King to Readers: You’re Just Too lazy to go the Bookstore

Oh, Stephen. No.

“I have no plans for a digital version,” King said. “Maybe at some point, but in the meantime, let people stir their sticks and go to an actual bookstore rather than a digital one.”

I don’t think it’s wise for authors to tell readers their reading format preferences are wrong and lazy. And what about the fact that some bookstores are now selling eBooks?

King can say FU to readers because he’s got market clout. He can be confident that every bookstore in the country will not only stock his book but order plenty of copies so that readers, when they come in, will indeed find his book available for purchase.

What if I’m a reader looking for a book by an author who ISN’T Stephen King? I can assure you that readers may not be able to find that book. For some authors, digital is the ONLY way to get their books into the hands of readers.

What if I can’t get to a bookstore? What if there aren’t any bookstores convenient to where I live? What if big fat books like the kind King writes hurt my hands? This is NOT a joke. My mother, who has arthritis, took to cutting apart paper books to get them into small enough chunks so that she could hold the sections without pain. Needless to say, she wasn’t reading hardbacks at all. I bought her a Kindle and suddenly, she could read as much as she wanted– without pain.

What if I have a sight-impairment and reading books in print isn’t possible?

What if I just prefer not to have paper books anymore?

“Let people stir their sticks and go to an actual bookstore.”

Just reading that gets me hot under the collar.

Let Them Read Print!

That sentiment, so full of privilege, set off a revolution back in 1790. The point is not what Marie Antoinette ACTUALLY said, but the danger of the privileged elite telling the unwashed masses to solve their unhappy conditions by simply doing something else–that happens to be impossible– is a warning that’s endured for more than 200 years.

It’s offensive. It reeks of King’s privileged position in life. I’m sure he has a car and the time and money to drive to his nearest bookstore and buy all the print books he wants. He’s sighted (to the best of my knowledge). He’s completely oblivious to all the reasons a reader might not be able to read his book in print.

It’s also judgmental about format and preferences that are not his. What if I don’t want to read in paper? What if I’ve found that reading on a digital device is a far better reading experience for me?

Why should you have any say at all in how I purchase and read a book?

If I were a reader, and I am, I’d be pretty damn pissed off. And guess what? I am.

The post You’re Just Too Lazy to go the Bookstore appeared first on Writer's Diary.

According to my Google Alerts, someone appears to have DNF’d My Darkest Passion. Are you kidding me? How could anyone not understand the story Harsh and Addison deserve?

I could have watered down the story, sure. I could written something without thinking about my ART but I would have had to title that story, My Medium Dark Passion. Or even My Pastel Passion. But that would have cheated Harsh and Addison out of their story. I’ve always said that writing is hard. Really hard. God, no one understands how hard I work and how much it means that every reader out there admits my brilliance.

Rather than risk anyone else wanting their passion Medium Rare or, worse, Well Done, (God, I think I just threw up a little in my mouth), I am taking My Darkest Passion off sale on Tuesday, May 21st, 2013. That’s: TUESDAY, May 21, 2013. After TUESDAY, May 21st, 2013, My Darkest Passion will not be available in any format.

Yes, I could stick to my principles and leave the book on sale after TUESDAY MAY 21, 2013, and simply take my lumps, but then I would be making money off a book someone did not finish. Ever bitter penny to hit my bank account after TUESDAY, May 21, 2013 would hurt my soul and betray the loving, twisted passion of Harsh and Addison, who, my GOD, so fucking deserve their happy ending.

I want to thank everyone who’s emailed or left a comment on my Facebook page telling me you couldn’t put the book down. Thank you. Thank you! Although all of you can continue to read the book, after TUESDAY, May 21, 2013 you should probably no longer do so. Anything else would not be fair to Harsh or Addison, or all the people who try to find the story after Tuesday, May 21, 2013.

I’m sorry the money you paid for the book has turned out to be nothing more than bitter cents in my direct deposit. And I’m sorry Harsh and Addison’s dark and twisted path to love didn’t work for that person who DNF’d. This is why we can’t have nice things. Some of you ruin it for the rest of us and now I’m not able to own my words or take any risks in my writing, or even, accept that some readers may not like my work. Because, how could that be, really? I am brilliant. I think about ART when I write.

Last night, I cried bitter tears (just like the money) when I realized that I would be taking the story off sale on TUESDAY May 21, 2013.
::::
::::
::::
::::
::::
::::
::::
::::

Call me cynical if you want. This is in response to this.

The post Bitter Cents appeared first on Writer's Diary.

I Taught Myself to Knit

Years ago, I taught myself to knit by buying a book called How to Knit The Right Way. I bought knitting needles and yarn and learned to knit and purl. I made a scarf, and the yarn, it was so pretty and soft and I LOVED the color. The scarf itself was a bit…odd looking. It did not actually have straight edges anywhere. But hey! It was a scarf!

Then I tackled a sweater. I was at least smart enough to figure out I should start with something basic, which I did. All the knitting instructions in the whole world say “CHECK YOUR GAUGE” but there I was, all excited about starting my sweater. Why bother? Why delay my awesome project in this way? My knitting was my knitting and besides, I could always knit a bunch and THEN measure the equivalent gauge area, right? So I knit and purled and followed the directions and eventually I had all the pieces of a sweater.

Not a crazy aunt sweater

Not to be deterred, I continued to practice knitting. And eventually I learned that my knitting style was actually a bit odd because of the way I hold the needles and the fact that, though I am mostly right handed, my left hand tends to be slightly more dextrous for some things than my right.

I am not, it turns out, a normal knitter (so I was told once I had the nerve to go to actual knitting shops and interact with knitters) My knitting was pretty, actually, once I learned to how to keep an even tension. I learned how to do cables, too! The magenta sweater was my third sweater, I think, after a couple more scarves to work out my tension issues. It’s a fairly simple sweater.

My fourth sweater (below) was a tour-de-force of intricate cables. And when I was all done, the neck was just a wee bit tight (but not too tight) because, had I bothered to check my gauge, I would have known that I also tend to knit tight and that I should use larger needles than the recommended size.

Why are you yacking about Knitting?

Because I was not able to make a sweater that did not look like your crazy aunt’s nightmare sweater gift until I had made several sweaters, practiced a lot, HOURS, actually, and consulted experts for help.  The brown sweater you see here took me months to make. MONTHS.  The neck should be looser. This is a lovely sweater and I love it. But it’s not a sweater I would ever consider selling (supposing I wanted to go into the sweater-selling business) because while it’s pretty, it has flaws that an end user should not have to suffer.

It’s Brown! With Cables.

Kerfluffle on the Interwebz!

One of the many kurfluffles on the interwebs rights now has to do with self-publishing and costs. Some people say you don’t need to spend any money!!! Others say, spend money to do it right!

Regardless of the answer, starting a business with no money doesn’t seem to be very realistic. Do you know anyone who expects to start a (non writing) business without spending any money? Is there any other business with ZERO start up costs?

Lookit. Yes, you COULD learn to DIY cover. Or DIY edit, proofread, file creation, html.

But allow me to ask you this:

All of those things are full time jobs for people. I think it’s insulting to believe you can, with close to zero investment in time, do any of those things in a professional manner.

Could you at least admit that there’s a learning curve and that until you push over the top, your efforts will be subpar?

So.

In your writing business, why would you take the risk of your covers looking like a crazy aunt sweater? Do you really want to DIY your html and find out that, actually, what you did doesn’t look the way it did on your computer, and that, in fact, on some devices, your book is actually unreadable? Do you really want to invest all that time learning and mastering a skill that is not writing?

You might have so little money that the answer is yes, but in that case, you’d better expect to spend a lot of time making mistakes and doing things that are not writing.

I submit that you might be wrong if you think you should.

The post Thoughts About Starting a Business With No Money appeared first on Writer's Diary.

I have this big long post that I need to work on….

In the meantime, I’m working on stuff.

Lucy and Thrale: Making progress

Print version of My Darkest Passion: About 1/2 way through. There are some issues so I’m having to be more precise and attentive. I will end up having to order a 2nd proof to make sure the glitches are fixed.

Life: Ack!!!!

And, I feel compelled to say this:

Dear person who is trying to market to authors:

We tend to talk to each other and so, your email in which you claim to have read our latest book and been impressed with our talent, well, it seems a bit fishy that anyone could have read that many books…. I know you’re trying to be personable, but a personable lie is still a lie, and authors, alas, are such frequent targets of SEND US MONEY for something that will not actually benefit your career, that we’re now naturally suspicious. You’d have been better off just telling us about your service and what’s in it for us.

In a related note, if you sell advertising space on your book-related website, then I think you should give authors an idea of the kind of traffic you get. Because then I would have an idea about whether it’s worth it to me. Share some metrics, dude.

That is all.

The post How About A Quickie? appeared first on Writer's Diary.

During the depression, my grandmother bought a cookbook from a door-to-door salesman. It’s called The Household Searchlight Recipe Book, and it is an awesome source of interesting recipes that I think are being lost. Today, I made one called “Orange Bread” because my son asked me to make something I’d never made…

2 Large oranges
1/2 cup sugar
1/3 cup boiling water
4 teaspoons baking powder
1 egg, well beaten
1 cup milk
3 cups flour
1/2 teaspoon salt

Win

This is not a sweet bread at all, plus the taste sneaks up on you. At first, it’s hey, bread. Big deal. And then the sugary orange spreads through your mouth, and even though it’s not sweet, it’s just really really delicious.

The post Carolyn Cooks — Orange Bread appeared first on Writer's Diary.

Woot!

Amazon has price matched my novella, Free Fall, to FREE.

Amazon

Kobo

iTunes

I couldn’t get it free at B&N, though I did lower the price to $.99. If you have a Nook and would like a free copy, let me know and I’ll get you one.

Attorney Lys Fensic has spent her life controlling a psychic power that kills. Her ability to lock herself down falls apart when her ex, a mage, sends enslaved demons to kill her. In a psychic free fall, she turns to tough guy Telos Khunbish for help. But is he a mage as she’s always suspected or is he something far more dangerous?

Free Fall is set in the My Immortals series world where demons and magic-using humans called the magekind are not quite getting along. Most people have no idea they’re living in what amounts to a magical war-zone. Free Fall is based on the short story Future Tense but is considerably expanded and includes scenes that were censored from the short story. This novella is about 35,000 words (130 pages).

Excerpt

11:40 AM. Lobby of 101 California Street, San Francisco, California

He was here. Telos Khūnbish had come. Relief nearly demolished her, it hit so powerfully. He was here, and now, improbably, she believed everything was going to be all right. Her life was irrevocably screwed, but she believed. She ignored the noise of the lobby and the man standing beside her. He was irrelevant. What a damn sad commentary it was that after nearly ten years in the city, Khūnbish was the closest thing she had to a friend. Maybe even a real friend, because he was here, and she believed she’d get through this.

Her heart kicked up a notch when she got a clear view of his black BMW turning onto Front Street. Now, of course, she wondered if she’d made a mistake involving him. She didn’t make a habit of asking for help. She wasn’t good with people. She wasn’t even sure she’d asked right. Seems she had.

The BMW was definitely looking to park. Good thing. In less than ten minutes the lunchtime rush would start, and she’d be in real trouble. Even now, there were too many people around.

“My ride’s here,” she said to Jack, the man standing beside her. She didn’t make eye contact because that would be dangerous. Instead she stared at his tie, but that turned out to be a mistake. The dark red silk looked like blood streaming down his chest. She focused on the shiny marble floor and the tips of his Oxfords. “I’m fine. Really.”

“Let me carry your things.” Jack reached for the moving box that contained the personal contents from her office. He knew Michael, and that meant she couldn’t trust him. Simple fact. She couldn’t trust anyone who knew Michael Ford.

“No.” She gripped the box tighter and looked at the street again, as if Khūnbish could help her from afar. The BMW was waiting for a van to pull away from the curb. Khūnbish had never met Michael. That was part of the reason she’d called him. That, and she didn’t know anyone else.

“Lys.” Jack was thirty-ish, good looking, and in line to make partner in the next two years. He did good suit. He was a competent lawyer and a decent litigator.

She faked a smile and looked at Jack without directly meeting his eyes. Over the years, she’d gotten good at faking contact normal people never thought twice about. She lifted the box an inch. “Hardly weighs a thing.”

Jack smoothed a hand down the river of blood that was his tie. She held her breath, half expecting his palm to come away smeared red. He reached for her moving box, and she jumped back, heart slamming against her chest. Either Jack didn’t get it, or he was in league with Michael and meant her harm. He kept moving toward her.

“Don’t.” The word came out sharp and loud. The security guard at the lobby reception area looked over. She was close to losing it. Way too close. Blocking shouldn’t be this hard for her, but the last several days had been. . .difficult. Not enough sleep. Not enough to eat. Too much caffeine. Far too much stress.

“Lys. Come on.” His tie vibrated at the edges of her vision. Blood red. A river of red. He reached for the box again. “I’m only trying to help out.”

She risked a look at his face. His smile was hesitant, a little irritated, but that would be normal if he really just wanted to help.  Just a regular person trying to be nice. Part of her didn’t believe it. He knew Michael, and Michael had tried to kill her. “Don’t touch me.”

Reviews

The Romanceaholic

4.5 stars
The dynamic between Lys’ very staid, tightly controlled character and Telos’ much more laid back and even aggressive personality was wonderful, and the chemistry between the two was absolutely sizzling.

Overall, I couldn’t put it down. With plenty of action, steam, and powerful romance, this is a wonderful introduction to the series, and a great story in its own right.

The post Free Fall is FREE at most Vendors appeared first on Writer's Diary.

Most of you know my day job is in tech. Some of you may have heard my story about the programmer I worked with who actually refused to work with me because of my gender. All the men I worked with knew it. To save time, I would send my male colleagues the emails I needed to get to this guy so he would do necessary work, and they would then send the email to him so that it appeared the request came from them and — and voila! — he would do the work. He particularly disliked me because, as the database administrator in charge of (among other things) vetting scripts for production, I often returned his scripts with requests for corrections.

Lest you think the problem was secretly me, when I moved to the database team and had to interact with this man, more than one woman took me aside to warn me about his creeper behavior. Never go in a conference room alone with him. Never walk down a hallway where he was if there wasn’t anyone else…

This is not something men in Tech ever deal with. They have never had to do their job by proxy because some asshole can’t deal with smart tech women. They never have to know, for their safety, who the creepers are.

You-all should know that last night I was up several times to deal with server alerts in a colo with crap for infrastructure. I’m tired and crabby as a result since I STILL had to get up at 5:30 to go to work.

So, today, there’s this email forward to an Info-Sec list I’m on. It’s about a Defcon presentation and it says this:

Skytalks VI CFP
2-4 August 2013
@ Defcon 21

It’s that time of year again, people. Wine, Women, and the silky-smooth sound of slot machines. Yeah, that’s right. It’s time for Defcon, and that means it’s time for Skytalks.

You know the routine. Skytalks is presented by 303. Our mission: to show off the best knowledge our community has to offer. The kind of stuff you won’t or can’t do at home. We’re talking classic, old-school Defcon here: no cameras, no recording. No pre-con content takedowns. No sobriety. No bullshit.

https://skytalks.info/

We’ll be seeing you.

Actually, Skytalks, you WON’T be seeing me and it’s pretty certain there’s a lot of other really good tech women you won’t be seeing either.

Men are not the only people in tech. There are women, and you know what? Most of us have no interest in your pitch about wine and women. All that does is tell us you have no clue and it’s highly likely that you’re contributing to the number of women who won’t risk being in an environment where women are there for sex and you think the guys will all get drunk. Those women, too, I suppose.

If you ever bother to wonder where all the geek girls are here’s a hint: it’s not that there aren’t any. You don’t see them because you create a hostile environment for us.

When I set aside the tech work to write romance novels, I work hard to portray geekish men outside stereotype. After all, I know plenty of men in tech who are nothing like the stereotype. In my non-historical work, I often use tech. Because there’s a lot of cool stuff in tech that makes for exciting stories. My novella Free Fall features a hacker. He’s a demon. Here’s a picture I commissioned of him:

In the high res version, you can see his shirt says, “While you were reading my shirt I hacked your bank account.”

I give romance readers sexy demon hackers. You give hackers a stale, failed and offensive view of 51% of world’s population. No wonder women are saying no thanks.

So, now, I’m going to ask you to think hard.

1. I work in tech. In a highly specialized technical job.
2. I write and read romance novels.
3. A lot of romance authors have advanced degrees, including PHds. Readers, too, actually.
4. I’m not the only romance writing DBA.

Maybe you could open your world view just a wee bit more. It’ll hardly hurt at all.

The post I think I’ve had it with this – Male is NOT the default appeared first on Writer's Diary.

Today I decided I would make Free Fall, my My Immortals series novella free for a limited time. I’m in the process of doing so. It’s been set to free at iTunes. I made it .99 at B&N since, to my knowledge, they don’t price match and don’t allow you to set the price to zero. I’ve heard, lately, however, that some Nook books have been price matched, so we’ll see. Later today I’ll get the file updated at Kobo (where I believe I can set it to free), Smashwords, and ARe.

So, keep an eye out!

The Geekish Portion of This Post

Since I was adding links for My Darkest Passion to the file, I also decided I might as well update the files to my newer spiffier versions. All well and good. I discovered something interesting and annoying at NookPress (the re-jiggered interface/replacement for PubIt).

Before I complain, let me say THANK YOU Nook Press for allowing book files to be replaced without having to take the book off sale. MAJOR need, and quickly addressed. Well done.

For people who are uploading Word documents, the on-line manuscript editor is really nice. I wish other places did this because this would fix an awful lot of heinous results. So, again, major kudos to Nook Press for this interface. If you’re uploading Word docs to vendors, it sure looks like the Nook Press interface gets an awful lot right.

But here’s what I discovered. As I was fighting through getting desired formatting for various devices, my title page was giving me the biggest fits. Kindle iOs was blowing out all my centering. But I wrestled it to the ground and we came to an acceptable compromise. I applied a similar solution to the Nook version. Which worked more or less. But my centering was not perfect, and it bugged me.

And, the Nook Press UI is confusing about what version is actually being made live. It’s a language problem, not a tech problem. Anyway, to get that straight in my mind, I went into the manuscript editor and looked around. I opened up my title page and recentered and resized the text there. Then I saved it and uploaded that. I previewed it in order to confirm the centering issue was resolved. And then, because I wanted to see what it had done, I downloaded the ePub and opened it up.

The downloaded ePub had a class called “booktitle” applied to my title page text. My styling had been removed (which I expected because I explicitly changed it in the Nook MS editor.)

That class was not defined in the page header section and it was not created in my stylesheet. There was not another stylesheet added.

And that means Nook has to have its own stylesheet functionality in the Nook rendering engine that contains this style. So, what the heck else is in that? What other styles does it have that might conflict with or override mine?

I’m not all that bothered mostly because there’s nothing I can do about that and it didn’t seem to screw up anything. But it would have been really nice to see what Nook is doing to address centering for its devices. Frankly, if they have a preferred set of styles, why wouldn’t they share them? Think how much easier and cleaner that would be!

The post Book News and Some Geekish Musings appeared first on Writer's Diary.

Over at the Risky Regencies, I’m giving away 3 copies of My Dangerous Pleasure at The Risky Regencies.

You should go there. Check it out.

The post Over There appeared first on Writer's Diary.

Here’s the links I have so far:

• Amazon
• Barnes & Noble
• iTunes
• Smashwords
• Kobo

I hope to have ARE soon. Sony and some other formats I can only get to through Smashwords. I’ve submitted there so it’s a matter of waiting.

The post My Darkest Passion: Buy Links! appeared first on Writer's Diary.