According to my website stats, 85 lovely people stopped by my blog between Christmas Eve and the morning of Boxing Day to download a copy of THE LESSON PLAN. Thank you all for taking some time away from your families to come and visit me. I hope you all enjoy the book and are having a wonderful holiday season. And know that if you downloaded a book, you fed three people, as yesterday I donated a dollar for every book to the San Diego Food Bank.

I have one last Lords of Lancashire cover and cover copy to reveal. And since the novella is set during the Christmas season of 1804, it seems as good a time as any to do so .

A Matter of Indiscretion
With his facility for languages and gift for diplomacy, Thomas Pearce is perfectly suited for his recent position in the Foreign Office. Or so he imagines until he receives his first assignment. Instead of a safe consular post in a friendly European capital, Thomas is going straight into the eye of the continental storm: France. On the eve of Napoleon’s crowning as emperor, no less. There is, it seems, a small matter of indiscretion just outside Paris that requires immediate attention. An indiscretion by the name of Sabine Rousseau, who happens to be the illegitimate daughter of Britain’s prime minister.

When a handsome gentleman arrives at her family’s home right before Christmas, claiming to be a long-lost cousin, Sabine is suspicious for reasons she can’t articulate. Perhaps it’s just that he’s far too attractive for her to think of him as a blood relation. She is, therefore, not entirely displeased when he sneaks into her bedroom and announces they aren’t kin. Her pleasure dissipates, however, when she learns he has come to smuggle her out of France…and why.

Now, Sabine and Thomas have a week to make their escape, and it won’t be easy. Her uncle considers her a ticket to win favor with Napoleon, and the French military has been alerted to the presence of a British “spy” on their soil. To avoid detection, the couple must pretend to be amorous newlyweds…and this proves the most difficult task of all. Because it isn’t long before neither of them is pretending, and a small matter of indiscretion may become large indeed.

Want to see all three novella covers next to each other? (Because I know I do!) Here you/I go:

So, now I’m sure you’re asking (well, I hope you are), “Jackie, when will I be able to read this fabulous-sounding novella?” The answer is…probably in November or December of next year. My planned release schedule for 2012 looks something like this:

April/May
Hot Under the Collar

June/July
Wrong Side of the Grave (free prequel to Incarnate)

August/September
Incarnate

November/December
A Matter of Indiscretion

I’m going to have to write my little tail off to meet this schedule, especially since I have a 2/3rds written contemporary targeted at Harlequin Blaze that I would like to finish in the first quarter. But I really do think I can meet it as long as I stay on track and have these goals to keep me honest.

Also, remember that you’ll be able to download The Lesson Plan here free on Christmas Day. (I’ve scheduled the post to come up at 8:00 EST on Christmas Eve so it’ll be a little before Christmas begins for some folks and after it began for others.) And for every copy downloaded up to 300, I’ll be giving a dollar to the San Diego Food Bank. So come one, come all, come download.

If all goes according to plan, we’ll be getting our Christmas tree this afternoon. As usual, however, my kids have been pestering me to get one for three weeks solid, despite the fact that every year, we are always among the last of our friends and neighbors to get one. Despite the fact that I’ve told them repeatedly that I like to wait to get the tree until fairly close to Christmas Day so that it will last until Epiphany (January 6).

And it’s because I like to maintain this tradition that the misunderstanding I see of the concept of the “12 Days of Christmas” during this time of year tends to drive me a little batty. A lot of people (not to mention businesses) seem to think that the 12 Days of Christmas are the 12 days before Christmas, but the 12 days actually start with Christmas and end on January 5th, the day before Epiphany (which, according to tradition, is when the wise men arrived in Bethlehem). It’s not Christmas yet, folks. It’s Advent. We’re supposed to be ANTICIPATING Christmas now, not CELEBRATING it !

Now, I don’t know quite WHY I’m so adamant about this point of Christian tradition, seeing as how I don’t identify religiously as a Christian. Although we celebrate Christmas, the holiday is decidedly secular in our household, more solstice-related than anything else. I do have to admit, however, to a fondness for nativity scenes (I made one myself in the 6th grade as an art project), unabashedly religious Christmas carols, and for the whole story of Jesus’s birth. I guess I’m a sucker for music and babies, lol.

Anyway, as I say, this is a mini-rant not a major one, so I’m not going to browbeat you if you started the Twelve Days of Christmas on the 13th. But hey, maybe next year, you can try starting on the 25th instead .

The official release date for The Lesson Plan has been December 25 for a few weeks now. Although I’ll actually be uploading it to various retailers on the 23rd in the hopes of having it available for purchase by the 25th, I still consider the 25th to be the book’s true release date. And I’ve decided that, because the novella is coming out on Christmas Day, I wanted to do something special to launch it into the world. So, here’s what I’m doing:

On Christmas Day, if you come here to the blog, post will give you links to download a FREE copy of The Lesson Plan in whichever format you prefer: epub, mobi (Kindle) or PDF. Or even in all three, if you like . That’s my gift to you, my readers. I’ll probably run the post for closer to 36 hours to give folks on both sides of the International date line the opportunity to do their downloading on Christmas Day in their part of the world.

So, just for taking a few minutes to hop on the Internet on Christmas (and you know you want to anyway, if only to avoid your crazy relatives for a few minutes ), you can have a free novella. Not too shabby, eh?

But wait…there’s more! I’ve also committed to donate $100 to my local food bank this year, but for each copy of The Lesson Plan that is downloaded from a different IP address while the post is up, I will donate an additional $1 up to a maximum of $400. This means that in addition to getting a free book for yourself, you’re also helping to feed three hungry people this holiday season. (I wish I could give to every food bank in every city, but that’s not really practical!)

So, remember, on Christmas Day, stop by http://www.jackiebarbosa.com, download your free copy of The Lesson Plan, and donate $1 to the San Diego Food Bank. It’s that simple !

Merry Christmas!

Since Amazon announced the KDP Select program last week, there’s been a lot of discussion about whether it’s the best thing since sliced bread for self-published authors¹ or a harbinger of impending doom (which will be brought about by Amazon taking over the digital bookselling world). In case you’ve missed all of this and have no idea what KDP Select is or why anyone cares one way or another, allow me to explain.

About a month ago, Amazon launched a new benefit for its “Prime” members called the Kindle Lending Library. Amazon Prime members pay an annual fee for benefits including free shipping, access to online videos, and now, the option to borrow one Kindle book a month from the Lending Library. Most of the major traditional publishers, however, refused to allow their books to be enrolled in the library (although Amazon did an end-run around them in some cases by claiming it had bought the digital books “wholesale” rather than under the Agency model, but that’s a whole different issue). This meant that when the program was rolled out, the Lending Library consisted of mostly books published by Amazon itself under imprints like Encore and Montlake, and books publishers had either chosen to opt-in or that Amazon made available under the “wholesale” model.

Everyone knew when the Lending Library was launched that Amazon would eventually give authors self-publishing through Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP) the option to opt their books into the program, but no one knew what the terms would be. The terms were officially announced last week. Basically, if you want to make your digital book available for borrowing by Amazon Prime members, you have to sell it exclusively at Amazon during the time it is in the program (currently, you do this at 90 day stretches). In exchange for this, you get a “share” of a pot of money ($500k for December) based on the percentage of total “borrows” for that month and the option to make your book free for a five-day period. It also appears that, if your book is in the Lending Library, “borrows” are counted toward your overall sales rank on Amazon, which means books in the program are likely to have higher rankings than they otherwise might. In theory, being in KDP Select will give your book better visibility on Amazon, with a corresponding improvement in your earnings.

There’s been plenty of hand-wringing about KDP Select (Mark Coker of Smashwords is particularly exercised about it), but a lot of self-published authors apparently see real advantages to the program. In a matter of days, the Lending Library ballooned from perhaps 5,000 titles to almost 100,000, and it may be more now.

I, however, won’t be opting in. Here’s why:

1. Exclusivity

   I don’t want to limit my books to a single retailer, even if that retailer represents a sizable percentage of my sales. At this point, I sell more copies of Carnally Ever After at Amazon than anywhere else, but my sales at other outlets are far from negligible. In October, my sales at Apple were actually almost equal to Amazon, thanks to Apple putting my book on the front page of the Romance section under “Books Under $5″. I did nothing to get that placement, and it was gold. I don’t want to “reward” Apple for that by not listing my book with them any more.

   More to the point, I don’t want to cut out readers who don’t have a Kindle/Kindle app and who want to read/buy their books elsewhere. Even if they are a small percentage of my total readership, they are readers, and I respect and appreciate them too much to treat them that way. Even for 90 days. Even for a theoretical increase in income.

2. Hassle

   Call me lazy, but taking my book down from other retailers’ sites in order to give Amazon the exclusive is WAY too much work. It can take weeks for Smashwords, which distributes to outlets like Kobo, Sony, and Apple, to get my books out to those other vendors. I can’t imagine how long it would take to get them taken down. In the meantime, I’d be losing sales from the vendors who did respond quickly but unable to enroll in Select until it’s down everywhere. Why would I do that?

   In theory, enrolling a brand new release in Select for 90 days and then making it available elsewhere would be relatively easy. At least I wouldn’t have to hassle with removing it from the other sites. But, see above about readers. I’m just not doing that to them. When I release a book, my goal is to have it in as many retail outlets as possible. Self-publishing already restricts me to some extent; I won’t deliberately restrict myself, even for a potential increase in sales.

3. Uncertain Reward

   In addition to the above issues, I think there’s a real question as to how much any individual stands to gain from participation in the program. Since payment of royalties for borrows is based on percentages rather than per unit borrowed, unless your book is very popular, you’re not likely to see a whole lot of money.
   
   Add to this the fact that my self-published books thus far are all short stories or novellas and therefore priced very reasonably (The Reiver is currently free), it’s hard for me to imagine that I’d see any significant number of borrows. Why would people who can only borrow one book per month choose to borrow something that costs only 99 cents, or even 1.99? If I had such a limited benefit, I’d only use it to borrow books I considered too expensive to buy. Now, I have heard on the Kindleboards that authors are seeing borrows of books priced under $2.99, but I’m still having a hard time imagining my books would benefit much from that.

   In other words, I think I’d be giving up a lot in exchange for a very limited payoff. I could be wrong about that, but I’ll also never know.

As to the other retailers like B&N and Smashwords, who fear self-published authors will be fleeing them in droves, I had a suggestion: Make yourself more attractive to self-publishing authors in the first place. For example, B&N offers 40% on books priced from 99 cents to $2.98 to Amazon’s 35%, but only 65% on books priced $2.99 to $9.99 to Amazon’s 70%. If B&N wants to keep authors from pulling their books, maybe they should consider at least matching Amazon’s royalties on higher priced books, if not exceeding them. As for Smashwords, they could consider allowing you to upload formatted files, instead of forcing you to upload a Word document that gets run through their “MeatGrinder”, with often less-than-pleasing results. And they could improve the speed at which they distribute your books to third parties. Both B&N and Smashwords could improve their search algorithms and the overall customer experience to make self-published books more discoverable.

All in all, while I won’t be opting into KDP Select, I’m not sorry Amazon introduced it. If the prospect of losing a large number of books from their catalogs induces other retailers to improve what they’re doing, it may just be as big a win for those who opt out as those who opt in.
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¹I refuse to use the term “indie author.” I’ve sometimes used it in the past, but I’ve come to the conclusion that the main reason for saying you are an independent or indie author, as opposed to a self-published author, is that you feel there’s a certain “taint” associated with the act of self-publishing. I’m not ashamed or embarrassed to be publishing myself (I have the world’s BEST publisher, lol, and she always meets my expectations), so I feel no need to obscure or soft-pedal that fact by using another term.