A WIN FOR BERLIN

 Online Charity Auction

Press Release

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Meet Berlin:  She’s a charming little girl with a beautiful smile, a shining countenance and a debilitating disease. You see Berlin has Osteogenesis Imperfecta — Brittle Bone Disease.

Berlin was born with Brittle Bone Disease and though she’s only seven she already knows what it feels like to have a broken arm, leg, and fractured vertebra — repeatedly.  But you’d never know by speaking with her that her life is anything but normal. Even when Berlin’s slowly making her way across campus with her mobility walker, she always has a bright smile, and will shout out to friends and parents of friends with a warm welcome and a friendly wave.

But Berlin isn’t walking these days. You see, she recently fell and ended up in the hospital where it was discovered she’d re-fractured her Tibia – the main bone in her lower leg – and a pin from a previous surgery had shifted through the bone.  That shift means that Berlin can’t walk until she has surgery.  Due to lack of insurance coverage, they treated the new fracture and sent her home, denying her the needed surgery.

Every day children right here in America go without needed medical care, and it breaks my heart. Every Day.  I pray today is not going to be Berlin’s day to go without treatment.

With the help of some incredibly generous members of the writing community and local businesses an online auction has been created.  Beginning Friday, May 11, at 1:00pm PST, simply go to Ebay.com, enter A Win For Berlin in the search field and start bidding on the great gifts and services donated by Award Winning and Bestselling authors, artists, and local businesses.

You’ll find everything from signed books to “Meet and Greets” with your favorite authors and artists, and a wide array of everything in between.  In addition, we’ll have some great items up for bid from local businesses.

Don’t see anything you want to bid on? No problem, keep checking back for new auctions to be added over the next week or check out one of our donation auctions.

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Here is the link to all of the “Win for Berlin” eBay auctions: http://www.ebay.com/sch/m.html?_from=&_nkw=&_armrs=1&_ssn=a_win_for_berlin&rt=nc

To help this cause, I have donated:

1. A signed copy of HUNTED BY THE OTHERS, and,
2. A 50 page manuscript critique.

If you prefer, you can also do a direct donation in $10, $25, $50, and $100 increments.

Please help this little girl. Every penny counts!

If you have seen it, what did you think? What was your favorite part? (Anyone who hasn’t seen it might want to stay away from the comments, as it might get really spoilery.) Personally, I couldn’t stop laughing when the Hulk punched Thor, and again when he started flinging Loki around. Thor, Tony Stark, and Captain America were all both hilarious with their clashing egos/agendas, and lovely eye candy. Loki was the perfect villain, both believable as a character and terrifying to watch, considering his genius and utter lack of compassion. Oh, and did you stay for the two credit clips? The one at the very end sent me into giggle fits. It truly was the perfect touch to end the movie.

While the stars of previous Marvel films were all, of course, terrific, I have to hand it to Joss. He did a great job giving the minor characters enough time in the spotlight for them all to shine. The members of S.H.I.E.L.D. all had just enough personality to make them into people instead of part of the scenery.

As I wasn’t much of a comic book fan growing up, characters like Nick Fury, Hawkeye, and Black Widow were virtual unknowns to me, but they were very impressive in this movie. I’m looking forward to seeing more of them in future films.

Yes, of course there are more films in the Marvel-verse coming around the bend! Iron Man 3, Thor 2, and Captain America 2 have been announced and/or are in various stages of production, and there are rumors of another Hulk movie to come in 2015. I am absolutely ecstatic to hear that Joss Whedon was optioned to work on Avengers 2, which is already in development, and I hope that Marvel does whatever it takes to keep him on the project.

I’ve been a Joss Whedon fangirl for ages. While he has had some connections to the occasional stinker–don’t even get me started on Alien: Resurrection–for the most part, the man is a cinematic genius. Kudos to you, sir. You did a fan-freaking-tastic job, and I can’t wait to see what else you’ve got in store for us.

On a related note, before Avengers started, there were trailers for a few movies that I’m really looking forward to. Anyone else do a fan-girl squee for the Prometheus trailer? I’m also excited about seeing Brave and the new Spider-Man movie. The other trailers didn’t excite me as much, but those three movies are on my must-see list. How about you guys? Are you looking forward to any of those movies, too?

Oh, and if any of you emailed me at all last week/this weekend, I’ll be getting back to you soon. I had a raging case of pinkeye that made it almost impossible to read anything for most of last week. I can type blindfolded, but reading emails and blog posts to reply to people was a bit beyond me. I’m doing much better now, so no worries about my health.

The seamstress replied that her thimble had fallen into the water and that she needed it to help her husband in making a living for their family. The Lord dipped His hand into the water and pulled up a golden thimble set with sapphires.

“Is this your thimble?” the Lord asked.

The seamstress replied, “No.”

The Lord again dipped into the river. He held out a golden thimble studded with rubies.

“Is this your thimble?” the Lord asked.

Again, the seamstress replied, “No.”

The Lord reached down again and came up with a leather thimble.

“Is this your thimble?” the Lord asked.

The seamstress replied, “Yes.”

The Lord was pleased with the woman’s honesty and gave her all three thimbles to keep, and the seamstress went home happy.

Some years later, the seamstress was walking with her husband along the riverbank. Her husband fell into the river and disappeared under the water.

When she cried out, the Lord again appeared and asked her, “Why are you crying?”

“Oh Lord, my husband has fallen into the river!”

The Lord went down into the water and came up with Ryan Reynolds.

“Is this your husband?” the Lord asked.

“Yes,” cried the seamstress.

The Lord was furious. “You lied! That is an untruth!”

The seamstress replied, “Oh, forgive me, my Lord. It is a misunderstanding. You see, if I had said ‘no’ to Ryan Reynolds, you would have come up with Alexander Skarsgard.

“Then if I said ‘no’ to him, you would have come up with my husband. Had I then said ‘yes,’ you would have given me all three. Lord, I’m not in the best of health and would not be able to take care of all three husbands, so THAT’S why I said ‘yes’ to Ryan Reynolds.”

And so the Lord let her keep him.

The moral of this story is:

Whenever a woman lies, it’s for a good and honorable reason, and in the best interest of others. That’s our story, and we’re sticking to it.

Signed,

All Us Women

Now, on to today’s topic!

One thing I wanted to mention, as I have seen a number of people retweeting and talking about this in the writing world, is that no one held a gun to Ann Voss Peterson’s head. She didn’t have to write 25 books for Harlequin. If she really didn’t like her royalty rates that much, she was under no obligation to keep working for them from 2000-2011–unless there is some exclusivity clause in the Harlequin contract I’m not aware of, which could put a slightly different spin on this. Also, she could have exercised her audit clause in her contract at any time to ensure the figures were being calculated correctly. Complaining about the rates like this is in very poor taste considering Harlequin apparently launched her career.

You don’t sign on to Harlequin for the huge royalty percentage, you sign on to get the exposure of the Harlequin brand name (which is something to take into account if you ever decide to try to publish with them). As Jackie Barbosa said in the comments on a Dear Author article:

So, all in all, Harlequin has a lot to offer authors who write these kinds of books. The Presents line, in particular, sells very, very well. I believe in May, all six of the titles released in the US hit the USA Today list. For some authors, those kinds of odds might be worth the trade-off in royalty rates and other terms.

Also, Ms. Peterson’s “woe is me” attitude about the money she made doesn’t add up. I’m going to talk out of my ass for a moment and speculate using the information to hand, but even if she made an average of $10K per novel (basing this theoretical figure upon her $20K as the high end, with the $6K advance and earning out on every single novel), at 25 novels, that comes out to a ballpark of $250,000.

This post is what we refer to as “burning bridges” and “biting the hand that feeds”. What if some terrific opportunity had come up to work with Harlequin again in the future? What about other publishers who might have considered working with her before, and on much more favorable terms, but now may not because of her airing her disputes so publicly?

Not that I feel that someone should sit on their disagreements if they have them, or keep genuine issues in the dark, but there is no sense of responsibility or accountability for this situation that I can detect in this woman’s post. In addition, by adding his own thoughts at the end, Mr. Konrath seems to be doing his best to make it appear that all publishers are horrible (they aren’t) and are all trying to bilk their authors out of their hard-earned royalties (where is the proof?).

Not to say that Harlequin hasn’t had anything to answer for. They are not perfect, and their royalty rates do appear to be abysmal. However, as I mentioned:

A) She signed the contracts of her own free will, so it’s a bit silly to attempt to hold the company accountable for something she didn’t agree with after the fact because “she didn’t know it would be like that” (DO. YOUR. RESEARCH.); and,

B) She could have exercised her audit clause in her contract to ensure she was being paid correctly; and,

C) She was not under any obligation to continue writing for them if she didn’t like the pay or how she was being treated, and should have brought her concerns about the financial end of things to her agent to explore other publishing options and/or stopped signing contracts for new books with them/had her agent negotiate better terms once she became established.

Agents are not only the people who get you your book deal—they are supposed to be your leg up in the industry, your advisor, and your champion. When you have questions about where your career is going, or think something doesn’t seem quite right, your agent is supposed to be the person to give you guidance in these matters. (Not the person to make decisions on your behalf, but to help give you some direction and make sure that whatever deal they negotiate is in your best interest—or inform you when it isn’t.)

Relying on your agent for this isn’t the be-all/end-all of your publishing career. You should definitely think for yourself in these matters, and never sign a legal document without first reading and ensuring you understand it.

You are responsible for what you sign. No one grabs your hand and forces you to scrawl your signature on the dotted line. You can cry foul later if someone actually does something underhanded and sneaky, or violates the terms of your contract, but after having 25 books in over a decade all published with the same house, I sincerely doubt the veracity of her argument.

While I do wish her the best of luck with her self-publishing venture, I can guarantee you that she will have an easier time finding success (not that this is guaranteed) than someone who is going the self-pub route straight out of the gate. For anyone reading her story and planning to watch how she does to use her as a measuring stick of some kind, and thinks that her post and Konrath’s opinion are good enough reasons to dive straight into self-publishing, I would like to remind you that she has a “built in” audience. People may have seen her name on the shelves before or read her traditionally pubbed books, and became fans, and will now follow her no matter what publishing platform she uses (self, vanity, indie, or traditional). Let us not forget that she is now going to be shouldering all of the expenses inherent in self-publishing (promotion, marketing, setting up distribution, paying for cover art/design and editing, etc) that were formerly handled by Harlequin.

Also, while I believe Mr. Konrath has given some good advice on the nuts and bolts of self publishing in the past, I find his diatribes against what he calls “legacy” publishing houses (such as the Big 6) to be very one-sided and full of hyperbole. Calling them names (“Publishing pinheads”? Really?) only undermines his arguments and makes his statements come across as sulky and childish, and reeks of sour grapes. This is not a measured, reasoned argument, but a name-calling session that is not backed up by straight facts. Any sympathy I had for Ms. Peterson vanished after reading Mr. Konrath’s “addendum” to her post at the end.

Entering in opinions is fine as long as one clearly labels them as such, and doesn’t attempt to muddy the waters further by adding one’s own new, invented words and definitions to apply to industry terms. Mr. Konrath is not solely responsible for this, I am sure, but seeing as he poses himself as a “self-publishing guru” and new/aspiring authors look up to him, in my opinion it is deceitful and a huge disservice to call self-publishing and vanity publishing “indie” (they are not) and calling established publishing companies “legacy” or “traditional” in an attempt to belittle their image to people who don’t know any better.

While Konrath is a self-publishing success, he is one of very few, is not solely self-published (considering he had a book picked up by Hyperion and now publishes with Amazon), and what worked for him may not work for others. Bear this in mind and please, please, please, think for yourself and don’t use him as a sole source of information about the publishing industry or self-publishing. Take anything you read from an industry insider—-even my blog posts-—with a boulder-sized grain of salt, but don’t use us as your only source of information. Talk to people who are successful and unsuccessful to see what they do wrong/right, read industry articles, know your options, and decide for yourself what you want out of this business. Having a lot of followers doesn’t make someone right, it only means they are loud enough that plenty of people hear them.

Publishing, like every other aspect of the entertainment industry, is not easy to break into professionally. Even when you do, it is not a guarantee of success. Trying to make it on your own, without the backing of a professional organization that knows how to market and leverage your talents, is even harder.

With that in mind, whenever possible, try to look at things from every angle. Ask questions if you need to, and don’t be afraid to put the hard ones to people who should be able to give you the answers you need. Don’t agree with someone’s opinion about this industry because it seems “popular” to do so. Agree because you observe for yourself that what they are saying is truth.

Use your head. Be smart about this business. And take responsibility for your own decisions and actions.

STALKING THE OTHERS
BLOG TOUR CALENDAR

Stalk This Book: May 25 – July 13

BOOK SIGNING
Saturday, July 07, 2012
2:00PM
Dark Delicacies Book Store
3512 W. Magnolia
Burbank, CA 91505

STALKING THE OTHERS
It’s Coming For You
July 3rd, 2012

Pre-Order Now:
Amazon / Amazon UK / Amazon Canada
Barnes & Noble
Book Depository
Books-A-Million
Powells
Indiebound

Get a head start on the festivities! Join me tomorrow with my host, Jackie at Literary Escapism, at 6:30PM PST / 9:30PM EST to ask me anything about the H&W Investigations Series!

Call-in Number: 724.444.7444
Call ID: 93065

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Call-in Number: 724.444.7444
Call ID: 93065

Now! On to the funnies…

Previously posted here.

And this last one is for Allison Pang, who is quite likely the only other person on the planet who will find this as funny as I do. Hehehe…

Sorry, but it had to be done. Carry on.

Purchase: Amazon / Barnes & Noble / Book Depository

Back Cover Copy:

For fans of Tina Fey and David Sedaris—Internet star Jenny Lawson, aka The Bloggess, makes her literary debut.

Jenny Lawson realized that the most mortifying moments of our lives—the ones we’d like to pretend never happened—are in fact the ones that define us. In Let’s Pretend This Never Happened, Lawson takes readers on a hilarious journey recalling her bizarre upbringing in rural Texas, her devastatingly awkward high school years, and her relationship with her long-suffering husband, Victor. Chapters include: “Stanley the Magical, Talking Squirrel”; “A Series of Angry Post-It Notes to My Husband”; “My Vagina Is Fine. Thanks for Asking”; “And Then I Snuck a Dead Cuban Alligator on an Airplane.” Pictures with captions (no one would believe these things without proof) accompany the text.

My Review:

It’s like this book was written just for me.

People… oh, people, I was crying with laughter over this entire book. Except for the parts where I was crying happy tears for the people Jenny helped, or gasping with horror at the latest travesty to befall her.

This book is hilarious. I really don’t know what else to say. If you know anything about her, you know that Jenny is completely insouciant, and fucked up in the most delightful way. She’s also an incredible person who came up with some truly lovely and selfless ways to help others, like the Traveling Red Dress and the James Garfield Christmas Miracle.

If you’re not familiar with The Bloggess, read this post, and then decide for yourself if you can deal with her sense of humor. If you find it funny, even a little bit, then chances are you will love LET’S PRETEND THIS NEVER HAPPENED.

God, I want my own Beyoncé.

5/5

Series Order:
1. N/A

Renee Nelson!

Big congrats to you!! Please contact me within 72 hours with a shipping address to claim your prize, or another winner will be chosen. (Very sorry I’ll be missing you at AAD this year–maybe next year!)

Thanks again to everyone who entered! I loved hearing your responses to the question, and it makes me sorry I don’t have copies for everyone. Kara-Karina and Maghon especially made me crack up. Don’t worry! You’ll get to read about Chaz getting his ass beaten soon enough! Reading Mind, how did you know I love lasagna?! Oh, and Izzy, your imaginary butler sounds awesome. How do I get me some o’ that action?

Ahem! While I did read every single entry, it was a bit overwhelming and I’m not sure that I could have replied to every one of you and maintained my sanity when it came time to tally up the entries. Regardless, know that I love you all and appreciate the enthusiasm and excitement so many of you expressed for STO! I look forward to hearing more from you all when the next H&W book comes out. Stay tuned, I’ll be announcing the official Stalking the Others blog tour on Monday, so keep your eyes peeled for some new giveaways, guest posts, and interviews soon…

Man, am I wiped. I haven’t been sleeping well these last few days–a bit too much on my mind–but I have been getting a bunch of personal and work-related stuff done behind the scenes.

As for book-ish news, I’m gearing up for the STALKING THE OTHERS blog tour–it’s coming on like a freight train, and I have a ton of work to do to pull this guest post blitz off. I’ll be sharing an official post with the calendar and list of stops in the very near future.

Right now, the only things I’m waiting for to make the announcement are a couple of responses on the calendar dates.

While I have been mostly working on book 5 these last few weeks to get as much of the first draft done as possible before I get down and dirty working on this promo shiz, I did do one guest post recently. It’s not technically part of the tour, but you can head over to Marta Acosta’s blog, Vampire Wire, read about my guilty pleasures, and let me know some of your own.

One of the things I’ve been thinking about as I get ready for all this promo jazz is just what these guest posts are going to be about.  I’ve got a few ideas, but since most of the requests are for the character banter posts (you can check out examples via the links on this page), I need to come up with some more things for the H&W gang to argue about.  Any special requests from the peanut gallery?

Last, but certainly not least, this is your very last reminder–you have until midnight tonight to enter to win the ARC of STALKING THE OTHERS!  (Unless you enter on Goodreads, too. Then you’ve got until June 22nd.)

Good luck to everyone who enters!

A couple went on vacation to a fishing resort up north. The husband liked to fish at the crack of dawn. The wife liked to read. One morning the husband returned after several hours of fishing and decided to take a short nap. Although she wasn’t familiar with the lake, the wife decided to take the boat. She rowed out a short distance, anchored, and returned to reading her book. Along came the sheriff in his boat.

He pulled up alongside her and said, “Good morning, Ma’am. What are you doing?”

“Reading my book,” she replied, thinking to herself, ‘Duh–isn’t it obvious?’

“You’re in a restricted fishing area,” he informed her.

“But officer, I’m not fishing. Can’t you see that?”

“Yes, but you have all the equipment. I’ll have to take you in and write you up.”

“If you do that, I’ll have to charge you with rape,” snapped the irate woman.

“But I haven’t even touched you,” groused the sheriff.

“Yes, that’s true,” she replied, “but you do have all the equipment.”

MORAL: Never argue with a woman who knows how to read.

It’s likely she can also think.