Tag Archives: still moments publishing

When you are lucky enough to have choices. Stuff to thing about

Posted on April 27, 2013 | 12 comments

When searching for a publisher, many authors target who they want, but settle for who will publish them. Right? This week, I found myself in the thrilling and cushy position of having a choice after being offered multiple contracts for Paper Wishes.

What’s Paper Wishes? Ha! I’m glad you asked! Paper Wishes is the re-envisioning of Jack and Jill Volume One.

As most of you know, Still Moments Publishing was purchased by another publishing house on March 15, and Jack and Jill was not one of the titles automatically shifted under their fold.

This was not a huge surprise to me, as Jack and Jill was not traditional Romance. The book really was a better fit for Christian Romance, so the minute I got my rights back, I began querying Christian Publishers.

Now – should this happen to anyone else, be prepared because the greater percentage of publishers out there (at least in Christian) DO NOT WANT previously published work. This surprised me at first. I had the nicest discussion with a really big house that liked my work, but had to decline because it had been published too recently.

But they were really a long shot anyway… and not so much on my radar. I was mainly focused in on one publisher that I contacted the day Still Moments made the announcement. I spoke with this publisher, explained my predicament, and we chatted about the publishing business in general for a while before I had even sent them my work. We were very much on the same page, so I bit my nails as I sent them my submission, and to a few other houses as well.

Less than a week later, I had two contract offers, and a third arrived last night. I have the luxury of matching up what each publisher has to offer, and also weighing the changes each publisher wants. (Yes, there will be changes)

Requested Changes:

1. Two of them want the cursing removed – and for anyone who has read my work, I really don’t curse. But what I WILL have to remove is dernit, darn, gosh, Hell, heck … anything even remotely looking like an explicative.

2. I will need to tone down the make-out scene to bring it more within the boundaries of Christian novels.

3. One of the publishers wants me to change it from First Person to Third Person.

So I am weighing the required changes alongside royalties, distribution, foreign rights, cover design, print rights and overall package offered.

It’s wonderful place to be, and I hope to be making an announcement shortly.

Don’t rock the boat, baby. (hopeofglory.typepad.com)

12 Comments

Posted in Senseless Ranting

Tagged Amazon Kindle, Book, Business, choices, Christian novel, Christianity, chrstian publisher, Jack and Jill, Jill, offered a contract, paper wishes, publish, Publishing, Publishing and Printing, sold, still moments publishing

Another Publisher Bites the Dust

Posted on March 16, 2013 | 20 comments

It’s one of the risks we take as authors when we put our work out there, especially with one of the smaller publishing houses. A week ago, Still Moments Publishing closed for submissions “due to the que being full”.

Hmmm. Odd, huh?

Yesterday, it was announced that Still Moments Publishing is being absorbed by another publisher. Which one, I don’t know yet.

Do I regret my decision to go with them? Not at all. I learned a lot about Romance Writing through them. The experience with my editors was overwhelmingly positive, and my writing grew because of it. The mild inconvenience I am experiencing now is a small price to pay for growing as a writer.

The transition has been as painless as possible. Still Moments has been very good about it. I already have my rights back, and am seeking a new publisher. I wish everyone at Still Moments the best in their future endeavors.

So, if you’ve been thinking of picking up a copy of “Jack and Jill”, or “For the Love of Christmas”, you might want to do so sooner than later. Most Still Moments titles will start disappearing in the next few days.

20 Comments

Posted in Senseless Ranting

Tagged Arts, Book, Business, Publishing, Publishing and Printing, still moments publishing, Writer Resources

EEEE Gads! Why the heck did I read a Western? A Review of Mended Hearts by Olivia Devereaux

Posted on July 26, 2012 | 24 comments

Yeah, so, I just read this little Western story. In general, other than non-fiction as a whole, the lump sum of everything Western (as in America’s traditional “Old West”) is at the bottom of the barrel of stuff I’d want to read… and I almost never scrape the bottom of the barrel. So why the heck did I pick this up?

Two reasons.

Reason #1: I am submitting a short story to the same publisher “Still Moments Publishing” … and as any good author should do, I wanted to research something that they recently put out (April 2012 in this case.)

Okay, so … this publisher has tons of titles…

why pick something you know you won’t like?

Reason #2: A little bird told me that this story was submitted for consideration in an anthology, but they did not think it was a good fit.

However…. They liked it so much they wanted to publish it as a stand-alone. They even created a new “western” category to their offered listings to slip it into.

All this drew my attention, so I bit the bullet (Tee Hee) and resisted my urge to cringe at the [very stark, boring and very western] cover. I bopped over to Amazon and popped a copy into my Kindle.

Here’s the jist of this 28-ish page story: A family is living out in the middle of nowhere. Dad gets hit by a stray bullet and dies. The next day the son finds another guy (a stranger) in their barn bleeding from a gunshot wound. The widow takes him in and cares for him, hoping that when he wakes up he will be able to tell her what happened to her husband.

Yeah… boring. Not a spaceship in sight. However…

Let me tell you something … I think this lady could probably re-write Humpty Dumpty and be able to get my attention. Within a few pages, I totally forgot how much I hate the Old West as a genre. I was completely absorbed in the story, and emotionally connected to the characters.

.
Oh! Let’s not get carried away there. Reign yourself in, Buckaroo!

Normally I have a laundry list of things to pick out. You know… general writer’s mistakes that make me cringe.

In this novel?

NADA. NONE. ZILCHO.

I bow down to the writing Gods and say “Why Why Why can’t everyone write this cleanly!”

The writing was crisp, fresh and for the first time this year – NO TYPOS. Yay! Extra cookie just for that, because that has really been ticking me off lately.

So, what was wrong with it? I had to rack my brain, but I will nit-pick on two very minor things.

Number one: This woman’s husband just died. She is still has dirt on her skirt from burying him… and this other guy shows up. She is instantly attracted to him (but at least feels guilty about it.) This is what bothered me about this: She is portrayed as really loving her husband. So, I put myself in her shoes … If my husband just died a few hours ago, I would barely be able to look at a man … let alone find one attractive. I just found that unrealistic. – subtract half a cookie.

Number Two: I hate when names sound alike. It confuses me. Maybe it is because my eyes read quickly, and only pick up certain letters, but this is just a pet peeve of mine. The Woman’s name is Ella, and her son’s name is Eli. Now, I realize this may have been one of those “name your kid after you” things, but every time I hit “Eli” my eyes read “Ella” and I had to go back and re-read because I got confused. –Subtract another half a cookie

So, for these two nit-picky things, I am nibbling away at one full cookie.

Yeeee Hawwww!

I have to say that I thoroughly enjoyed this little-ditty, yes-sir-eee. If the writing were poor… if it had not flowed so well, and if the characters were not so well rounded, I may have remembered I was in a Western. If the chemistry between the Widow and the patient wasn’t so dern good, I would have been annoyed by her initial attraction to him for longer than a page.

The writing was just dern good.

So, what’s the verdict? She lost one cookie in the creamy bad stuff section. And, sorry, it’s the rules … I need to take away another due to lack of explosions. So that leaves three out of five cookies.

Oh! Wait Jennifer! You gave her an extra cookie for having no typos!

Well, yes-sir-eee you’d be right about that, Buckaroo. That is a grand total of Four out of Five Oreos for Mended Hearts by Olivia Devereaux.