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Carolyn Goes Geeky

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I have another cheesy post for you this Wednesday. At the day and night job we have begun transitioning onto the new severs. This means that although I will actually be heinously busy over the next two weeks, after that, this crisis will be behind me. And none too soon. Did I mention that I have revisions due? Yes. I should be doing that, not blogging.

Then again, this blog gives me an excuse to tell you that you may now join the Arjun Rampal Fan Club for Romance Authors and Readers. Leave a comment over at my blog and you’re in.

Also, I can post this from a really wonderful review of Indiscreet over at Goassmer Obessions.

Some books, some blessed books, grab you with the first page, with language so lyrical and hooked you’re excited to keep reading even before you’re entirely sure what you’re reading, with settings so vivid and intricately described, yet never so vivid and intricately described as the characters.

Indiscreet is one of them. It has the plot of an Italian opera, the theme of a fairy tale, and a writing style as rich, textured and gorgeous as only romances can be.

So, that was a highlight of my week.

Man Stuff or is it Girl Stuff?

Here’s another hightlight:

Reference Books

In other miscellaneous news, I have two favorite research books to share with you.

The first is The Oxford Companion to the Law by David M. Walker. What I LOVE about this book, besides the explanations of the state of British law with almost uniform reference to WHEN the laws were like what (awesome!) there are also lists of the names of every person ever to have held office in Britain from 975 (NO, I did not miss a digit) forward. Kings, Queens, Regents, Judges, Chancellors, Vice-Chancellors, Cabinet members etc AND THE YEARS THEY HELD THE OFFICE.

I often refer to this book. I bought it way back when I lived in the used book store heaven of Berkeley, California. Naturally, the Univ. of California Press had a bookstore, and they also had a good used section.

The other is new. Roget’s International Thesaurus, Seventh Edition. It’s fun and useful to just flip idly through the pages. Interestingly enough, this book has a cover blurb. Seriously. “A sterling reference tool.” — Time

Who the heck was in charge of lining up blurbs for this book?

“Thumb-Indexed for Easier Browsing!” with a graphic of a thumb. That’s totally cheesy but I love this new and updated thesaurus. It IS easier to use.

My previous Roget’s is from 1965 and was published by St. Martin’s Press. The cover blurb is unattributed: “The best thesaurus in the world”

Somehow I missed the news that the NEW Roget’s jumped ship to Collins, though I did hear the news of the updated edition and pre-ordered it about a year in advance (it was late).

And there’s all the news that matters for Wednesday.

What are you favorite reference books?

Posted in Former Riskies, Jane Austen | Tagged , , , | 6 Replies

News and a Contest

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News!

 The UK Kindle edition of Not Wicked Enough is available on Amazon UK. If you are in the UK, Australia or New Zealand you can buy the Kindle version here and for less than the paper version!

It turns out I also have the UK/AUS/NZ rights to Scandal and Indiscreet. There are a few other countries where I have the rights so I’ll be adding those to the territories as well.

I need to get new covers made for Scandal and Indiscreet, so I imagine it will be a month or so before those are ready to put on sale. I believe I have final-copy digital files. Something to look forward to, eh?

Also, If you read German, the German edition of My Wicked Enemy is available for pre-order via Amazon.co.uk here. I think the German title is In the Arms of Demons but I don’t know.

 

The guy looks like the model in the photo I used for A Darker Crimson.

Contest!

My birthday is April 30th. I will be muffmurmbee years old! We need to celebrate. With books/gift card for books and stuff. Surprise stuff which I will surprise you with. You are at my mercy as to gifts.

To enter the contest leave a comment to this post by, say, Midnight Pacific on Monday April 30th, 2012. You should pay me a sincere compliment. You have to MEAN it. Or be really convincing. Also tell me what you’d like to get me for my birthday.

RULES:

You must be 18 or older to enter. Void where prohibited. Winner will be selected at random. You have to either leave me a contact in your email or else commit to checking back to see if you won. You’ll have two weeks to acknowledge your winning ways if you’re the winner, otherwise, I’ll select an alternate winner. International OK! Unless for some reasons it’s legally not.

Posted in Former Riskies, Giveaways | Tagged , , , , , | 21 Replies

News!!! And Commentary

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If you look over there — there. In the sidebars …. You may see the covers of my historicals Scandal and Indiscreet. Those are the US covers done by Berkley Books, and they are lovely. That’s John Marron, by the way, on the cover of Indiscreet. ::waving:::

I’ve spent the last year being silent about that fact that the books were, until about last week, unavailable in the US or Canada. Berkley mistakenly took them off sale in the latter half of 2012.

Long story short, by February of 2013, I instructed my agent that we should stop our (fruitless) efforts to get them to fix the mistake and simply request a reversion after the next royalty statement. And that is what we did.

My reversions arrived last week. I have been working to get them on sale in the US and Canada with the covers I commissioned for my non-North American version of the books. By “version” I mean different covers, a couple of typos fixed, and a reformatted interior. Some of you may recall that the original eBook version of Indiscreet was unreadable. The corrected file, when it was finally produced, was … readable. I’ll leave it at that.

It’s odd. I loved writing for Berkley. I loved my editor, I’ve adored all my covers. The copy-editor for Scandal was amazing, and I did have regrets about declining the opportunity to do additional books for them. But the fact is that Scandal and Indiscreet mean more to me than they did to Berkley– the company. The economic harm during the nearly year and a half the books were not on sale was disproportionately mine.

Then there’s the harm to my writing career. When Dear Author had long threads about historicals with exotic locations, I know for a fact people tried to buy Indiscreet (because the book was mentioned in the threads) and could not. I know because a couple of them emailed me. How many didn’t? Not so long ago, Scandal was again reviewed on Dear Author. Not to sound too vain, but Scandal was a RITA finalist. It made a list of one of the 100 best Romances. My agent called it a tour-de-force. And a website that gets hundreds of thousands of hits from romance readers reviewed it again, nearly four years after its release. And nobody in North America could buy the book when it should have been available.

When those two books disappeared from sale, Berkley wasn’t motivated to fix the problem. I, on the other hand, was fielding emails from readers who’d heard about the books and could not get them, and there was nothing I could do. My agent and I had already made multiple requests to get the books back on sale.

To everyone in  North America who wondered why there was no eBook and practically no print availability, this is why. I’m sorry for the long wait and the silence, but once I decided I was done with the situation, I was worried that Berkley would (at last) notice what had happened.

Scandal and Indiscreet are both good books. Really good books. If you like angsty books, then hey, I’m your gal. And at last, if you’re in North America, you can get the books for $4.99 US.

Here are the links I have so far for Scandal:

Here are the links for Indiscreet:

I’m not sure why Kobo hasn’t managed to get the books on sale yet. Hopefully soon. Google Play and Print versions will be coming shortly.

Posted in Former Riskies, Writing | Tagged , , | 10 Replies