RITA ® Award-Winning Author of Fantasy Romance
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From Jody Wallace:
Snippet Saturday is the brainchild of author Lauren Dane, wherein a group of authors select thematic excerpts from their work and share them on Saturday mornings. This Saturday’s snippet is author’s choice. I thought I’d share a “cat-themed” snippet from an author friend, Jeffe Kennedy!
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This is from the Southwest Book Fiesta over the weekend. The fun and frisky Katie Lane, who writes hometown contemporary cowboy, helped me work the booth. We had a grand time.
So, yesterday was Ruby‘s release day. Whee! People asked me if I had a good day and I did. But it’s also kind of like spending a day at the amusement park – by the end of it you’re worn out, your cheeks hurt from overused smile muscles and if you have to face one more review – even a merry one with five stars and painted horses – you think you might just bury yourself in the cotton candy cart.
Yes, it’s fun, but also comforting to get back to normal life, with no clowns or roller-coasters.
So a few late-breaking fun things happened. One, I found out that the Library Journal reviewed Ruby!
Verdict The third book in Kennedy’s “Facets of Passion” series (after Sapphire) is a hot and sensual read. Dani and Bobby lead each other on a sexy chase through nights of kinky sex, dominance, and submission, and the New Orleans setting lends a steady heat to the story.—Kristi Chadwick, Emily Williston Memorial Lib., Easthampton, MA.
I haven’t had a Library Journal review since Wyoming Trucks, so I was quite giddy about this. As a longtime lover of all things libraryish, this felt especially gratifying. I’m also excited to be reaching a new audience.
Late in the day, I saw a tweet that the Audible version of Ruby was available. It’s narrated by Sasha Dunbrooke, who did such a great job with Rogue’s Pawn and appears to be now the Official Voice of Jeffe. I loved the work she did on Rogue’s Pawn so much that I even tried to contact her through Audible. They implied that she uses a pseudonym and that she would reply to me if she wished to, which she apparently didn’t. So I feel quite sure that she is a Famous Actress who is recording audio books on the side while she recovers from that horrific Botox accident.
The funny thing is, nobody told me that Audible was producing an audiobook of Ruby. They’d told me they were doing Platinum, which never happened. I suspect that Sasha was unavailable – probably filming a sequel to The Hobbit while wearing an Orc mask.
So, the carnival continues today. The lovely and ever-enthusiastic Amy Remus is hosting a giveaway for Ruby if you want to comment and win!
If you need me, check the cotton candy cart.
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I was all giddy to see the cover for Platinum on the Carina Press banner at the RT Convention. I go home tomorrow, fortunately – running out of steam!
Today the lovely Jody Wallace is hosting me on her blog with a snippet from Ruby, coming out May 13. Stop by for a sneak peek!
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I have this sentimental love for Easter lilies. Especially at this time of year. Though I don’t really do anything else Easter, I always buy an Easter lily.
Back cover copy for books is a funny realm. Referred to casually as the “BCC” in the publishing biz, those are the (usually) two paragraphs on the back of paper books, or accompanying the description with the eBook. If you’re much of a reader, you’ve probably read hundreds of these in your life. You spot the book on the shelf and pick it up. Maybe you like the author or the title intrigues you or the cover catches your eye. What’s the next thing you do? That’s right – flip it over and read the BCC. Then you might read the inside jacket copy, which is longer. Then maybe the first page. Same essential process with an eBook.
So the BCC is considered crucial in the buying decision – a position that’s hard to argue with. And, like with covers, authors only get so much input into what the BCC says. The marketing people keep a firm grip on this and it can be fascinating to see how they phrase concepts to entice readers. For example, this is my final BCC for Platinum.
Althea Grant is doing fine. Sure, her Charleston gallery is suffering from the bad economy, and her artistic aspirations have gone nowhere. But she’s happy enough. When rugged metal sculptor Steel rides up on his motorcycle looking to rent studio space, his infusion of cash is more than welcome. But his art is raw, visceral, sexual-and completely inappropriate for her pastel world of watercolor landscapes.
Steel, fascinated by Althea’s rare albino coloring, sees in her the key to his next piece: a metal satyr that can be used for bondage games. Moving into her gallery basement is the first step; seducing the coolly polite lady into modeling for him is the second.
As Steel peels away her careful manners and tasteful outfits, Althea begins to realize her life isn’t just fine at all-it’s as pale and washed-out as the watercolor paintings she’s failing to sell. Can she transform her life and accept her most secret desires?
What happens is, a person who works for Carina writes the BCC and sends it to me and my editor for input. We come up with all sorts of changes, most of which they refuse. For example, we suggested “cool Southern Belle” instead of “coolly polite lady.” Nope. I wanted to call Steel a bad boy. No dice. But the thing we really fought for was to change the final line. The one you see now is one of three possibilities we suggested.
Because what they had originally was a TOTAL SPOILER.
Really.
I won’t tell you what it was because, um, it was a total spoiler. But it essentially went “Can she do the thing she does at the end to solve her problems?”
No no no.
Surprisingly, this happens A LOT with BCC. It’s funny because writers really have to learn to say how their stories end, in dealing with the publication process. When you write a synopsis, you *have* to say how it ends. Because it’s crucial to the decision-making process for agents and editors. It’s hard to get over, this “giving-away” of the ending. Like learning to get over standing there naked while a tailor measures you for clothes. But this is how publishing works – and the people in publishing get so inured to this, that they forget not to give the ending away.
So, as the author (or editor), it’s something to really stay on top of.
I saw a new permutation of this the other day. A book had been on my Kindle for quite a while. Along with Carien at Pearls Cast Before a McPig, I’ve bee engaged in the TBR Orphan Project – where each month we read a book that’s been in our To Be Read pile for longer than three months. I saw that the book’s sequel was coming out soon, so I thought, ooh! good timing to read the first book.
I started it, got about 20% in and was liking it fine, not love love love, but just fine. Then I happened to see the BCC for the second book.
And it totally ruined it for me.
No lie.
The BCC for book 2 totally gave away the ending of book 1. Blatantly. Along the lines of “now that these terrible things happened to the heroine and now that the hero hates her and is struggle to recover from these terrible things…” I stopped reading book 1 immediately. Deleted it from my Kindle. I couldn’t keep reading, knowing how it turned out.
Now, you could argue that if I’d known it would have a happy ending, I might have kept going. Maybe? It depends on how how it was described. But this BCC was so explicit that it removed too much mystery from the story.
I don’t know if the author realized, or if she and her editor fought to change it and couldn’t. But wow.
Definitely something to keep in mind.
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This is the full moon rising over Buffalo, Wyoming – seen from our hotel room. Not fabulous resolution, but decent for taken through the window with my phone.
Since it’s release week for Platinum, I’m in a few places today. There’s a post up at Harlequin on my Top Ten Reasons to Love a Dom Hero. I’m also at the Carina blog, talking about the fun research I did for this book.
If you don’t feel like you already know everything you could possibly want to know about me already, stop on by!
Also, just to be a little braggity, I have to show you all this. Yesterday, Platinum was #1 on Carina and Sapphire was #5. There’s MY 15 minutes!!
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Okay, so….
PLATINUM is out in the world!!!
I know, I know – you know already. But, just THINK – this post means I won’t talk about it anymore!
(Well, pretty much. You know how I am. I might have to refer back to it. And what if there’s an AWARD or something?? Still, for now, this pretty much wraps up this particular book’s debut. She has her dress and her escort. I fully expect her to stay out partying for a LONG time.)
I mentioned last week that we were traveling up to northern Wyoming to visit family. Yes, it’s cold here, with snow and blizzards and so forth. I’ve lost all my Wyoming tough and I don’t miss it. But it’s been a good visit and we’re glad we came. Seeing my father-in-law struggle with his health and fighting the pain meds to string a few thoughts together really brings home how dependent we are on these fragile bodies.
All these things we want to do – books that we want to write or read, places to visit, even bathroom remodeling fantasies – they all depend on the flesh holding out. It makes feeling like I don’t have enough time to write seem pretty silly. We always go through this, the “remember the small blessings” bit, but it’s easy to forget, in the hubub and tumble of all the juggling.
Being thankful here.
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I’m in several places today, what with Platinum coming out tomorrow. Magical Musings has a lovely review here. I’m talking about sex magic over at the Here Be Magic blog. And at Word Whores, today is the first day of our serial story, Six Thieves and a Ringer.
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Jackson loves to do everything I do – including laundry. If only I could train him to do it by himself…
I did the laundry yesterday because today we’re hitting the road to visit a sick family member. These things take precedence, of course, but it throws my careful schedule all to hell. With Platinum coming out on Monday, I have all sorts of extra promo tasks on top of my usual writing/day job/keeping the household going in a reasonable fashion tasks.
I’m not the first person to liken this kind of balance to juggling. The point is to keep all the balls in the air. Dropping a ball is a failure.
I’ve realized recently that most of my ideas about juggling are informed by a book I read as a teen, Robert Silverberg’s Lord Valentine’s Castle. I think I’m spoilering nothing when I say that the core of the story is about the rightful heir to the kingdom traveling in disguise with a troupe of carnival performers. He has no useful skills, so they teach him to juggle. The philosophy of juggling infuses the story – and eventually informs his character as a ruler. It’s lovely stuff, about being peaceful and having focus.
And not dropping the balls.
But I think I can get more focused on not dropping balls than the true fun of juggling, which is the interplay of the balls in the air. After all, I’m doing this to create the best life that I can – to serve all the most important things to me – not to be preoccupied with meeting some standard of not-failure.
What this means is, I’m learning to be okay with dropping balls.
I just pick the ones that can be dropped. The dishes? Can wait. The vacuuming? Doesn’t REALLY have to happen today. Getting word count in? Keep that ball in the air and watch it soar, all shining and lovely.
Maybe this approach will inform my character, too. Peaceful and focused sounds like a good place to be.
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The lovely Amy Remus is hosting a giveaway for Platinum over on her review blog today. Stop by and say hi!
//Here’s Jackson figuring out how to walk on the treadmill. Such a smart kitty. This was last week and today he was jumping on and walking beside me as I typed this.
This cat invented monkey-see, monkey-do.
I’ve been thinking about reviews lately. Now that the release date for Platinum is drawing nigh, the number of reviews and Goodreads rankings is going up. I’ve really had to stop reading all of them, because I’ve found that I’m aware of all these readers’ eyes as I’m writing, and not in a good way. I write more slowly than I want to and find myself second-guessing whether someone will pick on this or that. Or if this thing will be a dealbreaker for that reader who hated this other thing. It’s kind of like trying to write in a coffee shop full of people talking loudly about your other books. Even the good chatter is distracting.
Occasionally I’ll read one, so I can retweet it or send it to my website people to post. But I only do that if I know the person gave it 4 or 5 stars.
I know. I’m the pansy my stepfather always exhorted me to not be.
The thing is, the 3-star and and lower reviews stick with you, leaving a bad taste in your mouth. The meanness that can be behind those sentiments (not always, sometimes it’s just a fair “not for me”) works like a poison. Here’s an example of how that works.
I get a lot of spam comments on this blog – like upwards of 30/day. It’s not too bad, because they all go to the spam filter, which is amazingly efficient. I just have to empty it every once in a while. Kind of like purging the septic tank. I used to read through, in case real comments went to spam, but that’s only happened once. (I’m looking at you La Tessa – what HAVE you been up to, girl??) Mostly it’s not worth it. Sometimes I look through a few, just for grins.
There’s one brand that’s really nasty. The intent is clearly to garner attention by standing out. Now that I want to find one, there weren’t any. But they go along the lines of “Clearly you have no idea what you’re talking about. Maybe if you were less sloppy, lazy and stupid, I would have come back to this blog.” What will be funny is that it will be on a post saying, oh, that I signed with my agent or something. I *know* that it has nothing to do with what I wrote, or with anything at all, and it WILL STILL BOTHER ME ANYWAY.
Never ceases to amaze me. So works the human psyche, I suppose.
At any rate, this is the other thing I’m trying to remember – a lower star rating doesn’t mean someone didn’t like the book.
No, really. Because I did this recently. I read Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn. (Actually I listened to it on Audible, for what it’s worth.) There were some things that bothered me here and there – I thought some of the plot was over-contrived, some of the prose struck me as trying too hard. And I really hated the ending. If you’ve read it, I’ll discuss privately, but I won’t spoiler it. When I went to rank it on Goodreads, I nearly gave it 3 stars, but the ending bothered me so much. (For the record, it was not because I wanted a Happy-Ever-After.) But then I thought about how the story had captured me and how truly original and interesting the premise is, so I reluctantly bumped it up to 4 stars.
I’ll tell you what: I’ve recommended that book to more people in the last several months than any book in recent years.
See? My star rating, 3 or 4 or whatever, seems to have nothing to do with my personal word of mouth. Because, even if I think you might not like how it ends, I think you’ll still love reading it.
Chalk one up to experience.