Juno Books

B&N’s Paul Goat Allen’s Best Paranormal Fantasy Releases of 2009 list Stacia Kane’s DEMON INSIDE a #8!

Huntress Reviews:

The third installment of the Blood Lines series has finally been released! This time I was not on the edge of my seat as danger surrounded Keira. Instead, the story is full of politics. I must admit to being disappointed at the lack of physical danger. However, for those following the series this story is vital. Book three reveals many twists, surprises, and strengthens the foundation on which the heir plot will grow in future stories.

Along with doing several other publishing-related jobs in addition to being a more than full time book editor, I review books. In fact, I’m even a member of the National Book Critics Circle (unless my dues have expired). For the last year I haven’t done a lot of reviewing, but I am starting to do so again and editing reviews as well.

More about that another day. I’m just supplying this info as background. The point of this post concerns e-galleys.

First, let me set out my prejudices:

1. I sit here in front of a screen all day. Reading onscreen is “work”.
2. When reading a book for review, I like to relax — as a regular reader would. For me, “relax” isn’t “sitting here where I work all the time”.
3. When reading for review, I often mark up a galley/ARC/book.
4. I also read review books when I go places and have to wait for any reason.
5. No, sillykins, I own no portable e-reading machine of any sort, nor do I imagine I will unless they start handing them out for free. I don’t even have a laptop anymore because the youngest went to college and he needed it.

In general, reviewers are not fond of e-galleys

All this being said there are also very good reasons to welcome an e-version of a book:

• A book that might be published in England and/or is otherwise a high-priced (usually limited edition) hardcover.
• Advance copies of books, especially mass market paperbacks, are quickly becoming a thing of the past — and for good reason. Other than the cost and waste involved, most mmp reviewers seem to want the “real book” and disregard an ARC anyway. But there are still times you need an advance, pre-publication reading (deadlines, advance quotes, interviews, just deciding if you are even interested in consdering a particular book for review, etc.)
• You get it right away.

So, I am not unacquainted with various versions on e-galleys. I’ve always been notified of availability of such by email.

But HarperCollins/Avon did introduce me to something new this week. I got a card– a Symtio card — in the mail along with promotional material for two books: Embrace the Night Eternal and Abandon the Night by Joss Ware. (Okay, there’s at least a name drop for your efforts, folks!) On the back of the card was a scratch strip that revealed a PIN. You go to the proper URL, supply the pin and get your free ebooks. I am warned they are DRM protected and will expire a week before on sale dates. That’s somewhat bothersome, but I also am fairly sure the nice publicity person would, if I requested, be happy to send me a pulp version when it is published.

Today, it is still a novelty. Enough to gain my attention because it is new. The colorful, informative (although, please, could you make the typeface on the the back a teensy bit bigger?) cards might be used promotinally in other ways, too. But they are probably a mite on the pricey side to be handed out like, say, bookmarks.

I was supposed to beta-test NetGalleyfrom both the publisher’s and reviewer’s points of view early on in its development — so early it was time-consuming, bothersome, and I dropped out pretty quickly. (Although I hope I gave their tech people some decent feedback while I was involved.) They are up and running now and I’ve had a couple of e-mail invitations to download e-galleys there. Haven’t yet.

I understand, from news items, that Simon & Schuster–Pocket is an imprint thereof, Juno is an imprint of Pocket–is in beta a similar system. It appears it will be quite awhile before it is the usual way of doing things though.

The card, front and back:

(And, uh, yeah, that one blurb really does say “Zombies May Rule, But Love Always Triumphs.” I bet you were wondering how zombies were getting worked into this )

To celebrate have a free Vampire Sunrise bookmark available to download HERE. The recipe for Delilah’s Vampire Sunset Cocktail is on the back.

Alternative Worlds:

The latest Street Paranormal Investigator thriller combines horror, mystery, romance, and sex into an exhilarating urban fantasy that puts the sin in Sin City. With plenty of twists, VAMPIRE SUNRISE is a roller coaster doing loops with each spin accelerating the ride. Readers will enjoy following the clues, surreal and mundane, as Carole Nelson Douglas lets Midnight Louie catch a cat nap while Delilah does the sleuthing above and under the streets of Las Vegas.

Look what’s #5 (as a pre-order no less) on Fictionwise’s Dark Fantasy Bestsellers. Three Twilight books, mega-seller Sherrilynn Kenyon’s latest and…

– The Twilight Saga: New Moon set a new single day record for opening-day box office, taking in $72.7 million on Friday, according to the Wall Street Journal. With a box office of $140.7 million over the weekend in North America, the second film in the Twilight series came in third all time, not far behind The Dark Knight and Spider-Man 3.

– Details reports that tourism in Forks, Washington is thriving and gives advice to guys whose girlfriends or wives have the hots for a fictional vampire.

– The Daily Beast reports on Twilight fans who tattoo themselves en homage.

– counts The Twilight Saga: New Moon tweets.

– Security firm PC Tools documents a growing number of malware attacks and scams related to the popular book and movie series. The company expects such attacks to increase with the release of the New Moon sequel.

– The Washington Post discovers that “[g]ood, smart, literary women” have been seduced by the Dark SideTwilight Saga.

…and there has to be more bad feature stories on “why are vampires popular?” and variations thereof than any time in the history of the word “media”. (How long is that? Media was first used in 1927 to connote “newspapers, radio, TV, etc.” “Media” is the plural of “medium” which was derived from the Late Latin “medialis” meaning “of the middle”, a variant of the earlier Latin “medius” meaning “middle”.

Carole Nelson Douglas and VAMPIRE SUNRISE Interview & Contest at BITTEN BY BOOKS. Sorry didn’t post sooner, but you still have time to drop by and enter the contest, even though the contest ends on 11/21/09 at 11:59 pm PDT — which is still more than twelve hours!

The German translation rights for Vicious Circle, Hallowed Circle and Fatal Circle (US Pub: July 2010) by Linda Robertson have been sold to Egmont/Lynx.

The fourth book of the Circle series featuring Persephone Alcmedi following Vicious Circle, Hallowed Circle and Fatal Circle (US Pub: July 2010). For publication January 2011.

A couple of days ago I started to write about Harlequin launching a self-publishing unit. Real work got in the way of finishing. In the meantime, many more folks were heard from: SFWA made a statement as has MWA, and yesterday, in response to RWA’s hissy fit, Harlequin announced they were taking the Harlequin brand name off their new Horizons self-publishing unit.

Whatever other folks and organizations felt about Harlequin teaming up with Author Solutions (who has taken over earlier self-publishing companies AuthorHouse, iUniverse, Trafford, Wordclay and Xlibris and has an arrangement similar to Harlequin’s with Christian publisher Thomas Nelson–which evidently caused no noticeable outrage), it wasn’t something I was personally thrilled about. And now calling the horse by a different color doesn’t really change much.

If nothing else, self-publishing is a choice a writer needs to make only after seriously considering it and only if they understand the amount of money they commit may never be recovered. Read the SFWA’s Writer Beware article on he subject for a good idea of what should be considered. The truth is that most self-published books sell very few copies. (Author Solutions’ CEO Kevin Weiss stated in a 2009 New York Times articlethe average sales of titles from any of the company’s brands at around 150. One assumes this includes books sold directly to authors. According to a 2004 NYTimes article, 40% of iUniverse’s books are sold directly to authors.)

All too often impatient and overly optimistic writers feel they will be the exception. They think only of positive outcome.

Your chances of selling a lot of self-published books are slim. If you want to pay the money and take that chance, that’s up to you, I guess. People spend lots of money on hobbies. They never expect to make it back.

And with Harlequin Horizons you won’t even be making much off of being self-published.

As for or being discovered by a “real publisher”, those chances are slim, too. And when the leading publisher of a particular genre — a genre that probably has more aspiring writers than any other — decides to profit from exploiting writers dreams? That’s where the ethical ick comes in. The initial Harlequin Horizons Web content read: “Reach the stars and prove dreams do come true. Titles published through Harlequin Horizons will be monitored for possible pickup by Harlequin’s traditional imprints.”

You are paying to be in a new kind a slushpile. In fact, Harlequin plans to make authors they have rejected aware of their service.

You pay your $600-$1600 to get your book published. You can put lots more into it, of course. There are also “extras” you can add on to basic packages. (Like editing, a $5,400 marketing package, the $4800 trailer with voiceover, etc. You are also going to be paying them for more copies of your book than are provided in most packages.

Oh, yeah, trust me, this is a profitable set-up for both Harlequin and Author Solutions. They not only profit from you paying to be published, they profit from every book you sell.

Of course, my favorite part of this whole scheme is the editorial services. Obviously your material wasn’t good enough to start with, so editing is sure to improve it. Line editing is .035 per word; content editing (”all the features of a Line Edit for grammar, punctuation, word choice, sentence structure, capitalization, and spelling, as well as added focus on restructuring sentences and streamlining your work style”) is .042 per word. Developmental editing is .077 per word. (Whoa! I should be making a LOT mot than I make…)

(Psst! Aspiring Authors! Send me $10,000. I’ll see what I can do for you! No promises, of course.)

If you want more on all this: Author Jackie Kressler brings up a lot of other ethically icky points and provides a summation now that Harlequin has blinked.

Not that this is over.

No matter what an editor ever responds to you, don’t write back with:

Dear Editor - [Blank] is not a teen novel as the most cursory glance at the first page would have disclosed. Sorry your’e [sic] too busy to do your job. We’re all busy but that’s hardly an excuse for incompetence. Try harder.

Yeah, that’s real.

BTW, although I obviously can’t give an example of the material in question, I did read it. It was bleak, gritty, and featured a 14-year-old protagonist. I could have called it a lot of things in my response. I didn’t. I said we didn’t publish teen novels and suggested a look at our guidelines.

I usually ignore such responses. But lately, well, when you get submission after submission from writers who are so far off base from what the guidelines request, when a few take it upon themselves to insult you when they are rejected, or even lecture me about how we are misguided in limiting ourselves by wanting only female protagonists or questioning why we are so stupid as not to want something other than fantasy…

Aargh.

So next time you wonder WHY most editors take only agented or solicited manuscripts: keep this in mind. For all of you nice folks out there who do things the right way, thanks. But the rotten apples and even some of the somewhat innocent ignorance does start wearing you down.

Flamingnet.com:

Blood Bargain is a marvelous story about the love a girl has for her family, town and companion. This story is the sequel to the first book of the Blood Lines Series, Matters of the Blood. There is enough tension and suspense to keep you on the edge of your seat and wanting it to never end. Every turn of the page was something unexpected. The characters kept the story funny and interesting while serious at times to create a fabulous read.

Amberkatze:

There were lots of surprises and revelations in this book and I found myself thinking ‘What can possibly happen next?’. There was a certain wow factor to some of the new information that became available and I had no idea what to expect next. The story twisted, turned and weaved a spell full of magick and paranormal delights. I really can’t wait to see what this series will bring with it next time around.

If you haven’t already tried the Blood Lines series then give it a go. Make sure you start at the beginning though as the story isn’t one you can jump into anywhere. One of my personal favourite aspects of this series is the use of the Welsh language and the ties to my home land, Wales. However the other thing I love is the variety of the paranormal elements inside this series. There is something for everyone and it set in a world worth visiting.

And just because it is Monday and we mentioned booksales in general last week and because people often accuse me of being the doom-and-gloom type, so I like to bring little rays of sunshine just to prove them wrong (not that I’m disregarding the disclaimers here):
PW Daily reports: “Bookstore sales jumped 7.0% in September, to $1.58 billion, the U.S. Census Bureau reported Monday morning. The increase was most likely due to gains at college stores and the release of The Lost Symbol in the middle of the month. Despite the September increase, and an upward revision in the August numbers, bookstore sales through the first nine months of the year were still down, albeit only 0.7%. Sales for the period were $12.52 billion. For the entire retail market, sales were down 6.5% for September and 9.7% for the year to date.”

BTW: Under Census Bureau definitions, bookstore sales are of new books only and do not include “electronic home shopping, mail-order, or direct
sale” or used book sales.

Romance Junkies:

MATTERS OF THE BLOOD is a new twist on the paranormal genre. Rich in paranormal activity, passionate and romantic moments, and a murder to solve is just the icing on the cake. I’m really looking forward to more of how Kiera’s character evolves with book two, BLOOD BARGAIN. If you’re looking for some urban fantasy with a touch of romantic suspense, then pick up MATTERS OF THE BLOOD. Sinfully enjoyable!

Preternatural Reviews:

Keira becomes an even more multi-layered and fun character throughout Blood Bargin….This time though it isn’t the mystery so much, but the conclusion of it and just how everyone fits in that will keep you enthralled. Yet again, as with Matters of the Blood, Blood Bargain has fast paced, take no prisoners action. Blood Bargain grabs you by the throat from the go and doesn’t release it’s grip until you’re done. The fact that it has a cliff hanger of sorts shouldn’t worry anyone since Blood Kin - Blood Lines Bk 3 is out already and takes up directly where Blood Bargain leaves you.

Blood Bargain - Blood Lines Bk 2 receives an Excellent rating of 3.5 out 4 stars and the entire series shouls be on everyone’s Must Read.

• Time Magazine traces the Twilight phenomena with publisher Megan Tingley reminding us that it was THAT big to start with.
• How big is it now? Bella Barbie doll and Edward Ken doll from Mattel. Toys R Us recommends for ages 6 - 10 years. All I want to know is: Where the heck are the Sookie Stackhouse Barbies?
• According to Variety, Ray Bradbury has signed on with White Oak Films to develop a miniseries, “Bradbury Chronicles based on six of his short stories.
• Quirk Books, the folks who brought you, for better or worse and tongues firmly in cheeks, literary mash-up Pride and Prejudice and Zombies has unveiled a Web site dedicated to the Quirk Classics series: www.quirkclassics.com.
• And just so we silly book people get a real perspective on What’s Important in Our Culture: Activision Blizzard Inc. it sold 4.7 million copies of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 , or $310 million of sales, on its first day, setting a new record for the video game industry. Analysts project unit sales of 11 million to 13 million by the end of 2009.

Preternatural Reviews:

…all the best Urban Fantasy/Paranormal Romance I’ve read have a great mystery running through them tying the story together. Matters of the Blood is no exception to that. Plus, it’s a really terrific one… Ms. Lima’s a true talent is weaving subplots throughout Matters of the Blood that will get picked up in subsequent books.

Speaking of her talents, Ms. Lima is also a first rate on at making her her non-human characters completely human with all of our strengths and failings. Doesn’t matter if you’re 37-year-old Keira or her 1200+-year-old brother Tucker. Making both her female and male characters almost vibrate off the page with charm, sensuality and sexuality really makes the story spark as well. This isn’t often for me, but my favourite non-lead character is Keira’s brother Tucker. Either by conscious design or just from him being larger than life, Tucker has a penchant for taking over almost every scene he’s in….Matters of the Blood is a slow starter in the way a good roller coaster is with all the pitches and rolls that comes with it. You may find yourself wanting more of Keira’s back-story at the end of Matters of the Blood, but I believe that’s done by design. You will know that all of the promises and clues that Ms. Lima drops in Matters of the Blood will be picked up again and fulfilled in subsequent novels.

All in all Maria Lima makes me break two of my longest standing rules since I’ve started this blog: I never give a first time author nor do I give the first in a series 4 stars. Matters of the Blood joyfully reminded me that rules are meant to be broken.

Matters of the Blood receives a Classic rating of 4 out of 4 stars from me. This one is a must have and if 9 out of 10 of you do not pick up the second in the Blood Lines saga, Blood Bargin, I’ll be tremendously surprised.

4 stars
Delilah Street is another hard-hitting, lovable series heroine with extremely relatable fears and doubts. Newcomers may find it a bit difficult to acclimate themselves to this story initially, but this tale is sure to please those craving some history mixed in with their paranormal.

4 stars
The third chapter in Lima’s exciting series reveals the Byzantine machinations that have led her heroine to this juncture. It’s just one
revelation after another for Keira Kelly as readers follow her first-person journey. Come join the excitement and thrills of this invigorating series.

I was just talking to people at WFC about how Harlequin — a big publisher that listens to its readers — realized that, at least in the romance genre, e-books had arrived and were leaving the station without them. They then invested a boatload of bucks in delivering their books in electronic form.

Today they announced a digital-only publishing house, Carina Press. that will sell directly though their own site as well as numerous third-party Web sites. “Carina Press will publish a wide range of women’s fiction — romance, erotica, science fiction/fantasy/futuristic, mystery, thrillers, choose your own adventures, horror, thriller and more, including every conceivable subgenre of these categories.” Their submission guidelines calls for both new works as well as “books that have been previously released in print form, but for which the author has either retained digital rights or had digital rights revert to them.” With an expected summer 2010 launch, Carina plans to issue new titles weekly.

No actual numbers, but the FAQ states the contract “does not include an advance or DRM, and authors are compensated with a higher royalty” than Harlequin pays.
Angela James will be Executive Editor. (Excellent choice!)

Oh yeah, and “carina”? Greek mythology reference

Best Fantasy Stories:

Blood Bargain is a great sequel in the new Blood Lines fantasy book series by Maria Lima…. If you like the vampire fantasy genre, then this book is a definite “Next on Your List”. The storyline is wonderfully unpredictable and Maria Lima introduces several different types of supernatural beings which kept me intrigued and entertained. While Adam, Keira’s boyfriend, did not play as big a role in this book as he did in the first one, it didn’t detract from the romantic aspect of the book. Also, there are plenty of interesting characters in this book to keep you captivated and entertained. Definitely take the opportunity to check out Blood Bargain, an engrossing, well constructed sequel by Maria Lima.

Best Fantasy Stories:

This is the first novel in a series called the Blood Lines and it has something to satisfy every type of supernatural fantasy fan. The novel delivers its share of hot vampires with a hot human or two thrown in as well…. The author, Maria Lima, gives us a new approach to the vampire storyline that is fresh, unpredictable and a good read. Since the characters have the ability to become any type of creature, you never know what to expect. And, since Keira doesn’t know what she’ll ‘change’ into, you can’t forsee how she’ll handle her various dilemmas. This makes for exciting plot potential in both this and future novels in the series. Matters Of The Blood is a vampire novel for the vampire novel lover to love. Happy reading! [Also called “awesome” in related review ]

Fresh Fiction:

…an interesting tale full of twists and turns…. Marie Lima takes readers on a ride that they soon won’t forget. Full of magic and action this book keeps you interested until the end. Each of the characters are full of depth and emotions, especially the sibling relationship between Tucker and Keira. This book ends with a bang and has the reader waiting for the next in this series.

Understand this is all conjecture based on my minimal knowledge of chain stores and personal buying experiences, but…

Closing 200 Waldenbooks, Borders Express, and Borders Outlet stores (leaving about 130 open) will hurt, but it may not hurt book sales as much as one might expect. Yes, it will hurt the 1500 or so part-timers who the staffed the stores — especially when there aren’t other jobs to go to these days. And, true, as Simon & Schuster CEO Carolyn Reidy said, “when retail stores close, those stores do not necessarily get replaced” and “that will put some strain on our sales.” (Quoting Publishers Lunch.) But will that strain be permanent?

So how can I guess that the lost of sales of $320 million (which the BGI mall stores generated May 2009-April 2010) not hurt? Barnes & Noble is also closing all but two of the remaining 52 of B. Dalton’s by January– so there’s about $50 million more in lost annual revenue for publishers. How can the loss of $380 million not hurt?

The mall stores carried books for the masses. Popular titles — a typical Walden carried about 13,500 titles compared to 80,000 carried by a Borders superstore. Will those book buyers stop buying books simply because the mall stores are not there? I don’t think so.

Mall stores were at least part of the reason (although far from the only reason) that most newsstands — once the places where the masses served — disappeared. Now the mall stores disappear. Did buyers stop buying books? Nope.

How do I know book buyers still buy? Publishers sold 3.13 billion books last year, compared with 3.1 billion in 2006, an increase of 0.9 percent, according to Book Industry Trends 2008 [1]. Publishers sold 3.08 billion copies in 2008, down 1.5 percent from the previous year, according to Book Industry Trends 2009 [2]. According to Book Industry Trends [from The Book Publishing Industry, 2nd ed. Albert N. Greco (2004)], yearly net unit sales were:
2002 - 2.45 billion
2001 - 2.4 billion
1999 - 2.5 billion (highpoint for years 1989-2002)
1989 - 2.1 billion

I don’t have a comparable figure for 2009, of course, although total books sales are currently projected to decline .5% which, if it proves true, isn’t bad for this recessionary year. [3].

For all the doom and gloom in publishing people are still buying books.

* * *

The last time I actually bought a book in a Waldens or their mall rivals Barnes & Noble’s B. Dalton, I had a child in a stroller. Since my baby is now a sophomore in college, that was some time ago. Although we still have a very nice, updated mall nearby, I’ve avoided it for a long while. I dash into department stores or a specialty store and then leave. Evidently a lot of people do that these days as enclosed shopping malls have been in decline for some time and the current economic climate is quickening their demise.

Borders didn’t arrive close to my home until around 1993. I bought a lot of books — thousands of dollars worth — there until around 2000 or so. After that I still shopped there, but it was very rarely. Barnes and Noble finally opened a store here in 2000, I didn’t set foot in it for several years. I go there now occasionally. My shopping at Borders has dwindled to next to nothing. I can think of only one book — an oversized British “bargain book” that was too good a deal to pass up — I’ve purchased at Borders in the last three years. I’ve bought more than that at B&N. When I finally started going there, I found it a much more pleasant shopping experience with a larger selection.

(Before anyone jumps my case for not supporting local booksellers — there really aren’t any nearby. The closest is a 30 minute drive in a direction I seldom go; there are two Joseph Beth stores 45 minutes away.)

I still buy books. I buy mostly online. I bought my first real e-book the other day (non-fiction: a book I needed for research for an encyclopedia entry I was writing.)

I’m betting lots of book consumers are like me and that $380 million in sales aren’t disappearing.

With the exception of Chris Howard, I THINK none of the authors mentioned below have agents. Just thought I’d mention that.

Nice post on Ecstatic Days today about Matt Cook’s Blood Magic books: Blood Magic and Nights of Sin. I quite agree, the third book should find a publisher.

Juno has other orphans, too…

Note: Since one well-intentioned person already misunderstood this post, let me make some clarifications. As most of you know, Pocket Juno has been from its conception a mass market paperback urban fantasy imprint. I’m thrilled with that.

The original small press version of Juno did a variety of fantasy. We experimented. We evolved. We failed in many ways and succeeded in a few. We may not have been the right publisher for all the books we did do. It is moot now because that Juno no longer exists. I’m very glad it’s “daughter” — Pocket Juno — exists and publishes what it publishes.

Now: Back to the original post…

Dru Pagliassotti’s Clockwork Heart is still finding readers (and making news), has been picked up for German publication. She, too, has another book in the same world underway that I hope finds a home, not to mention another non-Clockwork fantasy. (She does have a nonfiction book coming out on her academic specialty, yaoi.)

Another orphaned series is Margaret Lucke’s Supernatural Properties. House of Whispers was well-summed up by Amanda Killgore for Huntress Reviews: “Like Barbara Michaels, Phyllis Whitney, and Victoria Holt, Ms. Lucke weaves a spell around her readers. Unlike modern urban fantasies, the pacing is very deliberate, taking time to build, rather than running at a perpetual motion machine, with constant action that never lets you take a breath. House of Whispers blends the old and new effectively, efficiently, and no pun intended, hauntingly.”

Margaret’s series premise was also intriguing — her psychic real estate agent keeps running into supernaturally challenged properties. She had books planned in a Victorian mansion in San Francisco that had once been a whorehouse and another at a locale in California wine country. With the right publisher, I think her romantic supernatural suspense would find an audience.

And Lillian Stewart Carl is one of the most underrated and under-published authors working today. Blackness Tower was evocative of Mary Stewart and blended historical mystery with the supernatural. Again, I feel the readers are out there, but…

Jamie Craig’s Chasing Silver not only has a sequel, Touching Silver, I’ve edited it and know there’s a third I haven’t read. The writing team that is Jamie Craig is still writing hot sex in e-books, but the Silver books were also entertaining noirish adventures. Perhaps they will be rediscovered.

Lynn Ceser was hardly discovered to start with. She had two books planned past Apricot Brandy. As I understand it, her tale took on truly epic proportions past that first book.

The just-give-him-a-chance-to-be-prolific Chris Howard has a prequel and all sorts of tales related to his world of Seaborn that deserve to find readers.

Even though Sylvia Kelso’s Riversend, the sequel to Amberlight was (barely) published, there is at least one more book in that series (and, I think, more). Yes, dammit, *I* would like to know what happened to Tellurith, her two husbands, and the rest of the lot! What a terrific world Sylvia built…

Things change. The original small press incarnation of Juno was highly experimental. Publishers do not always find the right readers. Readers do not always find books they might enjoy. I’m sure your mum told you life wasn’t fair. She was right. Of course, she probably also told you that you never know what tomorrow brings. Both are true. Heck, things even turned out fine for our illustrated orphan Cosette in the end…

Somehow the week is already half over?

World Fantasy Con was, as it usually is, a like a very big, very weird family reunion. Maybe that’s why it is still my favorite con.

San Jose had relentlessly beautiful weather (which probably makes wimps and sissies out of all those Californians in the end, but there are disadvantages no matter where you live). And, due to weird airline reservations I spent an extra day there and got to see a good museum (Egyptian) and had to change planes in Las Vegas. (Yes, there are slot machines at the airport. I spent $1. Didn’t win. The end. Gambling is not my vice.)

So, now, of course, I am inundated with Work That Should Be Done Already (or Soon).

Thanks to the 1000+ of you who downloaded “Scary Fairies” last month. (Hope you enjoyed!)

I did get the entry page updated.

A couple of updates:

STACIA KANE is featured on Amberkatze’s Blog
and
LORI DEVOTI is featured on Silk and Shadows