Tag: publication

Talking About My Books

I haven’t talked about my books in a while, and it’s an exciting season.

Kringle Through the Snow, my latest Kringle Chronicles book, came out on October 1. It is a Christmas romance involving Sierra DuBois, an energetic event manager and Wade Nelson, an affable engineer and nerd. They bond over his selection for the Chamber of Commerce’s first Annual Grinch, and his inclusion into Sierra’s highbrow charity ball. Sierra has a secret that very well may derail the relationship, and she runs away to hide it. They will have to weather some storms if they want to walk in the snow.

The other book coming out on January 1st is Reclaiming the Balance. This is the latest in the Hidden in Plain Sight series, which is either contemporary fantasy or magical realism depending on who you ask. In this story, Janice Wilkens flees Chicago by teleportation with two strangers who know more about her abusive ex-boyfriend than they should. At her refuge, Barn Swallows’ Dance, she finds out about the immortal Archetypes like her ex, and their half-human Nephilim offspring. While plotting for the return of her Nephilim son from her ex, she grows closer to Amarel, an androgynous Nephilim. A journey of transformation beckons both of them as they strive to remedy the collective’s prejudice against Nephilim and rescue Janice’s son.

Both book series have other books published. There are five total books published in the Kringle series: The Kringle Conspiracy, Kringle in the Night, It Takes Two to Kringle, Kringle on Fire, and the current publication. Hidden in Plain Sight series has three published: Gaia’s Hands, Apocalypse, and the upcoming Reclaiming the Balance. There’s also a published short story collection based on the Hidden universe, Stories Within Stories.

There are three upcoming books in the Hidden series: Avatar of the Maker, Carrying Light, and Whose Hearts are Mountains. Those are waiting to be published in the future. There’s also another short story book coming.

There’s also a standalone book waiting to be published, known as Prodigies.

Of course I would like you to pick up one of my books and read them. That’s what they’re there for.

Ten Days till Publication!

Ten days till I publish Kringle Through the Snow! As the link says, it’s on Amazon Kindle, available as e-book and paperback.

I’m proud of this one, not surprisingly. (I could say that about any of my books). This one involves a genuine nerd, Wade Nelson, who falls for his neighbor, Sierra DuBois, who is a successful event planner. Just as their romance is progressing, Sierra’s sudden change of heart leaves them estranged. It will take good communication and some Santa Magic to bring them back together.

What I like about this story are the characters. Wade isn’t the stereotypical nerd who plays Dungeons and Dragons. Yes, he plays Dungeons and Dragons, but he’s not the unwashed stereotype. (Stereotypes aren’t cool). Likewise, Sierra isn’t your stereotypical Type-A event planner, although she is driven to excel. They, like my other characters, are a bit quirky and not what you’d see on the Hallmark Channel.

Maybe that’s the point. My Kringle Chronicles romances feature protagonists who usually get relegated to the role of quirky sidekick in other stories. Nobody is the homecoming queen; nobody is a millionaire. The wish fulfillment doesn’t have to include wishing you were someone more impressive.

Remember, the book comes out ten days from today. And if you have a hankering for a signed version, we can arrange something.

Publication Dates Announced

Both my books for publication are ready to be published. They’re sitting on KDP waiting only for their publication dates. I will release Kringle Through the Snow on October 1, just in time for falling into your Christmas romance TBR pile. Kringle Through the Snow involves an event planner with a secret dealbreaker, a self-professed nerd with a big dog, and a high-class gala with the Grinch. And, of course, snow.

Reclaiming the Balance, a Hidden in Plain Sight novel, will be published on January 1st. I use the New Year as publication dates for this series (even though I could release it today) because of some sort of superstition on my part. This novel concerns Janice, a sculptor who flees her immortal ex-boyfriend with the help of Amarel, an androgynous Nephilim. The two face prejudice from the open-minded people of Barn Swallows’ Dance as they attempt to liberate Janice’s Nephilim son from her ex.

The e-books are available for pre-order; not so much the paperbacks.

Submitting to CRAFT’s First Chapter contest

I haven’t used Submittable for quite a long time — three years, according to my list of submissions. Submittable, as I’ve explained it before, links creatives with contests and calls for publication. It’s another of those amazing computer assists that I don’t know how writers did without.

Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com

I can’t remember why I quit writing short pieces for publication. I think I tired of rejections, even though I got ten publications from it over a couple years. But, given that I’m all noveled out right now, I think it might be time to risk submitting again.

Toward this end, I got an email from CRAFT, whose first chapter contest I entered a couple of years ago. That’s how I got on their mailing list. I didn’t win, which is how my life didn’t change a couple of years ago. I decided I could get back into publishing short pieces with this contest.

I’m publishing the first 5000 words of Whose Hearts are Mountains, a future novel in the Hidden in Plain Sight series. That story has an interesting background, having been the result of a bout with pyelonephritis (kidney infection) in 1984. It took me almost 30 years to write down, after I had worked on at least a couple other novels. It might be my best novel, yet there are other novels to get through before I publish it. Unless a miracle happens.

I have to allow for the possibility of miracles happening.

A small triumph and some thoughts on improving

 I got two pieces accepted for publication yesterday! One was a flash fiction piece named “Literally” and the poem “Deep Touch”, which is one of my more favorite poems. (The poem above is neither; it’s just an illustration of what I write.)

I anticipate the journal didn’t get too many entries, because this is an inaugural issue of a journal and it’s not a high prestige literary journal. I’ll take it — I don’t write lofty enough for a high prestige literary journal. I also don’t use the modern convention of longer poems. My heroes are Emily Dickinson and ee cummings — they didn’t need more than about 24 lines. 

To be honest, though, I wish I could write longer poems. I wish I understood what people are doing in longer poems so I could at least see how they work. 

That’s something I wouldn’t have done when I was younger — try to improve. I now have this burning desire to improve everything I write, and I think I have improved to the level of my instruction, which is why I need more instruction.

I will always need more instruction.



Every Good Thing Has Its Cost

This morning I read a note in Facebook from an author who spoke of the time-consuming process of promoting her book. She spoke of the responsibilities of social media, the realities of watching her ranking on Amazon.com, the need for self-promotion.

Reading it, I realized that getting published will have its price. Starting with the process to publication — galley proofs, advanced review copies, building one’s social media platform (which I have been doing as evidenced by this blog post). Then, when the book is published, some or most of the responsibility of promotion falls to the reader through social media, book tours, and sales at conferences.

Am I ready for that? I think so. I have known that being published, especially if I get published by a house with some presence, will be life-changing, and that some of that life change will be work. I’m willing to make that sacrifice.

Feeling the need for inspiration.

I’m wrestling with the whole writing thing again, which I understand is part of writing.

In my mind, the struggle manifests itself as a lack of inspiration, a general blah. I’ve written five novels (and need to edit two but have lost my dev editor), which is a big accomplishment. 

I think what bothers me most about not getting published — when I accomplish something (a novel), I want a stretch goal, and getting it published is a stretch goal. Otherwise, once one has written one (or five) novels, what else is there?  I’d like to be published so that I feel that the goal isn’t totally unattainable.

Lately I’ve written some short fiction, which gives me something to enter on Submittable for a feeling of accomplishment, and hopefully publication. I have nine items in review, another nine waiting (I think I’ve said this before). I still wish I felt motivated toward editing/writing the longer stuff.

 Oh, yes, my flash fiction, Becky Home-ecky, now can be found in the A3 Review Volume 11, found in finer bookstores somewhere in the UK. 

I just hope I get out of this slump soon.

The Optimist vs the Pessimist

I’m discovering that I am an optimist.

I’m waiting for a few things in the pipeline as I explained yesterday, and I feel good about my possibilities, despite all the times I got rejected before on these very same writings. This is why I keep submitting to agents and publishers. I fantasize about getting published. Again and again, I’m drunk on possibility, captured by potentiality, suspended in rosebuds, surrounded by perpetual spring.

The pessimist in me tries to shut down the optimist to no avail. Optimism provides a kind of high that pessimism can’t compete with. The pessimist in me is in its full glory when I get rejected, and feels no obligation to commiserate with me, preferring to kick me while I’m down.

I’m trying to find a way around the Pessimist’s great timing when I get rejected again, which I suspect will happen (despite the optimism), because realistically, there are a lot more of us writers than there are agents and publishers.

140 characters or less

Yesterday, I participated in SFFPit on Twitter. This is one of several pitch sessions scheduled annually, in which authors get several hours in which to pitch their books in a 140 character summary. I pitched three of my manuscripts (the first book of three different threads — I have written 5 total). One of them, surprisingly Gaia’s Hands, got a nibble from a small press.

I sent in my query (cover letter, contact label, marketing plan*, synopsis) and this means I have three queries out. Then I researched the press, and what I read made me nervous.

First, most queries don’t include a marketing plan. Traditionally, most authors do not want to market themselves, perhaps because we expect the publisher to promote us. This publisher will not like my marketing plan, because it will at best be me assisting a publisher who will market me.

Second, most of the books they have published have been works of a woman whose name looks very similar to the name of the head of the company, so it appears to have grown out of an individual’s self-publishing.

Third, and I made this clear in my marketing plan, I have limited time to market myself. I have a day job 9 months out of the year, teaching classes in human services and psychology. It’s hard enough to find writing time, and I only do so because I can’t stand being passive in my off-time and the voices demand that they be let loose on paper. (Ok, the only voices I hear are those of my characters, and I don’t hear-hear them. Don’t panic.).

Fourth, like many self-publishing outfits, their book covers are of a bare-bones variety familiar to readers of self-published fiction: black with a simple picture. (No, this is not a hill I would die on; it’s just that I have pictures in my head of what I’d like, and a niece I’d love to commission to do the work).

I will hear them out if they eventually want to take me on. I will run any contract past a lawyer if I get a bite (or at least run it past my friend who has retired from law, and I will pay him fairly even if that means taking his whole family to Pizza Ranch).

I feel sad, though, because this is the first nibble I’ve ever gotten on a pitch. Writers face an industry where it’s easier for the big publishers to pick new books that look like previous books that have sold well. I know it’s tough out there — a Facebook friend of mine, who has had several novels published, is now out of that contract. Luckily, she has enough fans and a good enough reputation that her fans will follow her to self-publishing.

Ah well, maybe one of the other two will bite.