Khyff and Mehfawni

NarrAy, Senth, and the Harbinger

No, this isn’t about time travel, alternate reality (although maybe… hmmm), or bringing someone back to life via CPR. It’s about a book. Writers often think of their books as their children, and if that’s so, then I gave birth to a 108k word eBook yesterday. For the second time with the same book.

Re-releases are when a book goes out of print at publisher A, and you sell the rights to publisher B for a reprint. In my case, I had two books of a planned trilogy at publisher A, and wanted to finally write the third book.

Because publisher B had acquired the rights of “first refusal” or “first look” for any books set in my fictional Tarthian Empire, and those other two books were in the same setting, I had to give them the opportunity to to see book three.

What did that entail? This is where it gets sticky. First, I had to submit the two books to publisher B (Loose Id) to let them decide if they wanted to give the entire trilogy a new home. I also had to provide a brief synopsis of book three. Then, just like in pregnancy, I waited while things developed. Once publisher B said yes, they’d like to offer me a contract for the books, I came to step two.

This meant contacting publisher A and requesting they take the first two books out of print. Since they are ebooks, it was simply a matter of removing files from their server. I had long since passed my contract end date, so there was no issue with honoring contracts. They (Liquid Silver Books) have always been wonderful to work with, and within two weeks after contacting them, they had removed the books and advised their distributors that the books were no longer available.

So far so good. What I discovered was that since the first book had also been available in print, some places still offered the original version with original cover as a used book. That meant that the title was out there as a different version. I scoured the internet (no easy task) and found every place I could where the ebooks had been distributed but had not yet been taken down. The print books which had been offered as used copies turned out to be completely out of my hands. As of today, there are two copies of the original (and shorter) version of the book available at Amazon. The kicker? The seller wants close to $95 apiece for them. While I’m flattered, I doubt they will sell at that price.

During this time, I wrote another book for publisher B that was in a different series, and also edited the first two books they’d contracted to fit their house style, changing a few things such as increasing length on the first, and decreasing it on the second. During one three-week period when two separate manuscripts were due, I spent eighteen hour days working. For a week afterward, I couldn’t even hold the mouse, let alone click it! ^_^

However, book two is now out and I’ve just been told that book one is going into print in October. I’m thrilled that it’s turning out so well. It was a lot of work, but in the end, it was worth it. Even if it does feel like I gave birth twice.

Remember, if you plan to reprint or re-release a book, it’s like giving birth, including the long pregnancy and waiting beforehand. But once they are out there in the world, the pride is even greater the second time.

*****
Links for the new, heavily edited and re-released (and to my mind, much better) versions:

Antonello Brothers 1: At the Mercy of Her Pleasure (a Tarthian Empire Book)
Loose Id http://www.loose-id.com/At-the-Mercy-of-Her-Pleasure.aspx
ISBN 978-1-60737-552-4
Genre: Science Fiction Romance, Erotic Romance, Action Adventure, Younger Hero Older Heroine

Antonello Brothers 2: For Women Only (a Tarthian Empire Book)
Loose Id http://www.loose-id.com/For-Women-Only.aspx
ISBN 978-1-60737-435-0
Genre: Science Fiction Romance, Erotic Romance, Action Adventure, Interracial/Interspecies

You can watch a trailer for each of these books here: http://kayelleallen.com/trailers.html

Someone asked if I collected things. It got me to thinking. I even collect people! Here are some of the things I’ve amassed over the years. And let me add, this is hardly scratching the surface.

I’ve collected:

1. 1 husband, 1 daughter, 2 sons, 1 son-in-law, 1 daughter-in-law, 2 granddaughters, 2 grandsons, and 1 as yet unborn grandson.
2. 3 brightly colored laundry baskets to replace 1 with broken sides, 1 with broken handles, and 1 with a hole in the bottom.
3. 2 sets of flatware (service for 8 each), minus 5 forks (a disastrous picnic I will never forget) and 2 knives (bent when sons were ’sword-fighting’).
4. 2 bent iced tea spoons (hard ice cream)
5. Too many wrinkles to count or think about
6. 7 partially used jars of wrinkle cream. These creams don’t work! — Wait… maybe that’s where the wrinkles come from. Let me go read those labels 1 more time.
7. 3 tubes of lipstick with a little bit left in the bottom, and a few of those tiny paddles used to dig it out with. In a drawer. In another room. Somewhere.
8. 67 spools of thread (in colors I don’t even wear, LOL)
9. 1 worn-out broom
10. 1 worn-out mop
11. Various porcelain sheep and lambs in different poses. 1 had its legs glued back on after they were broken off years ago, when the boys got into a fight in the living room. They put it back together and never said a word. But — they didn’t glue it, so the first time I dusted and picked it up… Imagine my surprise when the legs stayed behind! Imagine the talking to they got! Yeah. Not for breaking something. Life happens. Glass breaks. But for being deceitful.
12. A list of friends’ names in my email address book. Some of these friends I’ve never seen face to face, but they’re as dear to me as sisters.
13. Last but not least, a box full of mismatched socks whose mate the dryer-monster ate. Surely, some day, they’ll show up. Probably as soon as I throw out that box…

So, what kinds of things have you collected over the years?

What is corporate spin? It’s the ability to use vague words in order to cover up a lack of actual facts, or to convey the idea that a bad thing has a good side that overrides objections. Take this line for example: “Moving forward, let’s touch base about leveraging our chances at incentivising folks into purchasing these synergistically utilizable value-added, outside-the-box integrated solutions. They’re low-hanging fruit, people! Let’s put 110 percent into picking them while they’re ripe.” What does that mean? The person who wrote it has no idea either. Click the link for more hilarity on the subject.

The military has its own form of double speak, often using acronyms. When I was in the Navy, I found a book of slang terms and official Navy terms that included common acronyms. The book’s name? NavAbrDic. o_O

Corporate spin may be as insidious as a butcher shop advertising that they’re donating to an animal rights group. What’s wrong with that? If we can’t tell, perhaps we are too used to hearing this kind of speak.

I found a fun site when researching this subject. Here are two examples they provide of the “real meaning” behind some of the finest coporate spin.

Key Enabler
The person that will get all of the credit on a project.

Outside the Box
Creativity. Those that do think outside the box are generally considered rabble-rousers and trouble-makers. While verbally encouraged, your reward for thinking outside the box may be a pink slip party.

Have you ever been to http://despair.com and checked out some of their posters? They are a delight to read, with great lines that motivate through demotivational words.

Here’s one called Motivation. 

This is corporate speak used to change your mind about what is being said. The poster tells you that you are a loser, but makes you think twice about simply accepting that definition. It also makes you laugh. Check out their site for more terrific posters. Fair warning — they’re addictive!

How do we, as writers, avoid double speak and cliches? At the end of the day, when all is said and done, it’s simply a matter of not using the same old thing day in and day out, except in this case, it’s meant in an entirely different way, and for a radically different purpose.

There. How was that?

I hate getting lost. When my kids were small, they’d never let me forget it if I turned down a wrong street. Especially if I managed to somehow circle around and drive down the same street — again, often from the opposite direction. While I was looking around trying to remember where a particular place was, one of my young jokers would say, “Hey! I know this place. We’ve been lost here before!” *snork*

Hubby was no better. No matter how often he drove them to the same friends’ houses, or to Choi Kwon Doh practice, choir rehearsal, or any other place they regularly went he’d miss turns or go the wrong way. The kids would tease him, “Dad, we’re lost here again.”  

For years, we were both afflicted with Cantfindit Syndrome, but back then, we simply didn’t have the awareness to recognize the signs. We took the usual precautions like getting a map (always out of date by the time it was printed due to the constant building and renaming of streets) and of course, we would call for directions. Now, let me pause here and put this kindly to those of you who give directions to people like us. First, we are really not morons. It’s congenital. Some of us come into the world backward and spend the rest of our lives like that. Cantfindit Syndrome turns someone who can take apart the most complicated piece of equipment, fix it, reassemble it, and still be capable of turning a six block trip into a frenzy of steering-wheel bashing, red-in-the-face, screaming monster “Thriller” try-out-wannabe maniacs without all the dancing — and no Michael Jackson music to enjoy it by. Second, no matter how many times you assure us that we “can’t miss it,” — we will. It’s in our genes.

Back when hubby and I had that folding green stuff that you put in a wallet… what was that called? It seems to me it was “M” something. Muh…Mun… oh, I remember! Money! Gosh, it’s been so long since I’ve seen it — I even had the plastic kind that comes in those cute little cards… But I digress.

Back then, in the pre-economy-steps-on-a-banana-peel-days, we bought a GPS for our car because the only fights we ever have (well… almost) were we went somewhere together outside our normal one or two mile radius. For five years, we worked in the same building, and after mastering the tricky backwoods twists and turns (we are Rural with a capital Rur) we would only yell at each other when we were someplace we’ve never been before and couldn’t figure out how to get where we were supposed to be. Why is it that two normal *cough* sane *cough* adults think that screaming at each other from opposite sides of the car will help either of them find a place quicker? It’s that dreaded Cantfindit Syndrome again, I tell you. It’s insidious. I think it’s akin to that syndrome where you go to another room and Cantfigureoutwhy. That’s even scarier in a way because it starts happening right in your own house!

 
 I’d been called for Federal Jury Duty downtown. That alone gets your knees knocking and your palms sweating. I managed a miracle and found it, got into the pay-for-parking lot. The clerk in the judicial building validated my ticket and I spent the next five hours waiting only to be told to go home because I wasn’t needed. The rest of the week, I only had to call in to see if my number was chosen, but it never was. Good thing for me. That first day, I’d had good directions on how to get there.

 

Capitol Building Atlanta Georgia

No one told me how to get out. Because the street I came in was one way, I had to pull out and turn to the right instead. I figured since I was only a block off the freeway, all I had to do was make a left turn at the next corner, then a left at the following corner, and I should be back at the entrance ramp. Oh, how naïve I was! I forgot for a moment this was Atlanta, the city that invented the phrase “just-because-it-makes-sense-don’t-mean-it’s-so.” The next block was also one way – going the wrong way. So I went to the next block. Still wrong. By now, I’ve driven two blocks in rush hour traffic and because I’m not keeping up with all the thrill-seeker drivers downtown, people are starting to honk. And I’m getting nervous. Remember I said I’d been there only five hours – which made it about 2pm; I forgot to mention it’s rush hour from 5am on day one through 1am on day two in downtown, and then miraculously everyone disappears, the buses stop running, the cops cruise slowly through the area, and it’s like a normal town anywhere, except with canyons for streets and more one-way signs than you’ve ever seen in your life.

Let me give you a first-hand scenario of driving in downtown Atlanta without a GPS. The beautiful gold-domed Capitol Building has a lady holding aloft a… a… I have no idea! I was too busy reading street signs to get more than a glimpse. It could have been anything from a peach pie to a hammer and I wouldn’t have noticed. Just a female symbol with one hand in the air holding … an object. No matter what side of the building you face, you still can’t tell. Now, picture driving around downtown trying to keep an eye on traffic, pedestrians who have no idea what a traffic light or crosswalk is for, and the local buses and taxis swooping in and out in front of you. Nuff said. 

I spent an hour trying to figure out which way I had to go to get back to the freeway. I literally saw the lady on the capitol building from every single side. I still have no idea what my route was, and every time I saw a cop, he or she was writing a ticket for someone who looked dangerous enough to commandeer my car and drive off with it, so I kept going. Every time I glanced up at the capitol building, there was that woman from a different angle again. Suddenly I spied a sign reading, “I-75 Exit next left.” Joy filled my heart. I felt the way a rat must when he runs a maze and finally finds the cheese. The exit came up quickly and I zoomed down it. About one car length in I noticed a sign that read “HOV Lane only.”

Now, I’m sorry, but anagrams escape me, so I can’t remember exactly what HOV stands for, but I did know you had to have more than one occupant in your car or you’d get a ticket. People have dressed up their dogs and had them ride in the front seat, used blow-up dolls (I kid you not), and one guy had a cardboard cutout of Spock which he duct-taped to the front seat. I swear I couldn’t make this stuff up. So as I’m gaining speed going down this long curving ramp so I can merge into what I can see is heavy traffic, I’m also looking in the rear view mirror for cops. So far, so good. Then I see him. Right at the bottom, waiting like a fly trap for a stupid fly, and he’s already turned on his lights. I’m thinking about the fact that I’d served jury duty and maybe he’d left me off … when it dawns on me, he’s already pulled someone over! Fast as I could without leaving a jet trail, I sped past him and into traffic. My heart pounded for at least two miles down the road, even though I’d immediately moved to the right and out of the special more-than-one-occupant lane.

GPS has saved my sanity more times than I’d care to admit. I no longer have to hear “We’ve been lost here before,” and hubby and I haven’t screamed at each other in the car since we bought it. Now we scream at the GPS unit. “You moron! How can I turn right when the sign says ‘Road Closed!’” To which it calmly responds, “Recalculating. At your earliest convenience, make a U-turn and return to the intersection.” Technology. Ain’t it grand?

At eighteen, I wrote my first novel. It was 400 pages of rambling that would probably never have seen the light of day, excerpt for the fact that I kept thinking about it. In fact, I thought about it for eighteen years. But that was all I did. Think. I had heard that making it “big” didn’t happen once you were over 40, so at 36 I decided to start trying in earnest. I paid an agent to read my entirely re-written book. Now – a disclaimer here – you should Never Ever pay an agent to read your work, but I didn’t know that then.

It came back with some broad comments about relating to today’s events and not using words the reader wasn’t likely to understand, such as “caff” for caffeine=coffee. It wasn’t till later that I met someone else who had also paid this person and discovered that he knew nothing about writing Science Fiction or how people who read it enjoy being dumped right into the middle of society and have to figure out what’s going on from context. He had turned out to be a scammer, and I was glad I’d dumped most of his comments and used only a few that made true sense.

However, by this time, I was close to 40. Terrified of being over the publishable hill, and fretting I would never make it. One day I was in a store and picked up a Romance book (which at that time, I never read because they were too formulaic). But I noticed the author was gray-haired and not a twenty-something or even a thirty-something. I started grabbing books at random and reading about the authors. All of them were women, averaging between 25 and 60. I remember thinking “Sixty! OMG that is so old!” Remember now, I was still on the going up side of the proverbial hill.

So I decided to look into writing Romance, because the biggest criticism of my SciFi was that it was too “touchy-feely”. I was told that SciFi was written to appeal to men. That was another whack in the head for me. “For men?” I checked the mirror. Yep, female. My mother loved SciFi. My sisters did. I had girlfriends who loved it. So why did publishers think it was “For men?”

I decided Right Then And There to ignore the you’re-too-old philosopy, and the SciFi-is-for-men stereotype and write what I wanted to write. I spent several years creating a background for my writing, building a universe that would enable to me to play in any part of the galaxy I wanted. I found a quote by Oliver Wendell Holmes: “Don’t die with the music still in you.” For me, it was the “books still in me.”

Reading everything I could find on how to write, what to do, where to go, how to “get your name out there” helped me persevere. I submitted two short stories; both were rejected but returned with critiques. I once said I’d never been rejected, but I’d completely spaced those when I said it. One of those two stories later won Honorable Mention in a Reader’s Digest national contest, and was in the top 100 of over 1000 entries, at #33. I felt vindicated. I was 40.

It took me a few years to get over my fear of rejection, my fear of success, and my tendency to say “I’ll write a book once ______.” (fill in the blank) We bought a house, my daughter got married, and my youngest son was in high school. Within a few years, I’d have an empty nest. Then what excuse would I have for not writing?

I joined an online critique group in Dec 2003 http://groups.yahoo.com/group/para-rom-crit-2/ and began submitting chapters of a book. There, I had the honor of meeting Barbara Karmazin, a published writer of truly alien SciFi Romance. Once she saw I’d listen to her advice, she mentored me, and boy did I ever listen. She introduced me to her publisher, Liquid Silver Books, and by April, I had sold my first book. I was 53 that year. I’ve been writing for six years now. So, far from being old at 60 (which I will be in 2011) I am just beginning my career. I feel more alive and vital than I have at any prior point, other than when my children were small. (I had all three within four years and was constantly on the go.)

 

The Nizamrak Building by Jamin Allen

assisting diploma at 60, next year. Oh, one more little detail, not completely off topic. To honor my friend Barbara Karmazin (may she live forever) I named the central point in many of my stories The Nizamrak Building. It’s her last name backward. Here’s a picture of it drawn by my artistic son, Jamin. Three of his pictures were entered in the P&E Reader’s Poll this year and all three ended up in the top 10. This was #six.

It’s never too late to start being who you want to be.

Captain NarrAy Jorlan, Senth Antonello, and ... the Harbinger

Something I learned about marketing myself and my books is to never make the reader have to look for me. In our instant society we snap our fingers at the microwave and say “hurry up!” LOL Whenever I email anyone or post online, I always have links to books or chats, or whatever I’m discussing. Readers like to click on a link and find things without hunting for them.

I just did a twelve-day treasure hunt with my Edge of Peril group (20 hard core fans) and they absolutely loved finding the details. Everyone who took part in the quiz at the end got the questions 100% right. They are already hooked, and enjoyed the search. New readers might do that for a contest, but if you send them to your home page and they have to click and hunt through tabs to find the book you’re promoting, you may lose them by the second or third click. Remember, writing is our lifeblood, but it’s also a business.

On my Romance Lives Forever group, I host author chats several times a month. You wouldn’t believe how many post an excerpt and give only the name of the book. No publisher info, no author name (their email isn’t always Suzy-Author-Jones, but may be (making one up) spudchef4835, or their husband’s name because they haven’t made an email for their pen name – providing no clue who they are. Some don’t provide links to their books, either. This is like telling a buyer you have a house for sale in Chicago, and expecting them to hunt it down. *buzzer sounds*

I give the reader everything they need to make a decision and find my book. I have higher sales, and when people hit those pages they find exactly what I want them to find.

Here’s a sample I created for the book that came out this week *dances* at Loose Id. I paste this only at the end of promo excerpts.

Antonello Brothers 1: At the Mercy of Her Pleasure (a Tarthian Empire
Book)
Available at Loose Id
http://www.loose-id.com/At-the-Mercy-of-Her-Pleasure.aspx
ISBN 978-1-60737-552-4
Format: ebook in multiple formats
Genre: Erotic Science Fiction Romance, Action Adventure, Younger Hero
Older Heroine
Heat level: R=explicit sex
Editor: Heather Hollis
Cover Artist: Anne Cain
Warnings: This book is a substantially re-edited, revised edition previously released by another publisher, and contains explicit sexual content, graphic language, and situations that some readers may find objectionable: Anal play, dubious consent, menage (m/f/m), reference to rape offscreen.
Author website: http://kayelleallen.com
Author email: kayelle @ kayelleallen .com

I sign my name, give my tag, and links to important places such as another book, my yahoo group, or my blog.

The purpose of hanging out on groups is not *only* to chit chat, though that’s important. Readers are often impulse buyers. That’s why bookstores put genres together, so people interested in one author will find others who write the same thing, and pick up more books. Prepare your readers for that impulse buy. Never just sign your name. Readers will become accustomed to seeing your signature and recognize you by it. It’s not vanity to use a full signature, and it’s not mercenary. It’s business.

In 2004, I began writing a novel about a lieutenant in the fictional APLA – All People’s Liberation Army. Since I’d been in the Navy, I knew the basic ranks there. I’d seen enough Star Trek episodes to know Navy ranks were used on the Enterprise. That was good enough for me.

The book was rocking right along, and I was more than halfway finished. I mentioned at dinner one night that I was using Navy ranks for the officers aboard the ship.

Did I mention that I have a rather opinionated son who happened to be in Junior ROTC – USAF?

My youngest son Joel is a stickler for details. He held a perfect score in ROTC, and was the pride of the colonel who taught the class.  

Joel informed me that the Air Force is in charge of the air, and by extension space, Star Trek notwithstanding. He suggested I change the ranks of my officers and offered to help with the conversion. We made them close approximations fitting with the work they perfomed.

My lieutenant became a captain. The character once designated captain now became a colonel (and in later books, a General). Joel gave me a print out of Air Force ranks to use for reference, and is still (six years later and post USAF service) my go-to guy on anything related to the military when I don’t know myself, or can’t ask a fellow member of RomVets or one of the authors here. Now you know how the APLA ended up with its current ranking system.

The book was At the Mercy of Her Pleasure, which is being rereleased 3/23/10 at Loose Id.

When things go wrong, do you get hot under the collar? That’s baking.

When things go wrong, do you try to figure out how to do it better or prevent it the next time? That’s basking.

When you bake, it just gets hotter. Basking is defined as “Derive or receive pleasure from; get enjoyment from; take pleasure in” (WordWeb Online)

How can you take pleasure in things going wrong? (notice I haven’t used the F word – fail) By figuring out  how to do it better. Sitting down and looking for improvement areas. I’m not talking about the type of “I got a rejection letter. My writing sucks!” type of self-evaluation. I’m talking about the type where you say, “That rejection was only a form letter. One reason publishers send those out is that the submission doesn’t meet their guidelines. I’ll try using a checklist so I know I met all their guidelines.”

In other words, don’t focus on the problem. Focus on the solution.

Here are a few great quotes to keep in mind regarding how to react to performance that is less than … ahem … your best.

“I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.”
~ Thomas Alva Edison

“All my successes have been built on my failures.”
~ Benjamin Disraeli

 ”Success is the ability to go from failure to failure without losing your enthusiasm.”
~ Sir Winston Churchill

My favorite…

“I’ve missed more than 9000 shots in my career. I’ve lost almost 300 games. Twenty-six times I’ve been trusted to take the game winning shot and missed. I’ve failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed.”
~ Michael Jordan

It is not whether you will fail, it’s whether you will come back. Will you bake? Or bask?