Jordan Summers

I read a fantastic interview yesterday on Ted Weinstein’s blog. It’s a discussion between Barry Eisler and Amanda Hocking. I had respect for them before, but I have newfound respect for them now. They both seem to be quite sharp and didn’t go into any of this with their eyes closed. If you’re a writer or a reader, you’ll benefit from reading this INTERVIEW.

If I can sell three more books by the end of tomorrow, I will have officially doubled my sales from last month. WOO HOO! Come on three books.

Now I’m off to finish the second half of Rose’s Rapture edits. Wish me luck.

I’ve been recalculating my ebook sales and I’m pretty sure I messed up last month. Somehow I had myself at 102 books sold, but for the life of me I can’t figure out how I came up with that number. LOL! Sigh. I’ve gone over all three sites (Nook, Kindle, Smashwords) again and have come to the conclusion that I must have been on drugs and didn’t know it. *ggg As of February, I sold 72 copies. Sad, I know. The good news is I’m in line to double that this month. I only need a few more copies to do so. Hopefully now that the Arrival is FINALLY searchable on Amazon that will help. The big surprise seems to be the jump in sales on the Nook. I’ve tripled my sales there. (Yeah, shocked me too.) The great news is I’ve passed my old epublisher sales with only 4 books up, so I’ve met my goal within two months. I can’t wait to see what happens when I get the rest of the books edited and released.

A friend ***cough Charli cough*** was kind enough to edit Rose’s Rapture for me. She gave me great suggestions that I plan to implement today. With any luck, I’ll be able to upload the book by Wed/Thurs. I really am itching to work on new stuff. I know there are a lot of writers that can split their attention between projects. I’m really not one of them. I have a difficult time stopping and starting different things. The projects seem to drag on with none of them getting finished. I’m sure it harkens back to poor time management.

I downloaded OmniFocus. Hopefully that will help me get organized. I figure between that and Scrivener I should be pretty set.

Unless you’ve been living under a rock (possible, but not probable), you’ve probably heard all about Barry Eisler turning down a fairly large book deal. In the same breath, Amanda Hocking a self-pub author is pursuing a seven figure N.Y. deal. What is the world coming to? Well if that world happens to be the publishing industry, it’s just another day at the office. Yes, the publishing industry is in MAJOR flux right now, along with a lot of other industries in the state. The publishing industry’s situation is unique and at the same time quite common. What’s unique is that they had a ten year heads up about changing technologies. What’s common is that most didn’t do anything about it until it started to directly affect their business.

I do believe that Barry Eisler’s situation is probably big news. He may not consistently hit the NYT list, but he is a good selling author. Turning his back on a traditional publishing deal is a huge step, especially if other big authors follow. Amanda Hocking’s story is interesting given the money she’s made self-publishing. Since she seems smart, I have to believe that she took/is taking this deal because she was able to negotiate a favorable contract.

What does this mean to all of the authors who’ve decided to try self-publishing original and backlist work? Frankly, nothing. Their choices won’t affect what I write and what I choose to put out, nor should they. Everyone’s career is different. Period.

I also heard about the unfortunate comment made by a Samhain editor. All I can say is YIKES!

As an aside, I went to see Little Red Riding Hood today. I know it’s been trashed by the critiques, but seeing that I rarely agree with the critiques’ views I ignored them. And I’m kind of glad I did. LRRH won’t win any awards any time soon, but I have to admit that despite the shallow characterization and storyline, I kind of enjoyed it. The pacing is brisk. As in you don’t want to run to the bathroom or you’ll miss something brisk. The werewolf’s identity kept me guessing until about the very end. The writers and director did a good job with that. You really do suspect a LOT of people. The soundtrack is fabulous. It’s absolutely an ode to Team Jacob, but it was better than Twilight IMO. So if you don’t mind a retelling of Little Red Riding with a few surprises tossed in for giggles, then you just might enjoy this film. I’ve admitted it before and I’ll admit it again, I am easily entertained.

I’m just about finished with the second round of edits for the follow up to Gothic Passions. Once again Frauke designed the lovely cover for Rose’s Rapture. I think it works beautifully with the other cover in the series. I’m trying to decide whether I’ll write a third story about Josephine. If I do, it’ll probably be down the line a little ways. Next up is the urban fantasy romance. I was actually speaking with a friend of mine over the weekend and he came up with a great twist on the scene I’d written. I’m trying to figure out if I’ll incorporate it. (I already asked his permission and he said yes, if I want.) The idea definitely adds a layer of depth to an already complicated character. If you think it sounds like I’m getting excited about the story, then you’d be right. In the meantime, feast your eyes on the cover of Rose’s Rapture:

Well it looks like THE ARRIVAL: ATLANTEAN’S QUEST BOOK ONE is finally available on Amazon Kindle. It’s still not coming up when I search for it. My guess is it’ll probably take another day for that to happen, but it IS there. That’s the sound of my head hitting my desk.

I think I need to visit Mario Galaxy to recover.

When Christine Feehan first came out with Dark Prince, I fell in love with her Carpathians. I bought every paperback that she released the first seven/eight years. We’re talking paranormal romance crack. I still own them all. After a while, I decided I wanted the beginning books in hardback–much like I did Stephanie Laurens’ original Cynster series. I managed to get all the books that I could of Stephanie’s (still bitter that I can’t get Devil’s Bride, Scandal’s Bride, On A Wild Night, On a Wicked Dawn, and Captain Jack in hardback). Yes, I know that Captain Jack wasn’t technically a Cynster, but I loved him. Anyway, I managed to get the first several books in hardback–thanks to library sales and large print books. It’s not perfect because they don’t match, but beggars can’t be choosers. (Yes, it bugs the hell out of my anal side.) Anyway, I thought I’d be able to do the same with Christine Feehan’s books until I looked. All the titles I wanted in hardback were being sold for a King’s ransom. It chaffed my bottom. I couldn’t even begin to afford all of them or any of them for that matter. Okay, I take that back. The price did drop enough for me to buy Dark Fire, which is one of my favorites. So long story short, I was THRILLED to see that her publisher was reissuing Dark Prince in hardback. Hopefully it will only be the first of MANY. Do I really want to have to buy every hardback, when I already own the books in both paper and ebook? No, but I will because I REALLY want to own them in hardback.

The funny thing is I’ve never been much of a hardback book person. My favorite type of book has always been mass market. It was only after I realized that there are certain authors I read repeatedly (ie every year) that I decided to invest. I own a couple of Charlaine Harris books in hardback (I love her Grave series). I also own Karen Marie Moning’s Darkfever series in hardback and Patricia Brigg’s Mercy series. (Please for the love of Pete release Iron Kissed in hardback so my collection is complete.) Basically I buy any series that I tend to read repeatedly or I enjoy so much that I want to have them FOREVER. When I can’t get the books in hardback, I still collect them in paperback (I’m looking at you Ilona Andrews and Karen Chance), even though these days I read pretty much everything on an e-reader.

What about you, do you collect books? If so, do you collect hardback, paperback, ebook or all of the above?

Still having technical difficulties with The Arrival. I have FINALLY figured out what they are, but it’ll take a few days to get things up and running. I’ve already uploaded the correct versions to Smashwords and Barnes & Noble (though it will take a day or so for it to show up in the latter). I’m waiting for the Amazon site to finish processing the upload, so I can go in and fix it. Yep, I’ll have to upload a new version and wait another few days before it’ll be available. Again, sorry for the delay, but when you’re trying to find an INVISIBLE box in your manuscript, it takes a while. I WILL be checking from now on to make sure it’s not there in the future. What a pain in the butt!

I’ve also lowered the price on my secret project. It’ll remain at .99 cents until the end of the month. Once the results of the experiment are in, then I’ll decide how to proceed. Until then, I have to finish this second round of edits and get to work on another original project. My brain is itching to create.

I ‘think’ I have my formatting issues and uploading issues taken care of. I’m hesitant to say that I do because I’m afraid it’s going to come back and bite me in the butt. It took dh helping with style issues and switching to a different browser. (I’d already tried two before moving onto a third.) I appreciate your patience. With any luck, The Arrival will be available and looking pretty by tomorrow.

Now I’m off to workout and read through the novella. Hopefully it won’t take nearly as long as this has.

On a completely different note, has anyone seen Battlefield L.A. or the Little Red Riding Hood movie? If so, what did you think? I really want to see them both.

For some reason, I’m having difficulty getting The Arrival uploaded to Pubit/Barnes & Noble. It doesn’t matter which browser I use, nothing happens. Has anyone else experienced this problem? I’ve been playing with it and Smashwords all day today. Smashwords wrote me to tell me there was a formatting issue. I think I found it, but I’m not sure. I’ve uploaded The Arrival a few times now. It looked fine on Amazon Kindle, but I suppose that doesn’t matter in the scheme of things.

Found out some good news yesterday. I will be getting the rights back on my two Phantom Warriors books as of July 19, 2011. So VERY happy about that. I have a third novella started in that series and now I can finish it. YAY!

If you’ve purchased The Arrival, please let me know if you’re having difficulty reading it due to formatting issues. I truly hope that this latest uploaded version will take care of the issue.

I know I don’t say it often enough, but I truly do appreciate the friends I’ve made in this business. I cannot get over how kind and giving they truly are and how generous. It is something that should never be taken for granted.

I cannot tell you how glad I am that the weekend is over. It has been officially Hellalious. That’s the one thing that sucks about living so far away from family. There is no nipping over when you’re needed. Sigh.

I finally broke down and joined Twitter. You can find me HERE. I think I’m going to like it well enough. I certainly like the short message thing. I doubt I’ll become a Twitter slut, but I suppose stranger things have happened.

Today I’m uploading ATLANTEAN’S QUEST: THE ARRIVAL to Smashwords, Kindle, and Barnes & Noble. My guess is that it’ll be up tomorrow. For those of you familiar with my series, I have greatly expanded the manuscript by nearly 10,000 words and made a few language choice changes. (ie I took out the words I never liked. *g) It will be released for .99. I hope you like the additions.