WordPlay

by Doranna

Free, free, FREE!

I often wonder what readers think when they see ebooks listed for free.  I can’t look at that issue from my reader point of view, because it’s too much a part of my writer point of view.

I suspect it’s not entirely understood, to judge by certain sneering comments I’ve seen…

When a backlist author puts a title up for free, it has nothing to do with the perceived worth of the book. In fact, we often put our favorite books up for free. And when readers download them, we get all excited.

In a world of trying to market without a publicity department, free book downloads change how our books are presented in book stores–where and how often they appear. And unless they do appear, it’s very hard for a reader “browsing” the bookstore to see them and make a choice about reading or buying.  Unless they receive reviews, or likes, or tags, it’s really hard to get them presented to readers at all.

That’s why when we do a freebie, and it does well, it’s really exciting.  So this week, that’s why I’m all excited that TOUCHED BY MAGIC hit the #1 free epic fantasy at kindle, and then hung around that spot for a while.  Of course I know it’s not the same as being a #1 paid book, but it means a lot to me in many other ways.

(Yes, it’s still free–at Kindle, Nook, Sony, Kobo, iTunes, and Smashwords)

So download a freebie today!

And if you’re so moved, go to the store’s page and “like” that book as an indication of your interest, or write a little review when you’re finished reading.

We love you for it–and it’s one way you can have a voice in the kinds of titles you see.

By Patty Wilber

This past weekend we went to Santa Catalina Island off the California coast (which was a fine adventure!).

I needed a book to read on the way home and I picked up Fifty Shades of Grey.  It  disgusted me so much that I could hardly put it down, devoured the thing in two days and then felt like I’d eaten a really bad meal and should throw up.

In case you are tempted to read it or the series, take the anti-drug slogan to heart:  Just Say No.  Or go read the Amazon reviews by Cupcake, which, for the second and third books anyway, are funny and liken the books to literary crack (and give them 4 stars…).

So that brings me ’round to my actual topic.  My favorite horse stories.  In contrast to the Fifty Shades, my best loved horse books are in the YA (Young Adult) category.

As a kid, of course I was enchanted by Marguerite Henry’s Misty of Chincoteague books and when we lived on the East Coast, we went to see those ponies.

(I also loved a book called The Mystery of the  Red Tide By Frank Bonham, which featured Garibaldi –the state fish of California.  We got to see Garibaldi when we snorkeled at Catalina!  Bagged another childhood book animal!

Thank goodness, because that time we just happened to be near Mission San Juan Capistrano on St. Joseph’s Day when the swallows were supposed to arrive –according to the Caldecott Medal winning book Song of the Swallows by Leo Politi, first published in 1948  that we read to the kids in the 1990′s– was a bust.  Turns out the swallows no longer arrive at the Mission AT ALL, let alone on a prescribed day, possibly due to changes in habitat utilization–i.e. urbanization. Still bummed.)

I digressed.

Here are my top two.

1. Dark Sunshine by Dorothy Lyons.  1951.  A sickly girl, a wild horse, a ranch in Arizona.  This one is my favorite.  I also read all D. Lyon’s other books, which, in my memory, are nothing compared to this one!

2. Black Gold by Marguerite Henry. 1957.  Based on a true story.  I remembered really liking it as a kid, so when mine were little, we took it as a read-aloud book on some road trip.  I’d totally forgotten it was a tear- jerker.  At the end we actually  had to pull over because all four of us were bawling our eyes out.  (Except Progeny #2, because at that age, he didn’t cry.  His eyes were just “hot”, sweating, we suppose).

(Check it out–Wesley Dennis illustrated both the editions I have!)

I have copies (obviously-just said that) of both books (although Dark Sunshine is falling apart), and a quite few other YA horsey titles because I came across a garage sale in 1989 or so where a girl was selling her horse book collection for 50 cents a title.  Gold mine! Bought them all.  Most of them were old friends and some became new friends–like Fury and the Mustangs By Albert G. Miller…”Fury Fury, From Oregon east to Missouri….”

Re-read them all and then read many of them to the kids (and then they read some of them, themselves).

Of course, I’ve read a gob of adult horse books, too, but somehow Dark Sunshine is still top of my list!

What are your favs?

It’s he-eere!

The Backlist eBooks newsletter comes with a free download this month–a thank you for those readers who have signed up for the newsletter in these past two months.

It also comes with cool specials and a great column from Laura Resnick and the usual peek into the Backlist eBooks site content.

It boils down to a great big collection of reasonably priced books that have been given a fresh new presentation.  Some of them are updated, some of them contain missing scenes and bonus material, and some of them are timeless just as they are.  8)  So hey, what are you waiting for?

CLICKIE HERE TO GO THERE.

 Well, there’s not much more to say than this…go for it!

Goodreads Book Giveaway

Sentinels

by Doranna Durgin

Giveaway ends July 23, 2012.

See the giveaway details
at Goodreads.

Enter to win

PS With apologies, the giveaway is limited to those within the US.  It’s a budget thing…

Authors.  We’re incorrigible. We’re hooked on book covers.

Our book covers.

We want them eye catching. We want them pretty.  We want them to say all the right things about the book or story.

(We also want our characters to have the right skin and hair color–bwah ha ha ha ha!  Okay, back to reality.)

When we’re lucky, we get a cover that says, “Yeah!”

So, meet the new Scoria cover.

All say:  YEAH!

The Scoria is one of those stories. It said yeah! When I wrote it, still gives me the yeah! When I read it.  I’m all giddy that it now has a cover that does the same for me!

The Scoria
Kindle
Smashwords
Originally published in Under the Cover of Darkness

Only a teen herself, Galetia is sworn to protect a desperately hidden group of youngsters fighting for survival in a world unfriendly to their differences.

All say: YEAH!  THE BOOK COVER DANCE!

You know you want it.

Booksies.

Me, I’ve never been one for messing around with (cue thunderous music and monster truck announcer) BLAAAACK-FRIIII-DAAAA-AY-AY!

So never mind all that. Thanks to Smashwords, I have the Power of the Coupon.  All the e-reader formats, DRM-Free.

So if you’re looking forward to a weekend of guerilla shopping, have a fortifying treat of fiction.

Here’s how it goes:

Clickie the book links–they open in a new page.  Add ‘em to your cart.

Come back here and grab the codes, and apply them to the books in the cart.

Check out!

(Can you tell that I stocked up at Backlist eBooks during the sale last month?)

Making the Rules
Coupon Code SG64H
An orphaned Silhouette Bombshell original: Hunter Agency operatives Kimmer Reed and Rio Carlsen, overseas and cut off from the agency on their first assignment together, face an old enemy who wants it all: political terrorism, theft–and revenge. Not only that, she knows just how to get it–by turning their greatest strength into their greatest weakness: their love for one another.

Hidden Steel
Coupon Code YB88P
Originally an orphaned Silhouette Bombshell, published by Five Star Expressions. Who’d have thought that the woman who stumbles her way into Steve Spaneas’ gym, looking and acting so very much like a street person off her meds, is really a CIA case officer whose memory has been obliterated by experimental drugs used by some very bad people? And they want her back…

A Feral Darkness
Coupon Code QD852Z
Originally a Baen Book: As a child, dog-loving Brenna Fallon naívely invokes an ancient Celtic deity–and leaves an opening for a far more malevolent force. Years later, she depends on her wits, a persistent stranger, and a mysterious stray dog as she faces the threat of a modern Black Death. Welded by a desperate sacrifice, woman, man, and dog face the feral darkness together.

Happy Thanksgiving! (I bet you know what I’m grateful to have this year… *Nook Love*)

Several weeks ago, someone here casually offered up the perfect name for my as-of-yet  unpurchased Nook.

Nookita.

But OH! I have searched the archives through and can’t find who did it!  I think…Karen?  Alas for my brain…

Well, that was several weeks ago. At the time, I was still an e-reader wannabe.  A rather feverish one, in fact.

What brought this on, you might wonder? After years of watching from the sidelines without a whole lot of interest?

Synchronicity.

Couldn’t afford an ereader at previous prices. Couldn’t read fiction on a monitor.  (Or anything of length.  Eyes.  Overworked.  Tired.)  Didn’t see anything on the market that gave the ereader added value.  Felt overwhelmed by the learning curve.

And then came:

• Cheaper devices
• More devices from which to choose
• Devices with better connectivity

And

You will laugh…

Backlist eBooks.

Because suddenly, ereading can give me access to books I can’t get any other way–books I wanted, books for which I’d hoped to see new editions but knew better.

And, as it turns out, the very process of preparing my own out-of-print books for “me-release” also gave me quite the education–formats, download process, resources…suddenly it wasn’t so overwhelming any longer.  Suddenly it hadn’t really been that hard all along.

Yeah.  The more I interacted with it all, the more I realized, “Ooh baby!”

Don’t get me wrong.  I love paper. I love the feel of it, the smell of it, the heft of it.  I love flipping pages.  I love staring at the covers, picking out my favorite elements, and seeing the spines lined up on my book shelves.  (I maybe don’t so much love lugging around book boxes during a move, but I’ve done enough of that in the past couple of years to hold me for a while.)

But the very coolest thing about ereading is that it isn’t either-or.  It’s opportunity.  It doesn’t replace, it works in tandem with print.  Well, sure, some people might feel differently, but that’s the point.  We get to do it the way that works best for us.

Well, so far, Nookita is working out JUST FINE. She’s earning her keep in a big way.  I’ve already bought and downloaded a number of Backlist eBooks titles, I took her to the agility trial for the day we started late, and she’s heading out with me right now as I go into town, snug in her fancy case (heh–a padded mailing envelope, cut down).  Plus, because my books are available via Nook, I can see them that way, too!

Welcome to the new world, me!  Welcome to me, Nookita!

It may not have escaped your notice that I’m putting out my backlist in eformat.

*pause to absorb glyph of dry humor*

It may even  be obvious that I’m not the only one.

See, there are a certain number of us in this particular place in our careers–been doing this long enough to have reverted out-of-print books, and yet are young enough (in dinosaur years)and/or tech-oriented enough to embrace the new opportunities in digital publishing.

So here we are.  Putting out our own books. Incorporating old edits that were once made only in production and on paper, making director’s cuts, and reproofing and pretending we know what we’re doing when it comes to cover design.

(Hey, I heard me say that! But I like my covers.  I think they should make books “jump off the shelves.”  Too bad I don’t rule the world!)

Note to self:  Work on that next.

Anyway.  The other thing about growing up as print authors is that we’re used to reaching out to a print world.  We’ve spent our careers learning how to do just that!  So it’s not just about the logistical parts and the learning curve, but reaching out in the right place at the right time.

But here’s the thing. In order to become published in the first place, we learned and persisted and wrote and persisted and submitted and…well…persisted.

So we’re going to figure this out, too. How to deal with the manuscript prep, the formatting, the covers–the quality control that we expect of ourselves and readers expect of us–and yes, being in the right place for ebook-loving readers to find us.

And that brings me to Backlist Ebooks.

Because it’s easier to see a group of Backlist Ebook authors than it is to find any single author out there on the big wide Internets.  A nice big easy-to-spot flock of us.

(Or something.)

Since I’m not the only who thinks this might be the case, several of us did this thing:  We made a place around which we can flock.  Named, not so oddly, Backlist Ebooks.  At the moment we’re on FaceBook (a page anyone can visit, FaceBook member or not), and in the near future, we’ll have a companion web site.  Down the road, a more complete resource on a fancy-schmancy web site.

And all along the way, it’s about gathering together in a way that makes it easy to find inexpensive digital versions of long-sought out-of-print books–and every now and then, an original.  Plus, bonus! It’s been a blast to pull together with other authors and take back the control over these books that we love, too!

So you KNOW WHAT? Come visit us!  Say hello!  And if you’re like me–still yearning for my first e-reading device, but getting close–whet your appetite!

…Monday

Yes! It’s true! I have a genre auto-adjust function in my brain!

And it comes in REALLY handy. Because everything I write, I also read. (I mean…duh, right?) And without the auto-adjust, there might be some ugly genre gap issues.

Ug-LEE, I tell you.

Okay, not for mysteries–two of them so far for me. Easy to tell apart from the rest, and obvious what to expect.

The tie-in books…well, those are pretty much self-defined.

And the Bombshells. No question about that marketing. Kick-Ass Chick books. Jane Bond. Alias. Sums it up right there.

The confusing part?

The fantasies. The different flavors thereof.

SF/Fantasy vs Silhouette Nocturne category vs single title paranormal. All fantasy–but all entirely different.

With my first fantasy books–of the SF/F variety–I had a lot of freedom. Of course there were relationships in these books–our lives are made of relationships. But the books were structured around plot, and built primarily on worlds, magic, and character. I could and did hit from between 90K to 150K words.

The Silhouette Nocturnes are contemporary, relationship-driven category romance fantasies. World building and plot are vital–the pieces always have to be there!–but the book grows around the relationship. And the length is 70K words or less. That means the developing relationship takes priority over extensive world building and layered plot lines (and it means there are pages of Sentinel notes, history, and factoids that haven’t ever made it to print).

Single title paranormals–like those in the Reckoners series–are a blend of both worlds. They’ve got the world building, the relationship, the characters, the layering, and a whole cast of supporting characters. At 120k words, they’re crammed in tight!

But here’s where it gets tricky. Because the expectations formed by reading any one of these sibling genres won’t match the reading experience in the others. Picking up a fantasy won’t fulfill the yen for a relationship-driven story. Picking up a Nocturne won’t provide deep world building and multi-layered plots–and it’s not meant to. Picking up a paranormal single-title provides a great balance of both–but the specific focus of neither.

So picking up one of these genres and blaming it for not being like one of the others? Well, it feels odd to say this about fantasies, but…that’s not exactly realistic. Or, thank you (and here comes the opinionated part), fair.

In fact, the key to a happy read while genre-surfng turns out to be pretty basic. Know what you’re reading. Set expectations accordingly. Voila!

In which case it’s really handy to have an auto-adjust function.

Oh, a Wild Thing snippet! I had such a good time with this one–short and fast, and since I had already written the first two Sentinel books before tackling this prequel (prequelette?), it was vast fun to write. I already knew all the gleeful little details!
=======================

Watch her, Nick Carter had told Mark Burton, and sent Mark into the night after Tayla Garrett—into the sporadically lit Phoenix park she patrolled this night. Watch her patrol, watch her stalk the night greenways—a little sideways jog to avoid a loose dog, so casual and then all her attention back on the night, on the people within the park and only Mark’s excellent warding keeping him from her scrutiny.

Watch her. As if Mark had been doing anything but watching Tayla Garrett since his recent reassignment had them crossing paths in Sentinel field activity. Not to mention in the Phoenix brevis regional office, in the hallways…in the damned security lot where she sometimes parked a scooter and sometimes parked a bike. But she’d made it clear enough she still—after all this time—preferred to keep her distance, and he’d reluctantly, achingly, respected her wishes. In spite of the restlessness, the aching, and the tendency to offer her name at intensely inappropriate moments in his personal life.

Not that he’d expected to see that particular date again, anyway.

She’d always done that to him. As an awkward fourteen-year-old, growing into impossibly long legs, learning to hide her natural speed from the world and to finesse her cheetah shift, while Mark, a much more mature and worldly eighteen year old, learned that he was indeed human-bound in shape, regardless of his parentage and obvious peripheral shifter skills—the physical prowess, the tracking skills, the prescience…

She runs the Phoenix city parks at night…