New blog.

I'm leaving blogger. My new blog is at wordpress: jorriespencer.wordpress.com. You can also be redirected there by www.jorriespencer.com.

I hope to see you there!

wordpress.com

Well, I have fallen in love with this blog. I was supposed to just play around and see how I liked wordpress. But I can't leave it alone now that I'm totally infatuated. See the banner on top? That's my own. Yes, it's not as crisp and professional as the one they had; and I do plan to replace it with something better. But it's mine and it's personalized.

What else do I like? I have other pages, like my Books page! Of course, I can only list one to-be-published book, but I do hope to add to it. (Hey, maybe I should list my as-yet-unpubbed brother-sister werewolf books. Hmmm.) I can categorize my posts. I can send pingbacks. (I showed up at Dear Author in their review of His Majesty's Dragon.) It's all too exciting.

Ahem. Wordpress has eaten my brain, but I really must get back to my hero who tried to put an axe through someone's chest. (For good reason, I assure you.)

I also need to make some blog decisions. Feel free to tell me what you think.

Follow up

I bought Naomi Novik's The Jade Throne, so I can read more about Laurence and Temeraire. Yay! Eleven-year-old son is extremely happy to be reading His Majesty's Dragon. "Napoleonic Wars and dragons, Mom." The son and I don't usually enjoy the same books, so I'm excited, too. I'm going to get the daughter to try it. And the husband... Perhaps it will become one of those rare family books everyone reads. (Only authors JK Rowling, Diana Wynne Jones, and Sherwood Smith have achieved such household status.)

But before I can indulge in more Temeraire reading, I must get this chapter one done. It is not easy to get in so much backstory.

His Majesty's Dragon

I had a great time reading Naomi Novik's His Majesty's Dragon. I haven't gobbled up a paperback for quite a while. Now I'm eying its sequel, The Jade Throne. Anyway, it's the Napoleonic wars, with dragons, and the book's anchor is the relationship between Laurence and his dragon, Temeraire. So certainly a love story, but not a romance. Lots of action, good character development. I guessed a couple of plot points, which is pretty unusual for oblivious me, but it wasn't a problem. Recommended!

Reviews:
Dear Author. Jane gives it an A.

...the true love story is between the man and the dragon. The depth of feeling and devotion these two exhibit is more touching than I have read in a romance in a long time.

Sherwood Smith. She's read all three books in the Temeraire series.

Let me just say that Novik’s world becomes more fascinating, the characters more complex, the twists unexpected, the tragedies both sharp and real, but binding it all together like a thread of gold is the sense of honor and duty that Temeraire and Laurence both feel, yet have to keep defining.

She also discusses other dragon books she's enjoyed.

Free books

There's a chance to win free Samhain books at Angie's blog. Sign up by Tuesday.

Smart Bitches has a review up. It's been a while since they're reviewed books, I think, so yay! Sarah loved Gail Dayton's The Compass Rose, a Luna book, with lots of (polyamorous) romance.

Follow up

For more ebook talk, Cece sums up her promo results here and here. And Nicole at Blog Happy talks about her experience finding ebooks. Easy-to-navigate publisher sites (on all browsers) are very important!

Also Dear Author is having a contest:

If you a reader, spend all the space you need to tell us why we should read the book. Authors, you write for a living. Give us your best three to four sentence sale.

Ebooks, promo, and buzz

I've been thinking about Maili's recent post on ebooks and why they don't get as much word-of-mouth. Lots of good stuff in the comments. I'm relatively new to the ebook world and haven't thought about it a great deal. But because I find it so interesting, I'm trying to order my thoughts. Anyway, reasons for less buzz:

• most ebooks are erotic romance and people are shy about discussing that subgenre
  
• most authors of ebooks do a lot of promo (it's considered more than necessary) and this drowns out buzz, or at least it's difficult to tell the difference between promo and buzz
  
• most authors of ebooks have a strong presence on the web, so people are hesitant to be blunt about ebooks (either fear of rabid fangirls—I haven't had such experience but I know others have—or fear of hurt feelings—yes, some people believe authors should just suck it up, but not everyone thinks that)
  
• tech
  

Now, I have further thoughts. On some of the above, I do think the same thing happens, to a lesser extent, with print books. People are shy about discussing fave print erotic romances—with the important exception of Emma Holly.

Some authors of print books also do a lot of promo. But when buzz circles around a book where the author hasn't been particularly present on the web (say, Lisa Valdez when Passion buzz took off—you can correct me if I'm wrong about her web presence), readers pay attention. Whereas if the buzz centres around a book by a prominent blogger and poster, I think people approach that buzz with more care. (Maybe I'm wrong.)

It does seem as if the combination of big promo and big presence results in fewer strong opinions when it comes to ebooks. Returning to Valdez's Passion. People had very strong reactions to it: they loved or hated it. (I was something of an exception. I quite enjoyed it. Period.) I wonder if that kind of conversation, which I suspect would boost book sales, is less likely to happen with ebooks. There are some opinionated reviewers of ebooks coming out of the woodwork, namely the two Ja(y)nes of Dear Author and Ha of AAR. Perhaps Paperback Reader will review more ebooks, too. This would be good because as Jane points out over at Maili's, it is hard to put down that kind of money for a book you really don't know much about. And given that I am a (relatively) soon-to-be ebook author, I like the idea of conversations and sales.

All that said, I'm just thinking aloud. I have yet to know what it is like to be reviewed, and we'll see how that experience changes me, or not. I am also new to ebook reading. I enjoy sitting in bed with my laptop reading, but I don't like it during the rest of the day. I suppose I will, at some point, have to look into ebook readers.

Ebooks and ellipsis

Maili talks about why there's not much word-of-mouth when it comes to ebooks.

I think the majority of ebooks I read are erotic romance novels. Books of this sub-genre can be difficult to recommend because a turn-on for some readers might be a real turn-off for the others. Not only that, there is somewhat a stigma attached to erotic romance, too.

She goes on to talk about the differences between an author's print books and ebooks. Interesting stuff.

Sasha White talks about personal style and contests. She also offers a free download of her story Meandros. I recommend it. It's a hot, and very moving, read.

Btw if anyone ever wanted to know how to get an ellipsis on a mac: you use option and semi-colon. It took me forever to figure that out, so I had to share.

Copyeditor blog

I had fun this weekend proofreading a friend's manuscript. I'm not sure why I find that so rewarding, but I do. If anyone ever wants to read about copyediting, they should really visit Deanna Hoak's livejournal which has links to her copyediting posts on her sidebar. Great reading.

Dear Author.com

There are a few new review sites around the blogosphere. Dear Author by the two Ja(y)nes looks particularly interesting because they are reviewing a number of e-books. Their reviews are honest, not always positive, and well-written. I found this site from Sybil's post Swinging Through Blogland... Romancestyle....

Kindred

I have a soft spot for shapeshifters, so I had to pick up Ellen Fisher's Shadows of the Night. It has a hero who is, I guess, a weredeer. Like! The heroine is a werecat, so some basic conflict there, which appeals to me.

A long time ago, I read an affecting short story about a deer-type creature on the run. I wish I could remember the specifics. Anyway, just to say I seem to like hyperintelligent animal creatures in stories.

The Petshani

Sasha White was kind enough to send me her erotic short story, The Petshani. I'm not sure I have read an erotic short story before. I sometimes have difficulty entering into books where the sex starts too quickly, but Sasha handled this very nicely, perhaps because the hero and heroine have been meeting in her dreams before the story starts. A short, sexy otherworld story with witches, gypsies, and portals. There may be more installments. Which is good. The hero has a complicated background and I'd love to know more.

Follow up

Well, that was a fun read. Let's Pretend, that is. Sometimes, romances are a let down after the hero and heroine really hook up, but this one had a nice twisty last quarter. Twisty and made sense. (Sometimes twisty doesn't make sense!) So I really enjoyed this one. Recommended. Thanks for the read, Raine!

Next up: The Petshani, but it's late and I need to sleep.

Writing-wise: I reread my secret project #2 and made really minor adjustments before sending it off to my editor. Is it any good? Time will tell. So should I revisit an old sf novella or start writing secret project #3? Or query agents? (Must suppress groan. I wish I liked querying, but mostly it just feels like a specialized type of very polite pleading. Which makes me cringe.)

Well, tomorrow the sun should shine, I should enjoy my exercise class, and then I will choose a writing project.

Sleep well, all.

Let's Pretend

I'm having a lot of fun with Raine Weaver's Let's Pretend. Well written, with such snappy banter as:

"Your eyes are really bloodshot, y'know."
"You can't sweet talk me into changing my mind."

LP has the type of heroine I love: not confident, but very sharp. The hero is hot. And it's funny. I'm forty pages in and looking forward to reading more tonight.

Samhain at Romance Divas

Romance Divas is having a great question and answer session with Crissy Brashear and Angela James. Angie has a wonderful post about submitting to Samhain, and there's lots of discussion about books (electronic and print), publishing, and editing. Pop on over!

It ends today, but I'm sure the posts will stay up for some time.