...although, truly, we're not making an exit. More of a detour.
 
Before we get to that bit o' business, we'd like to bring you up on the Something Wicked cover art controversy. And, by "controversy", we mean, the mildly interesting design question we posed a couple of weeks ago.
 
As July wrapped, we mentioned that the good people at ACX needed an image to promote the upcoming audiobook of SW so Renée decided to create a new cover for the book (the old cover/new cover blog post is here). Before we changed the book's face, though, we wandered to a pair of our favorite websites and asked what other people thought of the two covers. Happily, several people chimed in.
 
Because of the forums we'd chosen, we heard from a variety of writers and graphic designers. It turns out, their opinions were all over the place. Some people liked the original version, more people liked the new version -- and one guy liked it "a million times better", which is seriously better, we're telling you -- and a few gentle souls liked both versions. Once we posted the new cover version of Wicked, though, electronic sales soared (soaring being a relative term: SW has never climbed the sales charts but e-sales did take a definite bounce). The paper version remains "out of print" until we can get a good color balance on the physical copy. We're on Proof #4 and still trying to find the perfect look.
 
Meanwhile, we gave the Audiobook Creation Exchange the new cover just as our narrator finished the project. The verbal edition clocked in at a healthy 10 hours-plus and we think it's more dramatic, more exciting, than the source material. Our actress, however, gave the files another listen and soon decided that she needed to rework the entire book. Her sound editor wanted to improve the overall listening experience and K. wanted to improve her performance. They're still working and we're happy to wait. For now, it remains a work in progress.
 
Although we may not have mentioned it, we also went looking for a narrator to do the audiobook version of Aly's Luck. This was not an easy task by any means. Our perfect narrator has to be able to do female, male, Bug and monster voices, often in the same scene...and we struggled to find anyone with that set of pipes. Finally, we got lucky. The fellow we found is an actor by trade but does voice work on the side. He was halfway through the project when he was offered the lead in a movie -- and, silly thespian, he was somehow willing to put our project aside while he went and made some real money. (Actually, he asked nicely if we'd mind if he completed the audiobook after the production ended filming.) Fingers crossed, the AL audio will wrap in September.
 
Returning to the 'detour' thing: For the nice people who have asked if they'll soon be seeing a sequel to The Atheist's Daughter, please know we're so glad you're asking. The Preacher's Son has been delayed due to life issues. (Don't blame us. Blame the doctors.) Half of our team is having surgery soon and the other half expects to spend day and night, hovering at bedside, pretending to be a nurse. That doesn't mean we won't be doing any writing, it just means that we won't be doing much writing...or any.
 
Because of this, Mars Needs Writers probably won't see an update for the next few weeks. Just know that we're not gone, we will be back, and we'll see you then.
 
Thanks!

...and good ain't always popular. Because, this lovely summer day, we just don't feel like using proper English.
 
We cling to the theory that good things (quality work, talented artists, great writers) are often ignored because, otherwise, our sales figures would really sting.  We have three novels, a novella, a script and a short story collection available for the general public and, generally, the public isn't too interested. We average about 50 downloads a month. Or, roughly, 0.0006% of what Darcie Chan did with one novel last August.
 
Not that we're complaining. Much. Okay, we're complaining, but friends let friends whine. And, yes, we understand that sometimes popular = good but that's not the subject of today's post. Or next week's post, either. Still, we're always pleased when we stumble across something that's been largely ignored but is, somehow, worthy of broad attention. Which brings us to The Devil's Rock.

We found the movie at the local rental store -- not at the local Red Box kiosk 'cause they've never heard of the movie, either -- and the image above caught Harrell's attention. Because a hot chick with her mouth open, streaked in blood and staring kind of mindlessly is just the kind of embarrassing imagery that would catch his attention.
 
Strangely enough, the hot-chick-with-no-bra design didn't do anything for Renée. Nor did the official movie poster, to the left. Just look at the guy in the Purple Demon suit: Would you want to see that movie? Don't bother answering, we know you, you'd laugh and walk away. The IMDB comments weren't stellar -- rated 5.2 out of 10, not any kind of wonderful -- so, even though Harrell had checked out the DVD, she figured she was safe.
 
Until Harrell found a couple of reviewers who loved the movie. One of them said it was Lovecraftian in concept. As much as one of us is attracted to attractive women in military uniforms...please, Doctor, explain what this particular kink means before someone gets hurt...Renée is fascinated by most things Lovecraftian. (Enough so that, as this post is being typed, A Very Scary Solstice is playing in the background.) So we popped a bowl of popcorn, sat down and wondered if we'd like this odd independent picture on any level.
 
The Devil's Rock turned out to be a small New Zealand horror picture, set during WWII, and starring no one we'd ever heard of. It was shot in about two weeks time, has a cast of ten...two of which are referred to as "Dead German"...and released almost nowhere. Video-on-demand, maybe. But, Purple Demon to the contrary, it's fun, scary and interesting. Well-written and tightly plotted, the direction is excellent, the acting is strong, the set design is so good that we forgot there were sets, and the tale is Lovecraftian, indeed.
 
We liked it so much we wanted to tell someone. So we told you.

…the other day, which was a bit of a shock .  Not because someone had dared reject our work, not at all. We don’t have any idea of how often we’ve received a rejection slip but we do know that we stopped counting at 100; once you’ve reached triple digits, you can pretty well assume your work is not universally beloved.

Early on in our career, we’d been rejected so often Harrell had a belt made with the words “Dear Contributor” stamped into the back. Yep, the lettering was pretty small but it fit.  “The editors don’t seem to know our names,” he complained. “So I’m thinking about making a change.”

As time went on, we still found plenty of Dear Contributor slips in the mail but we also started to receive nicer comments, more personalized almost-but-not-quite-right’s, and the occasional paycheck. When we focused on independent publishers and e-publishing, our acceptance rate soared. Once we embraced self-publishing as a viable option, why, the rejection slips fell to almost zero.

We created Hunting Monsters Press and, frankly, Hunting Monsters Press loves our work.  So you can imagine our surprise when we checked through our e-mail’s spam filter and found a legitimate communication from a Big Name Publisher. It was our first rejection slip in well over a year.

(The spam filter had also collected a large number of discount offers on Viagra…sometimes spelled ‘Vigra’ and ‘Vaigra’…and this most amazing offer from an African prince. He has hundreds of thousands of dollars waiting for us and all we have to do is help him out a little. So if you don’t hear from us for a bit, you’ll know why.)

All in all, the rejection was a pretty gentle this-is-not-for-us as things go. The editor thanked us for our patience. Said his company receives boodles of submissions but only a tiny number of those submissions warranted significant attention – and that kind of attention takes time. Then editor provided us with a full page of thoughts and suggestions.

The thing is, we didn’t remember submitting anything to the publisher (who shall remain unnamed; after all, they still accept over the transom, unagented submissions and we love them for that). At least, one of us didn’t remember making a submission. Harrell scratched and his chin and said, “I think…maybe…let me check….”

He pulled records and there it was: He really had submitted Aly's Luck to this publisher. When time passed and there wasn’t a response, he sent a query to see if they were still interested in our work but we never heard back. (Their reply might have fallen into the spam trap, too. Who knows?)  So he went ahead and found us another publisher; actually, he found us two. A small print publisher who wanted to wait two years for publication due to financial issues and an outfit in the UK with a lovely editor. We didn’t want to wait two years (good thing, too; the publisher is now out of business) so we signed with the UK place.

Ye Olde Ed did a good job, raising many of the same issues found in this recent rejection letter.  We fixed everything needing to be fixed, ended up carving thousands of words from the story to make ourselves happy, and went on with our lives.  By the time we realized the UK publisher wasn’t going to work out, we’d already learned how to do the job ourselves. So we did.

When we publish our next manuscript, right around Christmas, we’ll put our own logo on it, too. Here’s one reason: We submitted our novel to the Big Name Publisher in 2010. We received their response in 2012. It was twenty-three months almost to the day before they told us they weren’t interested in our story.

The kicker? At the end of our rejection, the editor closed with, “We of course wish you the best of luck with the version you recently published.”  

So we got that goin’ for us, which is nice.