Affaire de Coeur

I’m often asked the question how do I do, well, all that I do. The answer is: Some days better than others. In addition to being an author of books for Harlequin and Berkley, I’m a television and film columnist, radio personality, teacher, wife, mom of two mostly grown boys and I’ve added graduate student to that list.

I wear a great many hats in a day, as most women do.

People want to know since my books have been so successful why I don’t quit the day job, but the truth is I love my day job. I’ve been a journalist for 22 years and covering film and television for most of that time. I enjoy interview the actors, writers and producers about their shows and films, and I like writing feature stories. It uses a different part of my brain than fiction does. And hello, I get to meet really cool people. (Smile)

I write about television for a syndicate that sends my stuff to about 600 newspapers a month, so millions of people are reading my words. That’s pretty cool. I do movies for the radio station 96.3 KSCS in the Dallas/Fort Worth area, and I love the people I work with on the Dorsey Gang. It’s also a kick to see films before everyone else does.

But my favorite place to be is in the imaginary worlds I create for my books. I never know what the next word or page will reveal about my characters and it’s one of the most exciting jobs on the planet. Okay, there are those moments where maybe it’s not so fun. Those moments when my brain won’t cooperate, or my schedule gets in the way of the writing. But for the most part it’s a really cool job.

I’ve been so fortunate with the writing that it made me want to give back to that community. That’s why I created the online Write_Workshop where writers can take free classes from myself, and other authors, agents and editors. (You can get to that through my website at www.candacehavens.com.) I can’t tell how wonderful it is when one of my 1600 students writes me and says that thanks to my classes and encouragement they have a contract with a publisher. It’s amazing the sense of fulfillment that brings.

It’s one of the reasons I’ve gone back to school to get a Masters of Humanities. I some day would like to teach creative writing part time at the college level. I like the idea of helping people achieve their creative dreams.

Then there’s the wife, and mom, jobs and to be honest I’m incredibly lucky in this respect. My husband and boys understand what I do, and they give me the space and time to do it. There have been time when the work might have suffered to do one family crises or another, but for the most part we’ve done okay. These days all they really need from me is to listen during times of trouble and to open my wallet. (Smile)

As you can see, I do wear many hats, but I enjoy the challenges each of them brings.  I can say my life is never boring and I like it that way. Oh, some days I long for the days of being a giant couch potato, but I have a feeling I’d grown bored. For now I’m happy to visit my many worlds and create new ideas every day.

Candace

www.candacehavens.com

Take Me If You Dare

Dragons Prefer Blondes

The Glory Days of Romance Then and Now

People often inquire about the whole publishing process. “Should I go the traditional route or should I self publish?”  

There are actually several different ways you can go about getting your work published. Below are a few examples along with the pros and cons (from my personal experience).

1. Traditional Route

You can pitch your work to some (if not all) of New York’s finest literary agents in hopes of getting picked up by a major publishing house. (Not an easy thing to accomplish.)

Pros: You’ll have a great chance of getting your work on the bookshelves of some of the worlds most popular bookstores, e.g. Barnes & Noble or Borders. Your work will be exposed to a wide range of buyers and sellers all over the world. You’ll have (in some cases) a big name, profitable company backing you, which means; you’ll sell books as a result the company’s (and their authors) good reputation. They’ll do some of the promotion for you. You won’t have to kick out the cost of publishing—the publishing house will take care of that and probably even give you an advance. In some cases they’ll even set up book signings, book tours, etc. 

Cons: You may lose some creative control of your work. You may lose some of the rights to your work. If your book doesn’t do well, the publishing house will take your book out of print. Your profit will be only a small portion of the actual book sales. Once the publisher gets their cut, the distributor gets their cut, the printer gets their cut, the bookstore or online seller gets their cut, what’s left for you is not a whole lot unless you’re selling hundreds of thousands of books. Keep in mind the publisher has to make back all the money it cost them to get your book out there and then make a profit. You’ll be under a contract and until you’ve fulfilled the terms of that contract you can forget about branching out and doing your own thing.

2. POD (Print on Demand) Publisher

You can pay to publish with one of the many online Print on Demand publishing companies. 

Pros:  You won’t have to wait for the major publishing houses to say “yes” and offer you a contract. You retain the rights to your work (in most cases). You have complete creative control—all decisions are made by you; the cover design, formatting, page count, font size, price, trade discount, editing, etc. Your book will not go out of print. 

Cons: Some people tend to shy away from self published work because most people know that anyone with a couple dollars can get a book published, which means there are a lot of poorly written, unedited, poorly produced books out there. It’s expensive—all cost are covered by you. In addition to the upfront cost, most of them will retain a part of the profit from your book sales. You get what you pay for, so if you try to take the cheapest package these types of companies offer, chances are you’ll regret it once the book is published. You are completely responsible for getting your book in the bookstores and out to the public. You will be doing ALL of your own promoting and advertising, setting up your own book release parties, book signings and interviews.  They don’t help promote or sell your book, no matter what they say. Once your book is published, the rest is on you. They rip you off. If you do the research you’ll find that everything they offer, you can probably get it yourself from the same people they use for a cheaper price. For example, they’ll charge you $100 to register your book with the copyright office. But if you do it yourself and mail your book to the Library of Congress (the same place they’re going to send it to) it’ll only cost you $45. When you go with these companies you pay for convenience. They do the work so you don’t have to, but trust me, you’ll pay for it. If you don’t know what you’re doing, they will drop the ball.  Their job is to get your money, not to publish a good book. So if you try to do it half assed they’re not going to try to stop you. 

3. Self Publish 

Start your own publishing company. Do all the work yourself.

Pros: (Same as the pros for POD Publishing.)  The overall cost to publish your book will be cheaper because any services that you decide to pay someone else to do (e.g. editing, formatting, cover design, etc.) you’ll only pay for the cost of that service. There’s no middle man to jack up the price so that they can make a profit. A POD publisher’s goal is to make a profit off of every service they provide/subcontract for you. For example, a physical proof copy of your finished book (before it goes in to publication) will cost you about $30 if you get it directly from the printer. Your POD publisher will charge you about $50 for this service. So that extra $20 you pay is their profit. When a book is sold you won’t have to share a percentage of that sale with your POD Publisher, which means, you’ll get a much bigger profit. You’ll officially be a businessman/businesswoman. It gives you the opportunity to help others reach their dream by publishing their work under your company’s name and you’ll make a profit off of their work. 

Cons: (Mostly the same as the cons for POD publishing except you’re not giving an outside Publisher/POD Company a percentage of every book sold.)  All of the work from start to finish will be done by you.

For my first book I went with a POD publisher and I have no regrets because it worked for me. If I would have gone the traditional route I’d probably be still waiting for a literary agent to represent me and sell my work to one of the major publishing houses. If I would have decided to self publish and be my own publisher my first run out the starting gate, I’m almost positive I would have dropped the ball in various areas because it wasn’t until after publication that I actually learned “The Business” side of it all. Prior to publishing my first novel, I spent months checking out different sites, seeing what they offered, looking for the best company for me and my book. Eventually, I came across a POD publisher that seemed to offer everything I was looking for. There’s a lot that I learned after the fact, and of course I made some mistakes, and there’s definitely some things I’m going to do differently the next time around, but over all I’m happy with my decision.  Now that I have a better understanding of “The Business” I’ve decided to publish my books myself from here on out. 

In my opinion, if your only goal is to get your book published, see it in actual book form, and sell a few copies to family and friends, then go with one of those “We’ll publish your book for free” companies. But if you have plans of seeing your book on bookshelves, making writing your career and someday making it to the National Bestsellers list then don’t waste your time with them. If you publish with them the only place people will be able to purchase your book is on their website. Most people like to buy books from big names that they know and trust like Amazon, Barnes & Noble or Borders. So that leaves you with three choices: The traditional route (find an agent who’ll get you a book deal). In most cases this won’t happen over night so you’ve got to have patience. Pay to publish with a POD publisher. If you decide to go with a POD publisher be sure to choose a company that’s going to offer you the absolute most for your money. And lastly, self publish.

Below are a few tips that may help you once you get ready to publish your work.

Before Publication

-Do your research.  Read the types of books you plan to write.

-Take your time.  Doing it right is far better than doing it fast (great things have no fear of time).

-Do not give up.

-Do not be discouraged.

-Find a kick ass cover designer.  Contrary to popular belief, people do judge books by their covers.  In most cases the cover is more important than the story.  Even if you have a great story, no one will pick your book up off the shelf if the cover doesn’t appeal to them.

-Find a kick ass editor.  Nothing’s worse than a book filled with typos, incorrect grammar, misspelled words and bad punctuation.  You don’t want people to put your hard work down because you failed to invest in a quality editor.

After Publication

-Don’t limit yourself to who you think your audience is—target everyone. 

-Use every outlet you can to promote and sell your book, such as doing book signings, interviews, sending out e-mail blast, handing out postcards, hanging posters, or even popping your trunk in middle of a busy area and pitching your book to everyone who walks by, etc.

-And lastly, promote, promote, promote!  No matter how good your story is, no one will buy it if they don’t know that it exist.

Good luck and best wishes,

Nazirah Mottenon

Author of  Another Part of Me

www.nazirahmottenon.com

Greetings and salutations! First of all, I want to say thanks to the folks at Affaire de Coeur for having me here on the blog. Thanks so much, guys!

As some of you know, I’m the author of the Elemental Assassin urban fantasy series. The books focus on Gin Blanco, an assas­sin code­named the Spi­der who can con­trol the ele­ments of Ice and Stone. When she’s not busy killing peo­ple and right­ing wrongs, Gin runs a bar­be­cue restau­rant called the Pork Pit in the fic­tional south­ern metrop­o­lis of Ash­land. The city is also home to giants, dwarves, vam­pires, and ele­men­tals – Air, Fire, Ice, and Stone.

Spider’s Bite, the first book in the series came out in February. The second book in the series, Web of Lies, was released on May 25, and the third book, Venom, will debut on Sept. 28.

Today, I wanted to talk a little bit about cooking. Now in my books, my heroine, Gin Blanco, runs a restaurant, so it’s only natural that she loves to cook. Lots of folks ask me if I enjoy cooking as well, and the answer is a resounding yes. I’m totally addicted to the Food Network, especially shows by folks like Paula Deen and Sandra Lee. I’m all about dishes, especially desserts that are quick and simple to make with lots of great flavor.

In each of the Elemental Assassin books, I mention recipes that Gin makes, either at her restaurant or somewhere else. Most of the dishes are real ones — tried and true favorites that are in my own recipe box that I’ve discovered through friends, family members, magazines, cooking shows, and more.

So today, I thought that I’d share one of these recipes with you. I make this chocolate cake a lot, especially around Christmas time to give as gifts to friends and family members. It’s moist and chocolatey and turns out perfectly every single time. Happy baking!

Chocolate Chip Pound Cake

1 (18.25 ounce) pack­age choco­late cake mix
1 small pack­age instant choco­late pud­ding mix
1/2 cup sugar
2/3 cup water
1/2 cup veg­etable oil
3 large eggs
1 (8 ounce) con­tainer sour cream
1 (12 ounce) pack­age mini choco­late morsels

Pre­heat oven to 350 degrees. Grease and flour 10-cup Bundt pan. In a large bowl, com­bine cake mix, pud­ding, and sugar. Add water, oil, and eggs. Beat with an elec­tric mixer at medium speed until smooth. Stir in sour cream and mini choco­late morsels. Pour bat­ter into pre­pared pan, and bake for 1 hour (check at 50 min­utes) or until a wooden tooth­pick inserted in cen­ter comes out clean. Let cool in pan for 10 min­utes. Remove from pan and let cool com­pletely on wire rack. Sprin­kle with pow­dered sugar, if desired.

Enjoy,

Jennifer Estep

Spider's Bite, Feb. 2010

Web of Lies, June 2010

Venom, Oct. 2010

www.jenniferestep.com

The Secret Confessions of Anne Shakespeare

By Arliss Ryan

Mention the name Shakespeare and it instantly conjures up an image of the great—possibly the greatest—writer of all time.  But there was another Shakespeare, Will’s wife, Anne, about whom virtually nothing is known.  She was born in 1556, the daughter of a yeoman farmer and his first wife.  She was three months pregnant at the time of her marriage to Will in 1582, and they had three children altogether.  She died in 1623 and is buried beside him in Holy Trinity Church in Stratford-upon-Avon.  And that’s it—no authenticated portrait of Anne exists, no description of her character.  Yet she is often portrayed as a homely, coarse, illiterate woman who seduced poor Will and made him miserable thereafter. 

If this picture of Anne were true, why on earth would he ever have been attracted to her in the first place?

In The Secret Confessions of Anne Shakespeare, I decided to make Anne a smart, funny, sensual woman with a mind and talents of her own.  I pictured her and Will falling in love and courting beside the brook that ran near her father’s farm.  But in my story, they fall in love not only with each other but with writing and the power of poetry. 

“How do you separate the poet from the poem?” Anne asks herself, when Will presents her with a youthful sonnet in her honor. 

And so begins, for both Will and Anne, a different kind of affaire de coeur, which leads them to London where the young couple learn to make their way in the rough-and-tumble world of the Elizabethan theater.  Tutored by Will, Anne becomes his equal as a writer, and their secret collaboration makes Shakespeare the foremost playwright in England.  Their mutual ambition also puts strains upon their marriage and leads to infidelities on both sides.

But through all the ups-and-downs, Anne and Will are drawn back together by their affection for each other and their passion for writing.  You could call it a romantic triangle with their Muse as the fickle third party who sometimes flirts with one while taunting the other. 

In the end, Will gets all the glory and Anne remains unsung.  But she never regrets her affaire de coeur with her art.    

Arliss Ryan

The Secret Confessions of Anne Shakespeare

To learn more about The Secret Confessions of Anne Shakespeare and read an excerpt from the book, go to www.arlissryan.com

Aloha, readers!

I’m here to blog a little about the exciting sport of scuba diving and how it relates to my new novel, WIRED KINGDOM, out May 25, just in time for the summer beach read season!

A certified scuba diver since my teen years, I’ve been lucky enough to dive in some of the most beautiful and amazing underwater spots in the world. Before I discuss my book a little further, I’d like to take you on a brief underwater tour of what I consider to be our planet’s most fascinating places.

-Belize: A Central American nation bordering the Caribbean Sea, Belize’s premiere dive spot is The Blue Hole—a 500’ deep geological formation riddled with caverns, tunnels and caves. My wife and I dove this incredible spot back in 2004, and we saw a group of bull sharks circling in the middle of the hole!  

Here’s a link to a quick video clip I shot during the dive. You can see just how dark it is that deep down (about 135 feet):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3KC4XDU-a4k

-Fiji: Absolutely astounding, this South Pacific island nation boasts fantastic reefs, coral walls and drop-offs teeming with life. This is underwater nature in pristine shape. Like diving into a rainbow of color, we found Nemo here (clownfish), as well as the lionfish, giant clams, blue seastars, a deadly poisonous sea snake, and a school of hammerhead sharks!  

Here’s a youtube video link to a clip I shot off Savusavu, Fiji:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yBnCVRYJ0I4

-Florida Keys: The lower the latitude, the better the attitude—and it doesn’t hurt that the Florida Keys are home to North America’s only living coral reef. Besides the reef environment, though, the Keys also offers mangrove forests frequented by manatees, and shallow sandbars that are home to tarpon, bonefish and queen conch, oh my!

Here’s a link to a youtube vid I shot while snorkeling through the shallow Mangroves off Key Largo:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vvIr9poIZf0

-Hawaii: The unique volcanic geology of Hawaii makes it a one-of-kind dive destination. One of the best places in the world to swim through a lava tube! But also don’t miss the green sea turtles, whitetip reef sharks, and, in the winter months, Humpback whales!

Here’s a link to a youtube video my wife took while we were diving a shipwreck. Make sure you have your sound up, because in this clip you can actually HEAR (but not see) humpback whales! What are they saying?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f_mPHwGLpDo

-Baja California, Mexico: The only place I’ve ever had the pleasure of diving with Gray whales. Baja is a rugged, arid land stretching all the way from Tijuana to Cabo San Lucas. This is where the desert meets the largely unspoiled Pacific, and with a Wired Kingdom connection. Sorry, no video for this one, but I do have a photo I took of the beautiful Baja coast:

-Catalina Island: Like countless other divers, I became certified for scuba at Catalina Island, 22 miles off of bustling Los Angeles. It’s world renowned for its giant kelp forests and bright orange Garibaldis—the California state marine fish! Some key scenes in my novel, Wired Kingdom, are set here!

Here’s a link to a youtube video I took while diving in the Casino Point dive park off Avalon, Catalina Island:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qU5zuwAAR04

Wow! Pretty amazing, right? Now imagine for a moment that you’re going diving with whales, around Catalina Island! Only instead of diving for pleasure, because you want to, you’re doing it because you have to, because if you don’t retrieve a piece of equipment from the body of a tagged whale, very bad things will happen. This should give you the flavor of my debut novel, eco-thriller WIRED KINGDOM:

“When a murder at sea is caught on camera, the hunt begins.”

View the book trailer here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yV7fELigwjg

Should you decide to brave the waters, the book (mass market paperback or Kindle e-book) may be purchased, among other places, here:
http://tinyurl.com/WiredKingdomOnAmazon

So grab your copy and head for the beach. I hope to see you there!

Happy Reading and remember to always dive safe,

Rick Chesler

Wired Kingdom

www.RickChesler.com

By Violet Stinson

As you must have realized by now, one of the things that is so good about my husband is the unfailing ability to do something crazy and testosterone based, that may not have set out to amuse me, but it still happens.  In addition to that, he has tends to make the kind of friends that are of the same ilk.

In their defense, if someone falls down, trips or generally hurts themselves in a non-lethal manner it tends to crack me up.

My husband came from a ranching background, and we met a man through a horse we sold several years ago, and the relationship stuck.  Over the years he has bought several horses from us and as a single father raised two kids, worked a “office job” in the city, and continued to be involved in his family’s large cattle ranch in South Texas.  Between the two of them, there was always some kind of scheme being hatched and something was always going to happen.

The two of them decided to have some cows…here.  There are many, many stories of the two of them and those cows, but this one is and will remain one of the funniest ever, I wish there had been pictures.

All of these cows were fairly young, there was only one bull whose name was Patch and he was generally gentle as a kitten.  There is a large pasture behind ours that belongs to someone else and Patch got through the fence into their land and I had to get them together (took 4 days) to go and help get him back before he did something over there that someone had to pay for. 

By the time they both are together I “suggest” that since it is such a big area over there, we should go after him on horseback in case he runs.  They both strongly felt that I was wrong (I have no testosterone) and chose to drive the truck and trailer around the corner and go and park in their yard so we could just herd Patch into the trailer and take him home.  He ran……..and ran…….and ran…

About an hour and a half later when they were unwilling to admit I was right and go and get horses (there were more than 30 here, it was do-able), they decided to rope him.  My husband can’t rope, lots of people in his world can, but not him.  I can’t either.  Apparently nobody in this fiasco can.  It changed nothing.  Finally after running him around again, uselessly swinging a rope at him, they made their best decision of the day where my goofy husband hid behind a tree holding the big loop of the rope out until the two of us ran him through the loop and it could be tightened.  Then they’d have him!

Now this might not seem like a great idea to anyone on the surface, but considering all else that transpired, it was the high point.

The loop tightened around Patch’s neck, he jerked so hard that the rope came out of my hubby’s hands and he jumped the fence into a big patch of bushes and brambles in yet another pasture.  He then stopped…good thing.  My DH then went over the fence and ran him back over and he stopped again.  This is where they lose it.  We are at least 30 acres from the truck and trailer, we are in fact much closer to home than the truck. 

Testosterone surged as brain cells jumped ship left and right.

Since he was stopped, they wanted to talk about it.  Our friend then suggested it be done “the smart way”.  They were going to dally the rope from tree to tree and work their way back to the truck only having to run from tree to tree.  I told them it was a really bad idea.  They obviously did not listen to me and it is starting to really crack me up.

Since Patch was standing beside a large fallen tree they decided to hold him there before the rush to the next tree.  Before I could point out to both of them that the tree had been dead for so long it had no color… or bark, it wouldn’t be heavy enough to stop him, they went ahead and did it.  Patch lunged with my DH at the end of the rope and just like in the cartoons the dead tree flies up in the air and comes down and knocks him face down in a large pile of something Patch left there before he lunged.  Green, sticky and smelly.

He is now face down still holding the rope, and Patch lunged again and flipped him onto his back to clean up the rest of what Patch left with his clothing.  That time he got away.  Now our friend, who is about 5′3″ is running behind Patch and trying to jump on the dragging rope with a foot.  As near as I can tell he wanted to get into as much pain as my husband was.

I am at this point laying on the ground laughing so hard I cannot function.  I’m useless and in full attack of my own personal version of mad cow.

Patch then hesitated and the rope was wrapped around a real live tree that would hold him.  I managed to gasp out that someone should go bring the truck to us and Patch before it got worse.  Now they listen.  I’m still useless.  My DH smells really, really bad and has sticky green cow poop everywhere on him.  By the way, I’m almost positive that Patch was laughing at all of us.

I believe this because he practically ran into the trailer when it got there, he was fed up.

What does this have to do with my belt?  We live in Texas, we all wear leather belts with lots of silver on it.  Me too…I’ve turned into a hic.  I don’t know why he had my belt on that day…but he did.  In case you are wondering, nothing in the known world will remove cow poop stains from leather, or the smell.

In conclusion I would like to say two things:

     a.  We don’t do anything “the smart way”

     b.  Testosterone should be bottled and sold as poison.

Hi all!
Lisa Dale here (I write women’s fiction with a strong romantic bent).
First off, thanks to Pam for inviting me to blog! So excited to be here!

I was asked several years ago in an interview if I was a writer who became a policeman or a policeman who became a writer. The question actually caught me by surprise the first time around?I had to think about what had come first, my love of words or the dozen years of street experience I had under my belt before I attempted my first crime novel. Looking back and reconstructing events, I am now convinced it was the former. There was always something about the symmetry of words with me. The construction of a sentence, like a bar of music that either rang true, or was in discord to my ears. And it came not from any formal education I’d had, but a heap of well-worn paperbacks in the basement of a sparsely furnished rooming house?in Washington DC?where I spent countless nights with no air-conditionning and no TV. It was there that I grew hungry to read and there that I first began to admire the author’s ability to stimulate the imagination, bringing life out of mere words on paper.

Unlike numbers I always liked words. I liked constructing thoughts and events (police work is all about report writing) so that the context was not merely comprehensible, but interesting. The more I wrote, the more I was asked to write, and the more complex the undertakings I was to become responsible for. And all the while I was reading? Saanders, Le Carre, Ludlum, Forsyth, McDonald…

And then it began. I tested a paragraph of fiction, then a page and soon forty pages until soon I’d filled a dresser drawer with the beginnings of half a dozen novels. For years I couldn’t break that forty-page wall and then it happened, nearly a decade after I’d begun writing? a novel was born.

I don’t think itt matters what profession a person is in. A person either likes words or they don’t, and some are naturally driven to convey their thoughts and creativity on paper. Those that do and want to make something more of their writing should have no more concern for what their background is than if they use a typewriter or a computer. It is in the writer’s imagination where novels live. Not in what they have seen and done. Sure our life experience counts, it gives us a unique voice on the written page, but it is that uniqueness that permits the same plot to be told a hundred different ways, and each time as interesting as the former.

Let’s not forgot to mention the essential ingredient behind a novel. Work. Hard, grueling, pick and shovel kind of work, for no matter how clever the wordsmith and no matter how good the idea, only dogged persistence and an unwavering belief in oneself will bring a novel to fruition.

Publishing didn’t come easy for me. I suffered all the rejections and those roller coaster highs and lows of both hope and despair. In fact it took fifteen years between the time I was first presented to the market and the day I was fortunate enough to get 18 SECONDS in print.

I would encourage everyone that yearns to write to believe in themselves, to trust their instinct and approach every blank page boldly. To remember that everything around us, every object, every book, every work of art was once but an idea in someone’s imagination.

George Shuman
georgedshuman.com

Second Sight
18 Seconds
Last Breath
Lost Girls