We normally publish the print edition first and ebooks follow along a few weeks later, but to thank the fans who’ve been patiently waiting for TWICE DEAD since our holiday Kindle promotion, we’ve managed to get the Kindle edition online early!

In the next week or so, the print edition will be showing up online and be available for local bookstore ordering.  Of course the print book is already available from the publisher www.BellBridgeBooks.com.

Fictionwise will have a wide selection of ebook formats available very soon.

But for now…Kindle readers, please go make Amazon glad they worked quickly to get this up for you.

“Even working in microcosm, Janice Daugharty is an author who thinks big.” -- The New York Times Book Review

Since 1994 Janice Staten Daugharty has published a volume of short fiction, six novels, and numerous short stories and essays. She has built a national reputation as a chronicler of life and people in the South.

 

We asked Janice to share some of THE LITTLE KNOWN’S publishing history…
www.JaniceDaugharty.com

 

Any writer with good sense would have long ago abandoned a project with a history like my latest novel, The Little Known.

It has been through more agents than I care to count, as well as a number of titles. I've taken it apart and put it back together again several times, only to fix it like it was in the first place.

This story has made me laugh and cry and wring my hands in frustration. It has evolved with me, gaining wisdom as I gained wisdom and changing as I changed interests and insight into the world around me.

The manuscript was first tapped out on an old manual typewriter when I was so broke I had to re-ink the  spool ribbons. After I moved up to a computer, The Little Known came down with a virus that almost did it in. Later, after nursing the manuscript back to health, it got drenched in a flood in agent Marly Rusoff's office, and I almost let it die. We had worked full days together on the manuscript, doing summaries and re-thinking titles. She was away in Europe, as I recall, when her office flooded. Her plan when she returned was to start sending it out to editors. Well, after a year, she still hadn't recovered sufficiently to handle all her authors, so she had to let me and some others go.

Poor Marly! At least she still had Pat Conroy.

I emailed her last evening to tell her that almost five years later The Little Known is finally being published. I halfway expected her to have forgotten both me and the book. But no, she immediately responded and was thrilled. I guess a book that has been that much trouble would quicken anybody's memory.

My father-in-law  sent me an email with any number of “brain teasers” and “tests” of how the brain works.  I found the following bit interesting because I had absolutely no trouble reading the test as quickly as I do any other writing.  Obviously, a spell checker is a great help to writers.  Even with checkers readily available, errors remain because most of us tweak (here and there—just a bit!  A lot.) and then we rarely spell check or painstakingly proof the whole document again.  Rushing deadlines for submissions, contests, and publication is often the culprit.  The work doesn’t have time to grow cold.

If you can easily read the following, you just might have an answer to why proofing your work is difficult for you.

 

Can you raed this? Olny 55 plepoe out of 100 can.

I cdnuolt blveiee that I cluod aulaclty uesdnatnrd what I was rdanieg. The phaonmneal pweor of the hmuan mnid, aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it dseno't mtaetr in what oerdr the ltteres in a word are, the olny iproamtnt tihng is that the frsit and last ltteer be in the rghit pclae. The rset can be a taotl mses and you can still raed it whotuit a pboerlm. This is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the word as a wlohe. Azanmig huh? Yaeh and I awlyas tghuhot slpeling was ipmorantt!

 

Just an update on our submissions queue.  We know writers worry about their work.

Since we last touched on the subject of submissions in this blog, we made an heroic effort.  With the exception of a few full manuscripts, we have now answered all those folks.

If you queried us before 12/12/09, you should have either received a request for a full manuscript or a note from us letting you know we wouldn’t be asking for a full manuscript to review.

As we’ve said before, our attention must first go to our contracted books.

 

We want your submissions.  That’s the only way we can find wonderful new writers.

 

Still, evaluation takes time.  That’s a good thing.  Really.

The folks at EPICon said they’d appreciate it if I let folks know I’ll be in Nawlins with them this year!  You can find their schedule here http://www.epic-conference.com/schedule.html.

 

Other folks attending as special speakers…

 

http://www.deborahleblanc.com/ 

Fabulous writer and President of Horror Writers of America

 

http://www.ciecatrunpubs.com/

USA Today Bestselling Author

 

http://www.deidreknight.com/index.html

Author and agent

 

Plus more.  If you attend, be sure you say hello.

 

Nope.  Not a typo.  FOUR of the Top Ten Kindle slots are BelleBooks and Bell Bridge titles.

#2  Crossroads Cafe   Deborah Smith

#3  Murder Takes the Cake    Gayle Trent

#5  Mossy Creek     Smith, Dixon, Ellis, Ball, Knight, Chastain

#7  Once Bitten   Kalayna Price

#21  All God’s Creatures   Carolyn McSparren

There has been much made over the last few days of the dominance of free books on Amazon’s Kindle Bestseller List.  Some point to it as an indication that readers are demanding cheaper ebooks.

No.  They’re just loading their brand new Kindles and who doesn’t like a good free classic like 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea?

But for the commercial publishers (like BelleBooks, Tyndale, Scholastic, and James Patterson’s publisher), who have free books hitting and STAYING in the Top 10 (and more big publishers with books in the Top 100), this is just promotion.  We cleverly thought that people with bright shiny new Kindles received as holiday gifts would need content.  So BelleBooks arranged for some of our backlist to be free for a limited time.  We selected 5 books—either first in series or from an author with other titles published by us.

Boy howdy!  Has this paid off.  One of the books – ONCE BITTEN – is the # 1 Fantasy book on Amazon.  Not Kindle…the full Amazon list.  Has been for days.

CROSSROADS CAFE is the # 1 Romance book on Amazon.

MURDER TAKES THE CAKE is the #1 Mystery on Amazon.

Full list, not just Kindle.

The books are getting fabulous reviews.  I don’t know about you, but I DO look at reviews when I buy a book.  Especially if I don’t know the publisher or the author.

This is the equivalent of “end capping” or co-op advertising.  For decades large publishers have paid for book placement in stores, in national chain newsletters, etc.

This is how a small publisher says, “Our books can hold their own.  Just try one.”

And head to head, the small publisher’s books are beating out the other free books from large commercial publishers.  We’ve always felt, that putting the books in front of readers is the best way to build a audience for the author.

We don’t know distributed units yet.  But we can say that the print versions of these books have shown some sales increases as well.

Got a Kindle?  You might just want to pop over to Amazon.

We think it’s nothing short of fantastic that so many of our books have risen to the top when there is so much free content on Amazon.  And so much free content from large NY publishers who are doing the same thing we are…leveraging back list to promote their front list.

(The punch line is in turquoise.)

 

Rejection is a part of publishing.  It sucks.  But the bottom-line is that publishing is a business and not an “everybody plays” soccer league.  Books that aren’t right for our house might be right for a different publisher.  Authors that haven’t quite reached their peak and found their voice can go on to become fabulous writers with the next book or with a revision of the current book.

Do not despair if we don’t request the full manuscript or if we don’t make an offer.

We don’t have the copious amounts of time needed to give writers much feedback unless we’re seriously considering the book or want to see something else from the writer, but if we make the time and give you a little something to think about, a little something to help you shape future queries, or a gentle truth, then don’t respond like the writer below.  I present his reaction to being rejected verbatim--errors, warts and in all its glory.  I received the query in my morning’s email.

BTW, the writer opened the door on “formulaic” by assuring us in the query that the book was far grander and better than the formulaic genre crap being published.  Okay, the query didn’t use the word “crap,” but it was implied.  And won’t the writer be embarrassed to realize that my particular office is not in Georgia?

(If you aren’t howling hysterically with laughter and/or horrified by the following, please don’t query us.  It won’t end well for any of us if you do.)

 

Thank you for responding to my query.

I just wanted to offer a great book to your company that has never published anything on this level... your attempt to criticize and discourage me has fallen short because its apparent you don't understand what a formulaic novel is, its the way the story it is presented and resolved not just the idea. My writing is very unique and I strongly suspect your lying when you say you see this type of story all the time. This comes as no surprise because most people from the south are misinformed and habitual liars. Georgia is one of the worst states in the country for a large populace of misinformed people who are comfortable telling lies and usually the most wicked hypocrites. In the future try to stick to the truth, writers put in so many hours trying to finish a book and to have false criticism hurled at them is disturbing to me....good day

Coming in April 2010 in paperback, ebook, audiobook

25% off everything.

And you don’t have to wait until Monday.

From now until Monday at midnight, all you have to do is put CYBER in front of your name on the order form at either (or both) websites. The deduction will be reflected in your final credit card charge. ( You won’t see it on the form, but don’t worry.)

www.BelleBooks.com
www.BellBridgeBooks.com

We list many of our books on both websites, but a handy guide is that Bellebooks is generally known for books you can hand to almost any family member and not worry about their sensibilities. You’ll find books that are distinctly Southern and a variety of genres.

Bell Bridge Books does NOT have a regional emphasis and its books may take a walk on the dark side. Bell Bridge is where many of our emerging writers are published but you’ll also find nationally, multi-published authors there as well. You’ll find a variety of genres, including mystery, suspense, urban fantasy, YA, etc.

We don’t normally herald reviews, but D. Merrimon Crawford, one of Amazon’s Top 1000 and Amazon Vine Reviewer has posted one of the most thoughtful, analytical reviews I’ve read in a long time.

Don’t know this person.  Don’t know if D. Merrimon is a male or female.  But he/she writes a review with meat.

Plus he/she loved the book in a big way.

A sample of the review:

“a cozy mystery with all the excitement of a clever whodunit puzzle with the added bonus of a rich emotional content to draw one into the delightful cast of characters, setting and the story itself…takes the reader right into the heart of the world of horse carriage-driving with all sorts of fascinating details from horse breeds to carriage types. Above all, each and every detail brings a depth to the story…making one want to return to the book each spare moment possible and revisit the characters.”

Carolyn McSparren, the author, definitely deserves high praise and we’re glad readers are responding. 

This weekend, November 21 and 22, Deborah Grace Staley will be autographing books and meeting readers at the CASA Monore Festival of Trees at the Grand Vista Hotel, Vonore, TN. Saturday hours are 730 am - 6 pm, Sunday 10 am - 5 pm.  For more information, see http://www.deborahgracestaley.com/News_and_Events.html

A Home for Christmas by Deborah Grace Staley is a December feature title for Jennifer's B97.5 Book of the Month Club, Knoxville, Tennessee.  See http://www.b975.com/goout.asp?u=http://scrgknox.com/B975/BookoftheMonth/index.html

Friday, December 4, Deborah Grace Staley will be autographing books and meeting readers at Hastings in Maryville, TN from 5 - 8 pm. For more information, see http://www.deborahgracestaley.com/News_and_Events.html

Saturday, December 5, Deborah Grace Staley will be autographing books and meeting readers at the Greenback Corner Market in Greenback, TN from Noon - 3 p.m. For more information, see http://www.deborahgracestaley.com/News_and_Events.html

Thursday, December 8, Deborah Grace Staley will speak to the Presbyterian Women at Sequoyah Hills Presbyterian Church, Knoxville, TN. Fore more information, see http://www.deborahgracestaley.com/News_and_Events.html

Friday, December 18, Deborah Grace Staley will be autographing books and meeting readers at Books For Less at the Citadel Mall, Charleston, SC from 5 - 7 pm. For more information, see http://www.deborahgracestaley.com/News_and_Events.html

Saturday, December 19, Deborah Grace Staley will be autographing books and meeting readers at Books For Less at Columbia Place Mall, Columbia, SC from Noon - 3 p.m. For more information, see http://www.deborahgracestaley.com/News_and_Events.html

 

Debra Dixon here.

I wish I was faster.  I wish my assistant was faster.  (I’ll pay for that later, trust me.)

Publishing an author well is a lot of work.  There are no short cuts. 

We like to think the work we put into our books shows and that you “get it.”   That you submitted to us because you carefully reviewed our imprints, our books.  You’ve looked at the reviews out there.  You’ve checked out our availability.  You’ve read the pages for writers on our website.  (Except ignore the query response time.  That’s a complete lie.  We were young and foolish to think we could keep up that pace for the new imprint without letting our contracted authors suffer.)

We hope you’ll bear with us as we catch up on our non-contracted reading in the month of December.  We want to get to your proposals and queries and manuscripts.  We know there are some great books waiting for us.

Let me leave you with some words of wisdom once given to me, '”Hey.  A guilty editor will read more pages before rejecting a book.  You have a better shot.”

OMG It's COMING MY WAY! (is it real?)


Skeered. In my neck of the (southern) woods, that's a real word. It means not just "scared," but "creepy freaked-out" or "spooky messed up" or "I ain't goin' in that there dark holler after midnight, not even if yo' mama goin' with me carryin' her AK 47." It means you're frightened beyond sophisticated notions of rational thought. You're. Just. Plain. Stupidly. SKEERED.

Stephen King's early novels skeered me. Skeered the CRAP outta me. Carrie and Salem's Lot and The Shining. So durned freaky spooky, mess-yo'-britches skeery I couldn't hardly nary turn the next page.

I remember a night in 19-mumble inarticle year-as a college student visiting home one summer weekend, in my narrow twin bed late at night, trembling as I read The Shining while a massive thunderstorm rocked the Georgia skies.

I swore I heard strange sounds in the wind that night.

I wasn't imagining them.

A half-mile up the road from my parent's house in our rural community, a small private plane crashed in the woods during that storm. All aboard were killed.


Sh*t happens. Not just in Stephen King novels, but in real life.

That's the underpinning of horror that makes novels not just frightening, but skeery.

A week ago the hubbie and I trekked down to the burbs (we live in Yokel Land)to see the new hot Halloween pee-skeery flick, PARANORMAL ACTIVITY. I don't often vote for deliberate skeeriness in my info-tainment; I can skeer myself inside my own brain without Hollywood's help, thankyaverymuch.

But I'd read so many good reviews of PA that I had to go. So me and Mr. Smith drove down yon to Mall World, supped at the P.F. Chang's, then went to the cin-E-ma.

Oh, My, Gawd.
Since the invention of Wii Games, how many times have you sat in the latest "blockbuster" movie with just yourself and a handful of teenagers in need of their Attention Deficit Disorder Meds? How many time have you asked yourself, "Wouldn't I have enjoyed this more if I'd just waited for Net Flix on the flat screen at home?"

Not this time. The theater was PACKED. Old folks, young folks, folks in-between. Packed. Like the old days of JAWS and the first STAR WARS and BILLY JACK.

Packed. And skeered.

This movie, Paranormal Activity, is one of those low-budget winners that was filmed in the director's very-own California house in ONE WEEK with a budget less than Megan Fox's anti-cellulite creme for Transformers Two, Rise of the Dumb Uh?

In P.A., a young couple is trying to catch a demon on their home video camera. They set it up in their bedroom at night cause that's when the demon gets jiggy. At first the camera catches this kinda "oh, the wind just shifted the door" kinda stuff but SOON it's obvious THAT SOMETHING EVEN WORSE THAN AN INTERNET SPAMMER is stalking them while they sleep.

Oh, My, Skeered, Gawd. Invisible footsteps on the stairs. Bedsheets gettin' fluffed without obvious maid service. Demon tracks in the Johnson's Baby Powder demon-trap on the bedroom floor. AND WORSE.

No gore. No chain saws. No Lindsey Lohan.

Just plain, perfect, Alfred Hitchcockian, Spielburg-only-in-Jaws-omg-that-thing's-invisible SKEERINESS TO THE INTH DEGREE.

Omg. Omg. Was that a teenager shieking in the audience or my husband??
Oh. All right. It was me AND a teenager. And my husband. And the rest of the audience, too.

Such dark, skeery stuff lives deep in our brains where the cave people put it. So we'd stare deep into the shadows of the cave or the castle or the mansion and be sure to see what wants to eat us before it gets its wish.

So we'd be skeered but stay alive.

So the species could continue, and thrive, and progress to the point where humankind could reach its pinnacle and build the Pirates of the Caribbean ride at Disney World in Orlando.

(I have my standards. I do.)

All of which leads me to this simple, non-skeery point:

Please buy my new skeery novel. SOUL CATCHER. OUT THIS WEEK. On Amazon.com, Barnes and Noble.com., and all them other dot coms where books are discounted. I am so skeered by it that I wrote it under a pen name, Leigh Bridger, so my Deborah Smith fans wouldn't make voodoo dolls in my image.

www.leighbridger.com

I ain't skeered enough to be that stupid.

You can read it online here:   October Newsletter

You can sign up here:  Sign me up!

You know a genre is resonating when cake decorators get in on the act.

Here's a sample to whet your appetite and if you'd like to see some more, you can check out a cake decorating blog with more examples.

 

Read Mark's bio here.

 

My copies of Primitive arrived this week, and I couldn’t open the box quickly enough. Strange, isn’t it? Primitive is my  fourth published novel, but each time a new one comes out I can’t wait to see it, smell it, feel its weight. It’s not as if it’s not real to me beforehand – amazon.com, B&N, and other online booksellers have been taking pre-orders for weeks – but the tangible nature of the text, no longer confined to a computer screen, always surprises me in a most delightful way.

But most of those books never left the post office in my hands. I’d arrived with cover letters to books editors at a dozen newspapers, hoping to snag some interest for a novel that I really believe deserves interest. It has unique elements, beginning with Sonya, a mother who’s a model in the twilight of her career, and who finds herself caught in a bizarre and ingenious abduction by a “neo-primitive” cult with a secret government report that contains devastating revelations about global warming. The cult then forces her to be their mouthpiece in podcasts from their hidden compound somewhere in the snowy wilds of the Pacific Northwest. Sonya’s estranged daughter, Darcy – a pierced vegan activist – enters the American and Canadian political underground to try to rescue her. Darcy has her own tangled secrets that propel her to try to find her mom, but she herself is tailed by a bounty hunter intent on landing a huge reward for finding Sonya. Meantime, an elite anti-terrorist squad is determined to hunt down (and I use those words advisedly) Sonya, Darcy, and the cult.

Primitive teems with unusual characters (the author says modestly), and I would have loved to have taken all of them in all those books home with me. Alas, most of them experienced a quick turnaround: I spirited them into padded envelopes with the letters I’d written to books editors, paid the postage, and left knowing they were off to new hands that I could only hope would prove as receptive to their presence as mine had been only moments before.

As so many readers know, the attention newspapers pay to books has decreased dramatically, which is why the great growth in the number of book bloggers has proved such an amazingly encouraging development. My last book came out in ’06, and in those three scant years it seems as if book blogging has experienced a meteoric rise. As an author, I couldn’t be more grateful. While I sent off a dozen books to reviewers at newspapers, that number frankly pales compared to the number of books Bell Bridge has sent to bloggers. Consider this blog entry a paean to those writers who still pay attention to books, whether they appear in print or on the screen of a reading device. Book bloggers now appear to be the future – recipients of the fallen world of newsprint, and able heirs to its venerable responsibilities.

Courtesy of the Memphis Commercial Appeal

 
Help us welcome Marilee Brothers, a fabulous writer in both adult and YA fiction!  How do we know?  (You mean besides publishing her first YA novel?)  Take a look at what the major trades are saying about her newest book THE ROCK AND ROLL QUEEN OF BEDLAM...

From Publishers Weekly:  "Readers will want to see more of this dynamic teacher/teen crime-solving duo."

From Booklist:  "At turns funny, suspenseful, and touching, this novel of romantic suspense will appeal to a broad spectrum of readers."

 

My schizoid life as a writer in two genres would likely make a normal  person crazy. Sixteen-year-old Allie Emerson is the main character in the young adult series (Moonstone, Moon Rise) I write for Bell Bridge Books. Allegra Thome is the teacher protagonist in The Rock and Roll Queen of Bedlam, an adult mystery to be published by Medallion Press in October. True, I’ve been on both sides of the desk, most recently as a teacher. But, it seems like only yesterday I was on the other side, gazing at the teacher with what I hoped was a look of rapt attention, while busily checking out the cute guy two rows over. Consequently, I find it easy, even beneficial, to head hop back and forth between the two.

To further complicate matters, you may have noticed both my ladies have names that start with “A.” What was I thinking? Is my brain not already suffering from information overload, not to mention swirling madly with half-baked ideas for new books and plot twists yet to be written? Did I set out to complicate my life even more? Um, no. Apparently I just love the letter “A” because it was completely unplanned, like many things in my life including three children. Yikes, that sounded bad. Rest assured, I’m not sorry I had them! My theory, though slightly flawed, was - if you wait until the right time to have babies, you never will.

Oh yes, there’s a third leg on my stool. I started out as a writer of medieval romance. You gotta love hunky guys with big swords! Unfortunately, I had to say goodbye to castles, knights and feisty maidens with magic crystals when I became committed to writing my other books. There is a limit to how much my brain can handle. And, no, my heroine’s name did not start with an “A.”

I have developed a method that makes writing two different genres a tad simpler. Both Allie and Allegra live in the same imaginary region of Central Washington state which happens to be my stompin’ grounds. Yakima Valley became Vista Valley. Parker and Parker Heights became Peacock Flats and Peacock Heights, an area I drove by each day when I commuted to my job as a counselor for behavior-disordered teens. Therefore, I’m able to use the same fake names in both books along with some real ones like: Cascade Mountains, Columbia River, Space Needle, Snoqualmie Pass and Lake Keechelus. Will Allie ever meet Allegra? Who knows, it could happen.

What about you? Have you figured out ways to deal with the complexities in your life? Does it involve a bottle of wine? A chick flick? A long soak in the tub? If you care to comment, there could be a book in your future, one starring a hunky knight with a big sword and a feisty maiden with a magic crystal whose name does not start with an “A.”