THANKS!

 

No really, thanks so much. Obviously, from the last post, I didn't publish on November 19th. More like November 30th, and the paperback still isn't properly on line. According to Amazon, the paperback is available. Yet no one can find it, not even me. 

There appears to be a problem with keywords. Somehow they don't work with the system. I've gone in and changed a few things and re-published. I'm trying to be optimistic, but...I'll keep trying until it works. I've spent too much time and money trying to make this work, I can't just give up. 

I'd like to say thanks to friends on Facebook. I ordered paperback copies of ELAINA'S FATE, so I know they're definitely done,(They're gorgeous, thanks Emma!)  and I posted them on my personal Facebook and my Author page. Not much on the Author page, but my personal Facebook got 99 reactions. Wow! Thanks! There were a lot of comments congratulating me too. It feels pretty awesome, and I needed that, THANKS! 

David did an awesome job, but I'm glad he missed the agony of publishing. He's still been a good sounding board. Some of it was my fault, like the wrong format size. Oops and Ouch. But a lot of it was, and still is, the fickle nature of KDP. I'm worried that Emma and Heather won't want to work with me again. This whole thing took up way too much of their time and I feel shitty about it.

Which brings me to this...I'm reconsidering my publishing options. That might mean no more paperbacks. (But never say never.) It can also mean looking for an actual publisher.

Heather suggested Draft2Digital, and I'm definitely going to try that. But not until January. I'm too busy, and I don't have the spoons. The original plan was to publish in time for Christmas so people could order Elaina's Fate for Christmas. Well, we're beyond that now, aren't we? Now the plan is just to make it available to anyone on any e-book site, without using Amazon. Not just for my issues with publishing, but for moral reasons as well. 

I have a lot to think about, a lot to absorb. I can't do that a week before Christmas while I'm working retail. Insert Canadian apology here.  Yeah, I'm seriously sorry.

I hate publishing, it's true. But I LOVE writing. When I feel like giving up, my husband offers these words. "Don't deprive the world of your art." It always works.  Makes my heart sing that he believes like that. 

So somewhere there must be a happy medium, a solution. Not everyone reads paperbacks, and not everyone wants to buy a Kindle or a Nook. I need to figure something else out. 

I'm on it in January! Wish me luck. 

Cover Reveal for Elaina's Fate!

 I thought this time might never come. I'm still paranoid that it won't. You see, everything is ready to go. Heather did her magic and sent the necessary files. The paperback version is perfect, and I'm downloading  the digital one soon.

Emma did a brilliant job, but now KDP wants a PDF file for this, but a JPEG for that. But I know these are just details. It's going to happen. Eventually. 

But speaking of Emma's brilliance--Want to see what she's done?  I give you, the brand new cover for ELAINA'S FATE. 

TA-DA!!!!!!!


I am in love with this cover. It's exactly what I wanted to see. Emma worked extremely hard on this.  I chose the pictures, and she made them work. Everything about Elaina here had to be changed. The photo I originally chose was warm in tone, orangish. The woman was a redhead, and she was holding a gun. She was also wearing a heavy jacket with a collar. 

I'm so excited, and I hope readers are as well. I'm sorry for making you wait. I wish I could give you an exact publishing date. I'm aiming for next Friday, November 19th. Ah. Wish me luck. 

Back to Graves

 Hey, I'm back, and it's not a cat post. 

Gratutitous Black cat photo...

Fall is always crazy busy for me. I don't mind. It's neither too hot nor too cold to get everything done. I'm not going to bore you with the list, but I will tell you that pear loaves are in the freezer, got my flu shot, got my winter tires on, and my house is clean from top to bottom. I don't even have kids, and I can barely keep up. 

I also have a novel coming out named ELAINA'S FATE. I'm on it, for real. Emma designed a wicked cool cover for me, David helped me write the story. Spoiler Alert: You can thank him for the longer and improved battle scene. Heather has worked her usual magic, polishing my words into grammatic prose so well that I can barely tell where she's been. It's still mine...only better. 

I have been slowly crawling toward graveyard shift, and I'm letting it happen. It's natural for me and someday, when I'm a retired crone, I will live like this permanently. I like the day, but my body prefers night time, like a vampire. 

Something happens to my body when Fall arrives. I was practically born an insomniac, but I thought I'd learned how to control it. Sometimes...not all the time. I no longer stay awake for days. Right now, I'm finding that I'm always tired. I wake up in the ungodly hours and can't get back to sleep. I need long daytime naps, and they are blissfully deep snorefests where I wake up refreshed at dinner time. I'm letting it happen. 

If you're wondering what I mean by 'Born an insomniac' , It's like this. I was born in winter and my beloved father worked eleven at night until seven in the morning for the railroad system. (This was when he still went to school at NAIT. Apparently, my father didn't rest much in the early years of his marriage.) I couldn't sleep or be comforted until my father came home from work. He would rock me to sleep, and my mother would serve him bacon with scrambled eggs and a beer after I finally went down for the day.

Also odd fact. I had no idea my father went to the Northern Alberta Institute of Technology to be an electrician until he passed. He became an Instrument Mechanic shortly after we moved to an obscure hamlet named Rainbow Lake and they needed other skills than an electrician. . He challenged the exam to be certified and spent the rest of his life as an Instrument Mechanic That trade was new and he never once spent a day in NAIT'S classroom to become one.  

But I digress, back to graves. Why fight it? I used to work graveyards when I was single and I decades later worked them well for a certain toy company that still exists in Canada. While I'm not working for them this year, the department store I spend 75 to 80 percent of my time working at agrees that coming in after they close is a great idea. The staff already knows me from other late night work I do. No collectors to deal with, I won't be in the way of customers while I do what I need to do. The staff like me, and I like them. I feel energetic just

 thinking about it. This is gonna be great! 

The other stores I do? I can always nap until they open at seven, eight, nine o 'clock, and be there extra early before they are busy. 

Or I can spend my off hours getting ELAINA'S FATE  ready to publish. I win. Or at least I hope so. My goal is to get ELAINA'S FATE out in time for Christmas. I hope so anyway. It's been too long, and I'm sorry. It just wasn't ready, I wasn't ready. Sorry for so much delay.

So please wish me luck.