Mars Needs Writers

    We weren't kidding about the wine.

(September 3, 2010)...think of our YA novel, The Atheist's Daughter? We kinda wondered ourselves. Happily, we've found out.
 
This cute little kitten is here because Jeff L. wrote and asked. We selected this picture because (a) it features a cute little kitten; and (b) we like cute little kittens as much as we like cute little puppies. Just because we've featured adorable little dogs -- what? three times? -- doesn't mean we don't love us some adorable cats.
 
A few months back, we found a beta reader for T.A.D. Kathy read the book and gave us some terrific advice. Even better, she really liked what we'd written. The book went into the mail -- and it sits, right now, in somebody's "I-requested-this-but-do-I-have-to-read-it?" slush pile. But Kathy is very much an adult and we wanted to know what a teenager would think of the manuscript. After all, it is a Young Adult novel.
 
We found our target audience in the 15 year-old C.B. She didn't know us, had never heard of MarsNeedsWriters.com, but we found her, anyway. C.B. is no fool -- she wasn't going to volunteer to read some stranger's entire/possibly horrible novel -- but she  was willing to give the first few chapters a try. After the first few chapters, she offered to read the rest. When she was done, she gave us her report.
 
Until then, she'd never mentioned her religious faith (and we'd never thought to ask); we were surprised to discover she was a Christian. Our novel isn't faith-based...after all, our heroine is an atheist and so is her mother...but it isn't against faith, either (after all, our hero wants to be a preacher). So we breathed a huge sigh of relief when C.B. said she liked the book. She made our day when she said she looked forward to seeing the novel at the bookstore. And that she wanted to read the sequel. AND that she was volunteering, in advance, to be our beta reader for the sequel.
 
Thanks, C.B. You rock.
 

(August 31, 2010)...writing sexy werewolf romance novellas: It pays.
 
Thanks to you and you and, especially, you, we've just received our very first royalty checks from Cobblestone Press. When August rolled past mid-point and we hadn't seen a royalty check for July, we honestly wondered if anyone had bought a copy of Wicked Games.
 
Y'see, we've continued to shake the bushes for our very first review of the story...and, so far, we've had a some promises but no results. No one has knocked on the Blog-O-Rama door to say they've loved the story/hated the story, our family members haven't purchased the thing (a strange group, our family members, and they almost never visit the website. Which allows us to say things like, "a strange group, our family members"), and even our financially-stricken best friends haven't picked up a copy. (But those friends DO come to this website so we want to say right here, right now...you rock!)
 
So we were feeling a little down. Then, today, Renée received a royalty check. She was delighted. Then Harrell received a second royalty check -- we forgot that CP pays each half of a writing team their half of the royalties -- and we were doubly delighted.
 
Oh, don't let us kid you: We're not gettin' rich here. (If we were rich, our family members would haunt this website like a mausoleum. They may be a little weird but they're not that weird.) Our windfall is in the three figures and we've got several months to go before we have a shot at being thousand-aires. If we ever get there at all.
 
We don't care. Tonight, we open the GOOD wine.
 

(August 26, 2010)...we're just sayin'. Not pointing fingers or anything like that but can you guess which one of us is tipping the scales?
 
So we've both gone back to the gym and, again, missed our every-four-days update on the mighty Blog-O-Rama. It's not like we haven't been busy, it's just that...well, we haven't been busy with fun stuff. No kayak trips, no wine tastings, just the ol' nose to the grindstone. Always (seldom) trying to improve ourselves, we're willing to try to improve our manuscripts, too. To that end, we sent The Atheist's Daughter out to a former reader for Writers House.
 
Writers House is a NYC literary agency and so smokin' that even their assistants have assistants. One such person appeared at Absolute Write -- our favorite writing forum -- ran through her credentials and offered to give a free looksie at the first 50 pages of any writer's manuscript. She used to give a thumbs' up/thumbs' down on the novels that came over the transom at W. House and she volunteered her critical eye for the AW writers. She promised to say what was good, what was bad...and she'd do it for free.
 
We love free. So we jumped at the offer, shipped off our pages, and waited to see how we should change our book's beginning. Caitie F. quickly responded with this: Your novel is the worst, most cliché-ridden garbage I've ever read in my life. By the time I'd finished your first page, I was praying for death so that I wouldn't have to read another word of this injustice to the English language. Quit writing. I beg of you. Quit writing now.
 
Naw, she didn't say that. (Although we feared she'd say such things.) (Well, one of us worried about it.) (Okay, okay...it was the hippo.) To paraphrase, she said the writing was good, the story was interesting, and she liked the descriptions/the characters/the creepy bits. She pretty much gave us a high five for the full 50 pages. She also liked our query letter, saying -- This is the kind of query I always hoped I would find in my stack.
 
Many thanks, Caitie F. We appreciate your feedback. We only wish you STILL worked at Writers House....
 
 

(August 20, 2010)...past time we update the Blog-O-Rama again. Pardon us if we're a little grumpy this morning. We hate to let you and you down.
 
Harrell would be a little grumpy, anyway: Orson Scott Card's Intergalactic Medicine Show (it's an electronic magazine, we tells ya) just passed on his short story, At the Circus. It didn't come as a big surprise -- OSXIMS rejects stories by the bucket load -- but nobody welcomes a rejection. Plus, y'know, now he has to find another market, make another pitch, work, work, work...and, frankly, the boy's feeling a little lazy.
 
The Atheist Daughter, meanwhile, sits without answer in an agent's submission pile -- after the agent requested it. Aly's Luck sits without answer in a publisher's submission pile -- after the editor asked for it. In both cases, we sent the pages out weeks ago....
 
Rather than sit around whining, we should be plotting our next novel. Instead, we hit the local cinema this afternoon to watch Scott Pilgrim vs. the World. The theater was nearly empty and the movie's weirdly quirky...but we really enjoyed it. After the show, we picked up a bottle of Clos Du Bois Pinot Noir 2006. We like fruity wines and this one is supposed to contain all kinds of cherry/strawberry/raspberry goodness.
 
Just because the day started in a bad way doesn't mean it needs to end up that way.
 
 

(August 15, 2010)...have a happy ending. Something Wicked, our Young Adult mystery novel, does have a happy ending but you'll have to wait to buy it. Quake Publishing isn't releasing our book this month. In fact, Quake Publishing isn't releasing Something Wicked at all.  

This is a good thing.
 
Understand that we don't have a beef with Karen Syed, Quake's publisher. As a small, independent publisher, she's trying to fight the good fight. (Although she's oddly offended if someone refers to her company as a "small" independent publisher. But a cat is a cat, even if you glue feathers to its legs and call it a bird.) When we asked for our release from our contract, she responded warmly and returned all of our rights to us. She did us a solid and we like her.
 
That said, why didn't we stay in her stable of writers? We had our issues with the company but, c'mon, this isn't the time or place to discuss them. Even with you and you. And you know how much we love you guys. Just know that our novel isn't being published by Quake. It isn't coming out in August.

And know that we're okay with this. But we're not okay with the knowledge that we are absolutely and completely out of red wine. Oh, the humanity....

 
 

(August 10, 2010)...these dog days of summer? We're glad you and you asked. Things are happening -- but not all of those things are good.
 
Oh, our $5 ebook cover experiment worked out nicely. The amazing Mimexart did us proud and the image to your left is proof of that. This is cover #3 of 3 and we like every one of 'em.
 
We're still dropping by Kiva.org on occasion and have just made a loan to Telman Varosyan of Karnout, Armenia. Telman needed more fertilizer for his vegetable farm, Kiva provided the cash, and we've just chipped in $25, too. It seemed to us that writers and fertilizer were a natural fit.
 
But dark clouds are gathering over our Young Adult mystery, Something Wicked. Even though our publisher continues to show the title as Coming Soon, we wouldn't bet on it. An August release date isn't happening. Even a September release seems doubtful.
 
Right this very minute, we're feeling pretty grumpy....
 
 
 

(August 5, 2010)...bit of werewolf romance doing? We don't have any idea.
 
We DO know that two romance sites have promised to review Wicked Games but neither one has gotten around to it. We've discovered a file-sharing site, where a couple of bums are asking someone to post the novella for free. But has anyone actually bought a download? Only Cobblestone Press knows for sure.
 
So what do we know, at this point in time? We know how much we like the covers that Mimexart created for us and our novella. The image in the left-hand corner is one of our covers; the second cover is directly below this post; and sometime in the near, near future, we'll post the third cover. Each cover was sent to us in 2D and 3D and we received .jpg and .psd files of each. We were so impressed we just had to ask Mimexart a few questions about herself.
 
Here's what we learned: Miriam Uribe is Mimexart's real name and she became a professional artist in 2003. She received her Art degree in Mexico in 2006 and decided to travel the world in 2008. Primarily Spanish-speaking (and if you go to her website -- here -- know that it's primarily written in Spanish, too), she e-mailed us to say, "I wanted to see the world and learn from others. I wanted to meet other people, see other races, experience other languages. I wanted to develop my character and enrich my creativity." In 2009, she went to the Caribbean, where she received an invitation from the Prime Minister (!) to become a teacher at the Community College of Saint Vincent. In Christmas, she went to London with her boyfriend. Since then, she's remained in the UK while continuing to model and paint. In the next few months, she plans to have her first art exhibition.
 
If you're like us, you're wondering how somebody so damned cool ended up at fiverr.com. "To be honest, this is the perfect way to keep me busy in all aspects, creatively and mentally," Miriam tell us."Also, the jobs are helping me learn a new design program (which is my nightmare because I'm not a graphic designer but I like to teach myself to do new things)." Okay, we get that. But doing an ebook cover for five bucks? Why, oh why, did she ever take the gig?
 
It turns out, our request amused her: "I created your book covers because nobody ever asked me to do one for a romantic-drama-novella before. It was fun and I'm happy that you like them."
 
That we do. We've posted the covers on Facebook, we've talked about them at Absolute Write, and now we're telling you and you. Spread the news! If you feel like spreading the news. It's not like we're your bosses or anything.

 

(August 1, 2010)...but we're not stupid. When we wanted to find the cheapest ebook cover ever, we knew better than to contact one of those fancy-dancy big money illustrators. Those guys wouldn't have given us the time of day. Instead, we went to fiverr.com.
 
At fiverr.com, people do all kinds of things. You want someone to build you an "awesome website"? Somebody at fiverr promises to do just that for just five dollars. Want someone to pose as your Facebook girlfriend for a week? You can buy that, too, for five bucks. What we wanted was an ebook cover -- and we bet you can guess how much we paid.
 
Fiverr offers all kinds of people willing to do ebook covers. We could have had a "high quality" cover, a "professional" cover or a "fabulous" cover. We contacted our first designer and told him we'd written a sexy romance novella. Told him the story had already been published, already had a lovely cover that we liked very much and this cover is the one we'd continue to use and promote. But, said us, we wanted the cheapest ebook cover ever and we thought it would be fun to get one for five smackeroos. We told the designer that we'd blog about it and might use his cover at other locations, such as Absolute Write. We told him we might mock the cover ("Look what you get for five bucks!") or might praise the cover ("Look what you get for five bucks!") and there were no guarantees which way we'd go.
 
We said the novel's name was Wicked Games and the storyline was this: College girl meets the man of her dreams, a talented sculptor, but he's really a werewolf. Everything ends with a Happily Ever After but not before much drama ensues. After our initial e-mail, we never heard from this designer again.
 
So we contacted a second designer, told 'im what we wanted...and never heard from him again. We contacted a THIRD designer, told 'im what we wanted...and he delivered a cartoon skyline of a city. We asked him why and never heard from him again.
 
Finally, finally, we found the lovely Mimexart. Living in England, she's an artist and a model and she'd never done a romance cover before. Our pitch struck her fancy and she dug in. She did THREE covers for our $5, sent them for our approval, and we ended up picking...well, all three. We'd forgotten to ask for our name on the cover so she went with the title only. (So why does this cover have our name on it? When we contacted Mimexart again, she added the author's name just because.) This is the first of the covers. Next post, we'll share another cover and tell you all about Mimexart, the World's Finest $5 Ebook Cover Artist of all time.
 
 

(July 26, 2010)...you should know, they charge hundreds and hundreds of dollars. The good ones do, anyway. You knock at Carl Graves' door -- he did the terrific cover to J.A. Konrath's TRUCK STOP -- and you can expect the conversation to start at $300 and climb from there. He's absolutely worth it. Cris Griffin isn't cheap, either (and, Cris, we loved your illo for FantasyFlightGames), nor should she be. These artists are some of the best in their field and the e-book industry is so new that their fees are in flux. You ask us, they're charging less than they should be.
 
We've been having conversations about e-book cover art because, recently, we came across a terrible e-book cover. When we poked about, we discovered the artist had been paid $350 for the cover and its electronic file. Just to be clear here, the artist is NOT Carl Graves or Cris Griffin and, for our money, isn't worthy of carrying their digital paintbrushes. THREE HUNDRED AND FIFTY DOLLARS for a cover so bad that we started laughing when we saw it.
 
So. Terrible cover = $350. Being in one of those moods, we tried to assign a dollar value to the terrible cover. We finally decided on a satisfyingly low number before one of us wondered how cheaply we could really, truly get an e-book cover. Because if the end result is going to be embarrassing, why pay the big bucks? Why not save a few dollars?
 
And we did. We found an artist who agreed to provide us our very own original e-book cover for a five-spot. We've received notification that the work is done, the cover's complete, and we'll receive our electronic file in the next few days.
 
When we do, we'll share it with you. Good or bad, you see it first.
 
 

(July 22, 2010)...this Emily Veinglory. We know her real name is not Emily Veinglory and her past is hidden in the mists. We know she has a cute "bedroom" name but she refuses to divulge what it is. (We're guessing, "LeeLee". She knows why.) Following our extensive interview, what else have we truly learned?
 
She's a Kiwi. Not the flightless bird endemic to New Zealand but, rather, the flightless human endemic to New Zealand. She left home over ten years ago and has traveled the world ever since. She's worked in the UK, in Canada, and she presently toils in the USA. No one (except, possibly, E.V.) knows where she lives at present. No one (except, again, E.V.) knows what she does for an outside income. She may have followed in the footsteps of the legendary John Steinbeck and found work as a freelance Podiatrist but we've been unable to confirm this rumor.
 
We've never seen a photograph of the woman so we're making some educated guesses here. Because she's an NZ native, she must be a stunningly beautiful redhead (but insists she's a brunette). Her eyes are green (possibly brown) and her personality is so vivacious that most people never notice the hunch on her back. She has many of her own teeth. We've heard she's worked as a Supermodel in the past and may be a Diesel Mechanic at present but we've been unable to verify either occupation.
 
She started writing out of...Boredom, mostly, she tells us as soon as we quit inventing her personal history. I kind of enjoyed making up stories so writing them down wasn't much of a stretch. I think I started my first book, Broken Sword, around 1997. I'd already started off by getting good feedback in fandom, then non-profit 'zines, then publishing. Without an audience, I probably wouldn't have written these stories.
 
About that pseudonym: The Veinglory origin story is rather dull. I was trying to get a Hotmail address (back when Hotmail was cool and dinosaurs roamed the earth). At the time I was writing what I thought would be my first novel and the main character was called Vesper Vainglory. "Vainglory" was taken...so Veinglory it was. If I knew I was going to be using this as a pen name twenty years later, I might have put a little more thought into it.
 
To this day, the sun shines a little less brightly because she never finished her Vesper Vainglory the Vampire novel. But she still managed to produce, oh, a story or two. If you exclude stories under 20,000 words, she tells us, I've written five novels and fifteen novellas. Because I'm predominantly an e-publishing author, I favor novellas. If you take into account price points and relative sales, the most profitable length of ebook is to write them in the 20,000 - 40,000 word range. Her specialty is gay romance with a paranormal twist. (You know what sells BIG these days? Guess....) I write whatever I want and that's the theme that emerged. I write in the overlap of what I enjoy and what the publisher wants. I could write more commercial books but it would quickly become a chore. My editors at Loose Id and Samhain have been very good at indulging me to some extent. We both know that paranormal with lots of hot sex sells the best but sometimes I just want to write high fantasy with a paraplegic hero. Maybe it won't sell as much but it will still do okay. Right now, I tend to stick with those e-publishers I think can make me close to $1000 a title so that narrows the field considerably.
 
As it turns out, she writes more than we do (and had the chops to write a non-fiction book for a scientific publisher but not under the glorious Veinglory moniker). She makes considerably more money than we do. She tells us nothing about her personal life -- a telltale sign of a serial killer, we're just sayin' -- and seems offended when we press to know more about the creepy mechanical monkey she keeps in the shoebox under her bed. But we like E.V., we like her a lot. And you know why?
 
She tells it like it is. She shares her experiences with publishers. She freely tells people how much her writing earns. (People are sometimes a little shocked, she says, like I said a bad word or flashed my boobies, but they don't seem offended. It just isn't something they would be crass enough to do.) She also runs a terrific website at ERECsite.com, where other people also share the scoop on how much money they're seeing. One of the reasons ERECsite.com reports sales is that it is a little less worrying to people than reporting their actual earnings (and, of course, the reports are confidential). So far, I've not had a single person say something negative about the project, at least not to my face. In fact, several publishers -- including Ellora's Cave and Changeling -- have been very supportive and encouraging.
 
At the end of the day, then, what can we tell you about Emily Veinglory? Well, if you're an e-writer, she's got your back. If you're an e-publisher, she's going to tell the world the good AND the bad about you. If you're an e-reader, she's got a sexy story coming out in September (see the image above). But if you're a pair of investigative Blog-O-Rama writers, trying to find out the truth about our elusive Em?
 
You'll learn so little about her personal life that you'll be reaching for a bottle of red wine by interview's end. Which, y'know, is kind of a win. Pass the corkscrew, would you?
 
 
 
 

(July 18, 2010)...to introduce you to the adorable David Danger.
 
Normally, we try to update our site every four days. David has come to visit and our attentions have been distracted. So please excuse us today as we turn our attentions toward this young visitor. Because as much as we like you and you --
 
The truth is, we love Danger.
 
 
 
 

(July 14, 2010)...we went to Absolute Write, our favorite writing forum. Because Wicked Games is a steamy romance -- and because we were new to the genre -- we wanted to get some advice from the pros. We were hoping to learn which publishers did the right things the right ways. As Harrell posted on AW, "Which publishers treated you and your manuscript right and provided you with a positive life experience?"
 
There were several suggestions but one respondent stood above the rest. Emily Veinglory told us about the good publishers...the not-so-good publishers...even the bad publishers. She made it clear she was only sharing her opinion but she shared that opinion publicly and for the good of her fellow writers. A brave move, if you ask us. We listened to what she said, too, selecting Cobblestone Press for our werewolfish novella.
 
CP provided a great experience, from contract to cover art, from editing to marketing. (PNR says they'll be reviewing WG soon. Stay tuned!) Impressed by this Veinglory person, we started to watch for her comments at Absolute Write. We followed her blog. She turned out to be open and forthright with her thoughts. She seemed to be on the penny with the advice she gave. We decided she just might know ebooks better than anyone else we'd ever met.
 
So what did we do? We picked her brain, of course, asking about ebook publishers once again. We wanted her list of favorite publishers, a list of the up-and-comers, and we wanted her take on Ellora's Cave as a publisher ('cause rumors abound). This is what she told us:
 
I tend to list five strong publishers based on sales and lack of enormous red flags: Samhain, Ellora's Cave, Loose Id, Liquid Silver and Cobblestone. Amber Quill and Changeling could probably be added to that list and Ellora's Cave is a bit iffy based on their contract and occasional crazy behavior (pink flags). My main publishers are Loose Id and Samhain but I placed The Highwayman with Cobblestone because it fitted well with their "Outlaw" line and they are more accepting of first person narratives. It has been a good experience. I would also suggest Aspen Mountain Press as an e-publisher that is steadily developing into a front runner.
  
Then, because it's been on our minds lately -- and, oh, what a story we could tell -- we asked about ebook covers. Seems to us that some publishers have great covers while other companies provide terrible cover art. Since E.V. has a long string of titles with her name on 'em, we went with the obvious question: Does an ebook cover matter?
 
Never shy, she told us -- I do think covers matter. I think my breakthrough novella, Eclipse of the Heart, was helped a lot by its cover. Funnily enough, I didn't much fancy the cover when I saw it so I've learned to trust the publisher and cover designer. I always give frank and honest feedback on cover designs but at the end of the day I consider that the publisher's call because they know more about what helps sell the book than I do. In short, I'm not fond of mantitty but a lot of readers clearly are.
 
We have to admit, this woman intrigues us. She willingly talks to strangers of a publisher's crazy behavior and doesn't hesitate to bring up the ever-popular mantitty. Isn't "man titty" two words? And aren't you glad to be visiting a Blog-O-Rama brave enough to ask the hard questions? Oh, and there's one more thing: As much as E.V. talks about publishing, she never, ever talks about herself.
 
Is she a shy little minx...or a New Zealand super spy? We wanted to find out more. We did find out more. In a few short days, we'll share all.
 

(July 10, 2010)...you're in real trouble if you're allergic to lemonade. Something to think about, eh?
 
Here's the good news: Beta reader Kathy has finally finished reading The Atheist's Daughter. The great news? She really liked the manuscript. As always, Kathy has been supportive and encouraging (unlike some people, eh, Val Chambers?) and she has provided some insights that absolutely rock. If you're a writer, she is the kind of person you want at your back. We'd tell you more about her but...she's a mysterious person, this Kathy. No last name. No home address. She's provided no personal information, no picture, and no one way to find her. But, if she's willing to read your words, she'll find you.
 
That's what happened with us, anyway.
 
The image above? Looks good, doesn't it? It's a gift basket from DAS Designs and -- in theory -- you're supposed to send the thing to people who are in distress. In reality, one of two things will happen: You'll either eat the cookies yourself because impulse control is not your strong point; or you'll send it to the distressed person, they'll eat the cookies and love them, and then they'll grow even more depressed because they can't buy THEMSELVES a basket of lemon cookies because that would just be pitiful. Better not to buy the basket at all, that's what we say.
 
But Kathy's words and suggestions definitely fell in the Good News category. So where's the Bad News? Who has thrown lemons in our direction?
 
Our publisher, that's who. The Senior Editor from Quake Books contacted us last night to send us a warning. It seems we have a new editor for Something Wicked. Not just any editor, either. This one is male, we believe his last name is 'Hitler', and he has pointedly refused to provide us a photo for this blog. We bet he has a tiny black mustache, though. He's already making crazy demands ("I want us to work together"!) and he seems to think that time and space will bend to his will ("I still think we can make an August publication date"!)
 
Woe is us. We could really use some lemon cookies right now. Or wine. We're flexible.
 
 

(July 6, 2010)...but not at this house. And that's because our very first romance novella has just gone into print!
 
You'll find Wicked Games on the front page of the Cobblestone Press website. Top row, dead center, just look for the book with the extra fun cover. And, yes, the publisher does want a wallet-tingly $4.99 for a download --- available in PDF, LIT, HTML or MobiPocket format (whatever the hell MobiPocket is) -- but look at what you get for your money: A great cover, an erotic romance, "explicit language and graphic sex", and the always popular college girl-meets-werewolf paranormal sexiness.
 
Plus, the college girl is pretty positive her guy is cheating with a female werewolf. Because she kind of, um...caught 'em in the act.
 
Look, we don't expect you to drop a fiver on our wicked little tale. We know you.  Some would say you're frugal. Yes, 'frugal' is the word we use when we mean 'won't buy our damned novella 'cause they're so darn cheap'. That's okay, we're frugal, too. But if you go here, you'll get to read the story's first chapter absolutely FREE.
 
And FREE is always good.
 
 

(July 2, 2010)...pick-me up. Today, our pick-me-up comes in puppy form. Shelby and Abby are, of course, dressed in Harley gear. Yorkies as stylish as these refuse to wear Yamaha leathers.
 
These fur babies are part of the DeHaan family. Shelby is the brown, slightly larger girl of the pair and has a patch on her outfit that reads, See You in Hell. Silver-haired Abby has 3 legs, which somehow doesn't slow her down but DOES help explain why her outfit has a patch that reads, If You Don't Limp, You Ain't Shit. They're tiny, yes. But they're bikers, through and through.
 
Later this evening, our pick-me-up will likely come in bottle form, with a cork and couple of wine glasses. Specifically, we're planning to pour a bottle of Rex-Goliath Cabernet Sauvignon...picked largely because it's label shows a drawing of a giant rooster. Plus, y'know, it was cheap and available and had won a bucket of gold medals for wine goodness.

Still, you may wonder, why do we need a pick-me-up? Here's why: Our editor for Something Wicked, J.R. Turner (no relation), is no longer working with us. Yes, we know, we've often complained about her demands. We shared how she abused us, time and again. We've related her insistent demands for chocolate and her bitterness over the "chokolute" substitute we sent her. But, bottom-line...we miss her. J.R. (Jenny to her friends) is a lovely person and she wanted the best for our words. Because of life issues, she's had to step aside from this project and our hearts are heavy for her. We wish her only good things.
 
We've had a new editor assigned and we'll do our best to welcome him with open arms. Not really. It just seems more professional to say that. But given a preference? We'd take J.R. Turner (no relation) back in a heartbeat.
 

(June 28, 2010)...in a sense, we guess you're right.
 
When we wandered through the Echelon Press website, we discovered that our YA mystery, Something Wicked, was Coming Soon. (Why didn't anybody tell us?) Wanting to know if our book was truly Coming Soon -- since we lack a cover and our manuscript is still in edit -- we contacted publisher Karen Syed. Turns out, she thinks everything will come together shortly. Our pages remain on schedule and our book should be available no later than August 15th.
 
Feeling pretty damned well upbeat, we strolled over to the Cobblestone Press website. If you check here, you'll see that our spicy  romance, Wicked Games, is Coming Soon! at their site, too. The cool thing about the CP site? They show the book titles AND covers and everything seems the more official because of it. We're pegging the release date for July-August but there's no official word just yet.
 
And the painting above? If you glance back at our May 1st Blog-O-Rama listing, you'll see the original image that inspired this disturbing little number. SHATTERED will be part of Renée's upcoming gallery show. You can mark it at on your calendars: November 1-30, The Sacred Bean, Prescott, Arizona.
 
That show is Coming Soon, too.
 
 

(June 24, 2010)...from an e-book writer.
 
(1) Let's use our royalty check to go to Italy!
 
(2) Think I should bring extra pens for the book signing?
 
(3) We're finally in our second printing!
 
(4) Do you think Universal will buy the movie rights?
 
(5) Honey, he was just another one of our groupies. He meant NOTHING to me. (Actually, no writer has ever been able to say this.)
 
(6) The foreign edition has a much better cover.
 
And finally --
 
(7) My agent told me....
 
The image above? It has nothing to do with e-books and everything to do with the mighty grape. Eau d'vie, Eau d'mort is a painting by Lyman Dally.This is Renée's favorite wine painting of all time and, as the Blog-O-Rama goes to post, it remains available for the discerning collector. If fortune turns, we intend to be the discerning couple that has collected this painting. Until then, wise guys, keep your mitts off. If you should decide you'd like to buy this LD original before our ship comes in, know that Lyman wants a cool $4,250,000 for the piece.
 
More or less.

 
 

(June 20, 2010)...Lyman Dally. This guy ranks fairly high up the cool meter -- and, better yet, he creates some really fun and interesting paintings of wine.
 
Our good friend and photog, Ralph DeHaan, knows LD and thought we should meet him, too. Turns out, Lyman's a Renaissance man. He's been a competitive bodybuilder and fitness trainer, created over 5000 editorial cartoons, had a comic strip called Max Rep that ran for a decade or so (and continued as a comic book after that), is the genuis behind Maxim's "Most Popular Cartoon Ever", has his own web comic called Living with Les...and, according to IMDb, appeared as "Himself" on SexTV.
 
A bodybuilding fine artist that's been featured on SexTV? Oh, yes, my friends, you can definitely count us in on that action.
 
Sadly, the SexTV thing isn't nearly as titillating as we'd hoped. When we pushed LD to tell all, he did. "Hah! I totally forgot I was on that!" he said. "Anticlimatic as it is (no pun intended), I was interviewed by the show about the female lead in my Max Rep Cartoon series. Nothing tawdry; and no naked three-way girl orgy scenes, dammit."
 
We strolled over to his website, Oentourage -- go here -- and we found some terrific artwork that we desperately want to own. We know you'd like us to own one of his paintings, too, because you're generous that way. Figuring our royalty rate on the Renée Harrell books, we need each of you to download at least 378 copies of one of our volumes and, bam!, we'll be able to buy a Dally original! Score! Following Ralph's advice, we knocked on Lyman's door, snooped around the premises a little, and thought we'd share our findings with you.
 
Turns out, LD picked up his paintbrush and started his Wine Art That's Fine Art™ not very long ago. This was a huge leap from anything he'd done before and, we assumed, the people around him must have thought he'd gone crazy. "My mother-in-law is still trying to convince me to do something else," Lyman says, working on the theory that his Mom-in-law will never read the Blog-O-Rama. "But that's what mother-in-laws do, right? Friends and family are totally behind me. They all love wine, too."
 
Working primarily in oils, it took him two years to feel confident enough to display his work. He recently had a gallery show called Imagination Uncorked. "Despite the terrible economic times, I've found a few collectors who like my vision," he says. "Others seem to struggle with my grimmer work (which, of course, I especially love!)." So he's building a fan base but still hasn't made oodles of money: "Those oodles you speak of still hover on the horizon. I've made perhaps an 'oodle'."
 
(Side note: Renee adores Lyman's "grimmer" Eau d'vie, Eau d'mort. It's her favorite of his pieces and we hope to use the image with our next posting.)
 
When you visit the LD virtual gallery, you'll find canvases with titles like No Beer in Heaven and Wine Knot. You'll see wine bottles twisted and curled and skeletons pouring themselves a drink. You'll see artwork that teases the brain while presenting images you've NEVER seen before. "I like to deal with the odd and emotional elements of wine drinking," Lyman tells us. "Every wine drinker experiences these whether they realize it or not so I try and capture that 'flavor' in my work." Somehow, someway, we think he does.
 
We're ending the post here so we can swing on by and drink in a few more of his paintings. You ought to try it, too.
 

 

(June 15, 2010)...she said, "The cover of Wicked Games looks just like a REAL book."
 
Now, we wanted to be insulted by the "REAL book" comment but, c'mon, our friend was only trying to be kind. Besides, S.Grey did a terrific job on the WG cover gig and, if you didn't know better, you'd think you were looking at an actual, off-the-shelf, romance novel. E-book sales may be soaring but for people without e-readers, a real book only comes in paper -- and we get that.
 
This image is from Only You, Dick Daring! by Evan Rhodes and Merle Miller. A few years ago, Harrell bought the volume for a dime and he thinks it's great. OYDD! is absolutely a real book. Harrell only wishes the publisher would make it a little less real and provide an electronic version.
 
Recently, another well-meaning person asked us, "So how much was the advance for Games, anyway?" (Family can ask these things without being rude.) In answer to the advance question, let us say this about that:
 
Hahahahahahahahahahaha!
 
We researched this, we really did, and the average e-book advance is...zero dollars. If you write two of 'em, your advance doubles. So how exactly do we hope to make a profit by writing these things?
 
Volume.
 

(June 11, 2010)...during the summer. We let our hair down, remove articles of clothing (hey, we're in Arizona) and relax. But this hasn't been our typical summer and we're stressed. Our friends are stressed. The whole world is stressed!
 
Why are we so stressed?  Well, we've spent three weeks working on ANOTHER preliminary edit of Something Wicked and have just-this-second sent it out the door to Quake Publishing's J.R. Turner (no relation).  J.R. Turner (no relation) is a demanding taskmaster and has forgotten that SW is a just an e-book. She's intends to make us work on it and work on it until it's actually good. She doesn't care that our royalties from the book are going to only amount to coffee money -- and not Venti coffee money, either. That's one reason we're stressed.
 
Another reason? T.A.D. is in the ether, waiting for beta reader Kathy to share her wisdom before we send the pages to a waiting publisher so we figure we'll need to make changes on it, too. (We've just gotten word that the publisher is now closed to submissions for the rest of the year. We're hoping T.A.D. has an exemption.) Kathy is good but she ain't quick. Meanwhile, Renée is still preparing for her solo art show and Harrell's decided to...well, work on Secret Project X but only because Renée isn't available for playtime.
 
Summer used to be all playtime, all the...uh, time.
 
Since you're wondering, this painting is "Allegory of Happiness" by Agnolo Brozino, a painter from Florence, Italy. It's a remarkably accurate depiction of what happened last June, when family members gathered at our place to relax, do a little barbecue, and drink some wine. We're guessing Brozino saw some of the photos and reached for his paintbrush.
 
Enough is enough. Once the Blog-O-Rama is updated, we're dropping the paint brush, turning off the word processor, and reaching for an alcoholic beverage. For the rest of the week, we're cruisin'.
 
We hope you are, too.
 
 

(June 7, 2010)...shot from contract to cover art so quickly. We're wondering about that, too.
 
So let's run over the time line again. We signed the WG contract on April 9th and were assigned an editor about a month later. That editor was the lovely Leanne Salter.
 
Please note: This photo is not of our editor, Leanne. Cobblestone Press didn't supply us with a picture of Leanne and, so, we're forced to imagine what she looks like. Now that we're done editing our romance novella, we imagine she looks something like this. Only better.
 
In mid-May, L. Salter e-mailed to say we'd be receiving our first round of edits in about a week. Instead, we received them one day later. A week after that, we received our second round of edits. Three days later, our third round of edits. Then we were done.
 
But, you ask, what about our other manuscript and our other editor? Y'know...the pages that motivated us to start this website waaaaaaay back in 2009? We're glad you asked.
 
J.R. Turner (no relation) has us rewriting the entirety of Something Wicked for a second time. Once this rewrite is done THEN we'll start the official edits! Either J.R. Turner (no relation) is extremely dedicated to her job or she wants to drive us crazy.
 
We'll keep you posted.
 
 

(June 3, 2010)...not by a long shot. If you want to blame somebody, blame Sable Grey. Sable is the Art Department Administrator for Cobblestone Press and she designed the piece.
 
In April, shortly after CP offered us a contract for our weremance™ (our term for a sexy werewolf/romance novel), the editor invited us to select our cover artist. We were strongly tempted by the amazing Cris Griffin -- and listed her as our #2 choice -- but we went with S. Grey. Sable's a writer and a graphic designer and we liked the cover work she'd done in the past. Her covers seemed fresh but contemporary and we felt her talents would best reflect our modern romance story.
 
We assumed she'd be able to follow simple instructions so we sent her our cover ideas. Our hero is a werewolf by night so we wanted to see the moon or some moonlight in the piece. One of us suggested giving the hero glowing eyes (but subtle) so we tossed that in. Dravon's a talented sculptor so...let's see...we thought she should add a couple of statues in the background. Oh, and we wanted to see our heroine on the cover somewhere. Kelli should be doing -- something. Naked. Mix the elements all together and -- voila! Super Terrific Cover Art!
 
Now take a minute and ponder the image above. Do you see a naked heroine? Naw, didn't think so. Statues in the b.g.? Nope, missed out. Glowing eyes (but subtle)? Didn't happen. How about the friggin' moon? Do you see the friggin' moon anywhere? After all, every weremance™ ever written has a cover with (1) wolves or (2) claws or (3) the MOON on it somewhere.
 
Not our story. Not Wicked Games.
 
And you know what? We're delighted. Sable nailed the look of our two main characters. We think the cover is sexy, enticing and one of Cobblestone's best. Would it be even better with the moon in the background? Probably not.
 
But what if she'd put in TWO moons, glowing eyes, some claws and some naked wolves? Well, now you're talking.
 
Publication date to follow.
 
 

(May 30, 2010)...about expensive hotels, kayaking, and wine tasting? Frankly, we think we should do these things more often.
 
The expensive hotel (expensive for us, anyway): We stayed at the Sedona Rouge, right off of the main drag, and it was an eye-opening experience. In the past, we've tended to stay at places with "Budget" or "Econo" or "Super" or a number in their names...and you're never going to have a swank experience in one of those joints. You can have a good experience but you're not going to have a swank experience. Still, we live in the hope of someday finding the Super Econo Budget 8 Hotel. We assume it will be staffed by cockroaches and cost eight cents a night. Our favorite thing about the S. Rouge besides the complimentary bottle of wine they provided? We loved our super sized shower. It fit, roughly, eight people. But Harrell wanted a bathtub, too. "Just think of how big it would be!" he said, over and over.
 
The kayaking: Our guide, Felipe, is used to running large groups down the river so we were surprised to find only one other couple in our party. The other couple was surprised to find us in the party. A decade younger, infinitely richer, attractive, fit, with stomachs so tight we bet they're doing crunches right now...the Johnsons spent much of the trip talking about their NEXT adventure. (Hiking the Grand Canyon. They figured they could do it in eight hours or less.) They mostly pretended we didn't exist as we sent our individual kayaks into the trees, onto the rocks, and deep in the bushes. At the end of the excursion, we'd learned two things: (1) The other couple knew much, much more about kayaking than we care to learn; and (2) the Johnsons are apparently ignorant about the value of sunscreen. When we waved goodbye -- and they pretended not to see us wave goodbye -- they were the color of Petit Verdot grapes. Ah, but we had fun and our guide was charming.
 
The wine tasting: At the end of the river, we found Alcantara Vineyards. Owners Bob and Barbara served us cheese and crackers, poured us wine (again and again and again because Felipe was driving us back to the hotel) and talked about their ambitious plans for the future. Bob went into the wine biz once he'd retired; it seems to us, he's working harder than ever. Barbara, the visionary, charmed him into starting their empire. If everything goes to plan, they're going to build a bed-and-breakfast, a bistro, other shops, bring in all kinds of artisans...and we're not betting against them. For now, we were glad we had a chance to kick back and enjoy their 2008 Merlot (Harrell's choice) and take home a bottle of their 2007 Moscato Allegro (Renée's pick).
 
And now we're home and ready to get back to work. Mostly.
 

(May 26, 2010)...K-I-S-S-I-N-G.
 
We first met each other many years ago. (And no, smart mouth, dinosaurs were not roaming the earth at that time.) We shared a college class and Harrell was immediately attracted to the lovely Renée. So he asked her out on a date. And he asked her and he asked her and he asked her...and then he stopped. Because even a Turner can catch a hint once in awhile.
 
So Renée approached Harrell, wanting to know when he was going to ask her out again. He jumped on that, P-D-Q, and we've been together ever since.
 
It really was a long time ago. With our anniversary looming, we're setting aside word processors and paint brushes for kayaks and a wine-tasting tour. Oh, and many thanks to Matthew & Co. for staying at the house and watching the dogs. We'd bring you back a bottle of wine but we're pretty sure that most vineyards have sold out of the stuff. When we get back, we'll update you on the editorial process and tell you where things stand. (Some good news. Honest!)
 
 

(May 22, 2010)...of all the things we've learned this week. Being short on time, we're doing the happy/sad thing as a way to update the Blog-O-Rama.
 
A happy/sad moment: Allergy season has hit us hard. Both of us have been sneezing, wheezing, and coughing for days. The evidence suggests that our gorgeous butterfly bushes -- yep, they DO attract b'flies -- will have to go. This makes us sad (we love us some butterflies)...but happy if it ends the no-sleep fest we're currently enduring.
 
Another happy/sad moment: Yesterday, The Wall Street Journal published a piece called, "E-books Rewrite Bookselling". You'll find the article here. The WSJ estimates that digital books will end up grabbing about a third of the book market. This makes us happy because we've got two e-books coming out this year. This makes us sad because the same article suggests that many brick-and-mortar bookstores will be forced to close and we LOVE our physical bookstores.
 
Happy/sad: Puppy pictures make us happy but we find it sad that such pictures help drive traffic to a website. Just know that we'd never stoop to such tactics. Let other websites brag about their thousands and thousands of followers. We're happy to have you and you.
 
Happy/sad: We're happy to have two manuscripts in edit but sad because we have to edit them. (We wanted to hear that both pieces were perfect. Plus, we're lazy. Is that so wrong?) We've learned something about ourselves in the process, though. One of our editors opened her first e-mail to us with a comment on how much she liked our story...and then made some pointed comments on how much work we needed to do to get it ready for publication. The other editor opened her initial e-mail with pointed comments on how much work we needed to do to get the pages ready for publication...and followed her suggestions with why she enjoyed our masterpiece-in-the-making.
 
The editor who complimented us first? We instantly liked her more.
 
Enough about us. How are YOU doing?
 
 

(May 18, 2010)...about that darned gremlin on the wing of his airplane. Bill, old buddy, we've got you beat. There are TWO gremlins on the wings of our plane.
 
In the classic Twilight Zone episode, Nightmare at 20,000 Feet, Bill plays Robert Wilson, a salesman freshly discharged from a sanitarium and taking a flight home. Once airborne, he spots a gremlin on the wing of the plane -- and the gremlin is casually dismantling parts 'n' pieces of the airliner. He flips out, yelling and shouting, but no one else ever sees the gremlin. Once the plane lands, Robert Wilson/W. Shatner finds himself getting fitted for a straitjacket.

Once upon a time, we thought the show was only a fun fantasy. We know better now.
 
Our tale to date: After months of no interest, some folks said they wanted to see The Atheist's Daughter. Trying to be adult-ish (not easy for us), we put our noses to the grindstone and started rewriting the novel for this would-be publisher and this unlikely-as-Hell agent. Halfway through the manuscript, Renée had to visit the internet on a synonym-chase. Seconds later, she shrieked in alarm: "She's baaaaaaaaaack!"
 
Shockingly, J.R. Turner (no relation) -- our own personal gremlin -- had returned to the Airship Arizona and was once again casually dismantling our lives. Almost magically, she'd zipped through another round of edits on Something Wicked, was somehow dissatisfied with the superlative job we'd done on the book, and she wanted us to work on the thing again.
 
Harrell wasn't prepared for this quick turnaround and took the news poorly. But we sucked it up, put the projectaside, and picked up Something Wicked. Renée wandered off to the internet again, this time on an antonym-hunt. "Oh, my God!" she cried, seconds later. "There's another one!"
 
Yes, friends, to our horror, another editor had alighted on the Airship. This one called herself Leanne Salter, she claimed to be the Managing Editor for Cobblestone Press, and she'd written to say she'd be editing our romance novella, Wicked Games. Like J.R. Turner, she refused to supply us with a personal photo or her bank account information. Hmmmm. She'd contacted us to say she'd have our edit available in a week.
 
The very next day, she wrote again. Caught up in WG, she stayed up all night to edit the damned thing. She sent the manuscript back to us, with hundreds of teeny, tiny changes. So what did she want now? She wanted us to fix the story. Right this second.
 
In short: Bill Shatner, if you thought gremlins were trouble, we'd like you to meet J.R. Turner and Leanne Salter.
 
In case you're wondering, Harrell wears a man's large straitjacket, extra-long sleeves. Renée fits nicely in a woman's medium. How do we know this? None of your business, Snoopynose.
 
 

(May 14, 2010)...we need a drink. If you're feeling charitable, ship us a bottle of Chilean red wine. We're eager to try the 2001 Casa Lapostolle Clos Apalta. It's unfined, it's unfiltered, a little bit heavy but word is, it rocks the taste buds. At $70 and up (and sometimes WAY up. We've seen it at over $200 a bottle), it ain't gonna rock OUR taste buds unless someone offers us a free glass. We've let life press upon us and, now, the Blog-O-Rama is running late. We hate it when the Blog-O-Rama updates need updating.
 
Turns out, we're not the only people running late. Remember the slow-as-molasses publisher who finally responded to The Atheist's Daughter in a brief...oh, seven months? We certainly do. Two days later, a literary agency decided they'd like in the game, too. It had been so long, we didn't remember even pitching the project to this fine company.
 
So what did we think when we got the "We want to see more of this project" letter? Did we do the happy dance? We did not. We thought the letter was some lame ass writer scam. We believed some leach had wandered through Mars Needs Writers, read our rantings, and decided to try'n make a buck.
 
Except we'd heard of this particularly literary agency. Good thing gmail keeps copies of sent messages -- because, sure enough, we'd sent our project to JLI. Working from the feedback we've received from the agents who passed on the manuscript, we're doing a quick rewrite before anyone sees our words again.
 
So we're pleased but tired. Wondering if this is going anywhere or if it's just another stab in the dark. And badly in need of a full glass of a great red wine....
 

(May 9, 2010)...we've been blocked. As in "writer's block", baby. Because we write as a team, we rarely hit the block. Even if one of us is in a mental funk, the other one is still good for a day's labor. It's the main reason why we work more than one project at a time: If one story isn't coming together, maybe the other one will be.
 
Since one of our novels wasn't working, we weaved other tales. With most of our stories now up to speed -- out for submission or under contract -- we can no longer ignore the elephant in the room. The name of our personal e-i-t-r? The Atheist's Daughter.
 
We did our first/second/third draft of T.A.D. many months ago. We pitched the project to a few literary agencies and sent a partial to one (and only one) publisher. The publisher never responded but four of the agents did. They passed. Even though we liked our book as written, we decided it lacked a certain something.
 
What did it lack? Sex.
 
Or, more specifically, romance with a hint of sex. So we rewrote the first few chapters, tossed in a romance with the requisite undercurrent of age-appropriate sexuality, and searched for a beta reader. It took some effort but we found a good one. Kathy offered some strong insights on those first chapters and we decided to rewrite the whole damned thing.
 
Every chapter was a struggle as we tried to make the needed changes. We wanted to whine to you but, being all professional-y, we thought it best to keep this our little secret. Day after day, we'd sit and stare at the manuscript, not knowing how to make the romance work, feeling well and truly BLOCKED --
 
-- and, yesterday, the publisher-who-never-responded finally responded. Seven months after we submitted (and well past their "three month average response time"), they've e-mailed to say they like the first forty pages and want to see the rest.
  
We did mention that our partial lacks any romance, didn't we? Happy days, happy days....

 
 

(May 5, 2010)...a story from scratch?
 
In our case, it works like this: One of us has an idea (it's usually Renée) and a vague storyline (usually Renée). Then one of us grows enthusiastic about the project (Renée) and we decide to write it. We plot the tale together, off of the base idea that Renée has provided, and then Harrell takes the pages and does the stuff he enjoys -- like characterization, dialogue, and the occasional bizarre plot twist (to see if it makes Renée laugh).
 
That's our usual M.O., anyway. Toward the end of April, things went askew when the female half of Team Turner was offered her own art show in November. She'll need a minimum of fourteen paintings for the exhibition and this means she needs to focus on her painting. But...but...while she's busy in the studio, what will Harrell do?
 
No, we're not yet selling WWHD bracelets. We're waiting for the demand to build.
 
Y'see, characterization, dialogue and bizarre plot twists generally require some kind of story behind them. But, fear not, gentle friends: Once upon a time, in a land far, far away, Harrell used to write without a partner. He doesn't enjoy the solo act, anymore, but he figures it must still be part of skill set. To test that theory, he just punched out his first short story in over a decade.
 
At the Circus is complete at 3800 words and (thanks to the ease of electronic submissions) already in a publisher's slush pile. We'll let you know what happens.
 
 

(May 1, 2010)...are feeling that way, too. Battered by bad luck, bad relationships, circumstances or just life its ownself, they're suffering. They're hurting and we hate it.
 
As an artist, Renée wanted to say something about the pain around us. Although she almost never puts a name on a painting until it's completed, this time she knew the title of her next canvas: SHATTERED. She'd do a self-portrait, painting her image as reflected in a broken mirror. Her first task, then, was to break a mirror.
 
(The "seven years bad luck" thing that's supposed to happen when you break a mirror? Apparently, it dates back to Roman days when it was believed a person's soul could be trapped in the reflection of the glass. If the mirror was broken, your soul was broken, too, until your body managed to renew itself. The length of time for renewal? We know you'll figure it out.)
 
Using a Goodwill-special, she protected the mirror's face with newspaper and then hit it with a hammer. Nothing happened. She hit it again but harder. Still nothing. When she finally broke the thing, the shards tumbled from their frame. What was left of the mirror was useless.
 
A second donation store mirror was located. Covered with long strips of clear packing tape, it took one shattering blow to splinter it.The tape mostly held it together, too. The bad news? The tape refused to release itself from pieces of the mirror. Pocketed with air bubbles and cloudy at the point of impact, the tape left her with a second unusable mirror.
 
Out of mirror-money, she collected the first mirror's broken shards and, piece by piece, glued it back together. It took her hours but, as you can tell from the image above, it worked. She's three days into the painting and...well, hell, it's actually a pretty freaky-looking painting. Still, she's pleased. Sometimes in art, as in life, you only succeed by refusing to give up.
 
(If you're counting, you know one of us is looking at FOURTEEN years of crap luck. But there's an out! To free her soul, all Renée has to do is wait for a full moon then bury all of the broken mirror pieces under a tree. We don't know why exactly this is supposed to work but there you have it. Score!)
 
 

(April 28, 2010)...finished the first edit of Something Wicked! Pop open a bottle of a moderately-priced wine -- say, the 2003 Moncaro Rosso Conero Riserva Vigneti del Parco -- and toast to our success. Then quickly call your local wine merchant and pay them to ship us a bottle of the same. Hey, moderately-priced or not, WE can't afford it. 

We started the rewrite a little over two weeks ago -- and this isn't a big book. We worked on our pages every morning and a few too many evenings. Some sixteen days later, SW is now an even smaller book. So far, we've lost about 5% of the thing to the relentless demands of our editor, J.R. Turner (no relation).
 
Please note: This photo is not of our editor. Our editor didn't supply us with a picture and, so, we're forced to imagine what she looks like. We imagine she looks like this creature. We also imagine this creature is less of a taskmaster than J.R. Turner (no relation).
 
But here's another bit of good news: Months ago, we contacted our publisher and asked if our little YA mystery could  go out the door at far less than Echelon's standard $6 price. Karen said she'd consider it and now she has. We're quite happy to say Wicked will ship out the e-door at half the usual cover price.
 
If we can convince her to drop the tag by one more penny, we'll be able to offer the story for $2.99. Let's see Nancy Drew beat that!
 
 

(April 24, 2010)...and desperately trying to finish the initial edit of Something Wicked, we nearly forgot about the Blog-O-Rama. This is a bad thing and it comes from  (a) overwork and (b) a lack of good wine. Like you, we blame this "overwork" situation on Echelon's demanding new editor, Cruella DeTurner -- oops, we mean, J.R. Turner (no relation). Don't think poorly of J. R., however as we have reason to believe she was raised by wolves and never learned the social niceties.
 
Which leads us to this: It's a tradition in publishing circles for a new editor to send a bottle of good wine to each of her writers. It is, too, a tradition. We're not the type to make up traditions just to get free wine.  We hit the post office box daily but, as of yet, J.R. has failed to ship our bottle of 2004 Jackson-Triggs Vidal Ice Wine (under $20 almost anywhere). We're getting tired of waiting and we're more than a little burnt out on gerunds.
 
So here's the deal, J.R.: Get us our wine, you get the manuscript. Capiche?
 
In happier news, one of Renée's newest paintings is featured on the Mountain Artists Guild's latest postcard. MAG is having their annual Emerging Artists show this summer and RAT's The Fourth World is part of the show. Swing by the Guild anytime from May 6 - August 21st and take a peek.
 

(April 20, 2010)...sells even better and puts a few coins in our pockets. We're about to find out, anyway, because (drum roll, please!) we've just signed a contract with a publisher for our werewolf romance, Wicked Games.
 
This is good news. Wait, wait, let's use italics: This is good news!
 
A few days ago, Brandi from Cobblestone Press e-mailed us. She'd received our manuscript a few weeks before and the gang at Cobblestone liked the story...but they wondered if we'd be open to making some changes. She didn't know it (and we weren't about to tell her) but this wasn't a small issue with us. Directly prior to sending the manuscript her way, we'd been contacted by another editor at another publisher and they liked the novella, too -- as long as we did a pretty significant overhaul on the storyline.
 
We liked the publisher but thought the suggestions didn't work. We decided, instead, to submit the story elsewhere. When a writer we respect told us Cobblestone was among her top three romance publishers, we were intrigued. After a touch o' research, we knew exactly where WG was going next.
 
As it turned out, Brandi's list of changes were minor and, more importantly, we agreed with 'em. We made the revisions, sent her the pages, and here we are. So the really, really good news? We sold our romance novella (!) and checked off one of our New Year's resolutions.
 
The bad news? Soon, we'll have ANOTHER editor on our backs.
 
But, for now, it's time to howl.
 
 

(April 16, 2010)...we finally realize what a pain it is to have an editor for our book. Things were truly much easier before, when we could pretend our manuscript was a thing of glory. These days, our e-mail box is filled with all kinds of editorial complaints and suggestions. Who knew anyone would waste so much time talking about "problematic structure" and "narrative distance" and "gerunds"? We wanted our editor to talk about our genius, our brilliance, our nifty wordplay. That's why people want an editor!
 
What the hell is a "gerund", anyway?
 
Please note: This photo is not of our new editor. Our new editor didn't supply us with a picture and, so, we're forced to imagine what she looks like. We imagine she looks like this person. We also imagine this person is a woman.
 
Then, of course, there's the chocolate.
 
You remember how our editor adores chocolate? Of course you do. So we buy a frickin' big box of the stuff at a surprisingly reasonable price and we pay more than most e-book writers make in a year to send the tonnage off to Ye Olde Ed. You think she's grateful? You think, for one minute, she quits harping about "repetitious words" or "multiple story issues"?
 
Actually, she does.
 
Instead, she wants to know why the box is labeled "Chokolute". She asks why the first ingredient listed isn't cocoa and is, instead, guar hydroxypropyltrimonium chloride. She starts tossing out words like "allergic reaction" and "anaphylaxis" and "lawsuit".
 
Editors. Once you get one, you'll discover they're nothing but trouble.
 

(April 12, 2010)...it was only a matter of time before the bigwigs noticed us. That's our theory, anyway. A couple of days after we posted our slick, purplish and free Logosnap logo on this site, the movers and shakers at Echelon Press sent us an e-mail. Even though the e-mail cleverly avoided any mention of the website -- and, in fact, pretended not to know it existed at all -- the message still offered some terrific news.
 
We finally have an editor for our YA novel, Something Wicked. We're pleased to get one, too, with SW's August release date rushing upon us.
 
Please note: This photo is not of our new editor. Our new editor didn't  supply us with a picture and, so, we're forced to imagine what she looks like. We imagine she looks like this woman.
 
Our new editor's name is J. R. Turner (no relation), she's a professional artist/writer/editor, she has her own critique service and, as we write this, she's had seven novels published. Clearly, she knows her stuff. But here's the part that bugs us: In only her second e-mail to us, she mentioned she loves chocolate. It was at the end of the e-mail and it was dropped casually ("Most of all, though, I love chocolate!") but her message was clear -- You want a good edit, I'd better get good chocolate.
 
This scared us. We're okay with the shake-down but, c'mon, good chocolate is expensive. In the past, we've always bought the off-season chocolate-like candy offerings we found in the discount bins at the warehouse stores. To this day, our children believe chocolate is supposed to taste kinda waxy with a chemical-smell. We send that brown-colored poison to J. R. Turner, we're in big trouble.
 
We'll keep you updated.
 
 

(April 9, 2010)...it applies to cattle AND writers. At one of our favorite writing forums (Absolute Write), a group of wordsmiths are debating the issue of "creative branding". The theory goes like this: Agatha Christie built a readership by writing about Miss Marple and Hercule Poirot; she built a Mystery Brand. Zane Grey wrote story after story about the Old West; he built a Western Brand. Smart writers pick a genre and build on that genre in order to create a career -- or so the theory goes.
 
Meanwhile, Renée Harrell flits along happily, writing a little of this, a little of that, and building a very small following, indeed. (By our count, there's you... and you. We're so proud.) If we want to be successful, dammit, we need to pick a genre and stick with it.
 
The subject comes to mind today because an Acquisitions Editor has contacted us, saying she's interested in Wicked Games. If things work out as we hope (minor story-tinkering involved), we'll soon be signing a contract for a sexified werewolf novella definitely intended for an adult audience. Then, in August, our Young Adult mystery novel comes out.
 
There are those at AW who'd say we need to adopt a new pen name for the werewolf tale, when and if it comes out. Presumably, they fear we'll develop a following for our YA mystery and those same readers will rush to buy the much steamier WG, assuming it's another YA mystery -- and their brains will explode.
 
What the hell. Ignoring the collective wisdom of all of those other writers, we've decided to keep the same semi-pseudonym on everything we write. After all, it's not our brains. But since we're gonna continue to write all kinds of different stuff, we thought we might come up with a logo to represent the Renée Harrell Brand. You see the logo on a book or a novella or a short story or a bounced check, you'll know that Renée Harrell was involved. Plus, if we farted around with logos, we wouldn't have to do any real writing today.

We checked with a top design firm to see what a logo could cost. They said they'd want a minimum of $25,000 to launch the project -- and our brains exploded. So we went to Logosnap.com, instead. Logosnap charges a lousy ninety-nine bucks to design a corporate logo. Or, if you're just too darn cheap to drop a C-spot, you can use their site to design your own logo for free. People who go the "free" route will find limited fonts, limited graphics, limited...everything. But -- and we can't emphasize this enough -- it's free.
 
So guess who branded themselves and still saved ninety-nine bucks?
 

(April 5, 2010)...intelligent, thereby eliminating one pretend cowboy from her pool of potential cover models. She does terrific digital artwork for a slew of publishers and we've been impressed by her talent. (The image to the left? It's a piece she did for FUN.) Since there are so many bad e-artists out there, we thought it might be fun to contact one of the good ones.
 
An artist herself, Renée wondered how a nice girl like Cris went from earning an MFA at George Washington University to illustrating book covers for electronic novels. Turns out, full-time mother Cris put her paints away to keep tiny fingers from getting into her work. "That didn't last long," Cris told her. "The muse wants what the muse wants so I segued into digital art. Out of the blue, an author stopped by my fledgling digital gallery at Deviant Art and suggested I look into e-covers. My first gig was with Loose Id Publishing and I still work for them today."
 
Does she work with any paints or acrylics to help create her covers? "The majority of my covers are digitally-generated. Digital paintings are usually executed with Photoshop or Corel Painter, in the same way a traditional painting is developed. The big difference is the malleable nature of digital art. Tweaks are relatively easy compared to repainting in oils or acrylics, so it's great for commercial projects."
 
Y'see, this is the kind of stuff only the professionals know. And, now that she's established as a pro, CG must finally have complete artistic freedom to create her wonders. Right? Right?
 
"Wonders? That's a great term because most days I say to myself, 'I wonder what on earth possessed me to think this was a good idea?'" Say again? "In a commercial project," Cris said, "the artist is at the mercy of her client. Of course, the artist tries to exhibit as much influence as possible but, ultimately, you have to sell the product. Right now, e-publishing is really dominated by romance and erotica and there has evolved a 'uniform' for those covers. This is what buyers want to see. I'd love to work on other genres and work on cover designs that were a bit more out of the box."
 
If we haven't made it clear by now, Cris is one of the top talents in her field. She's an award-winner (her cover for To Trust a Wicked Man collected the 2009 ARIANA Best-in-Category trophy). Being the considerate souls that we are, we offered to stop by her house and help her carry her sacks of money to the local bank.
 
Or, then again, maybe not.
 
"In terms of freelancing, these covers won't pay your rent," she told us. "E-pubs pay their artists three different ways: royalties, a flat fee, or a combo of both. The royalty system only works if the publisher does mad marketing. A flat fee is typical but getting e-presses to pay more than minimum wage (or less!) is often like pulling teeth. They must think we can crank these covers out in an hour, or don't have to pay for stock photos, or we're just so tickled to see our art on a cover that we'll work for free. Dream on, Alice...."
 
It was at this point in our conversation that we noticed Cris gets a little worked up about -- well, starving for her art."More small e-presses open every day and they have no real clue what a good business model looks like," she said. "There are some publishers who don't know the worth of good product design. The bottom line is all that matters for them: 'How little can we pay for a cover?' Boo. Some publishers have lost great cover artists because they refused to supply raises for loyal years of work. What good is a solid novel if you slap a crappy cover on it? They'd sooner let their more costly artists go, despite of how hard they've worked for the company, and use newbies who don't know any better. Yeah, slimy."
 
Our Artist-at-Large tells us there are good e-publishers out there (and she's currently working with some of them) but she wasn't nearly as excited and quotable when talking about those guys. We know what our audience wants. It wants the DIRT. She's also worked with people who've published their own books: "Self-publishers have been great to work with! Sometimes they're shocked that a cover costs more than a sawbuck but they're committed to selling their baby. It doesn't take them long to understand how vital it is that their book looks professional. I love the teamwork between artist and author. It feels more symbiotic. Both of us want the very best for the product."
 
We admire an artist this talented, committed, and passionate about the work she does. If you'd like to cruise Christine Griffin's digital gallery, you'll find it at deviantART, where she goes by the name of "quickreaver". No one knows why she uses that name. It's one of those crazy artist things. If you'd like to contact her directly, go here.
 
If you do contact her, tell 'er Renée and Harrell sent you and she just might give you her recipe for banana muffins.

(April 2, 2010)...not in that good, I-can't-wait-to-read-that-book, kind of way. No, we love bad book covers because they make us laugh. Still, no matter how much we laugh, we've never downloaded a book with a bad cover.
 
Old homilies be damned. We ABSOLUTELY judge a book by its cover.
 
We figure it this way: If a book's publisher doesn't know the difference between good cover art and bad cover art then it's a fair bet this same publisher doesn't know the difference between good writing and bad writing. Clearly, some publishers remain confused about the role cover art plays in book sales; in a recent New York Times article (you'll find it here), the president of Ravenous Romance said she'd changed the cover art on one of her titles and that particular book's sales tripled.
 
A better cover = better sales. Seems kinda basic to us but we somehow find a new book cover e-trocity almost every day. While such discoveries fill our house with laughter, we wondered: Just why are there so many bad e-book covers? Since we'd recently been in conversation with digital artist Christine Griffin, we decided to ask her.
 
This is what she said:
 
"There are a couple of fundamental reasons why there are so many bad covers. First, the publisher just doesn't know any better. Their visual vocabulary is naive and their understanding of design non-existent. Cover design looks easy but there's more to it than meets the eye. I'm still learning myself after ten-plus years! You never stop learning.
 
"There's another truth in e-publishing: You get what you pay for. Many e-pubbers look at cover art as a necessary evil that cuts into their overhead and, therefore, try to pay the bare minimum. What they don't digest is that the cover is the best way to hook a reader who is unfamiliar with the author and get them to read the blurb as well as buy the book."
 
And then she went on and on because, honestly, the woman's trapped in her house with the computer all day and you can only do digital art for so long before you go kind of wonky and suddenly, bam!, you're desperate for adult conversation, desperate for ANY kind of human interaction, and you keep talking and talking and you end up saying so much more than you ever intended.
 
Too much for us to share today, in fact. But be here on Monday and you'll see what we mean when...Cris Griffin tells all! Well, no, it's not really all that juicy but it IS interesting. Y'all come back now, y'hear?
 

(March 29, 2010)...where our hosts lacked an internet connection. Truly, in this day and age, we found the one home in this fine nation that is without any form of internet access -- and, indeed, without any kind of computer. Who knows what we've have done if our gracious hosts didn't have cable?
 
Of course, we're going to call our hosts "gracious". (1) They were gracious; and (2) their kids damned well have internet access and they know enough to peek in here now and then. And THOSE blabbermouths talk.
 
On our return home, we scampered gaily to our computer and looked for fresh scoop. Happily, our Mars Needs Writers inbox provided many interesting offers for sex, money and drugs -- and, even more interesting, a long and detailed letter from cover artist and digital magician Cris Griffin. We've asked Cris many, many questions about working as an artist in the e-world and she's answered everything. We'll be posting a lengthy and fun Blog-O-Rama exclusive just as soon as we've recovered from our latest excursion.
 

(March 26, 2010)...be inappropriate, shall we?
 
Professional writers, for the most part, aren't Livin' Large. Is there no justice? Turns out, the average US/UK novelist doesn't collect much in the way of a yearly income. If the Western world's storytellers had to live on what they were being paid for their words alone, over 80% of the literary crowd would qualify for food stamps -- and not just occasionally. We're talking every year of their writing lives.
 
It's not that way for every writer, of course. John Scalzi (he wrote the enjoyable Old Man's War and its sequels) has openly discussed how much he makes at the word processor -- right here, at the Scalzi version of the Blog-O-Rama. In 1999, his sci-fi fiction brought him roughly $400. In 2002, he was collecting $1,000. In 2006? That year, he collected $67,000 from his s-f efforts. This excited us 'cause JS still relies on Old Media for his daily bread; y'know, the printed stuff. But, as Will Shakespeare said, "Print is dead!" (1609 A.D.; you can look it up). Even Shakespeare knew that the future belonged to ebooks, baby!
 
So far, the e-cash register isn't ringing too loudly. We know of one talented sci-fi writer (Hi, Chris!) that knows all of the electronic bells and whistles and, man, is he promoting his new novel. He should, too: The book has received a couple of glowing reviews. Chris has been open to interviews, he's hit all the social networks, he's established his blog, he's talked up his story at most of the s-f/writer/novel forums...and he's sold less than ten copies of his ebook in the last three months. By his own accounting, he hasn't quite collected $15 in royalties.
 
But give him time. W. Shakespeare and us, we believe in Chris and electronic publication. But short-term? We're keeping our day jobs.

 

To see older Blog-O-Rama posts, go to the Old-O-Rama. More words, no pictures. But you've never been the kind that needed pictures. We like that about you.