Cover Dilemma -- from great to horrible to "eh"

Well, nobody tells the author much of anything.  Turns out Sentenced to Death came out in large print on May 7th.  Did anybody tell me?  Nope.  Did I even know what the cover looked like?  Well, yes--I got an copy of it over a month ago--thinking the book had been out for months.  Maybe it'll (eventually) go up on Amazon.

These large print covers are hit and miss.  I'm either mildly pleased or extremely upset.

Wouldn't you be upset if your beautiful Berkley Prime Crime cover went from this:
to this:

To be fair, after I protested, Wheeler, the large print publisher, did change it to this:



(Otherwise known as Barbie at the Soda Shoppe.)  Still, they never bothered to change it on Amazon or any of the other online bookstores, or WorldCat (library site).  Needless to say the book was not a big seller in large print.  : (

On a happier note:  guess what?  My publisher has decided to put out an omnibus edition of the first three volumes of the Booktown Mystery Series.  It's called Murder In Three Volumes and it'll be 888 pages and sell for $16 list (but Barnes and Noble and Amazon are already offering it for $10.88.)  I don't have a cover yet -- they aren't going to pay big bucks to commission a new one.  They'll use one of the existing covers and put some new type on it. I'm hoping it'll be the Murder is Binding cover.  I'm sure it'll be available for e readers, too.  It'll be out on October 2nd.

But in the meantime, it's only 42 days until Murder on the Half Shelf comes out, and I have to admit I'm pretty nervous.  It's a HUGE step going from paperback to hardcover (especially in these times).  So all I can do is cross my fingers and hope that everyone loves my new (and old) characters.  Here's a hint of something to come.

Care to speculate?

A yard sale treasure

As many of you know, I'm a die-hard yard sale person.  I love them!  And I've found all kinds of nifty stuff at them over the years.

Many years ago, my mother bought me a lap desk.  It had little Styrofoam beads in it's cushioned underbelly and it was kind of small.  I must confess, I never used it much because it was just too tiny.  It looked a bit like the one pictured on the right.

Last summer I saw a "lap desk" that was quite a bit bigger.  Someone had obviously taken a tole painting class and had used it for a project.  Not the best roses I've ever seen, but I bought it as a working tool, not a thing of beauty.  But  what a beauty it has turned out to be.

I have a distinct lack of working/flat surfaces in my office, so this lap desk comes in handy.  I can sit in my computer chair and stick stamps on postcards, or labels on envelopes.  I can take it into the living room and use it when I watch TV. (As you can see by the picture, I'm getting packages of bookmarks ready to go out to booksellers.)

Best of all, it cost me a buck.

Amazon has several that are sort of like this, and I'm tempted to buy one, just so I can have it stashed in another part of the house or at the cottage.

Or maybe I'll get lucky at another yard sale.

What little thing has made life in your home office easier?
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Is Tai Chi For Me?

Boy am I stressed out.  I thought once I handed in my (overdue) manuscript that things would magically smooth out.  But then we had a guest come, which means cleaning the house from top to bottom, and put on a big holiday dinner, and then I got a couple of nasty "fan" letters. So instead of mellowiing out, my nerves are taut and about ready to snap.

Yesterday I ordered a tai chi DVD.  I've been thinking about this for a long time.  I like the idea of slow, measured moves that are supposed to bring tranquility.  I hope that if I jump off the Internet and do the moves before breakfast, I will have a much more peaceful and focused day.

Anybody out there do tai chi?  And if so, what were your results?

The mysterious, disappearing ink

So there I was, in the middle of a BIG project, which included printing out pretty pictures on my inkjet printer, and ... didn't I run out of ink right in the middle of the print job?

It's working fine, it's working fine, it's working fine -- MY GOD, THE BLACK INK IS NOW GRAY.  Which means the color picture is going light, too.  Ugh.  And, it was too close to dinner to drop everything and run out to the office supply store (where I just was on Saturday).

Of course, this is an old printer.  Seems to me they look at their stock for older printers and go, "Hmm...Lorraine needs this.  Let's jack up the price by 50%."  Growl.  I could buy it cheaper online, but then I'd have to wait a week to get it.  I want to finish this job today.

So guess where I'm going as soon as the store opens this morning?

Does this always happen to you, too?
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Free at last ... sort of

Okay, I'm not really free at last, but I did have a huge burdon of guilt lifted when I handed in the manuscript for THE CHAMBER PLOT, my title (which may not last when Marketing hears of it) for the 7th Booktown Mystery.  Can't tell you about it now.  I'll talk about it later this summer ... after Murder on the Half Shelf comes out.  (That's July 3rd for those of you who like to mark your calendars.

I must admit I dragged my feet a bit about finishing the book. There's a new character (who first shows up in Murder On The Half Shelf) that is such a delight to write, and I never know what's going to come out of her mouth next.  I'm looking forward to finding out what she'll be doing in the next book.

Speaking of which, during the next few months I'll be working on the 8th book in the series (no title yet), and on the 4th Victoria Square Mystery.  (No contract yet--but it's in the works.  Best to start now just in case I have to turn it in earlier than I thought.)  But honestly, first I'm taking the rest of the month off to do administrative stuff.  Like send out bookmarks to independent booksellers (and if you're one and would like some--please ask!), and get my postcards ready for readers and libraries.  This effort requires sitting for hours and hours on end sticking down labels and stamps -- usually in front of a TV set with DVDs.  Hey, it's a difficult job, but somebody has to do it, right?

Where do I get my addresses from?  Why people who sign up for my e newsletter.  There's the option of adding your address, and if you do, you'll get a postcard.  Also, I'd love to know if there are libraries out there who would like to be notified of my new books, and/or if they would like signed bookmarks to hand out to patrons.  So if you haven't already signed up, do it now--there's a sign-up form right on this page--scroll down if you don't already see it.  (But look for a confirmation email to follow--it might end up in your spam folder. and, BTW, I don't share or sell addresses.)

Off to work.
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Will Love Heal?

What can I say?  There's a reason I hold contests to title my books.  I'm really NOT very good at it.  Okay, sometimes I get lucky.  I thought Dead in Red was a good name.  And Cheated By Death. And Bookplate Special.  Otherwise, other people have named my book. (Doesn't mean I always like those titles.  A Crafty Killing?  Come on.  (Thank you Penguin Marketing.  NOT.))

So when I uploaded one of my more romancy e stort stories I found myself looking at my original title (Valentine's Day) and grimacing.  So, after much soul searching, I renamed it Are You Lonely Tonight.  (And it's not the same as the Elvis song...just reminiscent of it.)

The first cover was okay.  When we did it, that's the kind of cover people were doing (with the bands of color--or in this case black and gray).  I thought the woman looked wistful.  Maybe she looked like a bimbo, because the story didn't sell well.  (Of course, short stories aren't known to be hot sellers, anyway.)

Just last month we changed it to a color photo of a wistful brunette.  Guess what?  Sales still stunk.  Only one thing left to do.  Change the title.

So there we were, driving down the Pennsylvania turnpike last week, and I asked my pal and passenger Leann Sweeney what she thought.  (This, after giving her a brief description of the story.)  She thought about it for a moment and blurted:  "Love Heals."

Wow.  Short, powerful, and it describes the story in a nutshell.  (She's good.)
So for better or for worse, Love Heals is now out there.  Now to see if this marketing ploy actually works.

In case you're interested, here's the blurb:  It's the most romantic night of the year and Diana Mason is alone.  She broke up with her boyfriend because he wanted a playmate not a soul mate, but it's someone else who haunts her thoughts on the most romantic of holidays.  Is there a chance he's thinking of her, too?

Kindle ~ Nook ~ Smashwords

So does this title (and cover) grab you?

I can hear perfectly fine--I'm just not listening

I hear perfectly fine.  When I'm not in a crowded room, or if someone is looking at me.  The rest of the time?  Not so much.

What happened?

For more than 25 years, I wore earphones to listen to music.  When I went to concerts, I didn't wear ear protection.  (I didn't wear it when I cut the lawn, or in other noisy places, like working in a machine shop for 18 months.)  All that loud music had an accumulative bearing on what I can now hear.

I gave up earphones when I lost my day job.  No need to wear them anymore.  I do have an MP3 player, but usually I plug it into my little speakers, which don't play very loud--just loud enough.

When you're younger, you don't care about the long-term effects of noise.  Years ago, I remember going to a Rush concert, and when we came out my brother was rather proud of the fact his ears were ringing.  I was smart.  (I had put in earplugs before the concert began.)  Two hours of explosively loud music had damaged my brother's hearing just a little bit more.  Me?  My ears weren't ringing.  I went to one more concert after that, and since have been to none.  The music is just too loud, and I now value my precious ability to hear more than I value a couple of hours of listening to a favorite band live. (That's why they have live albums.)

I suppose eventually I'll have to get a couple of hearing aids, and I'm not looking forward to that day.

How about you?  Have you damaged your hearing?
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Doesn't everyone need thousands of note cards?

Okay, it's a sickness.  I'm like a hoarder, I guess.  But for some reason I cannot stop buying note cards.

I went to a sale at the local historical association over the weekend.  Guess what I bought?  Two bags full of blank and other cards.  It was the sympathy cards that suckered me in.  It seems that all too often I'm sending them these days.  I know how comforting it was to hear from friends when my dad passed, and I try to send out a card whenever I hear that a friend has lost a loved one.

One of the bags was chock full of thank you cards, too.  Very cute ones.  I send out a LOT of thank you cards, so this was perfect.

I must have spent almost an hour examining each and every card in those two bags.  The cost?  $2.  I'd say that was $2 well spent.

Yard sale season is on!  What will you be looking for?
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One of the best gifts ever

My brother gave me the BEST Christmas present ever.  An MP3 Player and a pair of tiny, battery-operated speakers.

First of all, this was the second MP3 player he's given me.  I was never able to figure out the first one, even though it came with directions.  Of course, he just gave it to me.  With this 2nd one, he actually came over and showed me how to burn my CDs to it.  Wee, cool!

But even more awesome, he gave me those tiny speakers. For years I'd been hauling around a BIG CD player when I went on a road trip.  Never again!  We took these on vacation (a cruise/train journey) and enjoyed them every day.

But even more awesome, now I can save money when I buy my music.  Instead of buying my CDs through the mail, I skip the CD and the shipping charge and just download them to my computer.  I can still burn them to a CD if I want to, too.  (Like this last one I bought.)

Music is a big part of my life, and carrying a lot of it with me has become a lot easier.

What's made your life easier?
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No more burgers!

Last week I went to the Malice Domestic mystery conference and the Festival of Mystery in Oakmont, PA.  That meant traveling.  Traveling seems to equal fried food.

Why is it you can't get a decent meal on the road?  I swear, if I see another burger and fries any time soon, I'm going to have hysterics.

The big treat of the Malice Conference is the publisher-sponsored dinner at a very fancy restaurant.  The food is impeccable, but it's terribly rich.  We waddled away from the table.  The one time I actually got to eat healthy was breakfast at the hotel.  I ordered the world's worst oatmeal.  Adding raisins, milk, and even brown sugar didn't improve it.  One of my table mates ordered a continental breakfast which came with a HUGE bowl of granola.  It was only sprinkling the oatmeal with the granola that made it edible. Consequently, I was glad to get home and eat real food.  (Dorothy was right.  "There's no place like home!")

Speaking of real food, I came home with a few bags of author swag from the conference.  What's that got to do with food?  The Cozy Chicks are giving away their leftover swag (which is in my possession) to anyone who writes a review on Amazon or Barnes and Noble for their cookbook, The Cozy Chicks Kitchen.  (Each packet includes bookmarks from all the Cozy Chicks, plus a bonus recipe and adorable teapot cookie cutter.)  To get your swag, you must email the Chicks at cozychicks(at)gmail(dot)com and tell them where the review is posted.  Don't forget to include your snail mail address.

Since I've got author swag left over, too, I figured -- why not ask for the same thing.  Put up a review for my Victoria Square cookbook, Recipes To Die For, and email me at LLB(at)LLBartlett(dot)com and tell me where you posted the review and include your snail mail address.

These cookbooks are filled with wonderful recipes -- the majority of which do not include food being immersed in cooking oil.  If you haven't tried them, maybe now you will.
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Products that actually work

All my life I have been afraid to read in the car because I'd get carsick.  I tried it a few times and became quite nauseous and got a splitting headache.

I made a trip to VA last month and decided to try Bonine.  I'd been told it was terrific to keeping one from getting carsick.  Since I REALLY needed to be working on the WIP (work in progress), and it's a l-o-n-g drive, I gave it a try.  It worked, hey, Mikey!  But it did make me terribly sleepy.  My friend, author (and retired nurse) Leann Sweeney said, "Try taking half a pill."  It still worked!  But I was still sleepy and didn't get as much work done as I'd hoped.  Back to the drawing board.

So, I have just returned from Bethesda, MD (Malice Domestic) and The Festival of Mystery (Oakmont, PA).  This time I decided to try Sea-Bands.  I was on a cruise in January and saw a LOT of people wearing these little cloth bracelets with a plastic bead embedded, pressing on a pressure point.  Guess what?  It worked fine!  I managed to edit my entire manuscript during the drive, and edit the first half of another project.

Weeee!  No longer will I have to be bored during long drives.  I can work, or read, and not have to worry about projectile vomiting.  I'd say that's a huge improvement.

Have you ever tried Sea-Bands?"

What's worse? Cheating on your diet or your budget?

I had a very nasty surprise last fall.  My accountant told me I hadn't put enough money away to pay my taxes.  This year, I'm putting my tax money away first, which means I can't touch it.  It's in the savings account, and that's where it's going to stay until June 15th, September 15th, and for the school taxes due in September.

So, this spring and summer I'm going to be living on a very tight budget.  Guess what?  Living on a tight budget really stinks.  I wanted to buy a new pair of jeans, but I remembered I was on a budget. I really want that new-to-me desk, and Saturday I was prepared to go out and find it.  But then I remembered I was on a budget. I wanted to get another David Arkenstone CD, but then I remembered I was on a budget.

But honestly, don't you have to splurge once in a while?

I was bad.  I splurged yesterday.  I've been thinking about this for years, and just never found what I wanted.  Well, last week a catalog came and there they were, the sheers of my dreams, and on sale, too.  So ... I ordered them.  Now I'm wondering what I'll live without once these sheers arrive and are hanging from my bedroom windows. I might only care when I'm away from those windows and think ... I could go out to lunch if I hadn't bought those sheers.  Or ... I could buy myself those jeans or that CD.

Or I could just shut up and and think, I'm mostly living within my means and be satisfied.  (After all, that's what I've done most of my life.)

That said, I have a feeling I won't be sorry about those sheers simply because they're pretty, they were such a good deal, and the sheers hanging from the window are really old and nearly in tatters. (Thank you, cats.)

So, what have you splurged on recently?
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My heart is broken ... again

One of my favorite books is The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett.  I read it every year.  It's a wonderful story (except for the ending, where suddenly the heroine of the story gets lost and the focus completely turns on one of the secondary characters.  Ahem!).

In the book, a little girl, her friend (Dicken) with apparently magical relationships with animals, and the girl's cousin transform a badly neglected garden.  Dicken's animal friends are sweet, cute, and THEY DON'T EAT ALL THE PLANTS.

Unfortunately, the animals around my neighborhood, do.

This past winter was mild.  I had tried growing Brussels sprouts in containers to keep the groundhogs from eating them.  It worked, but they plants did not thrive.  In early September, I put the strongest plant in the garden to see if it would grow.  It didn't.  But it did survive the winter.  And then it took off like crazy!

Oh, what a thing of beauty.  We had a spate of warm temps last week and it shot up at least 12 inches.
And then Mr. Groundhog found it and ate EVERY SINGLE LEAF in about an hour.  We had planted out peas about 4 p.m.  An hour later Mr. G snuck into the garden and decimated the poor plant.  We set the haveahart trap out to try and catch him, but why should he return?  He's already eaten what he wanted, and apparently cabbage isn't as satisfying a dish as sprouts leaves.

Every year I'm heartbroken when all my veggies (and flowers) are attacked and eaten by critters.  Every year I hope it's going to be different.  It never is.

When you've got the gardening gene (and my parents were marvelous gardeners), it's something you do, but man is it heartbreaking at times.

Do you find gardening heartbreaking, too?

A product so good they're bound to take it off the market . . .

It seems like every time I like something, it gets taken away.  We like to travel to Vermont.  Our favorite little motor inn ... sold, new owners, now terrible.  A wonderful restaurant in the same town?  Went out of business.

Ice Tea Gatoraid?  Gone.

The list could go on and on.

So I was thrilled a few months back when I found the Oxi-clean Gel Stick.  Spills happen, and I've tried just about everything on the market to get the stains out.  Nothing worked particularly well, and then I found this.  It even gets grease stains out (don't put it in the dryer--sometimes it takes two treatments).  I have saved a bunch of our clothes because of this little cylinder of cleaning gel.

And then I ran out.

I went to every grocery store in the area and NONE of them had it.  Finally, when I went to Virginia last month, I found some in a Martin's store, so I bought two.  Then I had a DOH! moment ... I'll bet I could buy it online.  It bites having to pay shipping, but I think in the long run it's for the best--if I want to keep our clothes nice, that is.  (And I could toss a few books or DVDs onto the order to get the free shipping, right?)

What product have you recently found that you LOVE and are terrified they are going to discontinue?
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Coughs And Sneezes Spread Diseases

Yesterday was grocery day!  Man, the people out there!  It's no wonder there are fears of a pandemic, because sick people are out shopping, getting their germy hands on the carts (I always use the cart wipes, and if they're out, slather the cart handle with my own Purell) and coughing, sneezing, and wheezing their way through stores and other public places.


As I was walking around the veggie aisle, which my grocery store (Wegmans) has a beautiful way of displaying everything out in the open--making it look like an open air market, a man walked up to the lovely pile of onions COUGHED ON HIS HAND and then proceeded to pick through the entire lot before finally choosing one.

As I left the store, a man had a coughing fit about 10 feet ahead of me.  That man never even covered his mouth with his hand, he just coughed into the air.

Is it just men who are incredibly rude, or people in general?  Haven't they gotten the memo that you're supposed to cough in your sleeve to avoid getting germs on your hands and spreading them far and wide?

I appreciate it that the store has a few Purell dispensers, but why is it only near the Pharmacy?  There are people hacking and coughing, sneezing and ... well, I know of one elderly woman who hasn't willingly washed her hands in decades, so you don't know WHAT kind of germs she's toting around.

And so I leave you with this small piece of advice:



And COVER THAT COUGH!
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Christmas came sooner than I thought . . .

And yesterday Mr. L finished updating the last cover.  Will this be for the last time?  Who knows.  Last week I Googled a title by one of my favorite authors and saw there had been TWELVE covers for that book over the past 30 years.  Some were better than others--some downright awful ... but every couple of years they re-release the book and give it a new look.

And here's the new look for my Jeff Resnick story Bah! Humbug.


Same (partial) picture, different look.

What do you think about this one?
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A Little Market Research -- and you get to help!

On Saturday, I posted on the Cozy Chicks Blog about how I'm updating my covers.  (AGAIN!  And you can see the first two there.)  As it turns out, I'm getting a teensy bit better at being an art director.  And Mr. L is getting a LOT better at doing the covers for my indie books.

Essentially, we decided (and mostly thanks to my pal Shelly Thacker) that my covers needed a more uniformed look.  I was more or less happy with some of the stock photography, but not with the fonts.  I'd also had a discussion about fonts and type size a month or so ago with my good friend Pat Ryan, who is great at covers.  (She did the covers for my Jeff Resnick novels).

So, rather than go into more detail, why don't I just show you the results?

Abused -- A Daughter's Story:



Are You Lonely Tonight?
 


An Unconditional Love
 


Prisoner Of Love
 


And so, for a little market research.  (You guys get to play my focus group.)  So, what do you think of the changes?  Would you be more inclined to buy the stories with these new covers?
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More Cats In Trouble!

It's release day for the long-awaited fourth book in the Cats In Trouble Mysteries, by my good friend Leann Sweeney.

When quilter Jillian Hart returns to her lake house in Mercy, South Carolina, she discovered her friend, Tom, is missing-and his estranged half-brother has moved into Tom's house. Jillian doesn't trust the guy, especially since he allowed Tom's diabetic cat to escape. When police officers find Tom's wrecked car with a dead stranger inside, Jillian is determined to find out what happened to Tom-before someone else turns up dead.

You can by it from:

Amazon  ~  Barnes & Noble ~ Books A Million ~ Indie Bookstores

For:
Kindle ~ Nook ~ Sony E Reader ~ Kobo

If you've read the others, I know you'll enjoy it.  If you haven't they are:

The Cat, The Quilt and The Corpse
The Cat, The Professor and the Poison
The Cat, the Lady and the Liar
Enjoy!

Is seeing believing?

Last winter, I was sitting in my usual spot on the black leather couch in my living room and happened to glance out of the sliding glass door that looks out on my neighbor's yard ... and was surprised to note that I was being watched.


Yes, that's a tree trunk.  A pine tree trunk.  Naturally the closer you get, the less it looks like a face.  So I backed up to take another shot.



And another.



Do you see the eyes, a nose,and a mouth, or am I just looney?

It used to freak me out to see that face, which I can also see from my office window.  But now ... I'm rather comforted by it.  It looks after me and our home.  It's benign, possibly even friendly.  And I suppose it's no odder than seeing Mother Teresa in a cinnamon bun.



Have you ever seen a face in some inanimate object?
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Happiness = a Bic pen

When I was a kid, the first pen I owned was a Bic.  I thought it was marvelous! No longer was I relegated to writing homework assignments with a lowly No. 2 pencil.  I was practically an adult because I had learned cursive and I was writing with a PEN!

Back in the day, Bic pens were only available (to me at least) in blue or black.  I always chose blue.  I like the color blue.  It's the color of my eyes.  The color of the sky.  It's nice, friendly.  Black is a little too business like for my taste.  I like things nice and friendly.

As I mentioned in another post, I've been using Bic pens a lot lately, because I seem to be doing a lot of my (novel) writing by longhand, and then later typing up my pages.  For Christmas, Mr. L slipped into my Christmas stocking a package of blue Bic pens AND a package of red ones, too.

Red pens have POWER.  School assignments were always marked with a red pen.  For years I edited with a red pen.  But now ... eh, I found it's harder to see the red ink than the blue.  (And I don't like the implications, either.)  So the package of red pens still has 9 in it, while the blue package is empty.  Those pens are scattered around the house--any where I might need to pick one up and immediately start writing.

Bic pens come in green, too, but I haven't seen any of them around in years.  : (
The do come in other colors, and maybe it's just me, but I haven't found them to work as well as the plain old blue ones, mores the pity.

What product have you fallen in love with lately?  (Or rekindle your love affair with?)

Can I pay my bills this month?

There's a reason a lot of authors have put their older works up on Kindle, Nook, and other e reader platforms.  It's called Payday.  You see, Amazon and Barnes and Noble pay on a monthly basis.  Okay, they're paying you for what you sold two months ago, but the point is you're getting a check (or in my case, a direct deposit) every month.  (Smashwords pays every three months.)

Believe it or not, I use that money to live on.  And why is that?  Because the publisher for my mass market paperback books (think the Booktown and Victoria Square Mysteries) only pays me twice a year.  Yes, you heard that right.  I get paid sometime in April and sometime in October.  And so does everyone else with traditionally published books.

It's hard to budget when you have no idea when you're going to get paid for your work -- or how much you will make.  Because I'm very numbers oriented, I keep track of my Kindle and Nook sales so I can budget ahead.  This month we've got our healthcare insurance premium.  It will take my entire month's pay to cover that one bill.  Meanwhile, we'll be eating a lot of  Macaroni & Cheese during the next couple of weeks.

On Friday, I got a royalty check for the audio edition of Murder On The Mind, my first Jeff Resnick mystery.  A whopping $11.57.  Still, I'm grateful for it.  (I'd be a lot MORE grateful if people would discover this edition of the book.  Then maybe they'd buy the rights to the other books in the series and I could have a cavity filled once in a while.)

In two weeks, I have to pay my estimated taxes.  Holy smoke!  If my biannual check doesn't come in time, where is that money going to come from?  Kitchen refit?  On hold indefinitely.  Why?  Being an author, I have to pay estimated taxes every three months.  Plus, in September, I have to pay the town school taxes (that same month we have to pay for healthcare AGAIN.  I have to pay county taxes in January--right after the December *%#@ health care premium).  It's never ending.  And you know I'll be praying to see that check arrive in the mail--SOMETIME before April 15th--praying it will cover the June and September estimated taxes, too.

It's not likely the big publishing houses will ever pay their authors on a more timely basis.  So in between we either live in luxury (for usually one month of the year--October for me) or like paupers (for the other 11 months).  So if you thought that all authors are raking in the dough like Stephen King, Nora Roberts, or Janet Evanovich, think again.

BTW, anybody got tips for budgeting?