Jackie Barbosa

I don’t like to whine about the difficulties of trying to maintain a professional writing schedule while juggling a full-time job, three kids, a husband, two dogs and three cats. Nobody wants to hear excuses. HOWEVER, I think I must do so to explain why The Lesson Plan is running late and likely to run even later than I’d hoped.

In the past, I always looked forward to September through June as my really productive writing time. With the kids in school and my older kids taking the bus both ways, I had a lot of time I could devote to both my day job and to writing. My day went something like this:

6:00 Get up and work an hour on the day job
7:00 Start getting kids out of bed/making breakfast
7:30 Drop youngest at school (15 mins round trip)
7:45 Work and/or write for the next 6.25 hours
2:00 Pick up youngest from school
2:15 Go back to work/writing
5:30 Knock off for the day, start kids on homework and cook dinner

Because my older kids were getting themselves to and from school on the bus, I essentially had about 10.5 hours each day to devote to both my day job and my writing job. I was working almost exclusively at home (although I did try to come into the office a couple of days each week), which means I didn’t lose work time to a commute.

Alas, things changed this year. Dramatically.

First of all, my oldest is now in high school and, for a variety of reasons, has chosen to attend a school that is too far away to ride his bike/walk. There is also no bus service. This means he must be dropped off and picked up each day.

Even worse, the middle school (in the infinite wisdom of budget cuts) stopped servicing the bus stop that was a block and a half from our house AND raised the single ride price (yes, we pay for bus service here) from 75 cents to $2.00. If my daughter were to ride the bus this year, I would have to drive her to the elementary school and pick her up there each day. This is not a time savings, especially not at $2 a pop. SO, she now must be dropped off and picked up each day as well.

And finally, my employer has decided it’s essential for me to be in the office for at least 16 hours a week. Given the drop off and pick up requirements for the kids, this means I have to come in four days a week for about five hours each day (I can’t get a full 16 hours in three days). The commute to and from the office is about 30 minutes each way.

Oh, and we didn’t used to have the dogs. The younger dog, in particular, needs a short walk each morning to burn off steam, and I am the designated walker.

All of these changes have led to a schedule that looks like this:

6:00 Get up, walk the dog, shower and dress to go to the office
6:45 Drive oldest child to school
7:30 Get back home, pick up youngest, take him to school
8:15 Arrive at work (unless husband can’t take middle child to school, in which case, I don’t get to work until 9)
1:30 Leave work
2:00 Pick up youngest from school
2:15 Work more (because I’d only put in a little over 5 hours)
3:00 Go pick up oldest and middle child from school
4:00 Work more (because now I’ve only put in 6 hours)
5:30 Homework/dinner/etc.

As you can see, I can hardly even get in a full 8-hour work day anymore. (Fortunately, I’m a salaried employee, so as long as I get my projects done, this isn’t a huge concern, but I do sometimes have stuff roll into weekends or even after dinner if there’s something pressing I need to complete).

So where’s the writing time? Obviously, it’s all but nonexistent. On rare occasions, I can write on the weekends, but that’s not common because we often have scouting and other events, not to mention all the household chores that must be accomplished on Saturday and Sunday (as there’s clearly no time for them during the week).

I know people will say that if I really want to write, I should just get up earlier, but honestly, that’s never going to happen. I have never been a morning person (getting up at 6 is hard enough) and I’m tired enough as it is. Even if I did get up an hour earlier, I doubt I’d be able to write anything coherent, and I have a very strong suspicion it would do bad things to my health, to boot.

All of this means that I am struggling against very long odds to finish my upcoming novella. I didn’t expect things to shake out this way when I planned to release it in October and then in November of this year. And I’m still hoping to find some writing process that will allow me to get this story written and released before the end of the year (ideally, I’d like to hit close to December 1, which is also the day Taking Liberties will be released by Harlequin, and since the two stories are closely related, I think it would be nice if both were available pretty much simultaneously).

That said, I’m not making any promises. I have always been a slow writer, but I used to be able to average about 1,000 words a day, 5 days a week. Lately, I’m luck to average a 10th of that. At this point, my goal is to find a process that allows me to be as productive as possible in the limited amount of time I can beg, borrow, and steal. I’m not sure what that process is going to be yet, but I hope to figure it out soon.

So, stay tuned. I do promise that The Lesson Plan will be released. But only when it’s the best story I can make it.

And finally, thanks for your support and patience. I truly appreciate it.

I’m tired of it. Just. Plain. Sick.

What’s getting my goat? The neverending stream of commentary on self-publishing vs traditional publishing. On one side, we have the self-publishing evangelists essentially telling authors they’re idiots to consider traditional publishing because they’ll only be taken advantage of and “there’s gold in them thar hills” if only they’ll give up their ridiculous desire for the validation of a contract. On the other, we have traditionally published authors bemoaning the race to the bottom in ebook pricing that’s ultimately going to impoverish everyone and also making snide comments about the lousy quality of books when the “gatekeepers” are removed.

Both sides here have a point. In some cases, an author may be better served financially by self-publishing (although most self-published authors, like most gold prospectors, won’t get rich by doing it). And there certainly ARE valid concerns about ebook pricing and, I’m gonna be honest, the quality of self-published books. (I would like to be able to state with categorical certainty that my self-published books are as good as or better than anything put out by a traditional print or digital-first publisher, but frankly, I’m not that cocky. I work hard to ensure they are well edited, with an absolute minimum of typos and so forth, but I can’t guarantee content editing that will ensure the book appeals to everyone–but then, neither can publishing houses.)

But you know what? I don’t CARE if both sides have a point. I’ve read all the arguments on both sides, over and over ad nauseum. And it’s time to move on.

Instead of spending so much time focusing on how books get published, can we please spend more time talking about how to create the best books possible, however they are published? And please, let’s stop bashing each other for choosing one publishing option over another. This doesn’t have to be a zero-sum game. In the end, we all want the same thing–great books at fair prices.

Right?

It’s been more than a month since I last posted. and yeah, it’s been that kind of a month. But now that my company’s conference is over and I’ve finally gotten my head around this new school pick-up and drop-off schedule (cue the chauffeur pun from Tom & Ray Magliozzi’s Car Talk)), I think I’m ready to really kick the writing up a notch…or ten. Honestly, it’s not like I have a choice. I have a novella to get out in November and a category length novel to finish by February. It’s time to put the pedal to the metal, as they say.

Which is why I am launching a 30k in 30 days writer’s challenge for the month of October. The goal is to write an average of 1k per day, starting on October 1st. And since there are 31 days in October, if you decide to join me in the challenge, you get one free day.

This isn’t the first time I’ve done a 30k in 30 days. The last time I did this was when I had a month to finish the last of the Behind the Red Door novellas. And I have to say, it worked for me. I’ve never been able to do anything like NaNoWriMo–fifty thousand words in a month is just out of my league. But thirty thousand is doable.

So, are you in?

Every summer, I over-promise and under-deliver. At least when it comes to producing word count.

The kids are at home almost all day, every day. The company I work for has a huge conference sometime between late August and late September every year (this year, it’s late September), and I am heavily involved in the development and delivery of many breakout sessions. This means I have more to do in less time (remember those children who are at home?) than usual. By the time I finish what I have do for the day job most days, I’m simply spent. I don’t have the will or the mental capacity to sit down and write, too.

You would think I would know by now that writing even an average of 500 words per day is just not going to happen, especially not from July through September, and yet I somehow manage to tell myself every year that this is the year that will be different. I was so sure that it wouldn’t be a problem this summer that I promised to have The Lesson Plan written by mid-September for a late October release. How close am I to achieving that goal? Um, about the same as I was when I made the promise back in June (before school got out). Oh, I’ve added word count, but it’s taken me almost a month to add the last thousand words.

Now, the kids will all be back in school this coming week, which is something that usually helps, but I’m not sure that’s going to be the case any more. My oldest started high school, and I’ve discovered that dropping him off and picking him up is a minimum 30 minute round-trip. The middle school my daughter goes to has cut the bus stop near our house, which means having her ride the bus to and from school is no longer an option. My youngest son’s schedule hasn’t changed, but the bottom line is that I now have three morning drops and three afternoon pickups to contend with. I think I can consolidate picking up the high schooler and the middle schooler, but none of the other times coincide closely enough to kill two birds with one stone. I’m sure we’ll all get used to this, but I know I’m going to be spending more time playing chauffer than I did when the older two were in middle school and rode the bus both ways. /sigh

Anyway, I’m still hoping to meet that late October release target, but at this point, it’s probably going to be a close thing.

Have I learned anything? Yes. Next summer, I won’t think things will be different.

Carnally Ever After was the first manuscript I ever had accepted for publication. I originally wrote it on a dare of sorts from the delightful Ann Aguirre. The story was targeted at Ellora’s Cave for their Naughty Nuptials call back in 2007, but they passed on it. Several months later, Cobblestone Press offered for it and I gladly took up that offer.

Now, four years later, I’ve reclaimed the rights to the story. Although I’m waiting for all the third party retailers to pull the book from their sites, I’m planning to re-release it as soon as they do. In addition to the original text of Carnally Ever After, the new version will include a bonus epilogue that I wrote a couple of years ago and the first three chapters of The Lesson Plan.

It also has a gorgeous new cover designed by Kimberly Killion at Hot Damn Designs that I’ve been dying to unveil since she first sent it to me months ago. So here it is at last in all its sexy glory:

After watching the stunning uptick in the Kindle rankings for low-cost romances on Wednesday (see yesterday’s post for the details), I’ve been giving even more thought than usual to digital book pricing. There have been a plethora of posts from various industry professionals bemoaning the rise of the 99-cent novel and its supposedly harmful effect on authors’ (and, by extension, publisher’s) bottom lines. I’ve already said that I don’t believe that the price of digital full-length front-list novels will actually settle as low as 99 cents, although it could easily settle as low as $4 or even $3. However, if the prices DID settle at 99 cents for all ebooks, independent of length, what would that mean for authors and publishers?

I think before we can even think about this, we have to throw out the fact that Amazon and most of the other retailers currently “punish” you for pricing a book under $2.99 by taking a significantly greater percentage of the cover price for themselves. If ebook pricing were to settle lower than $2.99, I have a strong suspicion that the retailers would ultimately find themselves forced to increase the percentage they pay to the author/publisher, although probably not to the levels they’re currently offering on the $2.99-$9.99 titles. That said, we can’t RELY on the royalty split for those $2.99-$9.99 books remaining as generous as it currently is. The reality is that Amazon and B&N (the two major players right now) can change those percentages at will, and if they do, are authors really going to walk away in droves? I doubt it.

So, let’s not think right now about royalty splits and just talk about the potential effect of low-cost ebooks on total book sales, and talk instead about what we know about the buying habits of readers who own ereaders. And what we know about them is this–they buy WAY more books on a monthly basis than the average print book reader. I’ve read many stories about people who were indifferent/irregular readers in print, got a Kindle or Nook, and then went on reading (and associated book-buying) tears. As more and more people get their first ereading device (be it an exclusive ereader or something like an iPad or other tablet), it’s reasonable to predict that more and more will read and buy more books than they did in the past.

But there is a limiting factor on the total number of books any individual can buy, and that’s disposable income. Most people DON’T have an unlimited amount of money to spend on ebooks (or on anything else, for that matter). This means that pricing matters way more to digital book buyers than it does to print book buyers. They want to buy more books than they did in the past, but they still have roughly the same amount of money to spend on those book as they did when they were reading print. This means that if they have $30 per month to spend on books, they can buy MANY MORE at 99 cents (or even $2.99) than they can at $5.99 or $7.99 or $9.99.

Thus, it stands to reason that, while lower average prices for ebooks means less income per copy for the author/publisher, lower average prices increase the total number of units sold–not just of any individual book, but of ALL books. The more books I can afford to buy, the more books I probably will buy. And that goes for pretty much everyone.

So there is a possibility that this is a “rising tide lifts all boats” scenario. I’m not suggesting that every book that is priced at 99 cents will sell enough copies to make decent money for an author or publisher. That isn’t even happening today, when the total number of 99 cent books is clearly less than it will be a year from now (or even a month from now). What I am suggesting is that keeping the price of ebooks artificially high actually depresses sales for all books to the extent that everyone in the chain suffers.

Do I want to sell my novels for 99 cents? No. Truthfully, I don’t even want to sell a meaty novella (meaning 25k+) for less than $2.99. But if that’s what the market demands, it might not be as bad for authors and publishers as all the hand-wringing prognosticators are positing. Especially if readers who own ereaders go from spending $10 a month on books to $50 a month on books. And I’ve heard plenty of stories where just that has happened.

I wrote a post a long time ago called “It’s All about the Pie.” I think this is about pie, too. It’s not about slicing up the pie differently, but about making the pie bigger. And I really believe low-cost ebooks have the potential to do just that.

I’m sure there will be a follow-up post to this where I’ll explain the situation that led me to write it in more detail, but for several reasons, I can’t discuss all the facts just yet. I do, however, think I can share this one–and it’s something I’m a little ashamed to say I obviously didn’t do.

Specifically, authors, when you get that shiny offer from a publisher, when the contract comes, TAKE THE TIME TO REVIEW EVERY PARAGRAPH. (Yes, I’m shouting.) If you have an agent, get on the phone with him or her and discuss each paragraph/clause to ensure you understand exactly what you’re granting to the publisher and what you’re reserving for yourself. If you don’t have an agent and can’t afford to pay a contract attorney, read it thoroughly and carefully. If anything strikes you as odd or you’re not sure what it means, ask other authors in your circle of friends whether they know what it means and/or whether they’d agree to it.

Just because it’s the publisher’s “boilerplate” and they “never negotiate” does not mean that you should not take the time to make yourself fully aware of exactly what you are agreeing to. And if you find anything you really take issue with, at that point, you have to decide whether it’s serious enough to walk over. But at least you will KNOW what you have agreed to or rejected.

And please, for heaven’s sake, if your agent tells you that the contracts are iron-clad or non-negotiable rather than ensuring you understand thoroughly what you are signing, you need to run, not walk, in the other direction. But first, ask. Don’t just be so happy to have a contract that you sign first and get gobsmacked by something you never suspected later.

I didn’t ask. And I got gobsmacked. I’m not happy. Lesson learned.

Which is a good thing, since unless Cobblestone has slipped the schedule, it will be available for purchase later this afternoon! Here it is:

It’s not an exact match to the first two covers in the series because the artist who did those is no longer working for the publisher (mainly, I think, because she has too much other work these days, lol), but it’s darned close. I’m not completely sure about the floating handcuffs and whether they get across “BDSM” (correct) or “romantic suspense” (incorrect), but all in all, I’m pretty happy with it. I particularly like the color palette.

Want to know more about the book? Read the cover copy? Read an excerpt? If yes, go here.

Also, FYI, if you’re thinking about buying, I’m not sure when it will be up but there is a 15% off sale at the Cobblestone Press site (likely the only place it will be available for purchase today) through the end of August.

Ever since the Judy Mays incident, I’ve been thinking a lot about teenagers and romance novels. Like many authors of more “graphic” romances, my website’s front page includes a disclaimer that my books are meant for people over 18 years of age and suggests those under that age ought to skedaddle.

But do I really believe that? Do I really think that that young people (and by young people, I mean teenagers in the 15-17yo range, perhaps dipping down into the 14yo’s, but not 12yo’s) will be perverted or damaged in some way if they read read my stories? Er, no. I don’t. Not really.

I know that’s kind of going out on a limb. A big chunk of the defense of Judy Mays’ right to write erotic romances under a pen name was predicated on the fact that it wasn’t as though her students were buying and reading them. The corresponding implication is that, if her high school students were buying and reading her books, that would be bad thing and make her writing considerably more morally suspect. It’s one thing if ADULTS are reading “those kinds of books” and quite another if KIDS are.

And I agree, when by “kids” we mean children, tweens, and younger teens. But for older teenagers? Frankly, I’m just not buying the harm here. There seems to be a general notion that if teenagers read sexy romances, they’ll become overly eroticized and more likely to engage in premarital/pre-adult/risky sex. This seems to me to be perilously close to equating the consumption of romance novels (even really hot ones) with straight-out pornography, and I simply don’t agree with that. It also, quite simply, ignores the fact that a sizable percentage (one might even say a majority) of 15-17 years olds are actually engaging in sex, whether we adults approve or not. Arguably, it’s sort of silly to be enjoining them not to READ about sex when they’re actively HAVING it anyway.

Romance novels contextualize sex. They are about more than rubbing body parts together for physical satisfaction (or, at least, they are if they are any good). Romances focus on the development of committed relationships and the expression of love. Are we saying, as a society, we think it’s BAD for teenagers to read about sex in the context of loving, committed relationships? That it’s somehow damaging for them to equate sex with respect, caring, and mutual devotion? Because if we are, then, wow, I think we have a lot of work to do.

As to whether reading romance novels encourages kids to have sex at younger ages, my own PERSONAL experience would argue the reverse and other long-time romance readers I’ve discussed this with seem to have had similar experience. I started reading romances when I was about 15. I cut my teeth on the fairly tame Harlequin category romances of early 80s, but quickly escalated to historical romances. One of my favorite authors back then was Bertrice Small, and let’s face it, her books were among the most sexually explicit you could find in the 80s. I ate them up along with many other very hot romances that would probaby horrify me now if I read them, not for their sexual content, but for their forced seductions and other questionable gender politics.

Notwithstanding the forced seductions and questionable gender politics and explicit sex scenes, I grew into a healthy adult who waited until I was in a steady relationship in college to have sex. And I think one of the reasons I WAITED for that steady, committed relationship with a young man I found incredibly sexy who knew how to push my buttons was because I didn’t want to have sex JUST to have sex. I wanted it to MEAN something. And be good!

I went on to get married just one time (not to my college boyfriend, but hey, not everything works out long-term), and I’m still married to that man (my hero, swoon) more than twenty years later. Despite having read hundred of romance novels in the past 30-odd years, I haven’t become dissatisfied with my sex life (another supposed potential danger of romance novel reading, pfft!).

Now, does this mean I’ll be handing my kids a copy of one of my romances to read when they turn, oh say 15? Probably not. But not because I don’t think they should be reading romance novels of ANY kind. It’s more because there are some places in my mind I’d rather not share with my kids. (Frankly, I might not want them to go there even when they’re 30, lol!)

But other books by other authors? You bet. If they come and ask me for recommendations, I have quite a few on my shelf I’d be MORE than happy to lend them .

Today, Gail Carriger, author of the Soulless series (books I have enjoyed, by the way), wrote a post urging her readers to buy her upcoming book in print rather than digital format. I’m not going to address the substance of her post in any significant way. A lot of the things she says about the publishing industry are true. Even though most traditionally published authors earn more in royalties from digital book sales (25% of net compared to 8% of cover), what really matters when it comes to that next contract is selling-through as much as possible of each print run. As more and more readers convert to digital books, print runs are shrinking and that makes publishers unhappy because, at some point, it becomes unfeasible to print any books at all, especially in mass market paperback. ‘Nuff said.

But here’s what I really came here to say. I hope I never get to the point where I feel entitled to ask readers to do anything for me. Because, when you buy one of my books, the person who is entitled to something is you. You’ve spent your hard-earned money to spend time in a world and with characters I’ve created. As an author, I want you to have a good time there. I want you to enjoy your experience. I owe that to you. You don’t owe me anything. You bought the book. And, if you read it, you will be spending something even more valuable–your time–on something I created.

So, I never want to ask what my readers can do for me. I always want to ask what I can do for my readers. And what I can do is, I hope, write books that will entertain and move you. I hope to earn your trust that I will deliver another good book, so that when you spend money on my next book, you feel it’s worth it.

And honestly, if I can do that, I’ll be happy no matter what format you buy my book in or from which retailer. That’s your choice. Just like it’s your choice whether to buy one of my books or not.