To my Turkish readers....

Many years ago I was approached by a publisher in Turkey who wanted to translate and publish my Alex & Fiona series for their Turkish audience. I questioned other authors who had been approached by this company, and closely read over the contract before agreeing. They quickly worked through the first book, sending me cover samples and sharing the translation progress with me.  All the while, I'm being assured that my advance was coming soon, soon, soon.

Book 1 went out quickly and soon they were sending me book 2's cover. At this point I was pissed. I hadn't seen on cent of my advance, yet I already knew book 1 was selling simply by the amount of readers from Turkey contacting me to let me know how much they enjoyed the book & wanting to know when book 2 would come out (of course I had no idea).

I continued to question when my money was set to arrive & the woman I'd been dealing with all those months assured me they were simply running behind, but my payment would be coming. Oh, and I was supposed to receive 1 copy of each book in their new Turkish format...those never arrived.

Eventually, contact was scarce, until I was told the woman I'd been dealing with no longer worked there. After that I never heard a single word from the company again. That was in 2011.

Here I am, many years later, and I'm still receiving messages, follows, tags, and comments from my Turkish readers. I'm soooo happy you're all enjoying the story of Alex & Fiona, but I want you all know that I've never received a single dollar from the publishing or selling of this series in Turkey.

This publisher took not only my 3 books, but numerous books from numerous other authors, without paying us for our work. This is theft, plain and simple. And because of the fact that this company is outside the U.S., we are pretty much left without any way to get our money. The contracts aren't worth the ink and paper used to print them.

Again, thank you so much for reading my books! Unfortunately, I won't be allowing any translations of newer books by ARVO.

Here are a few (of many) "Author Beware" articles about this company:

http://accrispin.blogspot.com/2011/12/publisher-alert-arvo-basim-yayin-of.html
http://www.kboards.com/index.php?topic=96172.0
http://absolutewrite.com/forums/showthread.php?232625-Publisher-Arvo-Basim-Yayin
http://www.crimetime.co.uk/mag/index.php/showarticle/1816


Too bad these weren't around back when ARVO first contacted me.  :(

Reading a book series in order

I love reading books that are in a series. I like being able to get a more detailed knowledge about the characters and their world with each additional book. And of course I like writing series books.

My question is: Do you expect a book in the middle of the series to explain, in detail, things that happened in all th book that came before it? Or are you good with passing mentions of previous events as it pertains to the book you're currently reading?

The reason I ask is that I noticed some bad reviews on the book I'm currently reading only because it didn't explain past events in the series and "expected" the reader to already know their details.

Personally, I find this ridiculous. I'm on book 3 in this series and I know all about the previous events because...now this is a doozy...I READ THE TWO BEFORE IT! OMG! Yes, you're suppose to read books in order when they're in a series. I thought everyone knew this little tidbit of information. So why in the world would someone give a book a bad review because it didn't tell you what you should already know before you started reading the book? Sheesh!

Now, if anyone out there thinks this way, and want to try their hand at reading my series books, just don't do it out of order. I don't write that way. I will mention past things/people/events as it pertains to the current story and will NOT explain it in full detail. Liz will say something like, "Marcus, my ex vampire lover who I just so happen to have stacked and burned his body in a mountain cabin." She will NOT go into greater detail talking about how Marcus murdered so & so, or how he said this and that, or how the cabin smelled/looked before she burned it down. Why? Because none of that pertains to the current story. If you want to know all that then you should have read book 1 before reading book 3.

To me, it just makes sense.

I don't get the bad reviews about this nonsense. Seriously, have some people gotten this lazy in their reading habits? *Shakes head in amazement*

Mental Writing for the masses.

The other day I complained to Tim that I hadn't gotten any book work done this week other than mentally. He laughed and asked, "What the heck is 'mental' book work?" Duh! Geez, some people...

Those of you who are writers know exactly what mental writing is, but for those of you who don't, it's what we writers do when we don't have the time to sit down and actually type/write our stories or articles. Most writers write in their heads from the time they wake up 'til the moment their brains close down for the night. And some of us (myself included) continue "writing" in our sleep. Dreams come in handy when writing fiction.

When the kids are screaming about some sibling unfairness I'm wondering how Liz will tolerate me putting her in a swimsuit. When Tim is texting me from work because he's bored, I'm contemplating the color of Liz's hotel room comforter. As I'm fighting with my pillow and trying my damnedest to fall asleep, I'm being hit with the most perfect solution to tie the next Liz Baker book together with a planned short story I'll be offering for free here in the future.

Do you get it now? It's mental writing!

It helps to know that even when I can't seem to find the quiet time to put fingers to keyboard in my current book file I always have the time to work ideas out in my head, and my notebook and ink pen is never far away.

I don't mind not knowing.

For someone who always plans, plans and plans everything I can posibly plan, writing is the one place where I don't mind not knowing where I'm going.  I really don't know where a story will go, or how it will end.  I'll find out when I get there.  The ending will arrive when it arrives.  I can't know where the characters are going until they go there and tell me about it.

That's the fun of writing like I do.  I get to sit back and let the story go where it may. 

I am sooooo glad that NaNoWriMo is nearly over.  I'm coming up on the 50,000 word goal for November, but the story is all rushed and... well, to be honest... It's crap!  Yes, yes, you've heard me say that all first drafts are rubbish, and they are, but I hate rushing a story just for the sake of a word count.  I like to let it linger, ferment, season over time as I get to know the characters and what they're up to.

I go into a story knowing just a small amount about what will happen, the jist of the story, I suppose.  Most of the time the idea starts out as a handwritten note consisting of a few sentences to a couple of paragraphs... and that's it.  I work from that and weave something out of those small snippets of the characters' futures.

Basically, I'm whining about the fact that once this month is over, the story I'm working on right now will have to be rewritten in its entirety just so that I can go slower, make more out of it, and fix the bullshit that's only there because it came to me and I didn't have the time to turn it into something good. 

Yep, I'm feeling very unhappy with the overall flow of the story right now. 

There are some scenes that I absolutely love.  Those will be kept, of course.  However, there are a lot of scenes that I abhor!  Those will be deleted, changed, cut, burned, castrated, and stomped to bits and pieces while I cackle in that evil take-over-the-world kind of way.  Hey!  Come to think of it, that actually sounds kind of fun!

In the end, I think that I'll link myself to this entry so that next year I can look back on it and remember why I didn't want to do NaNoWriMo to begin with this year and will make sure that Tim reminds me to refuse next year.

I like the writer that I am and will stop screwing up my process every time the month of November rolls around.  That's it, after I meet goal this year, I'm warding off NaNoWriMo.  Thanks for the ride, but I'm done.

I hope you all have a glorious Thanksgiving Day yesterday.  We all ate too much, had loads of fun, and even put up our Christmas tree.  I will NOT be out in the Black Friday mess today.  If you read this blog regularly you know that I hate crowds.  I'll be right here, doing my daily word count, wrapping gifts, and enjoying the time with my family.  No deal is good enough for me to leave that!  LOL.
Have a great Friday!

Just don't...

Good morning ladies & gents.  It's Sunday once again.  We're going down to visit Tim's parents in about an hour since we're going to be out of town next weekend.  Other than that, I have no other plans aside from book work once we return.  I did all that terrible laundry yesterday, and the house is nicely clean.  Yay!

Over the years that I've been a writer, I've discovered that there's a code of conduct that many people don't understand when they contact a writer.  I receive large amounts of emails on a daily basis from people who like my work or want something from me because they know I'm a writer.  This morning, one finally struck a nerve with me.

1. -- Don't ask an author if they're making money from their books.  It's rude.  Would you walk up to a random person and ask, "So, how much do you make a year?"  There are some things that are none of your business, no matter how well you know someone--or don't.  Do you really expect them to tell you?

2. -- Don't contact a writer to ask them if they'd like to read your manuscript and offer advice.  We don't.  We have our own work to read & edit.  We have our own lives to live and most of us barely have as much time with our friends and family as we'd like to have.  Do your own work; we do.

3. -- Don't contact a writer to say that you have this awesome idea and thought they'd like to write it for you.  No, we don't.  We have enough of our own ideas, and not enough time to work on them like we want.  Again, do your own work.

4. -- If you haven't seen the writer review products on their blog, don't ask them to review yours.  This is what set me off this morning.  I received an email from a "company" wanting me to review their photo software on my blog.  Does this look like a review blog?  Have I ever reviewed a product like that?  If they've read the blog they'd know the answers are NO.

Now keep in mind that this list is my personal preference, but many writers have shared the same thoughts on this subject.  Some actually do editing work on the side, so ghost write (writing a book for someone else to claim as their own), and some don't mind telling you how much they make a year.  However, if you don't know the writer, haven't seen them advertise their editing and/or ghost writing service, then please, don't ask them this kind of stuff.  It's annoying and it takes our time away from our own work and family just to respond to your emails and questions.

Anyway, there are my rants for today.  Now I have to go get dressed for the day.  I'm looking forward to getting back home and finishing off my book edit inputting.  Watch out test readers, it'll be on the way soon!  Woohoo!