amazon

My NaNo widget is still broken. Le sigh. Apparently the widget gurus know but haven’t been able to fix it yet.

My weekly blog post goal was handily met. Check.

I got all my weekly NaNo words in which is good but considering I was on vacation all week, I really should have achieved nearly two weeks’ worth. So I can’t feel too good there other than I didn’t fall behind and I did get other stuff done at least. I will say this in my defense—it’s much, much harder editing in “new” words to an existing story than writing a brand new story that’s bubbling in your head scratching to get out.

And Amazon…sigh…they continue to torment me. I noticed (on my birthday I might add) that they had removed me completely from my anthology’s book page. If you don’t carefully examine the cover, you’d never know I was an author unless you go to my Author page. There you will find me claiming my anthology even if my anthology doesn’t claim me. I complained and was told that’s how it is, suck it up. I’ve written back a second time and they’ve responded but I haven’t read their email yet. It’s been sitting in my inbox for nearly twenty four hours. I was so depressed and angry on my birthday, I just haven’t had the heart to read their latest response. Well hey, they invited comments on how to make their author program better, and I’ve told them. So jumping off my soapbox, I’ll leave you with a caveat—anthologies are wonderful vehicles for people like me who like to write short stories, but don’t pin too many hopes of fame and fortune on them (like anyone believed that to begin with.)

Image courtesy of Pill Hill Press

Ending my pity party, I got some GOOD news yesterday: My short story, Clockwork Nessie, that I’ve been fretting over for months now, has been accepted by Pill Hill Press for their forthcoming steampunk anthology, Conquest Through Determination. Yay! I love the cover. The anthology, which pays nothing to the authors, is a contest with several $50 to $100 cash prizes. I’m cool with this arrangement in lieu of payment. As already stated, I’m certainly not in this for the money. LOL

I completed and sent in my second round of edits on my novel by the 17th due date (yay!) and also finished final edits on my Christmas anthology (yay!). I’ll have some upcoming PR for the latter beginning the 27th, well my alter ego will. I have my own to-do list for The PURE to get crackin’ on.

My goals and current stats for this round are on my ROW80-4 page.

The Linky site lists other participants’ progress reports. Give them some encouragement too.

My NaNo widget appeared to be on the fritz last time I looked at it, displaying ALL days in red. False! Only one day should be red, yesterday because I edited all day vs. write new material. Edits are almost done but regardless, today will be new material (and blog post) day. I’m off all this week, so no excuses.

I got my two weekly blog posts done plus one to grow on scheduled for 11/18 so no worries there.

And to save you the trouble of finding my announcement post of Monday and because I can never announce this too many times, here is my cover and blurb:

No one ever said Gayle Lindley’s first job would be a killer.

Fresh out of college, Gayle’s career path should follow the yellow brick road straight to the top. Thanks to a menial errand gone wrong, a wayward tongue, and a randy supervisor who won’t take ‘no’ for an answer, Gayle’s stuck in corporate hell.

Discovering a company secret only turns up the heat.

The one part of her life not going down in flames is her friendship with the gorgeous but intensely private, Jon Cripps. Jon would make the perfect consolation prize for Gayle’s pity party if dating a co-worker wasn’t career suicide. Then again, with all Gayle has been through, maybe falling in love is the lucky break she needs.

Hitting the cool sheets with Jon soothes her mind and body, but it also enrages whoever’s behind the smokescreen she’s uncovered at work. Someone is willing to kill to protect their secrets, and Gayle and Jon are the targets.

With both her heart and livelihood at stake, Gayle’s early career-limiting moves could turn into life-terminating ones.

I feel I should explain a little more about Amazon’s policy after my last post. Their written policy is to list only the anthology’s editor in the author position, but this policy is not always followed in practice (it wasn’t for either of my anthologies). My first time being left off, I emailed and they added me but only to the paperback edition and not the Kindle edition. A fellow writer in the same anthology, who had also been left off, also emailed. They first told her ‘no, editors only’, but then later added her to the Kindle edition, only. My second anthology, again seeing myself left off, I emailed and that time they said “ten max, sorry, more is too overwhelming to buyers.” My name is clearly on the pictured cover at least, it’s just less visible to the search engines, which is pretty darned important, IMHO. So, my advice to any first-timers would be to be a squeaky wheel with Amazon’s author program, and do whatever else you can such as tagging the work with your pen name, getting Amazon to list you in the author section, setting up your author page, etc.

I’ve not had any issues with Goodreads adding me, whatsoever. With Shelfari, I simply added myself. No experience with B&N but suffice to say, I’m not listed as an author for my first anthology. I don’t know if my second one is listed there yet. Apparently, B&N offers the work a few weeks after it’s been released by Evernight. Don’t know why.

My goals and current stats for this round are on my ROW80-4 page.

The Linky site lists other participants’ progress reports. Give them some encouragement too.