Historical and Contemporary Romance Author
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…
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…
Before I launch into today’s post, a few quick words. I have been on vacation for almost two weeks. Although I got back early Monday, I’ve been playing catch-up in all aspects of my life (family, household, day job) and thus haven’t had much time for the writerly side. So, hi, here I am, and I’m glad to be back.…
As I’ve mentioned before, I’ve decided to follow the self-publishing path for a while and see where it takes me. I am currently writing The Lesson Plan, a novella (about 25,000 words, give or take) that’s related to Grace Under Fire and Taking Liberties, the two stories I sold to Spice Briefs. I’d originally pitched the idea for The Lesson…
I know some people are interested in seeing sales trends for self-published work, but if you aren’t interested, please feel free to click away, because this is going to be boring, boring, boring. Here’s the sales chart for The Reiver through June: If you’re looking at that line for Amazon sales and thinking “What the hell,” rest assured you’re not…
Since last week, the online publishing world has been ablaze with the news that Harlequin is changing the royalty rates it pays its authors from 6% of cover for category romances and 8% of cover for single title books to 15% of net and 25% of net. This change is retroactive and applies to authors who are “actively writing for…
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,…
I feel like a real chatty Cathy this week, with posts that are literally all over the place in terms of topics, but yesterday was particularly eventful, and I have musings I must share. So, as many of you probably know, possibly because you received it, Amazon sent out an email yesterday highlight six 99-cent romance titles that were highly…
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…
As of this morning, I reached an interesting milestone on sales of my self-published short story. I’ve now earned $1,000 from it. That amount is a net, including the $250 advance I was originally paid by the editor of the anthology it first appeared in, less the cost of the cover art. The reason this is interesting is because the…