Saturday, October 30, 2010

Pavlova - Recipe


Barbara Adams’s Famous New Zealand Pavlova *
*The Australians claim it, but we are sure it started in New Zealand.

3 egg whites
3/4 tsp. Vinegar
3/4 cup fine sugar (Confectioner’s Sugar)
½ tsp. Vanilla
pinch of salt

Beat 3 egg whites till stiff with three quarters of a teaspoon of vinegar.
Add a pinch of salt. Gradually add three quarters of a cup of fine sugar
and half a teaspoon of vanilla. Beat till thick. Pile onto dampened grease
proof paper and bake for three quarters of an hour in a cool oven (200-F or 93-C.

When cooked, cool, then cover with whipped cream and decorate with pieces
or peaches, strawberries or kiwi fruit to give in a real south sea flavor.

Contributed by Barbara Adams, author of Cobwebs...Sue cannot shake her misgivings when her timid aunt marries an overbearing bully....An intricate web of lies and deceit is slowly unraveled. But where does Sue's boyfriend Jason fit into the puzzle? The reader is drawn towards an enticing but sticky ending.

Friday, October 29, 2010

Catching Up and contest news

Have been working on the web site, getting ready for the new books to go up on Nov. 1. Shelley will set up the front page, probably on Saturday or Monday.

Congratulations to Barbara Garro! Her book FROM JESUS TO HEAVEN WITH LOVE is a finalist in the EPIC awards contest, non-fiction category.

Congratulations too, to author Carlene Rae Dater, who has two finalists this year in the Romance and Suspense categories, ROMAN CIRCUS and MIND ECHOES. Neither were published by Write Words, but we are equally proud of the titles we have from her, COLORS OF DEATH, and CALL SIGN LOVE.

Only one new book went to press this week, and two were resubmitted:

LIFE AND LURE OF THE EASTERN SHORE, the Writers Bloc anthology

TOBY MARTIN: IN-HOUSE DETECTIVE, by Barbara Grengs

UNWORTHY, by Janine Collins Malarsky

Editorial work is beginning on the following print editons:

DEMON CHASER II,by David Berardelli

LOVELAND, by Lisa Marie Mercer

POCKETFUL OF HOPE, by Anna Dynowski

Also the All Romance E-books Web Site www.allromanceebooks.com and www.omnilit.com is sponsoring a new contest. The information they sent is copied and pasted below:

****************************************Permission to Post Granted****************************************

All Romance eBooks Celebrates Four Years of Business by Making its Customers' Wishes Come True

As the anniversary of their fourth year as a digital retailer of eBooks approaches, All Romance eBooks proves they can still surprise their customers. The announcement of t heir Anniversary Contest was delivered by the company's newly hired Community Manager, Kathryn Lively, and came beautifully wrapped in a brand new site design.

Palm Harbor, FL (Vocus) October 28, 2010

Kathryn Lively, the newest addition to the All Romance eBooks (ARe) team, announced the company's upcoming Anniversary Contest (http://allromanceebooks.com). Starting on November 1st and continuing for the entire month of November one shopper per day will win all of the books on their wish list (up to a value of $100).

"It's our anniversary, but we're making our customers' wishes come true. As a community, we have a lot to celebrate!" said Lively, whose twenty years of experience in the publishing industry has spanned the roles of author, editor, publisher, bookseller, marketing specialist, and will now include Community Manager for the ARe Cafe.

The ARe Cafe tab appeared on the company's website earlier this month with the launch of a new design that unifies the All Romance, OmniLit, and ARe brands and offers several significant enhancements. Customers can now enjoy additional library features, search features, and the option to safely store payment information and make purchases with one click of the Buy Now button. They can also share their e-Book finds on all the popular social networking sites with easy-to-use "Like-and-Share buttons.

Although the home page for the Cafe invites booklovers to "Stop by for a byte" when it opens this winter, what will be in store for them when they do has yet to be fully revealed. "I had the chance to preview the entire site design a few months ago. As soon as I saw what was in store, I knew I wanted to sign on for the Cafe project," Lively said. "I'm very excited to be a part of the ARe team."

Lori James, Chief Operating Officer, hinted at the Cafe's purpose. "The unifying characteristic of the ARe co mmunity is that we love digital books (http://allromance.com). We love reading eBooks, talking about eBooks, and sharing recommendations. The Cafe will offer readers a place to do that, and a whole lot more."

ABOUT ALL ROMANCE eBOOKS
All Romance eBooks, LLC was founded in 2006, is privately held in partnership, and headquartered in Palm Harbor, Florida. The company owns AllRomance.com, which specializes in the sale of romance eBooks and OmniLit.com, which sells both fiction and non-fiction eBooks.

******************************************************************


Thursday, October 28, 2010

Commas - writing tip

Here's a e-mail I got from a former student this morning. (I taught for Writer's Digest for nearly 20 years).

I have been advised that too many commas "slow things down" and that I should leave them out whenever I can. I tried that and an agent I queried returned my sample with the note, "punctuation needs work." Was I wrong to take that advice?

Probably. Usually, when folks give this advice they are referring to the "Oxford" commas, or the last comma before "and" in a series. Some people even leave out all commas for things in series, but editors shudder when reading a manuscript like that, knowing they will have to work hard to put them back in or face the phrase "could have used more editing" in future reviews.

Even deleting an Oxford comma can result in moments of embarrassment, as when I waited tables in my grandma's restaurant folks regularly ordered "pie and sherbet" because there was no comma on the menu to show they were two different desserts.

Here's my best very basic advice about commas. Never confuse your reader. Don't take them out, just because someone says you should. They are tools of language and are there for a reason. Always put them in if there's a reason for them to be there, like where you'd pause for breath or effect. There's a world of difference between:

"Shoot John!" and

"Shoot, John!

In one sentence John gets shot, in the other he is instructed to shoot. That can make a big difference to your reader, as well as to John.

Commas - writing tip

Here's a e-mail I got from a former student this morning. (I taught for Writer's Digest for nearly 20 years).

I have been advised that too many commas "slow things down" and that I should leave them out whenever I can. I tried that and an agent I queried returned my sample with the note, "punctuation needs work." Was I wrong to take that advice?

Probably. Usually, when folks give this advice they are referring to the "Oxford" commas, or the last comma before "and" in a series. Some people even leave out all commas for things in series, but editors shudder when reading a manuscript like that, knowing they will have to work hard to put them back in or face the phrase "could have used more editing" in future reviews.

Even deleting an Oxford comma can result in moments of embarrassment, as when I waited tables in my grandma's restaurant folks regularly ordered "pie and sherbet" because there was no comma on the menu to show they were two different desserts.

Here's my best very basic advice about commas. Never confuse your reader. Don't take them out, just because someone says you shoud. They are tools of language and are there for a reason. Always put them in if there's a reason for them to be there, like where you'd pause for breath or effect. There's a world of difference between:

"Shoot John!" and

"Shoot, John!

In one sentence John gets shot, in the other he is instructed to shoot. That can make a big difference to your reader, as well as to John.

Wednesday, October 27, 2010

"Death by Chocolate" Brownie Mix - recipe



Raye Morand’s Death by Chocolate

1 package fudge brownie mix (19.8 oz)
3 boxes chocolate mousse (3.5)
8 Heath Candy or Butterfinger bars (1.2 –1.4oz sized bars)
½ cup Kahlua
1 package Cool Whip (16oz)


Bake brownies per box instructions. Pierce brownies with a fork all over then pour Kahlua over it. Let cool. Make mousse according to box instructions. Break up candy bars with hammer while still in package or crunch up in zip lock bag . Crumble brownies into a serving bowl. Cover brownies with half of mousse. Sprinkle with half the candy. Cover with half the cool whip.
Repeat process of layering ending with Cool Whip and sprinkling of candy. Refrigerate for two to three hours then serve.

Contributed by Ray Morand*, author of The Red Knight Chronicles -- ARMY OF THE DEAD, DARK ELF, etc...
* Ray Morand is the pen name of Raye Carchia.

Tuesday, October 26, 2010

Do I have to write what I know? - writing tip

Do I have to write what I know? was the question in my e-mail this morning. You see, I write science fiction and only write what I imagine I can know, but the people in my writing group....

Write what you know is the advice most often given to new or would-be writers, but where would Jules Verne be now if he had followed it? You can certainly "know" what you can imagine.

Still, "write what you know" can be good advice. For instance, I think a lot of writers draw on their real life experiences. Dick Francis grew up with horses and was a professional jockey for a long time. Most of his books contain either horses, or jockeys, or both and that’s no surprise. But it goes much deeper than that. One of the first was about a jockey who lost the use of his hand (Francis suffered a hand injury). One is about a pilot trying to make it back across the English channel in a damaged plane (Francis was a bomber pilot in WWII), another about a writer who cares for his wife, a victim of polio (Francis’s wife had polio), one about a famous man who inherits a gold mine (Francis is famous and owns or did own a gold mine), one about an artist who paints in acrylics (Francis paints in acrylics, an interest he developed as therapy for the injured hand), and two about a jockey who rides for a very classy middle-aged princess (Francis once rode for the Queen Mother).

Still, you can also know anything you can research.

After I saw the movie CROSS CREEK I set a story in Florida, though I had never been there at that time, and I worried that I hadn’t gotten the "Florida" atmosphere right. Although, some people had told me, “a marsh is a marsh is a marsh” even when they call it a “prairie” as they do in Florida. I felt unsure. I live near a marsh with muskrats and mosquitoes, so I do know marshes.

I wrote a “coming of age” story in which a young girl loses her virginity, and used an alligator hunt as the metaphor for that. I've probably mentioned this story before, because it was one of my most spectacular failures. I put in lots of what I thought was sexual symbolism and tension between the girl and the older man, a friend of her father’s, who had just been waiting for the opportunity to take advantage of her, etc. But I was worried about the setting, so I read it in a critiquing session with about 17 women, five of whom I knew were from Florida. I felt sure they’d pick up on any bloopers. Well, the form for critiques at was that you read your work aloud, and then shut up and listened. People in the circle answered three questions put by the moderator:
What happened?
How did you feel while the story was being read?
What would you change if you were writing the story?
Only after everyone had answered those questions, could the author ask for details, like, “Well, was the setting accurate?”

The answer to the first question stunned me. “This girl and her brother went alligator hunting.” Whoops! If they thought he was her brother, then they didn’t get my sexual content at all. My job was to give it to them and I had failed miserably. Nobody had to say "it sucked!" That isn’t relevant to begin with. Nobody had felt bored, which I believed was luck rather than skill, since nobody had got the plot. When it came my time to ask, the Florida people said they had assumed I lived there, too, as the detail was so accurate. Most of those place images had come straight out of the CROSS CREEK movie, which had been gorgeously filmed in Florida.


Monday, October 25, 2010

Agent Night's Chilli - Recipe


AGENT NIGHT’S QUICK & EASY CHILI

(also Gluten-Free)

This recipe is a delicate balance of sweet and spicy. If you want spicier flavor, add chili powder, cayenne pepper, cumin and red pepper. This chili is great for freezing in individual serving containers and then heating in the microwave for a nice hot lunch!

INGREDIENTS:

  • 1.5 pounds of 93% lean Ground Beef (sometimes I substitute 50% with ground turkey)
  • 1 medium yellow onion, chopped finely or nearly pureed in the food processor
  • 16 oz Cream of Tomato Soup (please see below for gluten-free options)**
  • 28 oz Delmonte Chunky Diced Zesty Chili Style tomatoes or equivalent
  • 1 large can of kidney beans (2.5 pounds)
  • Chopped fresh parsley as desired
  • 1+ tbsp Worcestershire sauce to taste (Lea & Perrins is gluten-free)
  • Shredded Cheddar Cheese for garnish (optional)

NOTE: There are two ways to prepare this – standard stove top or crock pot. I prefer crock pot because it is maintenance-free. Instructions for both are provided.

STOVE TOP COOKING INSTRUCTIONS:

Brown beef in large pot, drain. Add remaining ingredients, cook on medium low until it starts to steam and bubble, then simmer for one hour. I usually let it cool, then put it in the fridge overnight to let the flavors mingle. The next day I heat it up and serve.

CROCK POT COOKING INSTRUCTIONS:

Brown beef in large skillet, drain. Add beef and remaining ingredients to crock pot, cook on low for up to 10 hours.

Garnish with shredded cheddar cheese and serve!

Serves 6-8 people.

Preparation time: 10 minutes

Cooking Time: Stove Top – 1-2 hours; Crock Pot – 8 hours.

**I can recommend the following gluten-free soups:

Pacific Natural Foods Organic Creamy Tomato (available in stores)

Heinz UK Cream of Tomato Soup (can be purchased online in the U.S. through the Gluten-Free Trading Company)

© K. S. Brooks 2009


K.S. Brooks is the author of the Agent Night series, LUST FOR DANGER and KISS OF NIGHT.

Agent Night's Chilli - Recipe

AGENT NIGHT’S QUICK & EASY CHILI

(also Gluten-Free)

This recipe is a delicate balance of sweet and spicy. If you want spicier flavor, add chili powder, cayenne pepper, cumin and red pepper. This chili is great for freezing in individual serving containers and then heating in the microwave for a nice hot lunch!

INGREDIENTS:

  • 1.5 pounds of 93% lean Ground Beef (sometimes I substitute 50% with ground turkey)
  • 1 medium yellow onion, chopped finely or nearly pureed in the food processor
  • 16 oz Cream of Tomato Soup (please see below for gluten-free options)**
  • 28 oz Delmonte Chunky Diced Zesty Chili Style tomatoes or equivalent
  • 1 large can of kidney beans (2.5 pounds)
  • Chopped fresh parsley as desired
  • 1+ tbsp Worcestershire sauce to taste (Lea & Perrins is gluten-free)
  • Shredded Cheddar Cheese for garnish (optional)

NOTE: There are two ways to prepare this – standard stove top or crock pot. I prefer crock pot because it is maintenance-free. Instructions for both are provided.

STOVE TOP COOKING INSTRUCTIONS:

Brown beef in large pot, drain. Add remaining ingredients, cook on medium low until it starts to steam and bubble, then simmer for one hour. I usually let it cool, then put it in the fridge overnight to let the flavors mingle. The next day I heat it up and serve.

CROCK POT COOKING INSTRUCTIONS:

Brown beef in large skillet, drain. Add beef and remaining ingredients to crock pot, cook on low for up to 10 hours.

Garnish with shredded cheddar cheese and serve!

Serves 6-8 people.

Preparation time: 10 minutes

Cooking Time: Stove Top – 1-2 hours; Crock Pot – 8 hours.

**I can recommend the following gluten-free soups:

Pacific Natural Foods Organic Creamy Tomato (available in stores)

Heinz UK Cream of Tomato Soup (can be purchased online in the U.S. through the Gluten-Free Trading Company)

© K. S. Brooks 2009


K.S. Brooks is the author of the Agent Night series, LUST FOR DANGER and KISS OF NIGHT.

Friday, October 22, 2010

Catching Up

Print Books that went to press this week:

THE REMORA, by Charles Wilson

NO ACCOUNTING FOR TASTE, by Newton Love (second try)

THE ODYSSEY, by Elena Dorothy Bowman (second try)

Well the computer WAS a mess and some things just didn't get through. All is much better now, thanks to the gurus who did all they could to make everything right.

E-books completed this week:
ACTING OUT, by Arline Chase
PETALS OF STARLIGHT, by Bobbi Sinha-Morey


Typesetting work and/or corrections begun this week on:

NEVER A COUGAR, by Ludima Gus Burton

Corrections out, still waiting to hear:

THROUGH THE CLOUDS, by Erin Aslin

Checks and/or Paypal payments went out on Monday to everyone but Lisa Marie Mercer, whose address I still do not have. If anyone knows her new address on the west coast, PLEASE contact me. I want to get her paid, but the computer gurus lost my addressbook -- both the database AND the e-mail address one.

Again, if you know anyone who is published by us and who hasn't been in contact for some time, please ask them to get back to us with address information.


Thursday, October 21, 2010

Brenda Boldin's Ginger Cookies - recipe


Brenda Boldin’s Ginger Cookies

2 cups self rising flour
(OR 2c. flour, 1tsp. baking powder, ½ tsp. baking soda, ½ tsp. salt)
1 tsp. ginger
11/2 tsp. cinnamon
1 tsp. ground cloves
½ tsp nutmeg
1/2 cup sugar
½ cup shortening
½ cup molasses
1 egg yolk

Mix sugar and shortening; add molasses and egg yolk. Sir in dry ingredients. Roll on lightly floured surface, 1/4 inch thick. Cut out shapes. Bake on lightly greased cookie sheets at 350-F or 177-C degrees for 10 minutes.

Cool before removing from cookie sheet.
Makes approx. 30 cookies.

Contributed by Brenda Boldin, author of the Alex Masters Series, Dead Birds Don’t Sing, Jailbird, and A Bird by Any Other Name, and Swan Song...Alex Masters is back, calling herself “Lexi” now, and working a real job in her brother’s software company. Money disappears, disks go missing, then a dead body turns up, and once again Alex/Lexi is suspect Number One.

Wednesday, October 20, 2010

Should I join a writing group? - writing tip

That was the question someone asked via e-mail this week. Well, that depends. There are groups and groups....

When they are good, they are very, very good. And when they are bad they are horrid. For many years I participated in a writers workshop where we did a kind of "final read" for each other. Also, at a conference I attended in Saratoga Springs each summer, they held critiquing sessions where, no one could say, "Oh, I loved it." or "I didn't like it." Instead, you read your work aloud, and the listeners must then answer three questions:
1. What happened in the story?
2. How did you feel while reading (or hearing) it?
3. What would you change if this were your story?

One year at the conference, I had a story I knew was perfect. It was a "coming of age" tale, about a young girl's first experience with an older man who had had his eye on her for some time. I used an alligator hunt as the metaphor for her losing her virginity. I packed that story with images, stuffed it full of carefully planned sexual symbolism and hidden meaning. In the end, the meaning was a little too hidden. Imagine my chagrin when I asked, "What happened?" and nine people in the audience said, "This girl and her brother went alligator hunting! Now, I knew perfectly well they were lovers, but I somehow didn't get that across in my story. It didn't matter a hoot whether the people in the audience liked it or not. I knew from that one comment that I had a lot of work to do, and I came home and did it.

The important thing about any writer's group is to set rules and stick too them. Beware the grammar police. I have a friend who was a professional proofreader and spent three hours defending to someone in her writer's group why she put in a comma. Needless to say she quit that bunch. Don't get involved in the kind of group that snipes at one another. Saying what you would change if a story were yours is much different than saying, "That story really sucks...I don't know, I just don't like it," and other remarks of that ilk. Look at groups, check them out, then decide if they are right for you. Usually the librarians at the reference desk of your local branch library will know writers in your neighborhood, and they may know of groups as well. If you can't find a group, consider starting one. If you do start one, set the groundrules right away.

You might want to consider joining a writing organziation as well. When I first started writing, I joined every writer's organization that would have me. Of them all I found International Women's Writing Guild the most helpful. I could never have succeeded or gotten where I am on my own path, without the help and support of my "sister writers." You can find them on the internet at WWW//iwwg.com, or contact them at Box 810 Gracie Station, NYC 10028, if you are interested.

Tuesday, October 19, 2010

Blackened Red Fish - Recipe


Tanya Ramagos’s Blackened Red Fish

2 boneless red fish fillets
1 tsp butter
lemon juice
Chef Paul Prodone Blackened Seafood seasoning

Melt butter in a large skillet over medium heat. Sprinkle the fillets with the Chef Paul seasoning and lemon juice on both sides, then gently lay in butteredskillet.

Cook, flipping often, until blackened on both sides.

Contributed by Tonya Ramagos, author of SECRET ADMIRER... Someone is sneaking anonymous letters in Alexis Berkley's locker. Could it be the boy of her dreams?

Monday, October 18, 2010

Still trying to reach

Lisa Marie Mercer, author of LOVELAND
and John Francis, author of STORIES AT DUSK

I think I found everyone else this time.


Meanwhile, I'm running out of recipes. So if you want to send me a recipe, I will feature it in the blog, along with plugging your book.

arline

Saturday, October 16, 2010

Catching Up

Needless to say we didn't get much done on books this week, what with the computer being away and then trying to find addresses and e-mail addresses and get everyone paid. Checks will be mailed on Monday and those of you who get paid by PayPal -- everyone outside the US, should have your payments by now.

Big sigh of relief. We love to pay authors, but it takes time, as we must be very careful not to make a mistake. As an author, myself, I love to be paid, however little. It's nice to know someone actually paid good money to read what I wrote. And I did have some sales this quarter, though I don't have sales every quarter.

arline

Friday, October 15, 2010

Glad to hear from you

Glad to hear from those of you who have been missing the blog.

Am still trying to catch up, ressurect the computer's addressbooks, and get everyone paid for this quarter. Some of you will make very little, but we are proud of every one of you, whether you had sales or not, and we believe in the merit of your work.

If you are friendly with any other of our authors who don't read this blog, please urge them to contact me via email and send their current address, just so the information I put into the database I'm rebuilding will be the most up-to-date.

I cannot find John Francis, who lives in the UK and whose e-mail is bouncing. He has never been a big seller, but his short stories are excellent and scary. But he did have a sale this quarter I would like to contact him on line and pay by PayPal, since it will cost more to deliver the check, than what will be in it. If any of you know John, please ask him to contact me.

We know it can be depressing to receive such small amounts in payment. My own author's pay check is one of the low ones and would be laughable if I wrote "for the money." But we remain committed to paying every author, every cent, every quarter.

arline

Wednesday, October 13, 2010

Are publishers making lots of money? How come authors are paid so little?

An author e-mailed me yesterday with a link to a blog that asked those questions and purported to have answers. I'm not providing the link, as I think the answers were in error. Certainly, I know they do not apply to myself as your publisher. As an author myself, I can tell you that few authors make much money selling e-books, and as a publisher, I have tried to answer those very questions myself more than once. Sometimes successfully. Sometimes not.

Yes, I am going to try again. Skip this if you are bored by the issues of authors' contracts, e-book sales, or royalty payments.

Whoever wrote that blog seems to be blaming the publishers for the low prices authors are paid and seems to feel authors are being regularly and roundly cheated by their publishers. They claim that some publishers have published work without the authors' permission, though e-book rights have been part of the "standard contract" since the Author's Guild won that lawsuit about whether they were already covered under "electronic rights" sometime around 2004. If they signed a contract with a large publisher for a paper book after that, they also signed the e-rights away, perhaps without really noticing, and shouldn't be surprised to find their title for sale as an e-book.

They seem surprised that e-books are selling well, or selling at all, for they can't imagine why anyone would read them. They don't seem to realize that e-books are just beginning to take off and that sales of them will continue to grow over the next few years. All those TV ads for Kindle are working. I kid you not. And prices for readers are coming down.

From this publisher's viewpoint the blog did seem to "get it wrong" on many counts, and their observations seem to be designed to scare the pants off authors who will be afraid to trust their publishers, afraid to copyright their work, and afraid, or completely convinced, they will be cheated and every publisher is only is out to get them whatever they do. But there are a lot of publishers and those things may be true of some, though I don't know anyone like that in any of the publisher's lists to which I belong.

Still, in this essay I can only speak for my own small company. So here goes.

Basically, at my company we make far more from our e-book sales than from paper book sales. We do paper books because our authors want them, and as an author, I want them for myself, and certainly understand why other authors do, too. This is something we choose to do, despite the fact that paper books do not sell well and are three times the work, for less than half the income. Yes, that means we get less than half what you make on paper book sales to retail markets.

In fact, we make far more on our sales of classic e-books than on sales by the living e-book authors we publish -- all those college kids downloading their reading lists, yunno. And we price them at less than $5 so we make about the same on a sale for one of them as on a sale for an e-book by a living author, where we share in the income. Without the classics we publish from the public domain, we could not afford to stay in business. So we are not making a lot of money on what we publish for living e-book authors, either, but we believe in the merit of what we publish, in the merit of what you write, and are pleased to be able to represent your work.

I know there are publishers out there who don't pay their authors very well, sometimes as little as 15% (same percentage as for a paperback) for an e-book sale, while e-book prices are MUCH lower. And 15% of 6.50 (our e-book list price) would be very little. With us you make 40% on a Write Words web site sale, or $2.60 per book (and we no longer discount that price) and you get 50% of what we get from any distributor for a book that is sold from other distributor sites. Remember, the distributor usually keeps most of the money from the sale, paying us only a percentage which we split evenly with you.

A paper sale from us earns you 15% of the list price, or $2.54 for a book priced at $16.95, even though the publisher doesn't get to keep that much since paper costs went up. I am required to pay you 15% by our contract and will do so unless I lose money, in which case the book will go out of print. Don't panic. I don't expect that to happen to anyone's book any time soon, though I am now making quite a bit less than $2.54 per book, we still have plenty of margin before we lose anything.

With e-books, the prices and percentages vary for EACH sales site. We sell on amazon.com; Amazon Kindle; Mobipocket; Fictionwise; Barnes & Noble; All Romance; Omnilit; and Coffee Time. For that you get the e-books prepared and submitted for sale in whatever format the sales sites require (each has it's own file preparation requirements and cover size specifications that must be met and preparing all those different electronic data files is time-consuming), we track sales, and pay our authors every cent every quarter in the quarter AFTER we receive the funds.

Having said that, it's perfectly true that some sites sell and pay better than others. Coffee Time sells very little for us (1 book in the last three months) and doesn't pay a lot, either, though they are scrupulously honest in reporting sales and scrupulously on time with payment. Each site/store sets it's own pay schedule and if we don't like what they pay we are free not to sell our books there.

I have heard publishers on some of the publishers' lists say, "I'm not dealing with X site anymore. It's too much work to do their files and they don't pay enough." It never seems to occur to them they are costing their authors sales. I am an author. I want my books "out there." Where customers can find them. Not that we can do them all. We tend to pick the larger sites, and sites that redistribute, reaching still more sales venues.

If one of your e-books sells from the Write Words web site the customer pays $6.50, and you make $2.60. If it sells on Omnilit, they pay us 70% of what they collect at that site, but they offer discounts on some titles and their book club members get even further discounts. Now the sales site SETS the discount price. I just give them my List price and they each decide how much discount to give their customers. So much off because it's new. So much again, for book club, or for for repeat customers, etc. So the customer may get your book from Omni for $4.40 instead of $6.50 and we may receive 70% of that, or $3.08 of which you get 50% or $ 1.54 instead of the 2.60 you'd get if it sold from us. Customers like the big sites. Most customers have a favorite site and only buy from that one place. If we don't sell on all of them, we don't sell well. That's a simple fact of life.

Many sites have "affiliates" that list books for sale, while the sales page surfs over to the larger distributor site where the money is collected and you and we are eventually paid. The affiliate gets a small payment too, from the distributor site, based on surf-in sales.

Other sites have special plans like library lending of e-books. If some "library" customer downloads your book at Barnes & Noble, you will be lucky to get $ 0.69 cents. Each store has a kiosk that lets customers download a library title for a very low price into their e-machines. The staff person does it for you while you wait, so you don't have to learn how to download the stuff yourself, and the "borrowed" title disappears from your reader after two weeks, so the customers have to read it in that time, or pay full price to get it back.

You have no idea how frustrating and complicated it is for a publisher to track 300 plus authors and all their works and sales on eight different major distribution sites and then try to explain why they received $2.60 for one sale and 69 cents for another sale of the very same book! Why Two books that sold on Kindle, sold for two ENTIRELY different prices (one went to a book club member who paid less). After all they both were sold by the very same store! How come amazon.com pays $2.27 for a sale and Barnes & Noble only paid .69 cents for the same book? Both list it for the same price of $6.50, so shouldn't they pay the same? Even I have to admit, that to an author that looks funny.

Logic like the above has no place in the accounting practices of the e-books industry -- it all depends on what discounts they are giving at the sales site in the week of the book's sale, while publishers are paid three to six months after that. The whole thing looks as if it makes no sense at all. I am the first to agree with that. But the alternative is, again, not to participate in the various sales sites. No participation equals No Sales. No income at all. For either of us. That's the bottom line. Do we list everywhere and take whatever they send us? Or do we not sell at all? Because sales at my own site are very limited indeed.

Trust me, I know none of you are getting rich. Neither am I. I do this for love, not for money, though some days I wonder why I do it at all. It's only on days when I'm trying to get folks paid and the computer is in the shop for a week that the frustration factor really kicks in.

Anyway, the computer is back now, and they recovered my M through Z author files. So we can all breathe a big sigh of relief and get back to doing payroll now.

Checks for everyone by next week.

arline

Tuesday, October 12, 2010

Finally got the computer back

And all the missing files. Thanks to the guys. Of course it took a week. But it's back now. WHEW!

arline

Tuesday, October 5, 2010

Dialect- writing tip

An author submitted a book this week, along with advice that some words had been deliberately misspelled as that was the way the characters talked.

Well, of course, it is usual to misspell dialect, though replacing a lot of missing g's with apostrophes can make a manuscript difficult to read and to typeset, it's okay to do that and we know all about it and won't think you're not bright enough to spell, "Okay, ya wanna go, or what?"

Still overuse of dialect is a common beginners' mistake and one I was often guilty of myself.

With dialect, as with many good things, less is more.

Yes, Less is more. Again, we are a nation of poor readers. I grew up reading Frances Burnett’s thick dialect in The Secret Garden, but most readers today don’t have patience to decode all those missing letters and apostrophes in strange places. They go rent the movie, which also has very little dialect. I’ve met people from Northumberland. I wasn’t sure they were speaking English. Dialect can be very difficult to write well. This is a lesson I learned, reluctantly I’ll admit, in a workshop with Diana Gabaldon. She wrote a book about a group of 17th century Scots, and English Outlander. No dialect is a thick as that of Scotland. Diana said she listened to old Scots ballads sung in English and in Gaelic to absorb the rhythm of the speech. There’s a great deal of difference between the speech of the Scots and the Englishwoman, and among the Scots, depending upon their station in life and educational level. But nobody said, “hoot mon!” She changed didn’t to didna, and wouldn’t to wouldna, and added some dated terms like “foxed” for drunk. But most of it was in the rhythm of the language. Because of the sentence construction, English sounded different when the Scots spoke, but their meaning was never obscured.

Monday, October 4, 2010

Scalloped Veal - Recipe


Robert Legleitner’s Scalloped Veal cutlets

1 lb veal cutlets sliced thin.

½ cup flour

6 tbsp. butter

1/4 cup sherry (the good stuff too)

2 tbsp. chopped parsley

4 ounces or so of sliced mushrooms

salt and pepper to taste


Dredge the veal in flour and sauté in butter for 3 or 4 minutes each side. Sprinkle with salt and pepper. Add sherry, parsley, and mushrooms. Simmer for 10 minutes. Should serve 4.


Contributed by Robert L. Legleitner, author of The Golden Legend...German-born archaeologist Kydon Schmidt has a secret that would ruin him.... in the homophobic atmosphere of the 1940s. So when the U.S. Government recruits him for a mission against Nazi artifact collectors, he is not in a position to refuse. Great action and adventure. You won't be disappointed!