By Marilyn Baron

It’s the last day of the month at the beginning of a New Year and this year I’m taking a big risk. I always follow the rules, but this year, my sister, Sharon Goldman, and I have decided to venture into uncharted territory, at least for us, and ride the indie publishing wave with the release of our new eBook, The Edger.

I’ve tried the traditional route, diligently, and of course, would still love for that to happen. I have patiently met with editors and agents, submitted queries, waited for responses, sent in partials, even got promising requests for fulls. And I attended conferences and workshops, entered contests, got feedback and polished the manuscript. In fact, our collaboration, The Edger, won first place in the Suspense Romance category of the 2010 Ignite the Flame Contest, sponsored by Central Ohio Fiction Writers Romance Writers of America chapter.

The Edger, which is set in Ponte Vedra Beach, Florida, my sister’s hometown, is a humorous women’s fiction about 40-year-old landscape artist Alexandra Newborn’s shocking reunion with her college art professor, Nick Anselmo—once a celebrated Italian artist, now a homeless lawn man—which sows the seeds for murder, mystery and romance. In gratitude for food, art materials and company, Nick, or The Edger, as Alex comes to think of him, drops off a new sketch in front of Alex’s house every week when he comes to do her lawn. Nick’s provocative artwork is the key to revealing a dangerous liaison between Alex’s husband, Mark, and Bitsy Diamond, owner of the gallery where Alex dreams of having a one-woman show. When a deadly hurricane takes a dangerous turn the night of the show opening, Mark’s body washes up behind Bitsy’s beach house, leaving readers to wonder whodunit?

When one editor questioned whether anyone could fall in love with a 50-year-old homeless hero, we knew we had to pursue other options.

Who says 50 can’t be sexy? We’ll put our hunky, homeless lawn man—think George Clooney, Harrison Ford, John Travolta, Mark Harmon, or Pierce Brosnan—up against any Hollywood hottie. In a land where the traditional romance hero is 20- or 30-something, we’re writing what we know. We 50++-somethings still have a lot of life left in us and believe there is a vast audience that wants to read fiction that is relevant to them.

The Edger has something for everyone.  While the novel tackles such serious themes as homelessness and unemployment, it also offers a lighter look at a disillusioned housewife who copes with a cheating husband and a crumbling marriage. The heroine’s husband is every man. Readers may recognize some of Mark Newborn’s less than desirable traits in their own husbands. In fact, when my sister and I get irritated at our husbands we sometimes call them “Mark.” But readers will rejoice in the triumph of a heroine who fights for respect and makes her own dreams come true to find her happy ending

Throughout the long submission process, my sister, who is an award-winning Florida artist unfamiliar with the tedious process of getting published, called me almost daily (I am not kidding), asking, “Is it published yet?” And wondered why we weren’t on Oprah. I tried to explain how the process worked, that even if the manuscript was accepted, it would be another year until publication. And because, after all this time, the Oprah show is off the air. But at some point, her impatience and excitement about the project was infectious and, after receiving our last rejection from an editor, we decided, why not invest in ourselves and take a chance to follow our dreams in a project we believed in?

We didn’t go into this process willy-nilly. As a member of the IndieGRW Yahoo Group I had the benefit of learning from my Georgia Romance Writers colleagues who had already made forays into the exciting new world of epublishing. I had the manuscript professionally edited, although, in my day job, I am a writer and an editor. We hired a company to format the novel. I highly recommend the company we used – 52 Novels http://www.52novels.com/, the same eBook design shop used by J.A. Konrath. Another author, James Swain, recommended 52 Novels to us. They were extremely reasonable and easy to work with and were not above hand-holding. They taught me a lot about the process.  They recommended a great cover designer, but my sister created a painting that we used as cover art and she drew some black and white line art and completed another painting that we used in the book. The Edger was a vehicle to highlight both of our creative talents—Visit Sharon’s art gallery at www.sgoldmanart.com and my author page on Facebook.

And because both central characters in the novel are artists, Sharon’s background helped make the book more authentic. Living in two different states did not present a problem since we did all the work via email or the telephone.

While we don’t have any illusions that The Edger will be jump to the #1 bestseller list (well, my sister does) we have enough confidence in our talent and marketing ability that we were going to give this a shot. After all, we’re not getting any younger. Our father, to whom we dedicated the book, passed away a little more than a year ago, and that lesson in the transience of life, taught us we didn’t want to have any regrets.

I’d learned some other lessons along the way last year, launching my Angel Trilogy—humorous, supernatural e-short stories with a small publisher specializing in  science fiction, supernatural, horror and thriller stories  http://www.twbpress.com/achoirofangels.html

And now, when my sister asks, “are we published yet?” I can legitimately answer, “Yes!” And it didn’t take a year. Where do we go from here? We’re collaborating on a play, a musical about Alzheimer’s, and I’m finishing a paranormal romantic suspense and polishing up a WWII mystery.

Was it a gamble going the nontraditional route? Sure. But I feel really good about taking control of my writing career.  It’s very liberating and enormously satisfying.

We hope you’ll give The Edger a try.

The Edger is available at Amazon Kindle

Barnes & Noble Nook Books and

Smashwords.

ISBN 978-1-4659-7621-5

What are you doing to follow your dream? One commenter will win a FREE PDF copy of The Edger.

Today, we’re so lucky to have the fabulous Pamela Mason in the house. Let’s see what she’s got cooking? Take it away, Pamela!

~~~~~

Jumping the Divide

by Pamela Mason

Happy Birthday Petits Fours and Hot Tamales! It’s an honor to be here as guest chef today.

I tried to cut the ties. I tried to go cold turkey and be clean. Quit my addiction.

If only my addiction would just quit me. Fat chance from the looks of my TBR pile and my melted down, newly replaced Kindle. (Yes, I broke a Kindle. Romance overload? Maybe….)

Seems like only yesterday – well, September to be exact – I was tweeting merrily along with other fans on the hashtag #AMC (and another I won’t name here) when…

BLAM!

Gunshot…. And fade to black.

Who did JR shoot? Or did somebody shoot JR?

Us longtime All My Children (and old Dallas fans) want to know!

But Agnes isn’t telling – she’s as silent as the grave. More so, actually, considering nobody ever really dies on a soap opera – they just return refreshed and renewed, with amnesia and a new haircolor.

If only…. But, nah. Efforts to resuscitate the darling of daytime dramas have failed. Erica will have to be happy with her sole Emmy, Cameron Mathis will hopefully get more facetime on Good Morning America, and we’ll just have to satisfy ourselves with the Facebook pages, the soap opera sites, the fan fic, ezines, DVDs, and print book riffs that the internet will offer those of us who followed Pine Valley’s residents.

Thank you, Digital Media.

The seismic shift Stephanie Bond reported in last week’s blog is happening all over the entertainment industry. From music to books to soap operas to the nightly news report, we’re all straddling the schism, deciding when and where and how to make the leap.

Evolve or die.

Sounds harsh, I know. Maybe I own a different perspective because I’ve lost it all – multiple times – in hurricanes and floods and economic roller coasters.

But to hang on to the past is to be left there, while the rest of the world turns (pun not intended). Soap operas, daytime dramas – they’ll still exist as long as fans create the demand. Many of One Life to Live’s cast members are getting new life (oy) on General Hospital and Nickelodeon has ordered episodes of a new soap based on a popular Mexican telenovela for this summer.

We’re living in a revolutionary age of media, and it’s a time to evaluate, make a plan, and take control if you’re a writer of any genre – romance novels, sci fi or soap operas. Books are going interactive, with first graders publishing their own stories. Ereaders are turning into their own social networks, thanks to JK Rowling’s Pottermore, exclusively found on Sony ereaders. Bulky, backbreaking, too-soon-outdated school textbooks are about to be digitally destroyed, a pet project of the late Steve Jobs.

Tablets have revolutionized online shopping and video conferencing, and more and more computer integrated televisions are letting us to stream our personal entertainment choices via Uverse and Google and others my teens know but I don’t, rather than be at the mercy of the Mob Wives’ Big Ang or the latest Bridezilla.

It’s all a reinvention, a shake up of the past and a look towards the future.

Some soaps have fan fiction sites, others are trying to make a deal to continue their story with online streaming. As long as humans walk the earth, Drama will survive. But only if they adapt to the Information Age’s new world.

I just want to find out who caught JR’s bullet.

I leave you with a quote by Ray Bradbury, a man well ahead of his time:

• “There must be something in books, things we can’t imagine, to make a woman stay in a burning house; there must be something there. You don’t stay for nothing.”
  - Ray Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451, Part 1

Leave a comment and tell me about how you’re going to jump the divide. One random winner will win their choice of ebook or tree book of Leslie Tentler’s newest release, Edge of Midnight (print books mailed to the residents of the continental U.S. only please.)

About Pamela

Pamela Mason is the Jane Jetson of the Information Age in Romance. When she’s not studying the latest in digital publishing and technology just so she can talk to her two teen sons, she writes Southern romance about (and with) Southern spirits – think Jack Daniels in Margaritaville. You can find her at WriterMason.blogspot.com, building worlds with her words.

 

By: Judi Phillips

Challah is the site of an ancient Roman settlement in Rabat, close to the King’s Palace and downtown. 

A crumbled ruin, this outpost of the Roman Empire was probably established around by the Phoenicians in the 12th Century BC. 

 

Sometime in the 1300s, the sultan Abou Said constructed a small fortress beside the site of the Roman ruins. 

 

Later, his son, Abou al-Hassan, built a mosque. (Picture to the left.) 

A successor rival walled the whole area off preventing access for a long time. (Picture to the right.)

 

 

These days, it’s inhabited by a large colony of storks (there’s a huge next atop the mosque tower) and cats that reside by the eel pool waiting for handouts.  (Picture to the left.) 

Now accessible to the public, parts of it are now overgrown with lush vegetation. It is a peaceful area to wander through and view the ancient remains of old civilizations. (Picture to the right.)

Another ancient site in Rabat is Kasbah. The original Kasbah of the Udayas was built by the Almoravids during the 11th century.  When the Almohad Caliphate defeated the Almoravids during the 12th century, they began reconstructing the Kasbah, adding a palace and mosque. (Picture to the left.) At the end of the 12th century, the Kasbah was deserted. Although the historical Kasbah is an historical site only, in the surrounding area, people live in whitewashed houses on narrow streets. (Kasbah street picture to the right.)

 

 

The Phoenicians were in Morocco in the 1100s BC, with a trading post at the site of Essaouira. The present town dates from 1765, when Sultan Sidi Mohamed ben Abdellah decided to build a port and fortress. This fort is adjacent to the medina we visited last week. Today all that remain are the walls  and esplanade. With a row of cannons.  Guarding the Atlantic coast. 

 

 

For my final week blogging, I’m offering an electronic version of Night of Turmoil. Chelsea O’Malley, ESL teacher in Tunis, is always prudent, never reckless. Attending a protest march during the Jasmine Revolution, when Malik Bourjamaa is wounded, can she throw caution to the winds and speak truth to power? Night of Turmoil tells the story of one day during the Jasmine Revolution in Tunisia. Available from Whispers Publishing and Kindle. You can find Judi at judiphillips.com.

 

Please join Petit Fours and Hot Tamales next Sunday, February 5th for a chance to win a $5 gift certificate by guessing where we’re traveling next.

 

Instead of looking ahead in this January post, I’m going to reflect back on 2011. In many ways it was a banner year for me.

January started with a bang. I celebrated the ringing-in of the new year with Debbie and Sandy at the lake working on our books. Also that month my husband and I went to the college football championship game in Phoenix, Arizona. Auburn won. Big, big deal at our house.

February brought health issues for me and a snow skiing trip for the family.

 March was the month my youngest had jaw surgery. He is downright pretty now. He also celebrated 20 years with a heart transplant. Amazing kid, but don’t tell him I said so. I also celebrate a birthday. I’m glad to have them the alternative isn’t pleasant.

In April, I spent some time at the beach and visiting with a friend. 

During May I made a road trip with Sia and Tammy to a conference in Florida. Learned a lot and did some great brain storming. A book we worked on is my work in progress.

June saw me receiving my first romance book contract. I was thrilled with a two book deal. I took my mother, daughter and niece with me to New York. I sent them home and attend the Romance Writers of America conference. I won’t lie, it was fun to wear a first sell ribbon. This was also the first year one of my workshops was picked up. Cool stuff. I had a chance to sit down and talk to my editor too.

July started with 4^th of July at the lake. Hard to beat that.

August was memorable because we had NO rain during that month. None. I can’t remember being so miserable.

September meant school started again for me. I’m still substituting but not as much as I used to. I had to start working hard on second book.

October brought the Georgia Romance Writers Moonlight and Magnolias conference. I got to give a workshop and I was a finalist in the Maggie. Carol came for a visit. Always a thrill, I don’t get to see her near enough. At the end of the month, I celebrated 29 years of marriage.

November was the month for thanks and I had much to be thankful for. Petit Fours and Hot Tamales being among the things I’m grateful for.

December meant giving a 50^th birthday party for a friend, a three book contact and an end to a happy year.

I met my writing goals for 2011, but I have some personal goals I’m going to give more attention to in 2012. If I have half as good a year in 2012 as I did in 2011, I’ll be more than pleased.

In honor of the Petit Fours and Hot Tamales 3rd Anniversary I’m giving away a basket of books written by Georgia authors including mine to one lucky commenter. So tell me how 2011 was for you or your plans for 2012.

It’s not often that a person is witness to a shift in an entire industry, but that’s what happened to me at the Romantic Times (RT) booklovers conference in Los Angeles in April 2011.

When I arrived at the hotel, it was clear from the buzz in the hallways that the topic of the conference was going to be the tsunami-like rise of self-e-publishing, both by brand new authors and authors who were veterans of print publishing. The news bomb had just been dropped that in February 2011, for the first time ever, ebooks had outsold print books. The atmosphere was positively electric, and there was a sense that something big was about to happen. On the first day of the conference, I sat in on a panel on the state of publishing which featured a dozen senior editors, executive editors, and other higher-ups (including a representative from my own publishing house), as well as one high-profile agent. The audience sat rapt while the moderator served up the first question about the seemingly cataclysmic move from print books to electronic books.

And the propaganda began. One by one, editors admitted that the shift was happening more quickly than they’d anticipated, yet they downplayed the overall impact on authors. About halfway through the workshop, one editor summed it up by saying, “We now recognize that the future lies in digital publishing, but we can do it better for you than you can do it for yourselves.”

I like to think I have a fairly extensive vocabulary, but I’ve yet to come up with a word to describe the collective audience response to that remark. A snort? A scoff? A snoff?  All I know is at that moment, I felt it and I believe every other writer in the room felt it:  Power flowing back to the author.

The remainder of the panel discussion was disjointed and unfocused because the audience that remained (many writers got up at that point and walked out) buzzed from the dozens of private discussions that spontaneously erupted, the panel forgotten.  (And just a personal note to the high-profile agent on the panel:  My farmer father was right—the loudest person in the room is usually the wrongest.)

To say that I left that room renewed is an understatement. In a matter of moments, my entire career plan changed. I couldn’t revise my business plan quickly enough—suddenly the books I’d slowly and quietly gotten my rights back to over the years had a new outlet, and I could keep the lion’s share of the profits. Series that former publishers had ended prematurely could now be completed. I could control my covers, my brand, my pricing, my release dates. For the first time since I’d become a novelist, I finally felt like the CEO of the company I’d incorporated years before. The opportunities seemed endless!

In the months since that career-changing conference, I’ve self-e-published eleven early novels (3 romances and 8 romantic mysteries), and I have two original projects in the pipeline to be e-published in the next few weeks—a novella called “Six & ½ Body Parts” to continue my BODY MOVERS series for which my publisher had become a bottleneck, and a full-length romantic comedy called STOP THE WEDDING!, a never-before-published manuscript that had fallen through the cracks being volleyed back and forth between editors in the same house more than 15 years ago (veteran authors are nodding—we’ve all been there). And I have three nonfiction projects on deck. I still have fiction projects with a print publisher, too—I have a new Harlequin Blaze novel coming out next week (ONCE UPON A VALENTINE), and I’m currently writing another Blaze novel. But now I feel like I have choices, and more control over where my stories go and the format in which they’re released.

To summarize, after almost a year of research and regrouping, my advice to other writers would be to follow a two-prong approach:  Funnel some stories to a primarily-print publisher, and experiment with other stories/books in digital format, either with an e-book publisher or on your own. The important thing is to try to keep your brand narrow across all formats, and to keep an eye on your option clauses so you’re not hemmed in. Throughout, keep your finger on the pulse of what’s happening in the book industry by seeking news from different sources. And above all, be flexible, and be willing to reinvent yourself.

I’ll be right there with you. 

 About Stephanie

Stephanie Bond has written over fifty novels for publishers such as Bantam, St. Martin’s Press, and Avon/HarperCollins. She currently writes a sexy mystery series for Mira Books and romantic comedies for Harlequin Books. She is best known for writing steamy books that make readers laugh out loud. Read on to find out more about Stephanie’s childhood and how she became a writer.

Have the Courage to Never Give Up
by Judy Lynn Hubbard

It takes remarkable courage not to give up on your dreams; don’t let anyone ever tell you that it doesn’t.

Take my writing career for example. I’ve read stories, blog posts and seen interviews with various writers who have had their first novel bought by a major publishing house after one submission, writers whose manuscripts editors thought were perfect and required no rewrite and writers who have signed multi-deal contracts for seven-figure sums. Of course, none of those things happened to me—I just don’t have that kind of luck, karma, whatever you want to call it and that’s okay because what I do have is resolve, perseverance and belief in myself and my work.

From the time I started writing seriously years ago with the goal of publication by Harlequin Romance; I knew in my heart that it wasn’t going to be a fast, easy journey. People told me I was being unrealistic to set my goals so high. They said I’d never receive a contract from Harlequin—the biggest publisher of romantic fiction. I simply smiled at them and said, “We’ll see.” Now my friends weren’t deliberately trying to be cruel; they just didn’t want me to set myself up for what they thought would be imminent failure. However, I believe in dreaming big or not dreaming at all and I’m not afraid of hard, exhausting work, so giving up wasn’t an option for me.

The first question I asked myself was did I really want to pursue a writing career; was it something I just had to do? The answer was yes; Read the rest of this entry »

By Darcy Crowder

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We’ve all been there, plugging along at our WIP (work in progress) then life interrupts – don’tcha just hate that? – and when we finally get back to it, there’s something missing. The spark, the excitement, dare I say JOY, has just evaporated.  Now the phrase work in progress has taken on a whole new meaning.

 

 

It’s time to take the muse on a play date.

 

 

So often, as writers, we hear about refilling the creativity well.  Ideas abound:  Read a good book.  Take a long drive.  Go shopping with a friend.  Get your hair or nails done.  Get a massage.  Give your muse a fun-filled day and she will
give you back the JOY in your WIP tenfold.

 

 

Recently, I took an excursion that not only refilled the well, it had my muse practically giddy with excitement as ideas and new, fully-fleshed scenes rushed to my fingertips faster than I could write!  Let me pause here to say that I LOVE
waterfalls.  I’ve made it a personal goal to visit all of them in the state of Georgia, and any others I hear about when I’m traveling.  So, it’s no wonder that I
have a river with a notable waterfall in my current book.

 

 

This past November I had the opportunity to hike deep into the Appalachians to find a little known waterfall.  There were no hiking trails, maps or signs to point the way.  You had to have someone who’d been there before guide you.
Seriously.  People have gotten lost trying to find it.  Not only did we find this amazing waterfall.  Guess who was sitting right at the top, waving madly and grinning from ear to ear.  You’re right. My muse.

 

 

Why hadn’t I thought of this sooner?  I didn’t need a day of shopping to help me
get back that loving feeling, I needed to see a part of my story come to life!  Sights, sounds, smells, sensations coursed through me with such power that for a minute there I really was my heroine.  Scenes, dialogue, descriptions became so clear.  It really was an awesome experience.  JOY had found its way back into my writing.

 

 

So tell me, what would you do, if given the chance, to refill the well with regard to your current wip?  What are your characters doing or how are they living, that you could experience somehow and find new inspiration?

 

 

 

In the spirit of celebrating our third anniversary this month, one lucky commenter will receive  a $10.00 Starbucks gift card.