Showing posts with label e-books. Show all posts
Showing posts with label e-books. Show all posts
Wednesday, February 12, 2014
Republishing
I'm finally getting around to having books in my backlist republished in
e-format. The first one will be THE
GLASS SLIPPER, initially published by Dorchester 's
Love Spell line in 1996.
And what do you think of online piracy?
And what do you think of online piracy?
Thursday, July 12, 2012
Honey, I'm Sorry I Killed Your Aquasaurs
It's a great time to be a writer. We have so many more opportunities available to us. I love the fact that we can traditionally publish or self-publish on Amazon, for example. I self-published a book that's a compilation of my newspaper columns—Honey, I'm Sorry I Killed Your Aquasaurs (and other short essays on the parenting life). Thought I'd share the title essay from that book. Enjoy!
Thank goodness things are back to normal after the holidays. Well, almost—how normal can your life be when you have small children? We muddled through the holidays this year with a sense of foreboding, knowing we would get inundated with toys and we would be left wondering what to do with them. And we did. One of the worst things we received this year was the gift of Aquasaurs.
If you don't know what Aquasaurs are, consider yourself lucky.
The kit comes with eggs that hatch--but they must hatch in spring water that is a certain temperature and you must be careful that you don't bump them around too much. All this fuss tickled my husband. "If they are prehistoric creatures, why do you have to be so gentle with them?"
The girls and I followed to directions to perfection and soon we saw teeny, tiny Aquasaurs emerge in the murky waters. The only place I could safely put the plastic tank was on the kitchen table. After awhile, I wished I would have placed it somewhere else. No matter how much I cleaned it (every TWO DAYS) the tank looked filthy and the bigger the creatures became, the more they resembled some kind of bug. And I had them in my kitchen.
After about two weeks the girls lost complete interest. I found myself crushing the tiny bits of food for the three that survived. Of course, it was also me that cleaned the tank— much the same way that it is I who cleans the cat box and feeds the cat. As if I needed anything thing else to do in my life.
If I had toddlers in diapers, the care of the Aquasaurs would have driven me to madness.
I admitted to some friends that I really could not wait for the Aquasaur life cycle to end—they were disgusting little creatures, taking my time, and invading my kitchen. They only live 90 days or so. But I resolved to let nature takes its course, even though I had briefly thought of flushing them down the toilet.
This presented a moral dilemma for me, a vegetarian who strongly believes in the dignity of all life. I could not quite appreciate the dignity of the Aquasaurs.
Then something strange happened. I thought it was my imagination, at first.
When I cleaned the tank one day, I noticed that one of the little creatures would come to the top and look at me and do little flips. The more I talked to it, the more it flipped around. It seemed happy to see me.
This began to happen every time I cleaned the tank. My husband stopped and watched my cleaning the tank one night and said, "Look, that one likes you." And so I knew it was true. We had bonded, this little Aquasaur and me. Woe be unto me.
A few weeks later, as I was cleaning the tank (again), as I poured a clear liquid into the tank, suddenly I smelled something weird. I realized that it was vinegar. The plastic vinegar bottle was sitting next to the plastic spring water bottle and in my harried state I poured it in, instead of the water. All I could do was stand there and watch them die, hideously, but quickly.
We buried the creatures under the apple tree in our backyard, along with any thoughts of getting any more pets.
Author’s Note: I still feel like crying when I think about this.
Thank goodness things are back to normal after the holidays. Well, almost—how normal can your life be when you have small children? We muddled through the holidays this year with a sense of foreboding, knowing we would get inundated with toys and we would be left wondering what to do with them. And we did. One of the worst things we received this year was the gift of Aquasaurs.
If you don't know what Aquasaurs are, consider yourself lucky.
The kit comes with eggs that hatch--but they must hatch in spring water that is a certain temperature and you must be careful that you don't bump them around too much. All this fuss tickled my husband. "If they are prehistoric creatures, why do you have to be so gentle with them?"
The girls and I followed to directions to perfection and soon we saw teeny, tiny Aquasaurs emerge in the murky waters. The only place I could safely put the plastic tank was on the kitchen table. After awhile, I wished I would have placed it somewhere else. No matter how much I cleaned it (every TWO DAYS) the tank looked filthy and the bigger the creatures became, the more they resembled some kind of bug. And I had them in my kitchen.
After about two weeks the girls lost complete interest. I found myself crushing the tiny bits of food for the three that survived. Of course, it was also me that cleaned the tank— much the same way that it is I who cleans the cat box and feeds the cat. As if I needed anything thing else to do in my life.
If I had toddlers in diapers, the care of the Aquasaurs would have driven me to madness.
I admitted to some friends that I really could not wait for the Aquasaur life cycle to end—they were disgusting little creatures, taking my time, and invading my kitchen. They only live 90 days or so. But I resolved to let nature takes its course, even though I had briefly thought of flushing them down the toilet.
This presented a moral dilemma for me, a vegetarian who strongly believes in the dignity of all life. I could not quite appreciate the dignity of the Aquasaurs.
Then something strange happened. I thought it was my imagination, at first.
When I cleaned the tank one day, I noticed that one of the little creatures would come to the top and look at me and do little flips. The more I talked to it, the more it flipped around. It seemed happy to see me.
This began to happen every time I cleaned the tank. My husband stopped and watched my cleaning the tank one night and said, "Look, that one likes you." And so I knew it was true. We had bonded, this little Aquasaur and me. Woe be unto me.
A few weeks later, as I was cleaning the tank (again), as I poured a clear liquid into the tank, suddenly I smelled something weird. I realized that it was vinegar. The plastic vinegar bottle was sitting next to the plastic spring water bottle and in my harried state I poured it in, instead of the water. All I could do was stand there and watch them die, hideously, but quickly.
We buried the creatures under the apple tree in our backyard, along with any thoughts of getting any more pets.
Author’s Note: I still feel like crying when I think about this.
Tuesday, May 17, 2011
A Big New Wave
I almost forgot to post – in fact, I did forget to post until just now. Last night was my monthly Embroiderers Guild of America meeting, and we were busy preparing for a regional meeting. We’re making favors to give away at the banquet, and I got caught up in doing some stitching on them and was tired when I got home and just went to bed. Then this morning I got word that my old novel, The Unforgiving Minutes was now available on Smashwords and Kindle and I downloaded it and started to read it, and time just got away from me. Then I found a couple of e-mails about planning for my writers group retreat and started answering them.
Then I remembered today is Tuesday, and that I hadn’t written a blog entry.
My bad. I apologize.
Interesting, isn’t it, that a person without a regular job to go to – whose time is ostensibly her own – can somehow get so busy that an important task just doesn’t get done.
I really liked The Unforgiving Minutes. It was the first novel I ever wrote. In fact, I learned how to write a novel by working on it over and over. Unfortunately, I think it shows – oddly enough, in its uneven quality. It has some hardboiled elements and some cozy elements and some weird elements. That opening scene, for example, is decidedly a mix of those three. Still, it’s not a bad story, or at least I don’t think it is. I know I had fun writing it. I hope a lot of people decide to give it a try. The price is certainly reasonable.
We’re planning on spending some time at our writers retreat discussing e-books. Is this the future of the book or only some books? How can we best take advantage of this new way of getting our writing before the public? What’s going to happen to the Big Six publishers? What will be the role of agents? Will there be any room at all for their traditional role? How quickly is this change going to come about?
I think we’re all fairly sure that publishing is in for a big change in the near future and that we’d better be prepared to ride this new wave. To change metaphors in mid-stream, I hope I can follow the steep learning curve ahead of me. Anyone have any ideas or suggestions?
Then I remembered today is Tuesday, and that I hadn’t written a blog entry.
My bad. I apologize.
Interesting, isn’t it, that a person without a regular job to go to – whose time is ostensibly her own – can somehow get so busy that an important task just doesn’t get done.
I really liked The Unforgiving Minutes. It was the first novel I ever wrote. In fact, I learned how to write a novel by working on it over and over. Unfortunately, I think it shows – oddly enough, in its uneven quality. It has some hardboiled elements and some cozy elements and some weird elements. That opening scene, for example, is decidedly a mix of those three. Still, it’s not a bad story, or at least I don’t think it is. I know I had fun writing it. I hope a lot of people decide to give it a try. The price is certainly reasonable.
We’re planning on spending some time at our writers retreat discussing e-books. Is this the future of the book or only some books? How can we best take advantage of this new way of getting our writing before the public? What’s going to happen to the Big Six publishers? What will be the role of agents? Will there be any room at all for their traditional role? How quickly is this change going to come about?
I think we’re all fairly sure that publishing is in for a big change in the near future and that we’d better be prepared to ride this new wave. To change metaphors in mid-stream, I hope I can follow the steep learning curve ahead of me. Anyone have any ideas or suggestions?
Tuesday, April 5, 2011
Book Signings
One of the more pleasant duties of being a published author is doing signings. It’s a time when I actually get to meet face to face with the people who are reading my books. It’s ego-boosting – which for someone engaged in an essentially lonely profession is marvelous – and sometimes useful, because I’ll get feedback about the direction I’m taking with my stories and/or characters. Even, once in a while, I’ll be offered a story idea or book title I can actually use. So I love to do book signings.
One of my favorites is an annual event, offered by a local mystery bookstore, Once Upon A Crime. Owners Pat and Gary call it Write of Spring, and this past Saturday was their ninth annual.
Minnesota is chock-a-block with authors, many of them mystery writers. No one seems sure why, but I think it has something to do with our long, dark winters. If you’re not a skier, a snowmobiler, or an ice fisherman, what else is there to do but write?
This year there were about fifty mystery authors in attendance at Write of Spring. We came in one-hour shifts, standing shoulder to shoulder behind a long table stacked with our books. The place was crowded with visitors, who munched on ginger cookies and lemonade while waiting to speak with a favorite author, buy a book or, in some cases, offer previously purchased books they brought along for autographs. At this point in my career, I have a long backlist, so I got to talk about not just my current Betsy Devonshire series, but also the Dame Frevisse medieval mystery series and even the Peter Brichter series I started with back in the 80s. One author who came in a little early for the second shift is dear friend Gail Frazer, with whom I collaborated on the Dame Frevisse series. Pat had a set of the six books we wrote together (Gail continued the series alone later) to be sent to a collector. She wanted us to autograph them, both with our mutual pseudonym and our “real name.”
That raised a question for me: What is my real name? That is, I have a legal name, the one I married into, but not many people know or use it. I have a “professional” name, my maiden name, the one I started writing under. And I have a current pseudonym, the one most of my readers know me by. I decided to go with the professional name.
One thing I noticed about the books, which began appearing in 1992 as paperback originals, is that the pages are already turning brown. Before too long, they will crumble. Now it has been my position that one problem with e-books is that, as the technology changes, the ones coming out now will be unreadable and volumes will be lost. But looking at the browning pages of Margaret Frazer’s books, I realized that time will render them unreadable, too. There’s something sad, even tragic, about that. Not that I write deathless prose, but there is value in even the common literature of a culture and its loss is real.
One of my favorites is an annual event, offered by a local mystery bookstore, Once Upon A Crime. Owners Pat and Gary call it Write of Spring, and this past Saturday was their ninth annual.
Minnesota is chock-a-block with authors, many of them mystery writers. No one seems sure why, but I think it has something to do with our long, dark winters. If you’re not a skier, a snowmobiler, or an ice fisherman, what else is there to do but write?
This year there were about fifty mystery authors in attendance at Write of Spring. We came in one-hour shifts, standing shoulder to shoulder behind a long table stacked with our books. The place was crowded with visitors, who munched on ginger cookies and lemonade while waiting to speak with a favorite author, buy a book or, in some cases, offer previously purchased books they brought along for autographs. At this point in my career, I have a long backlist, so I got to talk about not just my current Betsy Devonshire series, but also the Dame Frevisse medieval mystery series and even the Peter Brichter series I started with back in the 80s. One author who came in a little early for the second shift is dear friend Gail Frazer, with whom I collaborated on the Dame Frevisse series. Pat had a set of the six books we wrote together (Gail continued the series alone later) to be sent to a collector. She wanted us to autograph them, both with our mutual pseudonym and our “real name.”
That raised a question for me: What is my real name? That is, I have a legal name, the one I married into, but not many people know or use it. I have a “professional” name, my maiden name, the one I started writing under. And I have a current pseudonym, the one most of my readers know me by. I decided to go with the professional name.
One thing I noticed about the books, which began appearing in 1992 as paperback originals, is that the pages are already turning brown. Before too long, they will crumble. Now it has been my position that one problem with e-books is that, as the technology changes, the ones coming out now will be unreadable and volumes will be lost. But looking at the browning pages of Margaret Frazer’s books, I realized that time will render them unreadable, too. There’s something sad, even tragic, about that. Not that I write deathless prose, but there is value in even the common literature of a culture and its loss is real.
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