Plotters & Manipulators United
…and anarchy ensues
DELICIOUS is up now against the number 1 seed in the bracket, Loretta Chase’s YOUR SCANDALOUS WAYS, in the DABWAHA tournament. I didn’t even notice when PRIVATE ARRANGEMENTS went down. PRIVATE ARRANGEMENTS can take care of itself, but DELICIOUS, DELICIOUS is my precious, preciousssss…
Okay, enough of my indecent love for that book. If you enjoyed DELICIOUS, please vote for it at http://dabwaha.com/blog. Voting closes 8pm EDT today.
And here is DELICIOUS in all its audio glory. Sigh, so pretty.
Both DELICIOUS and PRIVATE ARRANGEMENTS are in the DABWAHA Tournament. It’s set up like March Madness, 64 books, 1 champion. Go have some fun and vote for your faves. First round is on.
I just received the audio CDs for DELICIOUS in the mail yesterday. Now I feel like a rock star, or at least like Diane Settlefield, whose book The Thirteenth Tale, was the last book I listened to on audio. The narrator is Virginia Leishman, who also narrated Possession by A. S. Byatt for Recorded Books. Boy, does she make me sound like Masterpiece Theater. And it’s got a great cover. (My camera is broken. I’ll see if I can’t take a picture of it with someone else’s camera.) I’m wondering if I should do a giveaway. This would be the perfect romance conversion item, cuz your quarry wouldn’t even have any idea s/he was listening to romance, until it’s too late of course. 🙂
Typically, I make a book trailer at the very last minute, a week before the book hits the shelves or something like that. Until I learned that for Borders to use your book trailer (a pretty big if), it has to be ready a good two months before the book’s release.
So I went ahead and did it early this time.
Okay, I have it. And it is a very pretty trailer. But what do I do with it?
The ideal thing would be to build an online publicity campaign around it. But I don’t really know how willing people are to host YouTube videos on their blogs, etc. Is it doable? What kind of prize should I hand out? Am leaning toward cash prizes, like prepaid visa cards or some such, but how much and how many?
Also, how do I publicize such a contest? If I just let people know about it on my blog, website, social group sites, etc, would it be enough? Or should I promise an e-reader to get Dear Author’s attention, the way Kresley Cole did?
And what about widgets? I’ve seen promotional campaigns built around widgets here and there. Have you done one or participated in one or run into one surfing around? Do you think widgets work?
I’d love to know.
How did I miss this? Bettie Sharpe’s LIKE A THIEF IN THE NIGHT has been out in print, as part of an anthology, since the very end of 2008.
I wrote a combined review for EMBER and LIKE A THIEF IN THE NIGHT January last at Dear Author. It’s not very often that I exhort readers to support a certain author, but I think a special case should be made for Bettie. Cuz she is just too awesome a talent. And for selfish reasons, I want her to get a lot of money from her writing so that she needs to do nothing but write. For my enjoyment. 🙂
I haven’t seen the book in the stores yet–not that I was particularly looking for it–but you can get it from Amazon here.
So I checked my email yesterday, and my agent sent me the link to Random House Mondadori’s page for the Spanish version of PRIVATE ARRANGEMENTS. And it’s got a cover! In publishing, nothing’s more interesting than covers.
I was totally tickled. Like my friend Michelle said, it’s like a Jane Austen book with my name replacing Jane’s! 🙂 Spanish PA goes on sale February 13, 2009.
So then I pestered Kristin about the Russian PA, because that was the first foreign rights sale we ever made, and should have come out already. And it was, and Kristin got a cover from Whitney, her foreign-rights co-agent. And behold:
My first Barbara Cartland cover!
Seriously, I couldn’t stop looking at this cover. I mean, what a couch. Now I’ve got to have one like it. And of all the ladies who’ve graced PA’s cover, this one actually looks most like what Gigi might–and with that attitude too.
If you look closely, you’ll see that the front cover and the back cover are actually mirror images. The woman is painted over where the couch would have been on the right side. And if you look even more closely, you’ll see that the it’s the top curve of the same throw pillow under the plant on the right, they just painted out the buttons on it!
I am enthralled. ENTHRALLED!
P.S. The Russian title Idealnaya Para, means The Ideal Couple. (Or so I gather from googling.) And it is already available. Inform all your Russian friends! 🙂
P.P.S. If there are any art history majors out there, I’d love to know what painting they used for the Spanish PA. It looks like a Victorian era artist, but I tried Leighton, Tissot, and a few others and came up empty.
Update 1: Thanks to Seton, now we know that the cover is based on a painting by Tissot, named “Study For.”
Update 2: Thanks to Courtney Milan, I now know that the Russian PA is coming out in two different editions.
For 240 rubles, you can have this, same as above.
If you have only 200 rubles to spare, you still can have it, albeit in a slightly more somber package. 🙂
Will wonders never cease? 🙂
But only until December 27.
Ah, Wonderland.
I totally luuurve this casual game series. It is the cutest thing you’ve ever seen until you realize how challenging the harder levels are.
How much do I love it? With my club membership, I can buy any game I want from a game portal for $6.95, but for these games I go to the original publisher, Midnight Synergy, and pay $20 because I want the company to prosper.
Now they are giving away the game that started it all. If you want one, go here and scroll down. Happy Holidays!
It’s been a week since I turned in a pseudo-complete draft of NOT QUITE A HUSBAND and I feel completely out of breath. I’ve been running around the house trying to put some organization into our sadly disorganized existence, in front of the computer replying to all the accumulated emails, updating my website, and making a Xmas newsletter, and doing the usual mommy stuff, including freezing my rear off on the coldest day of this season–so far–helping out at the junior kidlet’s school trip.
And after a whole week of rushing about (okay, there was a day of writing in my contemp romp and a half-day of frowning over the next historical project), I look around and these are the things I have not done:
1)Send Christmas presents to agent and editor
2)Read either of the manuscripts I promised I’d read for possibly blurbing
3)Sort and shred the mountain of statements that have been accumulating since I was still in grad school
4)Put up our paltry few strings of Xmas lights, b/c junior kidlet delights in them
5)Laundry (His Hawtness dealt with the previous load, and since I’m not currently on deadline, I feel like I should do more.)
Boy, more and more I’m beginning to think people love historical romance for the abundance of servants! And maybe they read Harry Potter for the house elves. 🙂
Before I rush off to fight the neverending War on Dirty Clothes, let me point you to RT’s website, where you’ll find the video interview I did with the awesome Morgan Doremus during RWA San Francisco. You can also see the videos here and here.
I was rather wondering about the timing of the videos being featured on RT. Morgan Doremus had told me that usually they’d haul out the clips when there’s some news about me or my book. And then Meredith Duran told me that PA has been nominated for a RT Best Historical Debut award. I haven’t seen it posted anywhere so I’m going to have to trust that Meredith wasn’t just having fun with me. 🙂
Okay, off to the seasonal frenzy again.
Dec 10 Update: Sent presents. Put up lights. And did laundry. 🙂
Jan 2, 2009 Update: Did I say I was going to announce the winner on Dec 25? Well, Christmas day saw me snowed under revisions. But finally I found some time to visit my dear friend the random number generator, and here is the winner: Jenny Schwartzberg. Congratulations Jenny!
Yay, free stuff!
I recently chucked over a $25 Christmas bonus to my web designer, Frauke Spanuth of Croco Designs (whose latest showpiece is the Dear Author overhaul). And Frauke, as fabulous a woman as she is a graphic designer/code master, offered me a $25 X-mas voucher to giveaway.
What can you do with a $25 design voucher? Well, you can get yourself a set of banner/badge ads designed for All About Romance, for instance, which she has done for me recently. I think my bookmark design was for about that much too. Throw in a bit more cash, and you can get yourself a web template, which I got at the beginning of 2008 for $75, if memory serves. (Of course prices are subject to change without prior notice, etc.) And if you don’t have a webpage, she does great myspace layouts too–I’m going to have her do mine next year.
(I host my newsletter through Frauke’s other company, Janus Portal, and let me tell you, a more economical deal on e-newsletter hosting I couldn’t find.)
Sooo, what do you have to do for a chance to win this fun little prize? Well, since I’ve recently said that I should do more for my publisher, I’m going to do just that. Tell me about your favorite Bantam author(s) in the comment. (And since this is already my blog, you can leave me out.) 🙂
I’m going to start.
First up Shana Abe, one of the most lyrical writers working today.
Mary Balogh, who’s going to have 4 books out back-to-back early next year.
Sarah Addison Allen, whose debut Garden Spells I enjoyed very much.
Linnea Sinclair, a fellow Nelson Literary Agency client, is published with Bantam Spectra.
Jill Sorenson will have her Bantam debut released January 27, 2009.
Sharon Page will have her Bantam historical debut released February 24, 2009.
And my agent keeps telling me that if I want to do a big martial art epic, then I need to read Diana Gabaldon‘s Outlander–and of course, Gabaldon is a Bantam Dell author too.
Wow. Pretty darn good covers one and all.
Now it’s your turn. Tell me which BantamDell authors rock your world. And if you have testimonials of Frauke’s fabulous work, feel free to gush also. 🙂
Updated to add: The winner will be picked on December 25, of course. 🙂
The Smart Bitches happen to link to an article in Publishers Weekly on the clinch cover. And the verdict is, the clinch is here to stay.
One particular quote from Sue Grimshaw, Borders’ romance buyer, struck me. “A tastefully done clinch is a must-have for debut authors,” said Ms. Grimshaw, which is more or less what she said when she had breakfast at RWA SF with a few of us Bantam authors.
So now my wonderful publisher is giving me the must-have clinch covers for debut authors. Bantam will reissue DELICIOUS and PRIVATE ARRANGEMENTS with new covers to coincide with the release of NOT QUITE A HUSBAND. And here, without further introduction, are the preliminary versions of the new covers.
I do love the background on this. There is something very fairy tale-ish about it. I am not crazy about the mantitty–I’m never crazy about mantitty to start with, and this one is bigger than mine. So…wish he had some clothes on. But chest is de rigueur so I’ll go with what sells.
Now this is much more my thing. Love the pose. Love the dress. Love the presence of the man without the actual mantitty. I’m, however, slightly torn about the color. On the one hand, I personally love it. On the other hand, there is something slightly poison apple-ish about it and rather startled the spouse when he looked at the high-def image. But there are certain colors that don’t translate as well in jpeg and I trust Bantam to get it just right in print.
This news is actually two days old, but I’m still going to consider it news. PRIVATE ARRANGEMENTS made Publishers Weekly‘s Best of the Year list! It is one of the five books picked for the Mass Market category. Also on the list is my Levy Tour compadre Jordan Dane whose book NO ONE HEARD HER SCREAM actually came out on the same day as PA. Congratulations, Jordan.
It’s been years since I read PRIVATE ARRANGEMENTS. And recently, during an online chat, when asked my favorite character of mine–Gigi’s mother from PA–I misspelled her name. 🙂 So getting on the PW list has been fun and sweet rather than rolling-on-the-floor thrilling, like watching a childhood friend succeed from afar.
Now back to work on NOT QUITE A HUSBAND, which is, of course, going to be my best book EVA! 🙂