted by issuing a "letter" to its authors/illustrators and the literary agent community.  As the blog Dear Author noted, the letter missed its most important audience -- the readers. Macmillan wants to make money on its product, Amazon wants to sell a lot of its product, and the readers want to buy books and e-books at a fair price. 

The delicate balancing act of marketing/price structure can't work if total control is given to the publisher.  Amazon talks about anti-trust and in response, Macmillan cites a US Supreme Court decision legalizing retail price maintenance for luxury goods.  Common sense and the free market can imagine more practical reasons for not giving a producer control of the price of its goods.  What would Wal Mart or Dollar General have to charge for goods if the manufacturer set the price? 

If Amazon wants to make money on volume instead of price margin, that helps the consumer.  If Macmillan weren't so short sighted, it would realize that it helps the publisher and its authors too.  People all over America (like me) are caught like rats in the trap of the economic crunch and we can't afford to pay big prices for books.  But the crunch won't last forever (please God) and when it passes, readers will be able to pay more for books. 

Macmillan forgot the most important lesson of the Godfather - if you're making the other party an offer it can't refuse, first you better be sure it can't refuse.  Amazon could and it did.  Be careful what you ask for publishers, because you might get it. 

...continue reading "Marketing Madness & The Price War of 2010"

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I'd never realized it until yesterday, but I've been a literary segregationist.  Oh I've never had a mental partition over race, or at least, I'm not aware of one, but yesterday I realized I had one over age.  Books written about high school kids are intended for that age through college age kids, right?  That means they're not meant for me. 

So a while back Stephanie Meyer started releasing books in her Twilight series.   It's a romance series and I write romance.  Lord knows, I read romance and I've surely been a reader of the genre for much longer than I've been a writer.  And I heard good things about these books everywhere.  But never once was I tempted to pick one up.  They weren't written for me, now were they? 

My eldest son read the books and he flat out loves them.  Keep in mind, Zack doesn't read romance.  The boy refuses to read anything I write and that's natural enough - him reading my books would make me a wee bit antsy too.  But my eldest won't even read this blog.  I've given him fair warning that from time to time I write about him, but still, he won't read it.  Where does he get such stubbornness from? 

Okay, okay, maybe Zack and his Mom have a thing or two in common.

...continue reading "Fate – From Meyer’s Twilight To Me"