Older But Content

So yesterday was my birthday and it was wonderful with the entire family here. It was so much fun and in the middle of the chaos, I realized how content and happy I am. Thirty or forty (yes, I'm old) years ago, I might not have imagined where I would be today with a large family, a huge house, and a writing career. I wasn't even considering being a writer until after my daughter was born 23 years ago. But here I am, and it's great. The industry is a tough nut to crack and once you are published, it's even more difficult to keep on going. Low pay, hard work, and long hours add up to a sense of personal accomplishment. I hope I never get too old to give up the constant learning that my writing career demands.

 Of course, my dear family gave me all the things I love as gifts beyond their presence. Wine, a GoT wine glass, book gift cards, Yankee candles, and did I say wine. They're the best.

In the industry, my friends and I have discussed what it means to be a bestseller. There are so many lists. Do they mean anything anymore? Do readers care if a book is labeled a bestseller? How the heck does Amazon even come up with their numbers? Do the lists include eBooks? This PW article talks about all these things. All writers want to publish a 'bestseller' but does it mean anything in today's market?

As a writing of romance, I, like most of my colleagues, find myself often defending the genre. Yet, romance makes up 34% of the book market. It's important. So many people have the idea it's not on the same level of writing as other genres. Worse, because most of the readers are women, it's deemed not intelligent or not good stories. The attitude is so ridiculous when the genre is so successful. Many studies have shown the average romance reader is a college-educated female. There's nothing wrong with reading a book with a happy ending compared to reading a book full of the suffering and terrible things that are on the news everyday or perhaps in a person's own life.

On the good side, Supernatural has been great this season so far. Poldark has been satisfyingly dramatic. The Punisher is coming to Netflix on Friday. My once favorite show, Once Upon a Time, is okay this season. I always like seeing how they put new spins on old fairy tales. It gives me creative ideas.

I'm planning for Thanksgiving dinner and starting to gather the 'fixings' as the entire feast is at my house each year. The kids want everything to be exactly like the previous years, but I try at least one new thing each year.

That WIP that I wanted to have done in October? I'm hoping by the end of November now. Sigh.....

Have you ever had a bestseller? Does bestseller 'status' influence you to buy a book? Enjoying Supernatural or looking forward to The Punisher?

What Weekend?

Life is busy enough without getting sick for two days. The worst cold ever took me out of action from Friday evening through Saturday. All those big plans to get some outside work done and some promotional work went the way of a full box of tissues. Sinus headache, chills, well you get the picture. I haven't had a cold like that since I retired from teaching. Teachers have the luck to catch everything going around when their students give it to them. Stay home when you're sick, please.

Another 9/11 has rolled around. Even after 16 years, the day remains vivid in my memory. The week following was very tense in our little piece of the country. Three Mile Island, infamous nuclear plant, is in my home school district. There were dozens of false alarms from perceived threats. I woke a few nights to jets screaming over the house on their way from Fort Indiantown Gap to provide security coverage at the power plant. It was truly the international incident of my lifetime. Let's hope our politicians don't draw us into something worse that that horrible day.

Came across this interesting article at Publisher's Weekly. Amazon is making an attempt to stop those cheaters using KDP and stealing money from authors and readers with their practices. I'm sure those being sued by Amazon are only a few of the many jerks conning the system, but it's a start.

Prayers to those suffering all kinds of hardships and losses because of Harvey and Irma. I have a niece in Florida.  I'm waiting to hear how she and her home are doing.

I feel the need to talk about something fun. Cleaned up my flowerbeds a little bit for fall. Can't believe I'll be raking leaves soon. My granddaughter turned six months and has been sitting up and crawling for a full month and last week decided she could stand up too when the right opportunity presents itself. Obviously, a superior genetic background. And our weather has been lovely. Warm but not humid during the day and cool nights.

This past weekend was big for the Penn State football fans at our house. Two of my sons earned their degrees there, and I received my Masters from PSU. The school really is a good academic school and has lots of outstanding athletic programs. It's too bad it's reputation has been darkened by the Sandusky scandal. Those poor children who suffered are still suffering as adults because so many resent the black mark on Joe Paterno's legacy. Priorities are messed up for some people.

Can't say how much I miss having a new GoT episode the last two Sundays. Salvation has gotten better and better each week. I hope it gets renewed for next year. I'm thinking of doing a re-watch of Luther, a BBC cop show, which means it's more cerebral with less shooting to solve crimes. It's good if you're looking for something to watch. It's on Netflix.

Are the hurricanes impacting your part of the world? Do you remember vivid details of 9/11? Have you put your books on KDP? Have your earnings taken a hit like so many authors complain because of the cheaters? Do you watch any BBC shows?

It's Back!

It is time. Today the sign ups for the annual A to Z Blogging Challenge are open. I'm writing this well ahead of time as I fear the winter storm hitting us this weekend might knock out the power. By the time you read this, I hopefully will have my name on the list. And hopefully the snowplows will have opened our roads for the second or third time as they drift shut again and again.

Last year I worked as an administrator for the Challenge and believe me, it is work. This year I've backed off and resumed my role as minion the Alex J. Cavanaugh. I'm happy to be helping in some small way but without so much stress. I'm still thinking out my theme but I'll figure it out sooner rather than later. And Alex does have a really cool minion badge for his helpers to display.

Speaking of the storm, nearly three feet before it started drifting, it was a lot of shoveling but our very kind neighbors helped us. The three feet of snow remained on the township roads for more than a day and a half after the snowfall started. Not good.

Being stuck inside gave me plenty of time to write. I managed to finally type THE END on the second book on The Galactic Outlaw series. It's a very rough first draft. I hope to finish the second before A to Z starts in April. And now I have a lot of other little things that I've ignored while in my writing cave. Time to get back out into the social world.

A little industry news. Here's a link to Publisher's Weekly article about The Hot and Cold Book Categories of 2015. Apparently, The Martian really helped the sales in the science fiction category. It seems to happy when certain mega-sellers help a category like 50 Shades of Grey did for romance and The Hunger Games did for the YA category. Who knows what the next blockbuster will be? And if you happen to write in that category it may help your own book sales.

There were some funny posts on Facebook leading into the storm. One measured the storm not in expected inches but expected bottles of wine to be consumed. We fell into the 12 cases categories.

"In wine there is wisdom, in beer there is Freedom, and in water there is bacteria." Benjamin Franklin

I didn't drink 12 cases of wine.

Did you sign up for A to Z? Did the big storm hit your corner of the world? Are you writing in one of the hot or cold categories of books in 2015? Do you read in one of those genres?

52 Likes by Medeia Sharif, Ouch for Self-Publishers

I came upon this article in Publishers Weekly about the class action lawsuit some authors have been involved in against the self-publishing giant Author Solutions. Didn't go so well for the authors as the judge basically said they had no real prove that Author Solutions was running their business to make their profit by fees charged to authors instead of actually helping the authors sell books. Read the details if your want a grimace to start the day.

In happier news, today is something called Prime Day. Amazon is celebrating its 20th birthday even though it seems the retailer has been around forever. On this day, the retail giant is offering special deals to its Prime members that are supposed to rival Black Friday. Is it a sweet deal or just a temptation to spend money on gadgets?

In other good news, Medeia has a book special going on this week. Only a few more days to make a great buy 

Medeia Sharif's 52 LIKES is 99 cents on Amazon for a limited time. This edgy, paranormal YA title has been receiving rave reviews. Important issues such as rape, bullying, and social media abuse are tackled in this novel. You can connect with Medeia through her blog, Twitter account, Goodreads page, and Instagram to learn more about this book and her other titles.

52 LIKES, Evernight Teen, 2015: After a brutal rape and near-murder, Valerie wants to get past feelings of victimhood from both the assault and her history of being bullied. She’s plagued by not knowing the identity of her rapist and by the nasty rumors in school about that night. Valerie follows clues from ghostly entities, past victims of the rapist-murderer, contacting her through a social media site—why do all of their eerie photos have 52 likes under them? Their messages are leading her to the mystery man, although he’ll put up a fight to remain hidden.

Another Book Contract!!!

I'm floating on air around the house, trying not to knock down the Christmas decorations. Medallion Press (Gosh, I love them!) has offered me a contract for Book #3 of The Futhark Chronicles. Beneath the Mountain continues the epic fantasy started on The Keepers of Sulbreth and Beyond the Gate.

The Keepers of Sulbreth is scheduled for release on January 1st of 2010, Beyond the Gate in 2011 and Beneath the Mountain in 2012. The yet unnamed fourth and final book in circling around in my head with the outline sketched out on paper.

To top off a truly wonderful week, I found another review for The Keepers of Sulbreth on Publishers Weekly. This time the reviewer was a teenager reading for PW. I can only say Bekah is a very insightful young woman with excellent taste.

Now if only I could get the manager of my local Borders to talk with me about a booksigning. Yeah, yeah, I know he's kind of busy now with lines to the back of the store for the holidays but this is important. LOL. I really want a signing early in January to catch all my former students before they head back to college. And so many people will be walking around with those wonderful gift cards from Christmas.

Later this week I'll be talking about the booksigning I have coming up next week at The Midtown Scholar Bookstore in Harrisburg, PA. Hope I see some of you there.

First Review for 'Futhark Chronicles'

What an exciting day for me. The Keepers of Futhark will be released in January but today I read the first review. Publisher's Weekly posted a review and said many kind things about my book. One little zinger about the start of the book and then everything was roses. I hope someone uses those reviews to make their must read lists.

I know there's often discussions on blogs about whether or not people read reviews to determine their shopping lists for books. I often do just that. ROF used to have pages of book reviews though the space allowed for that in their new, recently rescued, magazine is much less. I bought one of my daughter's favorite books after reading a review for it there. My daughter and I both highlight books each month in RT and intend to buy them. Of course, Keepers won't be reviewed in RT because it's not a romance. The only beef I have with PW was the way they referred to the book as a romantic fantasy. I would rather term it an epic fantasy with a romantic subplot but I won't complain too much if some readers buy it because of the romance.

Do you read reviews and allow them to dictate your must read list? Where do you find your reviews and have you ever felt misled by one?