The Da Vinci Code

Well…I finally saw it. While my kids were watching Over the Hedge with their grandparents, I went to see The Da Vinci Code with my husband. I am a HUGE fan of the book. I don’t agree with any of the book’s critics. I think it was well-conceived, well-researched, and well-written. I thought the short chapters and clean prose worked perfectly for this book. And again, despite what the critics had to say…I thought the movie quite well done. It’s been a little while since I read the book, so I’d forgotten some of the details, and I had to think back over whether certain parts had happened in the book. But all in all, I thought it was very enjoyable. Tom Hanks was an odd choice. Certainly he’s a great actor, but from the description in the book and the picture I had of Robert Langdon in my mind, Tom Hanks just seemed too old, too unattractive, and too greasy. That had to have been the worst I have ever seen Tom Hanks look in a movie! Robert Langdon was supposed to be sexy in a scholarly way—the only thing Tom Hanks had going for him was the tweed blazer. A slightly younger Harrison Ford would have been perfect: think Dr. Jones. Dermot Mulroney would have been cute, or Ewan MacGregor, or Viggo Mortensen. I think there is a dearth of hot property mid-thiry to mid-forty actors in Hollywood so they go high or low to fill the parts. My husband thinks Nicolas Cage would have been a good pick. I concur. I do think the actress they chose to play opposite Hanks, Audrey Tautou, was perfect and a good match.

Non-traditional Routes

Continuing on from my last blog...I found another one…www.wordwenches.com.
Now for today...

One afternoon recently I imagined that I really didn’t have time to get into my writing because my sons were only going to play unattended for so long without needing intervention. Well, I was totally wrong, so instead of writing, I got a lot of aimless surfing done. One thing led to another and so on and so forth. Anyway, while I was looking for something totally unrelated, I discovered this book:
Incognito by Suzanne Allain. First of all, I love the cover. And secondly, I read a couple of Amazon reviews (which are very good, by the way) and was intrigued. So, of course, I surfed over to the author’s site and was fascinated by the story of the book.

Basically, AOL Time Warner launched a venture called iPublish where authors submitted their works to be judged and reviewed by other authors. Those works generating the most interest would then be published, first in ebook format and then in paperback. Ms. Allain’s book was one of nine chosen and published before iPublish folded. So…her book (originally offered for $2!) is still available in both formats, and quite frankly, it looks great! I plan on adding it to my next Amazon order. (I found it almost immediately after placing my last order). Ms. Allain has not published any more books but is planning to someday...

I was also reading Publishers Lunch recently and discovered another author: Kathleen McGowan who first self-published her Mary Magdalene novel The Enchanted One, before it was picked up by Simon and Schuster. I like to keep my eye on self-publishing successes and trends—I still haven’t decided whether to try and go the traditional route with my next book or stick with self-publishing and use up some more of my ISBN block…

Multi-Author Blogs

More and more I’ve been discovering a growing trend with blogs penned by multiple authors. I think this is a great idea, and it serves a variety of purposes:

1. It takes the pressure off! You don’t have to blog daily—meaning you don’t have to come up with a topic daily and you don’t have to actually write a little spiel every day. So…

2. It saves precious writing time while still keeping you visible as an author.

3. It’s cross-promotional. You get together a group of authors like you, writing in the same general genre, and you play off one another. You pull in readers for each other and announce each others’ successes.

4. It’s a way to prevent putting a question out there for potential readers and then staring at that ‘0 comments’ field. Your blog mates can help you save face.

5. It’s a sense of community, and readers want to be involved. It looks as if the authors are having fun, and they probably are!

I’d like to do a group blog, but I don’t really feel as if I’m in the same situation as anyone. Most authors published by a major house shy away from aligning themselves with a self-published author. And most self-published authors are not romance authors. Besides, romance doesn’t lend itself to self-publishing in that readers are expecting to pay the standard mass-market price (which isn’t very cost-effective for a self-publisher), competition is fierce, and books easily get lost in the shuffle. So for now, I’m goin’ it alone.

Some fun group blogs I’ve encountered:
Squawk Radio
Sisterhood of the Jaunty Quills
Risky Regencies
Literary Chicks
Dishing With the Divas


Let me know if you find any more good ones…

Smorgasboard

Things have been very busy here with Mother’s Day and the fast approach of the last day of school. Today is my youngest’s last (half) day, and there goes my writing time… I still have one more week before my kindergartener is officially home for the summer. So, in between shopping and making teacher gifts, I’ve been trying to squeeze in some writing…and also some reading…and also some new marketing and sales.

I finally finished the submission process for getting my self-published book up onto Lightening Source to be distributed at online retailers as an ebook. I’m not sure anything will come of this, but I figure, if there are any sales, they’ll just be perks, because I had to expend very little extra effort to get the book into the appropriate formats.


Also, last I blogged, I mentioned the online Australian women’s magazine Beauty and Lace. Rather coincidentally, they currently have a review posted for my book, Unladylike Pursuits. The review is nice, but they liken the story to The Taming of the Shrew. Personally, I don’t see the connection—on any level, but maybe it’s all in the nuances.

In other news, I recently had an article published in the Romance Writers Report, the trade magazine for Romance Writers of America, and I mentioned in my author blurb that I am a self-published author. My husband joked over whether or not we had enough stock to supply the demand that would surely result from eager readers that would pop out of the woodwork as a result of the article. I set him straight: if anyone is dead-set against a self-published author, it’s an author who would never consider self-publishing. I have seen more derogatory posts on various loops, globally slamming self-published works and their upstart authors, than I would have believed possible. I say, read the book, then have an opinion. And by the way, you can buy it directly from me—I own the rights.

I’ll be updating my website and sending out my quarterly newsletter shortly, so if you’re interested, visit my site to sign-up.

Until next time...try not to melt in the pre-summer heat.

Books, books, and more books

Well, I’ve finally gotten through the submission process of getting my debut novel Unladylike Pursuits (currently out in mass-market paperback) distributed as an ebook. Now I’m waiting on proofs… The whole process has been very interesting, and now I can actually say that I’ve viewed three already published ebooks in both Adobe format and Microsoft Reader (or LIT) format. If I was willing to sit at my computer any longer than necessary, it might actually be rather pleasant to read books that way. I’d like to get my hands on an actual ebook reader to see how that differs.

In the meantime…I’ve read some very interesting and clever books lately. And surprise, surprise, at least one of them…The Man Who Loved Jane Austen by Sally Smith O’ Rourke would be considered literature! The other—I have to laugh—was hilarious, and the author’s blurb, equally so. The book was Going Coastal by Wendy French , who claims “her parents unwittingly cursed her writing career with a happy and stable childhood. In an effort to overcome her unfortunate beginnings, she sought artistic torment at the University of Victoria, but despair eluded her…happiness continued to stalk her, day and night. Finally, she conceded defeat, abandoned her quest for misery, and began writing humorous women's fiction.” Mmmm-hmmm…I’d choose that over literature most any day. Well, Ms. French definitely has a sense of humor—I laughed out loud many times over the course of reading her book. And…I’ve already gone out in search of another. I actually found her on the Australian website www.beautyandlace.com.

Now…I should really be working on my own manuscript…ta ta!