Monday, January 18, 2010

A Best-Selling Author?

"A Fair Trader" has crept into the bottom of Whiskey Creek's best sellers for January.
Technically, this makes me a best-selling author, but I doubt that the change in circumstances will go to my head.
I won't know the effect this has in terms of royalties until mid-May, nor the cause for its elevation to this status until even later. My publicity contract with Heartfelt Promos is still running and I see its effects by web searches (Google now has twice as many returns for my name, but some of them have been generated by my own and other's efforts. The interview with "Cat" Johnson is a perfect example).

The middle of next month will see the next round of royalties and there will be time for Eternal Press to have returns from their distributors as well as books sold directly. I can then make a judgement of their value to me, as opposed to the revitalized Whiskey Creek Press.

"Her Brother's Keeper" is in the final rewrite stage and I will have to make a decision about where to submit it soon. The romance is good, the lovers engaging, but the intrigue has grown perhaps too complex for Harlequin, reflecting my personal knowledge of the environment.

That aside, it's a good yarn, told with verve and authenticity, and I suspect it will do well with reviewers.

The 1802 historical romance needs only the loose ends tidied before it is ready for the rewriting stage. Its length is a problem, currently ninety thousand plus words, and I will have to think more when it is done.

That leaves the story set in the Australian coastal shipping of 1970 or another venture into the contemporary offshore oil industry as my next story...a decision for the future?

Amy
Romance with a touch of reality...or vice versa?