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Friday, September 25, 2009
Blogging at the Midnight Moon Cafe
Today I'm over at the Midnight Moon Cafe, blogging about autumn in England, giving my favourite cold-weather-drink recipe for spiced cider, and offering another (yes!) free copy of Heart of the Volcano.
Come visit me!
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| Tuesday, September 15, 2009
Spot the Handwavium Contest
 Heart of the Volcano is out today, and I'm running a little contest over on the Samhain Blog. You could win a free copy, plus coffee and chocolate shipped anywhere in the world! What are you waiting for?
Caught between love and duty, can she make an impossible choice? Five years ago, Aera was called away from everything she had ever known: her home, family, and Coram, the boy she was growing to love. She was given no choice. As the only living lava-shifter—able to transform her body into molten rock—she is destined to serve the volcano god as his fire priestess. Now, before she takes her ordained role, she must face her final test. Execute a criminal sentenced to death for the most unforgivable of all sins. Blasphemy. She’s shocked to discover it’s no anonymous law-breaker waiting chained at the center of the labyrinth. It’s Coram. For the crime of being a gargoyle, a winged stone-shifter. A gift akin to hers…except his gift is unsanctioned by the temple, his powers proclaimed unholy. If she refuses the test she will betray her god and condemn her family to dishonor. To pass it she must kill the boy she used to love…the man she still does. Warning: Contains violence, tears, self-sacrifice, a little bit of I-can’t-bear-to-leave-you-but-I-have-to sex, and a heroine whose touch melts the hero—um, literally.
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| Monday, September 14, 2009
The Roaring Twenties: A Romance Treasure Hunt
THE ROARING TWENTIES
A Romance Treasure Hunt!
20 authors, over 20 prizes, 20 chances to win. Read below to learn how to enter.
September 16-30
World War I is over, jazz music is blossoming, the flapper changes the definition of modern women, Art Deco is peaking, and the Great Depression looms! Go back to school (just for a few minutes) and learn about this fascinating era through photos. You'll have a chance to win one, or perhaps several, prizes donated by some of your favorite romance writers!
Here's how it works: Find one image (it won't be hard) on each of the following websites. They could be Mickey Mouse as Steamboat Willie, a well known image from the Dust Bowl, or perhaps a flapper! You'll know it when you see it. The more images you find (each author has only posted one image), the more chances you have to win. Find one image, you are entered once! Find twenty, and your name is entered twenty times!
One you have danced your way through the sites, email your answers to ciarcullen@gmail.com
NB: If you want to opt out of being put on any newsletter lists, please just tell us so in your answer email. We will NOT be offended! We promise that if you opt out, it will NOT affect your chances of winning.
Here's how to answer: "I found a flapper on Betty's new release page." No links, please!
Easy? You bet. Want to get started? Here are your links! Contest opens 9/16 and closes 9/30 EST. Good luck. Now, 23 skidoo, scram. And have fun!
Pam Champagne
Prize: Two winner's choice ebooks!
Michelle Pillow
Prize: Ebook Divinity Warriors: Lilith Enraptured
Imogen Howson
Prize: Ebook Heart of the Volcano
Shelley Munro
Prize: Winner's choice of download from her Ellora's Cave, Cerridwen or Samhain backlist
Catherine Wade
Prize: Her latest release, Another Time Around
Debra Parmley
Prize: Ebook A Desperate Journey
Sharon Cullen
Prize: Ebook Obsession
Juniper Bell
Prize: Ebook The Extremist
Debbie Mumford
Prize: Ebook The Silver Casket
Leslie Dicken
Prize: Ebook Beauty Tempts the Beast
Carolan Ivey
Prize: Choice ebook or print A Ghost of a Chance: Legends, Book 2
Vivian Arend
Prize: eBook winner's choice of backlist
Ciar Cullen
Prize: Ebook winner’s choice
Renee Wildes
Prize: Paperback Duality
Mychael Black
Prize: Ebook Blood & Fire
Eliza Gayle
Prize: EBooks Rope Dreams and Watch Me Hide
Skylar Kade
Prize: Ebook Maison Domine
Janna Lee Hayes
Prize: Ebook Drive Me Crazy
Sydney Somers
Prize: Winner's choice download from backlist
Ella Drake
Prize: Ebook Scent of Cin
Pamela Fryer
Prize: Punch Studio Tiny Book
Meg Benjamin
Prize: Ebook Wedding Bell Blues
0 comments. Please post yours!
| Saturday, September 12, 2009
The inside story and why you don't know it. And why the digital sky is not falling.
People always like to think they know the inside story. Whether it's what's really going on in Brad and Angelina's relationship or what that agent really meant when she said "I didn't love your book enough to offer representation".
Generally, though, not being mindreaders, unless we're personally involved with the gossip du jour, we don't know the inside story. We like to think we do, but we just don't. And yes, that does include you. Unless, of course, you're Brad, Angelina, or that particular agent (in which case, Hi! Call me!).
The epublishing world this week has been alive with the news of Quartet Press's demise. And there are rumours and theories and speculations all over the place, some a hell of a lot more far-fetched than others, and many dragging in such tangentially related topics as Dear Author and Samhain Publishing. And most of them coming from people who, as far as I know, have absolutely no inside knowledge of Quartet, Dear Author, or Samhain, who are not personal friends with any of the main people involved, and who are as well qualified to talk about any of these issues as I am qualified to talk about Brad and Angelina.
I find it a little weird. But for the people who do know the inside story, it must be not only weird but deeply irritating.
A few months ago, I came across an aspiring author's blog. She was talking about how frustrating it is to read books that you don't believe deserve to be published. So far, so non-controversial. But then, as examples, she chose two books about which I just couldn't agree. Mostly because, well, they'd been contracted and edited by me.
Aspiring Author, to do her justice, didn't mention these books by name, but she talked enough about them that it was easy for me to spot which ones she meant.
She didn't like them, for various perfectly well articulated reasons. Which is absolutely fair enough. There are plenty of very successful authors and books that I don't like. Where I got irritated, however, was when she moved into speculating about how these books had ever got published, because that was when she started speculating about me.
One book, in particular, had received some very good reviews. I'm going to change the details here, so please note this is an entirely made-up comparision. In one five-starred review the reviewer had described the book as "Gone With the Wind meets Star Wars". "Wow," said Aspiring Author, "that sounds great." So she bought the book.
And hated it. Despised the heroine, hated the hero, just didn't like the whole thing. So she was speculating about why an editor had ever contracted it.
And what she decided was that the editor was obviously won over by the high-concept pitch ("Gone With the Wind meets Star Wars"), so much so that the editor ignored the book's flaws and published it anyway.
She was entirely, comprehensively wrong. The description the reviewer used was his/her own description; the book was never pitched to me as Gone With the Wind meets Star Wars, and I would never have described it that way myself. I contracted it because the writing was very good, because I'd worked with the author before and knew she was extremely professional, hard working and career-minded, and because I knew that Samhain had a big market for this kind of book. I knew that the hero wouldn't be to everyone's taste, but he was the sort of hero that many readers adore.
Basically, although it might have made Aspiring Author feel better to think that an "unworthy" book had got published just because the author had had the luck to hit on a high-concept pitch that hooked an editor, this wasn't the case. The author had done the much less gimmicky work of paying attention to her craft, doing her background and market research, editing and re-editing her manuscript, working hard during the edits for her first book with me, being pleasant and non-argumentative during the editing process. In short, she'd done what all authors should be doing. That was the inside story.
Of course, the real inside story was less dramatic and with less potential for gossip ("publisher contracts trash!") than the imagined inside story. Knowing that authors who work hard get contracts is, after all, not terribly worth commenting on.
Not having the inside story on Quartet Press, I obviously don't know whether that's the case with them as well. I do think, however, that Quartet Press's closure is less drama-worthy than some of the commentary would indicate.
A lot of start-up businesses fold early on. A lot of epublishers fold - or, possibly worse, simply sink without trace - before they've been open a year. We're currently in a global recession, a notoriously bad time for any new business to start up. In the UK, Woolworths, a huge chain of stores that's been going for about a century, recently closed, leaving their shop buildings empty in nearly every town centre (and Gloworm sad cos she liked their cheap toys). Black Lace, the sixteen-year-old erotica line, is closing. It's a recession. These things happen.
One company closing means no more and no less than it's always done. Woolworths' closure doesn't mean the sky is falling for shops everywhere. Black Lace's doesn't mean a catastrophic end to erotic fiction. Quartet's doesn't mean the future of digital publishing is under a dark cloud of doom.
Samhain is four years old in November. I see the submissions inbox, and we're continuing to attract successful, award-winning authors. We also have bunches of successful NY-published authors who continue to sell books to Samhain. We have a fantastic art department, we have an amazing blurb writer, we have a team of highly motivated, hard-working content editors and a bunch of OCD (in a good way) final line editors. We also have a fresh new shiny PR director, executive editor (yay, I get to be someone's assistant again!) and managing editor. The sky of digital publishing is not falling.
I don't want to be glib. I was looking forward to Quartet opening. I was looking forward to the books they were going to offer, and I was going to consider them for future manuscripts of my own. I was shocked when they announced they were closing, and I was shocked and sad for Angie James, who deserved to move up the corporate ladder, not find herself suddenly unemployed. But, just as this is certainly not the end of Angie's career (I know I'm not the only one watching with huge interest to see what she does next!), it's not the beginning of the end for digital publishing.
Gone With the Wind meets Star Wars sounds pretty good, by the way. Would anyone like to write it...?
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| Sunday, September 06, 2009
More travel plans (and win an ARC of Heart of the Volcano)
So, back from Greenbelt, semi-unpacked, and what am I doing?
Getting an application number from the US visa waiver program, finding my passport, working out if my bag is 45 linear inches and if I have a clear plastic resealable toiletries bag, eight by eight inches. Making sure I have no bombs hidden in my shoes, researching how to stop earache when flying, finding out if Americans understand the British need for non-iced, non-herbal tea and asking Sparkler and Gloworm what presents they'd like from America.
Yes, I'm going to the States! To Savannah, Georgia, to be exact. Samhain is transporting the editors and editorial support staff to a hired house on Hilton Head Island for a week in October, for a staff conference/retreat. It's very exciting, of course, but it's also really useful, because it'll give us a chance to meet Laurie M. Rauch, the new executive editor, and Lindsey Faber, the new managing editor, in person, and have in-real-life real-time meetings about Samhain's future direction.
I have never gone to the US before, I have never flown on a long-haul flight before, and I have only flown as far as Scotland by myself. I am extremely excited, a little bit nervous, and very busy collecting travel advice from members of ROMNA, the RNA's online chapter, as well as The Model Auntie, who's flown all over the place a million times in order to model.
If anyone has more travel tips to give me, please leave them in the comments!
Oh, and if you'd like to win an advance copy of Heart of the Volcano (out September 15th), hop over to The Romance Studio and enter their book of the day giveaway. I'll be drawing the name of the winner tomorrow, and will send you your copy immediately.
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Greenbelt report
So, we arrived at Greenbelt and I realised that I'd packed raincoats for everyone except me. In fact, I had ridiculously removed my raincoat from the car boot as we were loading luggage into it. I'd also forgotten suncream, and neglected to bring matches, a mirror, or a chopping board.
Fortunately, there's a rather well-equipped general store where I could buy matches and a plastic poncho (hooray). I wore the poncho most of the rest of the time, rain or shine, simply because it cut out the rather cold wind. I couldn't quite bear to wear it to bed, but I did wear a t-shirt, a long-sleeved top, my red fleece, Abstract's black fleece and my own long black cardigan. Plus two pairs of socks. Was I warm enough? No, not really.
As ever when camping, that was my big problem. I was cold nearly all the time from six o'clock onwards. And, honestly, there's a limit to how many jumpers you can wear. From about day two I started wistfully mentioning caravans and campervans to my family, but I'm not sure they paid enough attention.
Despite that, it was lovely to be at Greenbelt. I concentrated my talk-going activities on the issue of Israel and Palestine, and heard the Palestinian non-violent activist Sami Awad speak, as well as the Israeli non-violent activist Jeff Halper. I also went to a talk by Michael Ward on the "Lewis Code" (his theory that C.S. Lewis used medieval beliefs about the planets on which to base his seven Narnai books). Abstract and the older girls went to a bunch of concerts - Royksopp, Schlomo and the beatbox orchestra, and Athlete - and Gloworm bought two sock monkeys and a bunch of carved wooden cats. The girls also had a lovely evening at Caris magazine's "girls' night in", hearing singer Shell Perris.
I also drank a lot of coffee and we all ate pies from Pieminister. Which, in case you'd like to know, does home delivery! For a price (you have to buy a box of at least twelve pies), but oh my goodness, I swear it would be worth it. The food stalls were super-helpful when it came to Sparkler's friend's nut allergy, too. I didn't need to stab her with her epi-pen and dial 999 even once.
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Scented Danger
a Red Riding Hood Anthology story
from Drollerie Press
Within the Darkness
Blood of the Volcano
Shadow-Weaver
A Cloak of Feathers
Linked
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