Category Archives: writing/blogging/publishing related

writing, blogging, publishing

Mea Culpa! Mea Culpa! And Someone Else’s Culpa Too!

(See the update to this post here.)

Gentle Readers:

Did you download a freebie of Blood Diva during last week’s freebie extravaganza, or anytime since December 2014? If you did, you may find a few small but significant errors, for which I apologize (profusely and on my knees). You will be able to get the corrected version free from your “manage my content and devices” page (but you should probably wait till Wednesday, July 1st for the changes to go live You will be able to get the updated version soon. Apparently this is a process that involves my pleading with Amazon.

How did this horrific thing happen?

Continue reading Mea Culpa! Mea Culpa! And Someone Else’s Culpa Too!

The Boring Business Stuff

Oh my! Nothing but television! It’s true I’ve been writing a lot for HNTP which is all TV all the time. This is even though they pay me in peanuts. Why? More people read them so it’s a way to get my name out there. I’m hoping The New Yorker will discover me and Emily Nussbaum will go out on maternity leave or something, even though writing about television is the perfect job for a pregnant woman and she’s great at it. I’m not trying to start a rumor that she’s pregnant and I’m not claiming to be psychic like Daphne on Frasier.

In addition to continuing with the Wayward Pines recaps — despite that I don’t give a hoot what the “mystery” is — I will also be writing more pieces on Continue reading The Boring Business Stuff

Loisaida News!

(This was posted back in March, but I’m reposting because this week only there’s $0.99  sale at Amazon. And for those of you who prefer to spend your money elsewhere, it’s also available on KoboB&N and I-Books.)

Big Announcement!

New cover

No, I didn’t sell my very minor cult classic to Hollywood (yet), but there is news.  We (this is a team effort) are giving Loisaida a facelift. Changes are slightly more than cosmetic. There is a new cover on the electronic and will be one soon for the print version, and mo’ betta formatting on both. This time we hired a pro.  A few proofreading errors that had been long corrected on the ebook will finally  be fixed on the paperback, and a few more very newly discovered typos will be fixed on all versions. Additionally, for a long while the ebook was only available on Amazon, but starting NOW the new edition is on sale in other venues as well. If anyone is interested in the why: The paperback was printed through Lightning Source. Lightning Source charges fees to make changes; plus there’s an annual “set up” fee. Proof copies are very expensive.  Only a few paperbacks are sold a year, so with the fee it’s always a loss. Most of my paperback sales are through Amazon and since CS is an Amazon company they pay a much higher royalty for “in-house” sales. That’s reality. Not necessarily an endorsement. You will still be able to order a print copy of Loisaida from your favorite bookstore, but you’ll probably be able to get it at a discount (with the same payment to me) if you go directly to Amazon. Continue reading Loisaida News!

The 50 Review Project

Convention of Marion's Blog Readers

As those of you (both of you) who follow this blog know, I write books, and despite some good customer, zine, and blog reviews, nobody buys my books.

There are now officially a GAZILLION “books” out there. The odds of randomly coming across one of mine are 100,000,000,000,000 to 1 – and that’s science! Also I write stuff that is “genre-fluid” and would be more appealing to readers who mostly shop in bookstores (which don’t stock my books) and/or readers that read reviews in print magazines  or other places that won’t review them. Plus, some readers would still rather be caught dead with soiled and torn underpants than with a “micro-published” or self-published book. Or possibly my books suck only appeal to a very particular audience.

But there’s hope! Somewhere on the web I saw an article that my “luck” would change and Amazon would magically make my books more visible so more people would see and buy them if Continue reading The 50 Review Project