Though my work has been published for years, with the imminent release of Photo Finish, the first book of my Teach Him Tonight series, I feel like a publishing virgin. This is my very first step into independent publishing, and I’m excited and nervous and far from being my usual blasé multi-published author self.

Independent publishing means taking charge of the whole enchilada. Writing the book is enough of a challenge, or at least that’s what I always thought. But as the indie pub I’m also arranging for edits and cover and promo—and then there’s the grand adventure of whipping the book into the correct format for each of the various platforms.

Luckily there’s a lot of information available and other writers are hugely generous about sharing their expertise. There’s a great community feeling of exploring a brand new frontier—shaping it and growing it as you go.

In addition to beta readers and generous friends, I have to give a great big shout out to my wonderful, techno-geek DH Lee, without whom I’d be so far up the creek that ten paddles wouldn’t help. Lee’s been slaving over the computer and confusing directives to bring Photo Finish: Teach Him Tonight, Book #1 to the light of day.

Here’s the blurb Team Photo Finish cobbled together:
———————————————————————————————————     Ambitious attorney Cassandra Harrell is primed to battle her hot, hunky opposing counsel Alex DeLuca—a.k.a. Alexander the Great—in the courtroom. Though she fantasizes about getting him into her bedroom, she’s determined to avoid this bad boy distraction and focus on her career.

Alex spots the author photo on the back cover of a steamy romance and recognizes Cassandra. Who knew the desirable but icy lawyer had such a fascinating sensuous side? When he teases her about the book at a deposition, she furiously denies any connection.

Her sister wrote the book and, for a prank, used Cassandra’s photo. Outraged at Alex for embarrassing her in front of clients, Cassandra plots a revenge lesson. This teacher comes out on top until her student raises the stakes—and the heat.

———————————————————————————————————
As I write, it’s just become available on Amazon for the Kindle! We’ll be sending Photo Finish to the other platforms as soon as we can catch our collective breaths.

For up-to-minute info on all my writings, please check www.MardiBallou.com.

Thanks so much! —Mardi

So, as of right now, I have two projects out in the ether and I am waiting to receive wonderful news of acceptance from my various editors. In the meantime though, I don’t quite know what to do with myself. I’ve never been very good at waiting. I need something productive, distracting, and most importantly, time consuming to do until my inbox chimes. I suppose I could…

Clean the House

I tried this one yesterday but it didn’t work out so well. Cleaning is a lot of work.

Chill Out and Watch a Movie

Unfortunately, I’ve already seen everything Hugh Jackman is in. I guess I could watch that bucket scene again though.

Write Something Else

Of course this is the obvious answer, but I find it hard to concentrate when I am checking my email 57 times a minute.

What do you do when you are waiting to hear about your submissions?

It’s March, which in some parts of the world is the month of St. Patrick’s Day. One thing often associated with the day is four-leaf clovers, which are supposed to bring good luck. So when I was trying to think of a topic for this month’s post, that’s what I came up with.

I don’t know if I believe in luck. Some people say authors like J.K. Rowling and Stephanie Meyer are lucky because their books have generated so much buzz–and so much money. I’ve seen authors in romancelandia leaping over me to become best-sellers for their publishers or even on Amazon and other third-party sites, while I plod along in “Karenna-who?” territory even now, three years after my first published romance and after a total of 19 stand-alone romances, plus a couple of freebies and a few stories in anthologies. Are those authors lucky?

They are successful, depending on your definition of success. I don’t know if they’re lucky. There are a lot of factors involved in making a name for oneself in this business. Those authors who are leap-frogging me are strong at promoting themselves. They’re very social, and I see them all over the internet talking to other authors and to readers. They put money into their promotions, including offering large prizes such as hundred-dollar gift cards for contests. They form connections with other authors who cross-promote them. They get reviews and do interviews and guest spots on all the biggest romance sites. And most of them write good books. (I have seen some who have reached a level of success that I drool over despite having poorly-written or poorly-edited books, but I won’t get into that. And I won’t name any names.)

Does that mean I don’t write good books? I don’t think so. My editors certainly don’t seem to think so, or I wouldn’t have had the number of books published that I have in the past three years. (I’m exclusively published by publishers; I haven’t self-pubbed anything at this point, though I may be doing so in the future with a couple of books I’ve gotten rights back on.) I’ve had reviewers and readers praise my books; I’ve also had reviewers and readers pan them. But the positive reviews and comments outweigh the negative.

However, I recognize that I’m not as good at promotion as those authors who are making the money. I’m a shy person by nature, and it’s difficult for me to put myself out there. I tend to find two or three groups and stick to them because they’re comfortable, rather than popping in and out of dozens of groups. I was brought up never to ask for anything, so requesting reviews and/or guest spots is something I’m still getting the hang of doing.

I believe that success, however one measures it, is the result of hard work and belief in oneself and one’s product. In other words, in my opinion, we all create our own luck.

Nearly four years into our relationship, my girlfriend and I still go on dates. Big dates, little dates, fancy dates, simple dates… it’s wonderful.

It just occurred to me that this will be my last post before 2011 draws
to a close, so I decided to take a look back at some of the things that have
happened in my writing life this year.

At the beginning of 2011, I had six romances, plus two short stories in
anthologies and two freebies, that had been published. I also had two young
adult novels published (the YA is under a different name). During the fall of
2010, I had gotten revise/resubmit requests on several books, and by January or
February of 2011, I’d done all the suggested revisions and had resubmitted all
the manuscripts. I had no idea whether I would end up with contracts or not.

At the beginning of 2011, my romances had been published by Excessica,
Noble Romance, Siren Publishing, and Pink Petal Books, and my young adult by
Jupiter Gardens Press. I had submitted to MLR Press, Passion in Print,
and—holding my breath and hoping my friend who recommended it was
right—Ellora’s Cave. The latter was the one I figured I was least likely to get
into. All three of those publishers sent me revise/resubmits, along with
Featherweight Press, where I had submitted a young adult novel.

I was accepted by Ellora’s Cave. And by MLR, Passion in Print, and
Featherweight.

In 2011, the rights on my first two romances, both from Excessica, were
reverted to me. Those stories sit on my hard drive currently, awaiting my
decision on what I’m going to do with them.

Since January, I’ve had another short story published in an anthology,
along with 10 stand-alone romances published. That number will go up to 11 on
December 26, when my MLR Press Christmas story “Tofurkey and Yams” is released.
I’ve also had 6 more young adult novels published.

I did a lot of promoting, a lot of guest blog posts and interviews, and
even traveled to Philadelphia to attend the Authors After Dark conference,
which was my first con and was a lot of fun.

It occurred to me in the midst of all that that I was probably doing too
much. I barely had time to promote each book as it was released, and I was
getting tired of seeing my names out there and had a feeling readers might too.

I’ve made some decisions during 2011, and some decisions were made about
me, that will change my writing life even more in 2012. In addition to working
with the publishers I name above, I’ll have releases from Cleis Press (a short
story in one of their anthologies) and MuseItUp Publishing (under my young
adult name) during 2012. I have a couple projects under submission at other
places, and a couple ideas that might lead to even bigger things.

Mostly, though, what I’ve learned in 2011 is that writing is a business,
but for me it needs to be a fun one. When I try too hard to do too much,
writing becomes work, and that defeats my entire purpose of doing it. So for
2012, the plan is to enjoy writing, celebrate my contracts and releases, and
take time to have fun with it all.

I don’t know what kind of excuses I can make for myself. Unsettled? Unsatisfied? Ants in the pants? Always wanting more, more, more?

Lately, I’ve been looking at new publishers. In fact, I’ve gone beyond looking and I’ve actually submitted to a few. Why do it? I already work with quite a few different publishers, and I’m pretty damn fulfilled by what they have to offer. So why stray? Well, I’m pretty prolific, especially with short stories, and I wouldn’t want to overload any one publisher, but that’s just a surface reason.

Bisexual Ballerina Erotica

I guess, ultimately, I like to see what a new publisher has to offer. I like to get in on the ground level and see how things go. With this plan (if it can be called a plan) I’ve had good luck and bad luck. Getting on board with Selena Kitt and eXcessica Publishing was most fortuitous, and I’ve been very happy there. That’s where I’ve placed books like Ondine, Audrey & Lawrence, The Birthday Gift, Future Histories, and other works your run-of-the-mill erotic romance publisher probably wouldn’t have looked at.

I can think of another publishing house, whose name I will politely decline to mention here, I wish I’d never signed with–terrible marketing, the worst distribution I’ve ever encountered, and without a word of a lie, I haven’t earned back the postage it cost me to mail in my contracts on two of the stories I placed there…which was around $2.50 apiece. Not just that, but customers have complained to me about the rude and belligerent “customer service” they’ve received when attempting to purchase from the publisher’s website, and there’s not much I can say because I as an author am treated just as badly. Live and learn.

Most recently, I’ve placed my ebook Goose Girl with New Dawning Bookfair. I was drawn there because I know Dee from eXcessica and I had a manuscript that suited their Twisted Tales line of erotic fairy tale adaptations. All I know so far is that Dee is a brilliant marketing strategist and the editing is superb.

Cougar MMF Menage

Around the same time, I answered a call for submissions at Secret Cravings Publishing. They were seeking Cougar stories, so I wrote Callie and the Hipsters , a MMF menage novella about a woman whose husband leaves her for the young woman he impregnated (I love family drama) and so she hooks up with two of her son’s pansexual polyamorous hipster buddies. I figure I’m enough of a Hipster Doofus (though I probably should have aged out of the club by now) to poke fun at myself.

On my to do list, I’ve got notes to submit to other new or new-to-me publishers, but it becomes a dance of submit-what-where? You’re taking a chance, submitting your work into hands you don’t yet know, but the pay-off can be great. On the flip side, you could end up with feeble sales and asshole associates. Beyond consulting Piers Anthony’s site, and preditors & editors, and others, it’s really hard to know what you’re getting yourself into, particularly when the company is a start-up and nobody has much experience with them yet.

So, authors, how do you feel about submitting to start-ups? Are you afraid they’re going to crash and burn? Or do you figure an older publisher could screw you over just as badly (as we’ve seen a few I won’t mention do to their authors lately)?

Give me feedback. Tell me what you think!
Hugs,
Giselle

–
Giselle Renarde
Canada just got hotter!

Visit me online

http://donutsdesires.blogspot.com

http://www.wix.com/gisellerenarde/erotica

http://twitter.com/GiselleRenarde

How full is that pot of gold at the end of your rainbow? Are you a glass half-empty person, or half full?

I’ve considered myself a cynical realist in my middle years. I’ve pared life down to what makes me happy and apparently pared my dreams down to what I think I can attain. But I hadn’t realized how much a half-full person I remained until reading a Q&A about digital publishing with Maya Banks.

Now, I have to qualify this all by saying I’m a huge Maya Banks fan, to the point of her early books influencing what I chose to write. She’s probably among my top ten favorite authors, which is curious since I prefer historical romance and the books I really love of Maya’s are her contemporaries. But her stories stay with me so long after I put them down.

The Q&A is making the round of author loops I’m on, and one of the first things mentioned by my fellow authors is Maya’s income. As in $600k last year and more expected this year. Not a bad living for a writer, that’s for sure.

What surprised me was the reactions of my fellow authors. Comments ranging from how they’ll never write as many books in a year as she does, never sell as many, etc., to concerns that the big name authors will hog sales from Indie authors, if they all decide to self-publish.

I looked at her numbers, compared to my numbers and calculated where I can expect mine to grow in the next few years. I don’t have her following, and I would never claim to have that special magic her books do. I don’t honestly expect to make $600k at any time in the near future, even when my number of books released equals hers. If I do suddenly find a niche and sales blossom, that’ll be awesome, but like I said, I’m a realist.

Ebook sales are on a steady climb. There isn’t a cap on the number of book sales possible at any given time. Well-known authors doing well in digital publishing doesn’t diminish the pot for the rest of us. If anything, it increases the hunger in readers.

If a reader buys a Kindle to read Maya, or Nora, or Lori, or Mary Jo, they will keep shopping when they’ve run out of books by the authors they know. They’ll see all those titles in “Customers also bought–“ and click to learn more. They’ll hear their friends mention a good book and try it.

I plan to keep writing as many words a day as possible so my books will be available to show up in those slots. As Maya says, the quality of the books and the quantity of backlist titles is what’s key to making a living as a writer. I’m not dreaming of numbers as high as Maya’s, but comparing her rate of growth to my own over the past year has me excited to see what the next year brings.

Is your pot of gold half empty, or half-full? What can you change to give yourself a realistic shot at earning the living you hope to achieve? The readers are out there hungry for books, and they’ll snap up someone else’s if they can’t find yours.

So get writing, and watch that pot fill up!

Demon of Desire is available now! Three scorching hot vampires and one very lucky woman battle a sex-starved demon. How can life be so sexy and so embarrassing at the same time?