Happy Halloween!

Enjoy that extra hour's sleep tonight.

arline

"Get in the Spirit!" Holiday Book Sale

In order to help readers "get in the spirit" we plan to mark all holiday books down $1 each from now until January of 2010. We have already discounted prices on them. If your book has a holiday theme, and we somehow missed including it in the discounts, please let us know.

arline

Galley update and the Schooner Roundup

Galleys are back up for Elena Bowman and Spencer Dane. Sorry for the delay, Elena.

The SCHOONER ROUNDUP, sponsored by the James B. Richarson Maritime Museum was in Cambridge last weekend with about 20 sailing craft docked at Long Wharf and around the creek. Ships from the eastern seaboard included the MYSTIC WHALER, MARYLAND LADY, and the barkentine PRIDE OF BALTIMORE.

Several of our local authors were on hand to sell books at the event and word has it sales were fairly brisk to those who flocked down to admire the ships. Andy Nunez was on hand with his TREASURE OF THE EASTERN SHORE, MYSTERIES OF THE EASTERN SHORE, and GHOSTS OF THE EASTERN SHORE along with some copies of his vampire novel CRIMSON NEED, and Beverly Lynch was there with WET AND HUNGRY, the story of a mid-Atlantic fisherman's adventures. Ann Foley, and other members of The Writers' Bloc were also there.

Local events and shows like this one can be a great venue for local authors to set up a book signing, especially if the books' subject matter will appeal to the audience as did the authors' works mentioned above. Check for what's available in your area.

Roberta DeCaprio on the Radio!

FAMILY SECRETS author, Roberta DeCaprio appeared on a radio show on Monday. If you missed it, Just log on to: www.linndadurreshow.com and at the left click on Podcast Archives of Shows. Then scroll down to Roberta's Show, (October 26, 2009) and click on that show's broadcast. You can hear the entire show on your computer.

Why don't we have a national book distributor?

I received an interesting question from one of you this week -- not a new question, but one I still get asked often, so thought I'd go on the record and answer it here:

Why don't we try to get in with a National Distributor, like Ingram or Baker & Taylor?

Because bookstores buy on credit and later "return" unsold books for a full refund, the system used by Ingram is impossible for most POD publishers. Mass market guys can do it. Small publishers can't. For Us to get "IN" with Ingram and Baker & Taylor (Same company owns both by the way) we would have to "accept returns" and give them a company credit card number. They could then order as many copies as they like from our printer (Stores can order as many copies as they want and never have to pay for them if they don't sell. while the whole concept of POD is that the book is not printed until after it is sold). With the present return system, large numbers of books could be ordered and printed on speculation of sale and charged to our company credit card at $5 or so a copy.

Later, IF any stores do order and don't sell, they rip the cover off the books and return just the covers for credit. The books, for which we had paid about $5 each BEFORE they were printed and sent to the store, are then sent to a landfill and we get nothing. This is why a great many POD publishers are no longer in business.

We have been in business 10 years. We would like to be in business 10 years from now. As much as we'd like to find a national distributor to take our books and send them to bookstores we can't do it with the present return system.

We offer the books to libraries and bookstores if ordered direct from us at 40% off list price. We accept returns IF the WHOLE books are returned to us in condition for resale. Responsible bookstore owners would order five copies and then when they get down to one or two maybe order five more.

But they are used to big deal incentives from big publishers. "Order 50 copies and you get an extra 5% off list." The store can later "return" the covers of the 45 unsold copies for full credit before time for inventory (to avoid the exorbitantly high inventory taxes), the distributor will remind them when the deadline for returns is coming up, and they don't even have to pay freight to "return" them, just mail in a batch of covers and throw the books away. Stores are used to this system and like it as it favors them greatly.

Some chain bookstores have a firm policy against POD published books others are more accepting. Independent stores are often more willing to buy direct a few copies at a time.

arline

E-books for our troops

As most of you know, we distribute to ARE/Omnilit. They are asking for authors to donate copies of their books to our troops serving in the Middle East. We have no objection if any of you want to participate in the process outlined in their press release below. We, too, support and appreciate our troops and the sacrifices they make to keep us all safe.

OPERATION eBOOK DROP

What is it?

It was originally conceived when an author on the Kindleboards saw a message from a deployed troop member saying that Amazon's Whispernet for Kindle doesn't work overseas. The author sent the troop his book for free by email and the idea was born, and grew. He now collects names of deployed troops who would like to receive eBooks and he has shared his list with us to forward to any ARe author who would like to donate eBooks.

What can you do?

eBooks from ARe can be downloaded by anyone! with an internet connection. If you would like to donate eBooks to a troop member, either your personal eBooks or a gift certificate for the book of their choice, we have set up an easy system that will help you. Here are the 2 ways you can give to the troops.

1- ARe authors can now purchase codes for their eBooks and send those codes to military personnel who can then download the prepaid eBooks.

To get the codes, authors need to go to the Publisher/Author page on the All Romance eBooks site. Those already registered with an Author Login can sign in to "manage booksigning events". Those who need to register for an Author Login can do so there. (A customer account is different from an author account.) Once signed in, select "Booksigning Events", then "Operation eBook Drop" where your eBook codes can be ordered and paid for to be dist! ributed by you to the military. Once you have your codes, contact cat.johnson@allromanceebooks.com for the troop email list. Then select a member off the list and send the download code to your book to them directly.

2- Purchase eBook Bucks and ARe will send them to the recipient of your choice.

Do you want to give back to the troops but prefer if they choose the eBooks they will receive themselves? Go to http://www.allromanceebooks.com/store_credits.html and purchase eBooks Bucks. Contact cat.johnson@allromanceebooks.com for the troop email list, enter the email address of the member you'd like to send the eBook Bucks too and they'll receive an email from us with instructions on how to download their eBooks.

!

I strongly recommend making email contact with the troop member prior to mailing the download code for your book for two reasons. First you want to confirm the email address is correct. Second and more important, you will want to confirm they are interested in receiving the particular book genre you are sending. The program is not only for romance readers and they may only be interested in mainstream novels. We also want to confirm that if your book contains adult situations it is going to a member who welcomes that content.

Questions? Email cat.johnson@allromanceebooks.com

Barnes & Noble question

Someone wrote yesterday to ask me if I'd heard about the new Barnes & Noble e-book store and suggested I get in touch with them because they might be willing to carry our e-books....

For ONCE I was ahead of the game. :D

B&N contacted us in June, 2009 because we distribute to Fictionwise (which they purchased last spring) and we immediately signed their contract to distribute all our ebooks in their store as well. That was all we had to do, because their computer could pick up the books and prices from FW.

The new B&N ebook store opened July 19th, though it was scheduled for a "fall opening" -- I suspect because all the other publishers were as prompt to sign the contract as we were. You will be receiving payment 3 to 6 months after the sale (just the same as Fictionwise) so some of you will be seeing B&N in the "Venue" column on your next statements due in January, 2010.

:D Yep, I'm having trouble wiping the grin from my chin. The more stores we can get your books listed in, the more chance they have to sell.

Now for the bad news :{ Sorry, folks, but this does NOT mean they will be carrying our print books in the B&N stores. Maybe SOMEday, but not yet.

Epic Judging almost done

Only two days left to turn in my scores, but I have only one more book to read of the five finalists. It's kind of nice to see what other publishers have out there. Makes me prouder than ever of our books and authors.

My neighbor at Little Angels brought us some crabs, so I'll be picking them out to make cream of crab soup for supper tonight. Sure hope I remember how.

arline

Congratulations to Barbara Grengs

Oct. 20, 2009

Congrats to Barbara Grengs who had more than 100 people show for her Barnes & Noble book signing of TOBY MARTIN PET DETECTIVE. Barbara has more signings coming up, as well. Way to go!!

Congratulations to Nikki Leigh

Oct. 19, 2009

Book Promo 201: Harness the Power of the Internet with Web 2.0 and Social Media Marketing by Nikki Leigh

Finalist

Business: Writing/Publishing


A complete list of winners and finalists in each category can be found at:
http://www.usabooknews.com/2009bestbooksawards.html

We at Write Words are all very poud of Nikki!

Also Anna Dynowsky's FULL CIRCLE has gone to press.

As for me, I rested yesterday--cooked roast chicken and apple pie for Shelley, Dave, Sid, and the rest of the family, then went with my Dear Hubby to Cousin Harvey's Barn to hear bluegrass music. It was great, but I'm raring to get back to books today.

Am working, too, on the finalists for the EPIC judging round. One fun thing after another.

arline

Mark Twain's Rules of Good Writing

Mark Twain's Rules of Writing

1. A tale shall accomplish something and arrive somewhere.

2. The episodes of a tale shall be necessary parts of the tale, and shall help develop it.

3. The personages in a tale shall be alive, except in the case of corpses, and that always the reader shall be able to tell the corpses from the others.

4. The personages in a tale, both dead and alive, shall exhibit a sufficient excuse for being there.

5. When the personages of a tale deal in conversation, the talk shall sound like human talk, and be talk such as human beings would be likely to talk in the given circumstances, and have a discoverable meaning, also a discoverable purpose, and a show of relevancy, and remain in the neighborhood of the subject in hand, and be interesting to the reader, and help out the tale, and stop when the people cannot think of anything more to say.

6. When the author describes the character of a personage in his tale, the conduct and conversation of that personage shall justify said description.

7. When a personage talks like an illustrated, gilt-edged, tree-calf, hand-tooled, seven-dollar Friendship's Offering in the beginning of a paragraph, he shall not talk like a Negro minstrel at the end of it.

8. Crass stupidities shall not be played upon the reader by either the author or the people in the tale.

9. The personages of a tale shall confine themselves to possibilities and let miracles alone; or, if they venture a miracle, the author must so plausably set it forth as to make it look possible and reasonable.

10. The author shall make the reader feel a deep interest in the personages of his tale and their fate; and that he shall make the reader love the good people in the tale and hate the bad ones.

11. The characters in tale be so clearly defined that the reader can tell beforehand what each will do in a given emergency.

An author should

12. SAY what he is proposing to say, not merely come near it.
13. Use the right word, not its second cousin.
14. Eschew surplusage.
15. Not omit necessary details.
16. Avoid slovenliness of form.
17. Use good grammar.
18. Employ a simple, straightforward style.

Print Galleys are up for Some of Everybody

October 16,

New final galleys are up for Anna Dynowski for FULL HOUSE, for Spencer Dane on WHITE GOLD, and Bliss Addison's BATTLE OF WILLS has gone to press. Yippee!

Meanwhile the Book Selection Committee has approved the following titles for ebook publication:
LOVE AND WAR IN TEXAS, by Jack Lyle
AN EXTRA PAIR OF EYES, by Carlene Dater
INSIDE INFORMATION, by Michael Field
and
POSSE, by Hugh Carter Vinson

Of Bookstore Cats and other things.

Oct. 15, 2009

Every bookstore should have a cat and at Write Words, Inc.we have three.

Honeybear, 17, tabby in color, a lap-cat by profession, and a Bear by nature will do the claw thing unannounced.

Jack Dempsey, 4, (named for a boxer you young folks won't recall) is blue-gray and has six toes on his front feet--the extra one forms a thumb, so they look like big boxing gloves.

Spunky, 2, is a white kitty with large gray-tabby spots, a star-shaped smudge on her nose, and a ringed tail. It was she who attacked the Dear Hubby's Lazy-boy this morning, sailing up on the top, then hanging off the back by her front feet, before leaving it for dead it its laid-back position.

Am still working on the galleys, but the cats are making more progress toward their aims than I, this morning.

arline

Call for Short Stories

Oct. 14, www.allromanceebooks.com has a call out for their short story contest. There are a couple weeks left before deadline and this is a very worthy cause. Please consider reposting to help us get the word out! Backlist and bio will be listed in the back of each book, so this should serve to help boost other sales. ARe'S CHARITY CAMPAIGN GETS AN INFUSION OF NEW BLOOD FROM THE CREATOR OF "TRUE BLOOD"

All Romance eBooks is thrilled to announce that their 28 Days of Heart Campaign has received the support of Charlaine Harris. The famed, best-selling author of the Sookie Stackhouse series upon which HBO's new smash hit "True Blood" is based will be writing the foreword for the charity anthologies releasing exclusively from ARe in ! > February 2010. All proceeds from the 28 individual sto! ries and the 4 anthology eBook compilations will benefit the American Heart Association. Submissions are open until October 31, 2009. Details can be found at http://www.allromanceebooks.com/publishers.html.

Open Submissions Call!

All Romance™ Needs You for the 28 Days of Heart Campaign to Benefit the American Heart Association

During the month of love, when everyone's attention is focused on matters of the heart, we at All Romance (www.allromance.com) want to help fight the number one killer of women, heart disease, and we need your help and your submissions.

Beginning February 1, 2010, we will release one new short story per day for the entire month. All proceeds from the sale of these shorts, which will be offered exclusively on AllRomance.com as individual eBooks and also bundled into 4 eBook anthologies, will be donated to the American Heart Association (www.americanheart.org).

The 28 stories will be chosen from submissions received between July 1 and October 31, 2009. Any author who has an eBook available on ARe, or whose publisher lists eBooks with us, is eligible to submit. Submissions must be 10,000 to 20,000 words. The preferred heat rating is 4 or 5 flames, though stories rated a hard 3 flames will also be considered. An explanation of the flame rating system can be found on our site. We are looking for a wide! variety of themes and sub-genres, as long as the story is a romance.< /p>

The stories selected will be reviewed by an editor and provided with cover art, but please make sure submissions are as polished as you can make them before submitting. Previously published stories will be considered only if all rights have reverted back to the author and the story is no longer available for download elsewhere.

Backlist and contact info for the authors whose work is chosen will be listed in the back of their story.

Submission details can be found here: http://www.allromanceebooks.com/submissions.html

Questions should be emailed to cat.johnson@allromanceebooks.com. Final selection of participants will be made and announced in November 2009.

Working on More Galleys

Continued work on Joan L. Cannon's MAIDEN RUN, and began on Jeanine Malarsky's MAGGIE'S MIRAGE. Fans of women's fiction have a lot of new ones to look forward to.

A New Market for us through ALLROMANCEBOOKS.COM

Oct. 12, 2009

Download and Read Thousands of All Romance™ eBooks Right on Your Android™ Smartphone with the Aldiko Application

All Romance eBooks (ARe) has partnered with Aldiko to make their eBook catalog available to Google's Android-powered mobile phones.

Palm Harbor, FL (PRWEB) Octobe r 8, 2009 – Readers will now be able to browse, search and seamlessly download more than 10,000 http://www.allromanceebooks.com [eBooks], including free reads, to their Android phones directly from ARe without a computer, cable or subscription using the Aldiko application.

With the Aldiko app readers can easily browse ARe's extensive online book catalog, read detailed descriptions and book reviews, and quickly find the books they are looking for using a powerful search tool right on their Smartphone. They can organize their purchases by criteria such as title, author, or subject, edit detail information, tag, bookmark and search—all on a fully customizable display. New features include a full text search that allows readers to find words g! lobally within the book, and a look up feature, which lets users search for a word in the dictionary, Wikipedia, or on Google.

"Readers love the convenience of being able to download ARe's eBooks anytime, anywhere," said Julie Cummings, ARe's manager of Publicity and Marketing. "Earlier this year we launched an iPhone compatible catalog and it's been hugely popular with our consumers who use ATT. We're really excited to now bring that same service to customers who use other cellular carriers," Cummings added.

"Our mission at Aldiko is to provide an open platfo! rm where users can discover, access, read and manage a wide variety of digital publications instantly and seamlessly" said Tiffany Wong, co-founder of Aldiko. "The partnership with ARe will help us offer the best and broadest selection of titles to our users."

Aldiko is available worldwide and is free on the Android Market as well as available as a paid premium app for Android open platform phones. To learn more visit Aldiko athttp://www.aldiko.com and Android at http://www.android.com.

All Romance eBooks, LLC was founded in 2006, is privately held in partne! rship, and headquartered in Palm Harbor, Florida. The company owns All Romance, which specializes in the sale of romance eBooks and OmniLit, which sells both fiction and non-fiction eBooks.

Aldiko Limited was founded in 2009. The company has developed an ebook reader application, "Aldiko Book Reader" for use on Android-powered devices. . With Aldiko, users can build and organize their digital library, read on the go and wirelessly browse and download from a broad range of digital publications right on their Android-powered devices.

So if you see Aldiko when you Google your name, you know it's just the gals at ARE working hard for us.

Oh, and the cherry pie must have been good, because it's all gone.

Sunday, sweet Sunday, with nothing to do...

October 11, 2009

The family is coming for dinner today. I made a cherry pie. Hope it's good.

More final galleys up

Oct. 10,

Final galleys are back up for Bliss Addison's BATTLE OF WILLS, so she can double check them before we go to press. And first finals are up for Joan L. Cannon's MAIDEN RUN so we'll be looking forward to getting those back soon.

As most of you know, series books do not have to pass the committee after the first. We are pleased to learn from Elizabeth Eagan-Cox that Vol. 3 of her GHOST series is ready and she will be sending it to Shelley this week.

Meanwhile, it's the weekend. Time to send all those partials to the BOOK SELECTION COMMITTEE to see what they say. So I'm off to do that now.

arline

New galleys up!

Oct. 10, 2009

Final galleys are up in our space at Files Anywhere for Anna Dynowski's FULL CIRCLE, and Spencer Dane's WHITE GOLD. Once they are corrected for the final time, they will be going to press, some time this month.

I'm truly sorry folks for the delay in getting these completed, but with a fatal crash in July, a new computer (we all know what a mixed blessing that can be) and my illness in August, I am far, far behind.

Today I will begin work on the second in Tonya Ramagos's Stockland Fire Department series, FIGHTING FOR A DREAM, and on Joan L. Cannon's MAIDEN RUN. Both these books were begun prior to my hospital stay (I'm fine now by the way, except for my perpetual arthritis).

Yes, it's true, I do work on more than one book at a time, it fills the gaps while I'm waiting for galley returns.

arline

Rules of Good Writing, according to Elmore Leonard

Thursday Oct. 8,

Everyone from Mark Twain on has a list of rules of good writing. I had one myself when I was teaching for Writer's Digest School.

Now that I'm a publisher, there are only two rules:

1. Never confuse your reader.

2. Never make work for your editor.

But it's interesting to see what certain writers think is important enough to make a rule about.

Below are Elmore Leonard's rules. How many do you agree with?

1. Never open a book with weather.

If it's only to create atmosphere, and not a character's reaction to the weather, you don't want to go on too long. The reader is apt to leaf ahead looking for people. There are exceptions. If you happen to be Barry Lopez, who has more ways to describe ice and snow than an Eskimo, you can do all the weather reporting you want.

2. Avoid prologues.

They can be annoying, especially a prologue following an introduction that comes after a foreword. But these are ordinarily found in nonfiction. A prologue in a novel is backstory, and you can drop it in anywhere you want.

There is a prologue in John Steinbeck's ''Sweet Thursday,'' but it's O.K. because a character in the book makes the point of what my rules are all about. He says: ''I like a lot of talk in a book and I don't like to have nobody tell me what the guy that's talking looks like. I want to figure out what he looks like from the way he talks. . . . figure out what the guy's thinking from what he says. I like some description but not too much of that. . . . Sometimes I want a book to break loose with a bunch of hooptedoodle. . . . Spin up some pretty words maybe or sing a little song with language. That's nice. But I wish it was set aside so I don't have to read it. I don't want hooptedoodle to get mixed up with the story.''

3. Never use a verb other than ''said'' to carry dialogue.

The line of dialogue belongs to the character; the verb is the writer sticking his nose in. But said is far less intrusive than grumbled, gasped, cautioned, lied. I once noticed Mary McCarthy ending a line of dialogue with ''she asseverated,'' and had to stop reading to get the dictionary.

4. Never use an adverb to modify the verb ''said'' . . .

. . . he admonished gravely. To use an adverb this way (or almost any way) is a mortal sin. The writer is now exposing himself in earnest, using a word that distracts and can interrupt the rhythm of the exchange. I have a character in one of my books tell how she used to write historical romances ''full of rape and adverbs.''

5. Keep your exclamation points under control.

You are allowed no more than two or three per 100,000 words of prose. If you have the knack of playing with exclaimers the way Tom Wolfe does, you can throw them in by the handful.

6. Never use the words ''suddenly'' or ''all hell broke loose.''

This rule doesn't require an explanation. I have noticed that writers who use ''suddenly'' tend to exercise less control in the application of exclamation points.

7. Use regional dialect, patois, sparingly.

Once you start spelling words in dialogue phonetically and loading the page with apostrophes, you won't be able to stop. Notice the way Annie Proulx captures the flavor of Wyoming voices in her book of short stories ''Close Range.''

8. Avoid detailed descriptions of characters.

Which Steinbeck covered. In Ernest Hemingway's ''Hills Like White Elephants'' what do the ''American and the girl with him'' look like? ''She had taken off her hat and put it on the table.'' That's the only reference to a physical description in the story, and yet we see the couple and know them by their tones of voice, with not one adverb in sight.

9. Don't go into great detail describing places and things.

Unless you're Margaret Atwood and can paint scenes with language or write landscapes in the style of Jim Harrison. But even if you're good at it, you don't want descriptions that bring the action, the flow of the story, to a standstill.

And finally:

10. Try to leave out the part that readers tend to skip.

A rule that came to mind in 1983. Think of what you skip reading a novel: thick paragraphs of prose you can see have too many words in them. What the writer is doing, he's writing, perpetrating hooptedoodle, perhaps taking another shot at the weather, or has gone into the character's head, and the reader either knows what the guy's thinking or doesn't care. I'll bet you don't skip dialogue.

The checks are in the mail!

Wednesday, Oct 7

Yippee. I always feel better when the payroll is done. I love to pay authors, because when you make money, we make money.

A question came up earlier this week about how to tell which sites are "legitimate" places where we make your books available and how the distributor site system works. Thanks to Elena Bowman for the question. While I sent her an answer, I wanted to put that information here, where everyone can read it.

For sales through distributors, I concentrate on getting our books on sites that have affiliates. That means they sell the books not just from their own site, but from sites that link to them as affiliates. It's called networking sites and the computers all talk to one another.

Here's how it works. I list your book with Mobipocket. Mobi lists it with amazon for Kindle. Both Mobi and amazon have affiliate sites, so you may find your book on amazon, on some English language site in Germany, via Mobipocket, and on www.target.com, because Target is an affiliate of amazon. If someone buys your book from Target.com, the money gets collected by amazon's computer and they pay us for a "kindle" sale. I list your book on Fictionwise. Barnes & Noble is an affiliate of Fictionwise, so they pick up the book from FW and also list it with their affiliates as well and if someone buys from an affiliate the money goes back to B&N or FW and they pay US.

I list your book at allromanceebooks.com and Omnilit.com is an affiliate of allromanceebooks and we get paid whichever site the customer buys from. This is why lots of new sites pop up when you Google your name. It's easy to tell the ligitimate ones as they will have the logo of the sponsor distribution site, FW, Amazon, Mobi, Barnes & Noble, Coffeetime, or ARE. That's why the venue column is important on the sales reports--it lets you know where the book sold from.

arline

Tuesday and still writing checks

Either I'm a slow writer or there are a lot of you out there.

arline

Sunday was lovely

Hi everyone,

I am still busy writing checks, but I took yesterday off to cook dinner for my family--yes, the sons and daughter-in-law (Shelley) come to dinner on Sunday. We had Maryland Fried Chicken, yum.

Later in the afternoon, we went to see cousin Dot who is visiting her brother Harvey from Grants Pass, Or. The Dear Hubby and his cousin and friends played some great bluegrass music all evening.

But today it's back to work on the payment structure and then back to print books. Jeanine and Tonya, yours are in the works, too.

arline

Hi Everyone,

Hi Everyone,

I figured out how to post! Now I'm busy writing the royalty checks for October 2009.

As soon as that is done, I will go back to getting print books in line for publication. Just now I'm working on Spencer Dane's WHITE GOLD and Anna Dynowski's FULL HOUSE. Anna, I'm sorry this wasn't finished earlier for you.

arline