roh morgon

~ musings of a moonlight writer

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Now available from Dark Dreams Publishing

The Seduction is the second ’short-short’ paranormal tale from my Monsters in the Machines collection. It’s 1500 words (about 7 pages) and includes an excerpt from Watcher.

The cover is by fellow writer Jeff Ambrose and me (thanks, Jeff!)

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The first time Erica saw the black, low-slung sports car, she felt shock at its sensual pull deep within her soul.

But when she began to succumb to its whispered promises, she didn’t suspect that she might be losing more than her mind.

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The Seduction is available for free in multiple ebook formats from Smashwords.

And I’ll repeat: this is not a true story. No way. Uh-uh.

Well…maybe just a little bit.

My first short story was just published!

I owe a big thanks to my hubby and to fellow writer Jeff Ambrose for their help with the cover.

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The Monster’s Growl

Another boring night at the small-town bar turns interesting for Carly and her friends when a mysterious biker puts his quarter on their pool table.

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This paranormal tale is a ’short-short’ story from my Monsters in the Machines collection. The ebook includes the Prologue and Chapter 1 from Watcher: Book I of The Chosen.

The Monster’s Growl is available from Smashwords as a free download in most ebook formats.

Check it out.

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Well, what do you think?

Does it intrigue you?

Does it make you want to read the back cover to see what the story is about?

Should I put a tagline on the cover, or do the image and the title tell you enough?

Be honest – an artist I’m not, so I appreciate any comment you might have to improve the cover and make it more sellable.

I’ll have another one for you next week (don’t worry –  it won’t be black like the last two!)

Yeah, when I look back on the last month and a half, that’s what it was.

4 out-of-town workshops in 6 weeks.

1 work-related, 3 writerly.

Covered six states: Nevada, Arizona, Utah, Oregon, and Washington, as well as the Central Coast of California (I live in the middle of the state, several hours away).

Drove 3,500 miles in that time and logged over 65 hours behind the wheel. Loved every minute of it.

As for the writerly workshops themselves? Absolutely awesome.

The first one, June 6-11 in St. George, Utah, was the Professional Writers Workshop with sci-fi/fantasy writer David Farland. This workshop emphasized craft and storytelling and was phenomenal.

The second two were in Lincoln City, Oregon and given by Dean Wesley Smith (who’s also written a ton of sci-fi/fantasy). July 9-12 covered Pitches and Blurbs, and July 14-17 was on Self-Publishing. We had a 1-day break between them, so I drove to Portland and picked up my hubby from the airport, then we did a little bit of touristy stuff.

Was it worth it? The money? The time? The wear-and-tear on my car and on my ass?

Hell, yeah.

Those three workshops have given my budding writing career a shot of adrenaline that will propel me light-years ahead of where I was two months ago.

I’ll tell you all about them in my next several posts.

Stay tuned…

e-Watch is on break while I’m attending David Farland’s Professional Writers Workshop.

We’ll return next week and catch everyone up on the latest in the publishing world.

Thanks!

Once again there’s enough happening this week in the publishing world to warrant a second post. Here’s the e-Watch Wrap-up for the week of May 23:

Amazon as publisher

• From FUTUReBOOKS: Amazon seeking print partners

The Rise of e-Books

• Robin Sullivan at Write to Publish put together some interesting figures on rising e-book sales
• e-Book Sales on Apple iPhone, iPad, iPod Touch: A 73-Second Seminar by Joel Friedlander
• The new Nook by Kevin McLaughlin

Self-Publishing: The Top Ten

• From Publetariat: 10 things you need to know about self-publishing
• From The Book Designer: Top 10 best guides for e-book authors

More on Self-Publishing

• From Self-Publishing Review: Books and Their Legs: A SelfPub Experience by Tom Lichtenberg
• Nathan Bransford guest blogger  Tracy Marchini posts on The Real Skinny About Indie Publishing

The Supernatural Reigns

• From the Wall Street Journal: Season of the Supernatural

Writers Beware

• Dean Wesley Smith  points out a couple of must-read articles by J.D. Sawyer and The Passive Guy warning of the traps evolving in publishing contracts
• Surviving the Transition, Part 1 and Part 2 by Kristine Katherine Rusch

Have a great Memorial Weekend!

Things have been a little quieter this week in the publishing world. The biggest news revolves around Amazon’s continued expansion into publishing, along with the release of not one, but two new e-Readers.

Amazon As Publisher

• Amazon signs Larry Kirshbaum, former CEO of Time Warner Publishing (now Hachette Book Group)   by Mike Shatzkin
• From FUTUReBOOK:  Amazon’s new image
• Barry Eisler inks deal with Amazon’s new Thomas & Mercer imprint
• Agent Janet Reid’s take on the deal

Other News

• More from FUTUReBOOK: New Publishing – getting there first
• From PR Newswire: Textbook Rentals – an idea long past due
• From Publetariat: Readers as the new gatekeepers by Alan Baxter
• Book Pirates by Lindsay Buroker at E-book Endeavors

E-Reader Wars

• The Kindle gets cheaper by The Motley Fool
• From Buzzom: Nook vs. Kindle vs. Kobo

The Last Word

• Books: an endangered species? by The Passive Guy

 That’s it for this week. Let me know if you have anything to add!

Enough news has already accumulated in my files this week to warrant a special Friday edition of e-Watch. Without further ado, here’s the Weekly e-Watch Wrap-up:

The Battleground Expands

• From FUTUReBOOK: Publishers vs. Agents

Fast Times at Publishing High

• The Publishing World As We Know It by Passive Guy
• From Self-Publishing Review: Will the backlist end big publishing?

Sink or Swim: It’s All About Survival

• Swimming Lessons for House Slaves: You Will Get Wet by Michael Stackpole
• Surviving the Transition by Kristine Kathryn Rusch
• Joe Konrath speaks out on Amazon’s new imprint and booksellers

More Publishing News

• Amazon now selling more e-books than print (softcover and hardcover combined)
• Understanding Amazon’s e-book marketshare
• Amazon adding e-Pub format to its established MOBI
• Barnes & Noble: introducing new e-reader
• Barnes & Noble: potential buyer for chain
• Library gets with the times

The Last Word

Why you won’t succeed in self-pubbing by Joe Konrath
 

 That’s it for today, folks!  Have a good weekend!

Publishing This Week

I’d like to start this week’s e-Watch with yesterday’s FUTUReBOOK article by by Jürgen Snoeren on the changing nature of publishing.  This is a great recap of some of the events I’ve been reading (and mentioning in this blog). 

More evidence of the ongoing changes: there is a new digital distributor on the block, and folks, I think this is going to be BIG.  The name of the company is Enthrill Entertainment Inc. and they’ve come up with a hell of a new distribution model for e-books.

I watched the Enthrill e-book Distribution video on this yesterday and immediately emailed it to my marketing team. Snoeren mentions it in his article as well – I encourage my readers to take the time to check this out, because I believe it will be an integral component in the future of publishing.

Other interesting publishing news

Donnelly POD joins w/ Harper Collins = faster time to print

Agents as publishers:

• another excellent FUTUReBOOK article by Jürgen Snoeren examines agent Ed Victor’s move into publishing
• Bookseller talks about more agents (as in Curtis Brown and Blake Friedman) joining the game

Amazon as publisher:

• Hot off the press from Amazon: New mystery/thriller imprint
• From April Hamilton at Publetariat:  Amazon accused of  trying to wreck the publishing trade

Another interesting observation on the happenings in the pub world was made by Anne R. Allen in her article  Is the E-book the New Query?

The Bay Area Independent Publishers Association (BAIPA) recently featured Mark Coker, founder of Smashwords. An article covering the event, written by Joel Friedlander, focuses on indie and e-publishing. It’s appropriately subtitled Indie Revolution in Full Swing.

Considering the tumultuous times the publishing industry is in right now, writers need to be very careful about their next moves.

Personally, I’ve reached a point where I’d rather fall on my face self-publishing than risk signing a contract that will lock me into an antiquated royalty system and a brick-and-mortar distribution model that may completely implode before my book can even reach print.

Writers Beware

On that note, I’m starting a new series that will be featured as part of the e-Watch. I’m calling it Writers Beware. Here’s a few articles to start it out:

• The Publetariat - A Plethora of (Terrible) New Alternatives To Going Indie
• Kristine Kathryn Rusch (she’s the writer who exposed the royalty statement debacle that recently rocked the writing world) – The Business Rusch: Writing Like It’s 1999
• Dean Wesley Smith – Writers Are Losing The Fight Again

Let The Games Begin

Michael Stackpole used an interesting analogy in his article on the traditional vs. indie camps. The name of the piece gives a good hint on which side he’s on. It’s called House Slaves vs. Spartacus.

Kevin McLaughlin also looked at this issue in Begun, the publishing war has…

Indie Resources

Here are a couple cool articles on piracy: Piracy is good and Let’s squeeze the life out of book pirates

And, as a wrap-up for today’s e_Watch, April Hamilton over at Publetariat posted a great Self-Publishing Resource Roundup. You should check it out.

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That’s it for today. As you can see, a lot is happening, and it’s happening REALLY FAST. 

I’m debating spreading this feature out over two days instead of trying to get everything into one. What do you think? Do you like it? Is there something you’d like added?

Let me know…

Today is the inaugural edition of Wednesday’s e-Watch and it’s packed with info for anyone interested in the status of indie and e-publishing.

In fact, you might feel a little overwhelmed with everything listed here. I do, because, with the exception of the final item at the bottom of this post, everything below happened in the space of ONE WEEK.

So far this week:

Joe Konrath’s post yesterday was another eye-opener in a long string of eye-openers. The first part included a guest post by indie author Scott Sigler. Scott shared his story of how he became a top-selling indie author and the marketing methods he used to build a devoted fan base.

Joe wrapped up Scott’s post with some astonishing sales facts: currently, the Number 1 e-book in Amazon’s horror category is Scott Sigler’s newly-released Blood is Red. Positions 2 and 3 are Run by Blake Crouch and Trapped by Jack Kilborn, both indie authors. In fact, Joe said that the top eight horror bestsellers are indie – and are outselling King, Koontz, and Harris.

Now that’s something.

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Another well-known indie author made news of her own. Most of you have heard by now about indie author Amanda Hocking’s phenomenal success with her self-published books (900,000 books sold in ten months). She made the headlines again when she inked a four-book deal for a new series with St. Martins Press for $2 million dollars.

Well, last week she did it yet again. Amanda made a three-book deal with St. Martins Press for her Trylle Trilogy, a series she already published herself.

Big publisher buys previously self-published series. Thought they didn’t do that.

Looks like the rules of the game are a’changing.

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Last week’s news:

Wednesday was a big day for announcements in the publishing world.

From Smashwords.com: Smashwords books are coming to an app store near you.Today we announced an agreement with ScrollMotion that will transform over 33,000 Smashwords Premium Catalog ebooks into individual mobile apps for distribution to the largest app marketplaces for smart phones, tablets and other mobile devices.

The relationship will gain Smashwords authors and publishers free entry into the app marketplaces for Apple, Android, Windows Phone 7 and WebOS.

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Wednesday’s press release from Lulu.com might be of additional interest to those who are planning to self-publish.

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Also on Wednesday, The Wall Street Journal’s Market Watch published a press release from Amazon announcing their latest imprint, Montlake Romance.

Is Amazon moving in the direction of becoming a publishing house?

The question becomes more interesting. Read on.

Friday’s news contained an announcement about Bookish.com, a new book recommendation service backed by Hachette, Penguin (USA), and Simon & Schuster.

As in, Three out of the Big Six publishing houses have formed an alliance.

This alliance includes partnering with AOL Huffington Post Media Group. According to PR Newswire, Bookish will feature exclusive content, sell physical and digital books, and provide social networking.

Sounds like Amazon meets Facebook, right?

Is this an attempt to pool resources to better position themselves against the other Three? Against Amazon?

You can read more about this here and here, and draw your own conclusions.

In fact, Mike Shatzkin has an interesting post from May 8 that examines the mad scrambling taking place by anyone and everyone who’s a big name in publishing. Check it out on his blog, The Shatzkin Files.

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I was introduced to science fiction and fantasy by my dad. He signed me up for the Science Fiction Book Club when I was about twelve, which pretty much changed my life, as I’m sure it did for a lot of other readers and writers of the genre. I haven’t thought or heard about book clubs in years (other than Oprah’s), so when I saw an article on subscription e-books from The Shatzkin Files, I thought I’d pass it along.

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This March 23 post on if:book, A Project of The Institute for the Future of the Book was from Kim White and, ladies and gentlemen, I hate to tell you, but this is where we’re headed: shift happened

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Phew! It’s hard to believe that (except for the last item), all of the above events happened in ONE WEEK!

ONE WEEK!

And I only included the major stuff.

If I missed anything, or you’d like to add to the list, let me know. Include it in your comments and I’ll cover it in a subsequent post.

Remember, even though writing is a solitary art, getting published takes a team. Be part of the team. Help us stay current on the latest events so that we as writers can not only survive these topsy-turvy times, but actually thrive and maybe even come out on top.

Let me know what you think.