We’ve got a time: 8:30 AM
On a date: July 16
And a Room: The Harding Room

While we have some great sponsors including: Books on Board, Red Sage Publishing, Samhain Publishing, Quartet Press, and Smart Bitches, this is a streamlined event and we would ask you to bring your own tea, coffee, hashbrowns or donuts. That’s right, it’s BYOTCH-D.

For the Rogue Digital Conference

Kassia Krozser of Booksquare.com and a frequent speaker on the publishing circuit and the head of a new romance epublisher, Quartet Press, will start us off by focusing on digital issues, particularly the contrasts between traditional print publishers and digital publishers. She will be highlighting the efficiencies of the latter, challenges (and strengths) for the former, and questions authors (and maybe readers) should be asking. Kassia will touch on timing of reversion of rights, territorial rights in the worldwide digital audience, chunked content, and the spectre of being paid on the net.

Sarah Wendell of SmartBitchesTrashyBooks.com, co-author of Beyond Heaving Bosoms, and lecturer will discuss digital promotion and some self publishing numbers shared by authors as well as the results of the Smart Btiches eBook Reader Olympics.

Jane Litte from DearAuthor.com will share with you the five questions you need to ask your agent about the Google Book Settlement. She will discuss how evolving technology may affect the number of ereading devices in the future such as transreflective LCD screens, the popularity of netbooks, tablets, and dedicated readers and the rise of the smartphone.

Angela James, executive editor of Samhain Publishing will present the digital publishing model and how it works along with the pros and cons of publishing with a digital publisher (aka why you may or may not want to go this route with your next book) with a straight look at the money.

Maya Banks and Lauren Dane, two epublished and print published authors,  are ready to share the hard numbers about digital publishing and why they’ve both chosen to keep one foot in the digital publishing pond.

(Info appropriated from Angela James' blog)

My Laid Bare with Flair Contest starts tomorrow, July 3 at my blog!

Each day there'll  be a daily contest where entrants can win a book, an accessory of some kind or both!  There'll be an official contest post and a way to enter. I'll draw a winner for the previous day's contest each day at noon pacific.  Winners have THREE days to claim their prize or I will re-draw so don't forget to check in!

On August 3, the day before Laid Bare is due to release, I'll draw from ALL the entries from each day's contests to choose a Grand Prize Winner and two Runner Up prizes. 

Grand Prize:  A copy of Laid Bare, a t-shirt, some of my favorite accessories (examples: music, socks, hair gizzies, magnets, whatever shiny I pick up between now and then!), the Laid Bare soundtrack via iTunes (you must live in a country where you can use iTunes for this part) and a fun tote to carry it all.

Runners up will receive a copy of Laid Bare and a t-shirt.

Authors participating in daily prizes:
Cynthia Eden
Megan hart
Tracy Wolff
Beth Kery
Ashleigh Raine
Beth Williamson
Anya Bast
Vivi Anna
Denise Agnew
TJ Michaels
Carolan Ivy
Elisabeth Naughton
Savannah Foley
Maya Banks
Moira Rogers
Sylvia Day
Julianna Stone
Portia Da Costa
Shelli Stevens
(me too of course!)

Good luck! I'll be kicking the contest off tomorrow with a copy of Relentless and some pretty earrings!

Laid Bare will be out in just a bit over a month – I thought I’d toss out a scene from early on in the book after Todd has returned to Seattle and he and Erin are getting to know each other again.

LAID BARE by LAUREN DANE
Copyright 2009 Lauren Dane
All Rights Reserved, Penguin Group, USA

She looked around the front room they’d been in. Things were arranged in a feminine way, but not in the way a woman does when she’s a lover. Not in the way of a woman who has marked a space she was a regular part of. No, this spoke of mother or sister. She knew he had both, or he did before anyway.

A knot of tension loosened at that realization and then agitation rolled through her. She shouldn’t care one way or the other. Only that she wasn’t the other woman.

“There you are.” He came back into the room and moved directly to her. She liked that he sought her out, liked the way he kissed the back of her neck.

“Like I’d run away? You promised Thai food and beer. Can’t run out on that. Now is this the room you wanted to paint? If so, dude, you haven’t even moved the furniture. And, not to be nitpicky or anything, but um, shouldn’t you have more than this?”

He dragged her down a hall into another room. This one had drop cloths down, and painter’s tape had been put around the windows and at the ceiling.

“This is the room. I used to have more furniture, but the divorce, you know.” He shrugged. “She’d bought most of it anyway. I let her have it. I need to start over, I suppose.”

“Ah. I understand.” And she did. She’d come back to Seattle with very little that had decorated the home in LA she’d shared with Jeremy and Adele. “Sometimes you just need to make a clean break.”

He bent, prying open a can of paint, pouring it into a pan. The back of his T-shirt rode up, showing a work-hard, sun-kissed swath of skin. A shiver went through her at the sight, like a secret between
them.

When he turned, she’d put a bandana over her hair. She took the roller brush he handed her way. The windows were open and she heard birds chirping, children playing, lawn implements buzzing and whirring. Normal, everyday life went on, comforting her and making her feel inadequate all at once.

“You know about clean breaks?” he asked before taking his own roller brush up and putting it through the paint.

She followed suit, the wet-swish sounds of the brushes distributing paint on the walls a surprisingly warm combination between orange and yellow.

It wasn’t like she’d never told anyone what happened. But the telling was like pulling an organ out, ripping it from her flesh and nearly dying from the pain.

“Yes,” she murmured as she worked.

“You had someone in LA?”

“Yes.”

He waited awhile, as they painted. After a time he began to speak. “When I met Sheila, she was everything I wanted in a woman.” He paused. “Everything I thought I wanted. Soft. Feminine. She went to church on Sundays. We had dinner with her family every other weekend. She was— is beautiful in that magazine-spread-for–Family Circle sort of way. Perfect. Blonde, big pale-blue eyes. Her
voice is so soft and sweet.”

Erin knew he had a point to make, but whatever it was, the lead up was making her want to run this Sheila bitch over with her car a few times. And kick him in the junk for telling her all this.

“Anyway, I thought once I married her, I’d feel better. I’d be doing what I was supposed to. I’d have this pretty wife, I’d be a cop, have a career, a house in the suburbs, kids in a few years maybe. I should have been happy. But I wasn’t. I came home every night to a perfect house. Dinner on the table. She was good to me, Erin, but I did not hold up my end of the bargain. After a while she sort of
gave up. I can’t blame her. She wanted kids and I put her off. I think she was considering leaving me long before the shooting. Anyway, I guess sometimes what we think we want isn’t what we need, and until we admit it, we’re fucking lying to ourselves.”

She sighed. “I haven’t painted a wall in many years. I’m going to be sorry tomorrow.” She paused and looked at him sideways. He raised a brow and she admitted defeat. “Fine. I had a lot of things I’d dreamed of. I was ridiculously happy, I can’t lie to you. But something so singularly horrible happened to me that it broke me. It turned me inside out and I will never be the same. Jeremy had a different way to process what happened. Our romantic relationship didn’t make it through. He’s still my friend, you should know that. He’ll always be a part of my life if for no other reason than that he’s Adrian’s manager. Anyway, sometimes things happen. Things you dream of as your worst nightmare but you simply can’t imagine the horror until you’re living them. And you’re so bent, so broken and changed that you have to walk away or you’d . . . die.”

She blinked the tears back as she painted, letting the rhythm ofthe work soothe her.

“Jesus God. What happened to you, Erin?”

“I lost someone. I can’t . . . I really just can’t talk about it right now. Are your parents happy you’re back home?”

Todd’s hands trembled as he pushed the roller up and down the wall. Her voice, her demeanor—she’d changed and he wanted to comfort her, but he didn’t know how and it was clear she wasn’t ready to reveal more at this stage in their relationship. Whatever it was, it had stolen the joy from her eyes, taken the edge of freespiritedness from her and put lines around her mouth.

Over time, I’ve written a few books here and there and I usually have a very strong sense of the story – how I want it to feel, what sort of people my characters will be, etc. But it’s not until I start writing that I begin to learn what makes them tick.

While I do love me some big, burly alpha males, I really have a thing about smart men with passion about people and issues they care about.

Who’s seen Say Anything? It’s one of my favorite movies ever – it’s got the popular and pretty girl falling for the stoner archetype who lives in an apartment with his sister and neice (class and clique differences). At first glance, she’s everything he isn’t. But she’s smart, remember? And so she sees Lloyd for what he is.

Lloyd goes to dinner at her house where her father has seen fit to make him as uncomfortable as possible by inviting people who will remind Lloyd of what Diane is and what he isn’t. (Diane’s father is not hero material, by the way. While we hear he does what he does for his daughter’s sake, he’s selfishly keeping her away from people who care about her, people her own age who know her in a different context, that’s selfish.)

When asked what he wants to do with his life, Lloyd says:

I don’t want to sell anything, buy anything, or process anything as a career. I don’t want to sell anything bought or processed, or buy anything sold or processed, or process anything sold, bought, or processed, or repair anything sold, bought, or processed. You know, as a career, I don’t want to do that.

This makes me have squishy love feelings for Cameron Crowe because it’s one of my favorite movie quotes of all time. It’s funny and relevant and it communicates a real sense of who Lloyd is inside.

Not every hero is what we expect at first glance. Give me a man who has layers!

In August’s RT Magazine, Laid Bare gets 4 1/2 stars and a Top Pick!

In a word, this book is amazing. All three characters are magnetic and thoroughly realistic. They’re expertly woven into a roller-coaster story that will have you crying one moment, aroused the next and laughing with glee at each triumphant step along the way. With menage and some mild M/M scenes, this is Dane’s best story yet!

Thank you, Bella and RT!

Okay so on to digital publishing, which will be a bit shorter as the process is, in general less complicated because there are less steps. (not a value judgement, just a statement of fact)

As I said in part II, I’ve written for the two largest and most financially successful epublishers as well as some smaller ones so this is based on my experiences with contracts. This is strictly about how money is delivered as that’s pretty much what I addressed in part II. I do plan to talk about the epublishing process when it comes to submitting and getting the book out, but that’ll be later.

You don’t need an agent to submit a manuscript to an epublisher. I have an agent, but I’ve never used her for my digital deals. I have a great relationship with Samhain and I don’t forsee a need to have her negotiate at this point. But essentially the process is similar.

You submit your manuscript and wait. Sometimes weeks, sometimes months. If the editor likes your book, they offer you a contract.

Depending on the publisher, you’ll get a release date and a deadline to turn in the final manuscript or you’ll receive a release date after your “final” is turned in. In either case, even if you get an advance, it’s going to be small and you won’t see any “real” money until your book releases.

Book releases and a month afterward (in the case of the two big pubs I’ve written for, some pubs go quarterly) you’ll see royalties if your book sold any copies. You will continue to see royalties monthly until the book does not sell anymore or you get your rights back.

These royalties will range between 35 and 40% of cover price.

Print from Digital Publishers:

I’ve got several epublished books in print. Samhain does hold a reserve against return (which I think is a good idea for any publisher) and releases after a certain time period. Samhain pays print royalties twice yearly. The royalty rate for these books is FAR lower than the royalty rate on digital books, just FYI, and pretty much what the average NY author makes on print.

Distribution is very dependent on the publisher. And distribution is important when we’re talking about money. The more places your books are, the more readers will be exposed to them and your chances of selling your books are higher. This equals more royalties. Some publishers are very good at it, some are not. Your books may end up on shelves in the big chains, or only via the publisher site (speaking from experience, the difference between the two situations is an order of magnitude when royalties arrive.)

However, understand the print runs are not the same, they are much smaller in most cases. Still, there is no advance to earn through so the process is different and royalties flow to the author differently because of that.

Other epublishers have print programs that are disorganized, pay very irregularly and/or poorly and I can’t really address many of them since I don’t write for them and I can’t give any specifics. Any author should ask questions on this before signing a contract. The money is not so insignificant that I’d ignore this issue.

Digital books don’t go out of print. I’m still making excellent royalties on books that came out in 2005. However, because of this, be extra attentive to the rights clause in the contract as rights reversion is different with digital books when they don’t go out of print.

Where you sell your book means something. Different houses are going to do a better or worse job and you’ll see that in your monthly royalties. Writers need to put time and thought into who they contract a book with. Authors need to make better choices and they’ll see better results. (yes, this sounds harsh, but come on folks, help yourselves here)

There are major differences between the two models. Some of these might be a deal breaker for an author either way. In any case, the information should be out there so writers can make the choice themselves, based on as much info as they can get.

I’m not going to editoralize here. Your choices are your own, you make them for your own reasons.

Okay – there’s a lot of focus on advances and how they’re superior to monthly royalties (okay, not just superior but if you don’t go that way, you’re letting yourself be robbed.) I thought it might be interesting to just lay out the two different systems by way of FYI.

As with much of life, your experiences may differ from mine, but I’ve written for three traditional advance paying publishers and two of the largest and most successful epublishers. This is my experience, YMMV and stuff.

Traditional Model: Author pitches book to advance paying publisher. If publisher wants it (and after acquisitions, which is a whole NOTHER post), they make an offer for an amount of money per book in the deal.

Offer is accepted. Some time later (up to three months or more in some cases), a contract arrives. Agent checks it over or author checks it over. Contract forwarded to author. Author looks it over, signs and sends to publisher.

An advance is not usually one lump sum. It’s usually broken down into parts. For instance, you may get some money at signing, some money at delivery and acceptance and the last bit at publication. (different authors and houses have different breakdowns)

So anywhere between a month to six (sometimes higher), you get the first chunk, minus your agent’s percentage. Then after that, after you deliver the finished book, you’ll get some more money (and again, it can take months to a year to get that because depending on when your book will be released, your editor will have eleventy billion other things to do before she gets to your book to officially accept it. I’ve been lucky, I know other authors who have not). And on release you get the rest.

And so on.

The way royalties are structured, it can be some time before an author sees any money above and beyond her initial advance. Royalties are paid twice a year in most cases, based on the previous sales period. Being specific here, we just received royalties for the first Vegas anthology that came out in May of 2008 and I was happily surprised as I hadn’t expected to see anything until the end of this year if at all. Some authors with books that hit big right off will get royalties much quicker, and some will never see another dime after that initial advance.

Several important things: An advance is NOT free money because you are so awesome. An advance is an advance against your royalties. In other words, you have to earn what they pay you (and then some) before you see any actual royalties from the publisher. If and when you ever see more money has a lot to do with what I note above.

Don’t forget the Reserve Against Returns. What’s that you ask? Book publishing is not without overhead, folks. Publishing houses send out shipments of books to bookstores. Many times, at least some of those books are returned to the publisher. Publishers don’t get paid for books bookstores don’t buy. This is a huge financial hit and the rumored cause of several small publishers who had no reserve and couldn’t survive the returns. They have to keep the money back or the returns would either mean the author would owe back the money paid, or the publisher could go out of business after losing the money.

In any case, boys and girls, this reserve can be as high as 65% in some cases and as low as 25% – By this I mean, you make your advance = sell through, but because of the reserve, you’re not going to start seeing royalties even when you sell through. Not immediately anyway. Several things trigger the release of the funds – time: contracts specify the $ can only be held for X amount of time (up to 3 years in some contracts, most that I know of aren’t that severe. Also, sometimes the release will be on a sliding scale – after X months you get 15% back, then another 20% and so on); amount of royalties earned: once you earn above and plus that reserve, the money flows. Or you can get chunks of it in combination with time and the amount of royalties earned = You earn out and then some in some percentage that triggers the release bit by bit (or the whole shebang depending on how awesome your sales are). I’m quite sure there are other ways in different contracts so if you have another experience to share, please do! The point is, don’t forget about that Reserve Against Returns!

** a note about reserve against returns – they’re totally complicated. So the time period and amount can vary wildly from author to author and even book to book. Moreover, even older books that came out ten years ago can still have reserves with reprints. Your own contract will spell it out for you.**

Also, some other points regarding money via traditional publishing – bookclub deals are structured differently. Your digital sales may have different (hopefully better) royalty shares, but not in every case, authors are still working on this issue. There are foreign rights sales in some cases. There are things like special editions and situations where trade books go to mass market. Also, with your royalties, you’ll see different percentages for different amount sold = the more you sell, the better paid you’ll be.

Up Next: Part III – how digital publishing works

Does money make you legimate? Is it the sole barometer of success in a career? Does a lot of money make you a better writer, painter, clothing designer, singer, actor, whatever?

In the never ending attempt to marginalize that which isn’t understood by some forces within the RWA, money seems to be the factor they’ve hung their hat on most recently and I’d like to address it. (I say some forces because I do not believe everyone on the national board, or everyone within the RWA feels this way.)

Last year, the PAN eligibility rules were changed. Publisher recognition was abolished and instead, a nonsensical and pretty much incoherent policy replaced it – the 1K advance rule. So, if a publisher does not pay at least 1K in advances it’s not that they’re not recognized, it’s that they’re not allowed to have editor appointments at National, or publisher spotlights.

A slight detour for a moment – to be totally honest, I don’t believe PAN has done anything for my career. I don’t hate PAN, but I think there’s a sense from the outside that PAN is so totally awesome that once you belong a lake of liquid rainbows with boats guided by unicorns comes and sweeps you into a magical land where book deals fall from the sky like skittles in those commercials. Maybe I don’t know the secret entrance for that stuff, but that’s not been my personal experience. Perhaps I’m not career focused enough. Shrug. To be totally honest, I joined PAN because it was the only way I could get my website listed on the RWA website. I’m told there are ribbons or buttons or somesuch for badges at National. Whatever. I’m quite sure many authors get a lot from PAN (and I’m not being sarcastic).

Anyhoodle, so to get back to the subject of money – the argument, a complicated mishmash of sillyness not backed up by any actual data, is that this magical 1K advance makes a publisher legitimate. Therefore, any author not writing for a publisher who pays this magical 1K advance is not “career focused.” **edited to add: Jackie Barbosa makes the very good point in comments that an author can still be PAN eligible if she earns the 1K in royalties on one title or in combination. This does not apply to publisher eligibility, but it does affect PAN eligibility for that author so I should have mentioned it**

When pressed for an actual, you know, fact/logic based definition of career focused, we hear the same thing – it’s about money. If a publisher does not pay you 1K advance, they are “getting something for nothing”

Setting aside the absolute ridiculousness of that comment for a moment, let’s talk about money, shall we?

The Author’s Guild of America did a survey of its members on money. Money IS important, don’t get me wrong. I like money. A lot. But when all was said and done, the AG survey came up with this: The average author earns about $10,000 a year. Yes, I said $10,000. Hmm, I wonder if they got that magical 1K advance or not, since that sort of money is far, far lower than the poverty limit.

My point being, MOST authors, working for an advance paying publisher or not, are not making enough money to live on. If you’re talking about money = career focused, are you then saying that the average author isn’t career focused? Or are you saying that 10K a year is “enough” money but only if you make it through an advance paying publisher? What are you saying, RWA? Because I gotta tell you, I’m confused by all these sweeping statements made without any definitions.

Sure, sure, I’m a lawyer, we like rules and definitions. But really, since this is a rule, shouldn’t it be defined? Why isn’t it anyway? And why does my asking mean I’m only out for myself and not the general membership of the RWA (which, duh. Of COURSE my priorities are my career, that’s called CAREER FOCUSED isn’t it?)

Talking about money is difficult for a host of reasons. First, to me, money is NOT the only indicator of success or career focus. There are authors who were never recognized for their talent in life. They made next to no money but their books, today, are the cornerstone of literature classes and the inspiration for tens of thousands of up and coming authors every day.

Second, the amount of money you can make is dependent on a host of things, many of which have zip to do with your career focus as an author. Heck, a lot of which has very little to do with the book.

Third, because in my case anyway, talking about money feels like bragging. I do well. My first year out I made mid five figures and it’s gone up and up each year since to the high five figures. I make far more money per year than the “average” writer but that does not make me a better writer than someone who made less than me. It doesn’t make someone who made more than me better either. It doesn’t make me more career focused either.

Put simply, the insistence on this 1K advance as proof of career focus is innacurate at best and dangerous at worst. Most authors don’t make a huge amount of money. Some do, many make a good living, many don’t and continue to work a second job.

Career focus is not about money. There are authors who worked to sell their first book for years and years. Authors who are now huge names. In those years while they sold nothing, were they not career focused? Knowing the facts, knowing most authors will not make huge amounts of money from their writing, why then, this silly focus on that advance – especially a thousand dollars.

CAREER: an occupation or profession, esp. one requiring special training, followed as one’s lifework
FOCUS: a central point, as of attraction, attention, or activity

I just looked the words up in the dictionary, by the way. It’s not mysterious or anything. Anyone can do the same.

Career Focus means different things to different authors. And that’s how it should be, because each one of us has our own plans and goals. The job of the RWA should not be to judge those plans, but to help their members achieve them in an educated fashion.

Some writers like to write articles and short stories. They’re paid by the world or the page in many cases. Most of them do not make advances. Some authors enjoy writing for traditional publishers and they work for years to make that happen. Some authors like writing for epublishers for a whole host of reasons. Some authors like to mix and match those different things.

The job of the RWA shouldn’t be to inform us all what the personal and rather uninformed opinion of one person is. The job should be to equip its members to make the best, most informed choices they can in their chosen path.

Money is just one part of a whole host of things I believe are important to my career. That’s my business and my choice and I’m a member of the RWA becuase I’m a romance writer. I didn’t join a club. I joined an organization.

This is part I, I’ll be back with part II when I talk about the differences between the advance model and the monthly royalty model.

A few Sources (and really interesting articles)

It’s a pretty darned good time in the release biz these days - so many fabulous books out right now, many of them right next to my bed in a pile OSHA would probably say is unsafe.

I’d mentioned on Twitter a few weeks back that I was on a contemporary binge and asked for book recommendations - people brought up Victoria Dahl’s Talk Me Down over and over, which is awesome because I already had it and was all set to get cracking.

And I wasn’t sorry when I picked it up to get started. Talk Me Down has several of my very favorite story tropes - cops, small towns, girl returning home after being in the big city and oh my, the older, seemingly unattanable best friend of an older brother. That Victoria Dahl uses all these but in a way that touches on WHY we like them, but adds some twists to make it hers, is just the icing on the cake.

Talk Me Down has great dialog, the sexual chemistry is off the charts and the heroine is fabulously self aware when it comes to what she likes and how she likes it. The hero is the perfect combo of sensitive guy and big burly protector. Dahl manages to keep the book sexy without being vulgar, and contemporary without seeming like a parody. In short, I thought it was a wonderful read.

Let me tell you about my favorite scene, shall I? (Over at Dane/Hart I went all giddy about this scene so if this is a repeat for you, I apologize)

Okay so we’ve got this woman who has had a thing for Ben, her older brother’s best friend, since forever. Obviously I don’t want to give spoilers but it’s pretty clear they become a couple (it’s even in the blurb). But Dahl takes something Molly witnessed some years before between Ben and another woman and she turns it on its ear. Dahl takes this interlude between Molly and Ben all these years later and it’s just one of the hottest love scenes I’ve read in a book in a very long time - because Dahl uses that longing, uses all that desire Molly has had and when she looks up at Ben and says she always wanted it to be her, she wanted to be the one on her knees there with him…whooooo, guh!

I highly recommend it!

I also mentioned this a bit ago but I read Jeri Smith Ready’s Bad To the Bone, the follow up to Wicked Game and wow. Just wow.

If you haven’t read any of Jeri’s books yet, you really should. Well, only if you like tightly written worlds with really interesting characters with a vampire storyline like you’ve never heard before.

In this world, vampires sort of mentally freeze in whatever era they were made vampires. With this, she creates this sense of timelessness, of all times and no times at all - and it works. And then, she puts these vampires into a radio station where each vampire does a show based on the time they were made. It’s really very clever and unique and totally well done.

She picks up a while after Wicked Game ends - with Shane (think grunge poet) and Ciara working on their relationship, her issues, his attempts to not get bogged down in the decade he was made and oh yeah, crazy freaks who have decided to jam the radio signal every time a female singer or the lone female vampire DJ has a show.

Bad To the Bone is, quite simply put, one of the best books I’ve read this year. Great dialog. I’m not exaggerating when I say the world is tightly built. There aren’t any huge plot holes like you might see in some books, there are reasons why, or people want to know why if the reasons aren’t articulated or known yet. The characters are flawed but not stupid, they’re the kind of characters you can’t stop reading about. You want to know more. Ciara is my favorite kind of UF heroine, she is growing, she’s not just angry all the time for no apparent reason. She learns and she grows and I like her a lot.

Bad to the Bone is a great follow up to what was a great series opener. I really can’t wait to read what she’s got in store for us next.

Next week, I’ll be talking about SJ Day’s newest Eve book - Eve of Destruction (speaking of totally awesome UF books)
Bad

Can I get an amen on that? Writing, writing, writing! Working on Trinity, which is huge fun. I love Jack and I hope you all love Renee and Galen too! This will be a spin off from Cascadia Wolves. The story takes place in Boston where Jack works as the Enforcer to the National Pack. You’ll see Cade and Grace and their children as well as get to know Renee, a human woman, and Galen, a member of the local jamboree (yes, he’s a cat shifter). I expect to be done with the first draft by the 4th of July.

I think sometimes, the last week and a half or so of school is way more trouble than it’s worth. All this running around, the snacks, the sack lunches for field days, the permission slips and odd schedules - it all seriously drives me nuts. More so because dealing with some of the parents at the elementary school is like chewing tinfoil. I have manners. I might be bitchy and stuff, but in a parking lot filled with children I freaking watch. These people! Gah!

This morning a woman pulled out of the line of cars without a turn indicator or even the basic move of her eyes to her mirrors. I’m always taking care to drive slowly enough - it’s a school for god’s sake! But I nearly hit her because I’d already started to pass her. She then rolled through the crosswalk and ran the stop sign, pulled into the main drive across two lanes and made a left cutting off a school bus.

I’m never sure why people act this way. Clearly she has a child going to school there so the concept that children, jacked up on summer coming and hurrying to get to their classrooms, don’t pay a lot of attention so WE have to for them, can’t be foreign to her brain. Could it? Also, stop signs - big RED with STOP in bolded white all caps letters - it’s not “hey, listen, if you have the time, can you please stop?”

I keep hearing adults talk about “kids today” and how they have no manners, but it’s the adults who seem to be the problem. Kids learn from us. When you speed through the lot or park in the drop off lane just to chat with another parent instead of parking the car and walking and getting out of the way, when you can’t be bothered to send home school notices that are not filled with grammatical and syntax errors - then you can talk about kids today. But as far as I can tell, it’s parents today teaching their kids to be as selfish as they are and not the other way around.

And now I officially feel a hundred years old. Excuse me while I go tell some kids to get off my lawn or the HOA will send me a letter about it.

Finished up a revision and sent it off to my fabulous agent. I hope she likes what I’ve done with the story. In truth I think it works better the way I’ve changed it, it flows more easily and the characters make sense earlier on.

Now, it’s back to Trinity, which also makes me happy.

I injured both feet this last weekend, for a while I was pretty sure I’d broken my left foot but it’s much better today. Still, it left me hobbling around all weekend because my husband had to work and then we had a cancer walk and a CF walk yesterday that sadly I couldn’t attend as I could barely make my way down the stairs. The cut on my right foot is healing up enough that I’ll be able to run the kids to school when they go back tomorrow.

Summer is encroaching though. They have no more full weeks of school left. They were out today for a waiver day and then there are all sorts of last week of school things next week which means odd schedules and running them around town to do stuff.

And then they’re here with me all day every day. Sigh. I sent them outside earlier with three rules: No turning on the hose; no digging and no playing on the rocks. Forty minutes later I hear the hose so I go out and they’re making the hole they dug even bigger and making a mud pit.

Now, that hole is an issue around here. First of all, it’s like a foot and a half deep. It’s not wide, but it’s enough that my husband looked at it and made that sound my dad used to make right before I got the hell out of there. And hello, not even a full hour before they’re out there breaking two of three rules.

This was my day, sitting down to write and getting interrupted. Getting up to fix or deal with whatever problem was happening, sitting back down trying to get back into the story and of course checking in at twitter where I played a bit but not enough to totally distract me. Start writing again only to be interrupted shortly thereafter until everyone was called inside and made to clean.

Their older brother has figured it out - you don’t want mom’s attention focused on you when she’s busy or you’re being bad. Because then she’ll make you clean up or take something away from you and make you clean up or make you write a letter to your teacher or whatever.

A whole summer of this is bound to make my blood pressure shoot through the roof. I need to think of super time intensive stuff that’s intricate enough to keep them really focused and busy but not so boring or tedious they lose interest and look for trouble. Or I’ll make them weed my planter beds. Maybe both.

Nope, not much here about writing I know, but it’s not all bon bons and playing on the internet to see what Gerard Butler is up to either.

Hope everyone is having a good week! Later this week I’m going to be talking about writing from a biz perspective - breaking down the differences between advances and monthly royalties since that’s not happening at the National Level and I keep hearing ridiculous things like how epublishers not paying advances mean they’re getting something for nothing. Back in my college and law school days, when I made an assertion of fact, I had to back it up with something. This is not happeneing but I’m not wasting my time on that. I’ll give you the breakdown and you can make up your mind about the relative merits or lack thereof of each system. But at least there’ll be some facts there for you all to do that.

I’m also doing a booktalk post and I’m going to wax all fangirl squee about Victoria Dahl’s Talk Me Down and SJ Day’s Eve of Destruction (along with several other books I’m gonzo over just now).

And! I’m going to talk about writers moving into new genres from a few different perspectives.

So that’s it for today, talk to you all latah!

August 4, my first contemporary for Berkley Heat releases - Laid Bare.

I know I’m biased since it’s my book and all, but this cover steals my breath. I love it. It captures so much about the story - Erin is perfect and I love the tattoo, it’s spot on to the one she has in the book. The only thing missing is that the book is a menage - but Ben comes into the story, and the relationship later than Todd does, so it really does work.

Blurb: Unexpected Desire…

It’s been ten years since clean-cut, sexy-as-hell police officer Todd Keenan had a white-hot fling with Erin Brown, the provocative, wild rocker chick next door. Their power exchange in the bedroom got under his skin. But love wasn’t in the cards just yet…

Now, life has thrown the pair back together. But picking up where they left off is tough, in light of a painful event from Erin’s past. As Todd struggles to earn her trust, their relationship takes an unexpected and exciting turn when Todd’s best friend, Ben, ends up in their bed—and all three are quite satisfied in this relationship without a name. As the passion they share transforms Erin, will it be enough to help her face the evil she thought she had left behind?

How about an excerpt? Ben is back in Seattle after leaving for Boston ten years before. A lot has happened to both of them…

Words behind the text jump, a few of them are bad, in a good way of course.
 

(This book is awesome! A very fitting end to what has been a wonderful series)

4.5 stars from RT Book Reviews ~ “Bast finishes up her Elemental Witches quartet with plenty of fast-paced action and flair. She’s done a terrific job of setting up the supernatural conflict that comes to a thrilling climax in this book. A tremendous finish to a riveting series!”

Berkley Sensation
Elemental Witches 4
ISBN-10: 042522869X
ISBN-13: 978-0425228692
Release Date: June 2, 2009

Sarafina Connell is having the worst week of her life. It takes an even darker turn when an infamous playboy kidnaps her and reveals a world she never knew existed….

It’s a world where magick is real, and where Sarafina is given a chance to join a secret cabal that is bent on gaining absolute power. They could use a woman like her—a witch with an untapped gift for creating fire. But she isn’t about to get in league with the devil.

Rescued from her captors, Sarafina is introduced to a coven that is duty-bound to fight the forces of darkness. She’s pleased that her savior is the imposingly seductive Theo—until the trust between them goes up in flames. However, as the war between good and evil is waged, Sarafina and Theo realize they have no choice but to unite in the battle for supremacy—that’s getting hotter by the minute.

Here are a whole slew of announcements:

Another free read for you! Go to anya's web site for MICAH’S MAGICK, a free short story. Spoiler alert: Do not read until after you’ve finished Witch Fury. Enjoy!

I will be signing WITCH FURY at Uncle Hugo’s Bookstore in Minneapolis, MN on June 6th from 1-2pm. Mary Janice Davidson will also be there signing her latest release, Undead and Unwelcome.

Upcoming chats at Writerspace:
Berkley Jove Author chat: Thursday, June 11th at 9 PM ET
After Midnight Authors chat: Monday, June 22nd at 9 PM ET

Just a quick break from writing to pop in and post.

In all the talk about promotion online and with author groups, one thing I feel is neglected is: What is the PURPOSE of promotion?

I think it’s really important to ask yourself that question as an author. There is no end to the amount of time and money you can spend on promotion. But most of us don’t have an unlimited supply of either, moreover, it’s important to be smart with your time and money so what I do with each book is create a plan for that book. I lay out how much things will cost and go into details and timelines so I can keep it all straight. I find I spend way less money and time if I do this up front so I’m not rushing around at the last minute doing triage.

But the basis for all this work is what I am trying to promote - my writing. It spans more than one story, it’s about what I will write, what I have written and what’s out just now.

In my opinion (and that’s all this is, there’s no one true way or I’d be selling you all DVDs or whatever) - Promotion is never only about that book. If you try to think on it that way, I am not sure you’d ever get your “money’s worth” from it. It’s impossible to quantify either way - but I believe promotion should be far more long term and big picture, just like a career. Promotion, while it is about that book, should be about the author.

What I mean by that is your career is more than about one book. Sure, you want that book to do well and sure, to benefit the author, the book needs to do well. But, to narrow your focus is to leave out some of your most powerful tools.

You’re hopefully growing a reader base, giving them a reason to come back to you again, to seek out your backlist, etc. Approaching promotion with a concrete idea of what promotion is and should be, and of how you’ll use it to get yourself out there without spamming, wasting money like water or being totally ineffective - will give you a direction. Later on you can see what seemed to be effective and what wasn’t. (and here I’d like to interject that recommending your own book to me at goodreads or sending me eleventy billion invites to be your fan are not effective. This is counterproductive and it makes MY job harder because everyone distrusts authors on facebook so I’m painted with that same brush even though I’d never do that)

I’ve noticed authors grumbling when they are asked to do marketing plans. I do a marketing plan for each book and I include things like chats, guest blogging, contests, etc as well as ads. A marketing plan can help you focus on the target, it can help you think on just what that target/goal is.

I believe promotion is not only helpful to an author, especially one trying to build a solid, long term career, but necessary. I know other authors disagree with this and the world is a wondrous place filled with all sorts of ideas and beliefs, that one is not mine. BUT, I believe promotion is done so haphazardly by a lot of authors that they dread it even more than they have to if it’s done with more care.

And that’s my Wednesday post. I’m off to write now.

Each Saturday we’ll have a theme and each Saturday, authors will blog excerpts on that theme. From the things we’ve all been talking about, I think the most fun will be in seeing how each person interprets and then executes the theme.

We’ll all be linking each other at the end of the excerpt so folks can follow along pretty easily. I’m pretty excited about this so I can’t wait to see how the next six months goes.

Click the banner above to get to my blog and start the tour!

(thank you to the wonderful Val Tibbs who made the banner above!)

Just a quick break from writing to announce that I’ve sold RIGHTEOUS BLADE to Samhain for release in September of 2010. Righteous Blade is urban fantasy/paranormal romance and in a totally new world. I’m beyond thrilled! More about the book soon…

And I also received news from my editor that RELENTLESS is a national bestseller! It’s been on the BGI and Barnes and Noble lists for a few weeks now. So thank you all who’ve picked it up!

Back to work for me!