Book Signing Event!

I believe book signings are helpful for authors to get their name out there to the public and perhaps more importantly for making friends with booksellers. But for an author, signings can be hours of sitting, talking and selling oneself without moving a single book. I've sat, stood, paced around at numerous book events and wondered if my time wouldn't have been better spent sitting at my desk at home and writing.

But this Saturday I'll be part of the biggest signing event I've yet to attend. The Midtown Scholar Bookstore-Cafe in Harrisburg, PA., is hosting a varied and talented panel of authors for readings and promoting their works. There will be poets, literary fiction writers, nonfiction authors, one YA author, and closest to my heart, romance writers. Cate Masters will be joining me in promoting our published novels along with fellow Susquehanna Writer, Don Helin selling his suspense novel.

Catherine, owner of the Midtown Scholar has put together a terrific holiday affair including a free holiday concert.

I am a bit nervous about reading from my work and have yet to select the passages I will use. I hope those of you local to Harrisburg will consider stopping by sometime between 2:00 and 5:00 this Saturday afternoon.

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.

Gift Giving

I remember when Christmas was easy. My boys were little and begged for the newest Power Rangers or GIJoe toys. The lego castle system provided a lot of pricey entertainment but still fit in the budget. We enjoyed shopping for our baby girl and all those doll things we'd never purchased before. Things have changed.

The boys are in college and one of them already out and working. My little girl is in high school. Gift requests now range to things like $60 games for Xbox 360 for the boys and a list of gift cards. The girl wanted a new indoor hockey stick, not too bad at $85 and driving four hours to pick it out. Oh, and the class ring of which we won't mention the price. But by far the worse gift list is from the oldest. A single guy working at a pretty good job, he doesn't want anything in particular. I'd rather he ask for something expensive.

I guess all mothers hold onto those memories of Christmas morning when your child opens that special surprise with a squeal of delight and joy. So every year I waste hours prying and pondering the perfect gift. And every year it becomes more difficult. So I'm busy worrying about it and haven't come up with more than one idea for one child so far.

Do you do this? How difficult are those adult children to delight? Maybe I should just wait for those grandchildren to come along and rediscover the magic of Christmas with them.

One Good Woman

My publisher, New Concepts Publishing, presented me with an early holiday gift. For whatever reason, they were able to move my futuristic romance novel, One Good Woman, up in the publishing schedule. Instead of being released next February, it is now available in ebook format from my publisher's site.

One Good Woman continues and completes my futuristic romance series, The Solonian Chronicles. Not only does this novel bring together two favorite characters with their own story, it wraps up the entire series with a message of hope and courage.

For those of you not familiar with this series, Solonia is a small colony composed of all women set in a future earth. The world has been sent back to a pre-technological era after an asteroid strikes the earth. Humans survive in small colonies and everyday is a struggle. Solonia believed they were the only survivors for centuries. When a wasting sickness devastated their male population, many of their men turned to a steroid like plant product and turned into vicious sub-human beasts. With their population slowly dwindling, the Solonia women turn to a band of shipwrecked colonists newly arrived on their continent. The Realm is composed of courageous adventurers. The blending of the two people strikes sparks as the cautious, distrustful women of Solonia dare to fall in love with the risk taking, heroic men of the Realm.

Each book starts with a historical account of the time as recorded in the work from one of the rebirthed universities of the time. Read the histories for all four books here.

My publisher as offered the first chapter free on their website and I've added another excerpt to my website.

If you've been a fan of the first three books, I know you'll love this one. I'm sad to see this series end. The Greater Good was the first book I ever wrote. After many revisions it found a home at New Concepts. I thank them for taking a chance on a new author and all the readers who also risked trying out an unknown.

It's the Little Joys

Today I made one of my favorite purchases for my writing business. I purchased my 2010 day planner. I have so much fun looking through the different styles, comparing covers, and checking out all the extras. So many choices.

First of all, one must consider the size. The last few years I've gone with the smaller nine by six with a week on facing pages. I have to write small in those spaces though so this year I decided to go either with the bigger, full-sized model or the planner with one entire page for each date. It took me ten minutes to decide on the bigger one with a week on facing pages.

Then I have to look at the covers. I need something that will survive getting stuffed into bags and carried here and there. Last year I splurged on real leather. The same planner in the large style I wanted cost $25. I went with faux blue leather instead for $17.

I had to check out the extras. I don't really need those pretty maps of the world in the back but they were in all my finalists. My final choice had the usual conversion charts and information about other countries, population and units of currency. I need that as much as I need the world maps. Now it did have a wine vintage guide. They didn't mention the local wines I like to sample. Can't figure out why.

Of course I would never buy a planner that didn't have one of those little ribbons to mark my page and this one also has the rip-off corners. Last year's didn't have that so I'm doing that tonight.

Oh the joy of sniffing the brand new faux leather and marking the important dates in my new planner. Everything will be so neat for a while.

On the more serious side, filling in those dates in my planner reminds me of the goals I've set and the future I intend to pursue in my budding career as a writer. I have release dates to fill in for January, The Keepers of Futhark, and for April 30th, To Tame a Tiger. My planner reminds me I'm going somewhere, slowly but surely. And when next November rolls around and I buy a new planner, I'll have a release date to mark for January, 2011 for Beyond the Gate.

Do you love your planner as much as I love mine.

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?

E-Book Break Through?

On page 17 of the December issue of RT Book reviews, Fan Forum, a few paragraphs posed the question of what 2010 might bring to the e-book market. Like many of you, I'm delighted when I see Sony advertising their readers on TV. A few weeks ago, my local Borders had a display only steps inside the door featuring the Sony reader. Apparently Best Buy will have e-readers in stock for the holiday rush. Hopefully many desperate or impulse buyers will have lots of bucks in their pockets.
Even with the increased advertising, availability and variety of readers out there, the same problem exists for all of them. The price. In today's economic climate, how many consumers will justify spending a couple of hundred dollars on a device to read books? Though I and many of my friends believe books to be a necessity, they really don't rank up there with food and shelter. And like computers, digital cameras, cell phones and all those other clever gadgets of advanced technology, you're likely to find a new, improved, super-duper, faster model of your chosen reader on the market before you even figure out how all the capabilities of the one you purchased for the price of a car payment.
Why aren't e-readers getting cheaper? The competition expands each day. Shouldn't the price come down as the manufacturers compete for the consumers dollars?
I suspect part of the problem is the lack of great sales. They haven't sold enough to saturate the market so they keep the price high to pay for R&D costs. But by keeping the price high, they may never sell enough. It's a circle puzzle.
I still don't have an e-reader, and I really want one. With two children in college, I'm one of those poor consumers waiting for the prices to come down.
What is your theory on the enduring high price of e-readers?