Our Lovely Tree

Happy New Year.

Have been thinking about what to say, but I’m so late I’m afraid all the good topics have already been written. And it’s already the 4^th; folks are probably DONE hearing about how bad the ending of LOST was, how sad it was when so-and-so passed away, how shocking it was to see Miley sucking on a bong. Okay, maybe not so shocking, that.

And the year to come? My plans? I have plenty. In the writing arena, I’ve made some decisions concerning my backlist, which has been just sort of sitting without much support from me. These three books are going to get a minor makeover and be re-released under my own publishing byline by this spring. New edits, new covers, new prices. I mean, why not?

Becoming a publisher means I can publish some other things, too, experimental works and some shorts for a couple of

Great Room Ready for Drywall

new authors just wanting to dip a toe in the water. I’ll need an editor or two, and some help with the cover art. Cover art must be first rate, it’s the very first impression and if it’s shoddy or amateur, no level of quality in the book will make a difference.

That being said, my books with Echelon (CAPE SEDUCTION, POINT SURRENDER) will stay with Echelon. I have no desire to move them, and will continue to promote them alongside my newly released backlist work. If I’m right, all will benefit. I will focus heavily on ebooks this year (as if I haven’t for twelve years already!), although with the help of sites like Amazon’s CreateSpace I can re-release my older books in paperback as well. I’m glad for that, for those people still digging in about paper.

Once I reach a level of completion with this project, I’ll be able to resume work on my next lighthouse mystery. ANGEL’S GATE is started, but I felt it was heading toward a proverbial cul-de-sac and I need to back up and take a turn. I’m hoping to be able to convince the PTB to let me inside the real Angel’s Gate Lighthouse in Los Angeles Harbor. I just need to meet the right person!

Upcoming:

On January 22^nd, I’ll be speaking at the Blanchard Community Library in Santa Paula, California. The topic? Lighthouses, of course! Specifically, California’s lighthouses, and how they helped shape our history (it is California history month, after all.) I will focus on a few specific beacons, then segue into those that inspired my work. Really looking forward to this event.

Considering Romantic Times Convention on April 8 at the Bonaventure Hotel in Los Angeles. Pricy, but lots of fun. Will advise.

April 30/May 1, in addition to my yearly stint signing with Sisters in Crime/LA, I’m joining a small consortium of authors in a booth at the L.A. Times Festival of Books, this year being held at the University of Southern California. I hope UCLA fans won’t stay away!

The cabin in the mountains is coming along nicely! Should be done late February. I can’t wait to hunker down with my books and hot toddy before a roaring fire…

Outgoing:

Over the holidays, my niece and I took a day off and drove up to Santa Barbara for lunch. To our astonishment, both Barnes and Noble and Border’s were selling out their inventories, both closing their doors on December 31^st. These stores are across the street from each other. I guess Santa Barbara book buyers will have to turn to the web. And ebooks?

Speaking of those minute miracles, I am rapidly filling up the new COLOR NOOK my husband bought me for Christmas! Man, do I love this device. I’ve always been somewhat of a gadget person, but this thing is fab. Does almost all that an iPad does – for half the money. I’ve loaded it up with songs, photos, books – I can do a crossword puzzle, check Facebook, write an email and edit my latest manuscript – and I can do it in the dark!

Follow up:

Further to my “Long Lost Relatives” post, I was contacted by my newly discovered cousin’s ex-wife. I wrote her back, giving her all the info I had and the one photo from my website. She has yet to respond, but I can wait. It’s been my whole life, after all.

School’s Out

School is done, for now. Political Science was a great class, I learned a ton of stuff that I somehow missed the first time around. Like, did you know the Democrats are the liberal party? Okay, I’m joking. But seriously, I enjoyed the class, finished with a 97%.

Crossing Cultures, my diversity-requirement cinema class, turned out to be much better than I thought. The sad thing was not getting to know more of the other students until the end. I did, I suppose, labor under self-imposed intimidation, being in with all those decidedly younger students. But honestly, most of them were really nice. I did my final project yesterday, a Power Point-backed discussion of my original screenplay for Unmasking Paulie Bingham. My presentation included photos of glam rockers Marc Bolan, David Bowie, Slade, George Michael, Iggy Pop, Elton John and Boy George. I backed them with audio snippets from “Rebel Rebel”, “Wake Me Up Before You Go Go” and “Miss Me Blind”. I talked about the history of glam rock and difficulties those rockers who were gay faced in hiding the fact. I related it to the struggles faced by the characters in my story. It all went “swimmingly” well. A+.

We had a pot luck lunch, and snacked while everyone gave their presentations. There were students who worked for a charitable organization (L.A.’s “Dream Place”) over Thankgsgiving; a girl who described the hardships her Vietnamese parents faced as boat people; a girl who exposed the fact that our community doesn’t take care of its homeless population very well. There were four people who visited the Museum of Tolerance; a guy who works with mentally challenged children and adults through the “LET ME SAIL” program. And last, a young man who made his own >2 minute film about fear between students on campus. The film was great.

I was sad that it was the last day. I made a few friends I’ll likely not see again. I hope to see Melinda, the instructor, next spring, if I can take her Film Aesthetics class. She’s a smart, savvy lady and we got along well. A class like that is more like a treat than a task.

“Just Like Jay”

I’m excited to report that Top Publications has just issued a press release for Sisters in Crime’s  Murder In La-La Land (which will include my short story, “Just Like Jay“), with a publication date of May 2010. There is talk that the anthology may be out in time for the L.A. Times Festival of Books. That would be super.

Works in Progress

Relay For Life

Happy Hannukah

Have a great week! (Note:  For some reason the formatting is screwball on this post and I don’t have the patience to fix it. Sorry…

I have a vested interest. CAPE SEDUCTION is slated for a November 1st release in electronic format. Fourteen formats, to be sure. And you can bet LOTS of people will be getting digital readers, iPhones and Kindles for Christmas this year. Forrester recently released a report that is paraphrased at BNET. Apparently, “from 2008 to 2009, Amazon sold an estimated 600,000 Kindles. But Sony sold an estimated 400,000 of its e-readers.” That’s a million readers, folks. And it doesn’t count the number of iPhones, iPod Touches, PDA’s, laptops and other ebook reading devices already in use. Now that Sony has lowered prices on devices and ebooks, and has determined they will support the ePub* format, we will start to see them pull ahead of Amazon. Mark my words. (*See great WSJ article about ePub and DRM here.)

Speaking of Cape Seduction, I’m ecstatic to say that cover art is in the works. We have obtained rights to photos that will be mysteriously ‘Shopped into a spellbinding cover! So stay tuned on that front.

My calendar says my next personal appearance will be at the Duarte Festival of Authors. Have never done this particular festival and am looking forward to sharing some space with fellow Echelon author Gayle Carline. Gayle and I met at L.A. Times Festival of Books in April, when she was selling her new release, FREEZER BURN. We get along great except for when it comes to horses… she’s an equestrienne extraordinaire and I’m more the type that likes the wooden ones that go ’round and ’round in the mall. Is there a 12-step program for equine-o-phobes?

Good news/bad news department:  We now think our guinea pig has a benign lipoma. A fat bump. Not dangerous in itself, and should just be watched for awhile. The bad news? Son is not coming home now.   He did assure me he’ll be home for Christmas (why do I hear Bing Crosby‘s baritone in the background?) Ugh. Sadness. Why does Singapore have to be so far away (and so expensive to commute?)

Have started a new story. Don’t know yet if it is a full length book or not. Takes place in the 1980′s, about a glam rocker and a makeup artist. Has to do with gay performers hiding their sexuality (or not). Not sure how readers will take this topic. Not really worried, either.

Haven’t fired up the new Pink KitchenAid Stand Mixer yet. Will plan to do some whirling this weekend and will, of course, share the results, if only virtually. Daughter wants to paint flames on the sides, like Alton Brown‘s. I told her I have enough trouble with burning food.

I’m sure I’ve forgotten something, something likely only interesting to me and my stalkers. Oh well. It will wait.

There is a lot to write about with regard to digitally formatted books. Right now, my focus is on how to sell more of them. I buy almost exclusively ebooks myself, most of them from on-line bookseller Fictionwise. And no, I don’t read them on my computer. I have a small PDA (“Personal Data Assistant”) device — you may recognize the pioneer name “Palm Pilot” — that I download books onto and read at night in bed. I love it, and now have difficulty changing back to paper books on occasion. Since I read in bed, paper books don’t work because they require light, space and they make noise. Not to mention that they take up space on the shelf when they should still be standing in the forest. But that’s another issue.

By now, you’ve probably heard of the Kindle, Amazon’s offering in the digital book arena. Two of my friends own them and I must say, they are pretty nice. Kindles, along with their nearest competitor, the Sony Reader Digital Book, work for a variety of different scenarios. However, as they both utilize the revolutionary “eInk”, they don’t light up at night, and they don’t display in color.

Nonetheless, either of these (and several other) ereaders work  just fine for the reading of any of my seven available ebooks. Fictionwise, in fact, makes my titles available in no less than thirteen different formats for different readers. Prices range from 85 cents to $5.95 for my latest, full-length romantic mystery, POINT SURRENDER. Is that a bargain, or what? The paperback sells for $12.95 plus shipping. The savings is about $8.50, and it wouldn’t take too long to make back the price of the ereader, would it?

I believe that once the price on the ereader comes down to under $100, we will start to see greater momentum on the ebook front. The fact that California, Texas and other states are experimenting with digital textbooks is a good sign.

I’d like to know what others think. Others who are still on the fence, or starting to think more about going green with ebooks. What would make you switch?

Signing!

It’s so nice to meet new fans at a book fair. One lady hugged POINT SURRENDER to her chest and said she couldn’t wait to read it! Is that cool, or what? I sold a lot more books than I thought I would, especially with all the competition and the state of the economy. I regret that I didn’t get to see Michael J. Fox; he has a new book out and I can’t wait to read it.

Lots of fun hanging out with the other Echelon authors and the Fairy people, Bobbie and Harry Hinman. They have a new Fairy book coming out this summer, The Belly Button Fairy!

Always nice seeing my publisher, Karen Syed, and fellow authors Jenny Turner and Jeff Sherratt. New this year was Gayle Carline and Teresa Burrell, both with brand-spanking new releases. What a thrill for them! Another delightful person, Melinda Richarz Bailey was beside me, offering up the humorous and entertaining “WOOF: Women Only Over Fifty.”

A surprise was meeting radio show host Megan Willingham. I appeared on Megan’s “Writers, Authors N’ More” program last fall. She is just the most gracious lady, and she is excited about my upcoming release, CAPE SEDUCTION. A real thrill to meet her in person!

Happily, teen author Alyssa Montgomery arrived midday on Saturday, selling her teen ebooks and impressing everyone with her wit and charm.

On Sunday, I took a break from the Echelon tribe and headed over to Sisters In Crime, where I signed for 2 hours and enjoyed meeting many new mystery fans. All in all, a fabulous weekend! Maybe soon I’ll get my voice back.