the rejected letter

Probably speaking too soon again, but it looks as if things have been straightened out.

I need Xanax.

VALIDITY OF THE MOMENT

I swear I will quit talking about this soon, but it happens to be what's on my mind. It's way too early to come up with solid results, but Sunday's Pale Immortal special sale was an interesting test. Many people tweeted the deal and some Facebooked the event. (Thank you!!)

results:

I sold 7 copies of Pale Immortal for $3.00 each. All were purchased by friends and family. The showing of support truly warmed my heart. One friend admitted she had no way to read it, but she bought it anyway. *sob*

This little experiment underscores the importance of a storefront like Amazon. I doubt I will break even unless Amazon eventually agrees to let Pale Immortal go live. Even with the Amazon storefront, I have my doubts.

Romance readers have been clamoring for the digital release of Bad Karma and there's been some decent buzz about it, but I honestly think if I released BK I might sell 20 copies. Max. This is the reality of self-publishing. And even though my books have the stamp of major publishers and have won awards, they don't have the visibility.

Most self-published books lack a sense of what I'm calling a validity of the moment, and there is no way for me to reach beyond my own small circle.

PALE IMMORTAL DIGITAL RELEASE

In celebration of the digital release of Pale Immortal, I'm offering $3.00 downloads until 10:00 pm (central time) tonight. This is a MOBI file best viewed on a Kindle reader, but it also presents very well on Stanza. You can download a free Stanza app for iPhone and your desktop (PC and Mac) here:

Stanza

update: I'm being told it looks great in Calibre, which can also be downloaded for free (PC and Mac).

To download PI, go to shopping cart in column on right. The $3.00 special price will show up once you hit the shopping cart button.

Amazon Kindle nightmare, take 10

As expected, Amazon requested documentation for Pale Immortal. I sent them a signed letter from the publisher of Penguin Books. The letter detailed the complete reversion of all rights, but that wasn't enough for Amazon to allow the book to go live. I'm guessing that their script doesn't allow for reversion rights, and if the book shows up in their system as being published by someone else, you're pretty much out of luck. This appears to be utter stupidity on their part, but maybe Amazon is trying to discourage this swampfest of backlist reissues. So anyway, here I sit with a beautiful book specifically formatted for Kindle.

update: I just figured out how to sell through E-Junkie, so you can download the MOBI file through the link on the right, above the Pale Immortal cover. I made a purchase to test it, and it works great. I have to also say that even though I don't have a Kindle, the material looks quite nice on Stanza desktop.

Download free app for iphone and desktop: Stanza


And here is where I really want to mention B10 Mediaworx. In the center of this tangle emerged someone who really delivered, who did exactly what she said she would do. I did not want to offer some slapped together mess, and I wanted to be certain Pale Immortal was formatted correctly. It looks fantastic!!! Oddly enough, I was unable to view it in all of it's glory (complete with Belfry Press logo) until I uploaded to Kindle and hit preview.

deja vu?

I'm beginning to feel like Bill Murray in Groundhog Day.

My agent read my completed memoir and misses the fiction that I removed. So here we go again.

Do readers and publishers want 100% truth and a less compelling story, or 98% truth and a stronger plot? I doubt anybody knows, but that’s always been my dilemma with this material. When I had plans to publish this myself, I added a fictional device to progress the plot and make the story feel more cohesive. I removed it because my new agent felt the material should be submitted as a memoir.

The material in question probably take up less than eight pages, but it gives the characters more purpose. I've seen memoirs with some pretty big disclosure statements, but they were probably published before the Frey fray. David Sedaris is calling his latest book realish, which underscores the problem so many of us are dealing with. I keep hoping a completely new way of labeling memoirs will eventually emerge, because what exists now is too narrow. But as soon as you call a memoir fiction, you put a different set of expectations on it, diminish the story, and reduce the value (IMO).

update: We received feedback on this issue, and I'm going to disclose the tweak in preface of book. This is how I handled it in original submission.

another bump in the road

For writers considering selling their backlist through AMAZON KINDLE, here's another new wrinkle. Or two. A MOBI file of my book Pale Immortal was uploaded to Amazon's digital text platform on Saturday. Got this notice:

"Your book is currently under review by the KINDLE OPERATIONS TEAM as we are trying to improve the Kindle customer experience. Please check back in 5 business days to see if your book was published to the store. This will not affect any titles you are currently selling in the store, but uploading updates to existing titles will take longer to process."


Kindle blogs are reporting that going live can take 5 - 21 days (or much longer). Another new twist: Writers are receiving requests of documentation -- proof that the material is indeed yours, and that rights have reverted. And yep, this can take another 5 - 21 days (or longer). And since most of the process relies on an automated system, chances of your book never going live have greatly increased with these new rules.

I understand both issues. Readers began complaining about poorly formatted books. People were also glutting Amazon with copy after shitty copy of public domain titles, and Amazon is trying to put a stop to it. I can also understand having to prove that the material your selling IS yours, but I know how messed up Amazon is, and I can't imagine this will end well. I can't even convince them that Theresa Weir and Anne Frasier are the same person in order to combine my profiles. Their method of proof is to contact a publisher I worked for 20 years ago and ask if my current email really belongs to Anne Frasier. 20 years ago... let's see. Yeah, I was writing with a typewriter and making copies with carbon paper.

And when did I start working on this backlist project? February. Proof of a massive time suck, but I've put too much into it, and I want to see it through.

VOICE

voice and tone:

One issue I had to deal with when writing a memoir was voice. I usually write deep third person. I like deep third POV because it’s easy and tends to read smoothly since the narrative can come directly from the characters. It seemed logical to write a memoir with my own voice, adjusting according to my age. Ick. No. That didn’t work for me. So I came up with a voice and tone that was pretty much the same from beginning to end, regardless of age. The topic is dark, and I wanted to balance that with the tone of a fairytale. That became really important to me. The fairytale tone.