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Category: My Books

The novels I’ve written and/or the characters in them.

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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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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"

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Hello again chiljens, it's me the angry old fat dude. Just popping in to tell you Mary Anne has been very busy not working on one book, but two books. Her muse is working overtime, swinging her back and forth between two time periods. Hell, I have trouble keeping up with what year it is in real life, much less numerous crazy fantasy worlds.

Anyways, Mr. Brick has not been seen recently, so we suspect Muse is working like a maniac to avoid him. She is alive and well, though, unlike many others who've had run-ins with His Brickness.

In the meantime, I present Mr. Brick's premiere video, The Bricks-For-Me Challenge, which was his answer to the infamous Blasphemy Challenge. Enjoy, and until later, kiddies, AOFM out.

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I held a Kindle.

Yes, I actually had a real, live, working Kindle in my very own hands. My hands shook, my palms sweated, my fingers gripped it tight, so very, very tight. My brown eyes glistened with lust that turned to love at first grasp. But then came the time of horror, of desolation, of pain. My hubby, my own ever-loving hubby looked at me and said, "You have to give it back now."

My fingers held it tighter and I shook my head no, no, NO. And John said, "It's not yours. You have to give it back." He held out his hands, very carefully, like a cop trying to talk a deranged psycho holding a gun into giving it up. I could have made him fight me for it. I could have forced him to pry it out of my clinging hands. But then, the Kindle might have been hurt. I couldn't hurt the precious little device. So I untangled my fingers, and handed it back.

...continue reading "The Kindle – Love At First Grasp"

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My muse is either very fickle or very smart.  Or, perhaps, I'm either exceptionally stubborn or exceptionally stupid.  More likely, it's all of the above.

I had a plan.  I blogged about my plan last time.  I was working on a new historical romance.  Once it was done or (at least) well underway, about the beginning of next year, I was going to stop and do an edit of Griffin's Law.  The next to be published Griffin's is complete and has been resting pending an edit.  Griffin's is a contemporary romance set in a law school and is sort of a crossover between E-mail Enticement and a historical.  Okay - if you insist- think of Griffin's  as the Grey's Anatomy of the legal profession.

Anyway, I've been hard at work writing my new historical.  Rather, I've been trying to be hard at work on the historical.  I've been coming home after work and opening the computer to the MS every night.  I've been opening it faithfully every Saturday and Sunday morning for the past few weekends.  Sometimes, I've even written a few lines on it.  But inevitably, after a line or two, the story leaves me and I start sneaking over to my desktop to play Snood or Solitaire.  Or flipping over to check sales on Amazon, Createspace, Scribd, Smashwords, etc.  Or getting sucked into something on Google News that I keep in customized form as my homepage for Internet Explorer.

...continue reading "Cohorts In Crime"

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Hubby The Magnificent blogged recently that E-Mail Enticement would be available in paperback on Amazon and Createspace soon. Well, soon is now.

E-Mail was written much earlier and had been out and available on Kindle and in e-book form. But sales figures for the book didn't show much interest, so we didn't hurry to make it available in paperback. The lack of interest sort of echoed the reaction from literary agents when I queried the book initially, which was quite a few years ago. Of late, interest in and sales of E-mail have risen dramatically. Perhaps E-mail's time has come. I hope so.

Unlike the other books I have published to date, E-mail is a contemporary. I have written one other contemporary in the vein of E-mail, but it hasn't gone through the editorial wringer yet.  I'll slot the final edit of the new one (Griffin's Law) for early next year, when my WIP - a new historical romance- is well along the road towards completion, if not actually complete.  But, like I said above before I started rambling, E-mail is different from the other work readers have seen to date.

...continue reading "Enticing Interest"

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Howdy chitlins, it's me again, the husband.

I finally got the paperback cover completed for E-Mail Enticement, the text formatted, and the whole thing uploaded to CreateSpace. The e-store page for it is up, but the book itself won't be available until we approve the proof copy currently on its way to the humble Graham abode.

Also, be on the lookout for it to appear on Amazon's site. I will, as usual, update the links on Quacking Alone when Amazon does all of its voodoo to get the book up there.

In the meantime, please enjoy an image of the full paperback cover here (also accessible via the sidebar and the complete list of books page). And buy it on your Kindle or other favorite e-book reader if you don't need a 5" x 8" projectile with which to smack a beloved cranium.

Until next time, chitterlings, be good and if you see me approaching, DUCK!!

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This week over at one of my favorite Internet spots - Romancing The Blog - there was an interesting discussion about the importance of historical accuracy in romances.  A Fine and Dandy Problem was posted on the site on October 13th by literary agent Emmanuelle Alspaugh.   Check out the post if you can - Ms. Alspaugh used a specific example from one of her clients to highlight the issue and she did a fine job of tossing a meaty bone for blog followers to chase.  I chased it and lost on the site, but (cue music) I stand by my stance.

I think historical romance is any romance that takes place in a previous era.  In other words, if it's not contemporary, then it's historical.  To me, the period of a piece sets the mood.  Beyond that, I think details are pretty much fair game.  Okay, a Regency novel where the heroine e-mails a friend for advice might be (are you sitting down?) a little over the top even for me.  But precise details like whether the railroads ran a specific route, intricate details about heirs to a particular title,  the names of places and people -including dukes, earls and the like - can, and often should be created entirely from the mind of the author.   I don't care whether women were wearing a particular style during the years of my story - in fact, I don't care that much exactly what anyone was wearing.  If I describe a gown in detail, it's because those details will play an important part of the scene.  Otherwise, I don't sweat the small stuff.

...continue reading "It's Called Fiction For A Reason"

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Published on 1 Comment on Does Anyone Buy Paperbacks Anymore?

Our new project this week - the book trailer for Faerie (see post from hubby below, YouTube, Yahoo Video, & Coming Soon Everywhere We Can Think Of)  turns my thoughts to marketing and the state of the industry generally. 

Of course, it also turns my thoughts to Faerie which is my "rest of the story" spin on the famous legend of the Clan McLeod of the Isle of Skye in Scotland.  After Ian's handfast marriage to a faerie princess ended after a year and a day, per his agreement with her da, the Faerie King, the princess returned to the land of faerie.  Her braw, strong hubby watched her go, holding their infant son, without making a single protest.  Later, the babe cried and the princess returned to comfort him, leaving him wrapped in a faerie flag that could be used to protect the Clan.  Interesting story, but what laird worth his highland blood would let a beloved go without fighting to keep her?  And after she left, we have a fine laird with a castle and no lady wife.  When he marries, how will the princess feel?  Surely, the many tears she'd shed would anger her powerful father into appearing at the wedding reception and pronouncing a curse. 

Check out the trailer for A Faerie Fated Forever, and you'll get a glimpse of that handfast marriage that ended in a curse that the current laird must meet or risk living his father's tormented, unfulfilled life.  You'll also get a glimpse of the gorgeous terrain of the highlands and hints of the rest of the plot.  So watch the trailer and buy the book or the e-book. 

After watching markets recently, I'm betting you'd buy the e-book. 

...continue reading "Does Anyone Buy Paperbacks Anymore?"