WordPlay

01/31/12

Here’s the latest, the greatest, the newsiest news!

The Fitzhenry & Whiteside Writer Beware generated by the  Dun Lady’s Jess reversion situation is quieter, but actively ongoing.  Some things take time…

Here in the office, TIGER BOUND, the fourth Nocturne Sentinels book, is in production–and so is the reprint of NOSE FOR TROUBLE, which means I’m working on the cover even now!  KODIAK CHAINED is in first draft and zooooming along quite nicely!  And the steamy new paranormal novella, Touched By Fire, is now available.

And…

• My out-of-print backlist is at Backlist eBooks — with more to come!
• Night of the Tiger was a December release (Nocturne Bite).
• The release schedule for the four outstanding Nocturnes is: Tiger Bound 08/12; Kodiak Chained  12/12; Demon Blade 2013; Dark Blade 2013.
• ConneryBeagle’s medical fundraiser goes on, and his updates are at the anthology pages!
• You can subscribe to WordPlay by Email

Yes!  It’s FREE THINGS!

Well, free books, anyway.

Well, free Kindle books.

It’s my strong philosophy that self-pubbing authors should support as many retail venues as possible with their business.  Sometimes, though…logistics defeat us.

So, because I wanted to offer some reading gifts this week, and because I wanted to know what I’m talking about when it comes to the KDP Select program (ie, the Kindle program that requires exclusive distribution), I put three of my pieces into the program for the minimum time frame, 90 days.

Honestly, I’m not impressed.  I don’t think it’s worth the cost, by any means–both the obvious lost sales at other venues, and the potential costs of this program in the big marketplace picture.  But in the meantime, here we are–three free pieces of fiction!

EMERGING LEGACY (short story prequel to WOLVERINE’S DAUGHTER) is available through the rest of today.

MAKING THE RULES  (the orphaned Bombshell action-romance), is available through Thursday.

FOUNTANE OF(short SF story in the Frederic Brown tradition) is available today through Friday.

And for those of you who don’t have a Kindle…well, I understand completely.  I have a Nook (her name is Nookita) myself!  Let’s say…I am not unaware.  And there are some Nook books in my Backlist eBooks sale. 

As a consolation prize…

Suddenly, a Beagle!  It’s Dart Beagle, on the last corner to the glove as he certifies for the TD test!!

Yes, of course we have a holiday sale going over at Backlist eBooks!

We’re trying a new thing. With so many veteran authors (over a hundred) and so many books (approaching 700) and so many genres (most of them), AND so many different retailers (Nook, Smashwords, Kindle, ARe, Bookview Cafe, Apple, Diesel, Kobo, Sony, blah blah and so on), we needed to be as flexible as possible.

We don’t have direct control over prices at all the distributors; some of them have to propagate out from Smashwords. That gets to be a muddy mess, so for the most part, those retailers aren’t included in this particular sale.

Otherwise, our authors have lowered the prices of chosen books down to $.99.

As it happens, we think our books are worth a lot more than $.99. We really do. But since we all love our ereading devices too, we also know it’s nice to have Try Me opportunities. (That’s why Hidden Steel is a freebie.)

The sale lasts through January 8th, which is a generous chunk of time to feed ereading devices old and new. Also, Barnes & Noble and Amazon have sweet little “gift this book” buttons. Nice–!

So grab a moment during the holidays and check it out, if you can. You might just like it! And oh–if you do, let me know what you think of the way we have the sale set up. We’re still hunting that elusive combination of “perfectly convenient for readers, logistically possible for authors.”

PS: Happy Holidays!

Yep, it’s that time again.  Who isn’t having a sale?  Who doesn’t want you to buy, buy, buy?

Well, count me in.

This is the time of year when all the hungry e-reading devices need to be fed.  New devices, gifted devices, well-loved devices in the hands of holiday-frazzled readers who just need a moment to get away from it all.  Naturally, we’ve got a sale coming up at Backlist eBooks: a slew of $.99 Try Me titles, easy to find and with all the buy links for various formats right there.

SEE HOW EASY:

December 23rd through January 8 > Backlist eBooks > Favorite author or genre > $.99 will be right there in the title!

And while you’re waiting for the day after tomorrow, here’s what happens when Tieg the Officially Adorable Dachshund heard Connery’s Monday video with his Sounds of Woe: A Rush to the Rescue!

Do you suppose he ever found Connery lurking behind that laptop?

Okay, I suppose I could have said length matters, but I’m not sure that would have been any better.

Story length, I mean.

Especially when things are busy-crazy, say…during a holiday season.  (Or say, if you’re me and all the crazy things are happening at once, between the repercussions of the recently totaled dog van, the intense snow and cold management that just descended on us, and one particular ConneryBeagle who just can’t catch a break.)

Lately I’ve been grabbing fiction of a shorter nature--little reading snacks that fit into my brain, my time frame, and my budget.  It’s nice, with all this turmoil around, to read something that resolves itself in one sitting, giving me a nice note on which to turn out the light and pull the covers up.  (Over my head.  Far over my head.)

In the spirit of such things, and because I am sadly desperate to continue spreading the word about The Heart of Dog, here are some short works to share.  From ME!  Also not bad as Christmas gifts, as it happens…

THE HEART OF DOG
Buy all Formats at Backlist eBooks
Sixteen stories, award-winning authors, and help for a sick dog…

Award-winning author Doranna Durgin has over 30 published novels and another 19 short pieces. Now her dog-themed stories are collected in THE HEART OF DOG, along with those by other award-winning authors: Jeffrey Carver, Julie Czerneda, Tanya Huff, John Mierau, Fiona Patton, Jennifer Roberson, Kristine Kathryn Rusch, & John Zakour.

“If you’ve ever loved a dog, you will love this book…” 
~The Book Faerie

————————————————————————–

NIGHT OF THE TIGER

December ’11
Nocturne Bite e-novella
An installment in the Sentinels series

Nook
Kindle

Marlee Cerrosa turned unwitting traitor to the shapeshifting Sentinels, and Scott O’Brien paid the price. Now, with another traitor amongst them, Marlee hunts redemption, and Scott hunts what he lost…and it looks like they can only find the answers in one another.

=================

Late last week I “picked up” a new ebook from a small press.  I read only a short way into it and realized it didn’t meet my standards for craft, storytelling, or character presentation.  Bummer.

So I “picked up” another ebook, this one a sample.  Not from a small press, but the prose was dull and the bones of the plot showed through.  Still, there was something about the concept that caught my interest, so I told Nookita to check it out at the store.  Oh, wow, really?  Almost ten dollars for this ebook?

Yeahhhhhh…. 

No.

There’s a reason some of my ebooks are priced at 99c–it’s a Try Me strategy.  The first book mentioned above was  a Try Me priced book, and I was okay with taking that chance even when it didn’t pan out.

There’s a reason the rest of my works are priced reasonably--and why we have that philosophy over at Backlist eBooks, too.  Mine are 99c for the stories, $1.49 for the novella, and $3.99 for the full-priced books–because I think ebooks should cost a reasonable amount.  That second book’s price isn’t one I’ll pay for my favorite authors, never mind a casual read.

So after an evening like I had last week, what’s a reader to do?

Go back to Little Women, that’s what.  Luxuriate in the tried-and-true, and retreat, for the moment, from the combat shopping experience ebooks sometimes offer.   Besides, I first read this book so very long ago (as in, when I could still count my age on both hands), so I don’t remember the details.  And Jo is up to something–!

I’ll poke my head out again bye-and-bye.  Read any good, reasonably priced ebooks lately?

So many things!  All happening!

There’s the barking dog thing.  Jury’s still out–after three days of blessed silence last week, Thursday and Friday were nonstop barking.  Non.  Freaking.  Stop.  Barking.

Another neighbor thought she had an opportunity to touch base with Barking Dog Neighbor over the weekend.  I need to catch up with her so I have the scoop before I clip request #2 to the gate.

There’s the paddock footing thing–we have a line on some more shreddings, of much better quality than before.  Delivery imminent, we hope!

There’s the ConneryBeagle thing.  We’re still trying to find a balance of his meds and still trying to find ways to support him through this.  He’s looking a little stronger, if not quite himself.  Still, that’s GOOD–and the only reason I can measure it that closely is because of the agility, and my pretty highly honed awareness of how he runs when he’s feeling strong.  He’s pretty cheerful, and that’s great–and he certainly still thinks his agility and his tracking are great fun.

In fact–moving onto the next thing–he had a chance to do both this weekend.  He and Dart headed to a local UKI trial, our first real experience with this new venue.  The courses were European in style, and lots of fun, and the venue was small and friendly.  We ran our first Speedstakes courses, and our very first snooker.  Whee!

Dart grabbed a couple of Qs–and somehow kept enough brains to mainly stay inside the rings.  ConneryBeagle would have Q’d in all his runs had he not slipped in the thick, long and really wet grass to take down a bar.  So, yeah–fun!

Where, you ask, did the tracking come in?  Out in the trial’s huge off-leash play area, the grass and clover were equally thick and deep, and a friend’s small dog lost a couple of favorite toys in it–toys the combined efforts of the rest of us couldn’t find.  So Connery put on his tracking harness, played a few article indication games with the dog’s remaining toys, and made the conceptual leap to my request to search out additional toys.

Which he found.

SO PROUD!!

Oh, there’s the book thing: as of today, the second draft pass is done for Tiger Bound, the next Nocturne Sentinel.  There are a few more details to polish up, and then off it goes to my editor!

And then, finally, there’s the backlist ebook thing.  I’m having such fun with the covers, I’m still poking away at them in the midst of everything.  So without further ado, here’s Feef’s House!

$.99
First Released: 2003, DAW anthology Space, Inc.
Backlist eBooks Store: All Formats

Feef is a smelly, insecure little creature who calls the Toklaat Space Station home. Shadia is a tough, independent itinerant worker who calls no place home—until the day Feef needs help…and offers her something priceless in return.

“Durgin has a remarkable gift for inventing unusual characters doing incredible things.”
–Kliatt

[included in The Heart of Dog anthology]

Ready for some Wednesday Goodies?

Here’s a goodie to start with…for those of you who read Monday’s Barking Dog Blog (which was written late Sunday)…Monday was the first real test of the Barking Dog Response…that is, would Neighbor listen to the request in the note I wrote?

Monday, I am pleased to say, was quiet.

Tuesday, I am pleased to say, it rained most of the day–so basically, who knows if it would have been quiet or not.  But the rain was a major boon (and it came without the massive hailstorm that ripped apart this area last year at just this time), so either way…definite Goody.

Why, I might even risk riding Duncan on our north flat today!  (But, hmm…I think I’ll have earplugs, just in case.)

Otherwise, on the Goody front?  I got another short story out in the backlist offerings!

$.99
First Published: 2004, DAW: ReVisions
BACKLIST EBOOKS: ALL FORMATS

In Neil’s world, there are miniature seeing-eye horses, service pigs, stock-guarding llamas, and bred-up Siamese guard cats—because in Neil’s world, dogs were never domesticated, and never will be. But it seems no one’s asked the dogs what they think…

Originally published in the DAW anthology, ReVisions—an anthology of alternate history stories that consider what would have happened if scientific and technological breakthroughs–and challenges–occurred long before they did in real history.

[included in THE HEART OF DOG]

Definite GoodieFest day.  Got any to share?

That is not the sound of me clearing my throat.

That is the sound of hacker crap being scraped off this web site.

If you stopped by on Monday, you know what I mean.

Well, it’s gone, now, and the hatches are battened, and I’ve had quite the education in how some folks find mindless destruction to be satisfying.

Me, I’d rather make something.

And so I have. The muse struck again, and I put together a cover for “Hair of the Dog,” a backlist story in the A Feral Darkness world–Brenna and Druid, and coming to terms with their changed world.

Not to mention a little vicarious “nyah ha ha!”

$.99
First Published: in Sirius, the Dog Star; DAW 2003
Backlist eBooks Showcase Page & Buy Links

A fantasy short story in the world of A FERAL DARKNESS

One woman, one dog, one god…finding the line between justice and revenge.

Brenna Lynn Fallon grooms dogs, owns a Cardigan Welsh Corgi with a little something extra, and has a lifetime acquaintance with the ancient power once known as the Celtic god Nuadha. But there are responsibilities that come with being favored by a god, and the threats Brenna faces don’t always come from things supernatural…or even from outside herself.

(Come to think of it…the two topics have more in common than I thought until just now. Those hackers could use a little “nyah ha ha!” in their lives, too.)

Not quite party time, but getting close!

For starters, there’s the Backlist eBooks site.  We’re running through a two-stage transition with the authors–currently, they’re pulling their individual author pages today; we’re about a third done with that and it’s looking way cool.

Mine is currently the only page with the complete bookshelf, simply because I’m working everything ahead as an example for the authors…won’t it be totally cool when all 100 of us have all our books up like this?

Definitely working up to a really big party.

Party #2! is this!

After a good long wait to get something on the schedule (I have completed books sitting in the queue), September is quite suddenly the release date for my Nocturne Bite, Demon Touch.

Not only that, it has a really…nice…cover.

Really nice.

Heh.

Nook
Kindle

Ever since the night Alex Donally found the demon blade in his hand—and in his thoughts—he has been driven to fight evil.

When he meets Deb Marchand, he is compelled to protect her from her violent ex—and aroused by the visions of passionate encounters they both experience when they touch. The blade is showing them what they can have—if Deb can risk giving her trust and heart to a vigilante…

Lookin’ for my party hat…