I’ve seen it applied to several situations, including protecting your work (voice) from over-stepping critique partners/groups. But when I think of “protect the work”, I think of the essay by Jennifer Crusie, originally written as a PAN column for the 9/98 issue of RWR. It’s an excellent blog post and, if you write, you should go read it if you haven’t.

Essentially, protecting the work means making it a priority, not the thing you do when everything else is done. Because guess what. Everything else is never done.

Yesterday I had my calendar and to-do list open at the same time as the Excel sheet I use to track my daily word count, which has a column for noting writing-related-but-not-actual-writing tasks done, and it hit me. I haven’t been protecting the work. As a matter of fact, I’ve thrown the work under a bus and backed over it a few times.

There were more days than I care to count in November in which the “business of writing” took priority over “writing” and if you have enough of those days, you won’t have to worry about it anymore because without the writing, there’s no business of writing. This is bad.

And it’s not done. I’ve still got five blog guest posts to write and updates to do and the promotional info for Holiday Sparks to fill out and then there’s the thing I always put off because it should be easy, but it’s not and it’s confusing and makes my head hurt. Oh, and guess who forgot to do her own damn newsletter again. A contest post to wrap my head around by Monday (which, ohmigod, you guys, will be awesome!) and it isn’t complicated or difficult, but it burns up some time and brain cells.

Oh, and Christmas is coming.

There comes a time, and that time for me is now, when a writer has to protect the work. I’m going to take the next couple of days to clear that to-do list as much as I possibly can and then I’ll have to be done. The only thing I’ll be committing to for the remainder of the year is my book and my blog. It’s not a matter of deadline (yet, though it would be if I continued on as November went), but a matter of protecting my work and my creativity. A matter of putting the writing at the top of the priority totem pole where it belongs, not at the bottom after everything else. Because, like I said, everything else just keeps on coming.

Writing. It’s what I do. And, in December, it’s what I’m going to do first.

I’m happy for him. Really. My husband and I both read the Jack Daniels series and in my living room there are ten print books on the shelf—eight written by me, one signed Nora Roberts and my signed copy of Afraid by Jack Kilborn (Konrath). I’m a fan.

Here’s the thing, though—the drum he’s beating makes me nervous. His career path’s getting a lot of buzz and causing a lot of excitement in the writing community. Since he began sharing his Kindle numbers, I’ve seen a pretty dramatic increase in the interest being shown Amazon’s self-digital-publishing platform.

But let’s put Konrath to the side because, while he seems to have become the poster boy for self-digital-publishing, he’s one author. He’s a professional writer with an established readership and a strong online presence.

Self-publishing digitally is an interesting option that’s very appealing in some ways. There are many authors who successfully and professionally self-publish their works, and programs such as Amazon’s can facilitate that. I’ve thought about it. It’s intriguing. But the thought of finding the time to write that book, plus finding (and paying for) a freelance editor I can trust and commissioning (and paying for) professional cover art is daunting. I see other professional authors choosing to release some, or even all, of their titles through self-digital-publishing in a professional way and I think that’s a very good thing.

What concerns me is the interest I’m seeing from writers who aren’t finding success with either traditional print publishers or with established digital publishers. It’s now way too easy to hit spellcheck, superimpose a title and author name on a free stock photo, run it all through the magic formatting machine and—voila—a book. A day or two later, it’s available for purchase. To hell with honing your craft until your work merits being published.

(And as I’m drafting this, I see the news report that Barnes & Noble has announced a self-publishing platform similar to Amazon’s.)

That worries me. When anybody and everybody can manufacture a product and there are no quality controls, what happens to the market for that product?

It’s already becoming difficult, when browsing Kindle books for example, to sort through the outrageous number of offerings searching for something that looks—for want of a better word—good. There exists already a sad amount of books with covers made with Microsoft Paint and error-riddled blurbs and eye-rolling excerpts.

Now, with a “revolution” shining a spotlight on the self-digital-publishing option, what’s the digital book market going to look like a year from now? My guess is that it’s going to be positively glutted with crap.

When I was inflicting this train of thought on my husband, he summed up my fear fairly succinctly: “Be a lot easier to say screw this digital crap and go to a bookstore. At least you know a publishing house bought it and it was edited by a professional.”

I think, if the day comes when digital bookstores are overrun by rejected first drafts, there’s going to be a backlash and frustrated readers could return to the “good old days” of print, when books were vetted by the slush pile and edited by professionals. It’s especially frustrating for authors who are published by digital publishers because it seems not a day goes by without somebody in the media or on the ‘net in general confusing digital publishing and digital self-publishing. If that backlash comes, will we be painted with the same brush? I hope not but, given the amount of confusion out there, it’s possible.

Digital self-publishing’s an intriguing alternative to traditional publishing and I think we’ll see more professional authors achieve success using the platform. But I can’t deny I worry about it, too. A lot.

As it happens, Carina Press would like a new title for Just Joe and, yes, I’m channeling my inner Macaulay Culkin. Not that I’m either surprised or upset—titles are a marketing tool and marketing is not what I do. The mental eardrum piercing comes not from resistance, but from the panic that naturally occurs when a writer needs words and finds the vault totally empty.

See, I know what Just Joe means to the book because I know the book. Creatively, that title resonated with me. But Just Joe says nothing at all about the book to someone who hasn’t read it and gives no clues as to the content which, along with the cover art, are the first thing to catch a reader’s eye. But, sometimes, the creative side of a writer and the logical side butt heads and the result is…a brain cramp.

I don’t think The Reluctant Author’s Secret Ex-Girlfriend is going to fly, either, so if anybody gets bored and wants to throw some ideas in the comment box, I might actually cry tears of gratitude. Big fat ones that will freeze on my cheeks when I take the dog out.

The Characters:

Keri Daniels is a journalist for an entertainment magazine, but she’s been hiding prior carnal knowledge of a reclusive celebrity. Now her secret’s out and her editor-in-chief is sending her back to face the boy she left behind.

Joe Kowalski isn’t a boy anymore, but he’s never forgotten the first girl to break his heart. Through eleven bestselling novels he’s been able to protect his privacy, but he’s prepared to step into the spotlight if it means a chance to finish what he and Keri started.

Tina Deschanel is the editor-in-chief of Spotlight Magazine and she’s had her sights set on an exclusive interview with Joseph Kowalski for years. She doesn’t think sending her favorite reporter into the northern woods of New Hampshire to fan an old flame is too great a sacrifice.

Teresa Kowalski Porter wants nothing to do with Keri Daniels. Her former best friend abandoned her several years before breaking her twin brother’s heart. There’s only one reason Terry’s willing to spend two weeks in the woods with Keri—payback.

The Set-Up:

One random blog entry is all it takes to pull the safety net out from under Keri Daniels. One minute she’s shopping with her boss, and the next she’s holding a photo of an eighteen-year-old version of herself in the arms of her high school sweetheart, Joe Kowalski. Tina Deschanel—the editor-in-chief of Spotlight Magazine—has been trying to get an interview with the reclusive, bestselling author for years. And when Tina tracked down a blogger who claimed to go to school with the man, she discovered her best reporter had been withholding some very interesting backstory. Now she’s given Keri a choice—the interview or a new career. She’s worked too hard and is too close to achieving her promotion to say no.

The entire Kowalski family is preparing for their annual camping trip in northern New Hampshire when Joe learns Keri Daniels is back in town. It’s not her first visit home since she left all those years ago, but it’s the first time she’s let it be known she’s looking for him. But he’s nobody’s fool and suspects Tina Deschanel—the most persistent stalker his agent has to fend off—has discovered her reporter’s connection to her prey.

Joe proposes an outrageous plan he’s positive will send Keri running in the other direction—for every day she survives with the Kowalski family on their annual campground vacation, she gets to ask him one question. But Keri’s worked too hard to walk away from her career and two weeks in the woods with her high school sweetheart is the lesser of two evils.

But not by much. The chemistry between Keri and Joe is still as potent as the bug spray, Joe’s sister Terry—Keri’s former childhood best friend—is out for revenge, and the cabin—the one she shares with Joe—has no running water. Being expected to take part in the ATV riding—something she hasn’t done since she was ten—is the icing on the pity party cake.

That means today is your last day to get it for $1.00. (If you live in the US, I guess.)

That’s right—$1.00.

What is Way of the Cheetah? It’s more than a writing how-to book. It’s like an intense session with Lynn Viehl during which she shares the philosophies and methods that have made her not only one of the most prolific writers I know, but a NYT bestseller. (At the time she wrote WotC, she was already a USA Today bestseller.)

If you’re a writer who gets caught up in the online social world of romance—worrying about your social media status and somebody else’s successes and whether you’re sitting alone in the Romanceland cafeteria—this book will be especially helpful to you. Way of the Cheetah is about so much more than writing efficiently, though that is the core message.

As with any book on writing, not everything in it will work for everybody, but I guarantee any professional writer will find something in Way of the Cheetah that resonates. Isn’t that worth $1.00?

Hell, yeah.

If you haven’t read Way of the Cheetah by Lynn Viehl, you should. I can’t imagine a better way for a professional writer to kick off 2010.

GET IT HERE!

It sucks getting a one star review. Some of them make you roll your eyes or they’re annoying or disappointing and sometimes they really, really hurt—like an ache in the gut and hard to breathe hurt. So what’s an author to do?

(Well, first of all, don’t read your Amazon reviews. But sometimes it’s just too hard to resist.)

Think of your favorite romance, the keeper that you’re on your third, tattered copy of and the one that springs instantly to your mind if you hear Greatest Romance EVAH. Then go read that book’s one star reviews.

Don’t read them with a sense of spite—Haha! Favorite Writer X got one star, too, so nyah nyah!—but rather to regain your sense of perspective.

Somebody out there hated a book you loved. And remember those times when all of the internet is raving about a book you couldn’t bring yourself to finish?

There are going to be people who feel the same way about your books and it doesn’t mean your books suck. It means it didn’t work for those readers, just as some books don’t work for you. Take any useful feedback you can use to grow your writing and lock the rest away.

Do NOT comment.

And stop reading Amazon reviews of your books. You should be writing the next one.

I think this is great news and I’m proud to be with a reader-friendly publisher.

I’m not opposed to rating systems on principle. As the mother of fourteen and eight-year-old boys, I use the video game ratings several times a week at the rental store. No M for mature games. Period. T for teen games are evaluated on a case by case basis. The PotC game is teen due to the proliferation of rum. That’s okay. Other games, mild bad language. Okay. Yet another, teen due to sexual themes. Not so much, thanks. The same goes for movie ratings.

Not so very long ago, it wasn’t difficult to spot the very sexually explicit romances. They were generally print releases from epublishers and imprints from NY publishers, such as Brava, Aphrodisia and Berkley Heat, almost all trade paperback. Now, it’s a crapshoot. There have been several mass market paperbacks in the last year I’ve read, from publishers I don’t associate with erotic romance, that raised my eyebrows. The line between erotic romance and the merely smokin’ hot is a blurry one.

So why am I opposed to a rating system for romances?

First off, who’s going to bestow these ratings? Who decides what elevates a love scene from two flames to three? Does using anything besides “her portal of love” raise it a flame? How about if the heroine talks dirty rather than thinking of England? Who decides? An RWA committee?

:hide:

Yeah, that was a joke. But who decides if two guys and a girl automatically make a five flame? Could it be any more subjective?

What about shelving? If they start sticking the non-trademarked equivalent of NC-17 on books, is that going to affect how the bookstores shelve them? Or if they even buy them? Being removed from the romance section is the kiss of death.

Now, imagine the romance section of your favorite brick and mortar bookstore. Ours is Borders. A group of women, heads kinked over to the right, scanning spines. What are they looking for? Authors. Maybe a title or something about that sliver of cover catches their attention and they’ll read the back cover copy. Sometimes, when doing market research, I’m scanning publishers, but I don’t choose my leisure reading by publisher.

Imagine if there was a little sticker on the spine with a rating. Do we want those readers scanning for the ratings? Do we want to tell a reader, before she’s even noted the author or the title, that it’s probably not the book for her? When you put books in boxes, you put the readers in those boxes, too.

I’m going to use Lauren Dane’s Undercover as an example. Futuristic/erotic romance/menage/BDSM. If I pretend I don’t already know and trust this author, I can honestly say I wouldn’t have picked it up if there was a sticker on the spine with five flames or a bonfire or a big red XXX or whatever they’d use, and that would have been a major loss to me as a reader. UNDERCOVER is smokin’ hot and it’s got the naughty words and the really naughty lovin’, but it is first and foremost a damn good book. I would have missed out if some arbitrary committee had put their stamp on it.

The imprint, the cover, sometimes the title, the back cover copy—there are enough clues already to give a general sense of whether or not the book is going to be that sexually explicit.

What about content other than sex? No Surrender isn’t sexually explicit, but the vocabulary these characters have? Not words you use in front of your mother unless you want to shit soap bubbles for a week. Should they have a rating?

Romance as a genre is so vast and diverse it defies labeling, and there’s simply no practical way to implement that kind of system even if it was a good idea.

What do you think? Would you like a rating on romances or no?

As a reader, I’ve grown increasingly conflicted about connected series. I used to love them without reserve but, over the last few years I’ve noticed some favorites A) have zero growth over the arc of the series or B) take the series in a direction I don’t care for or C) start screwing it up by blowing off the world established in previous books. And, seriously, not every book has to be part of a series. Could we not kill off the stand alone, please, because sometimes I’m just not up to the investment.

As a writer, there are definite pros and cons to writing a connected series.

Readership:

One of the best things about a connected series is the relationship with the readers. If a reader enjoys your series, she’s going to want the next book and the next and so on. She’ll look forward to the next release and tell other readers she’s looking forward to it.

The downside? If a reader doesn’t like the first book, chances are she’s not going to buy the second. If your entire career is wrapped in a series, you might be limiting your readership. You also need to worry about whether the backlist titles in the series are readily available because new readers will hopefully want to catch up on the series if they’ve jumped into it with the current release. Are there readers who might pass on NO SURRENDER because they haven’t read 72 HOURS and ON THE EDGE? Probably.

Living with the world you’ve built:

My favorite thing about writing a connected series is being able to revisit my characters and their world. It’s a familiar place filled with people I know and like and there’s comfort in knowing most of the readers who follow a series do so because they know and like the people, as well. They’re invested before they even start reading.

But the limitations, there are many. The world you create in the beginning of a series is the promise you make to the reader. And if you promise an action-packed world of Navy SEALs kicking ass and taking names and then, down the line, they all leave the Navy and now there are cops and serial killers and whatnot, the reader might feel like you’re not following through on that original promise. And maybe she’ll still read the series, but she might not stand with her face pressed to the bookstore window, waiting for the door to be unlocked. If you introduce a paranormal element in the middle of a contemporary series, you’re going to piss off some readers. For the record, if the Devlin Group gets attacked by zombies in book four, feel free to dump me.

And—very important— if you even suspect your book might grow into a series, pay attention to every single little detail of every single character. When that minor secondary character you slapped a throwaway name on becomes the hero of book four? That might suck. And if another minor secondary character has a small bit of backstory that makes book two work, you’re stuck working with that when she becomes the heroine of book three.

Marketing:

Roxanne St. Claire’s Bulletcatchers. Jaci Burton’s Wild Riders. The Black Dagger Brotherhood. The Darkyn. The Chicago Stars. Troubleshooters.

Being able to market the series as a brand is a wonderful thing. While your current book helping to sell your next book is true for any author, I think it’s especially true of a connected series. And every new release in a series by nature promotes the backlist.

You run the risk of being boxed in by your brand, however. While it’s not really an issue in epublishing, if you build a wildly successful connected series, your publisher—and perhaps your readers—might push for more and be reluctant to let you try something new.

The End:

When does it end? Best case scenario—it was always intended to be a defined number of books and it ends in a satisfying manner for the author and her readers. Not so good scenario—it just goes on and on and on until the reader grows tired of it and the author succumbs to phoning it in. Worst case scenario—sales of the first one or two titles aren’t quite good enough and the series is dumped mid-stride, with no resolution for anybody.

Overall, both as a reader and an author, I think the pros outweigh the cons of a connected series. What do you think?

I do know some of the RWA-Hate I’ve seen recently isn’t helping. And no, I didn’t join the new yahoogroup for RWA Change because I don’t care to have RWA-Hate delivered by digest to my inbox. You have no idea how much I wish all the people involved in epublishing could elect a small group of spokespeople to manage the online argument, leaving everybody else free to shut the hell up.

Why? Let’s pretend I’m a big organization representing a ton of NY-published authors as well as many aspiring authors, and there’s a group of people out there who want me to recognize their business model is legitimate and respect their work. Let me give a hypothetical approach:

Hey, Shan, we’d like to talk to you about our business model. We have an informational presentation that illustrates why epublishing is a professional, viable approach and we’d like to share that with you, as well as getting comments from the people running for RWA office. Perhaps you could form a small volunteer committee to represent you and we could work with them on questions and answers and compromises and perhaps find ways to solve the problems you anticipate if you recognize epublishing.

My possible hypothetical response:

Maybe. I represent a large group of people, many of whom don’t want to address this issue, but if you continue to impress me with your positive, diplomatic, professional opinion, I might be willing to at least hear you out.

Now let’s look at another slightly less hypothetical approach:

Hey, Shan, you suck because you don’t respect what I’m doing, which means you’re a stick-in-the-mud and your business model’s a dinosaur and it’s going to be extinct soon, so how do you like that? You’re just jealous, plus you’re killing trees so you don’t care about the environment. Is your hair blue, because it’s obvious you not only hate sex, but you’re threatened by it. We’re the future of publishing, and you’re too stupid to see it. Why don’t you go sweat over your reserves against return while I go laugh all the way to the bank? Oh, and you have typos, too, so there!

My possible hypothetical response:

Fuck off.

HOW you say something is just as important as WHAT you say, and the argument for RWA accepting epublishing as a viable publishing option is, by and large, not being said well. I don’t read self-help books or watch Dr. Phil, but I do know you’re supposed to argue with “I”, not “You”. You don’t browbeat the other party with all the ways they’re wrong. You calmly and persistently illustrate the ways you may be right.

Bipartisanship isn’t achieved by a die-hard Democrat and a die-hard Republican screaming at each other. It’s a small group of moderates from each side, working and reworking and talking and compromising and reworking again until an agreement is reached both sides can live with.

Epublishing is not going to gain respect by trumpeting the ways print publishing is wrong. That’s just as bad as traditionally published authors proclaiming epublishing is wrong. The ignorance flows both ways. Both business models have pros and cons. And until people can discuss them rationally, without insulting the other, there’s not going to be a compromise.

Probably the most problematic aspect of the current online climate is the fact that once the RWA-Haters jump on the topic—and they’re quick—the more professional, diplomatic and well-spoken epublishing advocates don’t want to jump into the train wreck, so the opportunity for constructive conversation is lost and those of us involved in epublishing are left to be represented by people who are offending and insulting the very people we want to view us as professionals.